friday faves 07.15.11

• co-workers that care
• cayden snuggles
• hugging my husband that turns into dancing
• working on kiya's birthday surprise
• listening to khalid have new fun with an old friend
• singing with my husband while we work
• jumping school

07.08.11

today my oldest kiddo turns 15... i'm so in love with this child. he's fresh and pure, like an october breath of air. he's adventurous and daring, he's brilliant and quiet, he's fun and loud, he's my heart and soul. happy birthday to my sunshine!

always a sweet boy, he had my heart from the moment i found out i was pregnant.

so close...

biometrics done today! so glad we got there early as we were the first 3:00 appointments called up and there were quite a few people waiting. some noteworthy items:

• the policewoman called danny "old macdonald"
• the woman in charge was easy to spot as she was ever so slightly adjusting the picture frames on the walls as effortlessly as someone walking through her own home would do out of habit
• danny's fingerprint taker was incredibly confused that he had no alien number
• for a government run facility, i was pleasantly surprised by the kind, courteous, professional, and helpful staff... maybe that says more about me than them; i'm undecided on that

and now we wait for that last piece of paper that will complete our dossier and allow us to mail it to holt and be put on the official waiting list for a referral. keeping our fingers crossed that the approval happens quickly and we get that paper soon!

busy busy busy...

there is never a dull moment in our house...

cayden finished his t-ball season! those 2-3 games per week were exhausting, but he had a blast and it was so fun to watch his skills and confidence grow with each game. way to go, little bug...

school is out and summer vacation begins! due to an unfortunate incident on the last day of school that resulted in cayden being left out of a special trip to get icees and pizza (grrrr i say to the daycare bus driver that promised she'd wait for him and then didn't) cayden has been wanting to get up at 6:04 and be at daycare when it opens at 6:30. the twinkle in his eyes as he starts the day excited to beat all his friends to daycare almost makes up for the lost 56 minutes of sleep... almost. the fact that he feels confident he won't miss anything again... well, that definitely makes up for the loss of sleep.

we've let the teens slack off for the first week out of school, but time for summer writing and projects! i know they secretly adore the writing assignments i give them, because they are both great writers... the chores on the other hand, i'm certain they feel they can do without.

we actually got some sunshine recently and while the teens kept cool inside doing puzzles (kiya) and magic games (khalid), cayden and his friend ian enjoyed some outside time with me!

 oh, and also the trampoline and sprinkler...

i think we're on the hook to set up the big trampoline and enclosure this weekend... 

happy birthday to my awesome husband today! i made him this gift...

there are probably 17 things i will do differently next time, but it was made with a lot of love for the best guy i know. i am really happy with the way the indigo stain turned out, and i definitely married the right guy because he knew all the references and genuinely loved it.

and finally, in adoption world, we're ever so close to completing our dossier... biometrics on june 21st, so not too much longer to wait. of course then the real waiting begins, but i will take real waiting over paper chasing any day! keep us in your thoughts that we will get through biometrics and have only a short time to wait for approval and our i-171h!

june is going to be my new favorite month...

...birthdays, camping, break from school, and my new personal favorite: june 21st biometrics appointment! 

i have a few hopes that we can actually get our dossier turned in sometime in july now. which would be lovely just to get it out of our hands and officially get on the waiting list for a child. fingers crossed for a summer release of paperwork and time to relax.

also, this *amazing* drawing was done by our awesome 14 year old. he started by coloring the entire sheet with charcoal and then erasing to create the image. oh how i love george and yes, this will be framed and displayed in our house in a most prominent location! *ignore the crummy cell phone pic where i cut off the top of the image*

i600a mailed

we had been waiting on our final approved homestudy for what seemed like forever... obviously it was more like nearly a month, but that can feel like forever. last night when we got home we were so excited to see that our homestudy was approved on may 10th, and we had 4 official copies in the mail! 

homestudy approval... done. 
i-600a application and fees... done.
waiting again... in process.

my clever girl...

k&k are making an abc book for their future sibling... kiya is writing the words and khalid is illustrating... kiya's got A through T done. i love it so far! (i'll have to scan the drawings later)