Father's Day

We had a fun Father's Day!  The kids and I did our annual Father's Day picture in Ryan's clothes.  They also filled out a survey all about dad. 

 
 We made him breakfast in bed as well. 

On Father's Day we had VBS day at church.  The kids sat together in the pew (I was their chaperone) and they went in front of the church and sang the songs they learned in VBS.  The kids had fun!

After church we went putt-putting.  The boys loved it!  It was a little hot but it was fun.

 Daddy and his boys (I could not get a good one of all of them looking!  Go figure! :))

 Jackson figured out the easiest way to play was just to pick up your ball, bring it to the hole, then hit it in.  I have to agree!

 They also had some games inside that we had to try out.

 Their favorite is air hockey!

 Jackson takes the game VERY seriously. 

Then we headed to Ryan's favorite steak place.  It was a fun day celebrating Ryan!

Random Stuff and the A WONDERFUL PRESENT!!!

We finally got all four kids together in their camp-read-a-lot shirts!

The week before Father's Day we came over to my parents house and celebrated his birthday and Father's day.  We took a pic of the four kids holding signs that say "we love you gpa"  We even got Jackson to hold one!

Elizabeth surprised me with the MOST WONDERFUL PRESENT!! She MADE this blanket ALL BY HERSELF for our soon-to-be daughter!  We're most likely going to be going with the name Claire (that's been our name for a girl since I was pregnant with Cooper!) and she had the idea to make her baby cousin a blanket all on her own!  She picked out the materials, cut out the C, and sewed it on by herself!!!!!  Our daughter is so so lucky to have such a wonderful cousin and I can't wait for them to meet!  Isn't Elizabeth just amazing??!!   Thank you Elizabeth!!

While the kids were waiting to swim at gma and gpas they did a little caterpillar craft for the Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

They all concentrated so hard and painted the entire egg carton, even Jackson!

This was just hilarious.  So one night Ryan was out of town and I was having girls over for craft night so I put the kids to bed just a little early and then was getting things out.  All of the sudden I hear Jackson calling "mom, I need you!"  I go in there and he's standing on his bed covered in white stuff (can you see it all over his legs, shirt, arms, face?) 

He had taken a brand new bottle of lotion and put it all over himself!  He's never done that before!  He looks very serious because I tried really really hard to have a stern face and not laugh.  (He's just so funny I typically laugh even when he's naughty which is NOT good, he thinks he's just a hoot now!)  So hopefully he learned his lesson, and I of course laughed over it with the girls when they arrived.

I just had to end on this cute picture of my boys!!

Water Balloons and the Beatles!

 My boys, like all kids, LOVE water balloons.  We don't do them much because the are such a pain to fill up, but they love it when we make them!    These pictures are a little bright, I took a bunch of pictures before I realized the settings were off.  They were funny though so I wanted to post them anyway :).

There is a summer concert series nearby that we checked out a few weeks ago.  The band played the Beatles-it was so much fun!!

We met some friends there and the kids played around in the grass, mostly football.

Here's Jackson hugging Holly (They're right around the same age)...

she looks a little hesitant doesn't she?  :)

There was a truck selling slushys that we enjoyed!

Then we played more football!

Here's our friend Emily-she's also going to kinder like Cooper!

We then walked to get balloon animals made and the kids were holding hands, so cute!

Cute Holly with her glasses!

The boys each got swords with a belt and they were thrilled!

This pic was supposed to be up with the water balloons.  They posed so nicely for me after we played with the balloons!

Grandma's Camp Read-A-Lot

My kids are very very fortunate to have wonderful involved Grandparents on both sides.  Unfortunately Ryan's parents live in KS, but my parents live here so we are able to see them quite often.  My mom was a teacher before we were born and LOVES to read, so she came up with a really cute idea for the kids this summer. 

My parents have a pool and we swim there a lot in the summer, but after we put sunscreen on the kids they always have to sit and wait for the sunscreen to soak in for awhile.  My mom now is going to do "Grandma's Camp Read-A-Lot while they wait!

She reads them books and then they do a fun craft/educational activity about the book.

They also received circles to write down each book title they read on it.  As they read a certain amount of books they get prizes, so they of course love that! 

Here's Jackson's

And Cooper's so far.

Each kid got a shirt to wear during the camp.  Adorable!

Jackson was nice enough to pose for me.

This is a really horrible picture but it's showing a really fun new thing my mom got my dad for Father's Day.  It's a projector you can attach to your ipad!  They're planning on watching movies while we swim and doing fun movie nights outside.  Woo hoo!

We Mailed the Dossier!!!

Mailing the dossier (which is a bunch of legal documents like birth certificates, our home study, medical forms, marriage license, financial forms, letter from the police dept, employment letters, cover letter, etc.. ) is a really big step in the adoption process, and we mailed ours this past week!!!  Yippee!!!  It was actually way easier than I thought, most of the paperwork we had finished in our App 2.  We just had to get new notarized forms of things and get a letter from the local police dept that said we had no criminal record.  I am SO happy we are done, now we just sit back and wait to hear when it's officially logged into China.  It has to go to a few places in the US to get authenticated, then it goes to China and is translated.  We were told it'll probably take 2 1/2-3 months.  A really really long wait unfortunately.  But once it's logged in we'll officially be on the waiting list!   Can't wait!!!

Here I am organizing the paperwork.  Luckily I kind of like doing papework :)

Mailing in the dossier, yay!!!!

Here's a stack of one copy of our paperwork, I wanted to document it for her book.  We had to send four copies of everything when we mailed in the dossier. 

Now we just need to say lots of prayers for a speedy LID (log in date)!!!

Messy

 We've been potty training around here so you'll be seeing quite a few picture probably of Jackson in his undies, or at least a shirt and undies. It's just easier without pants!  :)  One day he was playing in the playroom (I obviously forgot I left the markers down) and he came out to me looking like this...I think he forgot he's supposed to color on paper!

I started taking pictures of him and he was such a ham, going from one side of the wall to the other, posing for me.

So silly!  He definitely has a personality! :)

Our friend Henry came over to play one day and we decided to fingerpaint..another messy project but boy they had fun!  Luckily this table is plastic so it just hoses right off.

I've been trying to do a few of the projects I've pinned on pinterest...I've pinned so many and never do any of them! 

So we did this volcano activity. It was actually super easy, just baking soda and vinegar in a vase, along with food coloring and sparkles.  The boys have seen the reaction of baking soda and vinegar before b/c that's how I clean the toilets, but it was definitely more impressive in a vase.  Plus I didn't have to go buy anything so it was easy to do at the last minute!

I had to include this last picture because I thought it was pretty smart (and funny).  We were playing hide and seek and usually Jackson just follows Cooper and hides where he hides.  Well this time he hid in a completely different room under his bed, and thought of it all by himself!  I keep getting reminded how big he is and how he's growing up.

Home Study Completed!

We finally received our home study this weekend, yay! That means we can send in a bunch of paperwork and are getting closer to officially being  on a wait list.  Yippee!