Claire's Room!!

I had so much fun decorating Claire's room!  It took me awhile to decide what colors and how I wanted to decorate it, but once I found this bedding I knew what I wanted to do! 

 

We have both a twin bed and a crib in the room because Claire will be sleeping in the crib, but we already had the bed all set-up so we decided just to leave it in her room.  That way if I have to sleep with her for awhile when she comes home I'll be able to do that comfortably. :)

 

This is the view from the doorway.  (this room used to be Cooper's room)

 I put the polka dots on the wall-it's actually just white contact paper!  I used my cricut machine to cut them out, and then used a grid on the wall with yarn in order to get the polka dots straight.

Laura made me this banner, it says:  "You did not grow under my heart but in it."  It's a common adoption phrase that I love!

This is a little shelf over her bed-the little Chinese doll is actually my mom's from when she was 10! 

I had to put my little bow-hanger on the blog-it's so fun having bows in the house!!

 This is the wall with the bedroom door and closet door.   I have now changed out the knobs on the dresser to little pink glass knobs.

 The center picture is a picture of China that my sister ordered for me. It has a heart on it where Claire is from, and then it says her name and birthdate.  I love it!  Then on the bottom left little plaque is a card that says "I love you" in Chinese.  The bottom right plaque has a card on it with Claire's Chinese "year" animal-she was born in the year of the rabbit.  I'm going to put photos of our family together on the rest of the plaques.

This is the wall opposite her crib. 

 We put these shelves way high up on the wall to put all of our stuffed animals kind of out of the way. 

 It's hard to see but the sign says "you are my sunshine."  I love that song! :)

 This is her little play corner.  We have a little kitchen for her and then a little cradle-it was my play cradle when I was little.  We'll put all of her little doll stuff back here. 

So that's it!  Very soon Claire will be here to enjoy it all!!!

Spring Break

We had a very relaxing and fun Spring Break!  We didn't go anywhere (Ryan has no days off what with taking a 2 week trip to China!) so we stayed home and relaxed!  We did a few different playdates, hung out in our pjs at home, and did a few fun activities.

 

We finally got out the volcano kit they got for Christmas.

 

We had to construct it first which is why it took me so long to do it...but it wasn't that bad once we got started.  I actually had fun making it!

 The boys did too.

 It wasn't the most impressive explosion-can you see the yellow coming out of the top and trickling down the volcano?  Jackson was VERY worried to explode the volcano so I think he was relieved it was so tame.

 

I also wanted to make one snacky thing with them.  We decided to make this jello.  Fun to make and cute, but I didn't think it tasted very good.  We probably won't be making it again!

Oops, out of order picture, but this is about as impressive as it gets! :)

 The boys played in the backyard a bit and Jackson climbed the tree for the first time!

 Over SB we went over to Grandma's one day to celebrate an early St. Patrick's Day!  Laura and I went out of town to visit our Grandparents over St. Patty's Day so we did an early celebration.

 Aren't these cute?  My mom just cut up a rainbow popsicle and then poured 7 up in it!  Isn't that a great idea?

 Funny boy.

 Cheers!

 She had a really fun treasure hunt planned for the kids.  The big boys (and Eliz of course) actually read the clues!  They are getting so good at sounding out words!

 Showing off one of the cute clues.

Afterwards we had them pose with their treasure..gold coins and a rainbow!

We had a fun Spring Break! 

Travel Approval!!!!

We received our Travel Approval!!!  We received it yesterday, April 9, along with our Visas thank goodness.  That was kind of nerve-wracking-you have to mail in your actual passport so your visa can be put in your passport.  We have that back though so now we're good to go!  We are going to book our tickets tonight or tomorrow, but we think we're going to be traveling May 2-May 15th.  We'll know officially once we book our tickets.   We are so so excited and now I have a million things to do!!! I'm trying to get caught up on my blog so I can blog while in China!  It will be a pretty amazing Mother's Day!! :)

Cooper's Real Birthday and Visiting His School!

On Cooper's actual birthday we gave him his presents from us.  He was excited to have a few more to open!

 

Here was his "big" present- a set of trio blocks that make a castle.  He loves trios!  What he mostly does with them is make his own creations- soldiers, characters from video games he likes, cannons, etc..  Then he and Jackson have elaborate battles. Ahhh boys.

 Jackson and I took Cooper out of school during his lunch/recess time to take him to lunch.  He of course picked Chick Fil A!  Actually first he picked Chuck e Cheese but I told him that's too far away to get any time to play.  Lucky me! :)

 Enjoying a special birthday cupcake that night.

 Playing his new DS, a present from G and G B...probably his fav present!  Jackson has informed us many times that when he turns four he also wants a DS! :)

 Cooper had a night where we could go visit and see all of the work he's been doing and visit his specials.

 This is one of his favorite centers.

 When we visited the library they both found books (I'm pretty sure they were both about the army!) to read.

It was a fun visit, I'm so glad he likes school!

Cooper's 6th Birthday!!!

This year I wanted to do something pretty low-key because I knew we'd be really stressed with adoption stuff.  I actually thought we'd be close to travel, don't know what I was thinking!!?!  Anyway, Cooper LOVES movies, so we went with a very easy party- A movie party!!! 

 

Luckily he has Grandparents with a media room so I was able to borrow a few "movie items" from them.

 

Here is Cooper with the party favors-candy and popcorn of course!

 

I asked Cooper if he wanted to play any games before the movie and he requested pin the popcorn on the bucket.  I realized that we have played this game at every one of his birthday parties, just with a different theme! 

 He was very excited to show he was 6!!  This is the "popcorn bar."  The kids each got a popcorn box that they could fill with popcorn and candy.  For the adults I got ranch flavored popcorn from a local popcorn shop-seriously I could have made myself sick eating so much it was that good-and then a few other little treats.

 Our "movie theater"

 Cooper wanted a popcorn cake-pretty easy!  That is a "6" sparkler on top!

 The majority of the kiddos, waiting to play some games!

 We played a few little popcorn relay races before the movie started.

 See how scared Cooper was of the sparkler-he was so worried it was going to shoot really far and hurt!  So cute :)

 They watched Madagascar 2, and sat for the ENTIRE MOVIE!  I was so surprised kids didn't leave to play in the playroom or anything!

 This is what Jackson looked like after he visited the candy bar :)

 Happy 6th birthday Cooper, we love you SO much!!!!!

Waiting for Travel Approval!! (and a photo!)

I realized I haven't given you all an update recently!

We finally received a long-awaited update on Claire Wenxia Ann!!  Here she is with the cake we sent her.  Aren't the cakes beautiful in China?  I don't think she knows what to think! :) This is the only picture they sent, so I sure hope she was able to have a piece and enjoy it!  We also had the questions answered that we sent so I am very grateful for that.

 

We are now in the home stretch of our wait!!!  We are on the very last step, which is waiting for our Travel Approval!!!! I can hardly believe it is here.  It could potentially come this week, crazy and exciting!!

 

We also have our travel dates pretty well set now!  We can't book our tickets until our TA comes, so I can't say FOR SURE this is when we will travel, but as of now we are looking at leaving May 1 or 2!  That means less than a month!!!! 

 

We will hopefully only stay 12 days, but depending on when our consulate appointment is scheduled we may have to stay 13 or 14 days.  Our agency submits 5 possible dates for our appointment, and we just have to hope and pray our first date gets picked! 

 

I'm now trying to deep clean our house (which Ryan will tell you I've been trying to do for a month.  When you have a child at home with you all day it's just hard to get it done!), making a packing list, looking up info on the internet, trying to get caught up on the boys' journals since I know that won't happen when I get back, trying to get a few girls nights and date night crammed in since that also probably won't happen for awhile when we get back, etc...  It's been busy and fun around here!

 

I'll post when we get our TA! 

 

Chinese New Year

Well, we celebrated a little out of order this year!  February is busy for us as there's Valentine's Day, Cooper's birthday, and now Chinese New Year!  Since we are adding a child from China, one of the things we want to do is try to teach her at least a little bit about her culture and the country she is from.  The most important Chinese holiday is Chinese New Year...so now we'll be celebrating it too! 

This year we didn't do a whole lot.  I put up a few decorations, then we had my parents and Laura's family over for a Chinese dinner. 

Here are the very simple decorations :).  Next year instead of a picture on the table, Claire will be here!!!

 

I made this at a pinterest party right before Chinese New Year (it's now in Claire's room) so it was a perfect little decoration!

 

The one "baking" thing I did was make fortune cookies out of fruit roll-ups.  Quite tasty actually and the kids thought they were fun.   The rest of the meal was frozen from Costco. :)  They make the best food!! 

 Reading his fortune.

 The fortune cookies. 

 We also played Don't Eat Pete again.  The kids had fun with it.  That's all the pictures I took! It was nothing fancy, but we had fun celebrating our girl!