The Beach

When taking the papers out of Lexy's backpack the other night I came across this picture. When I asked what the picture was she replied "well it's the beach that we are going to and that's the airplane we are going to ride to get there". Hmmm I don't remember planning (or paying for) a trip to the beach...

not that it sounds bad :-)

Cheer Dance

On Tuesday evening we (along with Papa & Grammy) went to watch Brooke cheer at her last game as a middle school cheerleader :-( and they also performed the dance below. Brooke is right in the middle of the screen and then moves up to the front. This is just one more "last" as a middle schooler...I'm not ready to have a high schooler!! Brooke is now working with the rest of the 8th grade cheerleaders to make up the dance and cheer that the 6th/7th graders will tryout with for next years squad and then next month she will begin practicing for tryouts for the high school cheer squad.

Our New Family Member

We added to our family yesterday.

Lexy has been asking for an inside dog for a very long time. We decided that for her birthday we would look into getting her one. I've been talking with a woman from a nearby town for about a week about a little guy that she was trying to find a home for and yesterday since the girls were out of school, we went to meet and bring Rex (Rexy) home. Lexy was SO excited, she couldn't stop talking about him :-)

He's a yorkie mix and so far has been a pretty good dog. We do have to watch to make sure he doesn't mess with Lexy's allergies but so far so good. He's not a puppy so we're not having to deal with chewing or extreme hyperness and he's house trained (or at least mostly, he had an accident this morning).

He definitely thinks he's bigger than he is! He was barking at two huge dogs that were in the neighborhood when I took him out to potty this morning. But he was a big baby last night and I had to sleep on the couch with him down on the floor beside me.

We'll see how this goes...

Family Fun and a Scary Car Ride!

We counted our blessings this weekend as we narrowly missed being in a car accident...

We decided on Saturday to go to the Home & Garden Show after I won two free tickets to it. We love going to it and the girls always have fun...plus Grammy & Papa went with us and we loved seeing them! Karma was showing itself when after asking a woman if he could help her with her wheelchair, a man offered Mike three more free tickets (so none of us had to pay to get in).

We knew that bad weather was supposed to come in on Sunday but by the time we left the show at about 6pm the storm had already started. The roads were already getting slick (and we were about an hour away from home) so we slowly made our way home. About 30 miles away from home as we were passing an exit, a car slid between us and the car in front of us (almost hitting us)...it's not clear to us if they had missed the exit or if they slid out of control on the ice/slush but they were going WAY to fast. As they slid across our lane into the exit they hit the rear end of a car and that car spun around and and came right at us. Thank goodness Mike was driving and his quick reflexes kept them from hitting us. All I remember is closing my eyes and praying that we would be kept safe. We were all pretty shook up for the rest of the ride home!

Mike and Lexy playing at the "Trash Monster". Lexy loved using all the trash to add to the sculpture!

Brooke & Kenzie painting

Lexy in her "bug" hat. They were making these cute hats out of wrapping paper. I was surprised when Lexy asked to make one as she isn't the girly hat type...I should have known, as soon as the hat was done she said she needed to decorate it to make it into a bug :-)

Adoption Update

Got an e-mail back from the adoption agency today saying that they received our adoption packet/check for homestudy. They have sent on the forms that have to go thru the police/state. The worker did say that our previous two agencies could/would not send them any information on us...typical! But she doesn't think that will be a problem b/c we had copies of almost everything!

The worker gave us the contact information to get our fingerprinting done and gave us a family profile to fill out. She said that she would put our adoption contract in the mail for us to sign. She also gave us the advice to make a picture book of our family, home, etc. to go along with our homestudy when it's presented....she said it helps the people making the placement decisions to connect with us better...so you can be assured we are working on that picture book!

I'm so glad this e-mail came today. Between feeling like we are not getting anywhere on the adoption front, Gabe passing, not feeling well again and it being rainy and dreary out I needed some good news to brighten my day and my mood!!

:(

Lexy came out of school yesterday, looked at me and said "my friend died"...I could not control the tears. Throughout the afternoon and evening she would talk about Gabe. She told me that he went to heaven like her fish swimmy but that his body was still here and they would have a thing to say goodbye to him one last time (visitation) and then the funeral where he would be "in something like a coffin but not as scary" and be put in the ground. She said that the councelor at school read them a book about angels and that Gabe was her special angel friend. She drew 15 Gabe angels on her homework last night. She said she felt bad for Gabe's Mommy & Daddy because they are probably still crying. She talked about how Gabe's medicine couldn't stop the cancer. She was really concerned about the fact that Gabe wasn't able to wear his glasses because he had some cancer under his eye. She only teared up once while talking about him...

When swimmy passed away I told Lexy that he could still hear her and that she could talk to him anytime she missed him. This morning while she was getting dressed I heard her talking, "I miss you Gabe", "I'm wearing green today because that's your favorite color", "I love you Gabe", were some of the things I heard.

This is hard :(

RIP Little Gabe...

With a very sad heart I read on facebook this morning that this sweet little guy, Gabe passed away yesterday from Ewings Sarcoma (the same cancer that took our nephew, Shawn in April 2009). Gabe was six and a classmate of Lexy's, Lexy loved him and talked about him often. Gabe was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma in May 2008. In May 2009 he was in remission. In October 2009 his cancer was back...by December 2009 it had spread from his hip to his spine, liver and lungs. Gabe went to school when he felt up to it and when he had to be in the hospital or at home his classmates would send "hope baskets" and videos of their school days.

The councelor at school has been going in and talking to Lexy and her classmates about Gabe's condition and answering any questions they may have. Today will be a very hard day for the class I'm sure. I'm so sad that Lexy has to see and learn about this, she's going to be so sad...

Pretties

Aren't they beautiful???? Mike and the girls gave them to me on Friday evening for Valentine's Day! They had to wait for theirs until Sunday :-)

Lexy's V-Day Party

I was pleasantly surprised how many parents showed up for Lexy's Kindergarten Valentine's Day party. Our town is notorious for parents not wanting to take part in school activities but so far this class has been different. I haven't even had to be in charge of any parties except Halloween this year (usually I'm the one planning every party). It was nice to go and concentrate on and enjoy my daughter! Lexy did ask why she didn't get a stuffed animal or balloons sent to school like some of her friends (I'm not giving the girls their valentine's until Sunday) so I promised next year I would send something to school for her!

Lexy asked for a picture (last one) with her friends Chase and Brandon. Later I was asking her who gets in trouble the most in her class and she said "Chase and Brandon"...OH GREAT!!!

Sew Special

Last night Brooke and I attended our sewing class that Brooke asked for and received for Christmas. We made a fun night of it, going for dinner before and ice cream after...what a fun time!

Brooke has never sewn before and while I have sewn basic stuff for sometime now, I think Brooke surpassed my skills last night :-) She is quite the natural at the sewing machine, picking up on everything taught with ease. For our project last night we both made 18" pillowcases from fabric we chose...Brooke chose pink monkey fabric and I chose a fabric with dogprints (this will be part of a surprise for Lexy next month).

Brooke has definitely gotten the sewing bug now and we are both looking forward to saving up for another class, this time one on how to use patterns! I love spending time with my girls doing something we both enjoy!

Twins

Mike was saying goodbye to the girls this morning when he started laughing and called them both out of their rooms to have me (and them) look at something. This is what we saw...


No planning, just two sisters thinking alike this morning :-) I LOVE THOSE GIRLS!

Snow Play

We have had a lot more snow than normal this year but the girls really haven't gotten to enjoy it b/c it's been too cold to play outside. Yesterday after school Lexy begged Brooke to play in the snow with her and the great big sister that Brooke is, she did. They attempted to make a snowman but the snow wasn't packing well enough but they had a great time throwing snowballs at each other and chasing each other around the yard :-) Afterwards they enjoyed the cocoa and fresh baked cookies that I had waiting for them.

Catching Up

Ok, so I know I haven't updated in a while and I left off sounding kind of down and out BUT in no way is that why I have stayed away :) Life has just been busy and I have been sick (strep).

I was disappointed to hear that the girls best interest staffing was already scheduled and that we wouldn't be able to be considered but while we had hoped that we would get things done in time we had prepared ourselves for this. So now we move on.

Because of being sick I have neglected getting the copies made and our adoption paperwork sent back in so that is first on my to do list. We will move forward with getting our homestudy update done, we know there was a reason that those three sweet girls sparked our interest enough to get off our hineys and get our homestudy done sooner rather than later. Maybe our child(ren) is already waiting for us, so we will work hard to get things done and keep our eyes and hearts open to what is in store for us :-)

Besides Lexy (first a bad cold and then an ear infection) and I being sick we have been busy going to games to watch Brooke cheer, a family fun outing to Jeepers, a girls day out for Brooke & I and Robin & Kenzie (shopping for 8th grade promotion formals), having a cousins sleep over when Ashley and baby Toby stayed overnight while CJ & Jess got to celebrate CJ's birthday with a night out and I've started watching baby Toby a couple of days a week while Jess is taking classes. So here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure...

That's Brooke on top!

Brooke & Kenzie

Lexy loving her ride!

Some sliding fun

Sisterly Love!

Lexy has been asking if cousin Ashley can come back every day since she was over.

Look at that chunk-a-monk :-)

Brooke is the baby hog of the house...hmm she must have learned that from me!