A New Beginning!

I decided to start blogging again. I went back and read my whole blog back to 2007 and loved the things that I wrote about Jack. I want to be able to remember those fun things about Ella. So even if no one is reading this, I have it captured for me. I actually found a place that can print out your blog into a book. So everything before this post will be in a book. It is so cool!

Well since my last post, our family has grown. We now have beautiful Ella Rose who was born on July 27, 2010. She is an absolute joy to our entire family. I can’t imagine HER not being our daughter. Our 5 year rollercoaster journey led us to her. Ella was meant to be our daughter. I will detail our journey in another post.
This is her 7 month picture!

She is really starting the fun stage; sitting up, rolling all over and just talking up a storm. She is such a happy baby. She will be 8 months next week. She loves her walker and those baby puffs you eat. I keep saying she is like a dog. If I kept feeding them to her she would just keep eating them.

Jack is in 1st grade and as much I he says he doesn’t want to go to school, I know he loves it. He loves to play with kids. He of course hates homework. We have had Jack in hockey the last year. He really likes it. Our fall season just ended and we are starting the spring season in a couple of weeks. We ended our season with a Mother/Son game. That was so much fun!!! I have to say us Moms did a pretty good job!

I am having a new design done for the blog. It should be completed soon!!!

Happy New Year

Ok so bad blogger! I should really try to update this at least once a week. I guess I just wasn't into it for a while. Nothing really exciting happens around here. We had a great Christmas. We all had a cold but not bad enough to ruin anything. New Years eve we just spent at home doing family things like Bingo and playing the Wii.






We have a new dog named Kasey. She is a Shih Tzu. Murphy died suddenly the beginning of Oct. It was so tragic and sad. A friend of my moms had Kasey (Muffin at the time) and had some medical issues and couldn't care for her anymore. It was perfect timing for us. I was really missing having a dog. So a month later we had a dog! She is 10 months old now and doing great. We love her to pieces. I just need to train her a bit more. Jack just loves her. She pays a lot more attention to Jack than Murphy did. He won't leave her alone.




Our adoption issues are just ongoing. I don't even know where to start. Technically we are still logged into China..but our immigration paperwork has expired. We are on a list for Korea. When I wasn't feeling well I had to put us on hold so that put us back at #10. There have only been 2 girl referral since so the wait will be long. Figures. Plus the fees for Korea keep going up so we just don't think we have $25,000 for this. We have also been signed up with our domestic attorney that we used for Jack. It has been a year and so far no girl. We are going to start advertising on a website to see if that generates anything. It is just hard since we want a girl. Many birthmoms don't know what they are having.

There are many days that we are so settled into our lives and Jack is becoming so self sufficient that it is hard imagining starting over again. It would be nice if we could get a 2 or 3 yr old. I even called DCFS about that but I just don't think that process is right for us. To get a child that age we would most likely have to foster first. I don't think I could care for a child and then have them taken away if the situation changed. Something needs to happen in the next few months here. I just can't take this anymore.

1st Day of School

Well today was the 1st day of school. Jack had a VERY hard time getting up and was angry with me. That is really nothing different than how he was in preschool. We will work on getting him on an earlier schedule to bed so that should help. Once he was down and got a little breakfast in him he was more awake. He seemed very excited to go to the bus stop and when he saw the bus coming.

Ready for school

The walk to the bus stop

Getting on the bus


Jumping off the bus

My mom came by today to see Jack get off the bus. Right after he got off the bus he said "Kindergarten was great Mom!" Now that is what a mom wants to hear. He has never been one to talk about school so I didn't get to much out of him. It is just going to be so weird having him gone every morning.

Last Days of Summer

We have been busy trying to fill our days with some fun things to do before school starts. We have had many play dates with friends we maybe won't see as much when school starts. Going to parks and the pool. Last week we took Jack downtown on the Metra train (he still loves trains) and we went to the Shedd Aquarium. Then we headed over to Navy Pier for dinner and a walk. It was a great family day.

The Air and Water show was that weekend so on Friday when we went they were practicing. We got to see quite a few jets.

The lake front

View of Navy Pier

The day before Grandma and Auntie came with us to the zoo. They had a dinosaur exhibit there this year. It was very cool. They moved and roared. They looked pretty real, but Jack wasn't afraid of them at all. He said "those can't be real because dinosaurs are extinct"

I can't believe that Jack is starting Kindergarten on Monday. We had our open house on Wed and he got to meet his teacher. She seems nice and she is young. They even had the buses there for the kids to take a ride on. I thought that was great so they wouldn't be so nervous about it. Jack loved the bus but said it was a bit bumpy! LOL

My little Speedster

Tom got Jack a racing Kart. He wanted to get him started in something with speed. Jack loves racing things. So here is my little guy all suited up! He absolutely loves it. These are just in a parking lot but they will going to a race track for Karting next week.

Two thumbs up!!!


Also, we were at a party at the neighbors on Sat. He has a huge one every year and always has some event for the kids. He has done pony rides, the reptile guy, and small animal guy. So this year he really wanted something different. So he did camel rides.

He went on about 5 times. Now who can say they rode a camel!!

We have just been trying to find ways to keep busy. Over the weekend Jack had a water balloon fight with some neighbor boys. That was not fun fulling those things up. He has been going in the sprinkler and slip N slide today. Next week he had Vacation Bible School. It is only in the morning so we still need to find something to do in the afternoons. Hopefully it will get a bit warmer out.

4th of July

I don't have any pictures to share. I can't even tell you the last time the 4th was a wash out with rain. It did finally stop raining around 8:00 so at least people were able to set off fireworks.

We went to our friends house the LaBuda's. The just had a baby girl so their house isn't equipt with toys. They has set up a jumpy outside but it was soaked. They were freaking out a bit at what all these kids were going to do inside. Somehow the kids just found stuff. There were enough of them that they made stuff up. There was a pool table in the basement and somehow rolling balls back and forth is super fun! After it stopped raining we had to let the kids go outside. yes they got wet but what are you going to do. It was cold too! There were a lot of fireworks by their house so they got to see plenty.

Overall it was a great day. I am still getting over a bad cold and didn't feel the best but I sucked it up and made it thru. We got home round 10:40.

Catching up

Well I have been MIA. I was going through some issues with stress and anxiety and I just had to take a break from everything for a while. I am feeling much better so hopefully I will update more.

Jack turned 5 on May 1st! He had a kids party at Pump it Up and then a small family party. My mom has been begging me to get Jack's birthday picutes up. So here you go mom!

Jack got 4 gold fish for his birhtday. One died the night he put them in. He loves them. He goes up and kisses the bowl. He named them Tom, Jerry, Hider Fish (because he was hiding in the castle thing) and Goldie was the fish that died.

Daddy got a new vintage motorcycle that he is going to rebuild. Here is Jack on it.

My big boy also graduated from 4 yr old preschool. Isn't he cute with is little hat. He can't wait to go to Kindergarten on the big bus!

Daddy also got Jack a go cart that they can take out to the track. They started practicing in a big parking lot and he loves it. They will go to the go cart track when he is more comfortable. I haven't seen them yet. Tom says it is too cute. Jack loves anything that has to do with speed. He is always zooming around the house making car noises. Then on the other hand Jack also loves flowers and yard work. He loves to help pick weeds and water the flowers. He even knows how to dead head the flowers. He loves to color flowers, hearts and rainbows. Daddy is a little bothered by this! LOL...hence the go cart!

Due to me not feeling well we haven't done anything really fun yet this summer. Plus the weather hasn't been the best either. Jack has had swimming lessons and a short day camp one week. He has vacation bible school in a couple of weeks. Tom has a lot of days to take off so hopefully we can get some fun stuff in.