Saturday, May 22, 2010

Snakes

Today while Luke was mowing, he caught a snake and let the boys play with it for a while.

They, of course, were thoroughly impressed that Luke had caught a snake and loved taking turns holding it. (Luke kind of liked holding it too.)

I got close enough to take a picture, but did NOT want to hold it. Then I got asked that famous question....

"Can we keep it for a pet?"


Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Our big announcement

Have you guessed what the big announcement is? I'm sure most of you who know us well already had an idea what we were talking about. But for those of you who didn't already know....we're starting another adoption!!!

The reason why I wanted to wait until this week to officially announce it is because we were waiting to see if our house would sell. Our contract with our realtor ended May 17th, and we wanted to be certain we weren't moving before we started in on the adoption process. Now that May 17th has come and gone, we're moving ahead with the paperwork!

After much prayer, discussion and research we have decided to adopt again through the Minority Infant Program with Bethany Christian Services just as we did with Andrew. We really liked Bethany (would highly recommend them!) and they seem to still need families in their Minority Program. We also really liked the attorney we worked with through Bethany, so that was another reason why we wanted to stay with them. We had a great experience overall with Andrew's adoption, and are excited to work with Bethany again to bring another little one home to be a part of our family!

We have already got our application turned in to Bethany, so now we have a huge packet of paperwork to work on. We're hoping to get that turned in sometime next week. Since this is our second adoption with this agency we have a little less paperwork to do, and since our homestudy with Missouri is still current we only have one visit from our social worker. So the process should move a little quicker this time.

So...there's our big news! Please be praying for us as we start our second adoption journey. We'll update the blog throughout the process so that we can keep everyone informed as to how things are going.

We're excited to see what God will do!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Pictures, pictures, pictures

It seems like lately all I really have time to do with this blog is post pictures. I love to write (really write, not just put captions on photos) but I have really struggled with finding the time to do that lately. So until I find that time, I'm just going to keep posting pictures. Luke and I enjoy the pictures though. It's been fun for us to go back and look at pictures and stories from the past couple years. It's kind of like an online journal for our family.

This first round of pics comes from our field trip last week to the Shatto Dairy Farm. It was a great trip, although I spent most of my time walking around outside with a fussy, molar-cutting, sleep-deprived little boy named Andrew. I couldn't be upset with him though--his poor gums are so swollen. I think he's handling the pain much better than I would. But despite Andrew's fussiness, Isaac and Caleb enjoyed themselves. Here's a few shots from the trip:

The boys posing in front of the Shatto Milk truck.


I managed to get one smile out of him.


Isaac petting a baby calf. (Thanks Marcy for this photo.)


Sampling some of their flavored milk. (Thanks again Marcy!)

At the end of March, Luke and I took a trip to Boston together. He had to go for work, so I flew out to join him for the weekend. We had a great time! We dearly love our sons, but it is so nice to get to have time alone together.
Here's Luke posing with the statue of John Harvard. (At Harvard's campus, of course.)

We loved visiting all the historical sites. It was fascinating to see the actual places where so many historical things had happened.


On the home front, Isaac and Caleb are becoming master builders. Here's a few of their latest masterpieces:





This is one of my favorite recent pictures of all three boys. This was taken Easter Sunday.

I also tried to get individual shots of each boy. Isaac is always the hardest one to get a decent picture of. That's because when you ask Isaac to smile, this is what you get:

Isaac is a super-smart kid, but he just can't quite figure out how to smile for a camera and look natural. His "smiles" always look like he's in pain. I've decided to quit asking him to smile for pictures. I'd rather have a serious face than this crazy grimace he comes up with.


As for Caleb, he is extremely photogenic, but I always get the same comment from people who see his pictures. Everyone always says, "He looks ornery." In this case, looks aren't deceiving.

And then there's Andrew. Andrew's at a difficult age to get pictures because he is always on the move, and doesn't always look at the camera. But every once in a while he'll slow down enough and I'll be able to snap pics like this:


Andrew managed to keep himself clean for a few hours. But then after church we went to Luke's cousin's house where someone decided to leave a box of cupcakes sitting on the patio outside. Andrew found that box, and then he looked like this:


April 22 was a day Isaac was very excited about. He had been counting down the years until he was old enough to attend "Take your Kid to Work Day" with Luke. He was finally old enough to go this year. He told Luke that it was one of the most exciting days of his life.

Next week, we'll be posting a big announcement on our blog! I don't want to reveal what it is yet until everything is official, but check back next week to see our latest news. We're very excited about it, and can't wait to share it with all of you!