Iowa Nephews!

I promised pictures of our northern nephews (lol--I know iowa isn't that far north, but it sounds neat and they're north of us for sure) but I've taken my sweet time getting them uploaded. I think we got some really good ones--especially considering we were really only with them about 6 hours or so. :)

Meeting Liam Anders for the first time--needless to say, we're hooked!

Awwwww--I want one! :) There's not that's much more fun that cuddling up with a sleeping (or sleepy) baby. The awesome thing about this picture is that I had plenty of sleep the night before so I could enjoy it! Come December the cuddling with a baby thing might look a little different from a middle of the night viewpoint. :P

Love this face--a little bit of happy, ornery, and fun all at once. This was probably after Elliot called Ryan "grandpa"--no, it wasn't but we're still laughing about that. He just wanted to get his attention and apparently "grandpa" works for some people. ;) It was pretty cute. I don't think Ryan minded--he was just thrilled that Elliot wanted his attention!

Uncle Ryan & Elliot reading one of his new birthday books. I love how "comfy" and relaxed this picture is.

And one more that I just can't pass up--how cute is this!

News Bulletin!

This will only be news to some of my readers, but it's exciting all the same. :) We are expecting a baby in December! The day we signed our activation agreement with our agency, we were told about a birthmother and possible match. Last week we heard that she liked our profile and had chosen to be matched with us--yesterday we completed the paperwork and are now officially matched! We anxiously (and excitedly) await the December 19 due date! We can hardly believe how smooth this process has gone for us so far, but we know there could be bumps in the road ahead yet--and we'll face them if they come. For now, we're very excited and feel like we're living a day dream...kind of a wierd, surreal feeling that I can't even describe...but if I use a few more exclamation points maybe you'll get the idea!!!!! ;)

We had a great trip to Iowa & Wisconsin--it was a lot of fun to tell our families the news in person--we never quite knew if it would work out to tell them in person or if it would have to be over the phone, but it worked out perfectly! We were able to tell my parents & siblings about the possibility the last time we were there--then Ryan's family on this trip. Unfortunately, my extended family will have to find out online and by phone, word of mouth, etc. but that's how it goes when we're all spread out I guess. I'll post some pictures of our time with Elliot and Liam later (when they get downloaded from the camera). For now, I'm going to let this be all--thanks for sharing our excitement with us and I'll update whenever we have additional info. Hopefully it will be an uneventful pregnancy and we won't have much to update--but we'll see.

Busy Summer

I'm sure everyone is having a busy summer--seems like the days are flying by. I keep thinking "only a few more weeks until school will be starting" and then I realize that this year that affects me less than it has in the past! Of course, I am hoping to do homebound tutoring and subbing as much as possible when school starts, so it will affect me--but in a much different way than I've been used to. :)

We are headed to Iowa this afternoon when Ryan gets off work (2:30) and will spend tonight and part of tomorrow with Farron, Cheri, and their boys! We can't wait to see them all and meet Liam! Tomorrow is Elliot's 2nd birthday so it will be great to be able to share it with him. :)
Tomorrow afternoon sometime we'll head further north to Wisconsin and spend a little time with Ryan's parents and family there. We'll have to head back home on Tuesday, so it will be another quick trip. I guess we should be getting used to the flying trips up north by now--seems like we haven't been able to stay very long for a few years--does that mean we're adults and "grown ups" now?! Yikes, that's a scary thought!

Okay--enough from me. I'm just killing time here in the last hour before we leave--that always drags out the most for me. I should probably go take out the trash and run the dishwasher so we don't come home to a smelly house...and make sure my flowers have at least a sip of water--although I'm sure they'll be wilted by the time we get back. HAPPY WEEKEND, everyone!

Missouri Nephews

I apologize: This post has many issues--underlined text, pictures & captions all jumbled up--but I'm too tired to deal with it, so I'm going to bed. I'll try to fix it later. :)

We left on Sunday afternoon to visit my family and stayed until Tuesday afternoon. Really enjoyed seeing everyone again and spending time with them. Our nephews grow and change so much in between visits. Zaden is in the midst of potty training and has what you might describe as an abundance of energy...but yet he can be very sweet and cuddly too. His vocabulary has exploded and includes some pretty amusing phrases. Kingston is still laid-back most of the time and really doesn't let much of anything bother him--he watches Zaden like a hawk and immitates a lot of his actions. He's saying several words now and when I was playing with him I KNOW he repeated "dinosaur" and then just "saur" as we were playing with one. :) Xander is a people person and loves attention--but don't put him down and walk out of the room! He has a huge smile that lights up the room and you can almost always get him to smile if you talk to him and act goofy (which I guess I'm good at). So--that's a summary of the boys; I could go on and on for hours and tell story after story that amused me but I'll refrain. These pictures are just a few of my favorites...feel free to visit our flickr page for more. :) You've probably already guessed, but the captions are numbered in order of the pictures...


#1.) No, of course we didn't get into anything. Really! That red mouth is just a figment of your imagination! Afterall, Xander is only 7 months old and I wouldn't feed him sugar or anything. ;)


2.) Bedtime stories with Zaden & Xander. After reading this Eric Carle book at least 6 times, Zaden told us a very lengthy story about a little boy who went potty a lot (can you tell what's going on in his life?) and was just "bee-diculous" sometimes. It's so fun to hear kids use big words like ridiculous--makes me smile just writing about it.


3.) Zaden looking into the living room from his favorite spot at grammy & grandpa's--the deck.

4.) Kingston--half smile. Unfortunately, I didn't get as many pictures of Kingston this time and found out when I downloaded them from the camera that I really didn't get any that captured his huge, contagious smile. Guess I was too busy playing with him and enjoying it to snap the pictures. :P

New Nephew!!!

Congratulations to Farron, Cheri, and big brother Elliot! Liam Anders was born on Monday, July 7th! I stole the picture from Cheri's blog--(thanks Cheri, I hope you don't mind). :) I didn't want to write about him without a picture to show how cute he is! We can't wait to meet him--hopefully in a couple of weeks we can stop for a bit on our way up to Wisconsin--or on the way back. We are now the proud aunt and uncle to 5 nephews--wow, can't hardly believe that's even possible. Are we old enough?!

Activation!

Just a quick update to say that we are now offically activated with American Adoptions' A New World Awaits program! :) Everything that we were waiting for kind of fell into place on Monday-and we met with our social worker yesterday to sign the activation agreement and pay our fee. So we've definitely made several steps of progress in the last few months, considering that we sent our first application to American Adoptions on April 15th. Of course, it could be months before we are matched with a birthmother or anything else happens. Only time will tell!

Happy 4th of July, everyone! Now we're waiting on news of nephew #5! :)