back to back FFD's (forever family day)

max's forever family day was on the 19th and tate and elliotts was today the 20th.  max wanted pizza on his special day, of course, so pizza it was....thank you CiCi's :-)....they love it there....tate ate, okay are you ready for this....15 slices of pizza (it was right after football practice and he was STARVING :-)!!!!! we know the owners and on sunday as we were leaving church he rolled down his window and said you're going to CiCi's right...LOL...i can just betcha that if he knew how my kids devour it, he might not be so eager for us to eat there...LOL....they most definitely lose money when we arrive. anyway, max even got to play a few games on the computer which is normally only allowed on the weekends....he was thrilled to get to do that.   he had a great day!

september 19, 2007

paul, max and me, 4 years ago. i remember that i was just about to burst with joy!

look at that chunky monkey....this was his first bath he had ever taken and he loved it!  gosh, this makes me want a toddler!

 4 years later....still so precious and sweet....he is a big time mama's boy!  :-)


******
 september 20th, 2010
88

 what a blessing and a joy these two boys are.  i can not imagine our lives with out them. 

when we first met they didn't know what to think....i was at the civil affairs office waiting on them and when their van pulled up i bounded down the stairs and when i got to them i wrapped my arms around them and gave them a big hug.  they shared with me a few months later, that my hug was the first hug that elliott had ever gotten and tate had only been hugged once before and it was from an american that was visiting his orphanage.  it broke my heart when they shared that with me.  needless to say, they are used to getting plenty of hugs now. :-) this morning while we were all getting ready, tate turned on his chinese pop music that i love and i told him how much i loved the song that was playing and that how that song makes me so happy because he brings me back to our time in china and when i said that he got so tickled....he asked, that song makes you happy?  and then went on to say with a giggle, mom, that is a very very sad song....LOL...looks like i need to brush up on my chinese...HA HA HA. i took them lunch up to the school...burger king  and tonight i made a few different chinese dishes and we celebrated together at home.
***

 

on one hand it feels like it was only yesterday that i was in china with them but on the other hand it feels like they have been with us forever.

HAPPY GOTCHA/ FOREVER FAMILY DAY to our 3 INCREDIBLE, WONDERFUL, TERRIFIC, AMAZING boys!!!!

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!



i wanna be a rock star....

  thursday was rock the raiders at school and viv's class was suppose to dress like a rock star.  yes, i let her borrow a few of my things....HA!

this is so beautiful!

tate's piano teacher sent me this video. thank you ann.  it is so beautiful...it made me cry.

this video is of a young chinese girl playing "souvenir d'enfance" by richard clayderman on the piano. she first started playing the piano only 3 years ago but what is so incredible is that she has no fingers on her right hand. i can't wait to show max....he will love this!

enjoy!

scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to turn my music off...you don't want to miss any of this!

first day of school.....SUPER LATE

the kids started school on the 22nd and i am just now getting around to posting it.  so much is going on that i haven't had any time to post.  a quick little update on our life....we just bought a small house, back  IN TOWN....YAY!  (being 20 minutes from school has just about done me in....my kids are too involved to be that far out)  we are going to live in the house IN TOWN while our house (just 5 minutes out) is being built.  we closed on it today so that means this labor day weekend we will be ripping up carpet, painting, painting and painting every inch of it.  then after our house is built we are either going to resale the house or use it as rental property. i am going to take some before and after pictures and once project IN TOWN home is complete i will share.  back to the important stuff....here are the kids on the first day of school.

everyone that knows me, knows that i am a little....okay A LOT ocd about ironing.  i iron and iron and iron (i really am so much better,  i use to iron britney's socks when she was little...now you know how sick i really am...lol)  this vest that elliott choose is permanently wrinkled and he made sure that i didn't try to get the wrinkles out.....LOL.  would you just look at HOW TERRIBLY WRINKLED that vest is!!!!!  OH MY!!

elliott wearing his glasses with no lens.  LOL.  that boy, he is one of a kind :-).  he has worn these glasses everyday but today the principle ask him if he could see his glasses and he ask if they were real, when he put his finger through them it answered his question.  he is no long allowed to wear them :-(, he said it is against the rules. knowing ells, i can betcha he will find something new and quirky to wear real soon.

my sweet 1st grader.

vivi at her desk....they started on their day as soon at they sat down so i didn't get to take a lot of pictures of her in her classroom. :-(

after we dropped viv off we were off to the kindergarten hall.

we saw mr. kaufman our superintendent. we usually sit in front of him and his family at church.  he was so sweet, he walked max to class and told him that he would come back by later and check on him.

**

my happy boy playing with clay. while THOSE parents took way to many pictures :-).

i love this picture with his tongue sticking out.

so sweet.

max with his teacher mrs. whitaker....she is AWESOME!  we LOVE her!!!  she was vivi's teacher last year.  a few weeks before school started when i asked him if he was ready to go to school he would start crying a little bit and shake his head no, he would say that he would miss me too much.  but once he found out that mrs. whitaker was going to be his teacher there were no more tears to be had.  he LOVES her and he LOVES his school!  they have all done well this first 2 weeks.....they are really enjoying it!