Special Days in April

April is always a busy month in our house and this April has been no exception. Here's a quick photo re-cap of our Easter and birthday celebrations.

On Good Friday we decorated hard boiled eggs with our friend Hiromi who came to visit for a few days. Hiromi stayed with us 2 years ago as an exchange student and now she is going to university in the States and came to visit us on her spring break.

We all enjoyed decorating eggs and then Evan enjoyed smashing his.

My sweet kids on Easter morning.




We did two Easter egg hunts this year. The first one was with the hard-boiled eggs we had decorated. I wrote references on them for different scripture verses that tell parts of the Easter story, then I hid them in the playroom. As you may be able to tell from the photo, the playroom was a big mess so it was easy to hide things in. :) Once the kids found all the eggs, Evan and Grace looked the Bible verses up and took turns reading them to us.

After that, we did our outside Easter egg hunt with chocolate and candy eggs.

It seems like just yesterday that I was planning themed birthday parties, with party games, pinatas and elaborate cakes for Evan, but he is much too cool for anything like that now and he decided that this year he wanted to just have a few "guys" over and play video games and "hang out." It was actually nice for me to not plan too much and sit back and let them do their thing. It was a lovely day, so they played a bit of street hockey and then came inside for food and video games and a movie. There was lots of silliness and some rather inappropriate bathroom jokes at the dinner table - pretty typical 11 year old boy humour - all in good fun.

Evan's actual birthday - opening his gifts. The one that looks like a weird hockey stick with a giant puck was the result of Ryan's creative wrapping. It's actually a couple of ds games and tickets for Evan, Ryan and I to go to the Newsboys concert!

We also went as a family to the skatepark on Evan's birthday so that he could practice skateboarding a bit with an old skateboard we had. He decided it was something he enjoyed and headed off to Walmart with Ryan to spend his birthday money on a "real" skateboard.
The top, left photo is Evan with the berry cheesecake he requested for his b-day dessert and the typically goofy facial expression which is pretty common as soon as I pull out the camera these days.

Our date night with Evan - first a dinner out at the Pantry and then the concert, where Evan obviously enjoyed himself immensely.

Grace asked to have her birthday party at the wave pool this year. I wouldn't have agreed if she was any younger but I figured that most of her friends would be pretty proficient swimmers by now and I wouldn't have to stress too much about them in the pool. It worked out very well. The kids all had lots of fun and I didn't have to plan a bunch of activities at home! :)

The 9 year old birthday girl with the chocolate money cake she requested. I got off easy again since she wanted it simple, just a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

Grace's actual birthday was a beautiful day for an after dinner walk to the park.

Grace's birthday present included tickets for her to have a date night with Ryan and I to go see Songs, Strings and Steps, which isn't until next weekend. I've never been before but it's supposed to be quite a show and I'm really looking forward to it. I think Grace will enjoy it, but at this point she's just excited to have Mom and Dad to herself for the evening. :)

The most difficult letter I ever had to write

Our social worker phoned tonight to say that she is almost finished writing our homestudy. She just needed a few more details from us and then she'll submit it to her supervisor to get the okay before it will be sent to Florida. So we have filled out an application that we will send to Shepherd Care in Florida to get things started with them and now our next step is to write our "dear birthparent" letters. I don't usually have trouble with writing and I certainly never lack for words to say but this has been a very daunting task for me, and even more so for my dear husband, who is not so much a words guy. :) How do you write a letter to a person you don't know, in order to convince them that you are worthy of the most wonderful gift they could ever give you?

We have been given some pointers:

-not too long, not too short

- be yourself, show us who you really are

- try to understand where the birthparent is coming from

-don't try to come across as perfect

- keep it interesting

We're supposed to tell about:

-our childhood

- life experiences

- traditions

- extended family

- parenting styles

- hobbies, activities, and interests

- thoughts on open adoption

- occupation

- reasons for wanting to adopt

So that is what I will think about tonight as I lay in bed, trying to get some sleep, how do I find the words to express who I am to a stranger who might possibly be the birthmother of my future child.

A Fresh Start

There has been so much happening here in our little part of the world in the past few months that I have not posted about here. I cannot possibly go back and post all of the pictures, and I don't think you would want to spend hours looking through them all if I did, so I am just going to start fresh.

I want to start off by explaining the name change. Observant viewers (if there are any viewers left after my 6 month hiatus) might have noticed the change of title. Most of you who know Ryan and I, know that we have been thinking about adopting. Those of you who know us well, know that it has not been an easy journey for us. We have had our struggles and our doubts, but we do feel that God has placed this desire in our hearts to add another child to our family, and that He will make a way for us.

That being said, we have reached the point where things are finally moving along. Our home study is almost ready to be submitted to the agency in Florida, and once we have finished a bit more paperwork, we will be ready to hurry up and wait. We trust that in God's time we will receive a referral for a little baby who will join our family! I plan to use the waiting time to do some blogging. I will still be posting some pictures of our family happenings on here, but I also want to make this a place where I can chronicle our adoption journey.

I'm alive!!

I just thought I would do a quick little post to let you know that I am alive and have not entirely given up on blogging. I have been very negligent but I do have good intentions to take up blogging again, with some changes, including a change in the name of this blog! More to come soon. . . ;)