SURPRISE!!!

We (i.e. Chelsi) got a great surprise in the mail early this morning.  Yeah, I ordered those YoungHee dolls for the girls for Christmas and they arrived this morning, but that wasn't it.  Cole brought me a package and all I could think was "I didn't order anything else".  I looked and it was from Chelsi's adoption agency.  I opened it and it was a gift from her foster mother and a note.

Well, I read the note to Chelsi outloud before we opened the gifts and I couldn't even get through it.  It was SO touching!  It was so short, but so sweet.  She is so loved, all across this world!  I'd post what it said, but that is for my Chelsi to have and treasure.

Here are some pictures of the gifts.  (She sent the boys some socks too, but they ran off as soon as they put them on.)

They passed!!

All three of our older ones are in swimming lessons and they all 3 passed!  I can't believe Cole's already going to be in Level 5!  He just started lessons for the first time last summer.

I'm so proud of all 3!!!

Take me out to the baaalllgaamme…..

Finally, we took the kids to their first ballgame.  We'd been saying we'd do it since at least last year, so this year we got none other than bleacher seats.  And great ones at that.  Sure it was over the visiting team's bullpen, but it was VERY close to the field.

Started out as a boring game.  The Brewers were up and there was almost no action.  Then it POURED!  It felt really good though.  The kids thought it was fun to sit in the rain and watch a ballgame.  Then the game picked up.  They tied and then they won it.  By the end of the game Kae was yelling 'charge' and Chelsi loved it when the did the "clap your hands".  Chelsi even slept part of the game.  We all had a good time.  Gonna have to do that more often.

Most fun for the kids.....running the bases after the game.  Nothin' like being on the Cardinal's field and running the actual bases. 





My favorite.....

















And a lady at the game was nice enough to take a family pic for us in return for a family picture of them.  We seldom get me in any pictures because I'm always behind the camera.  Not that I'm complaining, but sometimes it's nice to remind the kids that I am part of the family.  :)

Float Trip 2007

I swear these things get to be more fun every year!  This is our family.

It was Kae's first and she had a great time!  We got on the water about 10:00 and I think we were back about 3:00 or so.  We had some nice long stop breaks in between so the kids could stretch their legs and the adults could soak and cool off.

We had about 8 kids on the trip this year and they all had a good time.  Even the newest little ones.

Here are some pictures:

The boys getting ready to leave.



Cole rode with his Godfather and his wife. (hope you don't mind guys)

 

Kae and Chase road with us.  (Yes dad smokes those nasty Swishers when he hunts and fishes.)



BREAK TIME!! 



After the float trip we retired to Jay and Shannon's for the annual frog/fish fry.  YUM!!!!

Happy 4th!!!

We didn't spend the 4th of July like most folks.  It doesn't work well to have a 10 yo, 7 yo, 5 yo and 2 yo out past 9:00 to watch firewords on a weeknight.  We took it easy that day and spent the day in the pool and got out the 2 year old waterslide that's been in the closet, still in the original package.  That's what happens when you get something on clearance at the end of the season and forget constantly.  Needless to say, our kids will get to see firewords.  We're going floating this weekend with the older 3 and afteward we'll go to a fish/frog fry and shoot off the fireworks the.  The kids CANNOT wait! 

Here are our action pics from the fourth.



















 Chelsi's been having a true sense of wanting to grow up a little too fast....at least for mommy.  She wants to wear goggles like big brothers and sister and now she wants waterwings on and lets go to swim by herself.  What happened?!

Country livin’

Doesn't everyone want that?

Not on days when you have to be somewhere and that's when one of the local farmers decide to haul something with their tractor taking the main route to town and NOT moving over for traffic.  In most cases around here people are kind and if they're blocking or really holding up traffic they turn off the road for a bit.  Not this dude!  He decided to stay there so that what should have been a 15 minute drive turned into a 30 minute drive going 20 in a 60.  It's so frustrating.  You can't even vent in the car because you have your little ones with you.  That makes it worse.

One of the few times living out here stinks!

Keep on keepin’ on

If you don't at first succeed, try, try again.  So I am writing immigration, two Senators and a Congressman hoping they will try to help international adoptive families.  It kind of stinks that kids that come in on IR3 Visas automatically get Certificate of Citizenship (which they should) while kids that come to the United States on IR4 Visas have to go through a lot of unnecessary beauracratic tape to get that certificate.  It's the fact that the families have to apply for it.  That's totally understandable since the child that comes here is not legally adopted until they're in the U.S., but once we adopt them we should have to do no more than fill out the application, pay a small processing charge (ahem, not $430) and show the adoption decree finalizing the adoption.  That should be it.  No, each immigration office, deciding who should have to or not have to come in, in person, to receive that certificate that, by law, our children deserve.  They should just each mail them to the children upon approval of the application.  It's such a consistent inconsistency with USCIS.

I'm hoping someone in our government will attempt to help families out there.  It won't benefit us, but I'm hoping it will benefit others.

If you're reading this and you too are an adoptive family or know one, write your D.C. elected officials and get someone to take this up.  Tell them to look at change for the Child Citizenship Act and regulation of USCIS for Certificates of Citizenship for internationally adopted children.