Yay!!!

I leave tomorrow!! :) ...still have more to pack. Oh, and I need to clean my room...ugh.

I saw Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen today. It was so SO good!!!! Can't wait till tomorrow...

Here are some pictures of the girls at the pool. As you can see from the thermometer in our car; it was hot today, even at 6:00 p.m.

Pictures from Saturday

Here are the pics from the birthday party on Saturday.

Monday.

Today I did my laundry, which I haven't done for about two weeks. I had two loads of clothes!! And the funny (or maybe sad) thing is, I still had half a closet full of clothes to wear. While waiting for my clothes to go through the washer and dryer, I cleaned my room...not fun. And I started packing for Nashville...
I don't know how many of you people out there are like me, or how many are like my mom.

This is me: I like to take a bunch of bags or a really big suitcase, and take tons of clothes...more than I need, even. I love to be in style no matter where I'm going or what the occasion is. I like to have a different pair of shoes for each outfit, or maybe even two for each outfit. I like to have a jacket, at least two changes of pajamas, and I have to bring all my necessities. You know, my flat iron, hair stuff, books...you know stuff that says "me". I say I pack heavy, my mom says I'm just crazy.

This is my mom: She prefers to pack in a backpack, or sometimes even a Wal-Mart sack. She takes the least amount of clothes as possible and will stuff everything to make it fit. She takes one pair of shoes. She packs light.

Anyway, me obviously being myself, I got down the biggest suitcase we have out of the attic (one that we got when I went to China) and started packing all my stuff in it today. I think I have about fifteen t-shirts...a few pairs of jeans...one dress...a pair of shorts...shoes...I packed for about an hour today and I'm not even finished! (Packing takes a lot of energy out of me lol.) At the moment, I'm concerned with how I'm going to fit everything... :)
I'm also working on making a list for all the stuff I still need to pack. I hope to God I don't forget anything. What exactly does one take to a musicians' camp? (Besides their instrument of course.) Hmm... I still need to work on this lol.

Tomorrow begins my 3-day volunteer week at Mission Northeast again. Even though I complain a little, I miss my boys :( so I'm glad that I'm getting to spend this week with them, since I will be gone the next two weeks.

Kenzie and Karli are doing good, by the way :) ...Not much to write about them lately.

video of the week:

Saturday.

Hello everyone out there! Just had another pretty boring Saturday...even considering the fact that I was only home a few hours today. We had two (yes, TWO) birthday parties today, so at eleven this morning we dropped Keaton off at his friend's party, and then we hung around in that area for the next two hours or so. We ended up going to Wal-Mart, and then eating at McDonald's. Then we met my Aunt and my Grandma and took her home. My Grandma just got out of the ER today...I'm not really sure why exactly she was there, but ever since she had the scar tissue in her brain last year and had to have surgery she's had a few health problems, and I think this time it was because she couldn't walk very straight and it was harder for her to see and stuff. Then after we dropped her off, we ran home and the kids changed into their swimsuits, and we headed off to a water party (will post pics later btw) and we stayed there for about three hours. They went down the water slide (basically a big, inflatable slip-n-slide) and played in the little kid pools, and played games, ate snow cones, and had cake and ice cream and other snacks. Not really sure what the rest of the day will bring...we went shopping at the Galleria last night to buy clothes for camp (yes!) and went out to eat so I'm not sure if we're eating out tonight or what. Anyway, all in all a pretty busy yet boring day. *sigh* I can't wait for this Summer to pick up in Nashville. Oh, and I'm also very excited for Thursday. I get to go see Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen with my friend and my aunt. Tuesday starts my volunteer week up again. This coming week is going to be pretty busy. On Monday I have to do my laundry and clean my room (ugh) and start packing for Nashville and lay out all my clothes for church camp (yay!!). I have to make sure I bring everything I need lol; I pack pretty heavy :) With volunteering and the kids and the movies and church and getting ready this coming week will be pretty busy...I'm hoping it will keep me entertained. I'm not quite sure what to expect in Nashville; I've been freaking out with "what if?"s lol. And then I come back, have a day free to pack up for Camp Timberline, that Sunday (the 5th of July) is my birthday, and then early Monday I leave for camp. I'm so excited to see all my friends from last year that I haven't gotten to hang with much over the past year (like Stephen!), and hanging with old friend for five days straight. :) I'll post more when something happens lol and I will post those pics sometime soon hopefully.

*sigh*

I am suffocating in this world of no news!! Aggh!!! I'm just living each day waiting for something worth posting to happen lol. This week I've started volunteering at the Mission Northeast, like I have for the previous 2 summers. I have some of the little boys from my group last year, which I'm happy about because last year I had a really amazing class, and I grew to love them :) The VBS theme for this year is "Down Under" so it has an Australian theme...my group's name is the Red Devils (for Tasmanian Devils, which I just recently found out were real and not just a made-up creature from Looney Toons; go figure!), so I'm hoping that won't turn out be symbolic. heh*heh This week Kylie and Keaton have another VBS (they had one last week), and this VBS has got to be one of the coolest ever, due to ventriloquist Dennis Lee, who is hilarious. He has the cutest puppets and themes and everything, even I enjoy it. Anyway, they've been having a pretty good week. Next week I leave for Nashville and Kylie has yoyo camp...again lol. Then I have church camp...YAY!!!! (Although actually, for personal reasons I'm kinda nervous about this week but so happy that I can spend the week with my friends, and see some old camp friends from last year that I haven't seen in forever.) The rest of my summer just involves Kylie and Keaton having more VBS's and Nature Camp. *sigh* I have no life! I'll post again when something relatively interesting happens, or I have new pictures. And I will try to be blogging the week of camp electric...which will be AWESOME!

Dennis Lee (Nana Puddin'): http://www.nanapuddin.com/
Camp Electric: http://www.campelectric.com/

I leave for Nashville a week from Friday!!! :)

Fun Day At Jumping Joey's

Something To Happy Dance About :)

Guess what we threw away Sunday night? The bottle. Yep, Kenzie threw her bottle away (with mom's permission, of course). Even though she drinks juice and soda and water out of a regular cup, she still has her bottle of milk every morning. But now she has a "big girl" cup :) yay!
(However, it is a little hard to get her to drink it..today somebody *cough*cough*mom* bribed her with a dollar, which Kenzie is now happily carrying around in her pocket lol).

Official 6 Month Family Day

Karli officially became a member of our family 6 months ago today. Here are a few pictures of her taken 2 days ago to compare to yesterday's Gotcha Day post. She sure has changed a lot during these 6 months.

Gotcha Day 6 Month Anniversary

On December 8, 2008 we woke up feeling excited, but a little nervous. We were excited as it was the day that we would become a family of seven. We were nervous because there was a possibility that it might not happen. See, our adoption agency had sent a crucial piece of paper to the wrong family. This paper let the officials in China know that we had permission to adopt Karli. When we found out (not from our agency, but from the family that received our paper), our agency assured us the paper would be sent directly to our guide in China and be there on Gotcha day. However, when we got to the province and spoke to the guide, she had NO idea what we were talking about. After unsuccessfully trying to contact the agency, we just put the matter in God's hands. So, we woke up and got ready assuming we would be untied with our daughter. God can work miracles, and lo and behold, the paper arrived in time to us to proceed with Gotcha Day. Here are a few pictures of that day.

This is our first glimpse of Karli at the Civil Affairs office. We were the only group there and had a lot of time with the girls before we had to leave.

These next few pictures are of Karli once she was given to us by the orphanage staff.



This picture is us with the official from the orphanage.

These next two pictures are Karli at the hotel room about 2 hours after she joined our family. As you can see, she was not really upset to be given to a strange looking and sounding family.