Moving on :-)

Ok keeping three sites up now that we are bringing Shawn home is just to much so we are consolidation all the fam members to the main site including Sarah since its all about the kids anyway. I found this great site that will allow me to download her blog into a book edition for her to hang onto for later. All my kids have a chest of sort that we use especially for the early years to keep their special items in such as baby blankets etc. so I will add this book to Sarah's collection of keep sakes. Moving Forward please visit us now at itsourmotto.blogspot.com to see how the kids are doing or to follow our brining home of Shawn just click on the link from that site called "Journey to Shawn"

Thank you to all for following our Journey to bring Sarah home and we hope you will join us as we bring Shawn home and our little familie continues to grow.

What's new in Sarah's world... well she very very much enjoys Early Childhood at school even more then I expected. She has her very Sarah' Like stubborn days and will test the teacher but her teacher seems to do an excellent job in dealing with her. She is in a class with about 5 other kids and two teachers and they are doing an awesome job. She also likes her daycare she only spends one full day a week there so she never seems board. She is getting much better about her eating though when she really does like something you literally have to tell her to slow down or she will just simply inhale the food. We are still working on potty training at night but that may be a bit. But overall she is doing great. Her last 6 months exams where great she is growing like a little flower and I just can not imagine how life was before she was part of our family I do believe in my heart that she was meant to be here with us as our daughter and sister.



If you feel that you want to join a good cause and help us support the kids in China please visit www.theELISONproject.org the heart of a dear friend of mine, learn about what you can do to help!

Till then xoxox

First day of school..

Sarah had her first day of school this week so did the boys. But for her I was really really nervous she still after all is my baby and to imagine her going on a bus even though only two blocks away ahhh ... but she did great and really seems to like her teacher. She is just so proud of being on the bus and going to school like her brothers it is really really cute....

About Our Family Site

We decided it is time to switch sites from that of the one we created for the journey to our daughter Sarah to one that keeps everyone updated on the whole family. We will still update Sarah’s site as it may pertain to things special to her as we will create a site special for her brother as we near that journey which really we have already begun.

Come visit us a
http://itsourmotto.blogspot.com/

In Loving Memory of Max

How do you say goodby...

.... no matter how much you want the pain to end no matter how you think you are prepared..... you never are! He left in the best way we can hope for to go to sleep and meet his maker. Now he is a pup again, he can run and jump and the pain and aches of old age are gone...

So with heavy hearts and deep sorrow we say goodby to our beloved Dog Max... he would have been 13 in two weeks... the world could never ask for a better soul and heart in a dog then his.

MAX WE LOVE YOU AND WE WILL MISS YOU TERRIBLY!!
Garry, Angie, Steven, Samuel and Sarah and Mittens, Chance and Tessa too!

A little of this a little of that....

It’s been a wonderful laid back couple of weeks, we did some smaller daytrips to scout out the area, visit some of the playgrounds around, go mini golfing, a geocache here and there, we keep working in the garden and little here little there are making small progress in the house. Hopefully by the holidays we are all “moved in” lol…. But in the mean time we try to enjoy the weather while it lasts.

School starts in two weeks yippee lol.. Samuel will be in first grade wow already he is very excited and Sarah will start early childhood 4 mornings during the week. Steven started Varsity Soccer today and Samuel’s season ends this Saturday with the big Tournament… where has the summer gone!

We have some other exciting news / developments in our home but for more detail we need to have more confirmation that we are ok to move forward……… I’ll share news as we get it I don’t want to get ahead of myself ;-)

Blessings
Angie

Well not much going on at our home these days. We are just trying to enjoy the summer and continue to work on projects, wrap up the last days before school starts again. Here are some pictures to share:

Summer Time ... Family Time...

It has been an interesting Summer for us so far – between working the garden, the jobs keeping up with all the kids activities going on and continuous organizing in the house you would think we do not have time to get sick but behold between all of us but Steven we seem to either get a stomach virus, fevers and a few other things we won’t mention… I thought Summer time is a break time from that stuff lol…..

Sam is enjoying himself a great deal at Soccer, Steven is almost done with drivers ed and just itching to get on the road…of course I am not in a rush for that at all ;-) Sarah is enjoying our outside activities a great deal, she loves being outside and is getting so much better about tolerating the bugs all over the yard… she can be such a girly girl when it comes to that and then at the same breath rough house with the boys. She is also having a really hard time with bug bites once she gets bit it’s a chore to keep her from scratching no matter what we put on it and we had a few instances where here bit got infected.

I can’t believe summer is half over already and go by even faster next week when both boys are playing soccer and we have some weeks where we are out on the field every night. Sarah gets totally into the game and is constantly keeping an eye on her brother and if she does not see him she right away asks “Where is Sami” I just love the way she ended up with this little nick name of her own for him, its so adorable.

This past week we also celebrated Stevens’ 16th Birthday wow where do the years go. I also had a Birthday but we won’t go there ;-) Sunday we went to Bay Beach in Green Bay with my Sister and her family, we had a lot of fun the kids loved the rides and after we had a BBQ at their house before we finally made it back home by 9 PM everyone was just out by that time. We would have loved to have an extra day on that weekend lol…. Here are some pictures from Sunday……….

Sarah, Samuel and Cousin Nathan

Its a Turtle alright are we even moving..?

Whatever you do just look up and smile...

The Ladies......

The guys.... or boys and toys?
I'll race you once around the block...
Hey I can handle these wheels....
Ok sharp corner coming up ... I can do this...

4th of July Weekend Recap

Happy 4th of July!!

We had a very nice 4th of July weekend; the weather was just beautiful, we all had a 3 day weekend, watched the parade, had a nice BBQ with my sister and her family at our house and then ended the day with smores, a big fire and fireworks in our own backyard.
The parade in town was pretty long considering that we are in a town of population 5700 approx. it lasted almost 1 ½ and had various floats, lots of old cars etc. the kids enjoyed of course the flying candy more then anything :-)




Saturday after a nice big Belgian Waffle Breakfast my sister and her family went back home. Garry took the boys fishing and Sarah and I spend a few hours in the Garden and we had so much fun. All three of us that includes the dog where just a mess full of sand and soil and sweat lol…. In the evening Garry and I went to a River festival for some music and more fireworks in Point and Sunday we pretty much just laid low and hung around the house. Originally we had opted to go geocaching but then it started to rain and we decided to not chance it given the heavy storms we have been having over here when it does get going. It really would have been a great opportunity to do some more unpacking in the house but lol we really really did not have any motivation to do that :-)
My goal is to have it all done before the big Holidays at the end of the year …..hahaha…

Moving forward well Steven started Drivers Ed and yes I actually let him behind the wheels on a country road…. I can’t believe my Baby will turn 16 on Monday and drive..sniffle..
July and August will be a couple of very very busy months for us since Drivers Ed, Soccer for Samuel are almost at the same time and keep us going Monday thru Thursday and when Drivers Ed is done Steven starts to Referee Soccer again and then play himself when the High school league starts in August. Then there is getting ready for school again, a trip to Somerset and Upper Michigan before Labor Day as well. Sarah will start Early Childhood and will be officially going "to school" .....

Ok Mom I am ready......

Hopefully in between we do get to enjoy some of the summer, blessings to all!

Water Break....

June is almost over

Not much to update from our house this time around. The boys are actively involved in soccer right now… we are still working on getting the house organized and the yard. We just send in our post adoption update for Sarah and are considering a second adoption in the near future, maybe get a new homestudy done this Fall. We are trying to keep low key, enjoy the weather and spend some quality family time outside with the kids now that it is actually warm out. We put the pool up and hopefully the water will be warm enough to enjoy it by this weekend.

Here are some new pictures though :-)

My Babies :-)

So what’s new at our house….

hmm Summer Break started the boys are very excited about that. Samuel not so much over the fact that he can’t stay at home with his brother every day; but call me overprotective a whole week of the two of them at home alone I would be gray by the end of the week. So we are breaking it up into every other day, besides Samuel will get much more interaction at the Summer Program then wedging with his brother at home all summer.

The weather has been really kind of crabby for us here, its gotten past 70 degrees out but unfortunately more rain then sunshine, rain alllll weekend long. So far for making progress in my Garden. But all in all it has been nice just to see the kids and the dogs be able to run outside without a care in the world unless of course they are arguing over he said she said lol….
Sarah is growing like wheat but has been a bit restless at night these days not sure yet what is going on with that and she seems to have some bad reactions to some of the bug bites, which have been really really bad, this year mosquitos and all. About a week ago she had a bite right next to her eye and I tell you she looked like Rambo, poor thing and she can’t help but scratch no matter what we put on, which does not help of course.

I had a meeting with the Speech Pathologist and Sarah will get some help with her speech struggles as soon as the new school year starts thru the school system. She tries so hard but somehow something is not working for her and we are sort of at a stand still. So now in the Fall she will go to the Early Childhood Program here 4 mornings of the week I am actually very happy about that because hopefully this will help her even more and we have to turn it up a nocht with what we do at home as well.

All in all everyone is doing great though and life actually appears to settle in finally now that we are all in a permanent spot, though hard to believe that we only moved into the house a bit over 2 months ago…..well ok looking around you may be able to tell we are not yet all settled but we did get a lot accomplished in little time :-)

Till our next update Blessings and Love from our House to Yours

Out Geocaching!

We hope everyone had a pleasant Memorial Day Weekend; the weather certainly was very nice, at least in our parts. We where able to get some gardening done and get our yard cleaned up a bit, planted some bushes and spend a day out geocaching and gather the first set of caches here in our new little home town. The kids enjoyed it a great deal.

It was simply nice to have a bit of down time, an extended weekend after working straight thru for a couple of weeks, which I then finished with a morning at the Spa with my sister lol….
The kids are very much looking forward to summer break, I wish we could take some of that time off as well but hey …….. We got responsibilities right lol… Steven will start driver’s education in a couple of weeks and Samuel has soccer starting.

Sarah had her speech and language evaluation and will after summer break be getting some assistance thru the school system as we seem to have come to a halt somehow and it seems we are all getting a bit frustrated she was doing so well, but it may just be too much to fast, she certainly did have an eventful first year home.

This weekend we will meet cousin Nathan and spend the morning at a Farm with some other families from the Fox Valley, they are very much looking forward to that.

New pictures have to wait till I find the USB cord for the camera…
Till then……….. Blessings

Whats New...

The weeks just seem to fly by these days….. Two weeks gone by fast we took a trip, one final trip to the old house to get the garage emptied, finally no more moving trucks. Now we just have to get it all organized at the new house…….

We met with our Friends Ron, Beth & sweet Hope while in Somerset for Dinner and as always had a fabulous time. The kids get along so well….. Sam simply adores hope, there is something about the two of them he can just make her giggle and laugh…..it is very cute. And though we don’t get to see them often it seems as thought the kids remember each other very well…. Hopefully we can meet up soon for a Day of Geocaching somewhere between here and there :-)

Slowly but surely we are getting one box after the other unpacked in the house, things at least on the main floor get somewhat organized, Steven loves the fact that for now he has the whole lower level to himself amongst the dogs and the cat and Samuel and Sarah love the being able to just run outside in the big yard and explore.
We found that we have a variety of wild life around the house as well; we can see deer out in the field in front of the house every night, we see there are a couple of wild cats around, we seen a hawk fly over the house, we have lots of birds in the yard, some cardinals, cranes out in the field and here and there a turkey walks thru the yard….. We just love it the kids tremendously enjoy it, next up is getting the Garden outside overhauled and planted.

We had a nice Mother’s Day weekend, the kids got me a Lilac Bush since I had to leave mine behind at the old house and Garry surprised me with a little Shorkie. She is just a peanut, very cute very funny and best of all gets along with the other dogs and the cat just fine.

Another Milestone Anniversary!

This marks yet another milestone day for us, another anniversary for Sarah. Today 12 months ago we came home to the US from China, Sarah stepped on US soil and thus sealed her citizenship. For years to come the month of April will always be a month of celebration and blessings for us.
We are certainly blessed and we hope that we can continue to settle and grow as a family and if Spring ever gets here :-) we can enjoy some family outside time. There are tons of caches around this area we are itching to get to.