Hello!!! Wow...I didn't realize I haven't been on here since August! Many things have happened in these few months! I'll start with Kian starting Kindergarten. Oh boy was that rough! It was very difficult for Kian and hard on mom too. He was not happy about starting school at all. He cried most mornings and sometimes at bedtime for the first few weeks. It was really a difficult adjustment for him to be gone all day everyday. Thankfully his best buddy was in his class and he has a really great teacher. I am happy to say that he will at times admit that he does actually like school a little bit. He really does enjoy it. He likes his teacher and has made many new friends. I think he would still rather be at home most days, but he would miss school. He did tell me as he got off the bus Friday for Christmas break that he was a little bit sad because he would not get to go to school for so many days. He is enjoying his Christmas break. He got right back to his late nights and sleeping in until noon!
Aden started Jr. High this year! He was a little nervous, but I was much worst than he was! He is doing great! He really likes being at the High School. He likes all of his teachers and I have to say I have been very impressed with all of them! He even has a girlfriend! Shh....don't tell him I told! She is a very nice and fun girl we have known for a long time. He lost his guitar teacher to college. Bummer! He is still taking tennis lessons every Saturday. He really enjoys playing tennis. We just celebrated his 13th birthday. I can't believe I have a teenager in my house! Thank goodness he doesn't act like a teenager.
Jason and I took a trip to New York City in September. So much fun!!! I actually really liked it and would go back again. I wouldn't want to live there though! Way too busy for me! We packed in as much as we could while we there. We took a city bus tour, went up on the Empire State Building (We weren't going to take the time or spend the $$ to do this, but I'm so glad we did. It was really neat!), saw the 911 Memorial (also very neat), walked onto the Brooklyn Bridge, took the ferry over to see the Statue of Liberty, and we checked out Central Park. We saw Wicked, Chicago, and Rock of Ages. That was my favorite part. Oh...and shopping at Tiffany's! We stayed right on Times Square so we walked all over that area. We also saw a couple comedy shows which was really fun too. Now, we need to go back to do all of the museums! We didn't have time to go to any of them.
In October, we went to Houston to celebrate my sweet baby nephews 1st birthday. He has grown so much and is just such a blessing to our family. We love him to pieces. He was born about 6 weeks early (I think) and was so so small. It so nice to see him so big and healthy and doing everything he should be doing so well. I was so happy I could be a part of his 1st birthday. We always have a good time visiting my sister's family.
Isn't he a doll!
Kaitlyn has had two tumbling meets so far. The first one didn't go so great on the first day. She had a bad bad day. She went back on Sunday and got 3rd place on floor so that lifted her spirits a lot! She is competing at an Intermediate level on Trampoline and Double Mini and Novice on floor. Her 2nd meet was in Salem earlier this month. She did awesome! She brought home 2 trophies. She loves tumbling and has learned so much in the last year. She is so lucky to have great coaches. They are awesome! She has also made some really great friendships. We are so proud of her.
Now....adoption news. Our case worker was so nice to update us before the holidays. Things are still moving quite slow in Ethiopia. It is frustrating, but also good to know they are trying to clean things up. We really thought we would be home or at least have traveled for our court date. We were way off. We are now #21. We have moved up quite a bit. The sad part is that there have been several families drop out of the program and really not that many referrals. There were two referrals earlier this month. Things are moving, but it is sooooo slow! We are hanging in there though. We just updated our home study and had to be fingerprinted in Indy again. Good news.....there was no drama this year. If you remember last time we were fingerprinted, Jason had a knife in his pocket. They about arrested him! I told him he couldn't get out of the car until his pockets were empty this time! We took in our paperwork, driver's license, and car keys. That's it! We survived without being thrown in jail. Whew! We should be good now for about a year and then it will be time to update everything again. Hopefully, that won't have to happen. We are now approved to adopt 2 children age 0-5. We went up a year since Kian is now 6. Wow...that is so hard to believe. My baby is 6!
That pretty much sums up the last part of 2014 for us. We have had a great year and are very blessed.
