Easter 2012

I am behind on the rest of Spring Break and the week after but I may just not get to them. Too many things going on around here...you know, like packing for three people for a 2+week trip in a foreign country.

On Saturday before Easter, we finally planted some trees around here, 6 of them actually. More like large twigs, but it's a start (and free too)! The girls also got some egg-decorating time in. They each had 8 eggs and I am pretty sure 6 of Brynna's were pink. ;) The other two in the carton were for Miss Brielle. Next year she will be dunking her own eggs!
That evening, we had dinner at Gramma and Pappy's, and the girls opened their gift bags. Brynna loves her new bakery book!The next morning, the girls woke up early to see what the Easter bunny brought them...books, movies, legos, and candy. This mommy sure was glad to see the bunny brought Reese cups too. 😉 They enjoyed a quick egg hunt in the living room and then it was time to get ready for Sunday School and church.

We serve a RISEN Saviour! What an amazing thing to celebrate!

Alex and I often call Braylee "spastic" and these pictures show that! 😉 You can see just how sweet she is too though- with Sydney & Lillie.
After church, we went to my Grammy's house for dinner and the big egg hunt. It was beautiful weather! We missed having Tom and Tomi's families home, but otherwise, it was just about perfect. Of course, we all missed our Grampsy too.
My mom gave the grandkids their Easter treats in Chinese take out boxes. One of the goodies was silly string! Fun!

Most of the great-grandkids

Thankful for my family, my church family, and the gorgeous sunshine we enjoyed that day but most importantly, I am thankful for my Risen Saviour!!

Travel Approval!! We are headed to China!

We have reached the last step! The TA is basically China saying "Come get your baby!"

I just love our agency girl, Nicole. When she called, she said, "Go ahead and scream and then I will tell you why I am calling!" ;) With the girls being out of school today, it was so fun to share the excitement with them too! We called daddy on speaker phone and Braylee kept yelling, "We got the call! We got the call!" Brynna immediately asked me to hold her and said she needed to soak in mommy-loving since we are leaving so soon!

How soon?! Well, we are hoping to leave next Wednesday, the 18th! Our agency is putting in our request for a consulate appointment the last week of April/beginning of May. Once it is confirmed, we can book our flights!

I have never shared the video of us telling the girls about our sweet Brielle. It was a long-awaited announcement! Braylee said she was too excited to speak at first. :) This was September 27, 2011... We are coming soon, XinMeng!!

More of March

We have had a busy, yet very enjoyable, couple of weeks. The weather has been amazing, so that helps! On March 14th, we met my sisters and their kids at the park for dinner.
On the 16th, Braylee had Camp Read-a-lot at school. Lillie came home with her for a sleepover. The girls enjoyed green pancakes and eggs the next morning in honor of St. Patrick's Day.
After Lillie went home, the girls and I shopped and shopped. I realized it is very likely the last time I go shopping with just my big girls in tow for quite awhile.

This little girly keeps me smiling and busy while Braylee is at school.

A few days ago, we had a weird hail storm. It left PILES of hail around the house. (Ignore our lack of landscaping. 😉 We plan to tackle it after we get home from China.) The girls LOVED playing in the ice. They put a pile of it on the trampoline too, and I'm thankful there were no broken bones by the time they were done.

Sunday was my birthday! Alex and the girls gave me a Kindle Fire (a little early as I've been enjoying it for a couple of weeks now!) and I was humbled by all of the sweet bday calls and messages. It has been 10 years now since that tumor was removed from my belly. I am extremely thankful for these last 10 years of health. I often forget that it even happened...amazing how the big ugly scar "disappears" after awhile. My biggest fear when I was going through all of that was wondering if it might prevent me from having children. While it definitely hasn't been an easy road, God has blessed us with three beautiful daughters! We can't wait to meet Brielle in just a few weeks!
After church, we went to my Granny & Pa's to celebrate my Pa's 80th bday (on the 21st)! He is a Godly example to our family and we all love him dearly! He's still getting up early and working on his farm every day!

My mom, Braylee, and baby Miles

I told Trista there needed to be a sign-up sheet for Miles

because everyone wanted to hold him!!

Pa with 13 Great-Grandkids...and two more very soon!

Sara will be having baby #2 about the same time we are in China.

Then we stopped by one of my parents' properties to see the new longhorn calf. Rose and her baby calf named Wednesday.

Yesterday, Jenn invited us to go roller skating! Brynna was determined to wear my old skates, which were very loose and "slippery" as she said. I should have gotten her the rentals with tighter wheels because she literally fell down about 100 times! But...this girl is determined and didn't let it get to her as you can see in the video below. She makes me smile! Braylee managed to never fall down! She had really gotten the hang of it by the end.

Brynna looks like my sis Tracee in this picture. :)

Doing the Hokey Pokey.

Today is my brother's 35th bday! 

Joys of Childhood

The girls definitely keep us laughing around here. They do and say such silly things...things I know we will forget if they aren't documented.

Yesterday, Addison was over playing and I don't even know what the girls were laughing about but I overheard Brynna say, "That's some pretty funny stuff right there!" :)

Brynna's imaginary friend Catherine still makes her appearances occasionally. We recently learned that Catherine lives in "Souf Deekota." When I asked Brynna how you get to her house, Braylee replied, "Well you have to drive south for sure." We also learned that while Catherine lives quite far from us, we are lucky that her grandparents live next door. Brynna "sends her a text" and then she can just run over to play. One particular day last week, Catherine showed up because she wanted Brynna to "give her a spray tan." Seriously?! 😆

Sunday, the sermon was about marriage. Monday evening at dinner, Brynna said she is going to "search and search for the right boy and then she is going to spend the rest of her life with him." The girls started talking about who they might marry when Brynna brought up our neighbor/friend Karson who is also 5. She said, "I might marry Karson but I don't know because I might meet lots of new boys in high school." We rode bikes over to their house after dinner and little Karson was listening to the story as I told Abby. With a huge grin on his face, he said, "She said she might marry me?! Because I think I might marry her!" It was adorable!

Sunday afternoon, we took the girls outside for bubbles and softball. I was taking pictures and clicked over to video just in time to catch Brynna running the bases backwards! ;) She is so excited about getting to play this year!

Karson & Brynna at the park yesterday.

Getting closer...

We are getting closer to bringing Brielle home. Our I800 (US immigration approval to adopt Brielle specifically) was approved on 2/29. Then our paperwork was cabled to Guangzhou by the National Visa Center which means Brielle's visa paperwork was sent to the US Consulate in China for review and approval. This entails having our Article 5 (supporting documents) dropped off by our agency facilitator at the consulate. Drop off and pick ups are only allowed on certain days, so we will have to wait until Tuesday for our paperwork to be dropped off. This processing is a standard 2 weeks. So if Art 5 is in fact dropped off on 3/13, it will be picked up on 3/27 and sent to Beijing. Once China knows the US has cleared all of our paperwork, they will issue our Travel Approval, basically inviting us to come pick up our sweet baby!!

I've stared at the calendar so many times trying to figure out when we will leave, I think I have the months of April and May memorized. :) Most TAs come in about 21 days... so we are still on track to leave on May 2nd or before.

But...our wait for TA and travel plans are being affected by yet more Chinese holidays. There is a holiday April 2-4 that I'm assuming will delay our TA. Then there is another holiday from April 28 to May 1 that will probably delay our travel. Plus, there is a HUGE trade fair going on in Guangzhou from mid-April to May 6th which greatly increases the prices of hotels in GZ (and limits their availability). Sooo...our in-China facilitator thinks she has worked out a plan that will work around the last holiday and get us in GZ about the time the fair is over...but of course that is all dependent on when our TA comes. After waiting over 3 months on our LOA, I am not betting on a short wait time! 😄 We would love to leave for China at the end of April but our main goal is to leave by May 2nd so we return in time for Brynna's pre-school graduation and ballet recital. We will be walking zombies trying to recover from the 12 hr jet-lag, but at least we would be back in time!

Since posts are more fun with pictures in them...

Brynna drew a picture of our whole family with the window crayons. I love Alex and Braylee's long legs and all three of my girls holding hands!

We finally had a pretty snow. Brynna had to go out for a little taste. Braylee was already asleep. (She ran high fevers for 5 days, poor girl.) I had hung the girls' bath rugs out to dry earlier when the weather was gorgeous...didn't realize it was going to snow!