handsful

As of today, our paperwork has been in China for 9 months. Our “paper pregnancy” is full term! We are hopeful that we’ll be matched with Lainey in the next 3-6 months, through our agency’s Waiting Child program. Our Waiting Child paperwork has been with our agency for 6 months…the AVERAGE wait for a WC referral is 6-8 months. I think average sounds just fine! We’ll keep you posted.

Thought I’d share a few pictures (gee, that’s something new, eh?) of our Sunday. We went to church, went out to lunch, and then took our boat out for some play time in the river. The kids love to kneeboard…well, everyone except Marley (she’s decided water sports aren’t her thing). Enjoy!

Captain Randy…cute, eh?

First “mate” (get it?)

Must be something funny in that water!

Hey, Mom!

sisters and…

brothers!

Our Eastern Tent Caterpillars (smuggled out of NC 3 weeks ago…) emerged from their cocoons today and we released them in the front yard. I wonder if they were confused, waking up in Florida? Aren’t they cute?!

Caterpillar wrangler (see it sitting on her hand)

Fuzzy little fellow

I mentioned that we had 6 new arrivals, right? The kids scooped up 6 tadpoles from our backyard pond and they’re now living on our patio table. You can see two of them in this picture. We’ll have tiny frogs soon…check back for pictures!

The theme this month was “Frames”. This present came from my “new” SP…several of the gals in our group had to quit the SP program, so I was matched with someone new! We received a beautiful white frame, just waiting for Lainey’s referral picture. She also included a child’s photo album just for Lainey, complete with pictures of all of us! There is also a wonderful fridge magnet frame with a wonderful scripture verse! And, she may be my new pal, but somehow she already knows of our love of Jelly Bellys and MY love of chocolate ;) Candy necklaces for the girls and bubble gum bats for the boys! Thank you so much, we love everything!

Being a homeschool family has it’s advantages. For instance, we’re taking a break from our chronological study of history to delve into China’s history, We want to learn as much as possible about Lainey’s homeland. The other day, the kids enjoyed copying Chinese characters out of the book “Long is a Dragon”. This is a great book, giving a nice history of Chinese writing, clear directions on how to write the characters (directions of strokes, etc.), and gives picture comparisons to the characters (i.e. “man” looks like a man walking).

Okay, so maybe it’s not a true “ladybug sighting” just yet. They’re still little larva, eating their food and drinking from a sponge! But, soon (the booklet doesn’t say how long this takes!) they’ll attach to the top of the dome and become pupas. Then, after 5 days, we’ll have ladybugs! We plan on keeping them for a couple of days…feeding them a raisin or two…and then we’ll release them into our backyard.

Besides our ladybug larva, we also have 2 Eastern Tent Caterpillars currently in cocoons in our butterfly tent and they should become moths in about a week. In the past, we’ve also raised butterflies, tadpoles and grasshoppers (TONS of baby grasshoppers, oh my!) The kids are animals lovers and seeing these transformations only confirms for us the amazing work of our Creator!

Spoiled again! We loved our CCAI June/July SP gift for April! The theme was “Lullaby CD”. We received FOUR CDs! Sing Me to Sleep Mommy, Sing Me to Sleep Daddy, Disney Babies Lullabies, and a Baby Einstein! Can’t wait to listen to these. And, as usual, she filled the box with goodies for the kids (including the “big” kid, my DH)….Jelly Belly jelly beans and lolly pops, Ghiradelli chocolate (Mom ain’t sharing these…), chocolate ladybugs, and chocolate balls!

Thank you again, SP!

Lots of “blogable” things happened this weekend, so I thought I’d cram it all into one post :)

Saturday, we took the kids to St. Augustine, Florida for a quick visit. St. Augustine is about 45 minutes south of us, and is known as the oldest city in the nation (it was founded 42 years before the English colony at Jamestown, Va and 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock!). We took a carriage ride around town, with the driver filling us in on all the rich history of St. Augustine. We also saw the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the country. We got there too late to tour inside (we’ll do that next time), but just the outside was amazing to see. A couple more pictures…

sitting on the fort wall!

Posing with “Jack” the horse and his carriage

On to Sunday…Abbey had her first day of being a “Kidstuf dancer” at church. “Kidstuf” is our church’s youth service, where parents and kids attend together to hear a message, sing, and watch a play about the virtue of the month. She’s been excited about doing this for the last couple of years, and as a rising 6th grader, she’s finally old enough. She loved it!

After church, we got a surprise phone call from our friend, Sharon Pierce! She was driving up from Miami with her kids, Connor, Sydney, and Mia and had time to stop and visit with us. We did tons of catching up and our kids played great together. My boys would like to adopt Connor as their “honorary big brother”! Sharon and I have been friends since 8th grade and Sharon and Randy grew up in church together. Sharon is responsible for my marriage…she introduced Randy and I when we were in the 9th grade. :)

Sharon and Donna

Our 4 and her 3!

Abbey, Sydney, Marley, and Mia