Last Home Study Meeting

Summer fun goofing off with neighbors

Oh goodness, we have been SO super busy. Even though it is summer, the boys have all been busy with activities-and on days we haven't had to leave the house, it has been ridiculously hot here, so we have been searching ways to stay cool by playing in the kiddie pools and taking up invites from friends to crash their neighborhood pools.

Next year, we are joining our neighborhood pool. I already have the money set aside for it, because I can't handle another year of crazy summer heat and constantly searching for places to take the kids that won't induce heat stroke. I'm so excited about summing in the nice cool water next year.

And on that note, Little Dude and JR are swimming now! Little Dude is much further along, as he can actually tread water, dive, and swim the length of the pool a few times. JR is doing great as well, as he can dive, climb out of the pool, and swim the short distance of the pool, but he still needs floaties on his arms for a bit longer. He is almost there though, so I would be after getting in the pool for a week consistently next summer he will have it down.

For the last month I have started watching a sweet little baby boy, whom I will refer to as Hoss on here because he is a cute, yet extremely chunky little guy. I hope the boys stay close friends with him, he is going to be the big guy in school that no one is going to dare mess with. He is actually younger than Champ, but looks older because he is just all around proportionally bigger. The two of them together are keeping my arms in shape! So far, Champ is loving to have someone his size to play with, so I hope he has the same enthusiasm for his sister.

Little Dude, Cole, JR, Champ, Keely. 

Hoss is super sweet though and I am SO lucky to have found him to watch. The money I'm getting from keeping him is going into a little envelope with our little girl's name on it. It feel so good to put more money in it each Friday. We are slowly getting there, though still so far away at the same time. Sigh. Her orphange is doing a "sponsor" drive right now and earlier this year, I had sent money as a partcial sponsorship of her, but now, since we have started the adoption process, we aren't allowed to send any money to help care for her.

That is seriously killing me, to have to sit and watch the orphanage beg for donations and sponsorship, and to see my sweet daughter's little face on the list of kids needing sponsors to cover food and clothes and such. I want so badly to start providing for her.

And I wish so badly that we could have her here now, it kills me realizing that we are going to miss the next few years of her life as we keep chugging along on this adoption paperwork and government involvement stuff.

As for our adoption, we have our LAST homestudy meeting tonight, at our house. Yippieeee! One huge part down!

I have been a crazy woman cleaning and dusting and triple checking childproofing and hoping everything looks great. It is a bit disconcerting to realize that I have three children, and no one has ever come to judge my parenting skills or home skills,but now, wanting to give a family to an orphan, someone is going to come judge my skills. And sanity. And I totally understand why the process is what it is, but still, it is just a bit odd to be on the receiving end of the judgement, even when the social worker is as awesome as ours is.

On that note, I have gotten the house all straight, organized the toys back to the bins they should be in (but never are actually in..haha) and then today we are going to spend ALL DAY at the most awesome science museum near our home and see Lemurs, Wolf pups, dig for dino bones and watch butterflies. We might even take a ride in a space ship! I love the science museum we have here; it is awesome. And it will keep the kids from tearing up the house before Sue gets here to inspect and talk to us one last time.

And all this out an about with 4 kids 6 and under is good practice for me, since once our little girl gets to come home, I'll have 4 kids ages 8, 7, 5 and 4....oh goodness. :)