Thursday, July 1, 2010

All three of our children are swimmers. They love the water on their face. They love the games that can be played with friends in the pool. They love to splash. They love to do handstands or the many other "tricks" that can be easily done in the water yet harder to do on land. This summer was our third year of participating on our neighborhood swim team. Always lots of fun for all involved! Pryce moved up an age bracket and was introduced pretty swiftly to the 100m IM - this is a tough race for a newly turned 8 year old, one that he was NOT wanting anything to do with yet during the last meet on Tuesday, he admitted that he now gets excited when he is about to swim the IM, no big deal after five meets! Colin, though he enjoyed participating in the swimming part of the team, he also enjoyed hanging out with his buddies from the neighborhood and was all about meeting his teammates at McD's for an after meet snack. Never a dull moment with 12 or so 10 year old boys hanging out together under one big tent with a DSi. MK, well, she is all about swimming. Gone is the life jacket, we don't even bother taking it to the pool with us anymore as she just simply doesn't need it. She jumps in, does this little diving underwater maneuver, comes up for a breath, swims to the ladder and repeats over and over and over....and then, she comes home and takes a long afternoon nap!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

"Hey mom, one day, you guys got married and I was still in the heavens" said Mason-Kate. I said, "Oh, you were in the heavens when we got married?" MK responded, "Yes, then I got borned and signed up with you guys." I love the mind of a three year old!

Let's Go Gamecocks! The South Carolina Gamecocks are currently in Omaha, Nebraska playing in the college world baseball series championship. The boys in our home are torn....they love baseball and the state of South Carolina yet they are having a hard time cheering for the Gamecocks as they are wishing it were their Clemson Tigers instead. However, the girls in our home are cheering away for our team! MK even asked me if she could sleep in her little Gamecock skirt. Last night as we were watching, we noticed some familiar faces on the screen....my dad and uncle decided to re-establish their youth and drive 20 hours cross country, without stopping, to see the Gamecocks play! Amazing. There they sat looking as happy as two little larks cheering on a team that means so much to the two of them. Let's Go Gamecocks! Hoping for another win tonight!

Monday, June 28, 2010

YAY! We have officially finished the first big step in our next adoption journey. On Thursday we received an email stating that our homestudy had been completed and approved by our agency. Next up, fingerprinting with the USCIS! Our family loves to celebrate so off to the movie and dinner we went. Great fun and lots of laughs for all of us! Many ask how long the adoption process will take or if we have to do the SAME things we did for MK. We hope our paperwork will go to China by November, we expect our referral to take 9-12 months based on the age and needs we are open to, and then we expect our travel to take place 6 months following referral....these are all, of course, what we expect to happen all the while knowing that a bigger hand has His own plans. We expected MK to be a healthy infant girl and we expected the entire process to take up to 14 months - fyi, we would still be waiting for that healthy baby girl now, almost 4 years later....unbelievable! As for the process, yes, we are having to do everything ALL.OVER.AGAIN. The biggest difference this time has been simply the fact that we went into the process with open eyes. With MK, admittedly so, we wanted a baby yesterday! This time, as excited as we all are, we are comfortable knowing that we will wait.
Going back, we have two boys who LOVE baseball and one little girl who spends a lot of her time cheering them on at the field. MK was often heard repeating us by saying, "Wait for it Colin!" or "Keep your eye on the ball Pryce!"....both boys had winning seasons and look forward to chasing the little white ball in the Fall.

Pryce had a great time during this particular game. One of his best buddies from school was the catcher. Pryce would get up to bat and the two of them could be smiling and chatting away....whatever they talked about must have worked, Pryce hit the ball everytime!
A common site from behind the scenes....MK was always right up at the fence talking to her boys about swinging and keeping a good eye on the ball.
Colin was one his team could always count on to hit the ball this season. No more Mr. Nice Kid for this guy, he was in it to win! Pop and Gran made a special appearance to see the boys play....always nice to have special people watching in the stands!