Climbing tree!

We finally found a good climbing tree in our yard....well, really in the six acres behind our hose that is a land trust. And actually, it's not really behind our house, it's right behind our neighbors, who happen to go to our church and we mentioned that Evie was climbing the tree, and apparently they saw her. I was there the whole time..and again today when she wanted to climb again. They were watching again.....is it wrong to let your five year old go 20 feet up in a tree? Here are some pictures, you decide!

Not so high really, is it? That yellow spot near the bottom of the branches is Damen. He made it up a few branches today, he was about 8 feet off the ground.

I like this one.

Oh, and if you can't tell, Evie likes to climb trees in dresses. Don't worry, she has leggings on! Today she decide it was cool to wear two dresses. Nathan's comment on it was "homeschooler" :-) I think she might have climbed a little high today than Saturday. She loves being up high and view!

shoe tying

About two weeks ago Evie sat down with one of the shoe tying books we have and decided she was going to learn to tie her shoes. It took her all of ten minutes and now she can tie shoes.That was easy. Now all we have to do is get her some shoes with laces. :-)

expander update

Tuesday Hannah got her palate expander in, with the help of all her siblings. The orthodontist is amazing. He said "who wants to help install the expander?" of course Evie and the boys all wanted to help, so he gave them all a job. Then, when it was in, he gave them all a glove and had them stick a finger in Hannah's mouth to make sure it was in. Hannah is amazing as well, as she put up with all her siblings sticking their fingers in her mouth! The install went fine, Hannah is a little apprehensive about the turning of it each night, she did not like the first cranks we did at the office and after I did it last night she said it felt funny, but Evie got her some ice she sucked on that for 10 seconds and was good. So I think we'll be okay. :-)

Easter

The day before Easter my Mom and I took the kids to a walk through of the Easter story at the main campus of our church.

They made palm branches

Evie made a very colorful palm branch.

The boys weren't as into the coloring

This was the first station. The person in the middle and her daughter to the right both go to our campus and the kids love them, so they were very excited to see them there.

At the end was an Easter egg hunt. 

On Easter my parents left right after church, so we had a very low key afternoon. The girls and Nathan did dye eggs though. It was a beautiful day, so they did it out on the deck. 

Having fun with Daddy

Kaleb was intrigued by the egg dying

Damen had been throwing toys off the deck, so he wasn't allow on the deck during the egg dying. So he watched from the doorway. 

Kaleb decided to join them and they had a good time together.

Here's the finished product!

name changes

On Wednesday they made it sound so easy, go into the social security administration and change their names, and get a new number if you want to. Well, Friday I went in and they wouldn't give me a new number because I don't have their birth certificates yet, and oh yeah, you might not be able to change it because they're getting benefits through the department of social services. Right, so this morning I spent over an hour on hold waiting to ask someone about what would happen if I changed their numbers and how to change their names. Basically you'd have to reapply for everything and it'd be a big mess. Today, after Kaleb's therapy, since we were down where all the offices were for name changes we went and did it. First, we went to the social security administration. The kids were good, and it was pretty quick. The guard didn't seem to like us too much, but it was okay, because my kids behaved fairly well, so they didn't really cause any problems. Kaleb tried to talk to the guard and I don't think he appreciated that, but oh well. After that we went to the department of social services. Have you ever been there? Don't go. I tried to make an appointment while I had the person on the phone this morning and they wouldn't let me. They have one receptionist who everyone has to talk to when they come in. She helps some of them people and the others wait for a "worker" there were maybe ten people in front of me in line. I waited in line an hour. Then they found that Damen's health insurance wasn't verified in November like it should have been. WHAT?!?! So we then had to wait for a worker, who was very confused with what was going on, because I had no idea about any of it because their social worker had been doing all of that before. She finally found the verification form from Oct. filled out and submitted without a signature and said she'd figured it out from there. So we finally made it out of there after the boys had completely lost it...they lost it about 20 minutes into standing in line. And on the way home I realized they had not given me back Damen's medical card and my adoption decrees. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I wasn't about to turn around and have to wait through the line and I was most of the way home anyway, so I figured I'd just call them when I got home. Well, the worker had called me to say she had the card, but would just issue a new one with his new name. That was fine, but the adoption decrees I needed, so I tried to call their office and it gives me a message that they are no longer taking calls and you have to call the 800 number that I waited on hold for an hour on this morning. Not cool. The worker ended up calling before I had figured out a way to get through to the office, and is sending everything back to me, but it was not cool until I got that call. After that we went to the park for half an hour and then went and got Hannah's spacer that had fallen out put back in. A very crazy day, to begin a very crazy week!

cute kids

I'm working on a post right now with photos of the boys from the past year plus, I also will do an Easter post soon hopefully, but until then here's a cute picture of the kids in Hannah's bed. Was that a long enough sentence for you? :-)

That's Damen, Kaleb, Evie and Hannah :-)

Happy Easter!!!!

We are a family...

Yesterday was a success. As the judge put it, we had all ready passed the test, it was just the formalities of the paperwork that had to be done yesterday. Which was quick and easy. We now officially have two new family members Damen (Little Boy Blue) and Kaleb (Green Machine) are ours! Nathan and I were both surprised at the relief we felt when it was all done. It was quite a freeing feeling. After the adoption my parents took us out for lunch and then we headed to the UCONN campus to see their sports museum, cows, horses and eat some super yummy ice cream at the dairy barn. It was a good day.

Here's a picture of us with the judge after the adoption is finished. I'm holding Damen and Nathan has Kaleb.

Here we are walking into see the cattle. 

Kaleb got very scared when one of the cattle mooed. There was only one that decided to talk to us, but it was very talkative. 

Damen, Evie and Hannah enjoyed the cattle, the girls were intrigued by them and loved being able to get so close and examine them.

The girls having fun!

Yes, my Mom was there too, she just took most of the pictures :-) 

Aren't they cute?

After the cattle and horses it was ice cream time. Sorry, no pictures of the horses...but here are the kids enjoying their ice cream!!! 

Trying some of Mommies ice cream.....hey, wait a sec, you have the same kind as me!

Oh, and did I mention this is what we woke up to yesterday?

Hannah's reaction? NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. No more snow! Damen was super excited about it though. It was all pretty much melted by the time we got back.

a productive day...

Today was WAY too productive. I got my bedroom floor clean. I don't think my bedroom floor has been clean since we moved in. But today I did it, it is wonderful...yes there is still junk on every surface, but we'll work on that. I also managed to rake our backyard, clean up the kitchen from my cookie baking and such yesterday, pickup and sweep the living room and the girls room. Not bad for a days work. The girls also did school and the boys helped with the picking up, so they weren't totally ignored all day :-)
Last week was one of our crazy weeks, Monday therapy, Tuesday Hannah got her spacers in and we hosted Community group, Wednesday we hosted a youth fondue night at our house, Thursday was the last day of regular AWANA for the year and by Friday I had a kid who was sick enough we couldn't go anywhere. Hannah was actually sick from Wednesday on. Little Boy Blue was sick at the beginning of the week. That was last week. This week is Spring break week here. No therapy, no evening activities. It's great!

We have a date!!!!!!!!!

Thursday we received a letter in the mail (two actually, one for me and one for Nathan) with the court date for the boys adoption. It will be done this Wednesday, the 16th! Yes, we were only given six days notice, but we'll take it! We're super excited and looking forward to being done with state involvement. Although, as Hannah said when I told her it was the last time we'd see Miss. Leslie, "I want to see her more" it turns out that she won't be able to make it to court that day, so we won't even get to see her then. She has been amazing and we are VERY thankful for such a wonderful social worker!

How toilets are made

Tonight Evie turns and said to me "Mommy, I know how toilets are made." "really? How?" "Well, first you start with a funny shaped rock and then you smooth it and get come clay to make the toilet seat out of" almost........Evie has been doing a lot of "I know how ____ is made" or "I have an idea to make ____"

It other toilet related stories.....Little Boy Blue was singing the Potty song from Slugs and Bugs the other day and said "Where you gonna go when you gotta go? Go to the potty with Jesus" I guess he's getting that Jesus is with you all the time and that's a good thing? :-)

Birthday Cake

Nathan's birthday was a week ago and we celebrated with some cake :-) On Friday, I didn't know what to do with the kids in the late afternoon, so I decided to make a three layer chocolate cake with filling, truffles and frosting....simple with four kids right? :-) Sure, why not? We had fun making it. All the kids helped. And it was super yummy, as Evie said "it tastes better when you help make it" not like chocolate cake would taste bad, but that's okay!

Here's the finished product!

crazy hair

Recently at AWANA it was crazy hair night. Here's the crazy hair the girls went with. They definitely had some of the best hair there!

Hannah.....

and Evie

Spring

Spring has finally sprung and we spent a lot of time outside this week. On Tuesday we were at the park for four hours. The kids had a blast! We took a walk down the trail behind the park and played on the play ground. The rest of the week we just spent time in our yard. The snow has finally all melted...well mostly...there are still some piles in some places. But the weather has been great and we're enjoying it. I have pictures, but haven't had a chance to upload them, I will attempt to do that soon. But it's been great being able to be outside for long periods of time again!