March

August

I am starting out August strong! I am building a fire pit. It was soooo much work to dig up the grass, but now that that is done, I  hope to make some quick progress and to finish it up in time to have a little camp out on Saturday.

We are adding an apt. to our basement but it is completely unfinished. We hired someone to come do the big stuff and then Scott will finish it up. The renovation stars next week and I am very excited about that. Having the apt in is the first step to me not having to do the route any more.

I will try to post some pictures as I continue my work on the fire pit.


update:
The basement is coming along great and the contractors are just finishing up their part.

The fire pit turned out great and we have had some fun evenings together as a family by the camp fire.

We just got back from another awesome family vacation at Rehoboth beach in Delaware. The kids loved the ocean. It was so much fun!

I have been working in the nights picking up bulk mail from the DC post office for 5 months now! I have finally started to adjust to my new schedule. Scott does two days a week for me which has been helping a lot.

Noah started preschool today! He was so excited, he could hardly wait! Noah is so clever and so sweet and is growing up wayyyy to fast! Slow down Noah! Noah is a great problem solver. He loves to work. He loves to impress and please us. He loves to ride his little 4 wheeler(not a real 4 wheeler) He wants to learn to break dance and is starting a hip hop dance class next week. Noah loves pirates and is already asking to have a pirate birthday party next year. Noah was so excited that he and Scott set up the tent and slept in it all night. He said he was soooo cold! Noah is clever and bright and sweet and thoughtful and I love him so much!!

Maya is blowing us away, as always as she continues to develop so fast! She is doing so good at learning how to talk. he and Noah are so close, and he is her protector and comforter. Maya loves to come crying to me, and when I ask what is wrong she says, "Daniel! Daniel!" Maya loves to sing, the itsy bitsy spider and knows the actions. Maya eats almost anything. Maya still cries almost every time we are in the car. Maya loves to help me clean the house. Maya loves to swing on the tire swing in our backyard. Maya is my little buddy and I love her so much!!

Daniel is still honestly a little tricky at times as he still has a hard time communicating and fusses ALOT! He is making great progress though after 6 months in a speech program. Daniel also is at a stage that he loves to get into EVERYTHING. He loves to find my make up and dig his finger into my lipstick, he colors on walls, he gets out the flour or the sugar and dumps it on the ground. He gets into the freezer every chance he gets(which now has a lock on it) and would take the ice cream to hid behind the lazy boy and eat it with his hands. He has dipped my cell phone in a glass of water, if he ever gets his hands on anything liquid, he will open it and pour it on the only carpet downstairs...this boy is really a handful these days! Daniel LOVES swimming. He LOVES sweets. He loves to hide. He HATES monsters. He loves TV unfortunately. Daniel is a joker and loves to make you laugh. Daniel loves to snuggle. He is super outgoing and says hi to everyone he passes. He says, "Hi! How you doin!" He also says, "Ya, Cool, Awesome!" when he likes an idea, which is super cute. He is my sweet snugely baby and I love him so much!!

I feel so blessed to be the mom of these three amazing children!

July

We got all settled into our new home and love it. We have a hot tub and the kids swim in it a couple times a day. They all do really well in the water, but especially Daniel. He is a natural and LOVES the water.

I would often make the kids something different from us for dinner, but cracked down this month and decided to enforce having them eat their veggies and try everything on their plate. The kids are doing great and love hearing all the praise I give when they try something new.

WE have had another busy month because there were some things that needed to be fixed on the house right away .We had a handicap walk in bathtub. You open the door and sit down and it fills up. Daniel would not keep the door shut and all the water would spill out if we had any in it, so we had to get a new bath tub. Scott did it and it turned out great.
Scott also fixed a leaky outdoor faucet, A leaky sink, Our water heater broke and he installed a new one.

I have been doing the morning route I do now for 4 months. I drive from Frederick to a DC post office and pick up bulk mail. I enjoy doing it but was getting a little warn out with all the work that we have been doing to sell our house and fix up both houses. Scott helps me out one or two times a week which is so nice!

Maya is talking a lot more. She repeats most words that we say. She loves to put on clothes and shoes and to give us a little fashion show. Maya loves being around Daniel and will call for him in the mornings when she wakes up.

Maya is a great eater. Her favorite foods are any veggies, eggs and black beans.

Noah and Daniel are both doing great and just having a ton of fun in our new house and big back yard.

Scott sold his boat and bought riding lawn mower. He got a trailor for $30 and he and noah painted it to match the mower. The kids love going for rides. It has already come in really handy for yard projects to haul stuff around the yard.

There is the update for July!

June 2013

I woke up one morning to posts in the property in our backyard and realized that they were building aptments just behind us. We had planned to move in the future, but decided it would be harder to sell our townhouse with a construction site in our backyard. That was on Sunday. On Tuesday we agreed to build our house. On Wednesday we looked at two houses. They were not nice and too expensive and we got discouraged and stopped looking. On Friday we went and looked at two more houses, then our real estate agent remembered a friend from church who had been remodeling her house for a year and was almost ready to put it on the market. We went over that night and new this was the one! We were VERY busy all of June rushing to get a million projects finished on the town house and to have it ready to sell. Luckily it sold with out too many kinks and we were able to move into our new house! 

Maya is so amazing. We are crazy about this kid! She is walking great. She is starting to say some words including bun bun, which is her bunny, mama, dada, Daniel, ba ba (which means she wants to breast feed.) She has a very sweet disposition and loves to just sit and hang out and play with our cell phones and chit chat, but also has a fiesy side too and can stand up for herself. 

Daniel honestly is driving me a little nuts. he screams and whines non stop and tunes out alot. It is so fustrating. He is still my sweet heart though. We had a great date together and watched dispicable me. I really enjoyed getting to snuggle him for an hour and a half. 

Noah is forever our big helper. He had so much fun with helping us with all of the project we had on the house. 

May

While I am at it, here is my update for the beginning of May. pictures will come eventually!

We are selling our town house and buying a single family home! We were very busy getting our house ready to sell. We have been showing our house and are hopeful to sell it soon. We already have a house picked out and are under contract. We will close in early July.

Maya is learning so fast. She is very steady on her feet now. She walks great and even attempts to jump and can spin in circles and then lands on her bum. She can say Momma and Dada, ffffffffaaaa for food, she says HI!, she can wave bye bye, can blow and claps at herself when she does something good. She can give a high five. She still does not love being in the car but is doing much better. She sleeps through the night but wakes up at 6am to eat and I am not home from my route until 6:30 to 6:45. She used to eat ANYTHING but is starting to be a little more particular. She is so mild and mellow, and it is so much fun to have my little buddy with my chilin' on my hip. She is also becoming more independent and loves to run around and play with the boys. 

Daniel is really blossoming in his speech. He can put two words together now and is able to mimic us. After 2 months of visits from his speech therapist, he FINALLY started saying "more" which was the word that we would focus on each time. After that he really took off. Since then he can copy what we say to say his own prayers and is learning very fast.

Daniel is a tough kid. He loves to wrestle and wrestle and wrestle. He is sweet and snugly and will run up and give almost anyone a hug. He has the most adorable smile that will melt your heart. He is learning the whole time out routine and is starting to grasp it. He CRIES EVERY NIGHT for two hours! It is so frustrating! Daniel also protests any solid foods and only wants drinks, so it is a struggle to try to get him to eat since we can't really reason with him yet. Daniel LOVES animals. He loves going to the bouncy house and chucky cheese. He really likes going out anywhere, which is a contrast from Noah who always prefers to stay at home. 

Noah got an electrical 4 wheeler from our neighbors and has so much fun on it. He looks like such a natural as he maneuvers up and down the hills in our backyard by standing up, and leaning forward and tilting side to side. Noah is such a big helper and especially loves to help daddy with projects. He has his little tool box that he carries around and loves to hold the measuring tape and help out when he can. Noah is such a little charmer and has such a beautiful smile. He loves playing with the football in the yard or digging around in the garden. He loves running around with the neighbor kids and is really good at riding his bike with training wheels. 

My route is going great! I love doing it, but I am definitely not bouncing back physically from manual labor the way that I did in my 20's! It is good exercise for me though since I hate running or any other exercise really. 

April

Main events for April

Noah turned 4! He had a fun super hero party with his friends at Chuck e Cheese

Scott had a birthday. I sort of suprised him by having his dad fly out for a fishing trip and Scott bought a boat and an old truck. 

Maya started walking

Scott got a garage to work on cars. He has always wanted one. He installed a lift which was a huge project

March

I let the boys bring colored water in the bath the other night. Daniel had his back to us and was squirting the water. When I finally realized what he ws doining his face was already completly green. By the time I got my camera, Noah already had him pretty cleaned up, but it was still pretty funny

February

Here are a bunch of pictures for January and February. I haven't been taking a lot of good photos lately. 

In February our basement renter moved out and we got a new renter. Scott organized his shed and built an A frame and shelves. 

I have been working on a new quiet book for the kids. 

We have a YMCA membership. I take all three of the kids swimming on my own and they have a lot of fun. We love going to the play area at the Y to kill some time and get out of the house and go there a few times a week. 

Noah

Noah is loving joyschool. He takes swim lessons and is doing good. Noah has always been a bit of a hitter. We go through ups and downs but right now it is espessially hard and frustrating. Hopefully we will be able to get past the hitting soon. The kids at the YMCA will be grateful. 

January

Happy New Year!

I am very excited about 2013. It is basically the first year in our marriage that we have not had the stress emotionally or financially about fertility or adoption. Now we get to take a deep breath and just appreciate and enjoy our family. It really is a great feeling to know that we did it. We made it through the ups and downs and all of our kids are here! I am so happy and so grateful to our birthparents and their families and to Mayas biological parents. We would not have a family if it wasn't for all of these people and it is a beautiful thing that they have all done for us. Our children are also an answer to many prayers and I am so grateful to the Lord for hearing us and answering our prayers and sending us these precious angels. Seeing direct answers to our prayers, and seeing overall how we have been supported and comforted  through our trials is, a confirmation of my faith and a reminder that God loves and cares for us individually and knows what we need and that he does hear my prayers.

This year has started out great! I ended the year finishing a lot of projects which was a great feeling, and started the new year with a clean slate as far as responsibilities. The kids are having a ton of fun playing with all of their new toys. For the first week I let all the toys just sit out in the living room so that they could go from toy to toy all day.

Resolutions:
I am going to have to think this through a little and get more specific, but I want to have resolutions this year involving making dinners, journal keeping, saving money and scripture reading. I also want to have complete compiling photo albums for our family since 2009.

Daniel has made some great progress with his speech. As of 1/4/2013 he can say "this, what's this, where'd it go? (often just shortened to go?). He can say ball, car, cookie, bubbles and of course his favorite... NO!"
Daniel is in a crazy hard toddler phase as of recently. He is so curious and so full or energy, he is always up to something. The other day we caught him dipping Scott's new phone in a glass of water like an oreo cookie. He stuck his whole hand in the fruit dip I had out for our guests. I was letting each boy play with a ball of dough as I made pitas, and I turned my head for a minute to flip the pitas in the oven, and a minute was all the time Daniel needed to climb on the counter and dump out all of my flour.
Daniel is getting frustrated with his lack of ability to communicate which has started kicking in some tantrums here and there. It wasn't long ago that it was Noah that had me running around like a chicken with my head cut off, so I just have to remind myself that this phase doesn't last forever.
Another funny thing about Daniel is that he LOVES to wrestle. That is his thing. When Dad comes home, he sits on the floor and wrestles the kids. Since Daniel could crawl, he wanted to climb up and sit our our heads every time we laid own. Now that he is more mobile, when we sit on the couch he climbs up our bodies til his legs are around your neck and he will lock his legs around your neck and squeeze. I am interested to see if he grows up to like wrestling.

He was evaluated a few months ago by a therapist for his speech delay, but not quite far enough behind to qualify for therapy. They said to give them a call back even if he can say 10 words at his first birthday, so I scheduled an appointment, and am excited to see how that goes in a couple weeks.

This evening I went in to feed Maya who woke up for her 11:00 feeding. I was surprised to see her sitting straight up in her crib! This is the first time she has gotten into the sitting position by herself! Good job Maya.

My kids have a hard time sitting still during sacrament. One of my friends mentioned that they have started doing "reverent time" We have started this with Noah and for the past two weeks with Noah, once the little ones are in bed, we watch about 10 minutes of a conference talk with him. He has to sit up and listen and can't play with any toys. He has been doing really well and it is great practice for Sundays. After reverent time, we have "special time" where we do a craft or something else fun with him by himself, which is a great incentive for him to be good during "reverent time"

We have all had colds around this household since before Christmas, and I am really looking forward to healthier days.