Don't Forget...Today is RED ENVELOPE DAY!!

Just a brief reminder that today is RED ENVELOPE DAY! Don't forget to mail your red envelopes to President Obama!! For more information or to send envelopes online, visit the official web site at www.redenvelopeday.com .

Preschool Here I Come!!

Esther Marie is ready to go..go..go! She loves going places and loves flowers. Today, she was headed to a meeting with mommy and daddy.

Emmie meets her new teacher.

School is a fun place with lots of toys!

Daddy shows me the "preschoolers only" playground.

Today, we received wonderful news and an answer to prayer....Esther Marie was accepted into the preschool program at one of the public schools in our county!! In fact, it is the ONLY preschool program in the county and is highly recommended.

Esther Marie will be turning three soon, so about a month ago she had some testing done to see what areas she needed help in. This afternoon, we went to the IEP meeting where we found out the results of the tests and which services she qualified for. We had hoped she would qualify for the preschool program but thought more realistically that she would just qualify for speech therapy. I tried not to get my hopes up and prayed for God to put Esther Marie where he wants her to be. Now she will be attending this program 4 days/week for three hours each day. Another answer to prayer was that she can start on her birthday if she wants to...instead of having to wait until school starts again at the end of summer. Well, her birthday is next week...Tuesday, April 7th. She will start soon after that date. She seems very excited about it, although we will have to wait to see how it goes. Today, we met her teacher, her speech therapist and got to see her classroom and the playground. They even have a carpool line for the preschoolers, but I am definitely walking her in the first week!

Stayed tuned and I'll let you know how her first day of school goes (and how mommy reacts to her baby girl starting school). In the meantime, we have some shopping to do....school supplies and a backpack!!

A Very Enjoyable Spring Break Week!

Well, we are in Spring Break week here...actually, the week is almost over. It's hard to believe how fast it has flown by. The kids have been great and it's been wonderful having more time with all of them. I am looking forward to summer so much so we can do more fun things. They have enjoyed reading and playing games this week. Our new passion is Yahtzee because we can all play and enjoy it! Even Esther Marie gets excited and hollers out "Yahtzee" and carries the game over to us wanting to "play." She has her own dice, chips and score pad and loves to pretend she is playing. The kids have also enjoyed watching movies, playing outdoors, and having fun family time.

We went to a Home and Garden Show last Saturday and we had a blast. The new blog photo is one taken there at the show. (I will post more about our fun later.) We had some rain for a few days at the beginning of the week, but computer time, game boys, and the Wii always seem to cure those bad-weather-blues really fast!

We FINALLY got a chance to visit the new Bass Pro Shop in our area. We stayed forever and had a great time! What an awesome store! The kids all enjoyed a Moon Pie (click for history of the Moon Pie) at the end of the visit. After devouring a double-decker, they were begging for more.

Today, we had some photos of the kids taken, and I will hopefully get some of those posted on the blog soon. They turned out really sweet. This was the first time we have taken Esther Marie to have formal photos made and she was a total "ham". Our photographer was laughing quite a bit, and so were we.

This afternoon, we headed for the airport and were blessed to be able to welcome our friends back from Colombia with their two new adopted children.....Angi Camilla (age 11) and Leandro (age 5). The addition of these lovely children means that their family now has FOUR...just like ours. We are overjoyed for them! After the airport gathering, we headed to this family's house for a pizza party to welcome them home. The kids enjoyed outdoor play and plenty of pizza.

Tomorrow, we plan to head south to spend the day with my cousin Amy and her husband, Tim. We are going to ride bikes, have a picnic and play some games. The bikes are loaded on (and in) the car and we are ready to go! Jasper got a new bike seat attached for Emmie on his bike so this will be her first ride in it. On Sunday, we will end the week with church, scouts and home group. I will be sad when the week is over.

I took bunches of pictures of all the events we have done lately and hope to get some of them posted on the blog...soon! I used to stay up late posting and pouring over photos, and now the kids wear me out so much, I can't keep up with all of it. Watch for more posts coming soon (to "catch up"). Hope you have had a blessed week!

Peek-A-Boo...I See You!

Hannah Beth is the budding photographer in our family who caught this sweet "Peek-A-Boo" pose of our precious Esther Marie!

MaryAlyce's Teacher and Class are Pro-Active!! (President Obama...I hope you watched this video they sent you!!)

Barbie and Me...Both 50 This Year!

BARBIE AT 50.....IF SHE REALLY AGED???

My mom called me this morning to inquire about my birth year......1959, she asked???? (Did she REALLY not remember??) Yes, mom...that's it (sigh). I can't believe you are turning 50 this year! Neither can I, mom...join the club. She reminded me that Barbie (the doll) is turning 50 too...yesterday, in fact, was her birthday. I, on the other hand, am a few days younger than Barbie since my birthday is not until the end of April...so I can still claim to be 49 for a little while longer!

Well, mom had seen the computer generated image of Barbie (shown above) showing how she would "probably" look if Barbie truly did age. Mom said to me....I just wanted to tell you....you look MUCH better! (I laughed.) Thank you, mom!!!

ME......ALMOST 50!!!

Esther Marie is 35 Months Old Today!

Brushing...

Hugging...

Waiting...

Reading...

Laughing and Loving....It's ALL good!!!

Well, today Esther Marie is 35 months old! When I type that, it sounds like a lot to me..."35", but then I think.....hey, that is barely three! (She joined our family when she was 26 months old.) In another month, we will be celebrating her first birthday here in the states...and her daddy shares the same birthday....so it will be a big day! Not sure what we will be doing, at this point, to celebrate. I have to think about that some....will it be more low-key and close-to-home or will we try to make a giant party out of it???? I need to pray about what is best for her since she won't understand what it is all about yet. We have been trying to get her to hold up two of her little fingers and say that she is "two" but she hasn't caught on yet...so I don't think "three" will be any different...not at first. We'll see.....

She certainly is a smart little thing....and knows how to tell you or show you what she wants. The other night it was getting late and she came up to me chattering in her soft, sweet little voice. She had just had a bath with MaryAlyce and smelled so good. I hugged her and kissed her and said "uh huh, that's nice" because I didn't understand what she was saying. I was busy with something also, so she soon toddled away. I thought that was the end of it and something else had captured her attention. The next thing I knew, she was bringing me a big Dr. Seuss book that she wanted to read. I told her we would read it together in just a few minutes. Then she disappeared once again and came back into the kitchen a third time. This time she had my soft, fuzzy robe in her arms and she was indicating to me that I needed to put it on....NOW! She had gone up the stairs on her own to the bedroom and found my robe on the end of the bed...and had brought it back to me....all the way down the stairs...ALL BY HERSELF!! This certainly is one little girl who KNOWS what she wants and she will tell you or find a way to SHOW YOU exactly what she wants!!!! What she lacks in speech, she makes up for with brain power and determination. It really is an endearing quality!!!

At that point, I could no longer resist such an "offer" (not that I was really trying to "resist")...so I dropped what I was doing, got into that robe, and we headed for the den and our fuzzy orange (Go VOLS!) blanket for story time....Emmie, Mei Mei and me. It was another one of those moments that I will always treasure!!

Snow in the DEEP South!

Well, "they" said we would get snow....and we did! It started snowing after midnight and we got what I would call a "light covering." It is 9:30 on Sunday morning, March 1st (!!) and it is snowing again...little flakes...and it is COLD....32 degrees F. The kids are running around all excited and of course, they want to bundle up and get out there so they can get soggy wet. (grin) We have not had measurable snow in our area (again "they" say) in 9 years! We had temps recently in the 70s and so this is amazing to us. You know when the weather man is on television continuously in our area, something is going on! The roads don't have snow on them, but they have closed portions of the interstate because of ice and accidents. We are supposed to have temps in the 20s tonight, so things should freeze up again. Tomorrow, you probably won't be able to tell that we had snow at all, so today we will enjoy our "winter wonderland."

We got dressed quickly and headed outside to the sounds of children's laughter as other neighborhood kids were running all around playing in the snow. After a few pictures, our kids dove right in and started hurling snowballs at each other...and us! Gloves got wet quickly and so did feet, since we are not that prepared for snow with boots and the proper kind of gloves. No matter...play anyway!! Squealing and full of mischief, the kids had a blast! Jasper and I loved watching them, taking pics and shooting some video. They tried to make a snowman and got some big balls of snow stacked up, but the poor guy was dirty with pine needles poking out everywhere. He never got eyes or a nose, but oh well...the rolling was the fun part. I would say we got about an inch total maybe a little more where it had blown. Now the sun has come out and most of the snow has melted away. We had fun while it lasted and the hot chocolate and eggnog scones we consumed when we went inside were the perfect tasty treats to warm us up...and a great ending to our snowy adventure!!