Lovin Summer

The decision to take some of our tax return and get an above ground pool has proved to be a wonderful decision! We have had alot of laughs in the pool. It has been amazing to watch the girls go from only wearing their life vests to using a noodle to not using anything! I wanted to teach the girls to swim but swimming in the lake where we live wasn't going to work. I guess we are too prissy and don't like the dead fish floating by or the snakes, or the smell!! Makenna, the brave one, was jumping off the ladder and swimming under water the entire width of the pool (15 foot) within a couple of days! She swims under water with her little butt sticking out of the water and looks like a little water bug traveling at warp speed!! Hannah on the other hand is very cautious and scared of everything as always. She HAS to have her face mask and snorkle at all time! Yesterday she finally put the snorkle down and only "needed" her mask. She is now jumping off the ladder doing split jumps, crisscross applesauce, and a free fall that makes a splash bigger than she is! TJ and/or Ryan are over almost daily to swim with the girls. The girls love to get on their backs and they go under water the width of the pool with them. It is so nice to have the boys close by and the girls LOVE spending time with their big brothers. I have loved having all 6 of us together so much. Don't get me wrong, I am glad the boys have their own place but glad they are close by!!!
In other news, Scott started his new job at Menards yesterday. It has been a tough 3 years for him. After losing his job and then getting a job and realizing after the first day he HATED it, yesterday was a much welcomed change for him! It is hard for everyone when you hate your job. He endured for 23 months before God gave him the Menards opportunity. We still are not sure what God was trying to teach Scott or us but glad to have a new path to go down. His hours are different, has to be there between 5 and 6 in the morning. He is trying to get sympathy from me but I have none for him. I have been getting up at 3:15 for work for 7 years!!! I think the girls and I are going to surprise him and take him out for lunch today. It is raining today and we may not get pool time so we will meet him for lunch and do a little shopping!
I will try and upload some swimming pictures that Scott took Monday of the kids swimming. Good times for sure!
We are so excited that our friends Shawn and Wendy and their daughter Chloe are in China NOW adopting their new little daughter/sister!! She is from Hannah's province and they will be staying in the same hotel we did 5 years ago. They will also have the same guide we had! I so wish we could be there too. Parts of me miss China so much. We had plans to go back to China in September for 8 weeks but things have fallen through. First my work decided that after they said I could have the 8 weeks off they said I could only have 4. We have also had concerns with the girls and taking them back to China. I think we have some issues to work through before we take them back to the place where they have so many issues. Hannah and her fears and Makenna with her anger issues we just feel it is best to try and heal them more before we throw them back into that culture. From what we have learned from others that have lived in China, the prayer covering in the US is amazing and going to land that doesn't have that can make a big difference in your spirit. We are still wanting to go and will trust God and His perfect timing! Until then, we just keep praying for all those precious children.
Well, off to get a little cleaning done before lunch and shopping! God bless you all!

2 years later.....

I am officially back as a blogger. It has been so much easier to just post to facebook but the reason I created this blog was so the girls have a journal of their life. They now have lost 2 years! I am not promising to post every day but will try to post weekly! Since I have last blogged, Scott has lost his job, got a new job, we lost our house, we moved, TJ has gotten out of the Marine Corp, Ryan did missions in Thailand, Hannah graduated kdg, Makenna had surgery, and I have gone back to work full time! We stay very busy to say the least! God has been so faithful through the last 2 years! We are very blessed. I will try and go back and post some pictures and stories from the last couple of years best that I can so the girls can see that they did exist!!
I am off to bed for the evening, been up since 3:15 and worked all day! I will be thinking more clearly tomorrow!

I am back!

I am sure since it has been a year that no one even still checks this blog any more! I am done posting all the cute stuff on facebook, never to be recalled again and post it back here on our blog! So much is going on, too much to write about it now, but I am going to begin writing again! Stay tuned!

Easter dresses

Make a Smilebox postcard

princess pj's

Make a Smilebox slideshow

My Girls!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hannah in typical toddler style celebrated 2 birthdays, one in Ohio and one in Indiana! The one in Ohio was very small and consisted only of cake and ice cream and opening gifts. The one in Indiana was a biggie...a surprise birthday party at Chucky Cheese! She had a wonderful time and was so very excited! I am sure she will be asking to go back again soon. Thank you everyone for being special to Hannah.

snow days and birthday lunches

Makenna experienced snow for the first time! Last winter she had to stay in because we were trying to keep her healthy for surgery! She didn't really care for the snow at all!!!
Hannah has been asking to go to Red Lobster(s) for an entire year! Last year for her birthday, we told her she could go anywhere and she decided she liked the sign on the Red Lobster resturant so that is where we went! We surprised her after school today and took her there for lunch! She was very excited! She got her own salad and Hannah, Makenna and I shared the chicken linguini dinner. They brought her a scoop of ice cream with chocolate and whipped cream and a candle in it and she was beside herself! The look on her face when they sang to her was priceless! I told her to blow her candle out and she said " Mom, I have to make a wish first! I wish for a guitar" and blew her candle out!
We are having a few friends and family over tomorrow evening for birthday cake and then having a party in Indiana next week when we go over there.
Enjoy the pictures! I'll try to share more later!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

This is what you get when Makenna dresses herself!

This is what you get when Makenna dresses herself! She came down this morning with her snowpants on and put on TJ's hat from when we went to Disney world when he was maybe 5! She spent much of her morning on the potty and then wanted her picture taken with pablo! (Don't you love my 2 colors on my bathroom walls? We are in the process of painting it the blue color....time...wish I had some!) She is her own person for sure!
I will add on of Pablo. He loves to crawl into small boxes to sleep. I thought this was too funny, not sure how he fit in this little paper box!

Great Saturday

Here are some pictures from our wonderful weekend! I'll blog more later about it, but let's just say we had a wonderful time!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Christmas 2008

Here is a smilebox of our Christmas morning. We had a wonderful Christmas. We are so blessed. Turn the music off of the blog on the left to hear the Christmas music of the smilebox!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Our 4 beautiful children!

Finally an update!!

I am sorry it has taken so long for me to update our blog! We have been so very busy….too busy. I guess I will just try to pick up where I left off and update. I do the blog for our friends and family out of state but also for our girls. I wished I could have kept a diary with the boys of all the happenings of our family. I would be so neat to look back on now. OK, here we go…
We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Indiana with Scott’s family. We had a nice time and the girls loved being with all their cousins. We stayed at Uncle Wade and Aunt Mitzi’s new house. They have no children of their own and have a room just for their nieces and nephews that include games, coloring books and crayons, dolls, trucks, a real swing hanging from the ceiling, tv, computer, and much more!! Scott drove home that Sunday after Thanksgiving and left the girls and I there since Makenna had a checkup at Shriners in Chicago on Wednesday. There was no reason to drive 5 hours home just to turn around and drive it back on Tuesday. Mitzi, Makenna, and I left Monday night for Chicago and spent all day Tuesday and the outlet malls north of Chicago for lots of Christmas shopping! I did get quite a bit of shopping done that day which was very nice. Mitzi made reservations for us at Rainforest Café which I had never been too. It was wonderful! Makenna was very excited to see all the animals and they sat us by a big aquarium and she was entranced with watching the fish. We went back to our beautiful hotel room Mitzi got for us, she works for Westin and got us a 2 room suite for 40 bucks a night, and fell fast asleep. Makenna had to be at Shriners by 8 the next morning so we were up very early. Makenna did very well for her check up. They were very impressed with her speech progression and said she far exceeded the goals for 6 month post surgery! The speech pathologist was very impressed and stated she feels as though Makenna will speak with no impediment at all. She also had a new tooth come in since surgery to fill in the gap where her gum clefts. They said they are not sure if she will have a permanent tooth come in but it is a good sign. She does not need to go back to Chicago until September. They will re-evaluate her lip repair then. Dr. G said that she is borderline as to if he should re-do her lip or not. He things with her talking more and using that upperlip the scar should go down more. He also said there were 2 little holes in the roof of her mouth that he thinks will continue to close. He said they were not fistulas. Scott came back to Indiana the following Friday and had Ryan and Jess with him. We had a nice weekend and finally came home! There is no place like home! We started off the week with working and going to see my new baby niece. We then had pictures to take of 3 lively children! It was quite the trip to photograph a 7 month old, and 18 month old, and a 4 year old. We all felt exhausted when we were done but we got some great shots!
When our clients left the studio, Scott shared with me about his day at work. He was called into his boss’s office that afternoon and told he was being laid off. He was allowed to work through the week and that was it. No severance pay no nothing. After 12 years with the company he was getting nothing. We were expecting his hours to get cut to 32 hours a week but he had the most seniority and thought, as did everyone else at the company, that Scott would be the last one standing. Needless to say the last 2 weeks have been a series of ups and downs. We have a couple of leads for him but nothing really stands out for him. He is looking at possibly going back to school for something in the medical field, the only career that will always be needed, just not sure how to survive while he does that! I was lucky enough to be able to pick up more hours at work, enough to get insurance for us. If anyone out there in blog land has a lead on a good job we’d be interested! We have been trying to decide if we stay here in Ohio with our church family and all our friends or move back to Indiana with Scotts family. Our first choice is to stay here in Ohio, the schools are so much better and we hate to move the girls from their friends and all that is familiar to them. Please keep us in prayer as we seek God’s will for us.
On the Hannah and Makenna front! These two have finally bonded! It took a year but they are very close now. You often see them hugging each other and looking out for each other. When we were in Chicago they called each other on the phone and talked to each other for a long time. It was too cute to listen to them saying they loved each other and missed each other. Last night we met my dad for our annual Christmas dinner and Makenna did not see TJ come and get Hannah out of our van to take into the restaurant. As we were walking into the restaurant she began frantically pointing to the van and yelling Nah Nah, what she calls Hannah, thinking we were leaving her there. So sweet. That is all for right now. I must clean up the house. We are having a realtor come to give us some advice on selling it quickly. We know there is no way we can make the payments. Our little town has lost over 300 jobs in the last few months so the housing market will only get worse. God has reminded us that our home is just stuff and He will take care of us wherever we go. Part of me is scared and part of me is so excited to see what God has for us. I will keep you posted as God moves in our lives.

Introducing Isabelle Carolyn!!

I am an aunt and Hannah and Makenna are so excited to have a new cousin! They will forever call her Bubbles (Hannah started calling her Bubbles as soon as Kayla announced they were pregnant!) She was born early and weighed in at 7 pounds 9 ounces! Aunt Tina must get making bows for her hair!!

FALL 08 PICTURES

Scott met us Tuesday at the park to take pictures of the girls. He had taken some other kids' pictures and I wanted some of the girls. It is so hard to get good pictures of the girls but these turned out OK. They still did not cooperate very well but we did get a few cute ones!

You will have to scroll down to the playlist box and hit stop to stop our music so you can hear what the music is on the smile box. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Jo Jo and Minnie Mouse

Here are the girls dressed up for Trunk or Treat. We wanted pictures in front of the pumpkins and scarecrows on our front porch but Makenna has decided she is terrified of them! She will not walk up on the porch to come in the house, so we had to take hers in front of Ryans car!! We took them to a church here in town that had trunk or treat instead of taking them around town to strangers houses. There were probably 30 or so cars, truck, and vans with their trunks decorated as bible stories that passed out candy. Makenna was very afraid of Hannah as Jo Jo and most of the other kids dressed up! She made it through only because there was candy as a reward! The girls had a great time.
On Saturday afternoon we met our friend Ellie at the park and Scott took her 4 year old pictures. She is such a doll with her big blue eyes! She and Hannah are the same age and they all 3 had a great time playing in the leaves. Makenna fell in love with Ellie's mom Janeen and wanted her to carry her all over the park! Janeen was blessed with a beautiful little boy that has a cleft lip and palate. We are so blessed to have them in our little hometown to support each other!

A baby boy!

I just wanted to post a picture of Jordan and Amy's baby Mason! I had asked for prayer a couple of days ago for them. These two have been through so much and I am so excited that God has blessed them with a beautiful baby boy! Mason Thomas is his name and I can't wait to hold him!

I have been tagged...

I was tagged for the first time and not sure I am ready to play games like this! I will give it a try though... 7 things about me..... this is difficult!

1. I am a Diet Coke-a-holic. I can go a whole day without it but by the next day I am shaking and "need" one really badly!

2. I am not sure if I am cheap or thrifty. I understand a man's hunting/gathering instinct. As I shop, I feel like I am hunting for the best bargin around. I get so excited when I can purchase something for 80% off! I'd have to say that 80% of the girls' clothes are ebay, consignment, and outlet!! Love, Love, Love a great bargin....it's an obsession....can you tell?

3. My maiden name is the same as my married name...I know, so unsual. I always hated my last name (Farrell) growing up. I was in speech therapy until I was in 5th grade because I could not say my r's or l's. I looked so forward to someday changing my last name to Smith or something easy but no, the man of my dreams shared the same last name! I still get nervous if I have to say my last name!

4. I hate my girls leaving the house with their hair not done up and a nice outfit on. On Saturdays when I work and Scott has the girls, he struggles with fixing their hair...oh they look like little orphans all over again!!

5. I think my dream career would be a performer. I would secretly love to sing and dance on broadway!!

6. I am a saucy girl, I have to dunk everything in some sort of dip or sauce, drives Scott ( who is incredibly plain) crazy!

7. I hate to read, I know, isn't that terrible? I can read for 2 minutes and realize I keep reading the same line over and over. It just never sinks in!

OK, so now I am to tag 7 of my friends! Not sure I will find that many to tag but I will try.



Janeen http://littleski.blogspot.com
Gary http://shotsontherun.blogspot.com
Kathy http://seven-alexanders.blogspot.com
Julie http://mom2mygirls.blogspot.com
Temple http://sigtemp.typepad.com/nihao

Well, that's the best I can do.....5 people! I hate to be a bother and ask people I don't know!! Is that silly? I guess number 8 would be I am secretly a shy person! As you can also see, I can't figure how to insert a link in my blog to all my friends addresses! #9?

pics

bugs bugs bugs...

Well,after 4 doctor appts, it has been decided that there is some sort of mite in our house. The girls have had a few spots on them for about 6 weeks, they come and go, would itch, but didn't bother them too badly. When we went to Disney, Makenna had a horrible first night before we went in to the park and we ended up stopping at a Stat care place to have her looked at. The doctor there said it was bug bites but I knew that we had not been around bugs. They continued to get a few while at Disney but they did heal up a little bit. We had been home over a week and they were almost dried up when bingo, one morning Makenna woke up with 5 spots on her back. That was it, we were going to the doctor. He said he thought they were infected hair folicles that had staph in them. I questioned how Hannah could also have them but took the antibiotic and cream and headed home. Well, by that weekend, Makenna was covered and so was Hannah. We went back to the doctor and he said he didn't have a clue now and referred us to a dermitologist who said he didn't really know but thought they were mite bites. Something you cannot see. I have been to the laundry mat and washed everything the girls own, all bedding, we have bleached their room, beds, treated the cat for fleas and mites, flea bombed the house and still we have spots. Poor Makenna has close to 50 in all different stages of healing and Hannah's are almost dried up. Scott, Ryan, and I have not had the first spot...? Maybe they are chinese fleas? Thinking maybe it was the fleas, I put the cat out in the garage so the cold would kill the fleas if he had any. I had not seen any on him, but treated anyway. We started seeing a couple of fleas in the house then. When I called the vet, she said to bring the cat back in the house, the fleas were jumping on us since the cat wasn't in the house. So we brought the sacrifical cat back in so all his friends could party on him again and treated him again. It has been so frustrating to get this under control. We have had Pablo for at least 6 years and I have never seen a flea on him. Thank goodness we had our 12 month final post placement homestudy for Makenna so even though they are being eaten alive with fleas, they can't send her back to China!!
That has been the story around here. On a Hannah note, she fell off a barstool in the family room last Friday and hit her face hard. I almost took her to the emergency room because of brusing around the eye and temple. She also had some blood in her nostril which my fear was if she hit hard enough to get blood in her nose she may be hurt badly. I watched her like a hawk,and rocked her most of the afternoon. The doctor said if her nose looked like it was broken to take her to the ER but it is still as cute as ever. On Sunday however, out of the blue, blood started pouring out of that nostril. It was really weird, and quite almost as quickly as it started. She does have a huge shiner though! I will try to post pictures yet today. We have been busy with pictures and I had 2 uppercase living shows in the last couple of weeks. Things are never dull for sure!
If anyone has any ideas on our bug situation, please let me know!
Please say a prayer for my friends today that are having their first baby. Amy and Jordan have been though so much, losing a daughter, miscarriages, etc. They are at the hospital now waiting the arrival of Mason Thomas!! I can't wait to meet him!