Big doings

Alright, so I have decided that it is finally time to post on here what has been happening in our family that has been keeping us very busy.

When Chris and I first decided to adopt again we started looking at photolistings of waiting children. Part of this was to see if our kids were already available for adoption and waiting for us, and part of it was some kind of torture that we adoptive mommies do to ourselves to bide the time until our kids do come home. Well, RainbowKids, one of the best photolisting sites available, sent an email last Saturday with a brother and sister waiting to be adopted in Ghana. These two beautiful children just stole Chris and my hearts! Unfortunately, because of the status of international adoptions today we cannot share any distinguishing information about the brother and sister until we pass court and they legally become our children.

That said, Chris and I started the process to complete our dossier for Ghana. It is so simple compared to other dossiers, like for Guatemala or Ethiopia, and I didn't think that either of those document collections were particularly difficult. Today I am headed to the San Diego USCIS office to drop off our application to bring home these children and hopefully I'll leave with our fingerprint appointment. Once our homestudy is completed in two weeks (just after we move into the new house) than I'll walk that in and hopefully we can go back 1 week later for our approval. If that is the case, Chris and I could be travelling as soon as September to pick up our new children!!!!

At this time, please pray that these kids remain healthy, for the caregivers in their orphanage, and that our house closes on time so that we can finalize our portion of the process. Thanks!

Photography class pics

My graduate!

Friday was a big day in the Merrill household -- our first child graduated (from preschool)! Here are some photos from the celebration with Garrett's class:

Garrett and his crony, Charlie (or Charlie Charley as G likes to call him). Thick as thieves are these two!

The whole class lined up to do a little performance of "We're going on a bear hunt"

Marching through the wheat field (love that sly grin of his!)

Climbing up the big tree

Looking with our camera

Creeping in the cave

Running all the way back home

Getting his certificate of achievement (he thought that he had to hold the certificate up over his face, so this was the best shot I got)

The proud graduates (Maya, Luke, Garrett, Avery, and Becca)

Thank you Miss Rosemary for a wonderful year! Garrett loves you!

Shhhh ...

The other morning I was working on my Uppercase Living order and realized the kids had been quiet for a while -- too quiet. So I walked through the house looking for them to see Garrett's door was closed.

Here is what greeted me when I opend the door -- Evidence #1

Hmm, this little grin is too sweet -- must be guilty of something -- and the evidence is all around him!

Little sister was too busy applying the evidence to her legs to notice Mommy had crept into the room:

"Mommy, I told you I needed bandaids for my booboos!"

"I had owies that needed bandaids. Don't you know that this look is the latest style in medical care????"

Really can't get mad at them for this. Of course, have to hit the store for more bandaids because they are either all over my children or all over the floor.

**Note: Elena later showed me her bare legs (i.e. missing all the previously applied bandaids) and proudly proclaimed "My booboos all better -- bandaids do work!" Yeah, gotta love 3 year olds!

Soccer

My soccer team -- GO WILDFIRES!!!!