The Day After Christmas

Merry Christmas...

Well, I'm finally getting some pictures on here of Christmas day. We had a nice time in the morning here at our house opening gifts then later we headed over to Tim and Tanya's to be with family. Every year the guys (and Kailey) jump in the pool! Us gals think they are nuts but we always get a big a laugh out of it. Erik even dressed up for the occasion. We also did our gift exchange with the poem and then the white elephant gift! It's hard to believe the year is coming to an end. We hope and pray that 2008 will be the year we bring Claire home and that she will be with us to celebrate next Christmas!

Make a photobook - it's easy!

I thought this would be easy...

I took pictures of the boys for our Christmas cards (see below) and you would think it would be an easy task now that they are older! Wrong! The older they get...the more silly they are! I'm not sure how many pictures I took...but it was a lot! We even tried to get Cooper in there but he was way too hyper!! I'm still deciding if I will use one of these pics or try again??!!
(Before you view the pics, go to the bottom of the page to turn off other music)

Make a postcard - it's easy!

Hockey player..

Carter has a new sport....hockey! Well, not really. He was told he looks like a hockey player with all his teeth missing...he of course thought that was funny. Within one week he lost 4 teeth!

Happy Birthday Connor!

We just celebrated Connor's 11th birthday!! We were excited to have Jacob, from Idaho, here to help us celebrate. Connor and Jacob have known each other since birth and it is so neat to see their friendship still so strong! His friend Chase also joined us that day to celebrate.

The day started with Connor and Chase having a football game and of course, their team won!! We then went to the rock wall and like always, I'm amazed to see what the boys can conquer....especially Carter. Connor's choice for food that day was PF Changs....and no one argued that one! We then headed home where he opened presents and had cake. We all had great time!

Make a slide show, scrapbook or ecard

How It All Started...

I thought I would share a little bit of our story for those of you who have never heard it. It all started in December of 2005 when I felt in my heart to look into the idea of adoption. Before this time I never considered the idea since we had our boys, we were very content and I had many reasons why it wouldn't work for us.......but that's what I thought ("for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord). When I mentioned the idea to Erik, he right away said "let's do it".....for adoption has always been on his heart; before we even knew each other. So, in January of 2006 we began the "boat-load" of paper work and in October we mailed our dossier (papers) to China. I can honestly say that China knows everything about us!! Our dossier was then logged into their system on November 6th! We call this date our LID. China's government assigns us the child and right now that is taking up to 22 months. So...now we just wait.

Well, of course there is so much more to the process, but I think I summed it up in a nut shell. We wanted to start this blog so that friends and family can follow our journey to Claire. But for now, enjoy the pictures and stories of the boys and hopefully soon we'll have news about Claire.

Enjoy!

Meet Cooper!!

Had to include the dog!

Meet Connor

Connor is 10 years old and is thrilled to have a sister.

Meet Carter

Carter is 8 years old and can't wait to meet his sister!

Hello!

Ok...we are new with this blogging thing...so we really don't know what we're doing. Let's hope we figure it out soon!