First Day of School

So we have survived 3 days of school. R started kindergarten on monday with a half day and then 2 full days. I can say it has gotten easier, but we have had our share of adjusting to a girl who is growing up way too fast!! Before school started we had a few friends over to hang out this past weekend. It had been a while since some of us were together and the kids had a ball. SOmeone brought over their bounce house and my kids were in HEAVEN!!! Talk about energy overload!!
They bounced and Bounced all night long. We couldn't end the night without marshmellows and smores.... my kids had been looking forward to their first smores all day!

On monday we were all up bright and early. I am skeptical on how much R even slept because she was up at the crack of dawn. She has been up before my alarm went off all week!!

We had hung her first day of school outfit up the night before and she was dressed and ready to go an hour before school!! She was a bit excited for her first day. I had to go for a parents meeting for an hour so nate took a few hours vacation to stay at home with the other two.

Our little girl has grown up!!!!

Here she is in her seat at school... she couldn't stop smiling!! R loved school and really didn't want to come home after school. Literally. We are having some issues with attitude lately but we are working on our attitudes constantly. The two little ones started preschool this afternoon. They have been adjusting AMAZINGLY well to our preschool schedule and they were all smiles this morning and X was rearing to go!! X has the same preschool teacher R had last year so that makes his transition so much easier.
Look at our handsome young man!!!

They loved their backpacks even though they were sooooo heavy with all their school supplies. It looked like G was going to fall over!!

So all three are in school everyday. Mommy gets a little time to herself, I am going to try to cure this bags underneath the eyes thing during this time!! :-)

On sunday night we had watched Swiss Family Robinson as a family (the kids were mesmerized!!) and since then the kids have been obsessed with pirates. I think even X wants to be a pirate for halloween. So I made some eye patches with some scrapbook scraps and they had a ball. The swing set is the setting for all their adventures. It is so much fun to watch them play so well together.

Our Little Girl

This week has been crazy. It is a mixture of coming home from a vacation into a routine world and not being spoiled every minute, and trying to get the kids on a totally different schedule because school starts next week. It really has been torture on both mommy and the kids trying to stay up past school time and THEN taking nap. I think two days X ended putting himself down for a nap because he was SOOOOOO tired. When I talked to X's teacher on thursday I apologized for what she would be getting into next week. Mommy especially needs sleep because I have been slightly uncomfortable lately. But it makes it all worth it seeing our little girl today. We spent this saturday morning with the kids looking at the baby's 4D ultrasound. It was pretty amazing to see so much detail of our little girl before she makes her appearance. Here are a few of her first pictures: She spent alot of time snuggled up to mommy, and the tech had a hard time getting her to show her face but we got a few face shots. We also confirmed... with 110% the tech said that she is definitely a girl! No surprises there thank goodness. They also confirmed that she is laying her head really low on my bladder. (makes sense since I find myself lately going the bathroom every 15 min.!!!)

Check out the flexibility-- foot near the mouth!

On some of the pictures she was able to point out little lines on the head which are hair. Of course our girl has hair and the tech says she won't be bald she has about a 1/2" of hair already and 9 more weeks left!!

The kids enjoyed looking at their little sister on the big screen and seeing her mover her fingers and legs.

R, G, and X all came home with a picture of their little sister to put in their room and each had a message from our baby girl. It was an amazing experience and I really loved seeing our baby girl once again knowing she is in there ready to meet us soon. And the rest of the day we are spending having fun and having friends over for a campfire tonight. Trying to fit some fun things in before the kids start school next week. Tomorrow unfortunately mommy is going to spend some time bleaching the basement since we had a little bit of rain yesterday. I have personally never seen so much rain in so little of time. And even with 2 sump pumps we got water in the basement and since I will be cleaning and purging as I go. Fun, fun.

Also on another note -- I know from the beginning we have had our little girl name picked out. Actually we picked the name Lilly out before we were even married, we never agreed on a boy's name but we both LOVED lilly. And we still love the name. But, just so you aren't shocked if we pick another name. Two weeks ago Nate was watching a TV show with the kids and ran into the bedroom and asked me if I liked the name _________. I asked why? and then was shocked when we both liked the name. So who knows ... maybe it won't be lilly but maybe it will. But just don't engrave anything yet!! :-) Neither one of us could agree on a middle name anyways.

So hope you enjoy the pics of our little girl as much as we do!! We are already in love!!

catching up

So I have been home for 2 days and have been catching up on emails, voicemails (since AT&T has a big hole over putnam county), and blog reads. There are a few blogs I read pretty consistently. Some are on adoption (people in the process or who have adopted a child and their journey much like ours), some are on crafting (cause I can never get enough), some are friends that I like to see what is going on in their lives, and still some are just fun blogs I found while searching the internet and can't get enough of.

The Vintage Pearl is one of those blogs that I browse periodically because it has such cute things on it and good stories to share. Well, her post last week was about a new necklace that she is making to bring more awareness to adoption. It is this most adorable hope necklace.

Isn't it so cute? I wanted to help Erin out by spreading the message about adoption. The profits of this ready to ship hope for orphans necklace go towards helping loving families that are adopting!

The purchase of each necklace helps a waiting child or baby go home.

And they are just $25!

Link: www.thevintagepearl.blogspot.com

A fabulous gift for someone who needs a reminder of hope :) I remember many days where in the process of waiting for any answers you forget to have hope. When you are pregnant with your own child their are reminders that the little one is with you (actually in you & right there). But with adoption you have to have hope in other people to be doing some leg work for you, you have to have hope that one day the child that is meant for you will someday be in your arms, You have to have hope that you can make it through this process, and you have to have hope especially through all the setbacks and disappointments. First it is such a decision to make to adopt, and then you have to go through years of paperwork and waiting to achieve the ultimate goal of holding that child. I am only glad that I was able to go through the process with my best friend and husband by my side with me through every tear and every doubt. We were so lucky to in the end hold THREE beautiful smiling children in our arms. I am so blessed in my life and only wish for everyone contimplating adoption or who have started the adoption process to have hope that God knows that little child that is meant for you and it will be wonderful!!

To my husband -- I love you and am so glad to share this journey of life with you and can't imagine a life more blessed and perfect. Yes, we have our moments and some ups and downs but with you by my side I am protected and safe. Thanks for holding my hand through everything and being my shoulder to cry on. On days I didn't have much hope or see a family in our future, you were the one to remind me to have hope in God that he knew our path and our future. Thank you Thank you.

baby shower

So we had a wonderful time in Ohio the past week. We spent 9 days hanging out with family and friends and being able to enjoy alot of special things. On Saturday (the 7th) my sister's had thrown a baby shower for me and the baby. Who ever would have thought we would have a baby shower? Certainly not me. So going into it a bit surreal we headed to Aunt Bethy's house to enjoy girl time and good food. And it was soooo much fun. R and G loved all the attention from the doting aunts and cousins, and mommy got pampered. Little baby schulte got so spoiled and came away with so many wonderful gifts ( it was a question if they would all make it in the van back to Iowa but we piled the clown van full and made it!!) R and Morgan had a good time making friendship bracelets during the shower
Opening gifts I have to say was so much fun. I can't believe how small the baby clothes is going to be!! Here is our little girl's first and not last OSU outfit! Thanks aunt Kathy for outfitting our little buckeye!! There are some gifts that I question if the baby will ever get to see them.... G took a liking to ALOT of the baby toys. The little plush lamb may not be ever taken from her little fingers!!

Here is a few of us girls, me and my sister beth (pregnant as well) and sitting on the couch is my niece Brooke, my Aunt Carol, and my Beautiful Mom.

During the shower instead of playing games (thanks sisters :-) We decorated onesies for the baby. It will be keepsakes that I treasure for ever. My dad even got into the action the night before and made a onesie. Adorable!!!

We ate well too!!! Everything was delicious.

Thanks Brooke and Dini for the cutest diaper cake!!

And mom and Carol even got suckered in to making friendship bracelets. Your never too young!! After the crazy weekend of baby shower, day at the lake for the boys (which i found out included way way too much sugar!!) , and a long day sunday with baptism.... we were ready for monday and NO plans. The next couple of days were pretty carefree and spent enjoying grandpa Bob and grandma Judy's company. We even got 4 days with my godson Lincoln. About the third day in he warmed up to me and actually let me cuddle with him!!! I love taking pictures of him as much as my own kiddos. AND i just am in love with his smile and his 6 little teeth!!

At nights we would either feed the fish or go fishing depending on how late it was. Grandpa had those fish so tame that they just came up to the side of the pond as soon as he threw out the first fish food.

On wednesday night the kids finally got to fish. They got about 10 minutes of fishing in before a storm hit. BUT that was enough time for each kids to get a fish... I know as soon as the pole touched the water the fish just jumped on the hook!! R caught the first catfish of the year out of grandpa's pond. She was soooo excited! Can you tell by her enormous smile?

I love this picture because I can only imagine that R is asking a TON of questions and talking grandpa's ear off. She is one curious child. R spent a couple morning going on walks with grandma and grandpa --
X caught a large mouth bass. It was the largest fish of the night!! He wanted to do it all by himself
G having a great time fishing with daddy. She was all smiles and was so excited when a blue gill bit the line and they reeled it in. Unfortunately the little fishy came off the line before they could get it a shore.
The kids also got a ride on the john deere lawn mower. They loved every minute of it!! It is amazing how the simplest things can be the most fun!!! We didn't even have to spend alot of money on vacation to have tons of fun in grandpa and grandma's backyard!!!

Of course -- more pictures of Lincoln... isn't he soooo cute!!

On thursday morning we headed off to the Ft. Wayne Zoo with Grandpa Bill and Grandma Pam and cousin Lauren. We wanted to get there early so it wasn't too hot.... but apparently it is just hot all the time~ at least for this pregnant momma. But I think the kids had a wonderful time and enjoyed spending time with g'ma and g'pa and seeing all the animals.
It's always amazing to see animals sooo close.
Here is part of the crew.

One of the kid's favorite part of any zoo is the petting area. At the Ft. Wayne zoo you could get in with the goats and brush them and feed them. And they were aggressive when it came time to feed. I got the heck out of there when they started jumping all over me to get to the food... but miss Lauren was just as comfortable as could be.

The goats knew where the food was!!
We also took a train ride, to sit and cool off.

About 11:00 the kids were hot and sticky so we let them play in the sprinkler area to cool down. They were drenched but they had fun!!

Here is another snack/rest break!!

They had some African drums in the African safari area... the kids were all making drum music!!

LOOK how close we got to the giraffe. The kids each fed the giraffe lettuce right out off their little fingers!

YET another break -- time for mommy to sit down!!!

Here the kids petted a dumbo rat. YUCK!! I stayed far away from this guy!! We had a fun filled day at the zoo and ate lunch before we left Ft. Wayne. All three kids were sleeping in the car before we were 15 minutes into the way home. In fact X fell asleep before we left the Arby's parking lot. Needless to say they were zonked!!

That night we got to go out to eat with some old college friends .... and had them and their kids come over to the pond to fish afterwards.

So sweet.... daddy and daughter!!! I want to frame this picture!!

Again it didn't take very long before the fish were biting!

Annrea said she had NEVER been fishing before so it was her mission to catch one... and catch one she did. She got the biggest one of the night, a 13" large mouth bass. Keith her husband only caught a 4" blue gill!! :-) Beginner's luck!

By this time it was the weekend already and we were starting to get things ready to go home. But not before spending time with the Schulte's camping out at Grandma Schulte's. All the kdis got to spend their first night in a camper with g'ma and g'pa friday night. Mommy and Daddy slept in a soft bed with air conditioning at my mom's!! Early Saturday morning nate and bill had the two oldest kids all set for a canoe trip. I hear it was quite the experience. 4 hours later they were home!!

I know the kids were sad to leave Ohio on sunday morning but it was really nice to step into the house that night and know that we are here to stay for awhile. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone knowing that it will be thanksgiving till we see many of them..... but I am sure this time will go by very fast. They craziest thing was when Beth and I said goodbye I told her the next time I see her we will both have little babies!! CRAZY!! So sorry for the super long blog post.... but as you can see it was a fun filled 9 days in Ohio with family and friends. Lots of great memories to remember..... that reminds me i better go get scrapbooking!! :-)