On the move

Julia is now walking!
What a look! I just asked him to smile next to Julia.
What a great smile!
Water Balloon Toss
Caleb and his friend, Donovan

Caleb is on summer break! This school year went very fast. Caleb loved his Young 5's class and teacher, but he is excited to start kindergarten. He grew 2 1/2 inches this school year! No wonder I have to keep buying him clothes. I went to his end of school party. Caleb enjoyed the water balloon toss and fight. We're a little sad that his good friend, Donovan, will attend a different school next year. I remember last summer, I was nervous about how we would all stay sane. I'm feeling pretty good about this summer. I think it helps that Caleb and Isaac play well together.

We had our last post-placement visit with our social worker. The adoption court date should be mid-June. Julia will be officially ours! About two weeks ago she started walking everywhere. She is so proud of herself. I'm having fun dressing her in cute summer dresses. She loves being outside with the boys and swinging. We took the kids to the beach and the water was COLD. The boys were splashing around and Julia kept crawling to the water so she could join in. She throws tantrums now. She'll go limp and fall to the floor. She also bangs her forehead on the floor, but not very hard. Ahh, the toddler stage. :)

Isaac has been potty-training for a couple weeks now. He wears underwear which he is very proud of. He has the peeing thing down, still struggling with pooping on the toilet. Just need to figure out what really motivates him!

Nate has the sprinkler system installed and working! I'm very impressed with his abilities. All he has left is planting grass.

My Mom is recovering well. The doctor took her off IV nutrition. She is allowed to start working again, but only 2 hours at a time. That is better than nothing! I appreciate all of your prayers for my Mom these past months.

Oh, and here are a couple funny stories about my children. Isaac was pointing at his nipples and asked, "What are these?" I said, "those are your nipples." He then said, "Let me see your pickles." I had a good laugh over that. I took Isaac to the library and he said he had to pee. So we ran to the bathroom, but he didn't go. I was walking him into the library when a chunk of poop fell out of his pant leg onto the carpet! I was mortified! I ran him back to the bathroom and grabbed a ton of toilet paper to clean up. Thankfully it wasn't much of a mess. So embarrassing though! The other day I was wearing a cami and Caleb puts his hand on my stomach and asked, "Why is your stomach getting bigger?" Trying to maintain my composure I asked him what he meant? He asked me if I was going to have a baby! Talk about blow to the self-esteem. I promised myself to exercise more than once a week and eat less sugar, at least for a day. :)

Where to begin?

Leaving the Whitecaps game- Caleb still holds my hand (sometimes!)
Julia being silly
Isaac loves having a dirt backyard
Julia could sit happily in her swing for an hour

Since our Virginia trip, I have been busy! I was home for a couple days after VA and then I left for an orphan conference (Summit VI) in Minneapolis. I carpooled with 10 other people from West Michigan. The conference was amazing. It was inspiring, challenging, educational and emotionally exhausting. I went to some sessions that were personally interesting to me as an adoptive/foster parent and to some sessions that gave info I can take back to my church. I'm praying God will raise up other people in my church who want to start an orphan ministry with me. Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife sat right behind me during a session. It took alot of willpower to not act like a starstruck idiot. It was apparent they wanted their privacy and everyone respected that. I was gone a total of four days and Julia had a rough time of it. Nate was home with her, but my absence instilled some fear in her. She was quite clingy when I got home, but she is doing well again.

After Summit I was home for two days and then Nate and I took the younger two to WI for his Grandma DeMaster's funeral. She was 98 years old and died in her sleep. It was sad, but also a celebration of her long life. My Mom stayed home with Caleb so he didn't have to miss school.

For Mother's Day weekend we went to my parent's house. We had lunch at a nice restaurant and then Nate and I took the boys to a Whitecaps baseball game. We met the Slots there and had a fun afternoon.

Thank you to everyone who asks about my Mom and prays for her. She has been struggling with pancreatitis for 7 weeks now. She had a surgery at U of M a couple weeks ago, but it wasn't completely successful. She is having a 2nd surgery this Friday, the 14th. Please pray that the Dr. can get the stent in and she will be healed.

Nate is a man on a mission this week. For a couple of years we have talked about installing a sprinkler system and now we are doing it. I should say Nate is doing it. :) It is amazing to me how he can plan and configure and pull this all together. We had 3 dump trucks of dirt brought into our backyard. Many of you know our yard is mostly sand, so hopefully we can grow things now! The weather has not been cooperating as Nate would like, but he is getting alot done. His goal was to dig a well and have the system run off of that. He got about 15 feet down and was then stuck in the clay. He called a well digging business to ask about the water level in our area and they told him he'd have to go down 80 feet! Needless to say the digging stopped right then. Nate goes back to work Thursday night and he wants to have all of the equipment in the ground by then, we'll see what happens!

We've been blessed with healthy kids the past couple months, so I shouldn't be surprised that they are getting sick. Caleb was diagnosed with bronchitis today and started antibiotics. The poor kid has had a horrible sore throat and fever. Isaac had a fever tonight and might be starting a cough. I'm praying the rest of us don't all get sick! Julia has been teething like crazy. She has gotten a couple of molars and other teeth too. She isn't walking much yet, but she seems to be more interested lately. She now says, "gaku" which is Korean for "peek-a-boo." That is the only Korean word we've taught her and I don't know how to really spell it in Korean. :) She likes to find people's bellies, points to her nose, and knows some animal noises. She is still the best eater we've had in this family, she is not picky. Speaking of food, we saw the allergist again after doing the wheat/apple experiment. The Dr. recommended putting wheat back in Isaac's diet since it didn't seem to be affecting him negatively. Woo-hoo! We're still not giving him dairy or apples, but we can live with that. We'll see the allergist in a year to see if anything has changed. Thank you for all of your prayers!