LILY AND LILLY

Today we spent some time with sweet friends at their lakehouse. When we travelled to China to adopt Lily, we met another family who was in our travel group with our same agency. They live very near to us, and were there to adopt their Lilly who is 3 days older than our Lily. The picture above is a "red couch" photo that we took of the girls in China. We enjoyed getting to know their family on our trip and have kept in touch with them since returning. I am so glad that the girls have this connection and can grow up knowing each other! We had a great time playing and swimming together today and look forward to seeing them again soon!

Jackson and our Lily


Jackson, Riley, Lilly and Lily

The girls

The whole group

Jackson and Lily

Lily and Lilly

Sweet Girls

Lilly and Riley

Precious China Girls!

HOMESTUDY IS DONE!

FINALLY! Our homestudy was approved today and Fed Ex'd on to USCIS to catch up with our I800 A Application! YAY! Hopefully we will be through USCIS soon and then we can be Dossier to China asap!

Blessings-

Meredith

Blues Clues, Tubes, & Where did Father's Day go????

Earlier this week we attended a cute children's play of Blues Clues...Lily loved it, and Jackson and Riley endured it! They were good sports, though- even jotting down their clues in their handy dandy notebooks!

Attentively waiting for Blues Clues


After the show- this was about as close to Blue as Lily dared to go!

Then on Sunday night, we headed up to Birmingham to have Lily's ear tubes replaced Monday morning (for the 3rd time in 16 months!). She enjoyed her short lived "only child" status...notice the smarties in her hand...

At the hotel with daddy the night before surgery

She could eat until midnight, but not the next morning, so she retrieved all of her snacks and made herself comfy on the couch....

Then she organized them......

Before surgery...on the "loopy" meds

Right after surgery....before she got really mad at us!

Successful surgery! On the way home and happy again with her ice cream! She is recovered now and back to her old self!

I actually did take pictures of Father's Day both with my dad and with John and the kids.....but for some reason I cannot find them. Hmmmm....not sure what I did with them, but maybe they will reappear soon in my computer! We did have a wonderful Father's Day celebration, and I am SO Blessed to have such great earthly models of our Heavenly Father!

Blessings-

Meredith

BEACH BUMS!

RILEY


RILEY AND CELIA- both in different stages of tooth loss!

SERIOUS WORK GOING ON HERE

THE ULTIMATE CASTLE/SLIDE

RELAXIN

JACKSON!

WORKING TOGETHER TO WIN THE BUBBLE GAME

SILLY KIDS

SEAWEED!

THE WHOLE GANG

JUST THE GIRLS!

UNDERWATER RILEY

I cannot believe that it has been over 2 weeks since I posted here! I thought I could do better over the summer! I am not giving up, though!

We have had lots of summer fun the past few weeks. The heat has been crazy, so grilling out and swimming have been at the top of our list! We have been to several movies to beat the heat, and we also made a visit to Birmingham with Lily to see her cleft team. She is going to have tubes put in (again!) this coming Monday. She has ear infections ALL THE TIME!

This past week, I was able to spend some time with a sweet friend and all of our children (with the exception of Lily who of course had an ear infection and went to grandma's instead) at Panama City beach. Karen and I have been friends since the fourth grade (almost 30 years!), and though physical distance now separates us, I am thankful that we have the kind of friendship where that just doesn't matter! I count her as one of my closest friends in the world- She is just precious to me and I am thankful to have her in my life. Wish I could see her more often, but when we do have the chance to visit, we have lots of fun and pick right back up where we left off! This is the first time we have attempted to have an overnight getaway that included our children! They are now 10, 8, 8, 7, 6 and 2! Of course the 2 year old couldn't make it, so we started off with only 5 of 6 kiddos! This did cause some minor problems, as I am very used to accounting for 3 children, and only counting 2 each time I did a headcheck made me feel like I was missing someone :( All the kiddos were "fast friends" and really had a great time too! It is funny when you look at your children and see yourself in them- I kept watching Celia and Riley play together and thinking- Wow, has it REALLY been such a long time since Karen and I were doing those same things? Makin' me feel a little old!

Oh, and one more note of interest, Karen and I are both science teachers, so the kids more than got their fill of science lessons on the beach. "It's not a starfish, it's a brittle star", "Do you know how to determine the wave height?" etc. etc. You get the picture- we heard lots of "Can't we just build a castle???"

Enjoy your summer!

Blessings- Meredith

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

A little grillin' out......

A little swimmin'

and a little strawberry pickin'

MAKES FOR A GREAT SUMMER DAY!

A little worn our from picking (and eating) so many strawberries!

Hey! This tastes pretty good!

Riley went for perfection on color of the berry, not size!

Jackson finding the perfect berry...

Daddy and Lily enjoying a few in the field

My little monkeys

I hope everyone was able to have a relaxing and restful day! I also hope you took a few minutes to remember those who have made this "free day" possible. It is awesome to think about our military and all they do on a daily basis to keep our country free. They are even willing to lay down their lives for the cause. I can't help but think about the sacrifice that God made for us by sending his only son to die for us. TO DIE FOR US! HIS ONLY SON! Even if I had been the only person ever born, He still would have made the choice to die for me. Imperfect, crazy, sinning me! ...unfathomable....We all know that "freedom" is not free, but "freedom" in Christ is free! By accepting Him, we can ALL have the freedom that is offered in Christ. To live for Him! To know where we will spend eternity! To make sense of this earthly mess! There is a point, and that point is to give HIM all the glory!


Blessings!


Meredith

What's Up Lately??

Riley and her sweet friend Emma

Jackson receiving an award from Mrs. Carole

Riley receiving an award from Mrs. Fletcher

FINGERPAINTING!

John's "new to us" truck- looks eerily similar to his last truck, huh?

3 kids stuffed in the back of the truck

Soccer days- Lily seems exceptionally happy to be there!

Riley on her special trip with Mimi and PawPaw

Lily with her sweet teacher Mrs. Felicia

Boys will be boys- trying to start a fire with a magnifying glass

I have to apologize for being such a bad blogger. Life is just so hectic! I have great intentions to blog about each exciting thing that happens to our family, and then suddenly, I am 3 exciting things behind again.......but I am going to try to do better!

Now that school is out, hopefully I will have the ability to stay a little more caught up!

In a nutshell, this has been our lives the past few weeks:

1- School is out! Enough Said!

2- Jackson's soccer team was runner up for his division in the season finals- YAY WOLVES!

3- John bought a new truck- I mean new to us!

4- I pressure- washed everything we own! (Well, it seemed like it, but maybe it was just the outside stuff!)

5- We have been swimming, sprinklering, and slipping and sliding and fingerpainting all day long....lovin' summer!

6- We received our police clearances for our homestudy, so now we are just waiting to have it finalized!

7- We have been having LOTS of crazy fun at home!

8- My parents took Riley to see "Toy Story on Ice"- a special trip for only her!

Now that you are caught up, enjoy the pics of it all!

Blessings-

Meredith