A little of this and a little of that

Oh so much to comment on today.  We are having a quiet afternoon after getting the kids up at 4:30 to cheer me on at my triathlon.  They were all so sweet and I was thankful to see them on so many different parts of the course.  I also ran into a couple of great friends at the race and had so much fun.  I love the shorter distance triathlons, because at just about the time boredom starts to kick in, it is time for the next portion of the race.  I think I will sign up to do it again next year.  Thanks to my mom, sister and niece who also got up at zero dark thirty to come and cheer me on.  What a great support system I have.

The kids have been enjoying more time in the back yard.  Mike lowered the temp. on our hot tub, so the kids treat it like a swimming pool.

We spent a night in Leavenworth visiting with Mike's extended family.  It was a very nice gathering.  We have never stayed in a KOA, so we were pleasantly surprised with the cute little cabin we got and the fun swimming pool the kids played in.  We enjoyed seeing the family and spending time visiting.  We also got to visit the Soup Cellar in town and found our favorite ice cream place.  The kids checked out the Hat shop as well.

Soup  Cellar

Hat Shop

On the adoption front, we received our I-800 back from the Department of Homeland Security.  We are one step closer to going over and getting our baby girl.  We mailed our Visa application from the big city of Moses Lake on our way to Leavenworth.  It should arrive in San Fran on Monday, and we should be issued visas to travel to China.  We are waiting for a few more steps in China, then they will issue our Travel Approval and tell us to come and get our little girl.  The time seems to be moving right along now that we have more steps taking place.  We are hoping to travel in mid September.

The kids and I spent the week at VBS at our church.  It was exciting to help out and be apart of it.  I was in charge of a group of kids that did not include any of my own.  It was fun to watch my kids from a distance, but I was still a part of what they were doing.  Our church put on a wonderful VBS, and I had a great time.  The kids all enjoyed it, too.

I found the color I wanted to paint the girls' room.  It is a light lavender color.  We will be putting bunk beds in their room and a new dresser for the large amount of clothes two little girls can acquire.  Girl's clothes are so much fun.  It is a weakness for me.  Thankfully I now have someone to pass all Ainsley's cute things on to.

I have only painted 2 walls so far because the only chance I have to paint is after the kids are in bed.  The green is the color I am covering now.  

Brandt is off on an adventure with his best friend this week.  He is camping in Oregon until Thursday.  My week may drag by.  Thankfully, Mike invited us along on one of his work trips, so we will be hanging in the hotel and swimming while he is bringing home the bacon.  I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful husband, and for those of you that don't remember, we officially became husband and wife almost 16 years ago.  Our anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks.  I am so blessed and loved by my dear husband.  

My number one supporter

The Kelly Krew all decked out in matching t-shirts

An amazing sunset at our house

The kids cherry picking at Green bluff

And Wyatt looked goofy in all of them

Hat Shop

Hat Shop

Hat shop

Mike, Evie and Tim with Auntie Gaye

Summer

Another trip to the mailbox reveals we are still waiting for the US government to return the most recent of our paperwork.  We have been enjoying our summer, now that we are finally out of the cool June weather and the long wait for our LOA.  I am going to start redecorating the girls room to accommodate 2 instead of just one little girl.  Ainsley is excited and wants a purple bedroom.  I am going to see what I can do.  I will hopefully find the paint I want today, and at least get the project started.  My daughter has started doing the strangest thing.  She likes to empty her drawers onto her bedroom floor.  She is aware of the fact that its not OK, but she has done it twice.  Weird.  The first time, I put it away, and took the opportunity to sort through her clothes.  She hit another growth spurt, so I had some clothes to move.  The second time, I had her return her own clothes to their drawers.  Maybe she will think twice about it now.

Here is my princess girl in the cutest white dress, running the trike through a mud puddle.  So funny.

This picture just demonstrates how long her legs are getting.  She is getting so big.  She still enjoys a break at the coffee shop with daddy.

We have been enjoying time together this month.  Mike has been a bit slow as far as travel goes, so we have been having lots of opportunity to enjoy life.  The kids have been playing in the kiddy pool and kid car wash in the back yard (Dad made if for them last year out of PVC pipe.)  They have been riding their bikes a lot.  And their knees show it.  We are heading to Leavenworth this weekend, and planning a couple of weekends of soccer.  I am heading to MOPS convention, and then the kids head back to school.  This summer has been great, but I can't help but feel we are missing someone.  I can't wait until we have our family home and together.  We miss our daughter and sister.

My Ironman succeeds again

Sunday, Mike finished the Lake Stevens 70.3.  He did so well and finished strong.  B ran for a bit with him at the end, just to keep his spirits up.  He seemed to appreciate it.  It was a fun weekend.  We were all a little tired, though, after getting up at 4:30 to accompany Mike to the start.  The ride home was relatively quiet.

Lake Steven's starting line.  7:00 AM

Mike finished his swim in 39 minutes.  That is so good.

Transition to run after a great job on his bike

One of many running loops.  Mike is the second one in the picture, not the first.  It is kind of a dark picture.  

We finished up all of the paperwork we need to for this step of the adoption process.  I called to find out all the details for filling out Mike and my visa forms.  I wanted to be sure I answered all the questions correctly.  It was sort of confusing, but the person I spoke with was very helpful, and now they are done and waiting for our provisional approval for our I-800.  Can't believe we could be traveling in September.  So cool.  We stopped by IKEA to pick up a dresser for the girls' room.  I think I will start getting their room all set up, but we don't know if G will be joining A right away or if she will be rooming with us.  We are open to doing what we need to do to get our baby girl adjusted to life with a family.  

After a swim at the Y, Mike and I took the kids on a "coffee" date.  We don't get the chance to hang as a family like that very often, but we enjoy it when we can.  

Have a great day.

Following my ironman

After months of preparation, we are one day from Mike's 70.3 Ironman.  Tomorrow morning at 6:30, he will begin his 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run.  While he's doing all of that, Nicci, Addisyn, my kids and I will be waiting to cheer him on any chance we get.
Yesterday we returned more paperwork to our agency.  We are waiting to hear back from the US government approving our adoption in the form of I-800 approval.  After that, some steps take place in China.  We are hoping to travel by mid September.  As I was sorting through the new stack of papers, I was very anxious and nervous, concerned I would fill something out incorrectly.  Mike noticed and called me crazy.  He knows how thorough I am and I have already done the majority of the tough paperwork.   This is just a few simple forms that need to be filled out and returned and shouldn't cause me that kind of stress.  But it does.  I feel similar to when I was pregnant with my babies.  I wanted to give them my best, even when they were in me.  I ate well and exercised.  I went to my regular check ups.  I avoided any sort of risky behavior.  While God has the ultimate control over my pregnancies, I still felt responsible.  I think God would have delivered my babies to me healthy and happy if I hadn't been so concerned, but I still felt I had to do my part.  I guess that is where I am now with Grace.  I want to do everything I possible can, so she can come to us as soon as possible.  Again, God is in control, but I feel I have the responsibility to do my best while I am waiting.  Thankfully, we were able to get to the notary first thing yesterday and get everything signed and put back in the mail.  It will be delivered to our agencies travel department on Monday.  I have one more set of paperwork to complete, but I am feeling a bit calmer and hopefully things will go according to schedule, though my prayer has been things would move faster than would be expected and God would be glorified because of it.  God will be glorified regardless.
So here we are in Western Washington enjoying cooler temperatures and fog.  Such a departure from the hot, hot, hot we have been experiencing.  We plan an exciting day of Starbucks, packet pick up, IKEA, and bike drop off.  We are staying with some really sweet friends, so dinner with them and an early bed time.  Tomorrow morning we take off for the course at about 5:00.  The kids should be thrilled.

Just a picture of some strawberries from our garden that the kids and I collected Thursday. They contributed to a fabulous dessert of strawberry shortcake.

LOA has arrived

Our LOA has arrived!!!!!!!  I do not like to over use exclamation points in my writing, but this is one time where I am super excited and I want everyone to know how excited I am.  This was the information we have been waiting for and it is the most variable portion of this part of the adoption process.  The LOA is our letter of acceptance.  It means China has decided we can adopt our baby girl ,Lian Xiaoping (soon to be Grace Evelyn), officially.  It is the last major step in the process.  From this point, we know we will be waiting 10-14 weeks to go and retrieve our daughter.  To say we are thrilled is an understatement.  We officially waited 90 days to hear back from China, which is completely acceptable according to our adoption agency, but we were still so anxious to hear, we were pretty sure something was wrong, and something had happened.  Just last night, Mike spent some extra time praying for me and my anxious heart, and also that we would hear soon.  Praise God for hearing our plea and delivering our paperwork today.  God is amazing and His timing is perfect.  We were in Coeur d'Alene this morning practicing open water swims for the triathlons Mike and I are training for, so I left my phone in the car.  And like I said, I was not expecting to hear anything, so when I flipped on my phone and saw the email, it was a sudden, unexpected rush of emotions.  I was sitting their crying for joy, knowing what a huge hurdle we had just cleared.  I was actually pouting this morning, knowing we are heading to Seattle for the weekend, and having planned to get some things for Ainsley and Grace's room if we had received our LOA.  Since we hadn't, I wasn't going to start getting the room ready yet.  I was bummed, because when we were planning our trip back in May, I was sure we would have our LOA by then.  When I looked at the calendar this morning and realized it hadn't happened yet, I was just pouty.  So thankful it was today God made it happen.  So, hopefully in 10 to 14 weeks, you will get to meet the newest Kelly. :)
We finished out our great vacation visiting the Evergreen Air Museum and OMSI.  It was such a blessing to get to spend so much time with my sister and her fun family.  We had time to relax and enjoy each other.  The long car rides took their toll, and the kids were ready to be done by the time we got home on Saturday night.  We did stop on the way home at Maltnomah Falls and we walked to the first bridge.  Even packed with people, I always feel so relaxed at the falls.

Sunday was such a hot day, we took our boat out on Lake Coeur d'Alene.  We had such a fun time.
The kids are all big enough to enjoy the boat.  We swam off the side and enjoyed the wind in our hair racing all over the lake.  We stopped for ice cream cones in a little town along the lake.  Wyatt wanted to ride in the tube the whole time.  He just hung out there, even when the boat was stopped.  He was so cute.

He talked his little sister into going for a ride, and he talked Holden into riding quite a bit with him, but he loved it the most.  He really wanted to try water skiing, but I wasn't extremely comfortable teaching him in such a busy lake.  We will have to take him to one of the quieter lakes around here.  What a fun day.  We didn't even notice the 100 degree day.  It was neat to see all my kids hanging out and enjoying each other.

In the end, 3 of the 4 were hanging out in the bow of the boat with me.  Ainsley managed to fall asleep even though the water was pretty rough and we were hitting some major bumps.  It was fun to have my 4 year old baby fall asleep on my lap.  She is so sweet.  I think big brother fell asleep in the back as well.  There is just something about a boat.

Our mini Vacation

Just a quick 4th of July post.  We are visiting Jen and Ryan and doing some of our favorite Oregon activities.  On the 4th, we ran in the Monmouth Mini Marathon.  It is a 2.6 mile race down the main street in Monmouth and Independence Oregon.  The big boys went running to the front with Mike, while Wyatt ran with Jen, Ryan and Kaylee, and then Ainsley and I ran/walked and Nic and Addisyn, and Grandma and Braden followed.  The boys took 1st, 2nd and 7th in their age group, though Wyatt was put in with the walkers even though he ran the whole thing.

Pure heart on the part of my little men.  Mike beat Brandt by about a minute, so I think his years are numbered.  Brandt just seems to keep getting faster.
After the race, we spent a pleasant afternoon BBQueing and watching fireworks from Jen's backyard.  It was a great day.
Today we headed out to Pacific City, which is now our favorite beach to visit.  We explored some tide pools and the kids climbed a monster sand hill.  They played in the water and build sand castles.  It was a really fun family time.  We ran into the outlet malls before heading inland, and I am excited to say, I have started school clothes shopping.

Tomorrow we are planning on exploring the McMinnville flight museum.  Wyatt will have the time of his life since he is going to be a pilot.  We are excited to share it with him.  Saturday we are going to head to Portland and visit OMSI.  We may also hit Ikea before heading back to Spokane and 100 + degrees.  Summer seems to have burst upon us all of a sudden.

The Kelly Kiddos

So after my last post, my Dad encouraged me to focus on the kiddos I have right now to keep my mind from going to China constantly, so I thought I would give them all a little blog time.

 Brandt is my number one baby.  He was the start of the crazy pack.  He is strong, kind, funny, talented, encouraging and many more adjectives.  He loves life.  He wants to live it.  He embraces challenges and conquers his fears.  He is an exciting snow boarder and a talented soccer player.  He is a leader and occasionally falls into following.  He knows how to be a good friend and he knows how to truly care for people.  He knows who he is and he knows who God is and I couldn't be prouder.

Holden is my number two baby.  He showed me the contrast of siblings right from the beginning.  He is more soft spoken, but can be loud and crazy.  He is passionate about things.  He has an amazing imagination that takes him to so many different places in the course of a day.  He turned a dental floss holder into a super secret spy phone, and uses it to check in on his spying assignments.  He takes off for "training" leaving his super robot in his place so we don't even know he is gone.  He is kind to his little siblings and loves to play games.  He has a passion for life and he lives it out in all his emotions.  He has a smart basketball mind, and knows the game.  He will run the offense someday.  He also has a heart of gold and loves to sit in his mom's lap, even though soon he will not fit.  He is a lover and a gentle spirit with fire under the surface.

Wyatt is our fire cracker.  He is explosive and exciting and fun and creative.  He is a perfectionist and will spend recess making his work be his best.  He has a desire to do the right thing, but will push the boundaries of acceptable to the very limit.  He will focus endless attention on a task he enjoys, but will not begin other tasks for fear of failure.  He is funny and joyous and loving.  He loves beautiful people and he will hug anyone who is willing.  He is smart and will run the world someday or he won't.  He may get distracted by the mountain snowboarding or the field kicking the soccer ball or the road with his bicycle. He has a crazy ability to make everyone laugh and fall in love with him.  He can grin and get away with murder.  He just has to use those piercing blue eyes to convince you he is not in trouble.  The ability will serve him well.

 Ainsley is our princess. She is girly and rough and tumble all wrapped up in one super social little body.  She will enter a room, and never see a stranger.  Everyone is her friend.  She has no concept of shyness, and wouldn't understand someone that is.  She thinks everyone needs a hug and everyone wants to be her friend.  She is spontaneous and sweet and kind, but tough and confident.  She will also run the world and everyone will gladly follow her without question, because she just exudes confidence.  She knows who she is.  She loves people and animals and her family.  She doesn't have an enemy or someone she doesn't like.  She sees everyone as a potential friend.  She loves to play outside in the sandbox in her tutu skirt.  She is a dancer, a gymnast and her big brother's best friend.  She is strong and stubborn and if channeled, it will serve her well in life.

My life has been blessed by the people God has given me to share it with.  They are amazing little miracles that I have the privilege of calling my sons and daughter.   I am excited to watch them grow and sorrowful at the same time, because time is going so fast.  They are becoming the people God wants them to be.  I am just an instrument in their life plan.