Avrie Bella

This was taken on her Birthday, but the second song is the one Kelsie made up to the tune of the Birthday song and it is the song we had to sing to her over and over on our long car ride. We would have to go through everyone in the family but it made her happy and she still likes to sing this song.

The Shirt Says it All!

yep!

It is Official......

We went before the judge today and we have signed adoption decrees! It is official the girls are now legally ours! It took about 15minutes and then it was all done. In celebration of this event I thought I would post a video of the girls dancing to "New Soul" quite fitting!
(also Destina requested that I post this video so all of her friends could see)

Haitian Reunion

On our last day in Utah we met up with the other families that adopted from our orphanage who live in Utah, and we met at Kangaroo Zoo. The kids were so excited to see each other and they got to run around playing on all the blow up toys, and the parents were able to chat just like old times! (except much better)

Abbie was so happy to see Destina she came running out of the building and gave her a big hug picking her up, they were inseparable all night. We had pizza and my sister brought 2 bags of Cheetos and all the kids started grabbing their share and eating them as fast as they could both bags were gone in about 2 minutes.

Destina has talked non-stop about this little guy! I think she helped to take care of Colin while in the orphanage she loves to see pictures of him and was so excited to see him again.
Thanks again Candice for organizing this party, I think it is important to keep these kids connected as much as possible! We had a great time and we were sad to leave.

Happy Birthday Avrie!

Avrie turned 3 yesterday! I feel so lucky that I had a 2 year old in our home for 2 months she is so much fun but she has changed and grown in those short 2 months and I am so glad I had that little bit of 2! 3 will be even better I get 12 whole months with the cutest 3 year old. She is funny, smart, and a tease, she still gives us lots of hugs and kisses but she also likes to boss us around too! We had a pizza party...... (yes that is our dinning table and we squeeze 9 people around it every night!)


Followed by chasing the balloons around the house....


Opening presents....The girls both got grass skirts and tops from Kenzie that she brought home from Hawaii! They were a huge hit and the girls had fun dancing.

We sang 3 different Birthday Songs to Avrie and she got to blow out her candles 3 times!



Then it was time for cake! I know it is blue...It is my famous "red velvet cake" but they were out of red food coloring so I improvised and went with blue!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVRIE WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

It Must Be a Day Care!

When we traveled around as a family in Utah we are really hard NOT to notice. This is our gang that went everywhere together while I was in Utah there were 15 of us, 4 adults, 2 teenagers and 9 kids. We were quite the site! We did a lot of fun things on our short trip to Utah, the first day we were there we went swimming at a really fun indoor pool, we only had one incident, within the first 30 seconds of entering the pool area, with one child (that I am not a parent of) that could have turned out bad, but didn't. After that all the kids had fun swimming and going down the slide, playing on the water play ground and running around the wave pool. We were there for 2 hours then we finally dragged the kids out of the pool and as we were all waiting in the waiting area, for all of our gang to gather, as we started walking out there was a lady that looked at me and my sisters and said "oh it must be a day care!" I replied "nope they are all ours, and walked out the door! I think she was a little shocked.
On the second day we decided to brave the cold and snow and ride the Front Runner train to Salt Lake City and go to the movie, a first for my kids! They had fun riding the train and Destina said that the "TV was Too Big!"
On the way home we were able to get seats on the double decker and the the girls started singing Haitian songs and clapping hands with each other, the Haitian girls were trying to teach the other girls their songs and the rhythm of the clapping but they had a hard time. They were kind of noisy, it was five o'clock and the train was full of commuters but we got several comments that they loved the entertainment and the girls singing. They were having so much fun bonding as cousins and they all got along so good the whole time. BreeAnn and Nalaya love their Haitian cousins so much and Destina, and Delaine love them too they were all best of friends by the end of the week.
JT and Jayden and Noah also spent a lot of time together Jayden was showing JT the ins and outs of the PSP and it was good that they had each other will so many girls around!

Help Haiti

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=10376725

This is a news clip from a TV station in Utah, the man speaking was the man that, in the end made it possible for our kids to come home! He met personally with the President of Haiti and the Prime Minister to get the signatures needed for our kids to leave. He made it possible for our plane to stay in Haiti waiting for the kids....He is still doing amazing things!

Talking about the need in Haiti brings tears to my eyes, the emotions are still raw, gratitude still fills my heart, and my heart breaks for those struggling in Haiti. I feel guilt that I was able to save my children but what about all those that lost loved ones or are still suffering. Not a day goes by that Haiti is not on my mind and those that are there working to make life normal again, who are living under conditions that I can not even imagine and they have been doing it for 3 months now! Please keep Haiti in your prayers the need is great!

This is Suppose to be Spring Break

I thought I was going to get some Spring Break weather but instead as we headed out and over the mountains this is what we saw! It is a long drive from our house to where we were going about 16 hours, in the car, driving! Destina had no idea what she was in for she did pretty good but I kept telling her that we had to get over "these mountains" over and over again she probably thought there was no end to the mountains we had to cross! It really was over the mountains and through the woods just to get to grandma's house, our first stop!
The kids did really good in the car but Kelsie and I resorted to some other than normal behavior to keep them entertained. Kelsie and I sang songs, made up songs, then finally resorted to recording Kelsie's voice on the camera video recorder so Avrie could hear her singing over and over without actually having to sing the SAME song over and over, unfortunately we (Kelsie) didn't figure out the recording thing until about half way home from our trip. Then after about 10 minutes the batteries died so it was a great idea a little too late and it was back to the real singing. Avire loved it and it kept her entertained most of the time.
Kelsie made the mistake of taking Avrie out of her car seat (while we were stopped getting gas) because Avrie was telling Kelsie that she was "Malad'. So Kelsie being the great big sister that she is took her out of the seat, and from then on whenever she was tired of sitting in her car seat she would start the "Mem Mem Malad" song that really wasn't so pleasant so that is usually when we started our singing, or my fall back plan was to tell Kelsie that I really had to concentrate on driving and I would put in the ear buds and turn up the volume on my MP3 player and Kelsie was left as the sole entertainer, really I did need to concentrate on driving look at what I was driving in!

Super Swimsuit Baby Model

We had a fun trip to Utah to visit family and friends and there are many stories to share but these pictures made me laugh so I thought I would share these first. This is Avrie at the hotel on the way home I love her little pose that she does she thinks she is so cute! She would not get out of the pool they swam for about 2 hours and whenever Kelsie brought her to me for a break she would sit on the ground and cry for a minute because she wanted to be in the pool. Kelsie got her to jump in by the end of the the night and go completely under water. She loved having the goggles on she made me laugh the whole night! Ya just gotta love those chunky legs!

New Hair

We were sitting watching TV and I decided to comb out Destina's hair so I could braid it then I decided to straighten it with the flat iron. It took about 2 hours her hair is so curly and thick. She loved it. She was amazed that she could run a brush through her hair something she has seen us do every day. The next morning she woke up and it was sticking straight up I had to quickly flat iron it again and then had to remind her to use her hands to smooth her hair down during the day it wanted to stand straight up. She looked cute and she got a couple of compliments at school, she wanted to leave her hair like this for a couple of days.


But we are back to her normal hair which I love so much I love her springy curls so this will have to be a hair do that we do once in a while.

When I got home tonight from running some errands I walked in the door and Destina came and showed me her earrings that Kelsie let her wear...I had no idea that her ears were pierced, she said it happened when she was a baby because she doesn't remember getting them done, Apparently Kelsie has known for a couple of weeks I have looked at her ears a hundred times and didn't notice!