Homework!

It's 10:30 at night I am checking my email one last time before bed, the girls have been asleep since 8:30 when suddenly tired eyed Destina comes to my room and tells me that she forgot do to her homework, and that she woke up because her brain told her and she wanted me to remind her to do extra tomorrow. She had girls on the run after school, she had to get ready for her indoor soccer game,  go pick up Avrie from gymnastics, get dinner, at McDonald's, and go to her game, there wasn't time in the schedule to even do homework tonight. Really where did she come from? Both her and Avrie come home from school and do homework without being asked everyday, it is like a dream come true...I hope it lasts!

Halloween Partay

Tonight was our church's annual Halloween Trunk or Treat and Chilli cook off, I made chilli and apple crisp and both came home empty but I spent all my time cooking and helping with the kids costumes that I did not dress up this year, at least that is my excuse, I never really ever plan on dressing up and then Scott will come in and want to dress up and we are throwing together costumes at the last minute. So I held strong and went as myself this year! But Destina had the best costume she wore one of the girls old dance costumes and we combed out her hair and she turned up the attitude and looked pretty cute!

Kelsie went as a mad doctor and Avrie was snow white. I don't even buy my kids Halloween costumes usually the have to be creative and come up with stuff around the house, good thing we have a dress-up box I have been waiting for the purple number to fit Destina and finally convinced her to go with the fro and she owned it tonight! 

Rare Moment

Last night McKenzie stopped by for a minute (at least 60 of them) after work to pick something up, and Katie called then Kelsie came home from work. We put Katie on speaker phone and it was a girls night reunion, they were all talking at once, laughing, catching up, and making plans for Christmas. Katie is working full-time and going to school and has a boyfriend, Kelsie is working and going to school and Kenzie is working a lot so it is hard for all of them to get together, but when they do it is just like old times. We sure do miss Katie and Christmas break can't come soon enough to have her home for a week. Maybe we need to schedule weekly phone parties whatcha think about that?

I miss the laughter these 3 brought to our house everyday, hurry up Christmas so we can have our crazy, hyper, fun-loving Katie home for a week!

Why Buy Halloween Decorations

We have had fog in the morning and evening for a couple of weeks now, and usually the sun comes out during the day and we have been enjoying 50-60 degree days.  We don't get a lot of bugs here but we do get spiders, and with the fog the spider webs really show up. It doesn't matter how often I sweep them away they always come back but they make pretty good Halloween decorations and I see no need to go buy the fake spider webbing when the real ones make my porch look pretty spooky.

They are coming down as soon as Halloween is over the thought of that many spiders right outside my front door creeps me out! Click on the picture for a better look.

Family Picture Bloopers

I think the bloopers are sometimes better than the actual picture, and like I said before Avrie was being a stinker for the family pictures but loves her pictures to be taken "all by myself"!

 Scott thought he would help her out with the falling leaves, she didn't know he was behind her waiting to dump more leaves on her...

 And you can see the great effort he went to to make sure her cloud of leaves fell on her, she thought it was great and wanted him to do it again.

Silly girl!

Destina's Party

Since her birthday was on the first day of school and September weekends were all really busy we scheduled her birthday party for yesterday! It was a little late but...better late than never. When my kids get to this age and they want to have a party they have to be willing to help out with all the work that goes into a party.  We sat down and decided what kind of party she wanted to have, after going through all kinds of crazy ideas she decided that she wanted to have friends come over and play games and hang out, she wanted to stay up way past bed time and party. We made cute invitations and delivered them the week before. She worked hard all day Saturday cleaning her room and bathroom and I even pulled out the Halloween decorations, that I have not put out in over 8 years! The house was all ready to go.  We decided that we would have a pizza making station and each girl made their own pizza just how they like it.

There were some interesting pizza choices but I was so busy helping out I didn't get pictures of the kids making them, this was mine!

While the pizza was baking they played a couple of games.

 They turned up the music really loud and had a dance party! They played hide-n-go-seek,  and I think there might have been a truth and dare game going on during the movie, I heard a group of girls open Jayden's bedroom door and try and scare him, there is no way that would have happened if there was not some kind of dare involved.

 Destina opened presents and then they watched Monster's Inc an oldie but a goodie.

I think everyone had a great time, I was worn out and ready to go to bed when the last one left. The best part of the party was when I was getting ready for bed Destina came up to my room gave me a big hug and said, "Thank you mom I had so much fun, thank you for having a party for me." It melted my heart she is so kind, sweet and grateful! The next day I looked at the Instagram picture of the group of girls and she left me a message there that said, " Thank you so much mom I had a lot of fun you are the best love you so much;)." She is the best!

Avire and the Soccer Ball

 Avrie's team is fun to watch in a funny way, the kids chasing the ball around the field.  When she gets the ball and tries to turn it around to go the other direction it is like watching an 18 wheeler making a U-turn on a 4 lane road. She takes it from one side of the field to the other but finally gets it going the right way, most of the time.

They have fun and the treat bag at the end of the game make it all worth it.  She loves playing and it is fun to see her running around happily chasing the ball.
Destina had a great game today she played defender most of the game, they put her in as forward for about 5 minutes and she scored a goal.

I Finally Gave Up

I haven't changed my blog header picture in over a year, I was waiting to get a good picture of all the whole family but I have decided that it not going to happen, at least not until Christmas. I will have to be content with a picture of the kids that are actually living in my house.  I have taken a few pictures of all of us but they were always so rushed and I was never really happy with how they turned out. So I gave up and took the 7 of us out for pictures again. When will I learn, I am like a glutton for punishment, I convinced the kids that it was a perfect day for pictures. Ryan and Kelsie had just walked in from working at McDonald's, Kelsie was not happy that she did not have time to take a shower first. Ryan was tired from staying out late and getting up early for work. Destina and I were both sick, fighting a cold.  Avrie turns into naughty love every time we try to do a family picture, she wants it all about her and is really good if I am taking just her pictures. Jayden doesn't understand that standing like a zombi doesn't work for pictures. So it is a battle every time, I didn't even invite McKenzie and Tim because he hates taking family pictures and I think it's best to keep the peace.  So we headed off on our beautiful sunny fall day and took a few family pictures before I lost my voice and my patience. I am really hoping that when Katie comes home for Christmas we can find the time to all be together, and not grouchy, for a family picture but for now this will have to do.

Homecoming

Tonight is homecoming for Ryan, he is almost 16 so we let him go, and he had to get a haircut as part of the deal, so it worked out for me too. He asked a girl that he has been friends with off and on for about 2 years, she moved to CA and then moved back, she is a sweet girl. They went with a group of her friends and her dad drove them.  It was kind of last minute but he pulled it off.

He was a little nervous but it was fun to see him excited about going.

He is growing up, and I really like spending time with him he is turning into a great young man!

Hopefully he will give me the details when he gets home, he is not quite as talkative as my girls I have to work a little harder to get information out of him, so we will see!

Because Nothing is Ever Easy When Adoption is Concerned

In June we filed our forms to get the girls their green cards and so they can become US citizens. We did all the paperwork, medical exams, fingerprinting, and paid a big fee. A couple of days ago I got a letter in the mail stating that they need to have Destina's original Haitian birth certificate, that her medical forms were not all there, even though the were given to me in a sealed envelop only to be opened by the right person at Homeland Sec. and the copies that I received had all the correct pages, and that they wanted to see her Haitian passport.
Give me a stinkin break, what part of "They came home on Humanitarian Parole as refugees right after the 7.9 earthquake destroyed any and all paperwork related to our adoption," did they not understand. Did they forget that they passed the Help Haiti Act in 2010 for exactly this purpose? The guy we waited on hold for 72 minutes today could not help us nor could he direct us to anyone that could actually look at the file and help us, he first wanted us to go to the Haitian Embassy and get a letter from them? Does he think I live next door to the Haitian Embassy? He then told us to write a letter, and send it the to address that is handling our file. So I did, now we will wait some more to see if they can pull their head out of their A** and send us the green card already. Just a little more than frustrated at this whole thing. Anyone one else run into problems when getting their green cards? If so let me know what happened I can't be the only one this has happened to, although it wouldn't surprise me.