Kid Fun

Joey had to make a house for his rock as a project in the beginning of 3rd grade. Thanks to Ashley and Nick's inspiration, he made it a zipline house.

These 2 cuties had fun giggling and pretending to read the hymn book.  They sure loved each other and had fun laughing.

We had 2 bats that were frequently in the corner by our front door. The kids loved watching them--and luckily, they stayed put.

It was fun having a girl around.  It cracked me up to see all the boys staring as i painted Errie's nails.  They were NOT used to this girliness!

For some reason Joey and KImball decided to camp out on their bedroom floor one night. I guess the beds weren't that exciting

Joey loves his jam and didn't want to waste a drop--he licked that jar clean.

Errie and Tionne started a little dance party.  Seeing their huge smiles, that giddy laughter they shared, and the special little connection they had was the reminder I needed to know why our family was meant to do this--to keep these two little sweethearts safe and TOGETHER

Riding the neighborhood kiddie train

and playing at the park

Rocky's breath was so bad.  Peter brought home some tools to try and remove some plaque.  Didn't work too much since the dog hated it

We had this beautiful bird patrolling the neighborhood and keeping down the pigeon population. He killed birds on both our trampoline and van.  We were cleaning bird guts off the roof of the van for weeks.

                                     

Welcome to your new homw Errie

The boys were excited to help get ready for Errie to come. (the honeymoon faded quickly when they learned it wasn't going to be all fun and games like they thought :) It took a couple months to change our licence to allow us to have 2 foster children in our home.  Tionne was very excited for his sister and loved hammering the bed together.

It was a great day. The CPS worker started tearing up when she saw our welcome sign and balloons. They boys were excited to greet and play with a new sibling.

Poor sweet little Errie got thrown right into life. After only having a few days to get accostumed to our home, she had to start kindergarten.  Despite all the HUGE new changes, she handled it very well.

First day of school E donut

Errie wasnt able to get into Joay and Kimballs schhol because it was full, so she had a different start day (and different start /end times, and school vacations--which was insanity for me juggling all the kids and their different schedules)

First Day of School 2013

First Day of School for these cute boys starting 1st and 3rd grade at Great Expectations Academy.
Kimball had Mrs. Hall--she was a tough, but great teacher. Kimball loved learning some sign language from her--he's got a real talent for it!
Joey had Mrs. Wolf and Mrs. Welch--2 sisters. Mrs. Wolf was tougher, but a great teacher.  She pushed Joey and helped him develop some great responsibility. And introduced him to the Narnia series, which became a family favorite.

Cool spider on the wall

They wanted their ages for their cookies so they got a giant 6 and 8 with yummy sprinkles and m&m's

Happy Anniversary

In order to celebrate our 9 year Anniversary, we had to get a little creative. (I already got a babysitter that morning so I could go tot he CPS office for the meeting for out kids, so we had to stay at home that night) Peter went to pick up Olive Garden and then set up a romantic little candlelit table in the backyard.  We sat under the patio roof and listened to the rain.  It was pretty romantic.