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Sunday, April 29, 2007

NWA Gift registry China bound

Well things are going by pretty fast here in Georgia lately.
We are in the middle of our home study for Olivia and the kids are on the last leg of this school year. It's hard to believe that the year is about over for them. Gage's grades are okay but not spectacular. I think it's because he knows summer is close and feels he doesn't have many days left to go. He received a few demerits (notes/write ups) this past few weeks on the all infamous talking/not following directions. Roy and I just do not know what else to do to make him understand the importance of following directions and doing what you are told to do. I finally broke on the last note sent home and I think I might have gotten some sort of lesson through his thick skull. It all started the day before when he came home with the note and was reprimanded for it by Roy with no TV or video games for 2 weeks and sent to his room. He asked that night if he could take his Star Wars Lite sabers to school and I told him no. Well the next morning I noticed his bag was pretty heavy,bulky and zipped up (which if you know our son her NEVER zips his bag and drops/looses everything). I thought to myself to just let it slide and see how things go. Well.... Home he comes with a note. He took the toys out and played with them on the play ground and ignoring Ms. Osborne's wishes on continuing to play with them and hits a kid. I know it was an accident but he not only ignored the teacher but also defied me in taking them in the first place. My opinion on toys at school past 1st grade is they belong at home. if you want to take something take a book. School is for learning and not a show and tell. The schools provide entertainment for the kids during recess so the toys need to stay home. Of course I was beside myself on what to do so I told Gage he needed to gather up all his Star Wars toys and take them to the consignment sale that our church was putting together. So off we go to church to donate his toys. I think he might learn something by this. Roy wanted to take baseball from him but my thought process was baseball is a group/team sport and he is suppose to play as a team so if we punish him we punish the team. That's not fair. As far as baseball goes Gage is doing great. He caught a foul ball for the 3rd out in the 6th inning. They still lost but we were short a team player and did not have our regular coach pitcher which I feel would have made it a win or a real darn close one. We lost 14 to 18. Gage had 3 or 4 base hits and scored I think 3 runs.
Kolbe is a growing weed. A good one. He seems more clingy since I started working at the pre-school 2 days a week. Kolbe is so smart it's scary. He has learned so much this year in pre-school. I am so proud of my little boy. His voice is about as big as his eagerness to just learn and do things now. I keep telling him and reminding him to use his inside voice. Bless his heart he takes after his mother and Aunt Ruby.
Katie is learning quite allot at pre-school herself even stubbornness, scratching, biting and hitting. Boy oh boy her attitude needs tuning. I am so not looking forward to her terrible horrible 3's if this is what her 2's are like. It could also be an adjustment things as well with me working and her going 5 days a week verses 3.
Last but not least Daphne has finally finished her first Science Fair project and I am sure glad that's over. She decided to do a study on mice so we started with 4 and now have 2 left. One died and the other is MIA. I hope it wound up in one of the kitty's belly and not still running loose in my house. I see no evidence that it is still alive so I am optimistic that it was a snack. Now that the project is over the mice are going bye-bye. She told me a few days ago that her mother and father are letting her come back this fall for another year so I have to call Arlington to see what arrangements need to be made. I know it's hard for her parents but she is enjoying this school so much and seems to be doing great. I hope the Lin's know they are always welcome here anytime. It has been such a pleasure for us to have her this year. She enjoys the kids and I know they are gong to miss her this summer.
Well as for the topic/title of this excerpt I have established a registry for Roy and I on Olivia's adoption journey. This will allow anyone that is interested in helping us with bringing Olivia home to do so. We have talked about taking the kids with us to get Olivia but it is pretty costly for 3 or 4 extra round-trip tickets. I received an e-mail from NWA (Northwest Airlines) about a new gift registry that couple/people could register for and send out information regarding the need. Most of the registrations are things like wedding, graduation and retirements but I know allot of adoptive parents that have set something similar up. So here is our information:
and enter my first and last name along with the state of GA.
Example - Hardin - Jennifer - GA or you can enter the registration id number as
070426050000533
or
Once you are in the registry everything is pretty self explained. So for those of you wanting to help us out in our journey to Olivia anything would be appreciated. We officially submitted on April 13, 2007. It should take about 4 to 6 weeks for us to receive our PA (pre-approval) from China on Olivia. This is an important document pre-qualifying us and holding her as our daughter and her perspective adoptive parents. We are on target to have our dossier submitted to China sometime mid-July or August. This might put us to travel by the end of the year which would be great but most likely it will be early 2008. I am bummed about the time frame but know in my heart the longer the wait the better chance we have to afford taking the whole family to China to pick Olivia up and bring her home. This would be such a once in a lifetime experience for the boys. Gage is at the age he will remember this for the rest of his life and Kolbe should remember almost the whole trip but at least the important parts. Katie is too young to remember anything but would benefit by not thinking we are leaving her again. I hate the thought of her thinking we are abandoning her. There have been several of our church friends that have volunteered in helping with the children if we have to travel by ourselves. They are such a wonderful bunch of people.
It seems like my novel is about to close for this entry.
I hope things are going well with all that is following our blog.
Blessings,
Jennifer

Monday, April 09, 2007

Easter Day 2007




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Easter Day 2007




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Easter day 2007




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Monday, April 02, 2007

 
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Well .. Spring break is here.

I posted a few pictures of Kolbe and Katie at the Easter egg hunts. They had so much fun. We all have a stomach bug this week. I started the week off with it then passing it along to the kids and Roy ended the week. Gage missed his Thursday night game and Kolbe missed his Saturday game and Easter egg hunt at the church. I also got an email from Kolbe's coach that Kolbe's baseball team has been picked for one of the pre-t expo game at the Braves game on April 12th!

This week is spring break for the kids. We will most likely just do some things around the house. I think I'll try taking the kids skating early this week so hopefully there will be no broken bones. Roy is planning on taking a half day Thursday to go fishing and just maybe we will see about Six Flags on Friday. With it also being Easter weekend coming up we will want to be home so the Easter bunny will not get to confused.

We finally started our home study this week. I just hope it goes smoothly. I really like the agency we chose. We also narrowed down a name for baby Ke. I believe we will bring her home with the name of Olivia Erin Ke Hardin.