Tess at School

Tess continues to make leaps and bounds in her English! She has little phrases she uses all the time. Like, "Last time..." "But Mommy..." "I'm too little to do..." "That's too tricky for me!" Sweet baby girl!

As I am typing this she is doing a puzzle and singing at the top of her voice, "The Ants go Marching Down" I have a couple of pictures I took last Friday of Tess at her school. She started going to pre-school in January. It's one day a week for 3 hours. I call it "puppy class". There are more speech pathologists and PT's than kids! We're so sad it's over! Her last day is this Friday.

But, we are so ready for summer here at our house! One more week!
All smiles with her Strawberry Shortcake backpack!

What a cutie pie!

Blake went on a pretend "Missions Trip" to Africa with his class at school. He did "security".

Meeee!

I have been going through the zillion pictures I took in California. This is not the best one, but it made me laugh. We were having a "photo shoot" on the beach and they were all getting winey. So, I said, "Who wants candy?" The three big kids straighten up real quick and faked being snuggled and cute. But Tess jumped infront, raised her hand and yelled, "Meeee"!

cominghome2010.blogspot.com

We're Moving!!

A major monumental change is about to occur in our lives. We are selling our home and moving a whole 5 miles away! Crazy?! Here's how it all has happened...

For the past couple years, after I drop the kids off at school, many times I take a "scenic route" home and just drive by different pieces of land. We have always thought it would be cool to build a house on a few acres someday. As crazy as it sounds - about a year and a half ago I just started knocking on people's doors. If there was a raw chunk of land, I would go to the nearest house and try to find out who owned it. I had a TON of people tell me they would sell us some acreage, but there was always a problem with it. Too rocky, a flood zone, an easement through it, etc. One time the property was actually too close to an "ancient" cemetery and could not be built on w/in so many feet of the graves. Spooky!

Anyway, on one such day in October of 2008 I drove down a gravel driveway that lead through trees and found a little house tucked back in about 1/4 mile off the road. I went up and knocked on the door. (Yes, I am very nervy!) The sweetest people in the world came to the door. I asked it they would be interested in selling their land. They told me that their kids (who are our age) had moved to Colorado and they had sometimes talked of moving there. The women actually said, "I have always said that the only way I would leave this place was if someone came up and knocked on my door!" And so started our relationship with the beautiful 7 acres of land.

Now the problem was we were in limbo with Russia at the time. We thought we were heading to go get "Tess" (the abstract Tess) at any time. The couple told us to take our time and keep them informed. In the past year and a half we have visited them about 5 or 6 times. The kids have been there and played in the woods. It just seemed right, you know? We really feel like God lead us to the land - obviously!

So, last Friday we put our house up for sale in this crazy housing market. On Saturday we had a couple come look at it and said they're very interested. We have also had about 5 other phone calls and emails. So, we'll just wait and see. It is so extremely hard to leave our house in many ways! We LOVE our neighbors! Our kids' sweet friends live here. My girlfriends are here. We have the consolation that we will only live 5 miles away. But, it's not the same and just walking across the street. Plus, our blood, sweat and tears are in this house! We have changed every single room top to bottom. Literally! Plus, when we moved here Blake was 2 1/2, Will was 16 months and Audrey was 10 days old! This has been our life for the past 8 years. Just brings a lump to my throat.

We are praying the Lord will bring the perfect family to live here and enjoy it as much as we have. And we feel confident this is the right move at the right time. Tess is nice and settled. That would not be an issue at all.

We are trying to sell it "By Owner" first. I have tried to do my own adverting. So, what better way than the start a BLOG?? We have it printed on signs all around town. I wish I could know how many people have gotten on and looked at it. If you would like to check it out it is: cominghome2010.blogspot.com

Seriously, God is so good to us. I just cannot believe that we have the chance to live in such a beautiful piece of His creation! If everything goes as planned, we will be building a house around the existing house. We need bedrooms and a family room. It will be a very interesting challenge. Rob has a ton load of ideas running through his mind.

If you know of someone in the Kansas City area wanting to buy, send them our way! Our house has 4+ bedrooms and our yard is one acre. Then, direct them to our house blog!

San Diego

It's been way too long since my last post! Oh my goodness! So much going on! We took a vacation to San Diego a couple weeks ago. It was perfect! Tess loved it. It took her a couple days to used to being "dirty" with all the sand. She loved the pool and ocean. Although she really threw a fit the first few times I put shorts on her, she ended up telling me, "Me likes short pants!" I took over 700 pictures. I know it's crazy! But, you just have to capture the moments!! I really haven't had a chance to go through everything. So, here are a couple that each tell a story. I'll post more soon.

About 30 minutes after we took this picture we felt the 7.2 earthquake in Mexico. It lasted about 30 seconds. It felt like we were standing on a dock in very wavy water. Turned out it was a big one, but we actually didn't know to be impressed!

It took Tess a while to figure out that the tide stopped at a certain spot. She just kept running...

Preparing For Warmer Weather

Finally some nicer weather! Tess was able to go to the "tornado slide park", as we call it, and go down the big 'ol slide. The first time I went down that slide I "made a train" with 16 month old Will, 2 1/2 year old Blake and I was 9 months pregnant with Audrey. Those were the days!! This was a much different 1st. You'll notice I was the one taking the picture and my kids did most of the mothering on that first trip down the tornado slide.


We are planning a trip to California in a few weeks. Our first family of 6 vacation. Tess is such a good girl. We'll have so much fun! But, because she has never been in the US when it has been warm, I have been slowly preparing her for what lies ahead. And this is why: A while ago Tess and I were looking at a book and a boy was wearing shorts. Tess said, "Uh oh! Boy's pants broken!" So, I know there are going to be MANY things that are confusing for her. So today I got out some girly capri pants and a tank top. Tess said, "Tess no like that. That too little for Tess." So, I got out another summer outfit and let her "pick" which one she wanted to wear. She picked the first one. ;) She kept pulling the legs down and saying, "My shirt arms all gone." I just smiled and, "Do you want to look at a book?" She's so easy to distract. I had our photo album from the last trip we took to the ocean. We talked about the sand, beach, ocean, waves, water, sandcastles. She looked at a picture of Audrey with her swim suit on and said, "Audrey goin' outside in undies?! Nooo!" Then about the boys, "No shirts outside! You silly boys!" She thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Also for preparation, I have given Audrey and Tess their goggles to wear in the bath tub. They love it! I've been throwing in pennies and they dive for them in the 6 inch deep water. Audrey is such a good big sister. She pretends it's so hard to find the pennies and goes crazy for Tess when she finds them. Tess totally goes under and holds her breath. I wish you could hear her tell you all about her "ga-does". She's the most animated story-teller! I'll be anxious to share pictures of my wonderful, darling kids with their ga-does on!

The Stairs Games

So, this is how the game goes: Blake, Will and Audrey pile on top of a bean-bag chair which is on top of a sled. They perch themselves on the very top edge of the steps and then...Tess pushes them down. Do you think they played that game on the blue stairs at the orphanage? ;) Tess is LOVING life with her crazy fun brothers and sister!

Too Hard Uh Me!

If you were to hear Tess say, "Will, do Yoda to me" - this is what you would see...

Well, my latest challenge I have given Tess is - no more cave-man talk! So yesterday she ran out of ranch dip for her broccoli and she wined, "More dip". I said, "You can ask nicely for dip." And she told me, "It too hard uh me ask nice uh dip!" Hummm, I don't think that's too hard if you just said all that!