Pictures

A few cute pictures of what we have been doing the past few weeks.

Maiya loves washing her hair in the bathtub.

Our new "masterpiece" wall. (Masterpieces coming soon.)

$1.99 shower curtain liner, black permanent marker, crayons, matchbox cars = a home made car mat and hours of entertainment (both making it and then playing with it)

Luke's money management system.

S'mores cookies. Mmmm.

We had some friends over for a swimming party and the only way we could get the kids out of the pool was to put chips out. Then, we had to put the chips away to get the kids back IN the water!

Maiya went to her first "princess" birthday party recently. She loved dressing up in her pretty dress.

Some Day

Some day... when we have the money.

Some day... when the procedure is safer and more common.

Some day... when we have the time.

My "some day" was July 28, 2011.

I have worn glasses since I was in 1st grade. I got contacts in 8th grade. I got LASIK when I was 34.

I have wanted to have LASIK eye surgery for as long as I can remember. I always thought of it as a dream that would likely never actually come true. It was something I would talk about wanting and think about wanting to do, but I always assumed it was too risky, too expensive, or too time consuming for recovery.

As years went by and LASIK became more common, I would talk to people who told me that the procedure and recovery time was simple and minimal. I heard that the procedure had gotten much safer and more precise in recent years because everything was done by lasers.

About one month ago, I heard about a well known doctor in our area offering a free consultation and 25% off the cost of the surgery.

After dealing with yet another eye infection and having to wear my (wrong prescription) glasses again, I decided to go ahead with the consultation. After hearing the details of the surgery, the procedure, recovery time, risks, and cost, I was ready to jump in and do it that day! Dan, however, talked me down a little (it's so good that I have him in my life!) and we talked through all of the pros and cons.

On July 28th, Dan took me to the doctor's office and in 2 hours, we were heading home with my "new eyes." On the way into the procedure room, I had to hold onto the nurse because I couldn't see 1 foot in front of me. Thirty minutes later (and it was only that long because we had to wait on the doctor - the actual procedure time was about 3 minutes!), I was walking to an exam room on my own and could see!

I went home and slept the rest of the day and night and woke up on Friday morning to head back to the doctor for a pre-op appointment. At my appointment, I already had 20/20 vision in my right eye and 20/40 vision in my left eye. As I sit here writing this now, my vision is better than it was when I was wearing contacts or glasses. Things are clear, bright, and beautiful. I woke up this morning and rolled over to look at the clock and didn't have to grab my glasses to see what time it was! Amazing!

My "some day" has come and I am so thankful!

2nd Grade

First day of 2nd grade.

Another step down

We have completed another step in getting all of Maiya's citizenship stuff completed.

She now has a passport. Now we can take the passport to the social security office and get her a social security number. Just one more step closer to be really done with all of the paperwork!

Now that she has a passport, I bet she's going to ask to go to Mexico for Spring Break. :)

Clifford, A Pirate, and a Fearless Monkey

It was an incredibly welcome, but incredibly unusual, cool day today. We took advantage of it and hit up a local park to play.

The boys were dressed as Clifford and a pirate.

They found a section of trees that were in a circle and they used it as a "house."

They made "rocket boosters" so that they would run faster.

Adorable outfits.

We think Maiya might be part monkey.

She climbed up this climber all by herself.

Evan is scared to climb up alone. He's afraid he'll fall. Maiya is fearless.

Up high.

Family Day Fun

Maiya enjoyed Family Day with some of her favorite activities.

Swimming makes Maiya happy. Her latest trick is floating on her back.

Luke spends most of his time at the pool under water.

Evan follows Luke around.

When we came home from the pool, we went to the backyard and let Maiya play with shaving cream and the garden hose. Here she is trying to decide if she is going to get in trouble for painting herself with shaving cream.

Happy girl!

The boys joined in on the body painting fun before I sprayed them all off!

First Annual Family Day

Today was the first annual "Family Day" in our house! We spent the day doing all kinds of fun things together and we also started a new tradition called "Our Family is GREAT!"

Each one of us wrote what we love about our family and drew a small picure. We attached a picture of our family to that page and we put them in a binder so that we can add to the book each year. The boys really got into it and liked looking back to our 2010 family picture and how it looks different from this year's family picture. We talked about what things have changed over the year and what kinds of things are still the same.

Luke said, "I'm glad we adopted Maiya and we do almost everything with her."

Evan said, "We can do animal things and make a party with animals and make a farm."

Maiya drew some circles, dots, and lines.

Planitarium

I found some more pictures from our week of vacation on my small camera! We took the boys to visit a planitarium and science museum.

Astronauts Luke and Evan

Exploring how air lifts planes off the ground.

Water pressure.

Luke had to figure out how to pack this case and make all of the blocks fit.

Pendulum swinging

Electricity

Lost Tooth #2

With all of the excitement of our beach week last week, I forgot to post about Luke loosing tooth #2. He was eating dinner and reached in and pulled it out himself! We celebrated with ice cream - again!

Last Day

Today was our last day at the beach for the week. We planned on spending the entire day building sandcastles, playing in the waves, and getting sand in places no one wants to think about. However, when we woke up this morning, we were greeting with lots of rain, thunder, and lightening. The day turned into a fun day of the boys playing mini golf, mini bowling, and arcade games (they won 1,300 tickets that they spent on junk toys - very fun). They also went to see the movie Cars 2 again. Dan hadn't seen it yet and the boys were happy to take Dad to the movies.

When the movie was over, we picked the boys up and went to dinner and then down to the beach for sunset play time. The rain had stopped, but the wind was blowing like crazy! We got some last beach pictures and the kids had fun playing before we gave them showers and put their PJ's on and sent them to bed.

I think this is Maiya's favorite place in the whole world. Tons of sand and water. Nothing better.

My handsome boy.

My adorable munchkin.

My beautiful girl. (The wind almost knocked her down a few times!)

Cute boys in their matching swim trunks.