The Chosen Hearts

Christmas Program Thanksgiving Elmo Live Trying out Mama's remodeled salon Mini Christmas tree Dexter decorated First snow Dec 2010 So over the past month we have been very busy around here. With getting ready for the holidays and fighting the winter weather seems we have not had much free time. Dada worked very hard getting my salon remodeled in our house so I could still do hair in the evenings but also have more time at home with the family. He did a wonderful job. Dexter has been taking gymnastics for the past 3-4 months and that has ended until after the first of the year. They are going to start up a tumbling/trampoline class here in Mansfield and Farmer City so we may try that. Dexter has been taking a beginners swim course at the Y that last four nights and he LOVES it. Dexter and Mama went to see Elmo Healthy Habits at the Assembly Hall back in November. It was fun and educational at the same time. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. Dada smoked the turkeys and ...

Today was an exciting day for Dexter. He lost his first tooth at school. He said his teacher helped him pull it out and that it was bloody but not to bad. We will see if the TOOTH FAIRY stops by tonight.:)

Sir Topham Hatt from Thomas the Train

We are all loving this BEAUTIFUL Fall weather here in Illinois. The crops have come out of the fields and we can now see for miles. We enjoyed camping this past weekend with friends. The boys(Dexter and they have two) all get along so well together. We had our homestudy meeting with our social worker from Illini Christian Ministries on Monday. She was very nice and will be wonderful to work with. She also went ahead and wrote up Dexter's last post adoption report that is due the end of this year, so that is one less thing we will have to do. She will basically just update a few things in our previous homestudy and add in that we now have Dexter. We received notice that our paperwork has been received by USCIS which is immigration and they are on hold until our homestudy is completed. Also, have sent in background clearance forms and are working on getting fingers prints.

Today Dexter had a Rodeo Roundup at school. He had to make a stick horse and dress in his western wear. The teachers had about 12 stations set up for the kids to rotate from including line dancing, petting zoo, snacks station, etc. I actually had today off so it was great to be able to go and have fun with Dexter at a school events. As for the adoption paperwork, we have started with paperwork needed for our dossier. Our immigration forms were sent off with us now waiting for clearance to begin fingerprinting. Our homestudy social worker will be meeting with us in a couple of weeks.

I think the title of this post pretty well sums it up. Not sure if Dexter will be the BIG brother or LITTLE brother or somewhere in the MIDDLE. We have started the paperwork to adopt again from Ukraine. We are working with Small World Adoption Foundation out of Missouri. Marina one of our facilitators with whom we worked with while in Ukraine the first time referred us to SWAF. We are all super excited and will post more as information comes to us.:)

Dexter started kindergarten on Thursday. He rides the school bus from our house and he LOVES that. He also started taking gymnastics again at the Y. His first class ran for two weeks right before school started. He will continue after Labor day. The class is only boys and concentrates on routines for the boys. He loves doing the rings and trampoline. I wish I could get out there with him and do the trampoline myself.

Here are some photos of our trip to Colorado. I am having trouble uploading them so more will come.

RUN GOING TO 2nd Dexter has now played his 2nd t-ball game. It is so much fun to watch all of the little kids playing t-ball. Hope everyone had a nice long weekend. We went to some friends house and camped out on Saturday night. We cooked out over the fire and slept in our tents. Dexter and his buddies Ty and Peyton got to sleep in their own tent and had so much fun. Sunday we played in Dexter's swimming pool and went to a birthday party for another friend with turned 14. Other than work and t-ball the last month not much else has happened. We are looking forward to many camping trips over the rest of the summer.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter Holiday. We started the weekend off with egg coloring on Friday evening. Sunday we have brunch with Grandma Rie and Mitchell family. Sunday evening we went to the Kirkland side. The EASTER BUNNEY did a good job of hiding eggs all around our property for Dexter to find. Dexter kept saying that EASTER BUNNEY is tricking me. Tonight we are registering Dexter for Kindergarden. Is it really that time already?? Seems like we just brought him home from Ukraine. Dexter is signed up to play t-ball which should start next month. We all love the warm weather we have been having. I think we were all having cabin fever. Everynight Dexter has to take his clothes off at the door due to the dirt/mud and sand he has on him. we bought him a new t-ball bat and finally found a right hand glove for the little guy. We spend time everynight practicing hitting and catching. Hopefully he will like this better then soccer. HAHA

Today we are celebrating Dexter's 2 year anniversary of becoming part of our family. We are doing things alittle different this year. We all went shopping yesterday and Dexter picked out clothes, socks, etc to send in a care package to the orphanage where he used to live. Today, we are going to make brownies and look through his adoption book that we made him containing all of our entries made to the blog while in Ukraine. He wants to also play games and make scrapbook pages. Chris is taking care of the roads right now since we got some snow last night. Dexter and I are starting the morning off with Curious George and blueberry pancakes. We took the above picture yesterday at Lake of the Woods Park.