Happy Birthday . . .

. . . to Denver.

Our little man turned one today!

Denver, you have brought so much love and joy to our family and we can't imagine life without you. Hope you had a great birthday.

xoxox

Happy birthday . . .

. . . to Victoria.

Wow - eight years old already! How did that happen? Glad you had a fun birthday today - we love you very much!

xoxox

The good, the bad and the ugly

The GOOD: The agency we used for Denver's adoption has been restructured after declaring bankruptcy in July and their license has been renewed by the Ontario Ministry. Yay. This in itself is really good news. But even better is that two families received referrals yesterday! This came as a huge shock to many people as we were thinking they wouldn't start until the new year . . . maybe even March. Sooooo, I'm holding my breath for some of our friends that have been waiting forever for a referral. Can't be much longer now!

The BAD: Denver has walking pneumonia. Yuck. He has had a cough since we came home with him but the doctor checked him a number of times and his chest and lungs were clear. The cough was actually getting better until the last day or so. We thought it was just from teething but last night was horrible. He coughed non-stop . . . all . . . night . . . long. Unfortunately I had a crazy busy day today but Daddy was able to take him in to see the doctor. His lungs and chest are still clear but when she looked in his ears, she could tell he had pneumonia. So he started some meds today and hopefully it will clear it up soon. The poor little guy looks and sounds so sad. So out of character for him.

The UGLY: Okay, I don't really have anything "ugly" but I couldn't think of another title. But I will say that if we don't start getting some more sleep around here, no one's gonna be lookin' too pretty!

Happy Birthday . . .

. . . to Austin.

We love you tons big guy. Can't believe you're six years old already! Hope you had a great day.

xoxox

(Blogger isn't letting me post pictures for some reason so I'll try to add some pics of my handsome six year old tomorrow)

Denver's Baptism

I know it's been well over a month since I last blogged and now it's time to catch up. Enough with the Halloween pictures. Not sure how well I'll do at catching up but here's one post that brings us into November anyway.

Denver was baptized on November 1st. It was a beautiful service and lots of our family and friends were there to celebrate with us. We all wore our traditional Ethiopian clothing to honour Denver's birth country. Here are a few pictures from the day:

A few cute pictures taken at home in his baptism outfit:

Halloween 2009

I have to admit that we don't really make a huge deal out of halloween - the kids paint pumpkins, get dressed up and go trick or treating to a few houses and that's about it. We drive to some family and friends that live close by and then visit a handful of our neighbours. We do hand out candy to kids that come to the door but we don't go crazy with decorations or anything like that. The kids look forward to it and it's fun to see them in their cute costumes.

A few days before halloween, we asked Samara what she was going to say when she knocked on doors to go trick or treating and she replied, "Happy Birthday". Hmmmm . . . see, we obviously don't even talk about halloween that much! Don't worry, we set her straight before she actually went out and since Grandma's was the first house we went to, it was a good place to practice.

Here are some pictures of the kids all dressed up.

My Favourite Boys

The Run

This past Sunday, I laced up my running shoes and participated in the annual 5k Run for the Cure. Although the reality of having Christel's name on my back really sucked, I wore it proud because quite frankly, I'm totally proud of her. She's fighting the biggest of battle of her life and doing a darn good job of it. Waking up every single day and dealing with this dreaded disease can't be easy and so waking up one Sunday morning to run a 5k in her honour is the least I can do.

Christel, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm so proud of you girl and I'll continue to be here, cheering you on from the sidelines. Go Christel Go!

You can see from these pictures how many people participated. It was packed. It's always a challenge when the race begins because you're stuck in a crowd of people trying to run. Finally around halfway through the 5k, it breaks up a bit but you're always surrounded by people on all sides. It's interesting to read the signs on everyone's back as you run. It seems as though almost everyone knows someone close to them that has dealt with or is dealing with breast cancer. So it's awesome to see so many people supporting this event.

A family outing

The kids had a PD day already last week Monday and so we decided to take them somewhere fun for the day. We wanted to go to the zoo but the weather didn't cooperate and so we went to the science centre instead. The kids were so excited and we all had a great time. We even watched a movie on the big OmniMax screen. It was an under the sea movie and it was really cool. Well, most of us thought it was cool. Unfortunately Victoria found it way too overwhelming and kind of scary. She stayed as long as she possibly could, with her face covered for much of it, and then Mike finally had to take her out. And of course Samara wanted to be where Victoria was for fear of missing out on something. So Mike took Victoria, Samara and Denver out and Austin and I stayed and watched to the end. He thought it was really neat - and so did I (which in hindsight is kind of strange because swimming with fish is totally unappealing to me).

The kids had some favourite parts of the day. They all found the section on space really interesting and the rock 'n roll part was also a lot of fun. But they spent the most time in the kids zone. Victoria's absolute favourite part of the whole science centre is the marketplace. They have a store set up there with a scanner and everything. She was the cashier most of the time and checked everyone's groceries out. It's actually really cool and quite realistic.

Another great place to spend a day with the family.

Last day of summer vacation

I feel like the summer flew by and we barely did anything. Okay, you're laughing. I know I went to Ethiopia and brought home our son and all but still . . . I felt like we didn't do any major outings as a family. Okay, that still doesn't sound right.

Anyway, the last day of summer vacation we decided to take the kids to a farm nearby our place. The kids' favourite part was the train ride that took us for a tour of the farm. Even Denver loved it. We had a really good time and it was nice to spend the day together with the six of us. (SIX of us! Yikes, that still feels strange to type!).

Soccer

Saturday mornings this summer were spent at the soccer field again. This was one of Austin's favourite part of summer. He loved playing soccer again this year and looked forward to the games each week.

A very serious goalie:

I love this picture. Just a little distracted by something more interesting in the grass!

Here he is getting his medal at the end of the season.

Austin, we're proud of you. You did your best and always had fun regardless of whether you would win or lose.