Spring Break fun

Back in April, we took a few days and drove down south. We had our first trip to Legoland, it was so much fun. Then we visited Balboa Park in San Diego one day and our trip ended with special time with 'Auntie Affi'. It had been a long time since we have seen each other, it was so fun to catch up and enjoy a nice lunch in Old Town San Diego.

Teaching children to give back...

Several months ago, Olivia saw an article in a newspaper about a school that had a knitting club. She decided she wanted to be in a knitting club, too. So I decided to encourage it. I wrote a proposal to start a knitting 'class' (our district does not allow clubs) to teach 1st-3rd graders to knit baby hats with the Knifty Knitter looms to donate to the public hospital here. The principal approved our project and we meet every Tuesday after class with about 30 students scattered in 3 classrooms. I was completely overwhelmed with the response, so many kids wanted to do this, unfortunately we quickly ran out of space. Thankfully, 2 other parents came forward and volunteered their time to help out, too. So we each have a room and have a couple of other helper parents. In May we will all meet at the hospital to donate the hats that have been completed. This is a picture of Olivia with the first hat she did all by herself, I'm so proud of her!

Our dossier is headed to Kazakhstan!

Just wanted to share!

A Day at the Santa Barbara Zoo

Little Red Riding Hood

Claire took an acting class with a couple of friends and the class ended with a performance of Little Red Riding Hood. I'm so proud of Claire for remembering all her lines, we tried to practice every day. She was a little shy on the stage...as she says 'I'm embarrassing in front of all those people.' It was a great experience for her.

'Mama' giving 'Red' goodies for her 'Granny' who is sick in bed.


'Red' meets 'Winston, the Wolf' in the forest. 'Winston' learns where 'Granny' lives and makes sure 'Red' gets lost on the way.


'Harry the Hunter' arrives to save the day.


The Cast.

Olivia's spring party

Her class walked to a local party for their 'Spring Party'. We put eggs out for them to hunt, the Easter bunny came, then they did a bunny sack race and had pizza for lunch. It was a nice low key party.

A Birthday Surprise

Well, today was my birthday. There wasn't much planned. My hubby took me out Saturday night to celebrate, we went out to eat and to the movies. We saw "I Love You, Man", I thought it would be a man flick, but it was hysterical.

Today, I took the girls to the Santa Barbara zoo. It's a small zoo and near the beach. It was a beautiful day to do this and we could take our time around the zoo and have enough time for the girls to play in the play area and for them to spend some of their money on souvenirs.

We got back home around dinner time (well, a bit after) and I got a phone message AND an email from our adoption agency. Our dossier has cleared the consulate! It has been hard to wait, but as we make our way through each step, it is so exciting.

This is breakfast, no foolin'...

I attempted an April Fool's joke on the girls yesterday. So I made them scrambled eggs and buttered toast, only it was dried apricots/marshmallows melted together and toasted pound cake with frosting. They seemed more confused by it than anything. They didn't like the 'scrambled egg', but loved the pound cake. Before anyone reports me to the food police, I did make some real eggs for them so they would have a proper breakfast. It was really hard to figure out how to make fake scrambled eggs look real.

When we got up, Olivia was so excited it was April Fool's Day, she told me 'Mommy, it's 8:30" (we have to leave at 7:30 in the mornings) and of course, I played along, saying "oh, no, we're late", and she had this grin from ear to ear while telling me "April Fool's"!

April Adoption To Do List

So for this month my goals are:
-declutter master bedroom to make room for office furniture, computer, etc.
-declutter extra bedroom/office to 'flip it' into a nursery
-research medical issues in adoption and research international adoption doctors (I'm leaning toward one in the NW area, but I'm wondering if there are any good ones in CA)
-shop for caregiver, driver, translator gifts while on vacation in San Diego

It doesn't look like a lot, but really, the decluttering is time consuming. Let's see how much I accomplish this month!

Little Speed Bump

So we last heard our dossier was sent to the consulate in mid February. I was so excited because it seemed to be going smoothly. Well, wouldn't you know, it's true what they say about international adoption...it is unpredictable. We found out a few weeks ago there was an issue with a piece of the dossier. When we did our medical forms, we stapled the copy of the medical license of the doctor to the form and had it apostilled (authenticated) that way. Well, I suppose after it was reviewed at the consulate, they said the copy of the license needed to be notarized and apostilled. Fortunately, our agency took care of it. So, our dossier was just resubmitted about a week or 2 ago. That's okay, we are in the midst of spring cleaning, trying to declutter a couple of rooms to make room for the crib and nursery items.