Balloon Festival

Here are some of the photos from the balloon festival we went to when Nana was here visiting

This balloon is AMAZING! Its the world taken from photos from NASA. So cool.

It was a lot of fun! I hope the weather cooperates next year, too!!!

Recognition

When you adopt internationally, it is advisable that you readopt or have your international adoption recognized domestically. There are some states that do not give the same rights and priviledges to internationally adopted children as they do domestically adopted or biological children. We held Rachel's on Friday.

We were are after the very sohrt ceremony

The entire clan of support plus the judge in the background

A Nana Visit

Nana came for a visit this past week and the girls had TONS of fun! Rachel especially LOVED spending time with Nana.

Rachel & Nana working on bracelets & beads

(Something they did a LOT of)

It happened to be the balloon festival at the local regional airport, so we went out there for a little while. This was keeping the girls busy before the balloons flew in.

Enjoying a game of Candy!and before bedtime

Family Pictures

Here are a few of my favorites from our family picture photo session last week. We got some really great ones for just 20 minutes! Especially considering the girls were "toast"!

My crazy girl

Megan went for her 4 yr check up. Before we went, we were talking about what she was going to show the doctor what she can do. She tells me "I can say the alphabet backwards." It was the first I had heard of this...so I asked her to tell me. And I'll darned if she did it (best as I could tell since I don't really know it backwards!) I'm guessing this is what she thinks about when she's SUPPOSED to be going to sleep! :-)



So, the star of the show...doing the alphabet backwards.
Crazy, wicked smart.
I have 2 very smart girls. I am scared. Seriously.

Pics

Things never go exactly as planned. I swear. It is July which means its hot. We figured we'd go out to DBU early to get pictures before it got hot and the sun got too bright. Well, Megan decided 3:30am was a good time to wake up. I finally got her back to sleep about 5:30, but it messed up us getting out for pictures by 7:30. So, we got out there about 8:30ish. Then we had a little snafu with my friend who was taking the family part of the pictures. Anyways, we did get some and although I've seen them, I do not have them yet. We spent 2 hours outside in the heat rather than the 45 minutes that I was expecting. And when we left, Megan was sweaty, very flushed and said she wasn't feeling good. Dad quickly took her to the car for air conditioning and more water. Needless to say, Dad, Megan & I all took naps this afternoon!

Here are some of the pictures we took while waiting for my friend to get there.

I love this picture of Dad & Rachel

The girls

Dad and the girls

(Megan was not really interested in taking pictures)

me & the girls

July???

Oh boy, again, I am horribly behind on postings. We have been so busy. There were a couple of weeks in the past few that we had one or more appointment a day. Most were doctor/dentist appointments. We have Rachel going to youth group on Wednesday night (which means I go as well). We try to squeeze in a few water play dates with some of Megan's friends in there, too. We've been spending a lot of time working with Rachel on school work. We primarily work on English and math. You would not believe that she's only been home for 2 months when you realize how much she understands. Seriously. Everyone comments on it. She has a much more difficult time speaking English, but she understands a lot. When there are words she is trying to say, she often will spell it...yes, she can spell A LOT of basic English words. She really is SO SMART (2 smart girls...this could mean double trouble for us!!!!). We've worked really hard on pronunciation as well and many words she says are really clear. We had to have a "discussion" earlier this week about working on school-work. She really did not want to, and hasn't really wanted to much lately. But when she was reminded that she'll have 7 different subjects plus working on ESL and how many math topics she's not covered yet, she decided she was ready to work hard again. So, she's done really well this week. I've found some ESL games to help us that she likes. She does pretty good, but we've got a long way to go (of course).

Megan is in school 2 mornings a week during July. So we'll have a few more hours a week to seriously focus somewhat uninterruptedly. Hopefully we can make great progress in both ESL and math. That doesn't count the history and US geography things we need to learn (states & capitals, for example) to simply catch up. I know we cannot do it all...and it will just take time, but I want to be able to give her as much as I can before she is completely overwhelmed by just how much she does NOT know (that her classmates do).

The month went by so quickly...I swear I blinked and now its July. We're taking family pictures tomorrow...hopefully I can get some posted tomorrow.