What were we thinking?!?

Khoa's been home 8 months and seems to be doing pretty well. So we had this great idea that it was time for Khoa to start Pre-K. We found a pre-school that is willing to work with me on what mornings he goes to school. Since I work on Monday's and Thursday's I would just as soon have him in school on those two mornings so that I don't have to be away from him on the mornings that I don't work. The only day that he will have school that I don't work is on Tuesday. I can live with that. Gives me a few hours all by myself. Anyway, school started this last Thursday. Rob took off work and we both took Khoa to his first day of pre-school and then I went on to work. He did fantastic....except for one "minor" detail. It's been a while since I've had a kid in preschool and when they said they require the kids to be potty trained, I thought "no biggie". Wrong! Here's where the "minor" detail comes in. Khoa doesn't know how to wipe his little hiney after he's pooped. Guess what? ...he had to poop and when he was done, he hollered for the teacher. Guess what? ....the pre-school teachers do not help the kids wipe (don't blame them). Period! I guess after several minutes of the teacher trying to get Khoa to wipe his own behind and Khoa crying that he couldn't do it by "hisssself" the teacher finally helped him (bless her) and then called Daddy to let him know that Khoa needed to learn that little skill as soon as possible. After Daddy picked him up from school they came to my work to take me to lunch. I was so excited to hear about his morning at school. I asked Khoa if he had a good time and he said, "No.!" "Khoa no go poopy by hisssself. I quied." I felt AWFUL!!! The poor kid has been scarred for life. Well, he had several "opportunities" to practice wiping by himself this last weekend, with much success. I thought that he would do just fine this morning when I dropped him off. Wrong again!!! He kept saying that he didn't want to go to school and that he wanted to go to work with me. I stayed in the class for a few minutes and we couldn't get his attention off of me leaving. Sooooo, his wonderful and patient teacher pried him off of me as he was screaming and crying at the top of his lungs. It was heartbreaking to say the least. As I walked out of the building I looked back and all of the other little kids were sitting in a circle holding their hands over their ears because Khoa was screaming so loudly. I cried all the way to work. I called the school about 10 minutes later and the teacher said that his monkey had saved the day. She got it out of his back pack (she's goood!!)and gave it to him and he decided that he could handle the morning after all. He didn't have to poop today at school, which I think was probably a good thing. He's already saying he's not going to school tomorrow. Oh Joy! I just wonder if his morning would have been different if I he hadn't had the "hiney wipe" problem on Thursday. When I talk to him about the fact that he has been able to wipe himself several times with no problems, he responds that he can wipe at "Mommy's house" and "Gwandpa's house" and at "Church", but not at school.

So what do you think? I hope we are not doing the wrong thing by making him go to pre-K. If he was a child that we had raised since birth, I wouldn't be questioning our decision, but the fact is, this precious child has only known what a family is for 8 months. Maybe I'm pushing him too much. But, if we don't make him go to pre-K now that he's been a few times, are we making matters worse in the long run? Geeze Louise what's a Mommy and Daddy to do!?!

I have a few pictures of Khoa's first day that I will post, but I can't do it right now. I took them with our daughters camera and I don't know where the thingy is to plug into the camera to up-load them to the computer.

The end of summer.....

It seems like I don't ever blog about our oldest daughter, Erin. She's been working so many hours as a lifeguard that we haven't seen her much this summer. I did manage to take a picture of her the other day while she was on a break.Betsy and Khoa had a good summer at the pool. I wasn't sure how the summer would go since we hadn't had Khoa during the summer before, but he LOVED the pool and we didn't even have to go to the "baby" pool. He loved the "big" pool as long as he had his blue swimmies on. It was a fantastic summer and it went too fast!



We were also fortunate to be able to make several trips to Kentucky this summer. We went a few weekends ago and it was so HOT that we got out the baby pool and let Khoa cool off. Who needs a bathing suit?!? Everyone but Khoa!



Khoa continues to surprise us daily with his antics. He is so much fun and such a good little boy. He is ALL boy though! Here are a few pictures that I took just last week. The last time I saw him he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. I went to my bedroom to get something and walked thru the Kitchen to find him brushing his teeth with the help of the tongs. What?!









This is how he likes to eat his bread stix & cheese snack. He was pretending that it was candles on a birthday cake. So Cute!!!

Summer Vacation ~ who needs Chevy Chase when Uncle Mark is along!!

I guess I better warn you, this post is going to be a long one. I just have too many fun things to write about, so grab a drink and get comfy....





We took a week of vacation and headed to Southern Kentucky a few weeks ago. We love it there. We always have a great time. This time was no different.

We have some great friends that we've known forever. Denise and Mark. Denise is the one who went to Vietnam with my Mother-in-law and me to get Khoa. Anyway, we always have the best time with them. We just travel well together and have fun, no matter what happens. Well, they came down to Kentucky later in the week and brought their "new to them" boat and their two youngest boys. We headed to Lake Cumberland for a day of fun in the sun.



Rob and I rented a double-decker pontoon boat with a slide off the back and then Mark and Denise had their fast boat. They were going to go ahead of us and find a nice spot off the beaten path so that we could tie up and let the kids swim and play.

Everything was going pretty good...for the first five minutes. They started having problems with their boat. Honestly, they had it in the water for five minutes at the most and the engine started over heating. I felt so bad for them because they had been so excited to get it on the lake. We went ahead and found a place to swim and Rob and Mark tried to work on the boat. The boat was taking on water....fast. Rob and Mark decided that they better get the boat back to the marina. They tried to get it started and it wouldn't start so we ended up towing the boat behind the pontoon.

Mark and Rob bailed water out of the boat as fast as they could...with 16 oz. plastic cups! I know it's terrible, but it was one of the funniest things I've seen. They looked so silly, but we didn't have anything else bigger to bail water with. Let's just say, Uncle Mark was not a happy boy! They ended up getting the boat started a few minutes before we reached the marina. They untied from the pontoon and was able to drive the boat the rest of the way and get it on the trailer. The boat sat on the ramp and water drained out of it for probably 10 minutes! Luckily, the pontoon was big enough for all of us and we were able to go back out on the lake and enjoy the rest of the day.

While playing in the lake, we discovered a new use for mini-marshmallows. Uncle Mark and Khoa were having so much fun. I couldn't stop laughing, so I'll apologize now for the bumpiness of the video....hang in there till the end.

It's hard to tell in the video, but their were tiny little fish biting at the marshmallows. The more we threw in the water, the more little fish would swarm around to get a bite of the sweet stuff. It was really funny, especially when the kids threw a handfull of marshmallows right at Mark. He got out of the water pretty fast and I can't say that I blame him.

Here are a few pictures that I took during the weekend.

Betsy has decided that she likes taking pictures of flowers and she does a great job. She took the opportunity to snap a few shots of Great-Grandma's flowers. I was so proud of the pictures she took I had to create a slide show of a few of them.

Our oldest daughter, Erin, has been working at our local pool as a lifeguard this summer and that has kept her very busy. She likes making some cashola, but doesn't have much time for anything else. She enjoyed our KY vacation because she was able to relax. She read a book, relaxed and just enjoyed not having to be at work. She doesn't like the camera, so I really don't have very many pictures of her, but I promise she was with us!

One year ago today our world changed........

One year ago today our world changed...it was the first time that we saw the face of our son!! I will never forget the feeling of seeing his precious face and just somehow knowing...this was the boy God was giving to us. I woke up early this morning and pulled up that first picture of Khoa from our agency Dillon International. We had inquired about three little boys listed on their Waiting Child's list. There were no pictures with the descriptions of the little boys, but they all met the requirements that we were looking for.... The same evening Tami from Dillon e-mailed us pictures and medical information for all three boys. Khoa's picture was the first one we saw..and I knew that was him. Our Son! At the time, we were actually signed up with another agency, Vietnamese Orphan's Relief Fund, and our Dossier was already approved and waiting in Hanoi for us to be assigned a child, but within a week, thanks to the hard work of both agencies, we were officially signed with Dillon International and Khoa had a family! We traveled to bring him home just a little over 4 months from the day we saw his face for the first time!

I can't believe it's been a year. What an incredible adventure we've been on. I have to say I feel like the luckiest Mom in the whole world. Rob and I have three healthy, happy, beautiful children. Khoa has been the perfect addition to our family. He has brought such joy to our family. He is so much like his Daddy that it's scary. He is such a tease! His laugh is contagious and when I hear all three of the kids laughing together, it is the best sound in the whole world! Now, don't get me wrong...it's not been all fun and games. It has been a huge adjustment for all of us to have a now four year old running around. The girls have given up a lot to enable us to bring Khoa home. Betsy sometimes feels left out, even as much as we try to make that not happen, it does. I guess the main thing that our family has to remember is that we will have bumps in the road, but that we all love each other and we all KNOW without a doubt that Khoa is suppose to be ours! With God's help, the rest will fall into place.

One of the other wonderful things that we have to thank for the adoption process is all of the new found friends that we have. When you adopt, it is amazing how you bond with other families doing the same. We've met so many wonderful families from all across the U.S. We had the pleasure of actually getting to meet Nicki and her family last night! They are on vacation traveling from Texas to Michigan. We met them for dinner about an hour from our house last night. It was so much fun to get to meet them and their kids. They returned home from Vietnam in the fall of 2006 with their daughter, Addison. What a cutie. Here are a few pictures from our meeting last night. I must say, we have some cute kids! Our oldest wasn't able to go with us because she had to work and Tony, Nicki's husband also has three kids that were not able to come last night either.

Goodbye Old Friend.....

Belle was a German Shorthaired Pointer that we shared custody of with Rob's Dad, Wayne. She died on Monday from Congestive Heart Failure. She was 13 years old. Grandpa will miss her the most (not that we won't too). Belle and Grandpa were buddies. She would spend hours with him in the barn while he was fixing this or that. She also spent lots of time with Wayne when he would head to the farm in Kentucky. Belle LOVED Kentucky. She would run and roam and just have a ball. She would play in the creek and follow Wayne no matter where he went. By the end of the day, she was worn out and happy!

Rob loved Belle too. He said that she was the best hunting dog he'd ever seen. He loves telling the story of her pointing a bird, while holding the one he'd just shot in her mouth. Now, how'd she smell that other bird with one right under her nose? She was just a good bird dog!

Coming home won't be the same anymore. Belle won't be in the yard waiting on us to say hello. She was so good with the kids. They've rode her and climbed on her and led her around everywhere and she never acted like it bothered her one bit. Belle still thought she was a "lap" dog. She loved trying to sit on my lap when I would sit on the ground to pet her. She'd kind of back up into my lap and plop down. Funny girl!

Our pets are part of our family and for those of you who have a dear pet, I know you understand!

We will miss you, ol' girl.

A night to remember!

A few days ago we were blessed with tickets to see Pat Green, Sugarland, and Kenny Chesney. It was an amazing evening filled with great music. We really enjoyed it. Here is a slide show of the pictures that I took. I think that they turned out pretty good!

Enjoy.

Happy 4th of July from Small Town USA!

Happy 4th of July. We are so blessed to live in America. We are so blessed to have what we have! Here's some pictures to show you how we celebrated the day.

God Bless America!