lots going on around here. as usual.
let's see-

we got the rest of our front yard, so that's pretty exciting.



dave is still plugging away at our shower. lots of progress and lots of mess. boy am i ever glad that we didn't put any carpet in this house!!



and our hood fan is finally getting finished. also lots of mess, but worth it!
this is what my kitchen looked like for a few days. dave had to empty and take down two cabinets in order for the painter to start on the hood fan.







still not the final color- don't worry!



also- we were just starting to wonder what in the world was taking our adoption licence so long to go through when our caseworker called to let us know we needed to be re-fingerprinted. something about not needing to be licenced the first time around made our fingerprints inaccessible to DCFS.

so we got all that taken care of on thursday. our caseworker told us that she heard we were pretty much approved already. which is great!!! now we are waiting for our court date to be set.

WE ARE SOOOOOOO CLOSE!!!!!

which is a good thing because we are only 6 weeks away from our 1 year mark!
crazy, huh?

neiko has made leaps and bounds in every area over the last 3 or 4 weeks. it is amazing!
remember when i was going to have him screened for developmental delays?
well i'm not really feeling the need anymore.
his vocabulary has gone from 5 words to about 30!
-one of which (of course) is "mine!"
and i'm sorry, it is adorable. i'm sure it won't be for long, but for now it is- :)
and he is becoming way more aware of things. with less of the disorganized, wild behavior.
he's starting to stay with an activity for longer amounts of time, and also starting to listen better to the different tones in my voice.
and learning to have a little bit of impulse control.
which is a process- especially for little boys!!





he is doing SO WELL.

this may sound strange to some of you, but the improvements all came right after birth mom signed away rights.
maybe coincidental, or maybe strongholds of some kind being broken......?



and in other news- miss tekoa turns 5 next week!



she is beyond excited because it means she's getting older.
she has been cracking me up lately. i have a story for dave everyday lately of something funny she has said.

today's was-
"mom, don't tell me you don't know. you are the mom, you have to know."

and yesterday's-
"mom, it would be better if i was beautiful and i had a cat."
i said, "tekoa, you ARE beautiful, ya silly."
"no, mom, REALLY beautiful and a cat."
and i said, "you ARE really beautiful!"
"no, much more beautifuller and a cat!"

which prompted a speech about how becoming more beautiful on the inside makes you more beautiful on the outside.....not sure how much of that sank in....



and lastly-
all of shaeya's hard work will hopefully pay off this weekend when she performs with her vaulting team at a horse show in springfield!
she is excited- and a little nervous.
but she has worked really hard and their routine looks amazing!









they will have 2 performances- one on saturday and the other on sunday- so we are staying in a hotel saturday night.

and we are leaving neiko overnight for the first time.......
something about him and sitting on bleachers for hours watching all the different breeds of horses just didn't mix well in my mind.
and i kinda wanted to be able to focus on shaeya this weekend.....

i'm SURE he will be fine.
i'm SURE he won't feel abandoned and scared.....
he'll totally know we're coming back.....
right????