A Schedule

School started about a month ago

and the routine of daily life has fallen into place.

I love it.

I love schedules and routinues.
I stay flexible of course, but it's nice to have a plan.
I thought I might document a typical day in the life of our little family.
It may be fun to look back on later on . . .

5:30am Eric exercising, me sleeping, Kacin, like clock work, up to potty and hopefully back to bed

7:15am Family Scriptures and prayer

7:30am Eric to work, breakfast, ready for the day, chores
8:40am Picture scripture story and practice memorizing Articles of Faith
8:45am Off to school--carpool for Kyler, drive or ride bikes to get Kacin to school
9:20am Kids at school, Eric working hard at the office, me at home watching TV and eating chocolates

HAHA. Just kidding. Me volunteering in classrooms, cleaning house, grocery shopping and errands, exercising, practicing piano, and working on various projects.

12:00pm Kacin done with school, lunch, homework, reading, playing, working

3:30pm Kyler home from school, snack and story from The Friend, homework, reading, playing, usually a TV show, making dinner

6:00pm Hopefully Eric is home, because we are all starved and ready to eat dinner

7:00ishpm Showers, ready for bed, reading, family song and prayer

8:00pm Kids asleep, Eric chilling or working on the computer or off playing basketball, Me walking, still at Young Women's activities, piano lessons, book club or some such thing, and sometimes we are even both home together at the same time

10:30ish To sleep

More Soccer

The rain was falling down

and the fields were pretty muddy,

and the game went on.

Kyler has gotten much better

at passing the ball and working with his team mates to score.

Kacin is awesome at staying with the action

and when the ball goes out,

he's always ready to throw the ball back in--

to himself.

We had to teach him that there is a rule

that you can't be the first one to touch the ball after you throw it in.

He didn't want to listen.

He thought it was a brilliant idea to drop the ball right over the line

and take off kicking it.

Beats trying to pass and getting intercepted.

As you scroll down,

you will notice Kyler the dancing goalie.

He was having way too much fun out there.

First Weekend of October

The first weekend in October means
General Conference and
new pajamas!

Last night,

the boys were jumping up and down
when it was time to put on their new
motorcycle pajamas.
They asked me to go change into mine, too
so we could all get cozy

on our big bed

and finish reading a Magic Tree House book before bedtime.

And then

we stayed comfy all day as we sat around

watching the two Sunday sessions.

And {miracle} we all stayed awake.
The boys coloring and quietly building legos,
asking questions when something caught their attention.
Eric baked us zuchinni bread in between sessions and
we still went on our Sunday family walk.

Oh, and Kyler did my hair.
If anyone is looking for a stylist,

I highly recommend him.

Yesterday,

after watching conference,

we went to the boys second outdoor soccer game

of the season.

{enter a little bragging}

Last week,

each of our boys made a goal,

the only two points of the game!

Go Red Dragons!

gag Brushing yuck Teeth gross

Kyler
has been known to
throw his cereal bowl in the garbage,
napkins in the sink,
head to clear the table and make it halfway up the stairs
before realizing the kitchen table is actually located downstairs
in the room he started in,
and lose his socks in the drawer under the oven.
I'm sure he just has a lot of important, deep thoughts
swimming through his mind.
Though this morning,
He wasn't so thrilled about the consequence
of not paying attention.
He went in the bathroom to brush his teeth.
A few minutes later,
we all hear
gag gag yuck splicht gag gross
He had squirted the hand soap onto his toothbrush
instead of squeezing the toothpaste.

Adopting Again

We are so excited
to finally be re-licensed
as adoptive parents
through
LDS Family Services!!
It feels good to have all of our paperwork done
and our file complete.
Now we are ready
to wait. :)
We know that the adoption journey can take
a REALLY long time.
So as we wait
we plan on advocating for adoption and becoming involved in our local
FSA (Families Supporting Adoption).
We have our profile available to view
HERE on itsaboutlove.org.
And we just started our
Adoption Blog
which is linked to our profile
and a lot like this one, only a little more adoption specific.
To be completely honest,
it is totally embarassing for us
to have our pictures and lives out there
for the whole world to see
and compare against many other beautiful, adoptive couples
but we are keeping every window and door open
and feel like this is the direction we need to go right now.
We'd love to hear from anyone with questions or comments:
eric.laura.us@gmail.com
And maybe,
if you wouldn't mind,
keep us in your thoughts
and spread the word about
the awesomeness
of adoption
through LDS Family Services
(and us). :)

Realized

Kacin's teacher
passed out a classroom newsletter today.
The last item was about a timeline to be displayed on the wall,
It was a request
for
each child to bring in
a
baby picture.

I've always known,
but today I realized,
and it made me so so so very sad,
that
we
don't
have
any
baby pictures.

I hope it doesn't ever trouble my boys too much.
I hope they don't feel sad
when they see pictures of their friends as babies
or are asked to do projects
and all we can tell them about is how cute
we have imagined their little baby selves to be.
How we're sure
Kacin was the deliciously chubby baby
who laughed, smiled, and then screamed through the night
and
Kyler was born with patches of hair that would never lay flat,
and big, searching, thoughtful eyes,
a baby who cooed and babbled at the world around him.

I hope it doesn't bother them
that we can't prove it.

I'm glad that after chatting with Kacin's sweet teacher
she decided to shift the focus
from baby picture
to when-you-were-little picture.

And maybe my currently overloaded
digital camera is making up for something.

Dull?

Not here.

Even on a rainy day.
There's singing and dancing (in the rain),

puppet shows,

*sad note: Kyler also did an awesome puppet show, but I think because it was so long, it wouldn't upload here.

brownies gone cupcake,

and lettuce to be gathered from the garden.

Oh, and right now there's some arguing

going something like this.

Ka: I want to play in there, too.

Ky: I just want some privacy.

Ka: You can't shut the door!

Ky: Yes, I can. I am. It's my room.

Ka: No, it's not! Mom and dad bought it!

blah blah blah on and on

Let's call this afternoon
entertainment at its finest.