Friday, May 29, 2009

She's Finally Ours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Audrey Elizabeth Hess

Our final, final, final, paperwork finally arrived!!! I just have to say how happy and blessed I feel to be able to have this little girl. She is such a blessing to our family and I love her to pieces. Somehow the Spirit touched me the very first day she came to our door. I had such a wonderful feeling that we knew each other, and we had already agreed to be together. She has been the very best baby in the whole world and I am so excited to watch her grow into the beautiful girl she already is.

Our sealing is set for June 6th at 2:00pm. We would love any of our friends and ward family to be there. Just give me a call and let me know if you plan on coming so I can tell them how many people to expect. Thanks for all of your support through our long journey and for loving Audrey!


Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Craft Day!

Anytime I do anything arsty and crafty on my own, without help-- it's a big deal for me. I'm artistic, but not in a crafty sense. So the other day Dustin was bored out of his mind and I was feeling adventurous and found something online that we could do together. (It also happened to be the only one I had all the supplies for!) I'll give you my own instructions because the web site didn't have pics and was really vague.

We made a little crab!!!




You can do it too! All you need is

A paper plate
Sand
Egg carton (for eyes)
Red construction paper
Glue

Just take the paper plate and have your kid put glue all over the top of it. Then have them sprinkle sand all over the top till it's completely covered. Next cut out your crab legs and pinchers while the glue is drying. Then fold the plate in half and glue the legs on in between the plate halfs. You can either staple or glue your crab together (just know that glue takes longer to dry and needs some pressure to keep it shut) Then cut out two eyes from the egg carton and glue those on top! Voila!

Dustin had super fun making this and played with it for days afterward. Good luck!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Notes From a Slacker....





I know you all have given up on my blog, and I really can't say I blame you! My only defense is that I am a serious procrastinator and always think I'll have time to do it later...

...

...

Just kidding! I will finally take a moment to update. Since I'm so lame, let me start back at Easter. My kids had adorable Easter Sunday outfits thanks to my mother-in-law. Dustin wore his first clip-on tie. Audrey wore an adorable purple flower dress. The kids got to do 3 Easter egg hunts over the weekend and we had a yummy feast in Florence with our good friends Brian and Ann. We still have leftover candy from all the festivities. And I have a leftover 5 lbs.

Other than that, things have just been really busy over the past few weeks. Tim has been so bogged down with school, work, and church stuff, that he really needs another vacation.

Dustin started gymnastics and that has been really fun to watch. He bounces around like a monkey on speed and the teachers are constantly having to get him off the equipment.

Audrey is talking so much and knows exactly what she wants. I constantly hear, "I don wan it!" or, "top id du-tin." (stop it Dustin) It's amazing how different boys and girls are. Audrey is so much more emotional and dramatic, but she's also able to sit quietly and entertain herself, which Dustin has never been able to do. The best news is that our paperwork has been sent to the judge and we get our final adoption decree and new birth certificate next week!!!!!! I can't wait. I knew she was ours the moment we got her and it will feel so good when it is all done. I also can't wait for the sealing. That will be really special for our family.

I had a great mother's day. Tim got me flowers, let me sleep in, and took care of the kids, which is a treat in itself. Cari and I took our kids to a mother's day breakfast at the community center on Sat, which was really fun, and Tim made a fantastic steak dinner on Sunday. Perfect!

This week we went to the Zoo for $2 Tuesday and I was totally impressed. I thought it was really kid oriented and they had a ton of different animals and exhibits. They also had great viewing areas so the kids could actually see all the animals. I've been to other zoos where every single animal was inside a cave or something and I felt like it was a waste of money. The kids got to get right up close to everything and they loved it!

Our good ol' station wagon puttered out on us and we had to get a new car. We opted for a minivan for more space and seats and started our quest. One of the things I hate about being a grown-up is car shopping. We went around to pushy dealers all day, couldn't find anything we really felt great about, almost got a Chrysler Town and Country, but we called our mechanic to ask him about it and he said he was at an auction and he would keep an eye out for us. It just so happened that a Honda Odyssey went through and we bid on it and got it! It all worked out great. I feel like an official Mom now that I have a mini-van!

One more final note, I entered my name into the St. George marathon, which is really hard to get into, and I got in! On October 3rd, I will be running 26.2 miles. I'm super excited, scared, nervous, and am going to need tons of help! More posts on this to come, but I wanted to let you all know I'm in...and there's no way out!