Happy Hallowe'en!!!

Last year, because Maelyn was in the hospital, we didn't get to celebrate Hallowe'en. This year, we were so excited to be able to trick or treat!

 

On Monday night we carved the pumpkins....

 

At first, Maelyn didn't want to touch the 'guts' of the pumpkin -- she didn't want to get dirty. But -- she soon got into the messiness of pumpkin carving and we all had fun. :)



Maelyn loves cooking and then eating the pumpkin seeds...



The 'guts' as they came out of the pumpkin...

I forgot to take pictures of the finished pumpkins -- and then forgot again tonight because of all the rain! We carved a smiley face, a black cat, and a perched owl -- Maelyn loved 'her' pumpkins.



Princess Maelyn -- Auntie April made her costume...

 

Maelyn decided that she didn't want us to take pictures anymore..

 

Maelyn ran into many of her daycare and Kindergarten friends and she just loved running from house to house with them! After an hour and a half of non-stop trick-or-treating in the rain, Maelyn had finally had enough and decided to head home and enjoy one of her treats before it was time for bed.

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!

Travel Group Dinner

Time is going by very, very quickly and we really wanted a chance to get together with the families we will be travelling with -- in three short weeks!

Our travel group is small in comparison to our travel group on our journey to Maelyn, but we are really happy that we will not be going on our own. Both families have ties to China and experience travelling in the country -- but this will be their first adoption journey. We are so excited for them!

The wonderful thing is that not only are our daughter's from the same province, but they are all the same age, which will make future get-together's so much fun! The girls are all adorable and I can't wait to meet these little monkeys and have them all become a part of our China family.

I was worried about Maelyn not having anyone to connect to, but one of the families has a little boy who is seven years old. Maelyn is very anti-boy right now, but she took to Kyle right away and they played together for hours on Sunday. Instead of calling him Kyle, she would call him, 'the boy.' Ha!

We are looking forward to sharing the adventure of a life-time with our new friends! China, here we come!!

The Cottage with Friends

In July we spent the weekend at Leanne, Joad, and Jennie's cottage. We had a fantastic time!!

 

 

Dinner with great friends!

Happy 4th Birthday, Jennie!

Maelyn showed Jennie how to climb like a monkey...

They spent hours climbing and jumping around on the bunk beds...

Love this game -- grocery cart memory game...

Watching the Dad's play horseshoe's...

Maelyn LOVED the boat rides -- this girl loves speed!

 

Tired girlies... :)

 

Auntie Leanne reading stories...

Breakfast in sunglasses......too cute!

Love this picture...

We had such a good time! As always, I just love watching the girls together -- they have such a special relationship.

July Random Cuteness

Yup -- still playing the catch up game with the blog...almost there! :



Waiting at the airport to welcome Charlotte home...

Meeting her friend for the very first time...



So happy to have cousin Ian with her...

Reading to Ian...

Maelyn's Birthday Party -- Friends

In the craziness of starting school, I forgot to post about Maelyn's birthday party with her friends.

 

This is the first year that Maelyn truly 'got' the whole birthday party thing -- and she was totally into it! :) Maelyn chose the Cars Movie as her theme and helped to pick out decorations and stuff for the loot bags.

 

Helping to put together the loot bags...

Birthday dinner with wonderful friends...

Maelyn was so excited about the cake -- to her, that is the entire purporse of having a party...

Our little miss was very fortunate to receive a few gifts and donations to take with her to China.
She will be helping to purchase toys for the children at her orphanage.

Princess Charlotte...



Princess Madisyn...

Maelyn and Madisyn relaxing together after most of the guests had left...

Maelyn had a wonderful birthday celebration with friends and she keeps asking when she is going to turn 5 -- she can't wait! :)

Ailee's Room

There is so very much to do to get ready for our big trip to China and we are barreling through our to-do list!

This past March we were very fortunate to have my Aunt and Uncle come down to help us tackle a few projects around the house. One of the projects we tackled was redoing the closet in Ailee's room. The closet had sliding doors and very little usable space, so we built a simple closet organizer/drawer system and added bi-fold doors.

Last weekend we got started on getting Ailee's room painted and ready for her arrival. We emptied her room of the piles of things that had accumulated in her room and got started on painting the closet.

Big sister, Maelyn helped Mommy paint...



Silly Maelyn!
 

This weekend my Dad, sister, and I painted the actual room and it was fantastic to see colour go on the walls!!

Now for the next fun part -- decorating!! :)

Ever since finding out we were headed to China earlier than we had thought, I have been dying to get started on her room. I don't know what it is -- but it is really important to me that her room be ready for her when we get home. Painting Ailee's room and seeing it start to come together has finally made her upcoming arrival in our lives feel real.

Stayed tuned for updated and finished room pictures in the next week...