6 months today!

I'm not sure what happened to month 5 or how I've let 2 months slip by since last posting!

But, today is our 6 month anniversary of receiving Halle. I know I must sound like a broken record but I must say she is an amazing little girl. Other than a few bad dreams and of course a few 2 year old temper tantrums she has transitioned, dare I say, perfectly. Her language skills continue to astound me. She is still having trouble pronouncing the whole word she knows which words to use and when. And she continues to pick up new words every day. It has been so fun to watch her little personality come to life.

One of our travel mates from our China trip recently found a person who was able to look up their child's foster mother. He was able to get a whole bunch of questions answered from the foster mom - first words, first teeth, favorite foods, other family members, as well as pictures of the family, their house and their village. I just contacted that person myself and he said that he has located Halle's foster mom. I'm very excited to be able to help find a few of the missing puzzle pieces that I'm sure will be quite important to Halle as she gets older.

We had our 6 month check up with our social worker this week. It went well. She thought that Halle was doing very well. Of course, I already knew that but it was nice to get it confirmed :) We are required by China to do a 6 month check up and a one year check up. The social worker asked a bunch of questions about Halle's transition and health. We also had to supply her with 4 pictures of Halle and one of the whole family.

Halle continues having a very strong bond with Sami. They still take a "tubtub" together almost every night. Their new activity is bouncing on the big trampoline in the backyard. You can hear them giggling a few houses away. Jacob is also developing a much stronger bond with Halle. It took awhile but it is definitely there. She gets upset when Jacob isn't around in the evening to give her a kiss goodnight. She has a ritual of kissing everyone goodnight while I make her bottle. She definitely notices if someone isn't there.

We just got back from Sami's friend's house. We were taking pictures of them for prom. She looked so grown up! Sami is continuing with her college search. She has 2 coaches that seem very interested in her. Unfortunately they are both smaller D3 schools so they are quite expensive. She is looking at Ohio Northern and Capital. Her first choice was Ohio Northern until we visited Capital. She thinks that her favorite will continue to be the one that she has visited last so Paul is looking for a cheap school to send her to for her last visit! While I would like her to go a little farther than Capital it sure would be nice to have her so close so I can watch her soccer games. She went to a tournament last weekend and it was very hard sending her off with a friend. As of now it looks like Sami will pursue nursing in college. She went on a field trip this week to a hospital and really enjoyed it.

Jacob is anxious to finish off this school year! Classes seem to be going a little better but this hasn't been his best year. Jacob is excelling in his sporting activities. He is currently playing 3 sports, more times that not 2 on the same day. He is playing volleyball for his school, club soccer and also subbing for a basketball team. Needless to say he doesn't have much downtime.

Paul's school kids took the OAT last week so hopefully the rest of the school year will be a little easier. They put so much pressure on the teachers to teach to that stupid test. He is held accountable for kids who don't care about it as well as their parents. There was a great analogy in the paper a year or so ago that I wish I would have kept. It likened it to a dentist being responsible for his patients cavities. He kept saying that he can't control the amount of sugar the kids eat or how often they brush their teeth. Same principles in my opinion.

My work is starting to pick up. It has been pretty slim pickings for many months. It's been nice having so much spare time with Halle but with our new "used" van payment and college looming in the not too distant future it has definitely been on my mind. Luckily one of the fringe benefits of getting Halle is that we're getting a HUGE income tax refund. We are using a majority of it to fund my IRA but hopefully we can finally get our kitchen finished with the rest of it. We haven't had any tile on our walls since before our China trip and the floor is starting to peel up. It is definitely time for a remodel.

I'm hoping to publish new pictures soon. We just bought a new camera that Sami took to prom tonight. I'll wait for those pictures.