New Pics and We've Landed!

This is a short update. I really should be doing laundry and unpacking boxes...but I thought I'd finally update this blog instead. Here are some new pics of the kids. Some are from the awesome zoo here, and others are from last weekend's road trip to visit my Grandma Max. My sweet grandma had never met the girls! This was the longest I had ever gone without seeing my Grandma Max. Usually we see each other one to two times a year. I couldn't wait to get down to see her and my aunt and uncle (and cousins, too). My aunt and uncle were so sweet and took us to their local zoo which was amazing (I am a zoo fanatic, more than the kids I admit)! Hopefully now that we live on the mainland we will be able to visit family and friends more often.

We have been in our house for about a month now, although our stuff didn't finally arrive until last week. We are about halfway unpacked at the moment. The boys start school Monday and are nervous about it. I'm sad that their break is over, especially since we've only been here a month and the pools close after labor day. Arg! I'm not ready for the pools to close. I love this wonderful 90 degree weather and am so thankful for the sun! We really miss family and friends in AK though...moving is so bittersweet.

I'm trying to infiltrate the local East Indian community. Tomorrow night we were invited to our first Indian festival!!! I'm so excited. Please pray that we'll make some good connections at the festival so we can get involved in the community.

That's all for now. Must unpack and do laundry.

Beautiful Brown Eyes

Isn't it amazing? Shaili had her eye surgery on May 7 (also her 6 month anniversary of arriving home from India). The surgery went great and she recovered very well. I am so excited for Shaili, not only do her eyes look perfect, but she is seeing so many new things! I think she will be walking any day now since balance is no longer an issue. I am still taking a blog hiatus, but couldn't resist posting about this really quick. Thanks everyone for praying!

Here are a couple pics from right before the surgery so you can compare to the top pic. My mom came with me to the hospital so J could get the boys off to school.

Drama Queen

That's me.

Don't delete me off of your blog rolls just yet.

Maybe when life gets less crazy I'll have the time and energy to blog again.

For now, I'll just call it a break.

Maggie is a mama!!!!!

I'm so excited for Maggie and her family!!!! They just got their referral and their baby girl is so beautiful. Check out the cuteness!!!

I'm back I think

Crazy things have been happening at my house. Or should I say without my house. We put our house up for sale on Jan 2nd thinking with the market the way it is it would take a few months to sell. Well we were pretty surprised when we had a full price offer in 6 days. So we accepted and the whole deal is done and we're moved out. But not to Boise yet. Darn. We weren't planning on the big move until this summer sometime, so now we are living with J's parents. Luckily their house is plenty big enough, it's just all of the unpacking, settling, transitioning that is exhausting. The boys have been doing well with all of the chaos, the girls are another story. Daya has been whiny, pouty, dramatic, and not sleeping well. Shaili has been the monster velcro baby. Any time I walk away from her she screams. If I put her down to make some food or CLEAN something (how dare I), she screams. Oh boy...this has been hard for me. The computer has been the first thing to go. The real bummer is that J's parents are trying to sell their house (their moving with us to Boise), so when their house sells we have to move to our rental property which we are trying to get ready to sell also. Is that confusing anyone? It confuses me. I'm trying to have a good attitude about all of this moving, but I'll admit I am having a hard time.

On a positive note, we finalized Shaili's adoption on February 3rd. I'll post a few pics of that. Our camera failed us that day, but thankfully my Mom had her Blackberry on her and took some pics with that. The hearing went perfect and the judge even took the three older kids back to her chamber and let them pick out an adoption day present for themselves and for Shaili. It was so amazing, because they came out with brand new dvds in wrappers, books, stuffed animals, and a baby toy. I think they cleaned her out of her stash! She didn't seem to mind though. So now little miss Shaili is officially a Werre and besides the never-ending post-placement reports for the next 17 years, our adoption process is done. It feels very strange. But I know that I have all I can handle for a while. I'm feeling pretty content with my four at the moment. But maybe in 3 or 4 years... ;)

Another update on Shaili, at her most recent eye doc appt last week we found out that the doctor wants to do surgery. He said as soon as possible, so we are figuring out the finances/insurance end. Hopefully sometime this spring she will have the surgery. Doc said she probably won't need her glasses much after, just for looking at books sometimes. That is great news because we are going crazy keeping those glasses on that girl's face! She flings those suckers off about 80 times a day and she is so fast. She'll have them across the room in about 2 seconds. So there's the latest.

Jason and I with Shaili
The fam with the judge
My mom and Shaili on the big day, poor baby had a terrible cold

Shaili's 1st Birthday

Shaili's big day was last Monday, the 19th. We had lots of family and friends over to celebrate. Shaili's special guest was her GG (great-grandma) who flew up from Washington to be here. She made Shaili a kitty cat cake, the very same kind she used to make me for my birthdays as a kid. Miss Shaili wasn't too sure about the crowd of people, but she did enjoy the frosting on her kitty cat cake! Here are a few pics.

Shaili and her auntie Lisa
First look at the kitty cat cake!
Shaili and her GG
Those crazy brothers have to be in on the action, Daya was sitting with GG.
First taste of the frosting
Time for gifts


Tasting one of her gifts :)
Common view (or as Amanda would say, "velcro baby"!)
More presents!

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