We're off!

The day has finally arrived! We are off to get our Ruby. It is so surreal. The wait has been almost unbearable at times, and here we are just hours away from holding our Ethiopian daughter for the first time. Wow! Our suitcases are all packed and waiting by the front door. My mom is donating this wonderful glider rocker to the House of Hope where Ruby has lived for the last 4 months. There are 25 babies in the HOH and not one rocking chair. The nannies sit on plastic lawn chairs. This donation will be very appreciated. Thanks mom!! Kissing my children goodnight tonight was very difficult. I can't let myself think about being away from them, it is too hard. Being a SAHM, I am very rarely ever away from my kids. This will be by far the longest time I have ever been away from them. I have covered them in prayers and know they will be well taken care of while we are away. Thank you so much mom, Tonia and Corinne for watching our precious children while we are gone. It is such a blessing to have these 3 ladies, who love our kids so very much, taking care of them. Robb's brother-in-law Wesley, who is a nurse, will be caring for some of Hunter's diabetic needs. This is also a huge blessing. I bought small presents for Hunter, Brylie and Gage to open each day and we made a paper chain to count down the days until we come home. I pray the time we have in Ethiopia is wonderful, getting to know the people and the country. It is so important that we experience all that we can to share with Ruby someday. We will try to update as much as possible. Please keep us in your prayers.

THREE MORE DAYS!!

With only 3 more days until we leave for Ethiopia, I am busy making lists, packing, and loving on my kids as much as possible. The plane tickets arrived via Fed*Ex yesterday. Robb picked up our $260 worth of travel medications at the pharmacy yesterday, ouch! Our suitcases are almost full. We have one suitcase full of donations for the orphanage, so that leaves one suitcase to fill with things we buy in country. I am excited to get some Ethiopian dresses for Ruby and Brylie, some fun toys for the boys and some African decor for our house. I always want Ruby to be familiar with where she came from. Today I am going to town to try to get some things crossed off our list. I will probably end up making one more trip before we go. Tomorrow evening we are having a little birthday party for Hunter. He will have a party with his friends after we get home. We ordered his gift so he should get that while we are gone. It is all getting so close and I find myself incredibly excited, a little nervous (a third world country scares me a little), and sad that I have to leave my 3 kids. There are so many people praying for all of these aspects and I do feel completely covered. This will be an amazing journey that will have a lifetime affect on both Robb and I.

Holiday Weekend

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. We were blessed with wonderful weather for the 4th. We took in the parade, food and fun at Robb's mom's house and fireworks with my family. Then yesterday after church we decided to head to Sioux Falls for the night to spend some extra fun family time with the kids before we leave for Ethiopia. Hunter's birthday is next Monday and we will be gone so we went to Chuck E Cheese's for an early birthday treat.

Waiting for the parade to start. Candy toss!!

Score! Just hanging out at Grandma Corinne's. We love the fireworks show at the Watertown Stadium. Fun at Chuck E Cheese's! Swimming at the hotel.

This will be a busy week at our house as we are getting ready to go to Ethiopia. We are so ready to have Ruby home with us! Our suitcases are getting full, the lists are getting smaller, and the kids' schedule while we are gone is filling up. As you all know, I really don't like leaving my kids. This will be the hardest part. They will be in great hands and hopefully the time goes quickly for all of us.

It's a first at the Arnold house!

Hunter was so excited to lose his first tooth. He couldn't stand that it was loose so he went up to his room and wiggled it until it fell out. As you can see from the picture he was quite proud of his accomplishment! :)

He carefully placed the tooth into his tooth fairy pillow at bedtime.

He woke up the next morning to a $2.75 surprise!

A little more about our baby girl

Today Ruby is four months old! Her birthday is February 27th. Ruby's Ethiopian name is Sifan. She was 2 1/2 months old in the referral photos and weighed 12 pounds. She is very healthy and growing and developing well. We are really hoping to get updated photos soon. She spent 3 weeks in an orphanage before coming to our agency's transition home, the House of Hope. We will pick her up at the HOH the morning after we arrive in Ethiopia. Right now we are planning on leaving Sunday, July 13th and returning Tuesday, July 22nd. I am hoping to finalize travel arrangements today. I have our suitcases laid out in Ruby's room and am slowly adding to them. This is all such an emotional roller coaster! I am so excited that we will get to meet her soon, a little nervous about the long flights, sad that we have to leave our other 3 children, and anxious about all that has to be done in the next 2 weeks. I am trying to keep my calendar to a minimum so I don't get stressed out. I want to leave feeling confident that everything at home is taken care of. We feel so blessed that we are at this point in the adoption journey. We are officially Ruby's family and we can't wait to bring her home!

IT'S OFFICIAL!

I would love to finally introduce to you Ruby Katheryn Arnold.

TODAY IS THE DAY!

Please say a prayer that we will get court approval and by the end of the day we will officially be the parents of Ruby Katheryn. I will let you know as soon as I hear something.

Great Find!

Here at the Arnold house we are starting to go a little green. I love the idea of reusable shopping bags and found a great set here. I purchased this starter set and absolutely LOVE them! They are durable and hold an unbelievable amount of stuff. I can fit an entire cart full into these 6 bags. It makes carrying in groceries so much easier. They aren't anything real stylish, but the practicality far outweighs style for me. If you are looking for some great reusable bags I would highly recommend these. Just curious, what types of Green things do you do at your house?

It's important.....

to be ready for anything!

We're getting closer!

We are 6 days away from our court day and about 3 weeks away from travel (if all goes well). The Arnold family is in high gear baby mode!

We set up Ruby's crib. We got out the baby car seat. And we SHOPPED!

I forgot how much fun it is to baby shop. Brylie and I can't go into a store without checking out the baby section. And because we were positive that we wouldn't have any more kids after Gage, we got rid of all of our baby things except for the crib, highchair and car seat. So, we have had to buy rattles, pacifiers, baby blankets, you name it, it is on our list. We still have a lot to get but moderation is important right? :) Can't wait to share her picture with you all next week!

It's my weakness

Caramel Frappuccino

What's your weakness?

Father's Day and our Anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated Father's Day and 12 years of marriage. We had a fun day as a family and have so much to be thankful for. Robb has been a father for almost 7 years now and I can hardly remember him before his fun daddy self. He is truly the best daddy I could have ever hoped for for our children. He loves our kids so much and it shows! The kids and I got him this fun fire pit for Father's Day so we spent 2 nights in a row making S'mores right in our front yard! Yum!

We had some friends over on Saturday night when we tried out the fire pit for the first time. It was a perfect night to sit outside.

Sunday was also our 12 year anniversary. Robb and I reminisced about the day we got married (the heat was almost unbearable) and each year since. We were married 5 years before we had children. This was God's plan not ours, we thought we were ready after just 2 years. :) It worked out perfectly and we are so thankful for those years we had as a couple. Our children have brightened our world and we consider ourselves to be very blessed people.

What's my baby doing now?

I added the Ethiopia time on my sidebar. Several times during the day I am wondering what my baby is doing. Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead of us so I know that when I wake up in the morning she is probably taking her afternoon nap. When we are having lunch I wonder if anyone is rocking her to sleep. When I lay down to sleep at night I pray that she slept well and is about to start a good day. For me the wait is very difficult now as I stare at her picture and have fallen completely in love with every part of her. Her chubby cheeks are begging me to kiss them, I can't wait to stare into those big brown eyes and I long to hold those little hands inside my own. In one month she will be in my arms, which is really a very short time, but daily I wish she was home with us already. We talk about how Ruby will fit into our family and how we will all take care of her and what we want to teach her and we pray for her every need. I went through childbirth 3 times and never was it this difficult. I really mean that. Waiting to travel across the world to hold my baby for the first time has been so hard for me. My heart aches to have her here with us. My arms long to hold her.

Happy Birthday Gage!

Gage Dakota turned 3 years old today. We celebrated with a family party yesterday. Gage is our busy, snuggly, all boy, funny, charming little guy. He keeps me on my toes and has me laughing every day. He has been our baby for so long it is hard to believe that he will be a big brother very soon. I love you my big boy!

Don't ya just love the boots! :)

No I did not make this great cake and yes it was damaged before the party. If you look at poor Diego's waving arm you will notice it is mauled a bit. Right after picking it up and putting it into the back of the suburban, Hunter thought it would be a great idea to try to take a picture of it while I was out of the vehicle paying the great cake lady. Needless to say, he stepped on it while trying to capture the photo. Oops! Oh well, it still tasted great!

We have a court date!

We were thrilled to find out on Friday that our court date has been set for June 25th. If all goes well we will be leaving around July 13th to meet our precious Ruby. Now is when we need to seriously start thinking about what we need to pack. I am thrilled that we are getting closer to bringing our little girl home. She is growing and changing every day and we are missing it. It makes me sad. Soon we will be a forever family. We are one step closer! Yay!

Miscellaneous Vacation Fun!

One night we took the kids bumper bowling. It took over 2 hours for 6 kids to bowl one game! Waiting for their ball to get to the pins was like watching paint dry, but they all had fun. :) The little ones basically just dropped it at the end and it very slowly made it's way down. Hunter had good form, don't ya think?

We totally scored at the arcade winning almost 3000 tickets in one night!

We spent an evening at Build-a-Bear.

These are the finished products.

There were crafts every day at the lodge for the kids. Brylie made some lotion, pink with sparkles, and Hunter colored a t-shirt.

The girls got a pedicure at the kid's spa.

Wiley Wolf made an appearance every night. He was quite popular with all of the kids!

Every night at 8:15 there was a story time for the kids. Since there was an ice cream parlor right by where story time was, we had ice cream while we listened to the story. It was a highlight of the day.

Tomorrow I will finish the vacation pictures with some of my favorites. :)

Waterpark Fun!!

It's no surprise that the indoor water park was a highlight for all the kids. We went down every morning and came back after lunch and the kids crashed for a good nap. There were so many different water areas for the kids to enjoy.

This is what the crew looked like before heading to the pool. Gage LOVED these! He loved squirting people in his path!

Brylie and McKenna enjoying some tube fun.

Gage wasn't afraid to go down any of the slides. He liked this lazy river ride with daddy. Hunter's favorite part was the Dippin' Dots he got at snack time! I think Gage holds a record for the amount of times one could go down a slide in one hour! He would barely get to the bottom before saying, "MORE!"

We're Home!

We had a really fun trip to the Wisconsin Dells and I would highly recommend that destination to other families. There was so much to do and everything was so family friendly. We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge and everything we did was either inside the lodge or within walking distance. We took great advantage of the water park, the arcade, the bowling alley, shopping, the spa, craft and story time for the kids, and so much more. Since I have so many pictures I thought I would share a few each day this week. These are the pictures of traveling in the RV. After Sunny and I realized that motion-sickness medication was needed for the 2 of us , the trip went quite well!