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!

We're leavin' on a jet plane....

Well, not exactly. But we are headed out today on a little family vacation. Our good friends, the Prouty's, invited us along on an RV road trip to the Wisconsin Dells. Between the 2 of us we have 7 children, all under the age of 7. Hunter is the oldest and then we both have girls that are 5 and they have twin boys Gage's age and little Eliana is barely 2. Once we add Ruby to the bunch we will have ourselves a real party! After much discussion we decided their RV would be a fun and practical way to travel with the children. We won't be staying in the RV, just using it for travel. Once we reach our destination we are staying at an amazing resort with the most fun amenities, water parks, an ice cream parlor, inflatable jungle gyms, spas (for kids and adults), story times for the kids and so much more. We always enjoy being with these great friends and our kids have so much fun together. Now that the crops are all planted and our referral has been given, we can go and relax and enjoy some wonderful family time. We are going to take in the Twins/Yankee game in Minneapolis on our way back this weekend. It should be a fun-filled, adventurous week!

Thanks Weelborgs!

The Weelborgs stopped over last night to drop off these adorable things for Ruby. I just love little girl things. It has been quite awhile since I have been able to get baby girl items, so this is just too fun! I plan on packing all of these things in our suitcase to take to Ethiopia. I think everything should fit her right away. Yay!

Funny Stuff

Hunter came up to the house after being in his 'secret hide-out' and showed me this piece of wood that he had found. He told me he thought it would make a great weapon to fight off bad guys. I nodded my head, appreciating his larger-than-life imagination. A little while later he came to me and said, "I wonder if this wood is syrup wood?" "Syrup wood, I questioned?" "Yes, you know the kind of wood we have in our new kitchen?" He said. After a good laugh, I explained to him that the wood in our kitchen was called MAPLE wood. He thought his mistake was pretty funny too! :)

Done with travel shots!

Six shots, 3 doctor visits, numerous arm aches, not-so-fun side affects, and lots of dollars later....we are finally done with all of our travel shots! Woohoo! Today we went to Sioux Falls to get our final shot, the yellow fever shot. This one was the most painful yet. OUCH! The pain was pretty short lived though and so far I have not experienced any side affects. The doctor told us we could expect flu like symptoms for the next couple of days and may have a reaction to the shot up to 30 days after having it. Yeah, this one is the doozy of all shots. It is very potent and not the greatest for your body, but since we have a baby girl waiting for us in Ethiopia, where yellow fever can be easily transmitted, we have no choice. Yellow fever is transmitted through mosquitoes, so it is a little hard to completely prevent being bitten by a mosquito, although you can bet we will be well armed! Yesterday we received our packet of referral information and quickly filled out our acceptance letter and mailed back our referral fee and it arrived in the CHI office today. Ethiopia got the official word that we have accepted our referral and they are now busy working on getting a court date to make our little girl officially ours. We will hopefully get word of the court date in a couple weeks. We are still on top of the world and carry her photo with us everywhere. Robb even has one in his tractor! :) He is a proud papa. Her little face makes all of the craziness of the whole process seem more than worth it. I have held this baby girl in my heart for over a year and in 2 short months I will be holding her in my arms. Wow! I have goose bumps just thinking about it. What a blessing!

REFERRAL!!!!

The day has finally come! We got the call at about 12:30 this afternoon giving us a referral for a baby girl. She is absolutely perfect in EVERY way! The referral story is below.

Referral Story

'I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.' 1 Samuel 1:27 At 12:25 the phone rang. My heart about came out of my chest when I saw the caller ID said "Children's Hope", the name of our agency. It took 3 rings for me to calm down enough to answer it. Toni said she had some good news for us and asked if she could reach Robb at work. I told her YES so she put me on hold while she got him on the line and we were both able to hear the news at the same time. Of course I started crying and by the time she got done telling the story of our little girl, I had no idea what she had just said. I started asking questions and obviously was still in shock, because Robb said, "Honey, you need to focus, you are asking the same things over and over." Toni laughed and said that is why she has the dad on the phone too. She described it as "Mummy mush" and said it happens to all the moms. :) While we were on the phone her email came through with Ruby's pictures. Then I started bawling, slightly uncontrollably. She is absolutely perfect, more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Robb then drove in the yard with his tractor and quickly came in to see the pictures of our baby girl. She is 2 1/2 months old and very healthy. Because of Ethiopia's requirements, I can't post any more information or photos of her until our court case goes through, which will be in approximately 5 weeks. You will just have to believe me when I say she is 100% ADORABLE. It is such a blessing that she is so young, she is just what we prayed for. We are keeping her name Ruby Katheryn. I really wish I could share more with you, but you will have to be patient and pray that our court case goes through quickly so I can share her pictures with all of you.