Catch-up and THE NEWS!

Thanks to some computer issues I am SUPER far behind.  April was a crazy month with family visiting...it went by WAY too fast!  First though, we started a garden!!!  Where do I sign up to sell our bounty at the Farmer's Market?  hehe....just kidding.  But we are really excited to grow our own veggies (and getting dirty and playing in mud is fun too)!  We started the seeds inside.

then did some tilling....

and thanks to Uncle Ben, some raised bed building...

and there we are.  Our very first garden!  

The more muddy the better.  They LOVE "helping" in the garden. :)

When Uncle Ben came to visit (which we knew was going to happen), Andy surprised the girls and I by picking up Nana and Papa from the airport too!  It was a fantastic surprise!  The girls are great at picking flowers for me (but these were for Nana).

We decided to take a trip to the Crown Center in Kansas City.  Lots of shopping and fun things to do.

LegoLand is in the same area but both girls are too short to ride anything....

So we went to Funville instead!  It was a little town set up for kids to run through.  I thought we were never going to get out of there...Nana and Papa just wanted to play and play :)  hehe.  They had a restaurant...

an oval office....

a construction site....

barber shop...

school...

a people AND animal hospital...

a house on fire...it's o.k., Hadley is putting it out.

and the garage.  So much to see so little time.

Then we walked around a bit....and found THIS!  Oma this is for you!!!  A store full of CAT things.  Hadley really really wanted to go in and buy something but we decided to save it for Oma's next visit.

For lunch we went to this fun hamburger place.  

You call your order in on the phone at your table and then a train brings it out and lowers it down and you eat delicious food.

Hallmark Headquarters is in Kansas City and this little area has a bunch of leftover supplies to have a fun art hour.  It was FULL of little children and I'm super thankful that there were 5 adults keeping track of our 2 girls.  Although it was easy for the adults to get side-tracked and enjoy it too.

Here you color a square...

put it in the machine and turn the wheel....

and out pops a puzzle!

FLASH ON in the fun black-light room.

FLASH OFF

Papa treated the girls to a stop at the candy store.

The next day we went to a pancake breakfast at the Carousel Museum.  It turned 100 a couple weeks later.  

Then went walking down by the river.

Almost done!  Learning "s" we watched the Sword and the Stone and ate sausage spaghetti and salad and smoothies for dessert.  We are on "u" now and that is a hard one :)

Then, because Nana is awesome, she came back a couple weeks later to stay with the girls because Andy and both had overnight things two different places.  They had soooo much fun (well the girls did :))!  They camped out in the living room and had smores...

and made snails and hotdog octopi for dinner.

AND then she helped me makeover our secretary.  BEFORE:

and AFTER!  I LOVE it LOVE it LOVE it!  It makes our kitchen so much brighter!  Thank you Janet!

And now our exciting news!  Andy and I are having more kids!!!  (although the wait time will be a little more than 9 months) We have started the process of adopting from Haiti!  Adoption has been a part of our plan to grow our family even since before we were married, and we're finally in a place where we can do it.  We've just started the home-study process and your prayers are appreciated.  We will keep you all updated with the progress.