This picture was taken right after E received her 9.875 beam score! That's Z giving her a high five. E was the Oklahoma State Beam Champion!
Z also ruled the beam with a 9.725 and was the Oklahoma State Runner-Up on Balance Beam! Here she is showing off her pose. Check out that concentration.
E is setting up her tumbling pass. There's a little concentration here too. :-)
I think this is such a cool picture of Z. Here she is flying over a vaulting table that is almost as tall and as long as she is!
Well, this weekend has been the Oklahoma State Gymnastic Championships. All year we work towards this goal. The girls train anywhere from 12-20 hours a week in the gym. We do routine after routine after routine. It all paid off this weekend.
E and Z rocked! E and Z went 1 and 2 on the balance beam at the State Championships! (They had 30 girls in their age group and level, the largest in the state.) E scored a 9.875 on the beam and Z had a 9.725. The judges even looked baffled when they gave the scores. (For those of you who are gymnastically challenged, a 10.0 is perfect.) Z was also the State Runner-up on the bars with a 9.6. They were 4th and 5th on the floor exercise and Z took 5th all-around with an amazing 37.475. Both girls also made the Oklahoma All-State Team! It was a great day and everyone had a blast!
The rest of the team did well also. We took 12 girls to the State Championships. Every single one of them had personal bests in the all-around and most events. We had 17 top 5 finishes, 3 of those were State Champions. Seven out of the twelve girls qualified for All-State status and recognition. It was a great end to our first real team season. I couldn't have asked for more or been happier. Hope you enjoyed the action shots above.
J is nearing his 7th birthday and has never lost a tooth. However, his 2 bottom front permanent teeth have been fully in for quite a while now. When we took him to the dentist in January, the dentist told us it was normal and to keep wiggling the baby ones. He said if they weren't out in 3 months to let him know.
Today, L and El had check-ups. While there, I mentioned to the dentist that J's teeth had not come out and that they weren't even starting to be loose. He took a look at them and suddenly decided that today was the day. They took him back and extracted his two teeth. I was a little worried because it was so unexpected, but J did great and didn't even make a peep. He was very brave.
Afterwards, I met with the dentist and he said that J would never have lost them because of the massive roots those puppies had on them. They are unbelievable! Anyway, tonight J will get his first tooth fairy visit. His mouth looks a little odd because he has two deep holes with two full grown teeth behind them. However, his mama thinks he's the one of the cutest little guys ever! What do you think?
Cute J with his new look (including the black eye from helping dad stake trees).
Last summer, even before the boys came home, our kids were talking about the bwins' first zoo trip. We have talked and talked and talked. Finally, yesterday it was time to go. Here's how it went.
We blew a tire in our huge 15 passenger van at one of the busiest highway intersections in the whole state of Oklahoma. D did an amazing job of steering us off the bridge we were on and getting us to the side of the road. We sat there for quite a while. Finally, a taxicab showed up. The seven children (one extra) and I stuffed into the taxi and went on to the zoo while my dear husband waited on a tow truck to haul Big Red to a tire shop. (We had already used our spare.)
Once dad arrived, we saw the giraffes....
...the elephants(from Dad's shoulders) ...
...and the zebras.
We had fun on the swings! (Boy, isn't having big sisters great?!)
We took our yearly "this is how much we've grown this year" picture on the trusty old playground frog. (Aren't there more of us this year?)
Check out Margaret's great news!!! It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here. Hip Hip Hooray!!! I am sooooooooooooo happy for you!
The De Lorenzo family still needs your prayers. The higher court rejected the b-mom's petition, but sent the case back to the lower courts for some reason. Not much info was given. They just need a lot of prayers. The frustration level is understandably out the roof. The bureaucracy is unbelievable!
Today marks one year since we met our sons. This is my first YouTube experiment. Following is hopefully a video of our first trip to the dietsky dom. Please excuse the 5 seconds on the end of the video of H's birthday. We were taping over a previously recorded event. Also, there is a little clip in the middle where we didn't start back up right away. The end of this clip is our ride to the orphanage on the second day. Can we say "a little bumpy"? Travelling those potholed dirt back roads trying to find the orphanage was quite an adventure. I also apologize for the poor filming. I'm definitely not a professional!
We love this video and it is all that we watched while we were waiting for court. The boys are absolutely hilarious! At first, they were so fascinated with the video camera that they wanted to see themselves but also wanted to look through the camera. At the beginning, I am trying to hold both boys and film at the same time. All of the toys in this video were ones we took over to play with them. We never saw a single toy at the orphanage. Hope you enjoy our memories!
***Update: Thanks for all of your prayers for the De Lorenzo family. Another loophole has been thrown at them. After waiting over an hour for court to begin yesterday, it was postponed until Thursday because the birthmom didn't show up. The birthmom's POA accused Dawn of having something done to her to restrict her from being there. Ugh! It is really awful what they are going through. Please continue your prayers.
This is a big week in the adoption world. Yesterday, as many of you know was a day of prayer for reaccreditation in Russia. I believe the Lord will hear the prayers of His people and reaccreditation is on its way.
Margaret also has a big week this week. She is going to committee for Slugger. She has had a long journey to this point and it looks like this will be her time. Margaret, you know my thoughts and prayers are showered on you this week.
Another big happening this week may not be so well known. A family named De Lorenzo has been in Kaz for some time now trying to bring their son home. After several lost referrals, including spending a complete bonding period with one only to have the birthmom show back up, they were finally granted an adoption of a little boy. It's a very long, heartwrenching story, the likes of which I've never heard before. These people have been through the wringer to say the very least! Her blog is private and is therefore not accessible to everyone. However, tomorrow morning a court will decide whether Stephen will be their forever child or whether he will be granted back to his 19 year old pregnant, unwed, unemployed, homeless birthmother. Their adoption was granted on March 19. Three hours before she was to bring him home with her on the 15th and final day of their waiting period, the birthmom shows up contesting the adoption. It has gone to a higher court and tomorrow (Kaz time) they will know the outcome. She has asked for her readers to ask everyone they know to pray hard. Her court time is scheduled for around 10:30 p.m. Oklahoma time. She asks that everyone light a virtual candle for them. Here is the link: http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=SJD . After lighting it, there is a time to pray, reflect, etc.
Please lift all of these needs up whenever you think about them. I am so grateful for all of the support that the blog world has for one another. The requests above need our support.
***Update: To add a candle on the link above, just click on an unlit candle. It will direct you from there.
(Other faces were blotted out to protect identities.)
It's been a long time since I've posted about gym stuff. E and Z have been doing really well. We went to a meet in Texas in early March. E was the beam and floor champion, Z was runner-up on both events. However, Z ended up winning the all-around and E was second. They had about 16 girls in their age group.
The next week, we hosted another meet here in Oklahoma. The picture above is of that meet. I believe that was their floor placements. They are so sweet, holding hands. Everyone always asks about how they feel competing against each other and if it causes problems. Generally, my answer to that is "no". I think they sense the competition, but don't really feel like they are competing with each other as much as against the other teams. They are truly happy for each other when they win. This year they have really flip-flopped their winning a lot. That certainly helps. I also place a lot of emphasis on doing your personal best (competing with yourself not everyone else) and going for good scores to help the team. This takes the focus off themselves and puts it on the team. Even though we are just starting, our team has taken home several trophies from the smaller meets.
The week before Easter was our State qualifier. They divide Oklahoma down the middle and have regional qualifiers- east and west. We take part in the Western Oklahoma Sectionals. Most of the large, dominant gyms are on our side of the state. There are only about 3 powerhouses in the East. I didn't know how it would go, but it was definitely the biggest meet of our year thus far. Only a percentage of the girls qualify on to the State competition. Thirteen out of our fourteen compulsory gymnasts qualified. I was thrilled. That is a great percentage.
Both of my personal girls did well that day and qualified. Z had an incredible meet and ended up the Western Oklahoma Beam Champion with a score of 9.75!! She also placed 3rd in the all-around which is incredible considering the big gyms we were up against. I was proud of both of them!
Right now all of our focus is on the upcoming State Meet. It will determine State Champions and All-Staters. The next few weeks will be full of hard work. E and Z both have state champion potential. However, they are 9. Anything can happen. The State Meet is April 27-28. I will let you know how it goes. Wish us luck!!
Some of you may remember my friends who are awaiting their travel papers to go to China to bring home their daughter (www.kendalhope.com). Their bio daughter turned 5 about a week ago and I found the cutest shirt and matching hair bow for her online. I wanted to share the site with everyone because you might find something you like there too. The lady mainly does stuff for Chinese adoptions, but she might do Russian ones too if she were asked.
I asked her if I could share her site with my blog readers and she said yes. All of the proceeds go to help her adoption of a 3 year old little girl from China. I got a shirt that said, "I'm a jie jie." Jie jie is "big sister" in Chinese. There's a pic above of the design. I was able to pick hair color, eye color, bow or hair band color, etc. She did an excellent job! Go check her out: http://www.my-little-pretty.com/.
BTW, our friends have been collecting stuff for a garage sale to raise money for their adoption. God has been gracious. On the first day, yesterday, they raised as much as a good-sized grant would provide. They are doing it today, Saturday, and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday next week. The turnout and amount they have made already is four times what we made in our sale last year. I have been totally amazed! Now all they need are those travelling orders!
*****Reminder: Day of prayer for reaccreditation in Russia: Sunday, April 15, 4:15 p.m. Central. Don't forget to pray.*****
Last Easter we were in Russia, getting ready to meet our boys for the first time. This Easter was the boys' first Easter. They loved it!
Our weather was cold. In fact, it was flurrying while they were doing their first ever Easter egg hunt on Friday- yes, snow flurries in Oklahoma on Easter weekend!
Our church puts on a big Easter Eggstravaganza. Over 2000 members of our community came to hunt eggs, get face painting, play on inflatables and eat 25 cent hot dogs, cokes, and cotton candy. On Saturday morning, I stood for 3 straight hours and packaged around 1000 hot dogs into buns and wrapped them in paper towels to keep them warm. I can still smell them!
Sunday morning, we enjoyed seeing everyone's faces while they found their Easter baskets and hunted eggs. Then we enjoyed a wonderful church service. Our pastor actually built a cross on stage. Wood chips were everywhere. Then he gave everyone a "Certificate of Debt". He had each of us write our sins on it, as few or as many as we chose. Ushers collected them all and took them to him. He nailed them on the cross and then put a large board with the word "tetelestai" on it. The word means "paid in full". It was a powerful sermon. It truly brought out the truth that it was our sins Jesus died for and how much He loves us! Thank you God.
After church we had about 8 other people over. We ate a yummy lunch, hunted eggs, colored more eggs, and then watched the Chronicles of Narnia.
It was a wonderful day! Following are some pics from the weekend- okay, a lot of pics. Hope you enjoy them.
Big sis showing the bwins how coloring eggs is done.
She's a great big sis.
My 3 Sons at the church egg hunt! Notice the coats, hats, and pink cheeks!It's not a hat, silly!
Professional egg colorers!
Most of the Crew in their Easter best!
The gwins' Easter dresses.
My oldest went to church before us so missed the sibling pic.
Therefore, she debuts here solo.
(She usually wears jeans, but put a skirt on just for Mom on Easter. However, she didn't give up the tennis shoes. :-) )
Debbie just posted this call to prayer and sent out emails to everyone. I tried to cut and paste her words here, but it didn't work. Please go to her website for more details.
Day of Prayer for Reaccreditation: Sunday, April 15, 4:15 p.m.(Central)
Feel free to pray and fast all day, but please pray at 4:15 p.m.
Last Wednesday through Saturday it rained heavily. For a state that has experienced extreme drought over the last few years, we sure got a ton of moisture at once. I think we recorded 3-4 inches of rain over those few days.
Thursday evening while I was at gym, the bwins ran to their daddy. They were yelling, "There's colors in the sky! Come see, Daddy! There's colors in the sky! "
A rainbow.
D asked if they had ever seen one before and they said no. Here's some pics of the boys' first rainbow. It was a full one. The pics don't do it justice.
