UK 2009

So, we survived a trip overseas with two little ones. It was rough, but fun and worth it overall. We were gone for nearly three weeks. We headed to Scotland first. We stayed in a village called North Berwick. It is to the East of Edinburgh. Several of our friends live in the surrounding area so it is a nice location to stay at. We rented a flat on the beach near the town center. It was a lovely flat that was perfect for vacation. We had a really nice time there and Jack and Claire loved spending time at the beach on the sunny days. Claire only ate sand a couple of times, but it didn't seem to bother her. She loved finding shells and bringing them to us to look at.

After about ten days in Scotland visiting with friends we headed south to the Lake District in England where Dave's family lives. We also rented a flat in a little village called Kirkby Lonsdale. We spend most of our days at Noel and Jean's house and then the evenings in the flat in town. It was a nice combination of spending time with family, but also having our own space in the evenings. The flat in England wasn't nearly as nice as the one in Scotland, but it was fine for a week.

We visited with lots of relatives while in England. It was great to see everyone after two years and also introduce them to Claire. She was quite the hit as she is currently a huge flirt and enjoys going around smiling and waving at anyone that will look her way. She is a little sweet heart for sure.

Jack struggled a bit with his behavior while we were in the UK. He travelled very well, but didn't like having to meet so many new people during the trip. He did however, enjoy playing with all their toys! He did fine considering he is only four though. The day after we got home he said he was ready to go on holiday again.

The plane ride home was a nightmare. Claire didn't want to stay in our seats so she cried for several hours. The boy across the aisle was air sick and threw up most of the flight. And if those two things alone were not enough, we had an aborted landing in Indianapolis as there was another plane on the runway in front of us as we touched down. Scary, but everyone was fine and we made it home just before midnight.

This week we washed clothes, went back to work, and tried to change our time zones again. We are getting there slowly but surely. The clothes are nearly washed and put away now!

A Sickly Month

January has turned out to be a very cold, snowy and sickly month in our house. We have all had a series of colds, coughs, tummy bugs, fevers, and Claire even swallowed a portable flash drive (we think, we still can't find it and it didn't show up on the xray) which meant her first trip to the ER. We are hoping to get all this sickness out of our systems and have a healthy rest of the year! On a positive health note we took Claire to the specialist regarding her tongue tie and they just want to leave it until after she is two to see if it really even needs corrected.

Jack is doing really well with his new glasses considering he is four. He keeps them on most of the time without being told. He also has quit closing his eye to see, so we think the glasses are helping.

Claire has gotten six new teeth in the last 10 days. She was one grumpy one year old. This child has more teeth than any one year old I've ever seen! She now has 14 teeth! She can eat pretty much whatever we give her at this point. I don't think Jack had as many teeth until he was two.

We have booked our trip to the UK for the middle of March. We are looking forward to going, but also a bit anxious about travelling with two little kids, one of which hasn't figured out how to sleep through the night yet. We're worried about what a six hour time difference will do for that.

We are happy to report that we have officially obtained all of Claire's legal documents to prove her citizenship and get her social security number. We went round and round with the SS office to get her card as they said we didn't have all the required documents despite the fact that I had printed the instructions off their website and took them with me along with all listed docs plus a few extra. I eventually gave up after speaking to a manager. So, we decided to try our luck at a different social security office in Indy with the exact same docs. This time they happily issued her card with no questions asked and they didn't even require all the docs I took! Who knew the social security office functioned like a franchise rather than a federal office! So, we are officially done with adoption paperwork. I can honestly say it was the worst paper chasing experience of my life. It made Dave's immigration paperwork look like a piece of cake. We are glad it is over and that she is home.

Ok, off to fix some fun Super Bowl party food for the big game tonight. My guess is we won't see the end of the game as Jack has a 101 Fever and Claire didn't take a long nap this afternoon.

Happy New Year

I hope your year is off to a good start. I have been meaning to post on here for ages, but I feel time just slips away in the evening once the kids are asleep. Anyway, we are all doing fine. Christmas was really nice this year. We didn't go anywhere for a change. We did have Christmas with Emily's family here on Christmas day and the Saturday after Christmas. Jack was SUPER excited about the holidays this year and really got into the spirit of it all. Claire was very curious and seemed to enjoy herself, though the highlight for her seemed to be all the boxes and paper to play with/eat.

Dave and I both had two weeks off over Christmas/New Year which was also really nice and unusual for us. We have never had that much time off when we didn't go somewhere. We decided it was really great and we should do it more often! We saw lots of friends and family over the break and just relaxed and caught up with lots of people. Now that we are back to work I sort of wish I had accomplished more during the break, but it was also nice not to do much.

I, Emily, have been having eye/vision problems with one eye since the end of November. I finally got an appt. with an opthomologist last Friday and it was determined that I have a chronic disease that will likely come and go over the rest of my life. My vision will decrease during flare ups, but should go back to normal while in remission. It is just treated with eye drops for a month during flare ups. It isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things as long as I only get it in one eye at a time. I get double vision in the eye that has it. Little spots form on my cornea that cause the problem. It is kind of annoying, but at least I know what it is now, it is treatable, and my vision isn't getting permanently worse!

On another vision note, we are taking Jack to the eye doctor tomorrow to see what is going on with his vision too. He has been squinting a bunch lately and trying to look at things with only one eye. We suspect he may have a lazy eye like his dad. I hate for him to have to get glasses at such a young age, but I'll also feel better once we know what the problem is and can start to correct it so he can see properly.

Claire is doing really well. She is getting over a cold this week, but she is happy as usual. Knock on wood, she has been sleeping a bit better the last week or so. She is beginning to learn how to get herself back to sleep when she wakes in the night. She is still getting up for a 5-6am bottle...which isn't cool, but hopefully she'll decide she doesn't need that soon. She has gotten two more teeth and is working on at least three more at the moment. She has been taking several steps lately but prefers to crawl still. She also showed us tonight that she can get herself up on the sofa!

I'll try to post more regularly. Hopefully this resolution will get off to a better start than my healthy eating/exercise plan has so far!

She's a Charlton!

Well, it is finally over! She's ours!!! Did you hear us shout it from the roof tops yesterday? We went to the lovely (sarcasm intended) City-County building downtown yesterday at 3pm for our court hearing. The experience was much different from what we expected. It was very formal and Dave and I each had to take the stand to answer questions and promise under oath to take care of Claire as if she was a birth child to us (obviously, not an problem!). In the end the judge did not play the role of Santa, nor did the clerks play elves. They did clap when it was declared that we were Claire's parents in the eyes of the State of Indiana. We were the last adoption in Marion County for 2008!

So, now Claire is a US citizen and we can apply for her passport and social security number. We will need to take care of this soon so we have time to get her passport before we go to the UK in the spring. We also have to have the passport to apply for her social security number. We need that so we can file our taxes this winter as well. So, we aren't really done with paperwork...

We've had a busy couple of weeks gearing up for Christmas too. Dave and I have both been busy at work. I agreed to work on a project to help out one of the Directors and it has snowballed in to the project from hell. What was thought to be a 1-2 week project has now been estimated to take 6 months! Anyway, it is job security, which is good in the current climate I suppose.

Jack is super excited for Christmas this year. His Christmas concert at pre-school was on Wednesday and it was hilarious. He decided for the second year running to sing his own acappella version of Jingle Bells between two of the songs that were being sung by all the kids. He just belted it out while everyone laughed! Then he played with the curls of the little boy in front of him on the steps for another song. And as a finale he kept sitting down and standing back up on the step he was supposed to be on.

His wish list for Christmas has grown by the day. We keep reminding him he will only get a couple of things and not the toys from every commercial on tv. He's even started telling us what Claire would like too.

We feel really fortunate this holiday season and we are enjoying watching the kids take it all in.

The first picture below is Jack at his preschool concert. The next ones are of us with the Judge after court and Claire eating her noodles when we went to dinner to celebrate!