Happy "Williversary"

Has it been two years already? yep, today marks the day I carried Will on to the plane in Addis, arriving in Dubai, onto the plane in Dubai to fly to NY and then and then catching a plane in NY to fly into Chicago and then we drove him home to WI. LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE HANDS DOWN! Wow, what a scared little boy we had on our hands and my earliest memories almost fade, but thanks to this blog I can remember how those early weeks, months were and how far we have come. The doctors, the fear of dogs, his language and the words we used to communicate...... I will never forget Woosha, makeena, ooo ha, mastica, shinte, ishe. The drawing of blood for tests, the administration of awful medication, the meltdowns, the screaming tantrums. But all of this so worth what we have now. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat (hint hint husband). As all those who have followed our adoption know, Will has blended so wonderfully into our family. The pictures below show him today with his sisters and 2 years ago at the orphanage with Jeffrey. I think the picture of Jeffrey and Will is my all time favorite picture of Will. You can see in his eyes a bond, a sense of hope that this was the daddy who was going to protect him and care for him as best he could. So, we are now on to year # 3. More memories to make as a family and showing the world what LOVE can do. Pure LOVE, unconditional LOVE......the world needs more of it!

The 3 peas in a pod. Will.... 2 years after he set foot on US soil! WE are blessed.

You smell

Will can say the funniest things sometimes. The latest was his interpretation of the song "You Smile" by the infamous Justin Bieber. According to Jacklyn it was the first song her and her date to the 8th grade formal danced a slow dance to. So she is walking around the house singing "you smile, I smile" This of course heard singing out of her mouth a few hundred times a day is liable to get caught in your head. Well, it got caught in Will's head. He was kicking it on the couch singing to himself and I overheard his catchy little tune.... except the words were wrong. He was singing in perfect tune, but the words "you smell, I smell" I said Will, it's not you smell it's you smile. He had this look like, yeah you know, I was wondering why you would sing a song telling someone they smell. Now it all made sense to him. Glad I cleared that one up!

8th grade Winter Formal

Jacklyn and her favorite brother!
The lovely 8th grade couple! Could Jacklyn be any skinnier?
I love this photo! So cute!
Mom had to get them to do some fun poses! Always makes for cute photos!
Well, this week did me in, I registered Will for Kindergarten and my firstborn attended her first school dance with a BOY! A very sweet southern boy I might add! She had so much fun and I got some really nice pictures of her and her date so I thought I would share them! Will even got to step in for a photo with his sister all dressed up.

Coupon savings!!

Besides teaching Will how to read, my other new years resolution was to start couponing again like I used to. We have a store in town that doubles coupons up to .99 every day and about once every 2 months they double coupons up to 1.99. Well I had been saving my $1.00 and up coupons to use, and yesterday was the day! Will and I hit the store with all the other coupon fanatics to see what we could save. Well the photo above is a sample of what we got yesterday as the total was 90.00 and we got it down to 34.00. Saving for that next adoption could add up quicker than I thought if I keep saving this way on my grocery budget! (hee hee) The store paid me to buy 4 packs of yogurt and I got a tub of butter that was reg. 2.29 for .29. I also got 3 tubes of toothpaste for free! Can't say it is not worth it to coupon!