Happy Holidays from The LeMasters

Zack (9), Rylan (3), and Craigy (11)

Wishing everyone the best for the holidays and throughout the year.

What Fun We Had This Summer

Zack, Cody, Rylan, Craigy, and Tanner
We had a great summer. It really flew by so quickly. My sister, Kim, and I started our summer off by taking my 3 boys and her boys to Cedar Point Amusement Park. He older son drove up separately.

July Update

June 28th through July 4th
Craig and his cousin Cody went to Camp Carl's extreme camp. They had a terrific time canoeing, swimming, horseback riding, etc. Then on Wednesday Mom and Dad sent Craigy a letter addressed in RED, which gets them automatically thrown in the pool with clothes and all!!! This was Craig and Cody's 2nd year! It was a rough week without my Craigy.

June 30th through July 3rd
Zack started camp on Monday with his cousin, but only made it to 1 day at camp. Zack was swinging on a rope off of one of their trees when the rope broke and he hit his head on a rock and split his head open. I went to pick up Zack that night from camp and found out that he had a head injury that afternoon. I'm actually a pretty calm person, but could not understand why I was not notified that he was injured until pickup time that night especially with it being a head injury. I took him to the Dr for stitches and they said he should of had staples, but it had been too long since the incident. Poor Zack could't attend camp cause he wasn't allowed to get it dirty or wet, so we waited a couple weeks when it finally healed and sent him to splash camp. He and his cousin, Tanner had a blast and made it all week without any injuries (yea!!!)





July 2nd


Happy Birthday Cody!




July 4th


We celebrated at our house with some fireworks and a sat around a nice and cozy fire. The kids really enjoyed it.






July 19th
Today we spent the day at my sisters house for my nephews graduation party from High School. Nick is continuing his education at Kent State University. Congratulations, Nick...We're so proud of you!



July 26th
Today we had our employee/customer appreciation party at our house. We all had such wonderful time. We had a pig roast, and lots and lots of food, swimming, car show, inflatable games, music, and more. We really lucked out with the weather since it was suppose to rain, but it held off until the evening hours.

July 27th


Wow, 20 long months and still waiting. Being optimistic that things will change after the olympics. Let's bring our little girls home!

Logged in for 19 months

We've been officially logged in nineteen months with China today. Let's hope we can start counting down in months.

May and June Update

I'm sure alot of my fellow yahoo buddies and friends are wondering where in the world I've been lately. I've had an incredible amount of things going on with us this past couple of months, so I'll try to update you as best as possible.

May 3rd
Celebrated my 40th birthday
May 11th
Celebrated my mother's birthday
Celebrated Mother's Day and kids and Daddy took me out to my favorite Japanese Hibachi restaurant. Very Nice.

Agency Changes
Things have been a little crazy since learning that are local branch has made some drastic changes not to mention that we had to change our home study agency in the midst of updating my paperwork.

I'm glad to say that we are done updating all our paperwork and our just awaiting our HS SW to make her visit out to us before our HS expires on August 4, 2008. We are suppose to have our appointment with her on July 8th. I was getting a little nervous that we were going to get this done in time, but we kept everything current and received all our paperwork back in time, now just waiting on our appt. with her.

June 6th was the boys last day of school. Craigy's last year at the elementary school. Happy for him to be moving on, but bitter sweet as he moves onward to the middle school in September.

June 17th
Our baby Rylan (ok, toddler) celebrated is 3rd birthday.
Celebrated Father's Day with Craig. He finally finished he's cobra and put it in the Summit Racing Car Show.

We've seen a couple of movies lately:

Iron Man - LOVED IT
Kung Fu Panda - Enjoyed it
WALL E - Slowing moving in being, but still a pretty good movie too!

I have to be honest I haven't been checking anyone's blogs as much as I've tried I've let myself get into a slump with the slow down of referrals and the with paperwork renewal process, but I vowed to let this serve as a positive step as we've completed another milestone by entering the renewal portion of this wait.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my computer crashed, but it's up and working now, so I'm back again to blogger world.

I promise I'll keep up a little better on my blogging.

MOM

Yesterday my mom and I spent the entire day shopping. I couldn't decide what to do for her upcoming birthday and Mother's Day, so I decided to treat her to a day of shopping. Anyone that knows my mom knows that if I would of given her money or a gift card she would of turned around and spent it on someone else. We had so much fun and little Rylan ran with us all day. He was such a little trooper and is such a good little guy that it made the day even more special. My mom is the most loving and caring person I know. She's always the first to offer a hand, the first to offer a hug and kind words, the first to offer encouragement, the first to say how special someone is, the first person that will be there if you need anything in a drop of a hat. She has always put EVERYONE ELSE'S feelings and needs first and never once asked or expected what's in it for her. She is truly a blessing and I cherish and love her dearly. Sometimes, we as kids get caught up in the day to day busy things in life and forget how important it is to let our loved ones know that we really do appreciate all that they do. Sometimes, I think I try to squeeze so many things into my day that I get anxious to get home to finish the rest of th errands that I forget about the most important people in my life.

Mom, here's a poem that I found that made me think of you. I love you.




A Precious Mother

Mom You've given me so much,
Love from your heart and the warmth of your touch.
The gift of life and you're a friend to me.
We have a very Special Bond which only comes from God...
I'm sure you agree.

As a child I would say Mommy I Love You,
Now you're my Mother so dear
I love you even more with each and every new year.

If I could had chosen, I would have picked no other.
Than for you ... to be my lifelong friend and Precious Mother.

- Author Unknown.

Dandelion Day

Today was a beautiful, sunny, and enjoyable play day. Zack and Rylan picked me and Grandma some awesome looking bright yellow dandelions. The weather today was about 77 degrees with a slight breeze. We are so... ready for summer.

Say CHEESEburger

Rylan went to my mom's this week since daycare was closed, so before heading off to Grandma's we had to have all his essentials. Baseball cap, CARS backpack, CARS lunchbox, sunglasses matching jacket and shorts. He's very picky before he leaves in the morning. I decided to take a quick snapshot and as I turned the camera sideways to get more of a portrait view he thought he needed to turn his head the same direction as the camera. It was too cute for words and you know picture is worth the thousands words.

WE'RE OUT OF THE REVIEW ROOM

CCAA Document Processing - updated on 4/24/08

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents
registered with our office before December 31, 2006.

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose
adoption application documents were registered with our office before
January 09, 2006.

WE'VE MADE IT OUT OF THE REVIEW ROOM and we move into the matching room where our paperwork will sit there for probably a couple more years. Atleast now we know that we've passed review and have moved into Department 2, aka the matching room.

Congratulations to my fellow November 2006 Log In Date people and all December 2006 LID's.

Craigy graduates from the D.A.R.E. Program

Tonight Craigy and his cousin Cody graduated from the 5th grade D.A.R.E. (Drug Aware Resistance Education) Program from Brimfield Elementary School. We are so very proud of them both. This is a huge honor and commitment that they and all the other 5th graders in the school commit to never do drugs, alcohol, etc. The police officers in our community visit the school every week to teach students the importance of being drug and alcohol free and at the end of the school if they do everything required they graduate.

Congratulations Craigy, Mom and Dad are extremely proud of your accomplishments and the fine young man that you have become. You are truly a blessing of every kind to your mom and dad and to everyone that is blessed to know you. You are a caring, loving, thoughtful, and always a tremendous and gratious help to all who know you.

We love you!!!

Love,
Mom & Dad

CCAA ANOUNCES 2ND TRAINING SESSION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS

On March 20, 2008 the CCAA announced their 2nd training session for their handicapped and special needs orphans and our agency, Children's Hope International, for their help with the program.

POTTY TRAINING

We started trying to potty train Rylan late last summer when he first turned 2 and at first we thought he was interested and I went and bought him a potty chair. Well after only one day he decided he wasn't ready yet, so then approx. 3 weeks ago I thought I would try again since he kept pulling at his diaper when he was wet or go #2 and he would immediately come and tell me cause he wanted changed.

I started using pull ups and would use M & M's as an incentive everytime he went. I'm not excited at the thought of offering candy, but I came to the conclusion that this is something big for him and us and considering it's only 2 M&Ms at a time (probably 6 total in a day). Then my 11 year old, Craig, decided to pick out a drawer and make it a "potty drawer", well that was a BIG HIT. Everytime he would go potty and he would run to the "potty drawer" and pick out a hot wheel or puzzle and he was so excited and proud of himself. I love seeing the excitement in his eyes and how proud he is to be a BIG BOY.

Well yesterday I went to the store and finally found a pair of underwear that would fit. He was so proud to be wearing underwear, and of course it being Thomas the Engine and Spiderman helped out too!

So needless to say, I'm very proud of my little guys accomplishments and all of you that have been through potty training understand how difficult it can sometimes be. Luckily, he has so far done pretty good, we've only had 1 day of him regressing and it will probably take a while before he's totally potty trained, but we are all pretty darn proud of him.

One last thing, he started waking me up at night to tell me he has to go to the potty. Ok, I think you can see my grinning with pride for our little Rylan.

Adoption Length Article

Below is a link to an article about International Adoption, China specifically and the lengthing wait that us families are enduring.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRISSY

Tonight me and my very best friend in the whole world, KRISSY, went to dinner for her birthday at WASABI Japenese Steakhouse for some hibachi cooking. Food was awesome as usual and so was the company. We both have a really great time. They always put on such a great show.

KRISSY, HAPPY 39TH....I MEAN 29TH BIRTHDAY, AGAIN

Boys Sitting In the Cobra

Here's a picture Craig took of the boys sitting in the Cobra for the first time. Ok, well, technically sitting inside the underneath of the Cobra. Just thought it was the cutest picture of Daddy's little boys.

CCAA Documents Processing --but no word on Review Room

"CCAA Document Processing
The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents
registered with our office before October 31, 2006.

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose
adoption application documents were registered with our office before
January 09, 2006."

The CCAA updated their document processing "box" on Sunday evening
with the referral cut off date of 1/9/06.

I was really hoping to hear that November 2006 is out of review. Our agency still has not heard that anyone with our agency is out of review. I thought for sure we would of found out last month and then definitely without a doubt this month, but still no final update. I'm so ready for some good news of some sort.

Congratulations to all the new mommy's and daddy's out there that received their referrals this month.

Watson's Side of the Family

Yesterday Craig and I drove to Winchester, VA for his Aunt Dorothy's funeral. She was a lovely women who lived to be 86 years old. This would be Craig's Aunt (his mom's sister). Craig also lost his mom approx. 4 years ago and his Dad approx. 14 years ago, so Aunt Dorothy was one of Craig's last living relatives on his mom's side of the family. As I'm sure you figured out Craig was a late in life child, so that's why all his relatives are so much older. All his Aunts and Uncles are in the late 70's to 80's!!! Yesterday was bittersweet, it was sad she passed, but we know she's in a better place. It was really nice seeing all of Craig's relative's yesterday. After lunch, someone suggested a family photo, so I thought I would post this on the blog. We are making plans to hook up again with his mom's side of the family this summer. Everyone is kindof scattered across different states. We live in Ohio, they live in Floria, Virginia, etc, but we promised to get together this summer and we are looking forward it!!! Craig and I decided to have a pig roast the end of June. Our first pig roast as our first family gathering.

Easter Holiday at Our House

Easter went really well this year. Here's a picture of all our family and some friends.

This includes, siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles extended family...basically you name it. Still not sure how we manage to squeeze everyone in every year. This year we had 32 guests. Needless to say we had alot of food!

RYLAN DANCES TO BOB THE BUILDER

Every time Bob The Builder comes on Rylan immediately stops what he is doing and comes running into the room to dance to the intro of Bob The Builder. Alot of times he will dance in a circle so long that he gets dizzy and falls down.

Rylan learning to put his own pants on BACKWARDS

Here's another funny clip of Rylan learning to put his own pants on. Hey, even if their on backwards. Atleast he got them on, Right?

Birthday Announcements

Happy Birthday


Nicholas (my nephew) who turns 18 on the March 28
Steve (my brother) who turns 47 on March 30th
Krissy (my very best friend in the whole world!!) who turns???? (a girl never reveals her age..ha ha)

Wishing each and every one of you a terrific Happy Birthday!!!!

Logged in for 16 months

Today marks our 16 month of being logged in with China. I'm really hoping to be celebrating soon our announcement that we've passed the review room. No official word yet. According to our agency they are working on mid December 2006 dossiers, but they haven't yet received the official word nor has their "box" been updated as of yet. Keeping my fingers crossed. Wouldn't it be great if they're taking so long in the review room cause they moved the personnel from the review room (dept. 1) to the matching room (dept. 2) I can dream, right???

Here's the current status:
DEPARTMENT I AND DEPARTMENT II - Department 1 (the reviewing room) began reviewing November 2006 dossiers 12/07. Department II (the matching room) currently has January 5, 2006 through October 31, 2006 dossiers.

Rylan Cracks Egg

Here's a quick video of Rylan cracking egg on big brothers head unexpectedly. Pretty funny. Hope you enjoy. I've also posted it on you tube.

Happy Easter!!!

Hope everyone had a great Easter. We had a good Easter and alot of family over to our house. I've included some pics of our family and the kids doing an Easter Egg hunt. I finally went out and purchased a new camera as the camera that I used to have got lost in the snow while we went sled riding after we had that huge snow storm a couple of weeks ago, so I finally mustered up the courage to go buy another camera. I was more bummed about losing all my pics than losing the camera. I keep hoping once all he snow defrosts that I'll find it and maybe be able to pull some pics off the disk. Wishful thinking, huh?

Happy Easter!!!

Laser Tag

Well yesterday afternoon we went to my favorite Japenese Hibachi Steakhouse "Wasabi" and afterwards Craig said hey, lets go plays laser tag!!! So of course the boys were all excited and its was only 5 minutes down the road from the restaurant. Daddy, Craigy, and Zack had a blast and Ry Ry and I sat outside in the game room and had a lot of fun too playing video games while we waited on them. Craigy was in 3rd place out of 31 people, Daddy in 9th, and Zack in last, but he didn't care cause it was so much fun.

As a matter of fact, they had so much fun that Daddy, Craigy, and Zack decided to go again this afternoon, but to also bring their three cousins with them, so needless to say, since Ry Ry is up taking a nap and I thought I would get a little blogging in to update our blog.

Hope all my fellow bloggers had a good weekend.

Baby Shower

This morning I went to a baby shower for a friend of ours. She is having a little girl. She got the cutest little outfits and socks. Boy, how reality has set in that this adoption seems to get slower and slower. It's hard to believe that a couple of years ago that they were married and now theyre having their 1st child a "little girl". I'm so so VERY VERY HAPPY for them, if anyone deserves it, they do! but it's really hard to keep upbeat all of the time. Sometimes, I wonder if we ever will get our little girl. I keep telling myself we will, but honestly I also need to be realistic. I hope and pray that someday soon we get to bring our little one home. On a good note, we should be hearing anyday now that they are into referrals for 2006 and hoping someday so that we get word that November 2006 is out of the review room.

Logged In for 15 Months

We've been officially logged into China 15 months as of today!!! I would be tickled to death if we only have 15 months now to count back down. Anyone know a good fortune teller, physic (he he)

NO SCHOOL TODAY

Wow, what a surprise to wake up to the phone ringing with a recording from the school "THERE WILL BE NO SCHOOL DUE TO HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS....". Yippee!!!! My sisters kids are coming over this afternoon. Her boys are 10 and 7 and mine are 11, 8, and 2, so they are always begging to play with them, so I think I'll take time to catch up on some filing,make an apple pie (yummy), and play too.

No News Yet on the Review Room

Congratulations to all the November 2006 LIDers that passed review. I'm anxiously ok, not so patiently awaiting for a change. Friday we got another update that our agency's box hasn't yet changed. I know we had someone in our group that had been questioned, so I pray that whomever that family is that they pass and that the CCAA moves onward to changing that box that all of November 2006 is out of review. Even though it seems to be that we are one of the last to go through review I do have to say that our agency keeps us updated continually. Good or bad. So here I wait.

Chinese New Year and Quiz

I thought I would post this article about the Chinese New Year. Also when you are finished reading the Chinese New Year article there's a quiz you can click on at the very bottom to see how much you know or have learned. I missed the last question, but got the rest correct. Good Luck!!!

China Faces Coldest Winter in 100 years

Here's another update on the China storms

China Storm and HTS

As some of you have already heard China is suffering a horrible winter storm and many of the orphanages are without water, electricity, or anything to keep these children safe.

Please visit HTS

Half The Sky helps nuture orphans in China. Please click on the link above to find out more.

If you can help donate that would be great, if not, that's fine too, but if I could ask for you to say an extra pray tonight that these little ones and their nannies and families may find warmth, water, electricity and safety. They have been thru alot in their little lives, please pray for their safety.

Referrals through 12/27/05

Congratulations to all the families receiving referrals tomorrow. As strange as it may sound it was very exciting to hear that they referred 8 days. I had heard rumors that it may only be a couple days worth of LID's. I hope and pray that we keep referring atleast a week's worth of LID's and hopefully coming into the New Year we can increase to 2 weeks worth at a time, but I don't think I'll hold my breath.

Logged In for 14 Months

Another month passed by and we now have been logged in officially with China for 14 months. I have 2 wishes 1. Let's hurry up and get the November 2006 LID aka us out of review successfully along with our fellow Nov 2006 friends and 2. Hoping referrals start coming in 7 days or more again and not just a couple at a time. This is definitely a test in strength, faith, and PATIENCE. I'm trying really hard to stay positive and keep telling myself to look at the end result of being able to bring our daughter home to her forever family.

Craig's 40th Surprise party

I know I haven't been posting very often, but I have good reason. I have spent the past 3 months planning a surprise party for my husband's 40th birthday. His birthday is actually Jan. 20th, but planned his party a week prior (Jan. 12th), so he wouldn't figure it out. Wow, it was pretty hard trying to keep a secret that long from him and the kids. I basically spent every moment that he wasn't around trying to do invitations, ordering party items, creating a slideshow, gathering and scanning old photos. Well, I must say it was the best and most special birthday ever. He didn't figure anything out until 15 minutes prior to his party, but that was fine cause I still had more surprises up my sleeve. I'm going to trying to post his slideshow on youtube and then attach it here also to view. His slideshow starts off with him as a child and pictures of him with his parents growing up. Both his parents passed away several years ago, so I wanted to make it very special for him, after the first song it speeds up showing my husband's adventureous self that he is and then ends with him, me and the boys. I hope it will post okay and I hope all of you enjoy the slide show. My final surprise to him was I was able to contact a very old and dear friend of his that was our best man in our wedding and that he had been friends with since age 2that had moved out of state and we had lost his contact info after they moved. As I was cleaning for the party I found an old number and tracked him down. Funny thing is, a few months ago Craig mentioned that he wished he knew were we had put his old phone number and address info. I used to have it written in permanent marker on the dry erase board (not so permanent!) and it got erased. T I would like to end by saying that I have been very pleased to have met my husband right out of high school and to have had 3 beautiful loving boys along the way. As you will see I by the slideshow. What's not to love. p.s. I'm having trouble uploading to youtube. Hopefully I'll have it up tonight or tomorrow.

Hairbow Swap (January Theme: Wintery/Blue)

Thank you to Suzanne L. for the cutest hairbow ever. I absolutely love the hairbow you had made. It fits perfectly for this months theme (winter/blue) and has a really nice soft wintery look. I can understand why you had a hard time parting with it. I'm so pleased to have met so many wonderful people along this journey.

Thank You Cindy and Art

Thank you for the beautiful "Princess" dress bib. I've never see anything like it before. It's the most precious adorable bib ever. I can't wait to put it on our little "Kayla".

Speed Stacking

Zachary got the speed stacking cup game for Christmas. All of the boys, including Daddy and I are addicted to it. You have several cups that you hurry up and unstack and then you restack in a certain order (i.e. you can put 2 on the bottom and 1 on top of each set) when finished you slap both palms down on the timer to see you did it the quickest. Who ever thought that stacking cups would be so much fun. (ha ha)

No More Public CCAA Updates

Wow...what a total bummer:-(

Hopefully we can get updated through our agencies.

Bringing in the New Year 2008

Wishing all my fellow bloggers a Happy New Year and hoping that this year will be better than last year for all of the waiting families.

Many Blessings and prayers for speedy referrals, so that we all can become closer to bringing our little one home to their forever family.