The Coleman Crew

We enjoyed a beautiful May day with Grandma and Grandma Coleman, Uncle Matt and Matt's sweet dog Ben.

Tooth Fairy's First Visit

A first in our house- The Tooth Fairy came!  Ben was so excited for that tooth to come out that he bravely let Daddy pull it out with a string.  The beginning of many!  Of course, now Sam and Allie both insist they have loose teeth too.  :)

Sam & Izzy's Last Day of School

Sam & Izzy have completed another successful preschool year together.  I CANNOT believe that they only have one year left of preschool!! 

Miscellaneous Cuteness

Seems like every day is a fun adventure.  Here's Ben and his best bud Carson at school together for their class ice cream party.  They've been in school together since the beginning: 3 years of preschool and now kindergarten together.  We're trying to prepare them for separate classes in first grade!!

The youngest grandkids got to hang out in Grandpa Tim's corvette for a bit.  And we took the kids downtown for the Asian FoodFest this weekend.  Allie loved the food and the boys loved the water we found.  :)

Allie's First Mother's Day

Very thankful to have my little girl home this year for Mother's Day.  We celebrated with family and a cute "sunflower" cake made with Peeps!

Baseball Ben

Ben is becoming quite the baseball player.  He LOVES to play, this is his second year and he can't get enough of it.  Here are some pictures of him in action.

Sam, oh Sam

If you know Sam, you know he's a very unique little guy.  He is his own person, silly and quirky and hilarious.  The other day when we had all that rain, we had a huge puddle in our side yard that they called the swamp.  He literally fell face first into it.  He makes us laugh every day.

And he FINALLY gets to be on a sports team!!  After watching Ben play tball and soccer the past few years, Sam is finally old enough.  He's doing an instructional t-ball camp with Daddy and he's SO proud of himself!

Mother's Day Tea

Sam and cousin Izzy's class had a Mother's Day Tea... adorable! They sang us songs and served us snacks.  Sam informed the entire class that I wanted ALL the food.  :)  So blessed that he and Izzy get to venture through preschool together.  They were so proud to have us in their classroom!

Korean Children's Day Picnic

We are part of a wonderful local group of families who have adopted from Korea.  They have various get togethers throughout the year. We recently attended the Children's Day Picnic.  It's a holiday that is celebrated in South Korea, and it is SO COOL to see all the families and their beautiful Korean children!!!   Allie and her friends Evie and Joel are the youngest in the group.  Some of the kids are in their teens; Allie was really checking them out!

Adoption News

You might be interested to know that we are STILL not done with Allie's adoption paperwork.  We were surprised to find out how much more we had to do even after her "finalization" date in December.  We had to apply for her Social Security card, in which she had to be listed as a "resident alien" since at the time we applied we did not have proof of her citizenship.  We were supposed to get her Green Card shortly after she came home in June, but due to some fluke in Homeland Security we never got it.  It was nearly impossible to get through to anyone who could figure out her case; we finally, miraculously received it in the mail!  We can now go back and change her social security status.  We also received her Ohio Birth Certificate, which states that we are her parents but she was born in Korea.  Lately, we mailed our application for her Certificate of Citizenship.  This was a lengthly application which required copies of all her official paperwork and pictures of her... seems a little silly to have to prove who she is all over again!!  Once USCIS looks over our application, we'll be called in to their office for an interview!!  Hopefully at that point we'll finally get her Certificate of Citizenship and we can officially be done with jumping through all the paperwork hoops.  So these are what we consider her official paperwork:

• Korean Passport, which also has her Visa stamp on it
• Ohio Birth Certificate
• Adoption Decree (we received this from the court at her finalization in December)
• Social Security Card
• Green Card
• pending Certificate of Citizenship

All of this has got me thinking about her journey to us and how blessed we are to have her, paperwork and all.  Our agency no longer facilitates Korean Adoptions, she was in one of the last groups to come home.  We are so, so thankful for this little girl..  I finally figured out how to have her Homecoming Video permanently posted to the right of the blog; still makes me tear up!

Ben Turns SIX!!!

I can't believe my baby is SIX years old. He really seems like such a big guy now.  We spent the morning at the Rec Outlet playing, then he was so thrilled to bring treat bags to school that afternoon.  He is very in to his new Pogo Stick and anything Star Wars.  It's been a big year for him, I'm so proud of you Ben!

Allie's First Easter

Easter was pretty special this year with our little girl.  So very hard to remember that this time last year she was still in Korea and we were still just waiting and worrying about her.  Makes us even more thankful for the Easter holiday.

Sam & Ben's Birthday Party

To celebrate Sams 4th Bday and Ben's 6th Bday, we had a small mostly family party at the park.  Thankfully the weather cooperated and the kids got to run, eat cupcakes, and play kickball and baseball.  With birthdays only 10 days apart, we're going to milk these joint parties for as long as they'll let us!!  (Allie refused to get in any group pictures, but she was very into the ball game!)

Sam Turns 4!!!

I can't believe my little guy is FOUR!!!  Where has the time gone, he used to be the baby.  We celebrated the day with an Easter Egg Hunt, pizza, and lots of time on his new Razor scooter.  Whoo hoo!!