Easter pictures, 1-year pictures and spring school pictures

Words are not necessary, right?

HAPPY 4th GOTCHA DAY LUKE!!

Luke, taking a break from sucking his thumb :)
Goofing off.

Riding his "motorcycle"

At the state fair with Emy & Maggie

Swings and smiles!

Christmas present from Ma & Pa with the siblings and cousins

First picture I EVER saw of Luke. The one I fell for. This is my 2nd miracle, y'all.

I have a total of 3.

Still in India, waiting for Daddy to pick him up. Yes, he's wearing pink.

TOUGH JOB--BIG BROTHER AND LITTLE BROTHER TO THESE TWO.

He had been home 1 day when this picture was taken.

HAPPY GOTCHA DAY TO MY FAVORITE FELLA.

Well, it's been 4 years since that wonderful day when Luke entered my life. And made it so much better. Emy & Tessa could not ask for a sweeter brother. He has a tough job. He is a BIG brother and a LITTLE brother.

Luke--you changed my life forever. And I thank God for you. Every. Single. Day.

You have brought us many challenges, some fears and concerns, but most importantly you gave us your WHOLE HEART. And you will forever will be my baby boy.

And that smile of yours? It gets me every time. I love you Luke McCoy Swarnadip Oakley to the moon & back many times over.

I love you more than you love cars & toys. I love you more than you love my cooking. I love you more than you love the Wiggles. You are so special to us.

WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

HAPPY #8 GOTCHA DAY EMY!!!

Luke holding a puppy and Tessa wanting to.
My three kiddos.

Sisters

Luke wanted ice cream instead of cake for his bday party. with chunks of peaches :)

We went out to eat Mexican food for Luke's bday too!

HAPPY GOTCHA DAY EMY LOU!!!

SMILEY

RIDIN THE 4 WHEELER THAT CRISTIAN GOT FOR CHRISTMAS

WALKING AROUND!

LUKE GOT A BIKE FOR CHRISTMAS!

Well, can you believe it? My sweet little 9-year-old dumplin has been home with us for 8 years already! She started this love affair of children that we have. I told Darrell tonight that I didn't think any more children would cause any more chaos in this house, that we need to adopt at least 2 more. LOL!!

I have names picked out for a boy and a girl....don't get your hopes up yet, because we do not have the funding for this. We haven't even thought about it real hard yet. But, it did come right out of my mouth....HAHA! I think Darrell is gonna take my Internet from me. To try to keep me from these adoption sites....yeah, right!

So, Emy has been home for 8 years. She is the smartest, sweetest, sharpest, prettiest 9-year-old girl that I know. We are so blessed by her being a part of our family. She makes us the complete unit that I know we are meant to be.

She took in some Indian money, parts of her scrap book, and several pictures to show to her class today and she shared with them a little about being adopted from India. I am so proud of her. When someone asks her why her parents are white, she just answers "I'm adopted, Silly".

You know we do have a white baby now....and the other FOUR sweet brown kids in my life have threatened to tell HER that she is the adopted one :) go figure.

She will probably believe them. Our future is looking bright, folks. Darrell and I still have jobs, with health insurance and we live in a house with a little bit of land. We do drive very old vehicles, but they get us from point A to point B and that is really all that matters.

We had a beautiful Christmas. I had the WHOLE week off to spend with my babies and I enjoyed every. single. minute.

Can't wait until summer when I'm planning on taking my very first 2-weeks vacation to one of our NC beaches.....woohoo!

I will leave you with pictures from our Christmas/birthday/gotcha day celebrations..ENJOY!

Until next time,

Cindy

Happy New Year!

Hoping that all my blogger friends have a wonderful experience in the next year. I welcomed 2012 with open arms!!

Ready for what God has in store. . . are you ready?

Vacation funnies......

Well, a lady told us that a shark was in the ocean. Darrell said "yeah, they live here". LOL

We went putt-putting. All four of us (Darrell, me, Luke and Emy) got a hole in one. Tessa grinned alot.

We stayed on the ocean front. FUN

We stayed on the 16th FLOOR.

Luke peed off the balcony (did I say 16th floor?) HAHAHA. Can you say butt cheeks? I looked over, saw him from behind and just about DIED right then and there!! LOL Then I laughed and thought, so what! what a memory!!

Tessa threw a binky over the edge....we found it the next day in the parking garage---wonder what that bounced off of?

We almost met Vanna White....she has a condo where we stayed. we are assuming she was in the penthouse above us......Emy and I kept missing her :(

Emy got a hair wrap.....weird, but cute.

We spent LOTS of money. We went to several fun places to eat. Planet Hollywood, Cracker Barrel, KFC, Chick-fil-A, a pancake house.

We PLAYED. All day. Every day. I loved it!!!!

The only thing I didn't like? the parking garage. can you say CLOSE quarters??

Went to Family Kingdom...rode lots of rides.

I showed the kids where my mom and dad took me during summers. I know North Myrtle Beach well. It has grown up alot, but basically is the same.

Next year we are going to spend 2 weeks at Oak Island.....how about them apples??

I realized that my Emy is growing up at the speed of light. How can I slow time down? I love her. right now. and her littleness is slipping away. She is more of a young lady now, sweet as sugar and speaks like a grown up. Thank you God that she still sneaks into bed with me. It feels like old times. In the words of Emy..."do you remember when I was an only child"? Yep, I sure do. You sure would be lonely now with no one to fuss over. You are making memories of your own and don't realize it..

Loving my job as a mommy. It's my favorite.

Santas, Leprecauns, fat fairies, and elves.

My goodness, I haven't blogged in a while. I feel like I have so much to say. This summer has been one of the best summers I remember. I have taken two weeks off to be with my family and enjoyed it so much. Makes me think, geez, why do I have all these bills? If I didn't, I would definitely be a stay at home mom! My kids are some of the funnest kids around...(is funnest a word?)

I will start with Emy. She is blossoming into a beautiful young lady, with somewhat of a smart mouth....she is just like me, of course. She is very sarcastic at times, but fun loving and so sweet at times, my heart just melts. The first week I took this summer was July 4th week. We stayed around the house and just hung out. We went bowling this summer and to some birthday parties. We swam ALOT!! The second week I took, we all went to the beach. I splurged and we stayed at Myrtle Beach, opting for an ocean front condo with a pool AND lazy river. Now we are broke again :) but it was so worth it. That was the most fun I've had in a really long, long time. We camp alot and I just realized during that week at the beach, camping is more work for me than it is fun. lol. But it is a lot cheaper so I see alot of camping in my future :)

Emy has learned how to dive this summer. She loves Justin Bieber and all the shows that I can't stand. Disney TV is not my fave :( Neither is Nickelodeon. I prefer the Hallmark Channel, old movies or watching DVDs. Emy is developing into a great big sister. She watches Tessa for me in the mornings so I can shower and dress without worry. She helps me feed her and she changes her diapers every so often. Tessa adores her and loves to kiss her smack on the mouth with her appreciation :)

Emy just started back to school. Can you believe I have a 3rd grader? Unreal!! Although my 3rd grade teacher retired a few years ago (I really wanted Emy to have him as her teacher), she got two great teachers and we are all looking forward to a great year! Emy did get placed with one of her best friends, so it is good....so far, so good. Her favorite subject is math :)

Emy also learned the most verses in her classroom at church this time around. She just moved up into the next class. I'm so proud. She is extremely bright and loves to learn new things!!

Emy is also into girl scouts and gymnastics. I have a brag a little here. Every semester since she started gymnastics, she has moved to the next level. There are red stars, white stars, blue stars, gold stars and then starts levels for competition. Emy is already in blue stars!!!!

Emy's friend, Maggie M, introduced us to a great traveling game which will explain the title of my post. Have you ever paid attention to how many different colored fire hydrants there are on the sides of the roads we travel daily? Around here we have red (baby santa), red/white (santa), green (leprecaun), yellow (fat fairy), red/white/green (elf), and even at the beach we saw a DALMATION one!! We keep score and it is a loud game but it is fun and keeps them way occupied!! If we call one wrong, a point gets taken from us. :) Thanks Tracy and Maggie!!

Moving on to my sweet boy, Luke. Luke is going to preschool for one more year. We decided to hold him one more year so he will be ready when he starts Kindergarten. He has been home for 3 1/2 years, so he is doing really great! He loves books and cars. He can spot a mustang or a dodge pickup truck a mile away.

Luke's teacher adores him as does his sunday school teacher and basically anyone he meets. Luke is special and it is apparent to everyone he meets. We are having a little trouble with him stuffing his pockets with crayons from school and brings them home, but we are working on that. He prays over his friends at school, laying hands on them. He prays for us as well. He is a sweetie.

Luke loves his sisters, is very protective of them. He loves to babysit Tessa and loves for Emy to read to him. He likes to watch movies with all of us. He especially likes Barney and Cars.

Please pray for Luke, as I am unsure if public school is the right road for him. We will see. I plan to start him at Emy's school next year in Kindergarten, so we shall see. We have a year to work on it, so we have started the work hard process at home as well as at preschool. Luke is 6 and will be 7 when he starts Kindergarten. I can't bring myself to think that is a bad thing.

Miss Tessa is almost 9 months old! She has two teeth, is crawling, pulling up, and cruising furniture. She is so much fun at this age. She still gags and chokes easily so I am taking the additional foods really slow. She likes to eat baby food and yogurt and mashed potatoes. She loves mango, applesauce, pears, and the girl is crazy over ice cream!!!

Everyone adores her and of course we get some looks when we are all together. Who cares? This is my family, made several different ways. If someone wants to look, let them. I have three adorable kids they are staring at :)

Darrell and I are doing well, we are extremely busy, we both have full time jobs and come home tired.......but really, we are having a great time with these kids. We just realize that every day is a precious gift. We try to embrace life as a family and we are having a blast!! Well, time to close. Tessa has crawled under my feet and I need to go and watch Mickey Mouse. MEESKA, MOOSKA, MICKEY MOUSE!!!!

Lots of photos will follow soon in another post!! Later y'all.

Hello again.

Enjoy these pics!!

(above--Tessa 7 mos old)
Siblings.

Siblings + friend.

pool party!

Luke had fun too, fishin w/ papa martin..

pool

Tessa didn't enjoy diapering her head :)

Tessa 6 months old.

My brownie!!

Who is grinning bigger? Luke or the lion?

Tessa loves to swing!!

Well, summer is half way over or it seems to be flying that fast anyway. It's depressing almost to see how fast time goes when you are spending time with the ones you love.

My mom and dad just celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary. I told Emy that I sure was glad they got married way back then because if the hadn't, wouldn't be here and neither would she! Wow! Scary thought, right?

Happy 4th of July everyone. Emy finished up the 2nd grade with a bang, is so ready for 3rd grade. I'm so proud of her! She is learning things at lightning speed and she loves to write very long stories which of course I LOVE to read....they are so Emy.

Luke is going to have to endure another year of preschool because he just isn't ready for Kindergarten yet. He is doing so great at counting, ABC's and writing his name. He has a great imagination and wonderful sense of humor! I'm proud of him as well!! He is a trooper. He just had an orthopedic follow up and they are not going to brace his legs or boot his legs (what great news?!) and the doc said "see ya in 2 years". Now that is a blessing for sure.

And little baby Tessa? Not a baby really. She is now 7 months old and she is a mess.....she has bonded well with all of us and she loves to be right in the middle of her big sis and bro's chaos...she loves to sing, swing and eat...she is a funny, happy little girl. She is, as we say in the south, MAMA ROTTEN! That means she likes me the best, of course :) just kidding (wink).