One Month Home

It's hard to believe that Jaymi has been home with us for a month already!  Time sure flies when you are having fun :)  Things are going well and the adjustment period seems to get a bit better each day.  It has helped so much that the weather has gotten warmer and we have been able to get out for walks and trips to the park almost every day.  All the girls love getting out and about and it helps to break up our days when we are all missing dad while he's away at work.  I'm slowly figuring out this mom of three business.  I'm always happy when we have a successful outing without tears :)

Enjoying our PB&J on the front lawn, soaking up some much needed vitamin D.

This is the life :)  Spring has sprung and we are all feeling the hope and joy it brings with it.

I took the girls and met our friends the Gees at the library for play time.  The alphabet board was a hit with my girls.

Helping mama spell out her name.  She LOVES her new name.  She always gets so proud when we ask her what her name is and she says "Jaym"  

This girl LOVES climbing, sliding and swinging.  Its going to be a fun summer!

A very sweet woman sent Jaymi this cute treehouse toy and some money after reading her story.  I am still amazed at the love we have received from perfect strangers.  A reminder that there is good in this world.

Enjoying some sidewalk chalk with our friends.  We love having so many friends so close.  

More park time.  Jaymi is a great example to her little sisters of how to navigate around a playground.

This girl LOVES primary, especially singing time.  This was taken while they were singing "If you're happy and you know it", pretty sure she's happy, pretty sure she knows it :)

Jaymi got to go on a daddy daughter date with Wayne to the Utah Basketball game.  She looked so cute in the cheerleading outfit I bought for her last year.  So glad she got to wear it!  Wayne said she was in absolute Heaven at the game, clapping and cheering.

Reading stories with mommy.  She loves books.

Waiting in the doctors office.  Our pediatrician is so sweet with her and so enamored by how amazing she is.  He just can't get over it.  

Jaymi and our good friend "Mrs. Sarah".  She is a kindergarden teacher and has been/will be a huge help to us as we get Jaymi ready for school next year.

Loving on little sister Kaelyn.  I love moments like this.  Jaymi is so sweet with her younger sisters.  Always so excited to see them and give them hugs and kisses.  

Working on some dribbling skills with daddy.  These special moments make it all worth it.

Birthday Time

Friday was Jaymi's sixth birthday.  We decided to have a simple, fun day and are hoping to do a bigger party for friends and cousins in the coming weeks, once life calms down a bit.  We had a few of our neighborhood friends over for a breakfast party to celebrate.  I introduced everyone to my favorite birthday breakfast, waffles with Ice Cream, mint chocolate chip is my personal favorite for this meal/treat.  

To prepare for the big day, Jaymi helped me make cupcakes on Thursday before nap time. As you can see she was a great helper. 

We started the day off looking at a birthday card that came all the way from her old Children's Home in Russia wishing her a Happy Birthday.  There were also some pictures of her friends playing on the blankets we made for them.  She gave hugs and kisses to the children in the pictures.  It was so sweet.  Oh how I wish I could find them all families.

Opening Grandma Bonners gift to her

It was a cute Minny Mouse tea set that she loves.

She's not sure what to think about this messy eat with your hands business, but she's figuring it out.

Eating cupcakes

Bryn was thankful for her sisters birthday and all the fun and treats that came with it

My friend Mckell brought over some clothes for the girls and these cute snow pants
were among them.  Jaymi wanted to put them on so of course Bryn did too. 

Bryn's were a couple sizes too big, but she didn't mind.  She wanted to be just like sister.

Didn't want them to be all dressed up with no where to go, so we headed out for our first walk of the season.

Jaymi helped me push the girls the whole way, such a great helper.

Playing with the computer she picked out with her birthday money.  She can already find the J and 6.  She has a hard time remembering not to play with mama and papa's computer, so hopefully having one of her own will be a good distraction.  It will also help her learn her letters and numbers in English so thats great too!

We finished out the night with a birthday dinner at the family favorite Chick-fila

Kaelyn and Bryn cozied right in and got comfortable while we waited for our food.

 Love these chicken nuggets.  Yum Yum

We just about had the play place to ourselves.  The cute little guy in the turtle shirt was so nice to Jaymi and showed her how to climb up to the slide and go down all by herself. 

Bryn needed a little assistance figuring it out so I got to join in on the fun.

I love this place!

It was a wonderful day.  I sure hope she understood it was her special day and that her life is one we will celebrate and cherish forever and ever.  

A Few Firsts

So if you couldn't tell, life with three little ones at home has been keeping us busy.  I've just barely been able to find time and ambition in the last couple weeks to finish up the posts I wrote on the flight home.  Life has been good and we are all enjoying our time together as a family.  Everyone is doing their best to adjust to this new life of ours.  I remember those first few days when we started talking about adoption over a year ago, my mind kept coming to this part of the process.  The "adjustment" period. That space of time between your "old life" and your "new normal".  At the time we had just found ourselves entering our "new normal" after the addition of Bryn into our family who was then 3 months old.  Everyone was sleeping through the night, I was getting better at carrying Kaelyn and a car seat holding Bryn at the same time and I think I had even made a successful trip to the grocery store with all three of us that didn't involve tears from any of us.

I know it was very important for me to remember that time of transition and how we made it through and were now much happier with Bryn as part of our family.  Any transition period is difficult, change is difficult and although amazingly rewarding, adding another little soul into your life has its challenges.  Heavenly Father wanted me to remember that difficult times in life are "for but a small moment" and this too shall pass.  That knowledge and experience has helped me so much these past couple weeks home.  For the most part life is great, simply amazing, but of course not without challenges, lots of learning, re-does and trials of patients, patients, and more patients from us all.  She is learning the rules and testing her boundaries, trying to figure out how serious mama and papa are on certain things and if we really do mean business.  That means lots of tough love and consistency from us as parents and of course lots of loves, praise and hallelujah you did it's!

Although we find ourselves in the midst of some big changes here at the Bonner house, we are having a wonderful time getting to know and love even more deeply our new daughter and sister Jaymi.  She is such a sweet little spirit, doing her best to find her place in this world.  She is very affectionate and absolutely LOVES her new life.  She is very helpful around the house and always wants to be doing whatever I'm doing.  She helps with laundry, trash, dishes, wiping the table and any other chore she sees me doing.  She is a great example to her younger sisters when it comes to eating, baths, brushing her teeth, going potty, letting mom do her hair, dressing herself and many other things.  Bryn already looks up to her so much and does everything she does.  Jaymi learned how to fold her arms, close her eyes and say amen for prayers and after seeing her do it, Bryn started doing it too.  Multiple times throughout the meal one of them will fold their arms and bow their head for another prayer and of course the other one will follow suit.  Its pretty dang cute!

We have been privileged to be a part of many new "firsts" for our little girl in these first weeks home.  Its so fun to watch her learn and discover this new life of hers.  I just get excited thinking of all the other wonderful first she and my other girls will all get to experience together.  Here are some pictures of what we have been up to;

Mom and me trip to target.  She loved looking at everything in the store and we even left with some fun things for her and her sisters.

Of course I had to wear my new "Russia" coat to target after Wayne said, "Where are you going to wear that?" when I showed it to him.  "I'm wearing it to Target right now!"  ha ha.

Playing with cousins.  We LOVE our cousins, luckily we have lots of them.

Eating some of our favorite food, Chick-fila!  She approved.

Party-time in mom and dad's room.  

Playing dress-up, today's theme - tutu's.

Play dates with new friends.

Play time with the neighbor kids, notice Kaelyn the accompanist in the back ground.

Mia was adopted from the Ukraine last year and her story, what a major factor in inspiring us to adopt.

Birthday parties and more new friends. It was a party for sisters Bree and Mia who are also cuties with Ds.

She was a natural at the party games.

She LOVED the cake and ice cream.

Playing a duet with Bryn on Grandma's piano.

Driving a blow-up car around the playroom.

Sister game night.

Tuesday night pajama dance party.

Rides in the laundry basket, this is one of the favorites.  She brings me the basket just about every day to do rides.

Saturday morning signing time viewing.

Don't know what it is about hanging out in the laundry basket, but its fun!

Playing some bball roll with papa.

My cute basketball team sent home a basketball and hat for her to have.  So will be ballin' in no time.