Family Celebration

The BIG Baltzly Family!

Bosom Brothers, Laine & Ezra!

Mommy, Daddy & Princess Adalinne

Daddy, Ezra & Laine

First Cousin Adults and Second Cousin Babies!

L to R: Josh & Charis, Joanna & Adalinne, Jeremy & Ava!

L to R: Josh & Ginger with Charis, Us :), Jeremy & Andra with Ava!

Sisters (Grandma's) L to R: Priscilla (Adalinne); Susie (Charis); Rachel (Ava)

Sisters, Children & Babies

My Uncle Denny's retirement party was held tonight and we were able to get some really good pictures of some family. My Uncle Denny & Aunt Rachel (my mom's oldest sister) live in town, my Uncle Clare and Aunt Susie (my mom's 2nd oldest sister) were here from Missouri and my mom are all new grandmas of baby girls. I posted earlier on something similiar. This time, we got all the "first cousins" together with their babies, then we took one of the cousins and their spouses and babies, then one of the grandmas (sisters) and babies. SO SWEET! We all three are unable to have babies for one reason or another and we all three have previously adopted and we all three got girls right around the same time! It's the neatest GOD THING! HE IS SO GOOD! To GOD be the glory GREAT THINGS He HAS DONE!!!!

A Laine funny! :)

Okay, so some of you might not think this if funny because a lot of you don't live in Arizona, but I'm sure most of you that don't have heard of the Arizona Diamondbacks! They have one the world series (just a few years ago). Anyways, we were in the car tonight on our way home from a family celebration and Laine noticed a license plate with the emblem for the team and very excitedly with a gasp said, "Oh! The DINGbacks!" Ben & I laughed and laughed!

The news we've ALL been waiting for!!!!

Okay, so I told you all I'd post! Now that I know more, I'm posting! :)

This morning we met with our adoption worker for Ezra!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!! We signed paperwork this morning which "officially" started our adoption process and according to Tracey, our adoption worker, we are looking at LATEST end of August as an adoption hearing!! UNREAL! We are elated!

There are SO MANY THINGS that need to get done before we finalize this, several steps, we've contacted an attorney to represent us just this morning and they are sending our paperwork, then we are still needing to get our adoption license which will be the only thing that may take the longest. But, maybe not! :)

I'll keep you posted as each event occurs! Thanks again for your support through this HUGE event in our lives! Keep praying for the process to go smoothly without any glitches! :)

Keep checking back! :)

30 years later......

It's time for an update, sorry guys! Things just don't slow down and I'm not really seeing an end in sight! But I KNOW it's got to be there. I have some other really good news to share, so keep posted and I'll try and post tomorrow when I'm a bit more rested.

My dear mama came over last week with a Ziploc and contents of a green dress, bloomers to match and white sling back shoes, plus a blanket on the outside of the bag. She had dug through the "keepsake bins" in her house and found the actual outfit that my parents brought me home from the hospital in on April 6, 1978, 30 years ago! While I wasn't able to bring Adalinne home from the hospital in the same dress, I did get the privilege of trying them on her and oh, how sweet she looked! See for yourselves above! :) Isn't she precious!? And even in the same soft and comfy arms I was lying in when I wore the same dress.

Bath Time = Frizzy Crazy Hair

All clean and ready to hop out and dry off!

Learning to brush the mop! :)

I think the pictures speak for themselves! David's always been teased about his hair since the day we got him! Truth be told, he needs a DESPERATE serious haircut, but his mom won't give us permission to cut it. She says we can only TRIM it!

Oh me, Oh my!

Laine keeping busy building with Tinker Toys!

David

Ezra with his adorable "Jesus Loves Me" t-shirt from Aunt Shi Sha!

Princess Adalinne sleeping securely!

Has it been THIS LONG since I've posted. Sorry! Things have been busy, but fairly restful. Not much new. We still have our sweet princess Adalinne. She's still sleeping, eating and staying awake at night for mommy! Her DT's (Detox Tremors) are getting worse and worse. If you could just keep praying us through the next 5-6 weeks or so that'd be much appreciated. For those of you who don't know what those are, they are "seizure like" fits that occur as Adalinne is coming down from off her "high." It makes me cry EVERY TIME. There's positively NOTHING I can do for her but be with her while she has them and make sure she doesn't knock into something while having one. Ezra had these, but they were much milder (sp). Not near as bad as Adalinne's have been. We're still without visits, so that's a good sign. Any of this can change at any moment, but for her being three weeks today, it's rare we haven't had a consistent visit "scheduled."

Ezra's still doing great! We just had is one year pictures taken today! I know, late, but things have been a bit crazy! :) He's starting to "sign" and say please every time he wants something instead of screaming, so that's GREAT! :) He's so tender and SO HAPPY! He's such a joy to have around!

David too is doing good. Definitely busy and into this purposeful hurting himself. He got a black eye this week at preschool when he ran full force into the corner of a bookshelf at school. He laughed and thought it was funny! Not going to be so funny when we explain to his mom and dad tomorrow for his visit why his eye is all black and blue! :) Need to work on this a bit! :)

Laine is getting geared up for his summer full of Vacation Bible Schools! :) He LIVES for these clubs and has three this year. Should be fun. :) This coming Sunday starts his first one in the evening at First Baptist Church. He's a trooper and most the time tags along with me when I run to do short errands! He LOVES getting out of the house. He's my opposite of "homeboy." He's been really creative with his Tinkertoys as you can see in the pictures.

Weather here is 115 today, so we're, needless to say, hanging INSIDE while we can! Way too hot to do ANYTHING or go anywhere. Benjamin has worked the last several days in a row (through last weekend), so he's looking forward to a few days off this weekend. We'll be happy to have daddy home too!

"We've got Ezra."

Well, okay, sort of. And okay, normally you hear it being said in the Annie movie, "We've got Annie." Today was a day that will go down in our history book. I finally contacted Erza's attorney since things haven't moved ONE SINGLE INCH since his termination last November (6 1/2 months ago). The attorney's office definitely agreed with us that things should've been passed along to an adoption worker a LONG time ago. They contacted Ezra's social worker directly, she actually answered her phone and "said," like she always does, that she'll have the case turned over to an adoption worker by next week. The attorney's office said if that's not completed when she gets back into the office on June 23, that she will be calling Carole's supervisor to mandate that happen IMMEDIATELY and then we will FINALLY officially be considered "in the adoption process" with Ezra! Can't believe we are finally to the next step on Ezra's case. He'll be fifteen months next week, and we are more than ready to call him our own officially. So, please be praying specifically on June 23 that we can hear officially that an adoption worker finally has the case and can move forward with it. That's only the beginning of the next huge set of hurdles we'll have to cross, but we're ready for it! Thanks for tagging along with us in this process!

Still no word the other family has accepted the placement on Adalinne, so we're hanging on as hard as we can right now. Hoping nothing changes. Still some natural hesitation though. If we hear more, we'll let you know through here.

Adalinne & Mommy

Just a few sweet pictures of us! I just LOVE sitting and holding and just STARING at Adalinne! Can't believe she's in my arms.

Three Cousins & Three MIRACLE Daughters!

We had a WONDERFUL day celebrating our cousins' new baby girl, Charis Leigh Barrett, at an all church (Church of Celebration) baby shower.

Josh & Ginger, another cousin, Jeremy & Andra, and Benjamin & I haven't been able to have our own children biologically for one reason or another. But, all three of us have adopted some sweet babies already. Knowing we're not alone is so comforting and how God specifically put us three not only in the same family, but in the same geographic area to enjoy each other has been another sweet blessing. As of recent, God has blessed EACH of our families with new baby girls! It's been AMAZING! Ava was born in April, on my birthday actually! Charis was born in May, and so was Adalinne! So, today we HAD to take a picture of all three of us cousins and our beautiful girls.

Time to......

...........get ready for our next move! For those of you that don't know yet, we'll be moving towards the end of August into a different home.

So, I'm starting to do the typical, go through, pitch, yard sale, reorganize, etc. Started today with the toy room! Turned out incredible! With the help of a teacher friend, we whizzed through it in a few hours!

Uh oh! Cheerios!!

Uh oh, am I busted!?

The box is completely empty!

I think the pictures can speak for themselves! These are the extra little things that happen when you're minding after FOUR children under the age of FOUR! Just have to live and laugh!

10 days old!!

Adalinne is 10 days old now! :) Here is a sweet picture of her just hangin' with daddy!

We still haven't heard any official word on the other family taking her back. We're still not "comfortable," but we're breathing a tiny bit easier because they HAVEN'T called to move her either. In fact, her social worker called this afternoon to tell me that she had her medical card to drop by our house, so that gives me an idea it may be longer, but certainly doesn't promise us anything either. So, no news is good news!?!?

Friends are the BEST!

Had to catch a photo of the cake baker/decorator!

Isn't this cake AMAZING!?

I couldn't believe this flower! Incredible detail!

My dearest friend, Amber, called and said she had a "dessert" for me and she wanted to come run it by for me! I couldn't believe my eyes! It looked so incredibly professional! I've DREAMED of having a cake like this! She made this entire cake from scratch and I AM SO PROUD OF HER! She's phenominal! It meant SO MUCH that someone would put that much work into treating me like royalty just for dessert, just "because." Thank you Amber!

Occupational Therapists' Fault!!

Reaching "in."

Pulling "out."

Playing his heart out.

We blame this on our Occupational Therapist, Chris and Developmental Specialist, CeCe. Ezra has therapy appointments Tuesday and another on Wednesday and the famous activities that they have Ezra do is they dump a whole container of shapes out and make him sit, squat, stand and pick up an object then "put in" to the container. He's starting to make a habit now of taking almost every last toy out of the toy box and throwing it out, then he'll get about one-tenth of them put back into the toybox, then crawl away leaving a huge mess! I think it's time for mommy to go through the toy box and eliminate the tiny small stuff and maybe leave the big airplanes, trucks, buses, etc. A whole lot easier to pick up and maintain a half way decent looking toy area when three are now playing equally!

BIG.........little

Can it be possible that they can grow THAT MUCH in just 12 short months!? WOW! We thought we'd do a side by side picture of our two substance abused babies. After seeing this picture we are PRAISING THE LORD WITH GLADNESS to see how His hand has been in all of Ezra's life of growing up and we are praying for the same miracle for our sweet Adalinne Rose!!!

No news!!!!

I know a lot of you are checking our blog for an update on whether or not our sweet Adalinne is still with us. My gut tells me something is up and I"m not sure how it will pan out, but we're still not officially notified either, so I MUST KEEP TRUSTING! So hard to do as many of you reading this know. We'll still let you all know once we hear something.

Had our week well child check yesterday and she's looking great. She's 6 lbs 12 ounces. So sweet. Today she's been awake a lot! So sweet to see her looking at you! She also today has had a really good day on "structure" with feedings, etc. I'm praying for a smoother night because of it tonight! :) These last several nights have been TOUGH! She's usually awake at least half the night.

Thanks for checking back.

Calling her Adalinne Rose!

I know several are wondering about Adalinne's stats. Here they are!

May 27, 2008

6 lbs 10 ounces

19 3/4"

We're still waiting to hear on June 4 if the other foster family has decided to go ahead and take her. Please keep praying the Lord's will be done in all this.

Diamondbacks Game!

My dear sweet boys!

Chase Field

David eating his corndog!

Ezra trying cotton candy for the first time! He loved it!

May is Foster Care Appreciation Month! As a "thank you," the state funded an all day Diamondbacks event for all foster families that wanted to participate. They provided a really fun Carnival for the kids with all kinds of games, bounce houses, prizes, raffles, etc. All free, plus they fed us lunch, hot dogs, chips, waters. We had so much fun, and the best part of the carnival was that one of the "prizes" was an adaptor for any kind of electric device including laptops, keyboards, etc. We were just last week pricing out an adaptor for the keyboard we got Laine for his "early birthday" since he's taking piano now. It didn't come with an adaptor, so we now have an adaptor instead of using batteries, and we are SO EXCITED!

After the carnival, Chase Field was open to go in and enjoy watching the players practice, etc. It was really cool. David went NUTS when he saw the great big baseball field. It was the sweetest thing ever. Laine has been to a few games last year, so he wasn't near as excited as David, but he was happy to be there nonetheless.

No worries, either, all you mommies reading this. I DIDN'T take the baby! She stayed at home with my mom!