Reptilian Santa???

Yes Santa deiced to bless the Stark's with 2 more mouths to feed!!! Meet Geno the African Fat tailed Gecko and Sam the Pueblan Milksnake. They traveled from the north pole to find a new place to call home. Jake and Cade have been asking for( Jake for 2 yrs) and Cade well over a year for these new additions and boy have been stalling or what!!!!We all went and meet Sam over a month ago just to make sure how Jake the snake would handle to new friend. I met Geno weeks ago and just feel in love with him his is an absolute doll... yes really he is like a puppy.... yes a puppy with scales and eats crickets!! So far so good my year of being a Vet Tech have come in handy but boy have I forgotten so much in 6 yrs. We had a great Christmas and did not drive 12 hours to see family ... yeah!!!! Gigi and Pop-pop spend to night Christmas eve so they could wake up with the kids and Grandma and Grandapa Bob came later Christmas morning to see all the excitement. I love being able to see our family more than just a few times a year. We will be going to Savannah tomorrow to celebrate Jenny and Jake's B-day's so we are looking forward to it!!.Oh and just so you no one thinks Lila is left out she has a butterfly house that will be filled with butterfly babies as soon as the weather heats up. May the Lord be with me and my new reptilian kids!!!

Jake has lost it!!

Yes the news it out.... Jake has finally( with he help of a dentist) lost tooth #3!!! He will be 8 on 12/29 and has only lost 3 teeth I had the dentist take x-rays to make sure that he really does have back up teeth sleeping in his head! He was so excited to have that tooth taken out since it has been loose for over 4 months and no end in sight!! Things are rolling along here in SC and we are getting our house in order. We have painted several rooms and love, love the new changes. Lila and Cade are doing well. I forgot to post pics of Lila and her new bike she was given for her big 4th b-day on 11/10. She loves it and I am so happy to be able to walk the dogs while she rides. Though she likes to challenge me with her fast riding skills!!! We are getting ready for Christmas and looking forward to NOT driving 12 hrs to see our family!!I don't know what to think of staying in our own house for the Christmas but I won't have to miss my bed this year!!!!Luckily Bob the Elf has made his annual appearance. The kids were really worried that he won't know where we moved to but I assured them that elves are very aware of everything....everything!! So we are all happy to have our little green house guest for the Christmas season.

We are offically SC residents....

Yes we have made it into the new house and are really loving it!! Also our prayers(and my desperate pleading) were answered because have an awesome young couple w/ 1 4yr old and no pets to sign a 2yr 9mo lease for our WV house!!! We met the guy, Brian, and he works at the Pentagon and is so great with a good sense of humor!!! Though he doesn't like Lila's "Crocus Petal" walls so I agreed to let him paint the girly walls if he wants to!!! So they plan to move in on Dec 15 and I could not be happier about our new friends/renters!!! The kids love it here and are doing so much better in school than expected!!! Jake has not gotten homesick once I can not believe it!!! Must be this warm ocean air!!! I will update with some pics when I get the time still trying to settle in. Scott is in Miami Tues- Friday so he gets to come home for 3 day weekends which has made all the difference!!!

My son the lobster!!!Yum

Yes Cade wanted to be a Lobster for Halloween well really his first choice was a FLOUNDER(yes his new environment has gone to his head). I searched high and low for the flounder costume but no luck and thank GOD that I stumbled onto this awesome lobster and Cade was so excited. Jake and Lila are a little bummed that I keep making Cade a lobster just for my own enjoyment but really a fairy and Storm Trooper just are not funny.

Well it's offical I think?

We should be closing on the "new" house by 10/29. This house is a short sale so the bank appears to take an extra long time to make any real decision and get them in writing but after some more haggling we are finally under contract verbally but waiting on the official paper! Our WV house has also be listed on MLS for rent and I am praying that we get a really nice clean family to take care of our great house. I am beyond nervous about this venture into the unknown but Scott is really excited about it!! I think I just like to take the safe road with no crazy twists or turns but what fun would that be!!! Scott will have to keep me under check until things calm down. I am also not real excited about cleaning out the WV house and packing it up but I will be so happy to get settled in our own slice of heaven here in the beautiful Mt Pleasant SC. Scott and I went on a little boating trip( well 2 hrs) on the Charleston harbor and had a blast. It is soooo nice to be this close to the ocean it really suits our family.Pop-pop bought Cade a new reel and Cade actually slept with it in the box!!! He just loves fishing and flounders are his favorite catch!! Another note on Cade he has lost another bottom tooth while eating corn on the cob so poor Jake(who is not a corn lover or veggie of any kind) decided to start attacking an ear in an attempt to get that other stubborn top tooth that has been loose for almost 2 months to surrender but was once again disappointed and proceeded to shame slander his rouge tooth. I have never seen a mouth full of teeth so determined to stay in a kids mouth!!! Well until next time!!

Yes we are alive

Yes "The Stark 5" is still alive and fishing in Mt Pleasant,SC! We did not sell our home and are currently staying with Gigi & Pop-pop until we close on our new home here in SC. We will be renting our WV home( hopefully to a nice quite couple with really severe OCD cleaning skills!!!!). We have been a bit stressed( well Scott and I have) but the kids are loving it here. This is Cade's paradise and he and Lila are great fishermen(sorry Lila fisher people)and not to mention Scott is loving it too and even bought a new fishing hat!!! It is truly beautiful here and if the circumstance were less hectic right now I could not imagine living anywhere else I LOVE IT But until things settle down I have a hard time believing this is home and am waiting for the shoe to drop and drag me back to WV and I mean drag!!! We had to move at the last minute so the kids could start school and I am more than impressed by the schools here and that alone was enough reason to escape Charles Town. To say that the school and I where at odds is an understatement to say the very least!!!!I will keep you all posted on when things settle down and life resumes as normal... whatever that means to the Stark 5!!! Oh Lila is holding a little green tree frog. Lucky for him Cade was at school.

Long summer over

Yes I'm still here but it has been one crazy stress filled summer!! We had a contract on our WV house that fell trough which meant we had to back out of contract on our dream home in MT Pleaseant SC which resulted in many tears. The worst part was that housing market has dropped our home value so much that we just couldn't sell it at current real estate prices and not lose a LOT of cash so in the end we have decided to rent our current home and move to Mt Pleseant any way. We are really stepping out of the box on this one and just hope that it all works out for the best!! We are now risk takers!!!! Wish us luck.... so right now we are living with Gigi & Pop-pop because we have not closed on a house of our own yet and school started this morning!!!! The kids love it here and have spent their summer days swimming, fishing and going to the beach!!! Yes the boys are in school 1st and 2nd grade!!! So I will let you all know when we move into our own house!!! Oh Lila is wearing a dress that was made for my cousin( thanks Aunt Virginia!!!) to wear at my wedding 14 yrs ago and she looks just adorable in it!! My mom keeps everything and this time I'm glad she did!!!!

Road Trip!!

I am very proud of myself for I drove 2 kids and 1 dog all the way to SC by MYSELF in a record 8:22 min( fastest time yet) with only 1 stop!!!! AND on the way home I drove all 3 kids and both dogs but stopped 3 times but did it all by myself!!! (Scott had to drive a truck down so that's why I was flying solo) When Scott & Cade arrived hours after us Cade got out of the truck and said" We took the Long-Cut"!!! He cracks us up!! We all had a great time at Pop-pop & Gigi's swimming and going to the beach,boat rides fishing off the dock and all the other indulgences of living on the water! Jake was "surfing"(according to Jake) like a real pro on Cade's new wake board.He really blew us away showing off an adventerous side We then moved on to Savannah to see Grandma & Grandpa Bob's new place.The kids had an absolute blast with their cousins Cassie & Jordan. Cassie it the first real girl Lila has gotten to spent time with since she is surrounded by boys and there aren't any little girls in our neighborhood her age. So Cassie is now her best girl friend!! The whole clan( including Grandaddy Stark, Aunt Joyce, Aunt Nanna) took Lila to get her ears pierced. This was not my idea but Lila's!!!! She has been asking for a while and I finally caved and to be honest they really look cute on her and she didn't even flinch while having them done! Oh and Aunt Joyce brought Lila the most beautiful Traditional Oriental Dress.The silk fabric brought back from China almost 50 years ago. It's just gorgeous and I for one an tempted to wear it!!!
It looks brand new and of course she wants to weat it now.

Lila's Year Anniversary

Today at 5:00PM it will have been 1 year since we layed eyes on our wonderful Lila. We pulled up at he Civil Affairs office in Xian, China on June 29, 2008 to unite with our daughter. On the cab ride over felt like dream. I was in China picking up my third child.... is this really happening????? When we arrived I noticed a car with the window half way down and inside a little girl sleeping ... I knew that was Lila. We went inside and watched the other parents recieve their children and wondered why my daughter was still sweating out some zzz's in a hot car??? Finally I see her nanny open the door and walk in with little Dang Ai Ling. Groggy and sweaty she just showed no emition at all. Scott and I just stared at her and kept saying out loud "She is so beautiful". The nanny tried to convince her that we were her parents but that was no easy task. She crept over and relieved me of her new sippy cup I brought and backed away. She had no idea how to get the water out but just liked to hold it for comfort. Time passed and the paperwork was complete and we were set to take our new daughter in a cab and back to the hotel. Sounds easy right..... not so easy for Lila. The poor thing cried and scream as we sprinted to the cab I was worried that all the staring eyes would think I was stealing this little girl. My heart broke for her but we made it to the hotel. She refused to take any of her dirty not so genlty used clothes or the little boys striped navy sandles off. She just cried, a broken cry, one you don't only see but feel. It was all over when we took our shoes off then she knew we weren't going anywhere soon. Lila picked up my shoes and brought then to me to put back on and walked me to the door. Oh Lord what have we done???? kept circling in my mind. I want my boys and I want to go home!!!!She was in need of a bath but refused to take her soilded clothes off. I had an idea... I brought out some of her new clothes and one adorable pair of chunky sandels with red flowers& a bow on them and that is all it took. She quickly kicked off her manly shoes and slipped the girly sandels on ( which were about 4 sizes too big not so accurate measurments) and got into the bath tub. She played in there for what seemed like a hour but what ever it took to see her happy and stop the tears was worth it. I called it "Tub Therapy" and she had atleast 2 sessions a day while in China!!! While think back of those first few days with her and the stress we all went through it was really nothing a distant memory that is almost comical now. Lila has completed our family and our hearts. We will never forget the journey to reach her and will be forever grateful for the journey ahead.

First Weekend of Summer break

The kids were so glad to have school over that we went to the Japanese Restaurant to celebrate Friday night.Jake just loves to eat there and knowing how picky he can be just warms my heart to see him stuffing his face!!! We also took Lila to the DC Zoo for the first time as usual she fell asleep about 10 mon into the drive. She loves animals and wants to be "animal doctor" when she gets "big" and we all know that nothing would make me happier. Maybe I can be her tech? Sunday we went to church and decided to grill out and hang outside and fun was had by all. I realized that we had spent the entire weekend together with no social interaction and had a lot of Stark family fun!!!Cade (as usual) was the highpoint of our entertainment. He had received a goody bag last day of school which contained these funky star glasses. So he comes outside shirtless with stars on his eyes. He cracked us up his I don't care what people think personality makes him one special kid I love that he can truly be himself!!!!

Cade 's Graduation Program

Well I for one am soooooo happy that Cade and Ms Beamer will soon be parting ways nothing against her.....(ok a little bit),but she and Cade just didn't have that connection I was looking for!!! He was a little ham during the program ( as expected) and seemed to have a good time. I must tell the story of Cade's day at school Monday. I get a call from Principal Jenkins and he just wants me to know about a " little" incident which transpired at school that day. "No big deal, I just want you to hear it from me".... OH good Lord here is comes...... He proceeds to inform me that Cade had pulled his pants down on the playground to check to see if he had broken his penis do to a fall while playing on some rocks. Ms Beamer took him to the principal office where he just told Cade that if he needs to check himself he needs to do that in the restroom or tell the nurse. I thanked him for telling me and couldn't help but giggled a bit. So later that night Scott and I asked Cade what happened on the playground and he told us that he thought he hurt his privates so he needed to check and Jake decided to chime in with such intense agreement that falling on rocks really can hurt your private parts. So dinner was yet another comical eating experience thanks to my two awesome boys.

Our Holiday Weekend

We had a great weekend. We had some friends over Sat night and had a great time! The weather couldn't have been better or the company for that matter. Sunday we went to Harpers Ferry for a picnic and explore the park and today went celebrated Memorial day in Gettysburg. PA. Scott or I have never been and since we are only about an hour we decided to visit a great place in our country's history. I was really interesting and I could have spent hours meandering around all the great artifacts but the kids move way too fast for us!Jake and Cade both chose the same thing at the gift store, the 4 piece Confederate Soldiers with tiny cannons and so the tiny cannon is what Jake is holding in front of his face for all to see. Lila chose a red/white& blue purse with pony included. We also took in the parade and the kids got a kick out of it and Lila got to enjoy her first snow cone. We also had 3 showings (2 same people) but haven't heard anything, that would be too good to be true!!! So hope all had a great Memorial Day weekend and at least everyone thought of how much our soldiers, past and present, have sacrificed to protected this beautiful county!!!

Haircuts and naps!!

Jake has been complaining that his hair is too long.... yes I am serious! SO he wanted a haircut so I took him and he really wanted a hair cut.Jake has never asked that his head be shaved before but he did this time and he loves it! I don't loved it but it sure makes getting ready for school a lot easier for him. Cade then wanted a hair cut but not just like Jake's so his is a cm longer on top!! Scott wasn't feeling great Sat and the day was so yucky that it caused a spontaneous group nap. I wish I could have been a participant they looked so cozy that I had to snap a pic!!

Our girl at the farm!

Today Lila had her first trip to a farm. She was so excited to see all the animals. The cows were definitely her favorites especially the calves. She just loved petting them and asked if we could take one home!! She loves animals and wants a "small" dog that she can keep in her room but her father is not falling for that one!! Here is Jake's self portrait and being his mother I think my son is gorgeous ,but come on does he not have the most beautiful eyes!!! Future lady killer!!!