We're still here.

The extended blog break can be directly associated with the monumental task we have taken on of finishing our basement.  With another little guy joining the family in the coming months, it became quite evident to us that we could use a little more room for the kids to spread out, hence over the past 8 weeks pretty much all waking hours outside of work have been spent transforming our basement from a scene from Hoarders to a usable space that we are hoping to begin enjoying before too long.

One of the driving factors behind finishing our basement was that we felt we needed to add an extra bedroom, as we couldn’t envision any of the kids getting any decent sleep while sharing a room.  Low and behold, for the past couple of months Lleyton and Parker have been inseparable at bedtime and have been sleeping in the same room.  Shows how much we know. 

When Sara and I head upstairs to turn in each night it is always entertaining venturing into Lleyton or Parker’s room and seeing how the young men wound up sleeping that night (options have been…under Lleyton’s tent, on the floor, two wide on a full size bed, two wide on a twin bed, under the bed, in the closet, dressed like superheros, etc.).
 

It is a joy seeing the boys enjoy each other so much.  That on top of how much Addy idolizes Lleyton makes for some very cute times around the Ritzmann house. 

 

 We would like to send along a big THANK YOU to everyone who has kept Parker and the rest of us in your thoughts and prayers.  The blogging this year has really fallen off, and as I explained a couple of months ago, it had a lot to do some extremely difficult and challenging times we were having with our young man.  I am very happy to report that those truggles are now occurring much less often…which is such a relief for us all.
If you’re wondering about how things are progressing in regards to getting Camden home, we are wondering the same thing. We are hopeful that we could have some good news to share in the coming weeks, but as we have come to find out about international adoption, things can change.  We did recently get new pictures of our little guy in Korea and are very happy to report that he is looking great.  It’s sad to see him grow through pictures, but hopefully our wait is nearing an end and we will be able to get over to Seoul and introduce ourselves to our very handsome soon-to-be son. 

While we wait  we will stay busy in the basement, and starting last weekend we also will be spending time on the diamond watching Parker hone his skills. What better way to kick off our big man’s baseball season than by taking in a Reds game.
 Who won you may ask…I’m not quite sure, as our time was spent mostly in the kids area on the play set and during the time we were in our seats I was a bit preoccupied with making sure Lleyton and Addy didn’t chuck anything onto the unsuspecting people below us, and they didn’t.  So in that case, we won.