The Thanksgiving lead up…

I love Thanksgiving! It is like Christmas but with out all the stress and pressure of buying gifts. Just good old fashion food and family. Love it!

The little girls had a Thanksgiving performance at their pre-school….thank goodness not on the same day.

Savannah loved singing in front of the parents! 

Anything cuter than little children praying? Nope!

After the performance we went to her classroom and had a Thanksgiving lunch.

Caroline was not as keen on singing in a line for all the parents. She seemed a little uneasy to me.

She was glad when it was over and she was able to take off her hat…you know how she is about her hair. Lol

We also ate in her room after the singing part was over. She loved it!

*********

Saturday morning our family woke up early to go to church and pack food for children in Haiti. Don’t you LOVE our hair nets? lol

The kids had so much fun which brought me immense joy.

We all took turns scooping food into bags, weighing them, sealing them and then boxing them up. What a wonderful experience. Everyone was in such a good mood and so eager to do their part to feed the children.

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That same day my beautiful niece came into town! The kids had been chomping at the bit and counting down the days until they got to see her. The next day we left for a short vacation to San Antonio.

We tried to cram as much as we could into the short visit. We stopped for lunch in West, TX where they have an AWESOME Czech Bakery that makes kolaches that will knock your socks off! It is very popular and ALWAYS packed.

Not bad for a little bakery in a gas station.

Jackson’s favorite was the pizza kolach, Avery’s was the cream cheese. Savannah’s favorite was none. What? Are you surprised? I am not. :-/

We got to San Antonio late. We checked in to the hotel, ate at a Mexican Restaurant on the Riverwalk and then went to bed.

The next morning we decided to take a boat tour of the Riverwalk. The little ones were sooo excited to be on a boat.

The weather was very warm….in the 80’s. Gotta love the south!

 

As the boat started to move Caroline screams out, “Go faster!!!” Needless to say the 2 little ones were very disappointed when they realized how slow we would be going. I guess they were expecting a lot more excitement.

Here they are with high hopes before the boat took off.

Here is Caroline half through the tour….bored out of her mind.

They were much more enthusiastic about all of the animals they saw around the Riverwalk. That had them squealing with delight.

Not to mention the elevator in the hotel. The girls RACED to get on it every time. It had a glass wall were you could see out. The girls would stare out the window and say, “Whoaaaaaa” as we went up or done….they thought that was great. Maybe we should have just taken them to a close by hotel and let them go up and down the elevator. We could have saved a lot of money.

I  have a gazillion of posts to publish, but I am paralyzed with so many things to do. Only 25 more shopping days until Christmas.

More on San Antonio later….

The long lost birthday video. . .

You’re Dixie’s football pride…

Crimson Tide…Roll Tide, Roll Tide!!!

 

Go Bama! Beat Auburn!!!!!

I am so thankful for…

My Family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Let the week of thankfulness begin…

My niece Alex flew in this afternoon from Alabama. The kids are on cloud 9!

We have all kinds of fun planned for the week.

We will not let the fact that American airlines lost her suitcase get in the way of our good time, no sir-ee bob…not us.

Sleeping beauty…

I wish I looked that pretty while I slept.

Be somebody's angel!

Are we blessed as American’s or what?

It is so easy to take it all for granted. My desire is to put a heart for charity and ministry into my children’s hearts.

Every chance I have gotten this fall to demonstrate to my kids the heart of Christ I have jumped on.

One of the ways I did this was to have the kids pick an orphan to sponsor on Reece’s Rainbow’s Christmas Angel Tree. The kids LOVED it!

Our ornaments came just the other day with the sweet children’s picture on it.

Sophia C.

9r30-14

Sophia C.
Brothers and sisters no Date of Birth: August 2008 Gender: Female Eyes: Blue Hair: Blonde Character: sociable, calm

No further info available until a dossier is submitted, but isn't she CUTE!?

 

 

 Max 2H

Max-2H
Brothers and sisters no
Date of Birth: July 2005
Gender: Male
Eyes: Gray
Hair: blond
Nature: Quiet

Max is so cute!   He is already 5 and facing the institution soon.  Max has blonde hair and blue eyes.  He was born with a heart condition, and he also has strabismus.

 

Carlene 2H

Carlene (gypf)

gypf -2H
Brothers and sisters no
Date of Birth: December 2005
Character: Positive Emotions , happy, social, content

Carlene is just a little ray of sunshine.   She is almost 5 and facing the institution.  Her present diagnosis is: Down Syndrome, moderate mental deficiency, valvular disease of the heart, strephexopodia, squint, farsightedness of light degree, allergic dermatitis, systemic underdevelopment of speech.

 

Savannah giggled with delight when she picked out this little girl. She loved her smile and tells me every day that she hopes she finds a family to love her. She asked if she could bring her ornament to school today for show and tell. Of course I said yes! Maybe one of the teacher’s will have a heart for adoption or chose to sponsor their own child.

Leesia (5)

Leesia  (5)

Girl, Born January 18, 2008

I have $66 in my grant fund towards the cost of my adoption!

 

 

 

 

Brent and I even chose a child to sponsor!!! I pray God finds these sweeties their forever families very soon!

Here is Brent’s….don’t you want to SQUEEZE him?

Matthew I. 16rfg -14

16rfg -14
Matthew I.
Brothers and sisters no
Date of Birth: December 2008
Gender: Male
Eyes: Blue
Hair: brown
Nature: Quiet

Here is my angel, don’t you love her hair?

Phoebe 9HA

1d72i-9HA
Phoebe
Date of Birth: April 2009
Gender: Female
Eyes: Gray
Hair: light brown
Nature: Calm    Oh, look at the glow on this munchkin!  Too cute!  Wispy blonde hair and blue eyes, this one has a smile that can light up a room.  She is so young and at a perfect age for early intervention!   From her medical records:  Congenital heart defect: secondary atrial septal defect, additional chord in the left ventricle. 

Phoebe is described as a delightful little girl.  She is active and engaging.  She rolls over, follows an object with her eyes, fixes her stare, grabs toys, manipulates them (bangs, waves, etc.).  She smiles, coos, starts to babble, smiles when somebody talks to her.

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Another awesome charity we are supporting is Samaritan’s Purse , Operation Christmas Child.

The girls had a blast shopping for the gifts to put in the shoe boxes.

Here are the girls dropping off their boxes at church.

We pack meals for the kids of Haiti at church this Saturday. It will be the first time that Avery and Jackson have gotten to participate in something like this. We are all very excited to help!

And the season of giving has JUST begun!!!!!!

*Guess what? I just went on Reece’s Rainbow and the little girl that Savannah sponsored (Leesia) has found a forever family!!!! I can not wait to tell her when she gets home from school!!!! God is good!

Favorite Photo Friday…..

So yesterday afternoon Savannah was playing outside on her scooter.
She ran into the house and told me that the boy who lives next door was playing on the neighborhood tire swing and asked if she could go over and play with him. I told her she could for a little while.
So she runs up the stairs to her room and comes down looking like this:
She then takes off outside.
I put 2 and 2 together and realized that she was trying to impress the boys on the street with all of her fancy bling (not to mention a medal ;-). I can’t help but laugh at her sweet little mind thinking her jewelry will make her more attractive to the boys. I thought that was the cutest most innocent thing ever and made her pose for this picture when she came back inside. (I did not tell her why I wanted a picture because I did not want to embarrass her)
Man I love that little rascal! Or should I say my little peacock?! Lol

The post that almost wasn’t….

For no other reason than it was going to be extremely long with lots of pictures and take me forever to complete. So then I finally took the time and started to edit, download and place them on Live Writer only to accidently lose everything I had done because I failed to save a draft. I suck.
Alas, I decided to give it a second try. Victory! Well, sort of. This post is over a month old….but never mind that. Let’s just pretend shall we. ;-)
We decided this year to celebrate Avery and Savannah’s birthdays together. It would save the family a lot of time and me a lot of energy. To get them on board with the plan, I promised an extra special party. Not to mention, they would each have their own friends, cake and presents.
Here is the invitation. Looks fancy, but I had a coupon for $25 off at Tiny Prints! Bonus!

The morning of the party.
The girls were so excited they could hardly stand it. It took a lot of patience to get them to stay still for these pictures.






I had the face painter come a little early to have the birthday girls faces painted first. That way they could enjoy their friends and animals for the whole 2 hours.
The woman was EXCELLENT at what she did. The kids all looked incredible!

My little pink kitty! That is sooooo Savannah.
Gracie chose a pretty mask.

The petting farm people got lost coming to our house and were late. So, they were setting up while all the guests had already arrived. The animals were precious and the kids were in heaven.






I think Nana kissed every animal she came across. Yes, even the Llama.






The kids loved giving the animals their bottles. Is this little pig not the cutest thing ever? He was definitely the star of the party. He would squeal and squeal when picked up, the kids thought that was so hysterical.

Do you remember that birthday post were Savannah wished for a pony?
Well…..


…..her dream came true, if only for one afternoon.
She rode him again and again! More than anyone else at the party.






Avery chose an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. She asked me to pick the design. I thought it turned out great!
Savannah wanted a cookie cake with kitties on them. She actually wanted a picture of a princess holding a kitty, but….we waited until the night before to get the cake and just bought plastic kitties to put on top.
We sang Happy Birthday to them separately.


After the animals and face painter left, the cake was eaten, and the presents were open….these were the silly girls left.


Nene saved her gift for after every one had left. Just what Savannah wanted, a scooter and a helmet!
The birthday girl with her big brother. He spent most of the party in his room doing a bunch of homework. He did come out to check out the animals a couple of times.

I would combine their parties every year if they would not be disappointed. It was so nice to just knock them out together. But, each one has already been thinking about what they want to do next year….and not together. Oh well.