Our new addition - while we wait

I have been thinking new puppy on and off for several months now.   I want the kids to be able to experience a puppy but I also don't want a puppy any time soon after the new baby is here so I have been feeling like it is either now (so he is no longer puppy like when the baby comes home) or many years in the future.  Well after back and forth back and forth.....here he is.

J wants to name him Skipper (always about the boat) but I'm not so sure.  I was at the library today and the "Little Golden Books" has a book about Scuppers the Sailor dog...that is close to skipper and too cute.  We will have to see what lands.

I knew the kids would like him but did not expect such an attachment from Carrot.  She cried today when she had to go to school. :( 

 We rubbed a toy on his brother before we brought him home and it was so sad last night to see him climb into his crate and immediately flop onto the toy that smelled like his brother

 Potty training is going ok.  Keep in mind that I also have 3 in diapers in this household during the day LOL  He did spend a good deal of time in the crate this a.m. but has been out with me about 2 hours during the kids nap time and went out after an hour to do his business and so he is getting more free time in the house.

This picture is hard to understand but it is a step in the right direction.  If you look over to the far left that is the new puppies white head and then if you look over to the far right (despite the sun and shadows) Pepper is laying in his usual nap time sun location so they are beginning to co-exist :)

The gravy boat

I have this awesome story about how I became the owner of a gravy boat.  It was last Wednesday evening and we were at our Thanksgiving Eve service.   We had just finished having a time of sharing what we were thankful for and I was still blushing and a bit surprised over the fact that my husband stood and said how thankful he was to God for me.  I sat down as the minister stared his message and it dawned on me - Ah the gravy boat!

Every time I host a holiday meal I realize last minute I don't own a gravy boat and I always resort to putting my yummy homemade gravy into my measuring cups.  I always have good intentions of making sure I pick up a gravy boat during the years and never remember....so here I was again the night before Thanksgiving with no gravy boat.  I quickly put aside the thought and did try to focus on the sermon.  After service we decided to swing by Walmart in hope of finding any old gravy boat to do the job.  With no luck we started to leave empty handed but on the way out ran into some fellow church goes who were picking up extras just in case and I briefly told her how I always forget the gravy boat so I had hoped to find one but had no success.

Thanksgiving came and went and I again served the yummy gravy in my measuring cup and completely forgot about looking for a gravy boat again.  Sunday morning rolled around and I had two people tell me that Kathye was looking for me.  I started to chuckle and sad to the second I bet she knows where I can go for a gravy boat.  To my surprise when she found me she had a cute little wrapped up Christmas bag and in it of course was a beautiful gravy boat.  She said she was out black Friday shopping with her girls and she was at a pottery store and was about to check out and looked up and saw a gravy boat.   The smile that spread on my face when I took out that gravy boat could not compare to how I felt inside.  I hugged her and thanked her for thinking of me and then went off to Sunday school.  As I was sitting in class I kept smiling when I saw the package because I realized her though was so much more to me than the gravy boat.

All during the Thanksgiving service people would share about how much they love our church and have been so blessed by all the friends they have made from the church who are like family to them and have touched their lives.  I listened and thought it was awesome and sort of hope I could feel the same one day.  Don't get me wrong I have many friends from out church but just knew I had not experienced "what  it was" they were sharing - NOW I DO!

I am super excited for next year to share about the GRAVY BOAT and about how touch I was that someone went out of their way and thought about me like that.   I guess it seems kind of silly but the thought means so much and I now have a gravy boat which I will treasure forever.

Getting our tree

We did black Friday shopping for a Christmas tree.  Carrot and dad donned their slippers and boots to crawl into the attic and dig out the Christmas boxes bright and early so we were able to get the rest of the house decorated before we go the tree which was huge help

 It was such a nice day I had called Aunt S. and when she found out we were going to get our tree decided to come with us and get theirs as well.  She told Aunt P. and Aunt P. said what a great day for a picnic with the mild weather so in no time we had a family outing planned.   We decided to go down to the boat club for our picnic to look over the bay.  It was still a little chilly but a nice time.

Carrot and Banana made some fun by creating their own seesaw out of wood they found leaving around.

Carrot likes to keep a box in the car for when we go to the boat club so she can catch crickets.  I was convinced to allow two to come in the car with us and then home but we did let them go after dinner.

Here we all are on the wagon ready to go look for our trees

 CP, Aunt P. and Uncle D.

Aunt S., Uncle C. and Daniel

Carrot hiding under a tree

Sister shot 

 Banana gave cutting down the tree shot

 He gave up and handed over the ax to JonJon

CP cheering JonJon on

JonJon gave up and good old Mom finished the job

Dad of course has to carry the tree 

Headed back 

Next up.  Decorating!

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving Day started bright and early.  We have been feeling a shortage on turkey leftovers in years past so I rummaged through the super market for the biggest turkey I could find and came up with a 26lber (hoping to find bigger next year).  The suggested cooking time was 7-8 hours so J and I got up at 5:00a.m. to get it cooking in plenty of time for a 1:30 meal time.  I used a brine this year for the first time and it made the morning work so much less.  I soaked the Turkey in the brine from noon the day before so it was already cleaned out and all I had to do was dry it off and stuff it with the stuffing I made the night before.  

So by 5:20 our bird was in the oven and we were wide awake so we slipped out of the house and left the kids sleeping since JonJon and Ooney were here and went off to find breakfast at the Cracker Barrel.  It would have been a great plan except the Cracker Barrel doesn't open until 6:00.  We decided to head home and wake the kids and come back.  It ended up to be a pretty memorable Thanksgiving day breakfast.

When we got home Carrot decided to make so Thanksgiving place cards which turned out super cute.

Just when I had finished putting the last details on the table I decided to give the turkey a good basting and to my surprise the thermometer said it was done.....WHAT....it was only 10:00a.m.  Sure enough after using two other thermometer it sure was done so by 10:30 we took the turkey out, gave everyone a call to see if they could come a little early, covered it well with foil and hoped for the best.  It was actually really nice to get it out early because I had so much extra time to get my homemade gravy made and everything done and cleaned up before our guest arrived.  The turkey didn't even seem to suffer from the wait.  I have since found out that the brine could possible cause it to cook faster.

Banana and dad played games all morning

Carrot and I resurrected some old Thanksgiving decorations I had made as a teenager out of wood.  All they needed was a little glue and they were as good as new.

Carrot posing with the glitter pumpkin

....and pose again with the set table

It was a great day full of family and fun and I have so much to be thankful I can't even begin to list them all but God has blessed us so much with awesome kids, good health, and adoption that we started not knowing how to pay for it and he has provided and the list goes on and on.

VERY THANKFUL!

Thanksgiving preparations

  I am so thankful that I have a little girl this year eager to help.  

We began our Thanksgiving preparations on Tuesday evening when Carrot and I made cranberry relish and sugar cookies

Wednesday began the real work.  I also did not close the daycare so had about 7 kids to watch after and feed and make sure we got outside for play time but everyone played pretty well most of the day and I was able to get the sweet potato casserole done, pineapple stuffing, bread stuffing, 2 pumpkin pies, cookie bars, tons of potatoes peeled, and the brine for the turkey.  All I can say is thank goodness for nap time and getting up at 6:30 a.m. to make my pie crust before my first arrivals :)

The house was a mess but by the end of the day it was almost clean and we even had time to make it to church for the Thanksgiving service

Back in bussiness

Yay!!!!  I have my Macbook back.  $755 dollars later it is repaired.  It makes me sick really that I spilled my water in it and had to pay that much to repair it but  I will never drink near my computer again...lesson learned.

Four Months Down

Four Months

 

 

I can't believe we are four month down on the waiting game of this referral.  I am just not sure where time is going.  I know these next two months are going to fly by with the holidays which I am all pumped up and super excited for.  

Water and Macbooks don't mix

I am very behind in blogging.  I have Halloween pictures I want to post and so many other great things from fall but I am computer-less.

 Two weeks ago in a blink of an eye I spilled water on my macbook :(  Sad I know.  It is not even a year old.  I received it from J last spring as an anniversary present.  I am now having to sneak in computer time on J's computer when time allows. 

The think about a macbook is you really get used to the ease of taking pictures with your ipod and having them automatically come to the "cloud" and appear on your computer and you can blog right away.  So now here I am snatching some time on the PC and thinking of how I could get my Halloween pictures but I would like have to find a cord or something to do that and that seems like so much work. 

So bare with the lack of post and pictures.  I will return in due time after I make some hard decisions.   Repair the Mac for $750 (yikes) by a new one for $1000 (yikes yikes) or go back to PC because I can pick one up really cheap (YIKES - hoping this is not the option J wants me to take)

:(

 

(this is a pretent picture of me with a frown - I could have blogged a real one in seconds with my macbook)

Good prayer night

I am fully aware of my how fast my kiddos are growing up but there are certain moments are just real eye openers.

Last night as Banana said his prayers and out of the blue he said,"Lord please help me never to disgrace you and always to honor you" I was just getting over the shock of that grown up prayer when Carrot started her prayer and pulled a "Please help me to EMBRACE first grade". WHAT!

I was still enjoying that moment when Banana told me I was the best mom ever and thanked me for all the hard work I do for him.

I told him I hoped he always wanted to snuggle in bed with me, even when he was older and he said "Oh don't worry mom I will.  When I'm a teenager I will still want to.  I may need to go to a party every once in a while but will want to snuggle the other nights."

  As we were going to bed J said, "We have great kids they are better then I ever imagined they would be" - I couldn't agree more.

We saved Halloween

Last night I had one of those "be the mom you want to be" moments.

 I was out for a jog and Carrot and Banana were riding their bikes along with me.  Due to the weather trick-or-treating had been moved to Friday and I knew the kids were disappointed   They had heard some of the daycare kids say how they were going to other areas to trick-or-treat that night and then on Friday too.   

As we were about to turn out of the neighborhood I stopped suddenly and said "Who wants to ask their neighborhood friends if they want to come over for an impromptu halloween party".  The response was unanimous so Banana went around on his bike to do the invites and then we rushed home and I told them to clean up the house, ask JonJon to pull dinner out of the oven when the timer went off and I dashed off to the store to get some snacks.

At 7 o'clock they all started to arrive and the night halloween night felt special again.  I'm not even sure they watched the halloween Charlie Brown or Garfield movies there was so much chatter coming from the TV room but the were all snacked up and seemed to have fun just the same.

Not too bad for a 5:30 idea and a 7:00 party.