visiting santa

If you know me very well, you know that I hate hot, crowded malls. 

So, when Kaden was out of school one day we went to see Santa.

The boys were both pretty excited, and they both were happy to tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

It was a fun day.

Bring on the Christmas season, we're ready!

recent potd's

I haven't posted any of our pictures of the day (potd's) lately, but here's another round:

We had a nice visit with some of Bosten's birth family.  We love open adoption!

Kaden and I had to make a disguise for this turkey for school.  Shocking that he wanted it to be Army, isn't it?!  (Not at all))

Kaden's chart:

We made these pilgrim hats again...

 We've had snow a few times, and its so exciting for the boys to wake up and see it.  They usually can't get their clothes on fast enough to get outside and play!

Watching and waiting for Daddy to come home from work:

Kaden has had croup and an ear infection lately.  Poor kid.  He was pretty miserable.

My two little helpers in the kitchen (making muffins):

Kaden's love note to me...He wrote it and brought it in to me:

sledding

Mimi and Papa have a great sledding hill by their house.  Its even more fun to go sledding there because usually there's at least a couple of cousins to go with us!

So, super fun. 

leaves

We have had a million leaves in our back yard.  Yep, a million.  We decided we should try and clean them up a little before the snow came.  The only good thing about raking leaves, is getting to jump in them once they're in a big pile!

snow

The boys have been so ready to see some snow (me, not so much).  You can imagine how exciting it was to finally wake up to some!  They got dressed in record time, and were out the door.

national adoption month

November is National Adoption Month.

I'm not going to blog every day about it, but will try and do it at least a few times.

You already know that adoption is near and dear to my heart.

Its also the hardest thing I've ever done.

Its also the best thing I've ever done.

 Statistics from the National Council For Adoption say that last year in the United States, there were 1.2 million abortions, and only 18,000 infants born in the U.S. placed for adoption.  Obviously, there's a whole lot of work to be done in making information about adoption available to expectant mothers faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

Want to help?  

Its pretty easy, here's a few ideas:

-blog about adoption (in general, or those who you know who have adopted/or are hoping to adopt)

-post something about adoption on facebook or twitter

-if you hear of someone facing an unplanned pregnancy, talk about adoption as a choice or tell them about someone you know that's hoping to adopt

pumpkin carving

A couple of weeks ago for FHE, we carved pumpkins.  Kaden knew exactly how he wanted to do his and got right to work:

Bosten, on the other hand, wanted to do it but wanted nothing to do with it:

We ended up with one happy face and one scary face, and had a fun time together doing it!