Adoption Day

After about a month, I'm finally posting our adoption pictures.

We had to wake up way too early to get into

Boston in time for the court proceedings.

Don't the kids look great! This is in the hotel before we left.

Waiting with Oma. We had to wait for the judge to call us

into her chambers. It was a LONG wait.

Waiting with Poppa. Where is the judge?


Finally, we're led into the court room. Here we are reviewing
the kids birth certificates. Our names are added
after the adoption.

Signing the birth certificate form.

Our day is finally here! After three long years, we

finally get to sign for our kids.

In the court with the judge. She did such a great

job. She had the kids "adopt" us. They filled

out a certificate changing our

names to Mom and Dad.

When the judge asked K. why he wanted to adopt us, he said,

"Because I love them."

My heart melted. So did everyone elses.

Posing with everyone on the judge's bench. After such a

long road, they are finally our kids.

It's a wonderful feeling to know

that nobody can take them from us!

Pictures with the ladies that have been so

important in our children's lives. On the right, is the

worker that matched us with our kids.

On the left is the therapist that worked

with our kids while they were in

foster care. It was a WONDERFUL thing to get

to share our day with them.

Thank You.

After a fun afternoon, we went to Plaster Fun Time. We

wanted to take Oma and Poppa to one

of the places that we visited while we

were still visiting the kids in Boston.

My Sweet artist. Did I mention, she's mine now!

My very excited artist! Although the judge

didn't change his name to Batman Robin, he still painted the Bat symbol.

The picture is blurry because he kept jumping around.

Did I mention it was an exciting day!

After Plaster Fun Time, we went to a place called "Bean Town".

It was another place that we used to visit with the kids.

Those are water fireworks that happen in the food court of

the shopping center.

My forever children. Aren't they cute!

They're posing in front of some of the things in
"Bean Town".

Everything is made of jelly beans.

Make Way for Ducklings, made with Jelly Beans!

After a very exciting and busy adoption day, it was back

to the hotel for some sleep. Aren't they precious.

The next morning, we took a trip to Plymouth.

A tree in Plymouth. They were arguing about

who could sit on the branch. Even adoption won't

change some things.

This is a picture of the Mayflower 2. We took the kids on board

to learn about the pilgrims trip to the new world.

It was such a great experience.

We had a wonderful trip to Boston. I'm so thankful that my parents were both able to be there, and that we will all share the special memory of K. and D. becoming ours legally.

Please continue to pray for my Mom. I'm so glad that she was able to spend a few

happy days with us and the kids.

Fall Fun

It's been a month since I've posted any pictures, so I have about a month's worth of fun pics to share. We took the kids to a local fall fest. That's K. talking with Mrs. Lumpkin the talking pumpkin. She would ask K. questions and he had a great time talking with her.

What a cute kid.

There were scarecrows all through the park. They were funny and fascinating to the kids.
A man at the corn maze told the kids that this scarecrow could talk and move.
I think they're watching it so see if it really could.



Running through the corn maze. Once they were brave enough to go through, they did it again, and again, and again.

My very artistic daughter painting her pumpkin.

Another artist at work.

What a fun day we had at the Fall Festival. Can you tell which ones are scarecrows and which ones are kids?

That same weekend, the boys came for a visit.

D. with Baby D. Hasn't he gotten big?!

K. with his little "brother".

Notice the beginning of a Toddler Rage.

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the Toddler Rage.

K. and D. with Oma and Poppa after a very fun lunch at

Friendly's.

Trick-or-Treating in the mall.

Does the dinosaur look abused?

Getting ready to Trick-or-Treat in our neighborhood.

Don't you love the costumes? My mom made them.

If you notice the candy corn bag, that was my contribution.

I think we have the cutest little goblins in town.

Finally, what's fall without leaves. D. is a blur because she

just couldn't hold still! The kids were turning their leaves into

a nest, then a bed, then a castle. I forgot how much fun leaves

could be. Fall is one of my favorite seasons.

Last Day of Soccer

Today was our last day of fall soccer. I can't believe how fast the time went.

D. is the cute girl in the black shirt.


Notice the next Mia Ham, sitting by the goal. She was put in goalie during the game, and decided to pick grass instead. I guess the goalie position was getting boring. She is her mother's daughter. I believe I would have been doing the same thing.

J. giving the kids some guidance about how to play. After the game, he told me that the girls just wanted to hold hands and be on the same team.

K. with his "special, special friend, who is way better than a best friend". They're practicing passing the ball back and forth to the goal.

D. practicing the pass pack and forth. The little boy she was kicking with kicked the ball so hard into the goal that he kicked off his shoe. D. started laughing so hard that she couldn't finish the kick. It was very cute.

The kids doing a number drill. The coach, Mr. B. calls their number and the kids run together to kick the ball. The cutest part about the whole drill was the fact that the kids kept forgetting their numbers. He'd call two numbers and then call them again and then call them again. Eventually the kids would say, "Oh, that's me." Or the kid next to them would say it's you. At one point Coach B. called out,"number 8" This whole group at the end started saying, "Hey, I'm 8. Yeah I'm 8." They were all eight years old.

We won't do soccer again until the spring. I hear the weather's not quite as nice. Boy was it fun in the fall.

A Trip to The Apple Orchard

We took a trip to the apple orchard. The last time we went, I had to remove a screaming kid. This time was much more fun. Notice K. LOVING his apple!

D. busily picking apples. She took the trip seriously.

The kids with J. Notice their cute Candy Corn Hats. I made those.

The kids with me. I made myself a Candy Corn Hat too. While we were at the orchard, a lady stopped us to comment on our hats. She wondered where she could buy one.

With all of our apples, we're baking lots of stuff. Apple Bread for breakfast.

Apple crisp for dessert. We even made home made apple sauce. YUM! I love the fall.

I finished my first cake decorating class this week. This is the cake that I decorated for my "final".

I made the ghosts and the pumpkins out of fondant. I found this really easy fondant recipe, and I made my own. It's called marshmallow fondant, and it tastes so good. It was so easy to make, it only took me about ten minutes from start to finish. It was really easy to work with. I wish I had known about it when we got married. I would have made the fondant instead of spending so much money on the premade stuff.

Cake Decorating Class

Last week in cake decorating class, our teacher gave us homework. YUM!

We had to pick a simple picture, and then use wax paper to outline it.

We filled in the outline with stars, and made a cake transfer.

This is mine. K. helped me mix the frosting, and we both thought that the brown looked

a bit like baby poop. He was still laughing about it the next morning while sharing

the story with his sister. A little maroon food coloring to the brown

changed the color and made it darker. I thought the transfer turned out cute.

Hope I'll be able to put it on a cake.

Cake decorating made me feel domestic, so I made a batch of
home made Oreo cookies. They don't taste anything like oreos, but they're still
good. The recipe had a lot of shortening in it. Not so good for the hips, but great for
the hands. When I was rolling the dough into balls, my hands were so soft.
The frosting in the middle has cream cheese in it. It really was an easy
recipe to make. I have a second recipe that doesn't use a
cake mix, so I'll try that one next and see which one tastes better.

Our Weekend

This weekend we had fun at Lowe's Build and Grow

workshop.


The kids worked on a wood fire truck for fire safety month.

When they finished, they received a certificate and a patch for their work.



K. appears to be a bit camera shy.

We also watched J. run a race.

We know he's in there somewhere.

The weekends go way to fast!