Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!
We had a wonderful day. We started out by watching a parade on TV and then we headed to my oldest sisters house for dinner and then visited at my mother-in-law's house after that.
I am first and foremost thankful for my Lord and Savior.
I am thankful for my wonderful and loving husband, Brad, who puts up with a lot.
I am thankful for my 3 beautiful children, Ally, Libby, and Jon.
I am thankful for my mom.
I am thankful for my 2 sisters and my brother and their spouses and children. My oldest sister has 2 children, my next sister has 4 children (her youngest is deployed to a bad part of the world right now, if you could pray for him) and 6 grandchildren, and my brother has 3 children.
I am thankful for my mother and father-in-law. If you could pray for my mother-in-law right now, she is really sick. She has been to the Dr. twice for this cold she has and will be going back tomorrow. She also has the added stress of caring for my father-in-law. He is in a nursing home with advancing Alzheimer's. She will not miss a day of going to see him. She has to feed him and she will not miss that. She has a lot going on and does not take care of herself too well.
I am also thankful for my husbands 2 brothers and sister-in-law.
I am thankful for our country.
I am thankful for our home.
I am thankful for our jobs.
There is so much to be thankful for and we really focus on it on this day every year, but I am trying to make an effort to remember this everyday of the year.
I hope everyone had as wonderful a day as we did.

Ally's Thanksgiving Party

Today was Ally's Thanksgiving party at school. She decided to go as a Pilgrim. Now, I absolutely dislike trying to figure out how to dress her up as certain things. I am NOT good at it. So, I was looking online yesterday to get ideas. I came up with one. Thank you very much to my mom who spent her whole afternoon and evening making Ally a long skirt. Ally loves it. She didn't even change when she got home from school and she asked me if she can wear the skirt to church. This is the child that fights with me EVERY Sunday about wearing a dress or skirt to church.

The first two pictures are great. They were taken before she went to school this morning and I made her put on the hat. She hated it and was mad at me, thus the pictures. I didn't make her wear it to school.
The other pictures I took when I visited for a little while during the party. The picture of the flags, she took, I have no idea why.

Look what was in our yard!!!

When we were eating breakfast this morning, I looked out the front window and saw these turkeys in our neighbor's yard. They ended up coming around into our yard. They stopped awhile at our bird feeders to pick up what the birds (or the squirrels) left on the ground and then they moved along. I counted 25, but I don't know if that was all of them. It was neat and the kids loved watching them.

All dressed up!!

Tonight, the kids went to a banquet with my brother's family. Here they are all dressed up, ready to go.

It's Saturday!!!!

It's Saturday and I am enjoying being home this morning. I finished my cleaning and colored my hair and am just enjoying being with the kids while they play.


Allison decided to play restaurant this morning. So, she dumped a tub of Jon's toys all over his room and this is her restaurant. I thought it was cute.



And this is what was in the tub she dumped and Jon has now decided to drag out to the living room. He LOVES his cars and trucks.



I hope everyone enjoys their Saturday.

Our first little snow!!!

It started snowing yesterday morning and hasn't stopped yet. I think it looks so pretty outside.

Happy 7th Adoption Day!!!!

Today was Ally's 7th adoption day. I can't believe it has been 7 years since we were in Vietnam and received our beautiful daughter. She is such a beautiful and sweet girl. I love her so much and thank God for the precious gift He has given us.
Her day started out around 6:30, when I get her up for school. I bring her out and let her rest on the sofa for a few minutes while I pack her lunch and make sure everything is in her backpack. Then she has to get up and get ready for school. She chose to go to Shady Maple for dinner tonight. Shady Maple is a huge smorgasbord that she loves. She has been asking to go there a lot lately, but it does get a little pricey with 6 of us, but we always let her choose where to go for adoption day. After we ate, she wanted to go down to the gift shop, where she bought her new Webkinz. It is a leopard. Then we came home. The kids played for a while and then I got out her gifts. We don't go overboard for adoption day, but we do get a few things. Of course, my gift wrapping was lovely again for this occasion, I just handed her a bag. She got a HSM alarm clock. This child has been begging for an alarm clock for several months now. I am not sure why. I told her she is only allowed to use the alarm on days that Libby has to get up for preschool, though. She also got dry erase markers and an eraser. I know that sounds like a weird gift, but this child LOVES to draw and write. Several weeks ago she begged for a dry erase board for herself and I got her a small one. Well, she completely used up the marker that came with it, so I got her more. She was using them already tonight. Then she got another pair of tights. She is so into dressing up lately. She will come home from school and take her uniform off and put on a skirt or dress, tights, and good shoes. This is the child who fights with me every Sunday because she wants to wear jeans or pants to church. Now she is in bed sleeping soundly. I love you, Baby Boo.

I often think back to our time in Vietnam and wish I had enjoyed it so much more there. I was so focused on getting home and starting my new life with my baby that I didn't want to see the sights or go shopping. I really wish now that I had done more of that. I know that being in Vietnam was an adventure of a lifetime. I so long to adopt internationally again, but I honestly don't think it will happen. I would love to have an Asain sibling for Ally, but I don't know how it will ever happen. We really don't qualify for any of the Asian programs and dh is really happy with our family size now, he does not want another child. I pray so much for God to take this desire away from me. There are some days that I am so tired from the 3 I have and I wonder why I want more. But I do. I don't know why.

Halloween pictures!!

Here are our Halloween pictures. We don't go door to door, we only go to 3 relatives house. But they still had fun!!!

Random Pictures

These are just some random pictures from last Sunday afternoon. For some reason, Ally was really getting into last years Halloween makeup.