December 18, 2012

Give1Save1

A friend just introduced me to this great blog called Give1Save1. It's a community of ladies who are helping orphans find families by encouraging their readers to give $1 every Monday to the "family of the week." Each week, the feature a family by showing their adoption journey video and ask their readers to give at least a dollar towards this family's adoption expenses. I think this is such an awesome idea and for those of you like me, who hate asking for money, it's not much to ask. We're going to make our own adoption video soon. Kind of like a "waiting for you" video that one day our child(ren) will cherish. They'll get to see a glimpse of the planning, waiting, hoping, trusting, and anticipation that makes up the adoption process. They'll also get to see how loved they are, even before we met. Hopefully we'll get to be one of the featured families on Give1Save1, but if not, the video will still be worth making. I want to do a really good job on it, so it might take a while :) But in the meantime, I want to encourage everyone who has a heart to help orphans, to check out Give1Save1 and see how your $1 a week can change so many lives! You can help total strangers grow their family through adoption, help give a needy child a family who loves them, all for the cost of a Coke a week! Well, even less if you're talking a Sonic coke! But anyways...

I know even I, who am in the middle of trying to fund an international adoption, can afford to give $1 every Monday to help someone else fund their adoption. It's a beautiful and easy thing to do that not only gives you joy as the giver, but shows love and support to complete strangers. That's the body of Christ loving each other!

December 16, 2012

Absent blogger

I am really bad at getting in a good routine of blogging (and staying connected in general) and then completely falling off the face of the earth for a while. Thankfully my family knows this about me and doesn't get offended easily. The last month or more, I've been in full time language mode, trying to get ready for my language snapshot. I had it on Friday and am anxiously awaiting the results. In the meantime, Kit is on a little trip so I'm getting some long over due down time with the kids at home. I'm loving staying in my pj's all day, playing whatever they want to play, making crafts, cooking together, and basically not having to say "no" or "later" as much :) I SHOULD be getting back into the swing of homeschooling for Jackson, but with Christmas and a big vacation to Thailand on the near horizon, it's hard to get motivated. So I'm sure it will be procrastinated until January.

I've got lots of Advent ornaments to make with the kids and some home-decorating crafts in my brain that I've been holding off until after my snapshot. So I'm hoping to get a little of that done this week. It's therapeutic for me and the boys love to help. I also hope to take some photos of them, because I realized I haven't in over a month or so, which is too long for me! I did come across a few on my camera the other day that I haven't shared yet, so here they are in all their silliness and cuteness.

Jackson and puppy showing off his Thanksgiving turkey, "Zach"

Helping mommy in the kitchen

Hudson is always making us laugh


November 3, 2012

First Trick or Treating

I guess it took moving to India to have our first trick or treating experience! Some friends of ours organized a little party and trick or treating outing in their society and we crashed it, even though we don't live there. Jackson went as a super hero doctor, who later shed the doctor and was just a super hero when he saw Batman and Robin at the party! Hudson went as a chef, but refused to wear the cutest part, the hat, most of the time. We usually aren't fans of Halloween (my  husband is fully ANTI-Halloween!) But, I guess being so far from home, and the scary influences of Halloween, made us get in the spirit of dressing up and eating some candy! Two of my boys favorite activities any day of the year!

He wanted to be Super Tigger but since he gave me less then a day's notice on that, we settled for Super Dr. Jackson

Serious business-decorating our candy bags

That hat stayed on less then 10 seconds, but isn't he cute? He LOVES to help me in the kitchen.

The dad's volunteered to carve the pumpkins. Our pumpkins aren't so traditionally big and orange here, but they still work.

The dynamic trio! Can you believe they found these costumes here? Most people didn't know who Robin was. They would say "Oh Robin Hood!"

Checking out his candy stash.



October 29, 2012

Sound the Alarm! Jackson's 4!

We had a firestation/dalmation themed birthday party for Jackson this year. He picked the theme and my awesome sister sent some decoration supplies from America for us! It is hard to even get real balloons here :( So we used what we had to make it as cute as possible. It wasn't exactly the perfect little vintage-firestation theme, but Jackson was pleased and that's what matters. He was mostly proud of his Happy Birthday sign, b/c he helped me make it.

We had great fellowship with friends and neighbors, yummy snacks, entertainment with watching the kids play pin the tail on the Dalmation, and Jackson getting not one, but 3 remote control cars! That was what he wanted most for his birthday and he sure got his wish! We ended up taking the one we bought him back to the store (it didn't work :( ) and got a spiderman scooter instead. He had a blast and we all took a good long nap when it was over.

I didn't take many pictures but here are a few and a short video.

Jackson's Birthday Party Video



Hudson always loves an excuse to eat nothing but sweets!



This boy would NOT stay still for me to take his picture!

Our home-made decorations and strawberry-lemon cupcakes per Jackson's request.

Lot of friends and new toys--what more could he want?