Week in Review

One cold morning this week, Emelyn requested we make peanut butter cookies to take to daddy's office (I'm pretty sure a certain guy in our family put the bug in her ear that morning since we've never made PB cookies before.) A blurry picture from my phone of an excited Emelyn:

 A little sugar spilled on the counter and she licked it up - it was hilarious!

She's also been very big into her babies this week. She feeds them their bottles (literally, sitting in her rocking chair holding a bottle to their mouths for 10 minutes as she talks them.) Then she has to burp them (usually asks me to put the burp cloth on her shoulder to help out.) And not long after, the baby is "stinky" and we have to change its diaper.

 All done with the bottle and ready to burp.

Finally, she's been wanting to wear her apron instead of bib lately to eat. She says bibs are for babies. :)



In other news, Jake had lab work done and his hemoglobin is 14... That's right, he's officially normal! (Well you know... :)

And we also told our agency Tuesday that we're ready to consider adopting again. I think we've sort of been holding out to see if Charlie comes back, and Thanksgiving will be 6 weeks. We're not in any hurry, but at the same time, want to be available if a child is needing a home and are excited to see what God has in store for our family.

Visitors from afar

Thursday morning we were excited about a visit from our friends Emma & Lily (and Matt) who were in the States from England. The girls had so much fun together... they acted like sisters... shared their toys, giggled together, walked their babies, and even feuded a little. :) Here they are "spelling" everyone's names. So cute.

 Our sweet friend Carolyn came over to visit with us too... she commented on how much they looked alike and we had to agree! Of course it's next to impossible to take a picture of them both looking at the camera at the same time... especially with smiles.

 Coloring pictures before lunch...

What a fun morning!

Family Pictures

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had family pics scheduled for Halloween night, mainly to take Emelyn's 2 year pictures.

These are the kinds of expressions captured:

You can see all of our pictures HERE.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/aquarelita/sets/72157625237106077/with/5166155960/

A big thank you, again, to our friend Bertha for taking our family pictures! If anyone is looking for a photographer she comes highly recommended, and is one of the least expensive photographers we've found - even much cheaper than going through Portrait Innovations or Sears/JcPenney. And you get the CD with all of the pictures to print/publish as you want.



A hug from mom (and Valerie!)

A week ago, I was talking with my mom on the phone, and when she asked how we were doing I broke down. I told her that earlier that week we were asked if we wanted to consider adopting one of two babies that were due around Thanksgiving that needed a home. And it was at that point that I realized how very much I missed Charlie. The week after he left, I spent my time doing everything I had hoped to do before he came... finished cleaning the house, bought more diapers, cooked and froze meals, painted his room, washed everything in sight. And in the weeks that followed, I realized he wasn't coming back. The ache in my heart became real. And so did the ugliness and selfishness... here were two babies that needed homes and I didn't want them. I only wanted Charlie. I hated that I wanted him so much when he wasn't ours to have; I hated that I didn't want two children that needed homes.

All that said, fast forward one week to this past Friday. As I was putting supper in the oven, there was a knock on the door. I opened it up to see my mom and sister. My mom gave me a hug and when I asked what they were doing here (9 hours from home!) she said "I thought you might need a hug." 

Emelyn loved getting to spend some time with Aunt Valerie and Grandma too. :)

Reading books with Valerie (and Emelyn's cousin that's due in early March!)

 Dressing up in Valerie's boots

 Sadly, those were the only two pics we took all weekend, until we were eating our last meal before they left when I took this one with my phone:

Thanks for the hugs, laughing and crying with us at pictures and videos of Charlie and spending a weekend relaxing (and shopping!) with us.

Pumpkin Cookies

I'm not the canning type... I appreciate the love/desire of canning/preserving, but it's just not on my priority list... probably because finding good deals on food/toiletries IS fun to me. In my mind, why spend hours canning applesauce when I can get unsweetened applesauce for less than 10 cents per cup?

All that said, with fall here, and a little girl that is super curious and enjoys hanging out with her mom, we decided to make pumpkin puree out of the pumpkins we bought at the pumpkin patch. We had one jackolantern pumpkin and one pie pumpkin, and the first thing I realized when looking into how to cook it is that you are only suppose to cook/use pie pumpkins. Oops. Oh well! We did it anyways!

The remains after cleaning out the pumpkin...

And 4 hours later, we had 10 cups of pumpkin puree to freeze. (Yes, you do the math... not really worth the effort when you can buy the nice cans of Libby's pure pumpkin for $1!)

 We also roasted the seeds (Emelyn's most requested snack lately...)

 And then we made some pumpkin cookies (and yes, she's still in her pjs at 11am!)

 They were super yummy... and actually healthier for you that most pumpkin bread/muffin recipes I found, even with the icing. Out of the 49 the recipe made, we only have 3 left. Between friends, neighbors, coworkers and us, they didn't last long!

End of October....

I feel like I'm a little behind on posting pictures... so a marathon of posts may be coming today!

We didn't do anything for Halloween (well actually we had family pictures taken) but the Wednesday night before, our church had a fall festival/carnival so we took Emelyn. Since we had a Strawberry & Pumpkin outfit in her closet, we let her choose to wear one if she wanted... strawberry it was! Here she is with her lovely fake smile. :)

Then that Friday (October 29th) we went to the Ozark Corn Maze with friends to celebrate a little man's third birthday. There is a 5 acre maze (in the shape of a razorback) cut out of the corn, but we stuck to the cow train, petting zoo and pile of woodchips (probably Emelyn's favorite part.)

 Here's Emelyn with her friend William on top of the wood chip pile.



I love fall... it's such a beautiful reminder (literally, especially here!) that God changes the seasons (Daniel 2:21.) And I love the harvest aspect of this time of year - after a summer of tending, watering, weeding, and waiting, crops of apples, pumpkins, corn, potatoes etc.. and ready to harvest. And with the weather cooling off, it's the perfect time of year to preserve and bake things with all of the fresh produce. Now that Emelyn's old enough to learn things (and she craves learning at this age!) we've had a lot of fun watching and celebrating the changing seasons.