handsful

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday! My parents came down from NC to spend a few days with us. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner…my Mom makes great mashed potatoes! That afternoon, we drove to the beach to take Christmas pictures. It was chilly, so we smiled quickly! On Friday, I managed to drag mom out of the house by 5:30am for over 5 hours of shopping! That was fun. Randy’s high point of the holiday was trying out the potato gun that he’s been building. We started out using little foam balls in the driveway…worked great. Then, we all walked down to the pier in our neighborhood to give potatoes a try! Wow! Those things really flew!! Randy was so proud!

See the smoke?

Daddy is way cool!

Yesterday, we received Secret Pal presents from BOTH of my groups…June-July CCAI group and July Fireflies group! Here are the pictures!

July Fireflies…Ladybug theme! Adorable Mama and baby ladybug toy. Pull the plastic loop and the mama scoots, pulling baby along with her!

June-July CCAI group…Chinese theme! ladybug chocolates, chinese coin replicas collection, beautiful journal, wooden fan, porcelain tea set, and a Smores brownie mix for the kids to make!

On this Thanksgiving day, we are thankful to God for so many things. We are blessed with a wonderful family and great friends. We are also so thankful that God has led us down the path of adoption. The timing is out of our hands. But, we hope and pray that next Thanksgiving, she will be here celebrating God’s goodness with us!

Enjoy the family, food, football, shopping…and be sure to leave room for pie ;)

Thought I might share a few pictures of my girls this morning! They take horse riding lessons from Paige, a teenage girl from our church. Paige and her family live on a farm, so while the girls do their riding, the boys chase chickens and dogs! Abbey has been either working with horses or taking lessons since she was 8. This is Marley’s first year and she loves it…no wonder, as much as she loves any and ALL animals.

Happy Friday everyone!

Our combo CCAI-Reunion / Disney Animal Kingdom trip this past weekend was so much fun. We started out on Thursday, arriving in Orlando just in time for a nice dinner at TGI Fridays restaurant. We got to Animal Kingdom the next day around 9:30 and stayed till they closed at 5pm. The weather was wonderful and called for shorts and T-shirts…not bad for November! Back at the hotel that night, there was a light buffet in the courtyard with the CCAI folks. At first, we felt a little out of place. But, we soon met some wonderful parents and too many cute little girls to count. We were able to meet Josh and Lily, the founders of the CCAI agency! They were just as nice as I always thought they’d be. I also met two of my online friends, Sue and Marney. Their families have already adopted once from China and both are adopting again! The next morning, there was a buffet breakfast and silent auction in one of the ballrooms. The auction was raising money to build a playground for the ZunYi orphanage in China. They had hoped to raise $10,000, but I’ve heard that they surpassed that! I was happy to help them out, with our 2 winning bids. Grin.

Seeing all those beautiful girls has made me think even more about Lainey. She’s in China, waiting for us!

The kids met a new friend at Animal Kingdom

Meeting Josh and Lily!

Sue and Me (Sue is from my June-July CCAI online group)

The girls meet Mulan!

You know those things around the house that you always “mean to get around to”?? The little things that, everytime you see them, make you cringe and think “one day…” Well, today was the day. This afternoon, I tacked 2 (not 1, but 2!) junk drawers from my kitchen. Yes!! I’m breathing easier already. And…this one might make you laugh…I went through the entire magic marker basket (think small suitcase size) and tested EVERY MARKER. Kept the good, tossed the bad. Ahhhh…. Is that you laughing?? Admit it, you’re thinking of that embarrassing junk drawer in YOUR kitchen, aren’t you??

P.S. Stay tuned for a post and pictures of the CCAI (our adoption agency) Reunion that we attended this weekend! SO many adorable children…

Okay, weird title. But I wanted to share 2 things in this post.

First, referrals for October came out today!! A total of 16 days worth of LID dates were included, which is good. Those with LIDs from Aug 10-25th will get that call today or tomorrow. Rumor has it that the 24th was the LID date for a LOT of people, so for the CCAA to get through all those, plus 15 more days is great. Congrats to all the new Forever Families out there!

Second, this past weekend we took the kids to see the Naval Air Station Jacksonville’s annual Air Show featuring the Blue Angels! It was fantastic. A few highlights…The kids were able to watch a vintage WWII flying squadron called the Skytypers do amazing aerial feats, and then met the pilots and got their autographs! They also saw the Shockwave triple-engine jet truck that can go 256 mph in 6.36 seconds. This truck has 36,000 horsepower! That was one fast truck speeding down the runway! But, the highlight of the show was watching the Blue Angels. The Blue Angels were “born” right here in our city back in 1946! Here are a few shots from that great day: