in 5 days...

Our sweet baby girl will legally become ours.

One step closer to FOREVER!

snow...

Although I know there were many people who were excited to wake up to snow this morning. I for one was NOT! We had planned on getting our family pictures taken this afternoon. I don't want them in the snow nor do I want to be freezing while we are getting them taken. So I am trying to reschedule for sometime soon. But I did the good mom thing and planned on taking Mac out to play, then my neighbor called saying they were all going out to play and wanted us to come to. So we got ourselves together and went out in it while Oak sat in her bouncy seat inside watching cartoons. Mac and the other boys weren't that excited about it. They dug through the snow until they could find the dirt to dig in. They did however like the sled, even though there wasn't that much snow to really sled in. He did tell me as we came in that he had fun playing outside. So it was definitely worth it. Then I went and got the blanket that I had going in the dryer and sat Mac on the couch with it and made him some hot chocolate.

zonked!

Since the time change this adorable red head of mine has been waking up and ready for the day at 5:30 every morning. He has learned that he can actually get out of his big boy bed without someone coming and getting him. So 5:30 every morning we here little foot steps coming into our room, which both, kill me because it is way too early, and melt my heart, because it means I am a mother. He usually says something like, "I had good dreams.", or "I need to go potty", or "I want to eat."

This picture above is a rare thing to happen for my little guy, because he just goes...goes...goes all the time. But he fell asleep on the couch at about 11 this morning while watching cartoons.

He has also been falling asleep during sacrament meeting (which starts at 10am) every Sunday.

And his naps are getting shorter and shorter it seems.

My boy is just growing up way too fast!

For your viewing pleasure...

Mac 2.10 yrs singing praise to the man from bwil on Vimeo.

This is Mac singing  most of Praise To The Man. It is one of his favorites. He actually knows all the words, but I had to prompt him to keep going because as you can tell he was distracted. I love the chocolate on his mouth. ENJOY!


Oak 3 months laughing from bwil on Vimeo.

One of the BEST sounds in the world... my baby girl lauging, while I sound like a fool! Sorry it is so shakey, I am holding the camera and trying to make her laugh. I am such a multi-tasker!

grandpa and trains...

When Mac is grown up, this is one of the things I want him to remember about his grandpa D. That they both shared their love of trains. These pictures melt my heart just as the moment I actually took them did.

Adorable!

The story of Jonah from Corinth Baptist Church on Vimeo.

This little girl has some amazing story telling skills!

I LOVE...

THESE TWO!

Mac really loves his baby sister.

Most of the time he doesn't pay much attention to her(although he does more now than ever), but when he does, his interaction with her is all loving.

Lately he has been very proud and protective of her and I can't tell you how happy that makes my heart. When we are in public he will always announce that she is HIS baby sister and that her name is Oak.

He calls her "pretty girl" instead of Oak sometimes, it is so cute.

 And he gets so excited when she smiles at him.

He also gets really excited when she wakes up in the morning or from her naps, he can't wait to see her and talk to her.

If he can't see her at all times, he wants to know where she is.

 When we are in the car and she is crying he will try to calm her down by telling her "It's ok, we are almost there. It's not very far!" And he will tell me to hurry, because Oak is starting to cry.

 He loves to help give her a bath and is really proud of himself when he is being careful and gentle.

The other day when went to a neighbors house to play. When we were leaving and I was putting Mac's shoes on, my neighbor was holding Oak. Mac got really concerned, and kept on telling me that we couldn't leave Oak there. And that we need to take Oak home with us. Then the neighbors little boy who is not even two was playing with Oak's car seat and Mac got really possessive of it and was telling him no that was his sister's and was trying to take it from him.

I love my two babies and I am so glad that they have each other!

Things Oak ~ 3 Months

 

Oh this girl seriously melts our hearts about a million times a day.

She is just the best baby: She is always happy, only cries when she is hungry or tired and even then it is really only a fuss, she wakes up such a happy girl every morning, she loves to be talked to and gets so excited with her whole body.

She sleeps through the night.

She always has her hands in her mouth.

She likes to play on her little floor gym. She will accidentally grab on to the toys and hold on to them for a long time.

She is holding her head up on her tummy pretty good now, although she really doesn't like being on her tummy still.

She talks and coos alot, like she is having a full conversation with you.

She has the best and most beautiful smile.

We have gotten her to laugh/giggle a few times and it is the sweetest sound on this earth.

She has lost most of her hair on the top and back of her head.

Her eyes still look pretty gray to me.

She drools like crazy.

She is just so happy all the time!

Her Announcement...

I think I finally got this mailed to everyone so I thought I would share it here.

I designed it myself and I was so happy with how it came out!

Oak turned 3 months this last Friday. I am hoping to take her pictures today for that since I was out of town on her actual 3 month birthday . And also hoping to take some pictures of her in my blessing dress, which she will wear for the Temple and her blessing, so that I can make some announcements for that.

hhhhaaaaaaaa!

That is me breathing/sighing, not yelling!

I have been so stressed the last couple of weeks about getting a talk written. And my talk was today, so now I feel like I can breath!

Hubs and I also had the opportunity to go  away for two nights this last week while my parents watched my kiddos. It was glorious to get to spend some time just Hubs and I, loved it! (even though I had to spend some of the time working on my talk). And it was very much needed!

We went to the coast if you couldn't tell!

I missed my babies terribly, but it helped that I didn't have to worry about them. 

National Adoption Month

This song made me cry when I first heard it over at the r house.
We love the amazing birth families of our babies. They are thought of, talked about and prayed for every single day in our home.

I have alot to say about adoption, and until I can get something posted about it myself...

PLEASE

check out all the links of others who love adoption on my side bar to the right.

They have all written some awesome stuff about adoption!

To DO list:

I have been feeling very overwhelmed lately with what seems like a million things to worry about and get done. So I am making a list to help relieve some of the stress. These are in no particular order of course.

Write my talk for church - I have an awesome topic and it is something that I am very passionate about but I can not for the life of me figure out how to get started on it.

Write a blog post about adoption - It is National Adoption Month and I really want to talk about a few things that I love about adoption.

Finish editing photos - I have done a few photo shoots recently for some friends and I need to finish their photos. I was having trouble accessing some of them which held me off for a little bit, but I think that is taken care of so I want to get those done.

Finish backing up all of my photos to online storage - I am constantly freaking out that I am going to lose all of my pictures again, so I never erase my SD cards and I just go buy a new one when my others are full. But we finally bought some online storage so that I can make that part of my life worry free.

Make Oak's Sealing announcement - I need to take some pictures of Oak in her pretty white dress and I can hopefully whip something out in Photoshop so that I can get those mailed out to family and friends.

Get our family pictures taken - this includes figuring out what we are going to wear, which I think is stressing me out the most when thinking about this task.

Figure out Christmas presents for our kids - I really hate this part of Christmas, thinking about what to get who. I really need to jump on the bandwagon of doing all of my shopping before Halloween. But my goal is Thanksgiving so I can enjoy December without that stress in my life.

Clean my house - oh my goodness it has been a disaster for a few weeks with a few small clean ups here and there. But I want it to be completely clean now. I have chosen to not make it a priority the past couple of weeks because I have needed to concentrate on Mac's behavior and his potty training. But it really is driving me nuts!

Write Thank You cards - for all the gifts we have gotten for Oak. So many people have been so generous and kind and I seriously have like a hundred that need to be filled out. My lists along with my box of cards have been sitting on my counter and then my piano forever.

Honestly after writing that all down it has made me more stressed because I can see how much I really need to get done. I am going to go hide in my closet now! YIKES!

Halloween Festivities!

I think this has been my favorite Halloween so far! We just did lots of fun things and Mac was really into it. Also I was more into it than I usually am! We did a few things that I didn't get any pictures of. But I want to make sure that I tell about those too.

Last weekend was Mac's very best buddy J's birthday and Costume Birthday Party. J is our next door neighbor and they have seriously been best buds ever since they met. In fact when you ask Mac who his best friend is he will say J. Mac had so much fun and he was so excited for J to open the present we brought him, mostly so that Mac could play with it. They decorated cupcakes, and played stick the mouth on the skeleton. (I do have pictures, but I don't like to post pictures of other peoples kids without permission.)

Then on Monday we carved our pumpkin. This is another thing Mac has been so looking forward to. He wanted a really scary face for our pumpkin. Hubs printed off three faces and Mac of course picked the scariest one, the grim reaper (not my favorite). He was a bit confused as to why he couldn't actually carve the pumpkin, but he did have fun pulling all the guts out. The next day I made sure to buy some candles so Mac could see it lit up. He thought it was pretty cool!

Are they not just so cute! I kept forgetting to get a picture of the finished pumpkin. And right before we left town for the weekend, we decided to throw our pumpkins in the garbage so they didn't end up being road kill. So I quickly got a picture before we snuck our pumpkin into the garbage.

This was taken before the birthday party, and i hadn't done his hair yet. So he looks like a goofy superman with his messy hair and his smile. 

This year I decided to make both of Mac and Oak's costumes. This is not really my thing to do, but I when I figured out what I wanted them to be, it seemed easy enough to make them. Not only that but I pushed back the procrastinator in me and had Mac's costume done the week before the costume birthday party. I shopped around until I found the perfect blue shirt and pants. I then figured out I could use just plain red socks to use as boots and got some dress bloomers of one of Oak's bigger dresses and then my friend helped me by figuring out to use a ribbon for the belt. Pretty easy. The hardest part was the cutting out and sewing of the superman symbol on his shirt and making the cape. I made the cape reversible with batman on one side so that he can play with it more. I was pretty proud of myself for putting forth the effort for it all and I really loved the outcome of it.

Then i decided to try to make a little curl with his hair. I thought he looked pretty handsome!

Now for Oak's costume. When I was staying at the hospital when Oak was born, I had asked her birthparents what they thought she should be for Halloween. They said a crayon. I liked the idea. I don't remember if they said a color or not but it was the easiest to just do pink and find some clothes in her closet that matched the felt. I took a little longer to start this project and worked on it and finished it a few days

 before Halloween. I had an idea in my head of how I wanted it to work but wasn't quite sure how to execute it which is why I put it off. Then Tuesday night I just decided to sit down and figure it out. I was hoping for a no sew costume. But the iron on sticky backing wasn't sticking very well so the next morning I got up and got it on sewed on before we went to our next Halloween party (which I will talk about in a minute.) I really loved how it turned out, except for the hat. The hat looks fine I just wish I could have figured out how to make it bit better. Close up it looked pretty thrown together (which it kindof was).

Tuesday afternoon, My friend Brynne and her boys came over and we decorated sugar cookies. This has become a tradition of ours. We started last Christmas and then did Valentines and now Halloween. One of us makes the cookies and the other gets together the frosting and goodies to decorate with. Brynne and I usually end up decorating most of the cookies. But her oldest son who is 4.5 stuck right with it and did an awesome job. Mac on the other hand just wanted to eat the candy and lick the frosting. But it was fun and we always look forward to fun activities with Brynne, Cade and Dane.

Then the next day we went to our old Ward's playgroup for their Halloween Costume Party. It was fun to see everyone since it had been awhile. And it is always fun to see little ones dressed so cute.

We also had a fun visit with Oak's birthfamily so they could see the kids dressed up in their costumes. And they gave both kids some fun gifts. They are awesome!

Then because our Ward didn't do a Halloween Party we decided to head to my parents house and go to their Ward's Trunk or Treating. Also we decided to not trick or treat on Sunday because it being the Sabbath day and it was easy enough not to with all the fun stuff that we found to do on other days.

My cute kids!

Something about this picture that makes me happy that our family is just a little more complete!

 

We helped my parents decorate their old Ford for the party.

Mac eating his dirt and worms dessert.

My parents won the best decorated car by a landslide of course!

I brought a little flashlight for Mac to have for the party and I thought it was cool to try to get this picture.

Saturday we headed to a town not too far from where my parents live and do their downtown trick or treating which was in the afternoon. It was perfect. I loved that it was in the middle of the day and their were so many people doing the same thing. It was alot of fun. It did sprinkle a little bit, but it wasn't cold at all.

This may be a new tradition of our!

I have been trying to be better about remembering to ask someone or Hubs to take a picture with me in it.

Hubs carried Mac like this most of the time.

Right when we started trick or treating, Mac spotted this caboose that he wanted to go and see badly. We told him he had to wait until we were all done trick or treating. And sure enough we went and found it for him to look at. I think he liked this more than the actual trick or treating.

I think one of Mac's favorite things was to hand out candy to trick or treaters! He would get excited everytime the door bell rang or someone knocked and he would run to the door. He did a great job and seemed to know exactly what to do! One time a little girl came to the door dressed as a cheerleader. After he gave her some candy he closed the door and told Grandma, "That girl was cute!" My mom about dies laughing! I love that boy!

In all I it was a perfect and fun Halloween for us! My kids did not miss out by not trick or treating on Sunday, and hopefully that will be something we can teach them the next time it falls on a Sunday. And to also to be honest, I am Halloweened out! So glad it is over with!