Happy Halloween!

We had a Harry Potter and a Pink Pirate. It was a great day, but a little cold. After trunk-or-treating we went trick-or-treating with a few friends. The children had a great day and loved getting all of the candy. Now, they are ready to decorate for Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

The First Day of School!

Yesterday was the first day of school. I can hardly believe that we are already to this point in the year!!!! I can also hardly believe that we have a 5th grader and a 3rd grader. Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday that I was a nervous nellie about sending my oldest child to Kindergarten. I missed both of my children so much yesterday, but my house is looking a lot cleaner!
Daniel loved the first day of 5th grade. He especially loves that he will not be doing any book reports this year! He has had his fill of those over the last 2 years. He will have to construct an Indian village and read at least 18 novels. He is more than willing to read since it doesn't involve a book report. Daniel's teacher is also a huge Jayhawk fan. We think she is wonderful already!
Katie Beth also loved the first day of 3rd grade. She will be doing many book reports in the form of projects this year. We have 16 to do total this year, which works out to about a project due every other Friday. This will be Mama and Daddy's third time to go through the 3rd grade! The book projects require a whole lot of parent work as well! The one thing that we do know is that Katie Beth has an amazing 3rd grade teacher, who does wonderful things with her classroom children!
This is Daniel's last year in elementary school. I am one sad Mama! My children won't be in the same school again until Daniel's senior year in high school. I find that very sad to think about. Katie Beth has always had big brother to help her, but now she will blazing her own trail. If anyone can do it, she is the girl!
Hopefully the second day is as wonderful as the first!

Music Camp

Daniel and Katie Beth were in Music Camp last week at our church. It is one of the things that they look forward to every summer. They go for 3 hours a day and learn a musical. I am always amazed at how much the kids can learn in just one week! This year's musical was "The Slingshot Heard 'round the World." Katie Beth was a narrator and Daniel was one of Goliath's men. They did a great job learning their lines and all of the music!

PUPPIES!

We have puppies at our house! They were born on Monday and it is the big news at our house! We can hardly get the children to eat, sleep, or even go to the pool! They are truly mesmerized by these 7 sweet, little puppies. If you know anyone looking for a puupy, we will have some available in about 6 weeks. The mom and dad are both great hunters and great pets. They are Brittany Spaniels. The puppies are very adorable right now; we will see how I feel in 4 to 5 weeks.

Conference Swimming

Just a quick note, because we are on our way to the swimming finals! Daniel and Katie Beth both qualified for conference and swam the preliminaries on Monday night. Katie Beth did a great job. This was her first year to qualify!!! Daniel is moving on to swim in the finals tonight! He will swim the back, I.M., and the breast stroke. His medley relay took 2nd place out of 11 teams on Monday night. I will update later about the results from tonight. This is what our summer has consisted of; swim meets and dive meets. We have spent alot of time poolside! The pictures are of Katie Beth going off the starting block to swim the butterfly and Daniel is swimming the back stroke. Mike and I are having a wonderful summer watching the children!

9 Years Old!

Who would have believed that my sweet baby girl would be nine years old today? Katie Beth celebrated her birthday tonight by taking 1st place in the 1 meter and 3 meter diving boards at her dive meet. We were so proud of her!
Katie Beth has brought so much laughter and love to our family the last 9 years. She was the answer to our prayer 9 years ago. Tonight, our prayer for her is that she will seek God's will in every aspect of her life. Katie Beth is such a joy and delight. We couldn't have asked for a more precious daughter!

HELP!

I need help from anyone that can help me upload some video. Computers are not my thing! I am trying to get video of Katie Beth diving uploaded to this blog. Please let me know how to do it!! Thanks!

10 YEARS AGO!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!



10 years ago today, I woke up and prayed that I would get pregnant.
10 years ago today, I woke up and prayed that God would please answer the desires of my heart.
10 years ago today, I woke up and prayed that God would somehow give me a baby.
10 years ago today, I didn't really expect the answer to change or anything to happen.
10 years ago today, I didn't wake up expecting the best from God, but God looked past my weakness and began to let His plan unfold.
10 years ago today, I watched as God himself, orchestrated a miracle in our lives!
10 years ago today, I received a phone call at work, telling us about a baby to be born in 2 hours!
10 years ago today, Mike and I became parents to our precious Daniel!
10 years ago today, I couldn't imagine our baby being 10 years old!

Today, Daniel turned 10. It has been an amazing 10 years for Mike and I! We have loved every single minute of parenting. 10 years later, we give thanks everyday to God for the two blessings that He has given us. It is amazing to watch Daniel change and grow. One of the biggest blessings is watching as he learns about God and the life God wants him to live.

Last night, we sat with Daniel and told him the story about him joining our family. He thought we were funny as we explained how crazy we were until we saw him two days later! It was a great time for him to hear his story again and for us to explain, yet again, how much he is loved!

So, tonight, 10 years later, I am hopeful for another blessing that God can bring into our family.

VALENTINE'S DAY

I have had a GREAT day with my 3 valentines! We were suppose to be in Mississippi the whole weekend, seeing my family and the children playing with their cousins. Sometimes, plans don't really workout. Katie Beth got sick and Mississippi was under a winter storm warning. We never dreamed that the weather in Mississippi would cause travel problems for us! Daniel was the most disappointed of us all, since Mississippi is one of his very favorite places.

We have had a great weekend together, even though we didn't go out of town. All 4 of us have gone shopping together and out to dinner for Valentine's Day on Friday night. On Saturday, Daniel's basketball team won and the Jayhawks did too. We played Mario brothers together, made homemade pizza, and Daniel and Katie Beth helped me make chocolate covered strawberries. Today, we went to church and then we have all been in our PJ's since we got home. It is very cold and we have loved staying inside! Once again today we all played Mario Brothers and Katie Beth and Mike painted some pottery that we had made earlier. Mike did beat the pants off of me when we were playing Scrabble! I am trying to forget about that!!

Today, I am truly in love with all three of these wonderful people! Michael is my true love, the love of my life, that is always there for me and the children. He is the one that loves me all of the time, makes me laugh, and keeps my uptight personality in check. Michael gives all of us his time and his heart. For these reasons and many others, he will always be my Valentine.Even though we didn't go out for Valentine's Day, I know how much I am loved and hope he knows how wonderful and loved that he is.

Daniel is my first child, love of my life. I would say there is nothing like being a mother to a boy, but there is also nothing like being a mother to a girl! I am in love with Daniel because of his sweet personality, the way he takes everything so literally, the way he loves his family, and because he will do anything to make someone else happy. Daniel always exhibits the "I'm Third" spirit! For these reasons and many others he will always be my Valentine!

Katie Beth is my second child, love of my life. She brings me joy on a daily basis! I am in love with Katie Beth because of her excited personality, the way she can make me laugh, her love of babies, her willingness to always help, her creative side,and the many times of the day I hear "I love you!" I never have to wonder if Katie Beth is in love with me, because I hear it all of the time! For these reasons and many others, she will always be my Valentine!

As for me, I am in love with God who has given me these wonderful Valentines and so many more blessings in life. God is gracious, kind and good all the time.

DIVE MEET

Today was Katie Beth's first dive meet. She was very excited this morning, but grew nervous as the time to compete got closer! This was also our first dive meet. Mike and I are learning all of this right along side Katie Beth, as all we know is that Greg Luganis hit his head very hard during the Olympics!! Katie Beth loves dive team and we are very excited to have found something that she loves! I will tell you that watching a dive meet is VERY, VERY HOT! It is very warm on the pool deck! Mike wore shorts, even though it was only 17 degress when we left home this morning!

The dive meet was great and Katie Beth took 1st place in her age division! She was thrilled and we were super excited for her! She informed me that she loves dive team even more now! These are some pictures of Katie Beth diving and on the award stand this morning!

There is no news on the adoption front, except that we keep being contacted by scammers. It is so sad that there are individuals that will do this to people. The sad thing is that I am not even excited when I see that we have an email about adoption. I now just immeadiately think everyone is trying to scam us about adoption. I do know that this isn't true, but sometimes you think it is!

COUPONS!!!!!

This post is not about adoption or about my two children. Some of you may know and some may not know, but over the last 9 months I have become a serious couponer. I started out small, but now I take my coupons very seriously. I was hooked the first time I got free toothpaste!!! So, over the last nine months I have learned how to get great deals with internet coupons, clipping coupons, and by reading blogs about couponing. I have been able to cut our grocery bills at least in half!

My latest goal was to eat from our pantry for the month of January. I wasn't sure how we would do, but worst case scenario was that I would have to go grocery shopping. I had several meals frozen in the frezzer and our pantry was pretty well stocked. I decided that I would only buy fruit, dairy, bread and mine and Mike's pop. Well, there are only 11 days left in January and we have done great! The snack foods and boxes of cereal are running low, but I think we are going to make it!!!

I did go to the grocery store and buy grated cheese. Hy-vee was having a sale on kra.ft grated cheese this weekend. After the coupon that printed out I was able to get 5 bags of cheese for $1!!!!!! It was a limit of 5 per customer, so I took the whole family to the store with me on Saturday and Sunday. In total we were able to get 40 bags of grated cheese to put in the freezer. I am hoping that this will last us most of the year. So far this month I have only spent $78.48 on food and that includes my year's supply of cheese.

Mike and I are going to San Antonio for the weekend with just the two of us. It is near 70 degrees there and I CAN'T Wait!!!