November is... National Adoption Month!

I love November! The slight cool in the air, the changing leaves, the holidays, and the celebration of adoption!

In case you didn't know, I love adoption.

It brought me this:

And this:

And even this:

You can expect a lot of posts about adoption related topics this month, since it is on my mind and also just a good excuse to talk about it all. But what I have been thinking about lately is just how much our lives are NOT affected by adoption.

Does that make sense?

Almost every minute of every day, adoption has nothing to do with us. I am a mom. Kydon is a dad. Our kids are just that- our kids. We eat together, play together, love each other, get mad at each other, laugh and drive each other crazy. Just like every other family I have ever known. In the big picture, and in the detailed up close picture, we are a family. Adoption is part of our story. A big part of our past, but it doesn't define us. It hasn't made us different. We are just a normal, everyday family with 3 kids and 2 parents.

And that, to me, is the miracle of adoption.

At least we ran into some old friends!

That is about the best thing I can say about Saturday. We had a great idea- head down to the Auburn homecoming game. We were expecting perfect weather, the game was at the perfect time of day... should be perfect right?

(cue laugh track) (now cue awkward pause)

We left the house at 8 am (remember Abigail wakes at 5 every single day, so an 8 am departure is actually pretty easy). The kids were all SUPER excited. We were decked out head to toe in various combinations of orange and blue. Abigail had ribbons in her hair, and remembered our little Auburn pom-pom.

So, why was it that trying to leave the driveway took 15 minutes, 4 threats of increasing direness, and one turning off of the car and declaring that "fine- we will just stay home"? Why? Probably as a warning. If it takes 15 minutes to just get out of the driveway, you should probably stay home.

(bedhead, anyone?)

The 2 hour ride was moderately painful. Luckily for us we have a (wonderful) car with an extra row of seating. It is a lifesaver when the best option is just to not let anyone be able to touch anyone else. We used it a lot today. We finally got there, and the kids were STARVING. So we ate our lunch, then started walking around campus.

That part was actually pretty nice. The weather was beautiful, and the kids were mostly happy and cooperative. We went to a bookstore, and they each chose a little Auburn toy, and we had several people remark how cute they are.

It was actually hard to find some tickets, which really surprised us. Usually there are people all over the place selling them, but today, not so much. Luckily after a lot of searching and a verbal altercation with a scalper, Kydon got us all tickets. We went in, and then the pain started. From the second we started toward the stadium, Abigail was huuunnnngry and thirrrrsssty and could not wait even one second. Since our tickets were all over the place, we went to the one spot that had 2 seats together, then tried to cram all 5 of us into a spot meant for 1.5 people. Not our best idea.

Abigail finally drove me so crazy with her begging and whining that I paid $8 for a bottle of water and a soda before the game even began, and missed one of the best moments of the game- when they fly the eagle around the stadium several times right before kick off. Then when we sat down, she spilled at least $3 worth of water all over herself, me, and all our things. Great.

After 7 minutes of game time (and two touchdowns! Woo hoo!), we decided to move ourselves to a more empty spot in the stadium where we could actually all sit and not try to cram with all of the kids on our laps. As we were leaving the seats, we saw some of our very oldest friends! They just happened to be there, and were sitting really close to where we were at! We were able to talk to them for about 20 min (while the kids went absolutely bananas), and it was so fun to see them again!

By this time, all 3 were whining, crying, and begging for food. The only way we could have stayed was to pay a good $30 or so for food and drinks, plus walk to the other side of the stadium to get to the empty seats. We decided to bag it, and we left. Good thing we paid the money for tickets to watch a whole 7 minutes!

I won't go into details of the walk back to the car and starting to drive. Let's just say it was miserable for all and more than one of us completely lost it.

Since we left the game so early, we did decide that we had enough time to stop by Kydon's parents house on the way home, and that was a very welcome break where we all got to relax and eat and rejuvenate ourselves before the ride home.

The very painful ride home.

I don't understand how we can have more tantrums and problems on a 2 hour drive than we can on our 13+ hour trip from Houston earlier this summer. Can anyone explain that? Maybe the day was just doomed.

But, at least we were able to reconnect with our friends! That was actually worth all the rest. The strangest part is that they spent the next two days telling everyone they saw all about going to the Auburn game and AUBURN WON! And just how fun it all was. Must be nice to have such a selective memory!

An overused phrase

Whenever I hear a phrase that gets overused, it makes me want to use it as much as humanly possible. Mostly to draw attention to the overuse, and also because it will sometimes make people laugh.

This week's phrase? "Especially in this economy". Seriously, don't you hear that everywhere? And as an excuse for everything? So now I'm going to use it myself.

Here are some examples of ways to work it into all of your conversations:

I'm really hungry. Especially in this economy.

I don't feel like going to school. Especially in this economy.

We shouldn't eat that ice cream. Especially in this economy.

See? A very helpful phrase.

Anyone wanna interpret my dream?

I didn't sleep well last night. I was having an extremely vivid and strange dream. If you are really bored today, feel free to read through it and offer up your interpretation.

Anyone that makes me laugh out loud will get a little prize! (It might or might not be some of the candy that I took from the kids)

I started off visiting a girl from church. Her name is Lori. In my dream, she lived in the very rough condo neighborhood that is near our old house. Her and her husband had a small shop that sold pins (like the kind you might pin on your shirt). They were having a hard time making ends meet, so I was looking through the shop to see if I wanted to buy anything. My mom suddenly appeared, and she was wearing this very distinctive (kind of weird) suit. Wouldn't you know it, they had a pin that matched it EXACTLY. The pin was actually just a strip of fabric with a pin on it, and it was the exact fabric of her suit. It was $22, which we felt was way too much. But Lori's husband would NOT lower the price, no way. Lori was mad, because they had a huge display of these pins, and they had had them in stock for several years, and this was the first person who wanted to buy one. But he wouldn't compromise, so we left.

On the way home, we walked by our old house. The people who lived there now had totally redone the landscaping, and it was GORGEOUS. Tons of beautiful rocks, plants, and all these different waterfalls. The new owner was out front (in her wedding dress, of course), so I introduced myself and kept saying "oh, we were going to do all of this too, but we just hadn't gotten to it before we left". Then I showed her where Kydon had buried a trash can to serve as water drainage, and she said that they never would have been able to do all the landscaping if he hadn't done that! LOL!

Then I glanced at the backyard. The new people had cleared out all the forest area (ok, actually our old house is a duplex, and had zero backyard, but those details don't really seem to matter in this dream), and there was a HUGE water tank. I mean huge. And guess what? They had a WHALE swimming in it! Cool, right? So, I called Kydon to come see it, and we ended up hanging out with the really cool rich people that live in our old house. As we are talking about all the custom paint and fancy furniture that we "were going to do, but just hadn't gotten to it yet before we moved", I noticed that they actually had 4 whales in the tank! Of course!

Then the husband was holding their new baby, and he was saying he thought there was something wrong with the baby. He had all these weird huge bumps all along his chin line. Everyone kept telling the husband that the baby was fine, and not to worry. He got really happy when I agreed that there was something majorly wrong with the baby, and he should take him to get checked out.

At this point, all of our kids were there too, running around and having fun, and we were all watching the 4 whales playing in the backyard tank. Then, the baby takes flight. Those weird bumps just meant that he was actually a SUPER baby! We were all so relieved! Then we had lots of fun trying to catch the baby, and Jack especially was loving the flying baby! There was some sort of thing that the baby had to have helium balloons, and if they ever ran out, it was really bad. So they kept getting balloon deliveries, and one was late, but after a bunch of phone calls and all of us freaking out, we realized that the delivery guy was actually there after all, he was just distracted by the whale tank.

Then I woke up. And remembered the WHOLE THING.

Remind me not to eat candy before bed again!

Welcome to the world!

When the teeny tiny babies are born, I am thankful once again that we live near our family! We all met our newest nephew, Parker this week. He is completely adorable! And Abigail is getting pretty good at taking pictures. :)

I'm not Grandma

On my last day of work, I was supposed to finish at 3:30. The plan was for my mom to pick up the kids and take them to their favorite jumping place, PLAY. They had been doing this routine for a couple weeks, and I think we were all getting a bit tired of all the run-around.

So, you can imagine how happy I was when our instructor let us out at 11:30 instead of 3:30. I was so excited to call my mom and cancel her services, and I was counting the minutes until the bus came and I could grab all my kiddos and bring them home.

I figured they would be happy to see me as well... but I was wrong!

When Abigail got off the bus, she scowled and stomped her foot. "Where's Grandma?" I told her that I was off work, and wasn't it great that I could pick her up? Well, no, apparently not. So, I buckle the mad girl into her seat and head off to get the boys. As soon as they spot me, they both scream and start crying. "YOU NOT GRAMMA"! "Now we can't go to jumping place"! They cried the whole way home, and were very mad at me the whole day.

What can I say- I'm just not Grandma!

Halloween

We had tons of fun for Halloween... of course! No less than 4 parties- one at each school, one for church, and the one at my sisters on Halloween night.
We had to switch up the costumes at each one. Abigail was Dorothy, a vampire, Tinkerbell and Cinderella. Aidan was Thomas the Tank Engine, a sword fighter, and a spider "with orange body and red arms". Jack was Spiderman and a sword fighter. Just to keep it all interesting!

No boring black spiders here! Probably no one knew what he was, but as long as he was happy, that is all that matters!

At Melinda's house- it was a bunch of cute little kids! It was so fun to trick or treat with all of our cousins and friends!
I love it when they make a run for it after sitting still for the pictures!

Isn't she beautiful?? She put the crown on, then talked about Aunt Laura all night. (The crown was from her wedding). Abigail was all about gathering as much candy as humanly possible!

Aidan was totally excited when he found another little boy in a Thomas costume! He wanted to walk next to him and follow him all night long!

I was there too! A half-way decent picture is cause for celebration! :)

Fall Party and Bento Goodness

Last Friday I got to go to Abigail's class and help out with the Kindergarten "Wild Rumpus". You know, the obligitory Fall/Halloween party. I was very excited to go. I hadn't been to her class in a couple weeks, and I was missing being around my kids!

The party was a total blast for a 5 year old! Many different little crafts and games and books.

On my last day of work (Thurs), my friend Heidi sent me a link to some really cute Bento. A lady had made little Bento rice people to look like all the characters from "Where the Wild Things Are". So I spent all morning looking at these adorable bento people, and thinking about going to Abigail's party the next day. (And no, I don't remember much of what I was supposed to be paying attention to in the class I was in. I was too busy thinking about bento!)

Anyway, of course the two ideas merged, and I decided to make one of the little Max characters for the kids in her class.

I told you I like to over-do things.

As I was putting 6 tiny strips of seaweed on each of 22 little Max faces, it occurs to me that there is probably no way all these kindergarteners are going to eat these things. Rice, ham, chocolate, cheese and seaweed. Heck, half of them wouldn't even eat a PANCAKE on pj and pancake day! But, after already putting almost 2 hours into these suckers, I was already almost done, so I just finished them off and took them in.

When Abigail got home, I asked her how they were, and guess what?

Yep, her teacher forgot to hand them out!!! Can you believe it? I can! :) She did send me an email later on saying sorry and that she did remember before the after school groups left, so she gave it to them. Ah well, that's what I get for spending a bunch of time doing something that no one is going to care about anyway!