Merry After Christmas

The boys opening their PS3!

They loved it!

Here Tom, Trevor and Andrew watch Gramma Marilyn

opens up her gag gifts

Samson as the littlest reindeer

Me and my Santa Dog

Remembering this very special time

as God became fully human

as a tiny baby,

vulnerable to all,

to save His people from

their sin!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

I have to admit that I was very spoiled this year with helpers.  My boys basically put the tree up all by themselves.  They needed some direction, but overall they did great by themselves.  You can tell when looking at the tree that the boys put the ornaments on.  They have it kinda broken down into sections, since Tyler is taller it seems like he took the top part, Austin took one side, Trevor the other side and Andrew loves to hang all of his at the bottom.  My ornaments are kinda all over the place, but I'm mixed in with everyone.  Kinda like life, they are all seperated with their "activities" but all come together with me (and Tom).  I love to hang all the stockings over the Kitchen fireplace.  In our house we were blessed with 4 fireplaces.  I love them all, we recently just added the one in the family room.  This is the one that gets used the most tho.  The stocking were hand made by Toms sister Donna.  She is very talented and now I need her to make one for our daughter.  Tom HATES, did I just say the H word?  Yes I did, he CAN NOT stand putting up Christmas Lights outside, but he does do it for me.  I love to see the lights shine and I am so thankful that my husband will do a chore even tho he does not like it.  Thank you Baby. 

We have been to the mall to watch Andrew and his choir sing there.  We have been to the school for his Winter performance,  Friday, I will be the room mom in charge of the Christmas Party at school.  Although we can't say Christmas at the public school, we have a Winter Holiday.  Give me a break, it's  Christmas for petes sake.

Trevor is now officially done with Basketball, this year was really hard.  The team didn't do very well.  Trevor has a lot to learn when it comes to Basketball.

Tyler has one more day left of Final Exams at the High School.  He is putting in an application for a job, so I hope he gets it.  He needs money to buy gas, pay a few bills, and pay for his speeding ticket he got.

Austin is now officially on Christmas Vacation, he had his last final today.  Don't know the grades yet, but he thinks he did well.

Andrew is busy with soccer and basketball.  He needs to keep active, otherwise all he wants to do is play Wii.

Tom is out hunting again.  Today he is hunting Deer, tomorrow Pheasant.  Hope you get something baby, the boys are hungry.

I went downtown today for some paperwork to be apistilled.  Boy was it crowded.  It is on State Street, which if you don't live in Chicago you may not know that State Street is where all the shops are.  Macys had there window display and a ton of school children were there.  It must have been a field trip, it was very crowded.  I got the paperwork completed and now it is off to our Adoption Agency.  I think I am done now until after we go on our first trip.  There is more paperwork that needs to be completed within 90 days of court.  Now we just keep waiting for a phone call to let us know when we can travel.  I think I mentioned earlier that it will probably be the end of January for us.

Updates

Wow, where do the weeks go?  Since it has been over a week since I posted let me get you updated:

Tuesday - Austin and I attended an information meeting at his school about a Flight Club.  Austin is definately going to do this.  This club will help him get his flying lessons and license.  Go Austin.

Wednesday - Sally had her mouth surgery (again) for bone implant.  Hopefully this time it won't get infected.  Tom and Tyler leave for hunting.

Thursday - Tom calls to tell me Tyler shot a big deer.  Trevor got braces.  So if your counting Trevor is #5 in our family to have braces.  I think our Ortho loves us.

Friday - Trevor tells me that 3 brackets already came off.

Saturday - Kelly and I went out to lunch to the Claim Jumpers Restaurant.  This is one of my favorite places to eat.  I love how we can sit by the fire and just indulge in awesome food and conversation.  After lunch, we were blessed to be able to attend Candelight Carols at Moody Bible Institute.  If anyone is around in Chicago, in the first full weekend of December, you should definately go to see this production.  This is our annual tradition to go.  It was beautiful, and magnificent.  The voices and orchestra were just heavenly.  It sure gets you in the CHRISTmas spirit.

Well that is pretty much it.

Now it is time to get ready for the annual deer hunting Christmas party we have here every year.

Here is Trevor playing basketball

He gets a lot of penalties

he also, misses A LOT of free throws.

He needs to practice these.

Here he is 2 for 12 - OUCH

Tyler with his big deer! Way to go!

Christmas Preview

Here are the boys!

I LOVE this picture.  I can't believe that they

are all smiling and look great.

The boys call this their male model pose?  Don't ask me!

I look great tho, don't I?  Hee, Hee

Cooper stopped cooperating.  He is actually laying at Toms feet.

He was still recovering from hunting the day before.

Not much else is happening.  I stumbeled upon a great sale at Gymboree the other day.  I found a cute outfit for our daughter.  I had to buy it, and just pray it is the right size.  If not I will have to return it.

Thanksgiving Pics

The Gang

Marilyn calling Bingo

Tom and I, just before Bingo

Jared and Mikaela

Some of the Men relaxing after Dinner

Marilyn always has some fun prizes for the Bingo Game.

Here is Andrew with his prize.

It was a really annoying sword with lights and sounds!!!

Everyone after dinner getting ready to relax

We missed you Donna and Gerry,

Jon and Gina,

Lauren and Ryan

Hope you had a fun Thanksgiving

The Blind Side

THE BLIND SIDE



I simply can not say enough good things about this inspiring movie of love, hope, and courage.  Tom and I took the family to see the movie before Thanksgiving.  I don't know if it has the same meaning to those who are not adopted as it did to me.  

I remember while watching the movie that God put my parents in the exact time and spot to adopt me and in that, they pointed me to God.  No one can take that away from me.  What an amazing gift that He gave to me. 

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Another Week Gone

This week has gone by really fast.  Lets see, on Friday I left with Trevor, Andrew and 4 other kids and Kerry (my other soccer mom friend) in Toms Suburban and headed down to Germantown TN.  It was about a 9 hour drive.  The kids did great on the long drive.  We were headed to a soccer tourny and the boys played really well.  Unfortunately, they did end up losing 2 of the 3 games.  We played against other teams from Texas, Missouri and Springfield, IL.  The experience for Trevor was awesome.  We arrived home on Sunday night.

Monday just started with normal activities.  Trevor basketball, Austin Military camps, Tyler busy, busy, busy with the play this weekend.

Tonight I am serving pizza to 50 kids in the fall play, hopefully they will be grateful.

Friday Kelly and I will have about 20 6th grade girls at her house for AWANA section party.  Fun, Fun. Fun.

Saturday I am taking Kelly out for her birthday.  Happy 40th Kelly.

Oh by the way, Tom is off hunting again.  Are you really that Surprised?  Have a great week.

This weeks update

Well since "The Call" came, I have been doing more paperwork.   There is paperwork that needs to be completed now that we have accepted our referral, and then paperwork that needs to be completed right before we travel.  I talked with our agency today and it sounds like we will not be traveling until late January.  In Russia, their Russian Christmas is the first week of January and the whole government shuts down.  We will wait for them to tell us exactly what dates to travel.  We have to travel when they tell us or its a no go.  To tell you the truth, January is a perfect time for us to travel.  Tom is slower at work, hunting is done and he has more flexibility.  I know it is colder at this time, not like Mexico in February like last year, but exciting all the same.  The region we will be going to is St. Petersburg.  It looks like a beautiful city with lots of architechture and museums for Tom to look at. 

What we are doing here at home: 

Tyler, busy, busy, busy with getting the final preperations for the fall play.  He is the manager of the play so he is putting in some late nights.  Pray for him to keep up his school work and to have enough energy thru out the day.

Austin is done with most of his activities, he is doing Adventure Platoon at school, it seems like it is fun.

Trevor finished up football, soccer season has 1 big tourny in Germantown, TN this weekend that we will go to.  This is the first week of indoor soccer also which goes until the end of December.  Basketball has started at school and he does fairly well there.  He seems to play a lot of football on the basketball court which means he receives plenty of fouls/penalties.

Andrew is done with football and soccer.  Indoor soccer for him does not start until the end of December so a little break for him.  Basketball is coming up soon and goes for about 6 weeks.

Tom is off hunting again.  Don't know when he will be back.  Hopefully he will see/get his big deer he dreams of.

Sally, I'm still the taxi driver.  Loving it all.

Cheers.

Was that the Phone?

Yep, Yesterday as I was at home trying to clean the house, I heard the phone ringing.  I was actually outside with Marilyn as she had stopped by while on a walk.  I'm glad I heard it because at the other end of the phone was our Adoption Agency, she said Sally we have a REFERRAL for you.  What, Awesome I said.  She told me a little bit about her and I said "YES" we would like to accept.  The medicals look great and she looks very, very healthy and sooo soooo sooooo cute.  I'm in heaven!!!  Just this last week at my Bible Study class, I asked the ladies to commit to praying with me for our adoption.  I truly left everything up to HIM and laid it at His feet.  I no longer wanted control over the adoption.  Lo and behold, a referral.  I feel God working in His Mighty way that I can only sit back and say Great is Our God.

There is still a long road ahead of us, and anything can happen, but God is in control.

Halloween Festivities

Here are a few cute pictures of Andrew at his school

They had to do the "Great Pumpkin Race"

Andrew and his team won the race, Great Job kids.

Andrews team reading the next clue

I forgot to mention to you that Andrew now has BRACES.

He got them on Thursday

Boy, did his mouth hurt

No candy for him

Andrew carved his own pumpkin.  He did it all by himself.

I think it looks awesome.

Our halloween morning started with a playoff game for Trevor

His team lost, but he did a good job.

Considering his team only has 15 kids and the opposing team

has over 30, our kids did fine.

Trevor got a lot of experience playing, he played every single down

on offense and defense, he was also the kicker, and punter.

That is him #44, with the dirty yellow arms,

playing middle linebacker.

Every year we have a party at David and Kellys house for halloween

The kids are starting to get older now, so they want to go and do their own things,

here are the remaining kids.

All in all it was a great day, NO RAIN, not to cold and the kids had a blast.

Oh and I forgot to mention,

the best part about this Halloween,

Lauren and Ryan got engaged

He proposed in a very romantic way, aawww.

They came by the party to show off her ring (its gorgeous).

CONGRATULATIONS

LAUREN AND RYAN

Sallys Tooth Again

I was having some problems where they did the bone grafting for my tooth.  I went to the Dr. and he didn't like what he saw, so he numbed me up and opened my gum.  Guess what he found, infected bone, BUMMER.  This dosen't happen very often, I had to be the lucky one.  He ground out the infected bone, stitched me up and we are going to have to have another surgery for more bone to go back in.  YUCK, YUCK, YUCK.  I hate Dentist, Oral Surgeons and the like.

No news yet for the adoption.

Weekend Update

Kelly and I at the Glidden Lodge

They have great food

and great views.The Trees in front of our house

Beautiful

Trevor kicking an extra point for football
Andrew kicking off

Door County was as I expected, Cold and Rainy, with some Sun on Saturday. Nevertheless, we had a great time. I don't know why, but this year we didn't buy as much "stuff" as in the past. Maybe the economy has something to do with it.

I was half thinking that while I was gone, I might get "the call", to say we have a referral for you. I did not hear anything.

So we wait.

When I got home in the mail was our I600 saying that we are approved to adopt from our wonderful government. Now all I need is a referral for our daughter.

Football season is coming to a close, Andrew had his last game on Saturday, and Trevor will have a playoff game on Halloween, if they loose then he is done also. He is playing the #1 team so it will be really hard to win that game, but with the Lord anything is possible I keep telling him.

Door County

Well I am off to my annual girls weekend away to Door County Wisconsin. I know, I know, you are thinking why there? Well it is a great place to shop and just be away from the daily schedules here at home. There will be 7 of us going this year, a little smaller than in past years but I think we will still have a great time. The weather up there is a balmy 43 deg with rain/shower mix. Dosen't it sound great?

No news on the adoption front, just waiting, waiting and more waiting.

Raining Again

I can't believe this weather we are having here in Illinois. Rain, Rain and more rain along with the blustering wind it is downright chilly.

I spoke with our adoption agency rep. and she had yet more paperwork for us to do. I wish all this paperwork would just get done already. Why is it that it can't all be done at one time, no everything needs to be done at seperate stages. So we wait.

Coloumbus Day Weekend

So how did you spend your nice long weekend? Mine was a flurry of driving, soccer, hunting and shopping.

On Saturday I was driving for 7 hours, wow when I finally added it all up I couldn't believe it. Trevor had a soccer tourny and he was only going to make it to one game because he wanted to leave and go to the youth hunt. Tom left earlier in the day to take Andrew. I thought we could make it but we got back home to realize that we wouldn't make it to the farm in time for Trevor to make it in the woods before dark. So back to the soccer game we went which by the way was over an hour away. We won both of those games, but we did miss the games on Sunday and his team ended up losing in the Semi Finals. So after the game I took, Kelly, Sara, Marilyn, Trevor and Samson and Lexi down to the lakehouse and we ended up getting there about 11:00 p.m., I was exhausted. While I was at the Soccer games, Tom, David, Tyler, Austin, Jacob and Nathan all went on the youth Deer Hunting and didn't get anything.

Sunday all the ladies went Shopping on the Spoon River Drive, it was VERY, VERY, VERY COLD! I would have to say we bought some things, but overall a very disapointing shopping experience. I think the cold had something to do with that. While the ladies shopped the boys hunted, and this time 3 of them got a deer. Way to go, Austin, Jacob and Nathan. Andrew shot a nice deer and it fell in its tracks, Tom thought it was dead, but it ended up getting up and running into some really heavy brush, and the guys couldn't find it. Bummer!

Last week I went and had the last few items from the homestudy apistilled at the Sec. of States office downtown, and sent them directly to the adoption agency office. We are still in the waiting mode right now. We wait until the Russian MOE gives us a referral.

Homecoming Weekend

Tyler with his date Julianna

She is a very nice young lady

who also was on the Homecoming Court

She is a Senior, he a Junior way to go buddy!Pinning on the flower. No one really knows how to do that!
I think they look GREAT!!!!

Fall Activities

I wanted to post a picture of Austin in his Class A uniform for Marmion.

He is required to wear this at school on certain days.

I think he looks Great!This is Tom and I after Andrews friends had all of their s'mores

Tom went right to bed after this picture, he was tired

I on the other hand had 10 wild and crazy boys.

This is them after playing football, they still

had a bunch of energy

Andrew at school for his chorus concert. This is

our first time with anyone in concert.

I think he had a good time.

Tom and Andrew at half time.

Tom is the Offensive coach, Andrew plays

defense.

Andrew in the pack getting instructions.


Trevor with his defensive team, he is doing a great job.
In 4 games he has a bunch of sacs, hurried plays, interceptions
unfortunately his team is not doing very well.
I keep encouraging Trevor to just keep working on yourself
and do what you can to make yourself better.

This is Trevor kicking the ball off.
He is a great kicker, I think the soccer helps

Trevor at a tourny, their team lost in the semi-finals.

He did awesome, and no Yellow Cards

I spoke with our Adoption Agency and they are waiting on one more piece of information from our Home Study Coordinator, but things are progressing well. I really feel God at work in our lives and only He knows the perfect timing for all that happens.

Happy 10th Birthday Andrew

Andrew this summer at the golf course

Andrew with Samson when he was 7 year old

My how he has changed.

Hope you have a great day.

Remembering 9/11

I remember exactly where I was on that day. I was getting ready for a clothing re-sale and I was very very busy. As you all know I am not the most orgainzed so when it comes to labeling and pricing it takes me a long time.

Well I was working away in my basement and I got a phone call from Kelly, she told me a plane just hit a building in New York, oh o.k. was my response. I continued working without the T.V. on or the radio, Kelly calls me a little later and told me I had to see this on T.V.. Well the rest of my day, I sat there on the couch unable to move with my jaw dropped open and feeling a sense of loss. I didn't know anybody in the buildings, but my heart went out to them just the same. We are blessed to live in this country and to have the rights that we have, but it is not free, our servicemen and women fight everyday so that we can be safe, I think of all the firefighters and police who sacrificed their lives for the good of others. They are true heros and deserving of honor. Lets remember all who fight for our country today and pray for them and their families.

Summers over?

Here is a fuzzy pic of our extreme tubing adventures

It starts off nice and slow but surely it

gets WILDHere is Kelly with Sara and Julie with Matthew
Julie and Me

Here I am at the Chicago Bean

When I went to get my documents

Apistille, Kelly came with and it was such a beautiful day.

We walked all around Michigan Ave and had a fun time.