Cara is 7 ?!!

Happy birthday (on December 3rd) to our sweet Caraline!!

You are a joy.

You are a breath of fresh air. 

What fun we had celebrating YOU last week with all your little friends. 

You are a precious gift and we find great delight in you just the way you are.

Happy 7th Birthday!!

Love, Mom

We had a friend party at a local skating rink and Cara invited her girlfriends from her class. It was so much fun to see her with her sweet friends. What a blessing to know that your child gets to be with some really great kids everyday.

Daddy had a cluster of little girls attached to him at any given time as most had never been skating before :).

Grandpa came to "help"! HA!! Such a good sport.

We were SO excited that "A" could come hang out even though she is not at your school this year. 

Aunt Joyce and Grandpa had fun skating around together. 

We had pizza....

presents....

and Aunt Joyce made you an awesome rollerskate cake!!!

It was a very fun day!!!

I learned how to add video :)

This isn't great quality, but it is fun and cute! Cara had a friend over and they did a preview of the Chrsistmas program for me! I also LOVE Abby dancing around.

And.....I haven't forgotten. I need to get Cara's birthday post up. We had a blast at her roller skating party with her adorable friends. I have some great pictures, but they are on my Mom's camera. I will upload some this weekend.

Thi 

Catching UP

I don't know where to start!! The last month has been a whirlwind of activites. Maybe bullets would be the best way to format this post :).

 - We went to court on November 8th to testify in B's PC hearing. PC stands for Permanent Custody (of the county). December 8th will be a big day here. If all goes well and no one appeals before that day, we will proceed in adopting our little guy!!! We are hoping to have everything finalized by his 2nd birthday in February. 

- Our foster care license expires in January so we are scurrying around trying to get everything done for recertification. This is a real challenge with Jeremy's current travel schedule.

- Before Thanksgiving I got to be with the kids at their Harvest Parties. I love, love, love being with them at school. This year, Jake's class is bigger and it is a huge blessing because I now have lots of help planning the parties. I didn't have to plan a craft or games this time around. WooHoo!!! Have I mentioned that Jake and Cara's classrooms are directly across the hall from each other. How cool is that?! I really think that knowing how close Jake is has provided Cara with a huge amount of comfort.

- Thanksgiving was exciting because we got to spend time with Allie and our new nephew, Josh! Bothare precious. Allie is hilarious and Josh is just a awesome little bundle!!

 

 

B was not concerned with the baby because he discovered Grandpa's candy jars :)!!!

Fist Bumps

I wish I could put up pictures of my littlest guy!!! Oh, how I love him so!

And......he is just so adorable right now!

I wish you could see him when we go to school every week for lunch duty. 

Today, several of Jake's friends were calling out for him and he walked around giving out fist bumps. 

It was hilarious and adorable.

He is so loved and enjoyed. 

The last Month

The last month has been FULL!!

We were excited to welcome our new nephew, Joshua David into the world about 4 weeks ago. I just couldn't stand not meeting him right away so we loaded up the big van and headed to St. Louis. We drove during the night and spent the next day visiting with them and drove back that night. So fun! 

The next weekend the girls, my Mom and Aunt flew to Orlando for a quick trip to visit my cousin who is working at WDW for a few months. We had a blast!! We did all things princess starting with dinner at the Grand Floridian meeting Cinderella and her mean step-sisters. 

Thank you to Betsy for getting a job at Disney!!!

We celebrated Jake's birthday on the 4th!!

He turned nine and got a parakeet for his birthday.

He named him Alex and we are enjoying him!

The next weekend was dedicated to the project Fostering Christmas Care! 

This was an idea that popped in my head in October. To say that I was blessed by this project would be an understatement. 

Several of my blogging buddies all posted about this on the same day and we launched a fundraising effort to purchase Christmas gifts for the children in our county foster care. At first we were hoping to raise enough money to buy gifts for 19 children who are placed in homes through our agency. However, it just exploded and we were able to raise enough money in just six days to buy gifts for ALL 93 kids in care in our area.

We had a wrapping party last Sunday and people who donated were able to come a wrap the gifts. 

It was an amazing afternoon! So many people came out to wrap the gifts and it blessed my heart to see so many people care for these children in sad situations. 

My heart aches for these kids and it overwhelmed me in a good way that so many others felt compassion for them and gave. 

One person called me up and said they wanted their entire bonus to go to this project.   

Two days later we headed to court for a PC hearing for our little guy!

The caseworker, myself and B's biological father testified. 

The attorneys asked me to talk about B's bond with our family, how he is treated etc....

It was great to be able to say that he is loved and treated exactly the same as our biological children. 

I actually said to a friend the other day, "When I had b....." Ha!!! 

This makes me so thankful for our families who have fully embraced him.

This sweet baby boy has no idea he is not a biological relative with all the love, attention and care he gets from Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins.

He is easy to love with his sweet, affectionate personality!

And, this last weekend, we headed to Knoxville to spend time with our Tennessee family!

We celebrated Jeremy's Grandma's 80th birthday. 

She is a wonderful lady. I love her sweet, happy personality.

It is obvious that people love her. She is funny, talkative, kind hearted and welcoming. 

We've been busy making lots of memories the last month!! 

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and then birthday month :)!