Pumpkins and Costumes

S and O carved pumpkins the other night with a little bit of help from Daddy. 

The finished products. 

We went to a Math Dept. party this past weekend and the boys wore their costumes.  This is not a great pic, but S is Harry Potter and O is an owl.                    

Crazy Crafty

I've been busy making hair clips to sell at some upcoming events for Congo fundraising.  Some are made of felt and some of rick rack.  It is a lot of fun, but our house is suffering a bit!

Adoption Tax Credit

The adoption tax credit is possibly going to be cut this year unless Congress votes to continue sponsoring it.  If this bill doesn't go through it will making adopting a lot harder financially for many people.  Please take a minute, go to this link, and sign the petition.  Thank you!

http://www.change.org/petitions/make-adoption-costs-fully-refundable-in-the-2012-2013-tax-years

Brrrrr! Camping

Last weekend we went camping near Ithaca, New York, and it was cold!  Especially at night.  E and I sort of have an agreement that I'll go camping as long as I get to pick where we camp.  Which usually means I pick somewhere beautiful and/or with a fun town nearby.  I was looking at the area near Ithaca because it's supposed to be extremely beautiful and there are quite a few waterfalls to hike to.  And then...I found out that the Moosewood Restaurant is in Ithaca.  I have been using/reading Moosewood cookbooks for probably ten years.  I love these cookbooks.  They're mostly vegetarian, but it's interesting, eclectic food.  So when I found out that the restaurant that started the cookbooks was in Ithaca, I knew our camping destination.  Almost as soon as we rolled into to town we went to Moosewood for lunch.  It did not disappoint.  We all had a healthy, vegetarian lunch and it was all delicious.  Including the brownie for dessert.  Yum!  If you're ever in Ithaca stop there and eat!

 The second day we were there we went on a fairly difficult 3 mile hike and the boys did great.  I was sore the next day and they barely complained.  So proud of my little hikers.

 Some of the waterfalls we hiked to. 

Early Christmas Shopping

If anyone is interested in doing some early Christmas shopping that will help the children of the Congo and women in Uganda, go to this website and order jewelry, bags, or scarves.  Don't forget to write Heart for Congo in the comments section when you check out!
https://www.outreachuganda.org/zencart/

Big News

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a picture of this Africa painting that I made, but if you look at it now, you'll see that there are 2 hearts instead of just one.  And that's because we're starting another adoption!  I'll try to make this explaination short and to the point, although more than likely it will end up being long.

For the last few months we'd been hearing that adoptions from Ethiopia were slowing down a lot and we finally heard officially about a month ago that our timeline would be doubling.  Of course this frustrated and saddened us, but we know it's all happening for a good reason.  Meanwhile our pastor had just come back from adopting 2 girls from the Ukraine and gave a sermon about their adoption that wrecked E and I.  I left the service feeling like we needed to do something to help orphans now. 

Enter my friend M who is adopting 2 little boys from DRC with an amazing non-profit that helps people through the DRC adoption process and does a ton of fund-raising for DRC orphans.  For several months after M told me they were doing this, I had been thinking about the Congo orphans, then finally after hearing our pastor's sermon, it clicked with me.  Maybe we could do this too.

Except that I was scared to death to talk to E about it.  He had just told me a few weeks ago that he was so glad to be done with all our paperwork for Ethiopia.  I just knew he was going to think I'd lost my mind.  Well, after receiving several more signs from God that we should be doing this I got up my nerve and talked to him.  I told him my plan to adopt from the Congo while still pursuing our Ethiopian adoption.  He listened, asked a couple of questions, and then said we should go for it.  I was, and still am giddy!  The last few weeks have been filled with phone calls, paperwork, e-mails, etc. getting everything started. 

We are so, so excited to be going on this adventure that God is leading us through.  We are excited to be starting an adoption that will probably move fairly quickly and we are excited to be able to help the DRC orphans through fundraising.  I am continually amazed at how perfectly God is leading us through all of this!

Scout Game Day

This past weekend was the annual Scout Day for Army football.  We got up bright and early to get down to the plain in time to watch the parade, then we went on a tour of the cadet area.  After the tour we headed up to the stadium to Black Knight Alley where the kids had their faces painted, shot baskets, played in a bounce house, etc.  And then we watched the game.  It was a loooong day and we were all pretty worn out by the time we came home.  But all my boys had a blast!   

Stay tuned for our big, exciting news that I will try to get posted on here later today.

7-Month One Complete

We have a lot of big things happening around here that I will be sharing over the next week, but first a little catch up.  I had some of our 7 group over to celebrate the end of month 1 and talk about month 2. (On a side note, why in the world can't I ever just stand normally in a photo?!?!)

I am happy and relieved that month 1 has come to an end.  It was hard, but I'm so glad I did it.  I feel like I have come out of this so much more thankful and filled with gratitude for all that I have.  I have a new appreciation for what it feels like to be hungry.  Not that this month compares in any way to what the millions starving around the world feel, but I can understand a little bit better. And after eating whatever I wanted Saturday and Sunday, I've come to realize that no matter how healthy I thought I was eating before, it still wasn't healthy enough.  Sugar is bad for me!  So now I'm actually still eating 7 for breakfast and lunch (except I'm not limiting fruits and vegis) and then eating a non-7 dinner. 

So October 1st our group started month 2 which is wearing only 7 items of clothing for 4 weeks.  We modified this a little bit because there are several of us that work out daily.  One of us (not me!) is even training for a marathon, which means a lot of sweat.  So here is my 7 list:
1.  1 pair of jeans
2.  1 pair of stretchy pants (I just bought these pants a few months ago because I have a pair of bright blue sweatpants that E hates and I wanted to replace them with something.  These are soooo comfy and they have a lace pocket and a lace bow on the front, so we have named them my Fancy Pants.)
3.  solid grey t-shirt
4.  striped t-shirt
5.  long-sleeved t-shirt
6.  running shoes and brown flats
7.  2 workout outfits (This is what we altered.  We said if you want, one of your items can be 2 full (shirt and pants/shorts) workout outfits.)
We also agreed that outerwear will be a freebie, but only if necessary and we can't be excessive about it.  I think this is a good call because last October we had a blizzard!

So these are the items I will be wearing for the next month.  I feel like this will be a fairly easy month for me especially after last month.  Although after having rain here all day yesterday I've realized sometimes it will just be annoying. There were several times I had to pop my shirt in the dryer instead of just putting on a clean one.  But then I think to myself that I'm just thankful that I have a shirt and a dryer I can put it in.