Old Fashioned Family Day, Adoption, & Camping!!

Oh, why!  Oh, why! Can I not at least blog once a week!!  I am, once again, going to blog about multiple different things because I have not made time to blog!  Enjoy the book!  Over the years our “celebration” of Halloween has dwindled.  It seems very strange the customs that we embraced because “everyone” does them.  People dress their children up strangely and present them at strangers doors asking for candy or whatever they are giving out.  I find myself wanting to cover my children’s eyes to protect their hearts and minds from what visuals are around.  This year we celebrated Old Fashioned Family Day at our church.  Well, at least Christian, Clara and I.  At the last minute Clay and Cullen got invited to the #3 World Series game and of course could not pass that up!  Meemaw, Pawpaw, Matt & Candy went also.  Pawpaw called up on Thursday night and said they had 2 tickets left.  The two sport lovers in this family jumped at the chance and the rest of us….well were just fine missing out.  =)  They had a GREAT time!!

While they went to the baseball game Christian, Clara, and I headed out to our Old Fashioned Family Day our church puts on.   Christian made a homemade apple pie.  It was FABULOUS!! 

I made a pumpkin pie.  It was not fabulous but it was good.   I also made chili for the chili cook off.  It is ashame the vegan chili didn’t  place (figured) but that would have been pretty funny to tell ‘em it was vegan!! 

Notice there are no pics of Christian.  He took off and I did not see him much.  He had a great time with his friends.  I also have slacked on taking pics!  Clara and Christian went on a hayride.  There were sack races, seed spitting contests, face painting,  and also arm wrestling contests.  Here is a pic of Tracy and Stephanie wrestling it out for first place. ……Stephanie took first!!    

It was a good time.  Maybe next year we will all be able to hang out together!  I missed us all not being together as a family.

I could not leave these photos out!  Clara loves dressing herself and she gets into EVERYTHING!!  Here is a pic of her in a newborn onesie that Aunt Candy got her when we brought her home from Utah!  It says I was worth the wait!  She is also wearing the infant pants her birthmom, Tierra, gave her as a baby shower gift.  She was cracking us up!  I cannot believe my baby girl is about to be 3!!  She is growing up too fast!

 

On to another exciting note!!!  This month is national adoption month.  Our city celebrated it Friday with an adoption day.  Kara’s family finally had the honor of adopting Kylie into their family “officially”!!  WOO HOO!!!  It is so amazing to watch God work beautiful things out of such ugliness in this world!  Kylie has been with them almost since birth!  She finally has a family that will love, support, care, nurture, lead, and guide her in Christ!  I know Kylie is a pretty lucky girl but I know how this adoption thing works and Kara and her family are blessed by having such a wonderful little girl picked just by God to be their daughter!  The day started with making it official in the courtroom along with I think 13 other children that day. Here is a pic of the new family together in the courtroom!  Baby K became Kylie Rebecca!  Kara had her dressed so cute!  She had her name on the front of her shirt and her last name on her bloomers!  Baby P has been with them for a few months now (not sure exactly how long) but maybe one day she will be a permanent fixture too!  ;) Below is a shot of the whole gang…the social workers, attorneys, judge, grandparents, etc. 

Daddy & Daughter!! Locke could not have had a bigger grin on his face!

After the courtroom proceedings the city had a “party” at the adjacent church.  They had a craft table set up that Clara would not leave!

Here are some shots of her artwork, a monkey!  Christian could not make the trip with us because he had class that day.  We missed him!  

 

We have entered the camping zone!  I think we are hooked forever!!  We bought a bumper pull trailer!  It isn’t exactly roughing it as it has AC/heater, bathroom, microwave, stove, 2 queen beds and the booth to eat at turns into a bed too along with a seating area for 2 that turns into a mini bed.  Clay went and got it Saturday and I picked up the boys from football and we headed out to get prepared for our first QUICK camping trip.  We went to Caddo State Park!  We had a BLAST!  It was such a slow, peaceful time.  We are trying to get another trip up this weekend.  This is a pic of us in front of the RV.  I finally used the timer on my camera. 

 

We hung out by the fire, roasted Tofurkey dogs and had smores.    We went on a night walk and also played cards until almost midnight! 

We woke up and went on another walk to see the views in the day time.  Caddo feels like you are in another world!  It was beautiful and peaceful.  Can you tell by my excitement that we loved it?  We definitely were not ready to come home on Sunday.  Even though it does not look like it, Christian had a blast too.  I think that teenage attitude that “I hate pictures” has snuck in.  =(

This is a pic I took sitting in my chair around the fire…how can you not be happy surrounded by God’s glorious artwork!?! So, we are HOOKED!  We love talking about all the places we are going to travel to in our trusty, used, but new-to-us RV! 

It has been busy, busy around here but again…I will make the statement…I will try to post more often!!  =D