October/November Review

It might be easiest to go thru the pictures first and then write a post with our update next. So, here is our October/November in pictures.

I was able to go on a girls weekend away to Brown County, Indiana to celebrate a friends bday and we made a pilgrimmage to Ikea where I found this cute Chair for Nick. Notice the red one that he has his feet on....that is what he had before..... a little small! :)

Our next trip was a mother/son weekend in Atlanta with the Karen's and sons plus Anita and son. We called it the Karenita weekend! ;) It was fabulous. Anita's husband, John was like the host with the most! He cooked and cleaned and generally took care of us the whole weekend! Score! The boys were hilarious in their super hero costumes......all boy, all the time!

A rare moment of calm which really makes us chuckle if you actually knew what happened after this picture. They were given adorable 'real' looking popcorn bags which apparently became fodder for "war" as it looked like it had snowed the next time we came down. We thought John was watching them and he thought one of us was checking on them.....ummm, so they were unsupervised for probably 30 minutes or so.......we wondered why little Max came up looking quite bewildered. I do not have the "mess" picture but it exists! :) so funny!

We took them outside as often as possible so Boys could be Boys......

We were joined by Holly and family who adopted Jon-Jon from the same baby-house as Garrett and Charlie. He had just had surgery on his legs but he was just as ready to join in the craziness! Another rare moment to catch them all in one picture. From L to R.....Max (Cincy Karen), Charlie (Anita), Jon-Jon (Holly), Nick, Garrett (MinniG Karen). Garrett and Charlie even have baby house pictures together as they were great buds even before they were adopted! So cool!

All the participants of the mom and son weekend.......in honor of our weekend, the Blue Angels did multiple fly-bys in celebration. REALLY, the did. I was in Heaven. They were so close to us and the noise was exhilirating and we all just parked outside with lawn chairs and had a fabulous time......again, with John doing the cooking! so Awesome! We had a low country boil for dinner!

I love this picture of Nick, Jon-Jon, and Max........This is one of those pics that just makes you ponder the what-ifs.....so glad God brought them all to their forever families so that they can grow up friends instead of group mates in the orphanage. And, on a not so serious note, PLEASE excuse the black socks on Nick....he had put those on so he could wear batman costume and then left them on to hurry outside.....yikes!

Charlie loves to dress "handsome" so he and Nick decided to dress up like their alter egos, bruce wayne and charlie parker.....Here is Nick forgetting to remove some of the Batman evidence! ;)

So, this next interlude is my homage to weird boys.....or maybe just kids. So cute in so many ways. Our neighbor was seeding her yard and had the big sprinkler going. Nick ran back to the car as we were just getting home from school, and proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes doing various in and out of the rain scenarios....... :)

This one was taken by dad when Nick decided to be a ghost....those were our pillowcases of OUR bed....huh? funny none-the-less.

And, now, a little walk down history lane. This next pic is from our first visit to the zoo, a mere 2o or so days after arriving in the US. He looks like such a little squirt here......3 1/2 years ago!

Fast forward, to October......what a difference! really, can a child grow from 37 inches to 48 1/2 inches in 3 + years......apparently so. He is so grown up now. :)

He is giving the Triceratops the "what for" and telling him the way it is.......I know that stance well. :)

October brought us our first Diorama project.....Umm, you mean parent project....seriously, Nick could have cared less. I made him go out and pick up leaves/branches and stuff. He decided which animal to use but then I ended up gluing all of it together. I did NOT like this project but at least it looked like a kid did it.....I was mortified by some of the entries the other kids brought in.....seriously, do parents not care if it shamelessly looks like the parent did the whole thing with computer generated graphics and all....really?

On to Halloween, we spent Halloween at the zoo....above pics...sorry they got a bit out of order, and then went over to a good friends neighborhood so Nick could have someone to T or T with for some goodies and fun. Peyton was Anakin Skywalker, and Nick was Captain Invincible Surprise-man...or as we called him, Zorro! :)

Of course, what Boy get together would be complete without swordplay and mayhem??

As I said before, the grandparents both came in October and we had two trips to the apple orchard/ pumpkin patch and lots of fun with beautiful weather. We always enjoy our fall visits from our folks. We had a mini family reunion/thanksgiving meal a few weeks ago with my cousins and it was great to see everyone.....AND, of course all of the good food. A country ham, cured and aged by my great uncle and cousin's husband. Amazing! It hung in their barn for a year or more......totally amazed this city girl and dietitian! ;)

We spent our Thanksgiving day as a family of 3 and Pat did his usual awesome meal. He so loves to cook the meal and I so love to let him. I made pies the night before with a friend and cooked the broccoli for our "green" and healthy item. Looking forward to leftovers today! Nick loves pumpkin pie and funny enough, eats it just like his dad. Pick it up and chow down....none of this fork stuff please! ;) Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!! 29 days til Christmas and a TX trip! :)