Last days of Summer...

Enjoying our last few days using the pool before it's time to close it up for the season...

Happy Labor Day Weekend!!

Back to School!!

Our first week of school is under our belts...woohoo!!Sammy's "back to school" shirt...good thing we love homeschooling...we're going to be doing it for a LOOONG time!!

He knows he's cute stuff!!!

Hard at work!!!

Alabama & American Girl!

Our last trip for the summer was to visit Dave's family in Alabama! The drive down took us right through Atlanta and we had a VERY excited little girl to stop at the American Girl store! She has been asking to go for over a year!

We spent over an hour walking around the store...Next, we had afternoon tea together in the Bistro...

A few hours later we were in Alabama...the kids had a blast driving around Mimi & PawPaw's mule!!

Taken on their driveway...Emily loved Mimi'a new Yorkie Dolly!For the first 2 days Sammy called Dolly "cat"...he's never seen a teeny dog like her before. He loved chasing her up and down the hallway!

Kids with Mimi (we missed a picture with Paw Paw...we'll have to get one with him next time!)

Back to School TOMORROW!!!!

Pure Religion Adoption & Orphan Care Conference

I've blogged a few times over the past few months about the Adoption Conference Dave & I had the privilege of coordinating with our children's pastor. The conference was held this past weekend and I am still amazed at all that was accomplished! Seeing something that began as a prayer in our hearts to help others who may be considering adoption come to pass and over 300 people attend was life-changing for Dave and I. We had the privilege of leading a breakout workshop on "Building a Transracial Family...Adopting outside your skin color" Watching my hubby stand before a packed room and share his heart and his love for our son is a moment I will never forget. Our passion for the orphan and the fatherless has been stirred more than ever and we are excited to be serving in this ministry. I'll leave you with a very well-written article from our church's online magazine summing up the details of the conference from one of our attendees.

http://www.colonial.org/magazine_articles/2011/0811AdoptionConference_home.html

Making room for play...

I've been working on a gradual project this summer of utilizing the space in our bonus room better, in hopes of making a better play area for Sammy for him and I to play in while the big kids are doing school. I started by getting rid of the brown monster desk we bought when we were trying to fill this giant room (which after turning a chunk of it into a room for Nathan, it doesn't seem so giant anymore!). We bought a smaller desk ($20...thank you IKEA) and moved it into the school area.

After the desk was moved I was left with an empty half of the room and turned it into this... the chairs we already had, the TV came from our bedroom (that we watched approximately 8 minutes of news on every night to see the weather for the next day)...my handy hubby hung it on the wall for me...the kids can watch their math lessons on it and Sammy can watch his Einstein DVD's, the cube in the middle holds toys and used to be red,white, & blue, the trees are stickers, the PLAY letters came from the clearance bin at Michael's, and Em and I painted the clouds with random paint from our garage. It turned out to be a fun little space for everyone!

My neighbor gave me an extra little table & chairs. The table was bright blue and the chairs were bright yellow...I gave it a spray paint bath and then modge-podged placemats to the top for easy cleaning. It will be great when he figures out crayons are for coloring and NOT eating!!

The view from the halllway...you wouldn't even know all that schoolroom/office business is going on around the corner!!Be back soon with pics of our Alabama/American Girl store trip!

Last Week...

Look who turned 18 months old!!! Dave and I find ourselves constantly saying how much we forgot what a fun age this is...every day our Sammy seems to say or do something new. He keeps us laughing all the time!

We took the kids to Monkey Joe's (one of those inflatable bouncy places) last week. At first Samuel was a little overwhelmed by it all, but after Daddy & big brother and sister took him on the slides he loved it!

This guy and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary yesterday!! Grandma & Paw Paw came over to babysit for us and we spent the afternoon seeing a movie, walking around the mall, and having dinner at Cheesecake Factory. It was just lovely!!

We took a day trip to Fayetteville last week to visit with some old friends driving through town on their way to a family reunion. We met at our old church years ago and love these guys dearly!

Me and my sweet friend Kim...

Our kids have grown up together...Nathan and their son Dylan have been friends since they were three years old.They loved this little guy to pieces! He had just learned to say the word "hug" the day before and gave them all a round of hugs before they left!

Animal Sounds...

Look at this cutie!!!