Connor's birthday

 Connor had a fascination with volcano's at the time of his birthday so we created this volcano cake to help him celebrate.  He is a big 9 year old in this New Year's eve photo.  What a cutie.....

Mother of 5

Who would have ever dreamed I'd be the mother of 5 children.  Here is a picture of the cuties

Their ours

Yesterday was a big day.  Jeff and Jennifer surrendered the children to us.  Their had been a termination trial scheduled but in the end they chose to do a surrender rather than go through the trial.  It was definitely a selfless thing to do to free the children to move on rather than stay in limbo.  I always admire those that are able to be selfless.  I hope they can take this terrible tragedy and turn it into something positive.  The courtroom and court experience was terribly difficult and I feel for them. At the end of signing 32 documents the judge was very kind to us and said "Thank you for being willing to adopt these 4 children."   He also praised Jeff and Jennifer and their decision to help the children be in a good place.
Jeffery Holland once said

Surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it. 

I hope they can find mercy and healing thru the atonement and am so grateful for the gift I have been given.
 How blessed I feel!  I stand in awe of the Lord's plan for each of us and how his works are brought to pass.

Birthday Presents

Benjamin's birth-mother is always generous and kind to all of us. This year again she sent something that Benjamin loved. Here is his reaction as he opened Dusty cropduster. Many thanks!!

Birthday boy

This is our excited Birthday Boy.  He wore his birthday badge all day at school.  He counted down the days to his birthday this year and jumped out of bed when he realized it was his special day.  Here he is with his special bookmark waiting to open his presents.

The lego set present

Scooby-Doo birthday cake

I made lego cake pops for Benjamin's classroom.  As it turned out he couldn't take them because they have a no homemade stuff rule.  I ended up going to BJ's and got cupcakes and cider for the classroom and Benjamin delivered the cakepops to his favorite teachers.  In the end it worked out well.

This morning Benjamin woke up super early.  Before 7 am -and breakfast, he and Daddy had the model plane that his birth mother sent together.  I expect to have it flying around the house upon his return this afternoon.  

Cure for cold weather

We installed a new fireplace.   I really love it.  It's so nice to hit the remote and have a fire.  It's also equally nice to be able to shut it off if it's too warm or if we are leaving quickly.  Many thanks to my brother Scott who gave up a valuable Saturday to come install it.  It now looks beautiful with our stocking hanging from it in hopes that Santa finds us.

The kids building a snow man and making snow angels.

I couldn't resist including this picture of Alec on his sled.  He will wait forever for someone to pull him on his sled around the yard.  He is the most patient of all the children.  We made lots of trails back and forth in the front yard as there wasn't enough snow to go sledding.  Ther'e snow in this weekend's forcast though -- hopefully we get enough to sled.

Santa?

We have a 3 season screened back porch just off the family room. It has storm windows, which we open for summer. This last week with the weather still being somewhat termerate we didn't exactly get around to shutting the storm windows for winter. Yesterday we got the first blizzard of the season, -- snow in the horizontal direction. We got probably 2 inches snow at 25 MPH. The result: the porch was covered with a skiff of snow, couches and all. The snow blew through the screen openings.

By the time I noticed what had happened it was dark, so I showed Joseph what happened and told him to remind me the next day and we could sweep it out. Joseph went out to shut the screens for the winter. In the process he had to step up on the snow-covered chairs to access the screens, and left some footprints.

In the morning, he seized an opportunity. Joseph told the children that Santa Claus came to see if they had been bad or good, and that he crawled in the window to peek in our sliding door, during the night. The children bought it, hook, line and sinker. Lily even surmised that Santa was looking for a way in, because we have a gas-burning insert now. Benjamin told me he had seen magic sparkle dust in the snow, which Santa must have used to land the sleigh.

I can’t help but wonder how many more years the magic will last. I sure love the Christmas season through their eyes!