What We Are Reading

We have started reading our Christmas books so that we can get through a lot of them this year. It takes quite awhile to get through as many books as we have. We read The Christmas Doll by Elvira Woodruff for our first book --  which Bethany loved. It took her about three chapters to really get into the book but after that she absolutely loved it. It was a very sweet story and Jordan also really liked this book. Then we read The Christmas Dolls by Carol Beach York which was pretty good. It isn't real long so it is a quick read. We just finished The House Without a Christmas Tree by Gail Rock and Jordan, Bethany, Caroline and Andrew loved this book. It was actually a fun read and I looked forward to reading it each day.

I think The Christmas Doll by Elvira Woodruff made the biggest impression on Bethany. She has talked more about dolls and about children that don't have dolls ever since we read the book. Then she found a doll in the storage closet as we were taking out Christmas decorations and she has taken such a liking to it and even said she felt like the little girl in The Christmas Doll -- that the doll is very special. So, I know that my kids are thinking about what we read.

A few pictures from the past week or two.

 Bella loves candy canes -- actually she loves most candy and most food.

 Katie and Bella.

 Sarah reading Christmas books on my bed.

 Bella -- in just a little over a month it will have been two years since she arrived.

 ,Sophia with Emily. She has also been home almost two years. I will update on both girls soon.

Liam

We had a really nice Thanksgiving with family and friends. One thing that was really special this year is that we got to meet our grandson, Liam. He just turned a year old and lives across the country from us and we have only seen pictures of him until Thanksgiving. He is quite a little charmer and I think everyone was excited to see him. Surprisingly, even though he has never met us, he was very friendly and let us all hold him.

He looks so much like his dad, John, looked at his age.

Fall News

It has been a fairly busy fall and I had all kinds of things I wanted to post, but just never seemed to get around to it. We had our annual fall pumpkin carving and it was lots of fun. We combined it with Joshua's 1st birthday party -- Joshua being our grandson. I had pictures to post and then Joshua's mom went into labor and had a beautiful baby girl -- Madelyn. So, we were busy visiting and helping with Joshua and I never got around to posting pumpkin carving pictures. I do have pictures of Madelyn to post, though.

We finally got our new shed so we can clean up all of the stuff in our yard. The kids were beyond excited to watch it be delivered and set up.

I, of course, took pictures and it was kind of cute to me to turn around and see that Sarah had run into the house to get her camera so she could take some pictures.

So, we both took pictures of the truck unloading the shed.

The next day I was out picking up some things at the mall and was gone for a couple of hours. When I pulled into the driveway this is what I saw -- Bethany on the porch of the shed -- rocking chair, blanket, and even an extra blanket to keep warm. I think she thinks it is her new playhouse -- it is not.