SNOW!!!!!!!!!

The snow this year is definitely memorable!!! I have lived here my entire life and haven't seen this much snow and have it last this long. It never snows this much in our neck of the woods. This year for the first time on Christmas day there was snow falling from the sky and snow all over the ground. I love the snow!!! It is so beautiful and pure. Snow reminds me of the song that says...." sin has left a crimson stain, HE washed it white as snow" Thank you Jesus for your saving grace!!

The boys were so excited to see how much snow there was
Martin is holding a knife because he had to cut through the ice
so the yard stick would go to the ground for an accurate reading.
Just about 12" of snow. AMAZING!

Luke is holding a sheet of ice. It snowed and then we got
freezing rain and about 1/4" of ice and then more snow on top.
It is going to take quite a bit of time before this all melts.

This is the view from my kitchen window. I love to look
at the beautiful snow while I am cooking away in the kitchen.

This is the view from our front room window..oh so pretty!

Another view

Silly photos by Martin

There is NEVER a dull moment at my house! I love it that we have so much fun!

For the life of me I CANNOT do this!!

Crazy boys!

The boys took the camera and this is what I got when I downloaded some photos from the camera. I tried to figure out what it was at first then I realized they were simply falling face first into the floor...who wouldn't think that was fun....right??? I thought they did a good job of capturing the action!

The fall


The result

Again, the fall

Again, the result.

Christmas Caroling

Our homeschool group went to a care facility this year and sang Christmas carols to the residents. We also brought a craft the kids prepared the week before and had cookies to hand out to the residents too! It was fun and the residents really enjoyed it.

The boys practicing a bit before we left.

The group singing their hearts out.

The residents enjoying the singing and the visit

from the children.

Christmas tree fun

The wonderful things about having a fake tree is you can set it up whenever you want. It is a bummer we can't go and have the whole tree cutting experience, but I have 2 members of the family allergic to Christmas trees :-( Martin is one of them. This way he is able to help decorate the tree. The boys were old enough this year to put the entire tree together and decorate it will just a little help. Iput on the lights with the help of Luke and Darin put the star on top....I couldn't reach! The boys did a great job.

Excited to put the tree up.


taking a rest since he wasn't tall enough to do the top branches

Let the decorating begin

They needed a bit of help putting the decoration up high.

The boys told me where they wanted me to hang them and

I put them up for them.

Darin had to put the star on top.

CAN'T WRAP THIS!

This video made me laugh!! There are so many gifts out there that are nearly impossible to wrap. I for one am thankful for gift bags!! The pants crack me up and I love the back-up dancers shoes too! Enjoy :-)

BOYS AND TOILETS

(this is a stock photo, not from my bathroom, but this gives you a good visual to the below event)

This morning at 8:20 a.m. I hear my boys laughing hysterically. I go to see what is going on. In the bathroom I find my two boys by the toilet. They had taken the end of the toilet paper roll and put it in the toilet and flushed the toilet and watched as the toilet paper roll spun out of control as the toilet water sucked it down the drain. After half the roll was gone I informed them that that could very well cause a major clog and lets not do it anymore. They laughed and said, "but Mom, it's SO AWESOME!!!!" Boys will be boys :-)

I really enjoyed this video. I am still in shock that several people lost their lives on Black Friday so desperate to obtain the "best deal", "the must have present"....how very sad that a material item was more important than a human life.
This video gives a very powerful message.

MARTIN TURNS 10 YEARS OLD

We celebrated our son's 10th birthday the first weekend in November. Of course, the party was a skating party. This boy LOVES to skate. I can't believe Martin is already 10. The years go by so fast!! Martin says to me on his birthday "Hey mom, I'm an entire decade old!" Yikes, put that way it REALLY sounds old. Happy birthday son, we love you!!



Spinning the Birthday Wheel - Won an extra-large Icee!
As if there wasn't enough sugar at this party.


The monkey race game. Martin is on the right side
of the photo in the lead. He plays this game any chance
he gets.

12 kids at a skate party is quite the
experience!

Blowing out the 10 candles on the birthday donut.

Martin was allowed to light his own candles this year

and was pretty EXCITED about it!

11 MONTHS

Today makes the 11 month marker of our adoption process. I can't believe it has already been that long. It is strange at times to think that one day we will finally have a little girl running around our home. I often think of how different situations will play out. We sit at the dinner table and imagine the high chair that will be holding our little girl, going out to a restaurant and knowing someday we will ask for a table of 5 not 4, knowing that there will be 3 kids in the back seat of our car, instead of just 2, and on and on it goes. I know in my heart that our daughter will come when the time is right, but to be honest there are times when I wonder if it will ever really happen.

I have been having a VERY difficult time waiting lately. This is a problem, because I don't even have a referral yet! When I actually have a photo of my little princess I know that the wait will just be that much harder. At the moment I am very frustrated with getting the approval of our I-800A form. It has been 5 months since we sent in our paperwork, we have been fingerprinted in August, and still no approval. I have spent countless hours on the phone and have sent countless emails and am growing weary. It is frustrating when you always get a different answer to your questions. At this point it appears that there might be a light at the end of this very long and dark tunnel. I want so badly to control things, but know there is only so much I can do. I know I need to get used to the waiting and all the snags along the way, but it is so hard when our baby girl is on the other end of this enormous amount of paperwork.

At this point all I can say is (sing the below to the song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth"

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
IS MY I-800A,
MY I-800A,
MY I-800A

GEE, IF I COULD ONLY HAVE
MY I-800A
THEN I COULD WISH YOU
"MERRY CHRISTMAS"

I WILL and DO wish you all a Merry Christmas even if it doesn't come.

FREE RICE GAME

I found this website a few months back and love it! You play a game of math, vocabulary, art, geography, etc. and for each correct answer you choose, 20 grains of rice is donated to feed the hungry. I have really enjoyed adding this into our homeschool days. It is a great and fun way to help improve, review, and learn different subjects, while allowing my children to take part in helping the millions of hungry people around the world. If you want to keep your brain sharp, have fun, and feed the hungry all at the same time check out www.freerice.com

DARIN LAUNCHES HIS WEBSITE

Please check out my husbands photography website at www.pfeifferimages.com. If you are in need of a photographer, please direct people to his website or contact him at darin@pfeifferimages.com

PUMPKINS

As you can see I am about a month behind in my blog posts.

Martin was really into the guts this year,
because he wanted his pumpkin to be
pucking this year....only boys think this stuff is cool!

Finished pumpkin #1.

Finished pumpkin #2, minus the puke

Adding the puke...this was the highlight

of the night.

So I put a light in Luke's pumpkin and went

into the house to get a brighter candle and one to light

the other pumpkin. Meanwhile, Luke had gotten this chair from

inside the house and this is what I see when I come back outside.

I ask him, "What are you doing?" He says "Oh, just sitting here enjoying

my pumpkin" I just said "Okay" and smiled!

NEW FALL DECOR

With all the beautiful leaves falling from the trees I decided that we should gather them up and make a much needed fall wall hanging for our home. We took several walks and collected some great leaves. I am very happy with what my boys designed and am proud to hang it on my wall for all to see :-)

The planning stage.

The assembly begins.

The BEAUTIFUL finished product. I tried to take the
picture with it hanging on the wall, but the flash from
the camera kept covering up the design.

VOLCANO FUN

For school the boys and I built a volcano. We used paper plates to make the shape we wanted then used paper meche to make it sturdy. After several days of drying it was time to have the volcano erupt. The boys were pretty excited. I am happy that it actually worked!

I love the look on Luke's face as he steps back

afer dumping the solution inside the volcano.

HOLIDAY MAIL FOR HEROES

This is a GREAT way to bless our service men and women this holiday season. It is so difficult to be away from your family during the holidays. For those who faithfully fight for our country they need to be encouraged, thanked and remembered. You can get all the details at http://www.redcross.org/email/saf/. Cards need to be postmarked by December 10, 2008. Happy card making :-)

CHEAP FAMILY FUN

Tonight we created a fun new game. We had a couple packages of of glow sticks purchased from the Dollar Tree Store (hence the cheap fun) and we were playing with them in the dark. My arms were getting tired from swinging them around so I tried to think of other things we could do. I came up with the ring toss game, but in the dark. To play, use the connectors that come in the glow stick packages and connect the sticks together to make several rings. Take one glow stick and stand it up inside of a narrow glass vase. Toss the rings towards the vase and try to get the rings around the vase. We had a blast playing this for at least a half hour. It is much harder then you think when you are playing in the pitch black and the rings are flexible. Have fun if you give this game a try.

POR LOS CHICOS

Here is a website I found some time ago that helps feed the children of Argentina. All you do is go to http://www.porloschicos.com/PorLosChicos.NET/index_english.htm and click on the smile face. This simple click of your mouse provides a ration of food for a child who is hungry. The sponsors that are listed will fund the ration of food given to the children. There is absolutely NO cost to you. So save this website to your favorites and click on it daily as a small effort to help with the overwhelming hunger in the world. These precious faces will be happy that you did :-)

DARIN RUNS A 50K (31 MILES) !!!!!

For about 2 years Darin has talked about wanting to run the entire Wild Wood Trail in Forest Park. On October 10, 2008 he officially accomplished his goal. We are SO proud of him. He finished in 6 hours!!! I can't imagine running for even 15 minutes much less 6 hours. The boys and I were his support crew for the day. Our first meeting point was at the 16 mile mark. We had to hike in 1 mile so we gathered leaves for an art project we had planned and looked at God's beautiful creations along the way. Our next meeting point was at the mile 25 mark. This was quick stop...no time for pictures. Then the finish. Unfortunately I couldn't find the mile marker for the finish so we were not there to see him come to the very end.....we were so bummed and don't have any photo finish pics :-( When we got home I gave him his 1st place metal for finishing his race. Great job honey, you are amazing!!!!

Darin wearing his 1st place metal after 6 hours of running. I think he looks GREAT!

A quick photo opt for memory sake at mile 16.

Refilling fluids and grabbing more fuel from his support crew at mile 16!

Here are just some of the beautiful leaves we found on our hike into mile 16.

The boys waiting for dad to come down the trail. These rails are here to keep bikes off the trail. They sure make good swinging bars :-)

Field Trips

Our homeschool group had a full day of field trips a few weeks back. We started out at Bob's Red Mill in Milwaukie, then had lunch at Bob's Red Mill Deli and Market, then went over to The End of the Oregon Trail in Oregon City.

The boy's didn't enjoy the tour of Bob's Red Mill as much as I did, but loved having lunch at the deli down the road after. If you take the FREE tour,they give you a free sample and a coupon to use at the Deli. It was fun to see where the flour I buy is produced.


Here are the boys inside Bob's Red Mill tour area.

Having a delicious lunch. The portion sizes are large and very good! They also have all the Bob's Red Mill products available for purchase in the market area.

Standing outside of Bob's Red Mill Market

In the below post are photos from The End of the Oregon Trail part of the field trip. I highly recommend this trip. It is very informative and very well done.