It's almost here!

Christmas is coming. We've been enjoying some:

craft time

 cookie time

 investigating time

 marshmallow roasting time

12 Days of Catch-Up: Pre-Halloween fun

Mid-October found Joe traveling to Honduras for a mission trip, my mom in Jamaica planning a mission trip, and my dad and I holding down the fort here. 

Sadie convinced Papa to paint hands - her favorite activity of the moment!

 When my mom came back, Sadie thought she needed to do her hair.

 Then we headed to Cedar Falls (since Joe was still gone and the kids were off school). We fit in a lunch with the cousins and a night of Granny Camp with Joe's mom.

 Then before we headed home we went to an open house at Anna's papa's vet clinic for the trifecta of kids' activities: face (or hand) painting, balloon animals, and kittens to pet!

 Then back to Anna's house for some Guess Who in the kids' clubhouse.

 We had a little pre-Halloween party with Anna and Ethan and Ella (another high school friend's little girl).

12 Days of Catch-Up: Craft time with the neighbors

12 days of Catch-Up: Watching Over You

12 Days of Catch-Up: FRC picnic

The adoption agency we used with Sam has a picnic each fall. This is our second year of attending - here are a few pictures.

12 Days of Catch-Up: Arboretum with Z

One of our favorite places to go in the Chicago area is the Morton Arboretum. We are even lucky enough to have friends with a season pass to get us in free. We spent a day right before school started there with Zara and Shaan (and their mom, too.)

The bigs kids had an awesome time. (Shaan was good too - just hard to say whether or not a few-month-old baby had a good time. :)

We started the day playing the rocks while Shaan was fed.

 Then off to hunt for tadpoles....or frogs.....or whatever they were at that time.

 And then on to climbing in the treehouses....

 ....followed by rock arranging in the stream.

 Sam led the way most of the time.

 Time for some sliding fun - Sadie seemed to prefer the middle path to the actual slide.

 They were supposedly all going to smile at me.

 The end of the day: back where we started. This time the big kids got an ice cream snack while Shaan was being changed. They couldn't eat it fast enough - they all just wanted to be back playing in the rocks again.

12 Days of Catch-Up: Korean Camp

The kids and I had our first experience with Korean Camp this year.

This is the group shot of all the campers.

 Sadie hung out with this set of little boys - next year she'll be old enough for classes too!

12 Days of Catch-Up: More time in Cedar Falls

After the cabin the kids and I headed to Cedar Falls (Joe had to go back to work) for a few days before we headed to Des Moines for Korean Camp. We played with Anna and Ethan some more, helped them move into their new house, and the kids enjoyed time with my parents (while I was helping Jen pack) and Joe's parents (while my parents and I were helping Jen move) for the first installment of "Granny Camp." (which I have no pictures of on my camera - because I wasn't there - yay!) We also got to see Amanda and Tim briefly as they arrived from Hawaii the morning we left for Des Moines.

Some snippets of those few days:

This is the reason my daughter now insists on leveling off flour with a knife every time we make cookies, as well as being allowed to scoop her own cookies onto the cookie sheet. 

An impressively quiet performance from these two....

 The Kids' Clubhouse in Anna and Ethan's new house - the kids spent lots of time bringing in special toys and organizing it.

 A quick visit with Amanda and Tim (Sam seems to be the only one who didn't get the message to wear a tank top!)