Pumpkin Patch

Wee took a quick trip up to Fort Collins. They have a big pumpkin patch that I wanted to go to. The kids at a fun time there, but it wasn't anything like the one we go to in Oregon.
We stayed at a hotel for a night. Mostly the kids just wanted to swim. Chase can now swim and the twins are so close.

I didn't get a good picture of Jess

Chase has to wear goggles he thinks that is why he floats:)


Jess wanted to wear the towel the way I do!This is inside the hotel room. Zack wanted to sleep inside the little closet.
The pumpkin patch





Riding on a hay ride. Too bad it was really straw.




We had a fun weekend. We ended it off with watch the new movie Astro boy. They all got scared during the movie.

HALLOWEEN

Okay finally I have halloween pictures. I was really afraid that it was going to be a very cold night, but it was just fine. We had so much snow the first of that week with school canceled for 3 days. Sadly Chase missed his school party.
The kids just had to walk over all the snow piles. Their feet were wet when we got home, but other than that they were warm.

The morning of Halloween we went to the rec center for some early trick or treating. We went with our neighbors. The kids had a lot of fun together and they got lots and lots of candy.




Here is the group before we went out for the night trick or treating.

Some good smoke! The kids were a little scared going up to the door.
This was our ward party that we had the day before Halloween. This is the parade of kids.

National Adoption Month

This month is National Adoption Month!

I was looking at a friend's blog about adoption and she encouraged us to share our feelings, blessings and testimony about adoption.

Sadly some people don't know that our son Zachary is adopted. Even though that wasn't what we had planned to do to start our family, it was such a wonderful experience. The waiting and wondering wasn't fun, but once we were chosen it has been a growing spiritual experience for Rob and I.

When Zack was 3 we got on the adoption list again. After a year of being on the waiting list we were given an opportunity to do IFV. I was content with adopting all of our kids, but the Lord had other plans for our family. After I gave birth to Chase I didn't feel more like a mom than I did after getting Zack. I have a special place in my heart for Zack (there are more than one reason for this also). He was my first child and made me a mom:) Sadly when we adopted we were in a semi-open adoption. We met his birth mom and wrote letters for the 1st 5 years, but haven't heard from her in almost 5 years now. At first I was glad to be done with communicating with her. I wanted to be his only mom, but now that time has past I am okay with sharing more about Zack with her. He has brought so many blessings to our family.

As I look back at how our family grew, I definitely wouldn't have chosen this path. It was a long and hard path, but now that I have my children I know that it was supposed to happen that way. I did grow in many ways and I have wonderful kids. I received many blessings in the past 10 years! I am so grateful for adoption. It is a wonderful blessing in my life!