My First Blog Giveaway!! ~Celebrating Adoption~ *****UPDATE*******

****Just a reminder that tomorrow, December 1st, will be the raffle for this beautiful book. Just leave me a comment and let me know if you would like to enter!!!!!*********
I'm very excited to announce my very first blog giveaway!!! In honor of November being "National Adoption Awareness Month" I will be raffling off a copy of this very beautiful children's book"Mother Bridge of Love" As an adoptive Mom I was so very touched by this book and I would love to share it with others. Adoption has changed my life in ways I never could have dreamed possible. I am so blessed to have experienced this miracle. Don't get me wrong, I love all 3 of my children equally and they are each my miracles. But the moment my daughter was placed in my arms through the miracle of adoption there was a place in my heart touched to the very depth of my soul that I never knew existed.


If you would like a chance to win this beautiful book please just leave me a comment saying so and I will enter your name in the giveaway. I would love to meet more of you that are stopping by!:) I will keep this open until Monday December 1st and then I will let Faith draw the lucky winner!
I will be taking a break from blogging until then. With the Reed and Faith home on their fall break my days are pretty busy and I have several projects I need to catch up on.
~Happy Thanksgiving~

Our Veterans Day.............

Yesterday Dean had off of school for Veterans Day so I decided to see if I'm going to attempt to have the dogs in the Christmas photo this year. I had everyone go outside to do some practice shots to see if the dogs would cooperate. It was pretty hilarious and it actually went better than I expected it. I'm hoping to take Christmas photos this week-end. I think I may just give it a try with Ruby and Pearl. I ended up really liking a few of these.........................

They gave Dale a half a day off yesterday which was really great. This was the first year they did this. His company normally always works on Veteran's Day. He works for an aviation support maintenance company and is in charge of military sales and engineering for Navy and Coast Guard. He is the only retired military employee there. His supervisor came into his office on Monday and said why don't you take half of a day off tomorrow for Veteran's Day. The rest of the office still had to work so I think he felt pretty special:)!
We took the kids out to lunch at our favorite local Italian restaurant and then to see the new Madagascar movie. It was pretty cute, but we all agreed we liked the first one better! It was nice having a week day off and spending a nice family day together with our favorite Veteran!

Faith's new frock................

Look at this adorable dress for Faith that I ordered from Daleea! I just love it! Her work is beautiful and I just love this print. It came in the mail right on my birthday so it was an even extra special day! Faith usually does not like dresses, but she did not mind trying this one on. I think because it is so comfortable and roomy. (I also told her she could keep her capri jeans on underneath;) I was just going to have her try the dress on (I wasn't planning on taking photos) but just couldn't resist taking a few............................

We love it Daleea! Thank you! This may just be her dress to get Christmas photos in!

I had a great birthday on Thursday with just the family. I helped Faith bake my birthday cake;) It was yummy! The kids and I spent the afternoon at Chuckee Cheese! Yes Chuckee Cheese! lol Dale got teased at work about this one. They all said how could you let your wife spend her birthday at Chuckee Cheese! I had been promising Reed and Faith I would take them for their fall break and on Thursday Dean got out of school early so I thought what would be better than spending my birthday at Chuckee Cheese!;) wink Faith was so cute because she kept saying "Yeah, we're going to Chuckee Cheese for Mommy's birthday party."
That evening Dale had it arranged for me to go for a facial, hand, and foot message. Very nice! And much needed after a day at Chuckee Cheese! The kids made me hand made cards (even Faith did all the writing in hers and talk about emotional. I can't believe she is writing now!) and Dale gave me a beautiful bracelet he got while in Hawaii.
I decided to stay up late since it was my birthday and watched the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" (starring Sidney Poitier) I love this movie. Reed was so sweet...... he stayed up with me to watch it. He was so tired and fighting to stay awake but insisted on staying up with me. He said he wanted to watch the movie with me since it was my birthday. He can act so tough, but he is so sensitive:)

Oh OKay....I'll Play!! Better late than never!

I am SOOOO behind!
I was tagged by Shanna at One Big Crazy Family over a week ago (I know, I know, I am slow!) and Ramona at The Ridlon Room
about a month ago (Okay, I am really slow!) I was going to just pretend I was never tagged (thanks a lot girls, like I don't have anything better do be doing!;)lol But decided to be a trooper and play along! Seriously, it is nice to be thought of!!!:)
Okay, now 7 random OR weird facts about myself (Notice I say Okay a lot! That's one weird habit of mine!:) Only 7, I have a lot of weird ones, but not sure if I want to share them here!;)
Hmmmmmm, here it goes:

1. My heart longs. longs. LONGS. to adopt again. I think about it all the time. We have decided our family is complete due to our ages and other reasons as well. My heart just does not want to come to grips with this! I need to do some soul searching!

2. Dale and I were engaged after only 6 months of knowing each other and that was having a long distance relationship! This past September we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary!!!!

3.When I was 5 months pregnant with Dean (our oldest) I came down with a really bad case of chicken pox. (my Mom was one of those over protective Mom's that never exposed us kids!) I got really sick and had to see an infectious disease dr. They were afraid of me getting pneumonia and I had to stay in bed hooked up to an iv for 10 days. They were also worried about the health of Dean and if my pregnancy would be ok. It was such an awful feeling being pregnant and having chicken pox. I remember being so miserable! I knew in my heart Dean would be just fine and 4 months later he was born healthy and strong.

4. I have to have a warm bath every night. I LOVE baths!! I'm a bath girl. I can't stand showers and only take them if I have to. (Dale seems to think this is all psychological because when I was 7 years old and taking a shower I fell and split my chin open. Had to be rushed to the emergency and get stitched up) I can't sleep well unless I have had my bath. I also have to sleep with heavy covers on me.

5. I have to start my mornings with a glass of sweet ice tea. I do not drink coffee so this is my caffeine fix to get me going! (It must be the Texan in me!)

6. I get claustrophobic very easily. I can't stand crowded places.

7. I can't see spending hundreds of dollars on purses, shoes, etc...... I just can't do it. I'd rather spend my money on taking trips and seeing places! I have a "gypsy" soul that has to travel!

And I have to add one more only because today is MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I know it's sad, I am playing tag on my birthday! heehee)

8. Today I turned 42!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was fun!
Okay (see, there I go again with the okay!) now I am suppose to pass this on to 7 others! I am so behind that I am sure most of the blogs I read have already been tagged, but I will try. Please don't feel obligated!!!
Tag!!! You are it.........
Joanne at China Princess (Joanne was one of my first blogs I started reading and I was hooked!)
Portia at Between you, me and the lamp post. (Portia and I met when stationed in England and they have 2 beautiful children from China. Her blog is hilarious and she always has me laughing!)
Shawn at the Tribe Grows ( I love Shawn's soul and when I am missing England visiting her blog is like going back)
Ellen at Three Motherlands One Loving Family (Ellen has such a gift for writing. She writes from her heart)
Paula at the Baby Journals (Paula's blog is private. I can not remember how I found Paula's blog but I am so happy I did. She is a busy Mom with 2 precious little ones under 2! I'm sure she is going to have so much time to play tagged!lol)
Beverly at Lefevre Times (This is also a private blog. Beverly and I were best friends through high school and she has an adorable little boy Noah that I love to hear all about! She is also an advocate for children with Down Syndrome)
Meredith at A Mother Singing. ( I just recently found her blog and her writing takes my breath away)

GO VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God Bless America!!!!!!!I am getting ready to go and cast my vote right now!!! With Reed and Faith off of school I will be bringing Faith along with me. Pleeeaaase let the lines not be too long!!!!:O

HAPPY HALLOWEEN........MEOW!!!!!!

Cat claws

Showing off her tail................

Okay, I'm ready to "trick or treat"!!!

Mommy "witch" with her little cat (this is Faith's scared of the witch face)

Trick or treat!

getting arrested by the police man

(I think my camera strap must have been in the way in this photo)
The monster crew! (Faith was so scared of the bloody face the boy was wearing on the right. She refused to go near him even to be in the photo)

Reed as a "body guard" (or that's what he says he is suppose to be)

Dean looking out for his little sister

This is so much fun!

such a trooper....she just wanted to keep going!

Checking out all her loot!

Wow! Look at all this candy!

Halloween was a success! It was a busy day full of fun starting with school parties and a costume parade. Faith was in her costume for most of the day only taking it off for only a couple of hours to take a much needed nap. The parade at school was so cute with the entire school marching around the track in their costumes. They played the song "It's a small world" while they marched around. I couldn't help but tear up as I watched taking it all in and knowing it was Reed's last year in elementary school and my baby girl already in Kindergarten! I will post some of the photos I took of Faith's class on her blog. (I'm not comfortable posting class pictures on here)

Trick or treating was lots of fun! Reed had 3 of his friends over and 2 of them also brought their younger siblings so we had quite the crew! I wasn't able to take as many photos as I wanted due to our being responsible for so many little monsters! Dean decided to go trick or treating too so that was a big help with the younger ones. Our culdesac is pretty quiet so we decided to just set our bowl of candy out so that both of us could go and enjoy the fun. Dale pulled the wagon around thinking we would need it for Faith eventually, but she never even used it. She wanted to keep walking the entire time. By the time we got home the wagon was full of candy, weapons and masks. Guess it came in handy after all!

Faith LOVED trick or treating! It was so much fun watching our little social girl going to all the houses. She would have conversations with everyone and we eventually told the boys to go on ahead of Faith because she would spend so much time at each house. lol! She would give everyone compliments. It was the cutest thing. She would say things like: "I like your house, it's so clean." or "I like your decorations, there so pretty." If she thought they were too scary she would let them know that too! She would even say to them "I'm a beautiful kitty-cat." Oh, we were laughing so hard. By the time she left each house she had them telling her "thank-you" because of all her compliments. She would wave and say "your welcome!" Even after 2 hours of being out she was still not ready to quit. The boys were actually ready to quit before she was! She just kept saying "I sure love this Halloween, isn't it great!" When we got home the boys spent an hour with their candy piles making trades.

Now we have WAY too much candy in this house! I'm getting lots of it together to give to "operation candy drop" to send to the troops.

Faith and Reed are off of school now for a whole month!! (Fall break)