Fall Break, Another Birthday and LOTS of pictures!

I love fall break.

I know they haven't been in school long but it is such a nice change of pace.

This was a our last year together for fall break(because someone has to go off to college next year) so we made it a good one!!

We started it off by heading to the mountain of SC for some apple picking and a fabulous lunch!

After returning home we celebrated Will's birthday with some gifts and a "homemade" cake!

 Also Blazen's birthday!

The next day we headed to my parent's house for the rest of the weekend.

We went to a Chili Cook-off and an arts/crafts festival in town.

We got back just in time to grill out and watch the UGA game.

Maybe the outcome of that game wasn't so good but to remedy that we built a fire and made smores!

The next day we headed to a horse farm that has 230 horses, a restaurant, bed and breakfast and riding trails.

We just walked around enjoying these amazing animals!

We then went to Rock Eagle for a picnic and some "hiking"

Back to the lake for some playing and another fire and a glass of wine!

Holding onto these times and making memories I will treasure forever made this a fabulous and too short weekend as I watched 4 of my 5 kiddos drive off to school this morning.

Now...when is Thanksgiving Break?????

Happy 9th Birthday Jaida!

September 27, little miss Jaida turned 9!

We celebrated her all weekend.

She had a few friends from school over on Saturday.

 Sunday we had our family celebration.

Presents and a rainy day spent putting together a few BIG Lego sets!

Dinner out and more cake when we got home.

Love celebrating out sweet girl.

We all love you so much Jaida Ruth.

What delight you bring to our family.

What a joy it is to be your Mom.

Happy 9th Birthday my beautiful baby!

May you always know how very loved you are!

Homecoming 2015

Homecoming was last weekend and all 5 of my kids got to participate.

This will be the only time this happens seeing that we have quite an age gap between the youngest and the oldest.

It was one of those moments us moms savor and hold in our hearts!

It was such a great night!

They start the day off with an All-School Picnic.

Upper school, middle school and lower school kids are all mixed together in groups.

The faculty grill hamburgers and hotdogs and the kids eat together, play games and then have a big pep rally in the gym.

 Senior Shirts

 Off they go...everybody was so excited!!!

Julia was elected to the Homecoming Court.

Everybody was ready for the game!

The boys play football for the school so they get to run out with the Varsity players at the start of the game.

The girls participated in the Littlest Cheerleaders and cheered with the Varsity Cheerleaders.

All ready for the big night!

 There goes Sam!

And there goes Xin!

Halftime and the Homecoming Court 2015

Cheering for the Cavaliers!

 They did such a great job and had so much fun!!!

Lulu shook those little hips and kept right up!

And we finished the night with a BIG victory!!!

Can't imagine doing anything else then enjoying life with these 5 little people!

There's something about this picture...

I know I have posted this picture on Instagram and Facebook and even on this blog.

But there is something about this picture that melts my heart.

It haunts me.....a good haunting.

It is quite simple really.

The name.

This little boy who once had no "family name" has one now.

It is proudly displayed on his back.

He belongs to us.

He belongs to a family.

And with a family comes life.

A life far different then the one he had the first 4 years.

While the 6 of us stood on the sidelines cheering him on, I had tears in my eyes.

Just a regular little boy playing football on a Friday night.

The hard beginning left far behind on the other side of the world.

God continues to remind me how He has blessed us through adoption.

This time simply... by a name on the back of a jersey.