So Many Blessings!

Our church hosted a fellowship the other night for adoptive families in our county. There wasn't an agenda, nothing planned ... just ice cream, toppings and cookies. Plenty of room and time for the kiddos to play with one another which gave the adults chit chat time. What a wonderful, wonderful evening catching up with everyone.

It's funny how it hits you sometimes. Especially when you see them all sitting together, but really - look at all these blessings. From time to time you cross paths with people who like to point out how blessed the kids are. Well, I'm here to tell you - it's all of us parents who are the recipients of the blessings! Our lives are forever changed for the better and our hearts just full of love and pride of our little ones.

What a wonderful and loving God we serve to bless our lives in the way he does. One little pint sized hug and kiss at a time.

First vs 1st

In honor of the story I shared about Ryan in my last post ... my techno/geeko friend-y-o made this. Oh my, I can't quit laughing! Poor little Ryan.

Here's the story if you missed the last post.

He is a lost soul when it comes to navigating, knowing what is where or even really knowing what town we're in sometimes so I have been trying to work with him on these things. We were downtown Louisville not too long ago and I was explaining how numbered streets ran one way and named streets the other. Downtown also has several one way streets so we were doing some backtracking to get around to where we needed to go. I turned on my blinker as we neared "First" and Ryan says "no, no - that's not where you want to turn" and goes on to say that the next street is probably going to be "One S T". He was phonetically saying "1st". This is coming from a straight A student who is also in the gifted and talented program at school. Needless to say, I think we may need to keep working on that area of study.

Saturday Samplings & Oddities

It's been a slow week for blog worthy material in the Hunter household. We even had a few nights at home this week, a real oddity for this 'on the go' family.

First, Emma had a school project where she had to disguise a turkey. Here's what we came up with. A bikini-clad turkey headed to St. Tropez!



Now for the sampling part.

Emma - I made the dire mistake of calling her a "happenin' chick" one day when I had her dressed in a little argyle sweater, denim skirt and some funky leggings. Apparently when she got to school and the teacher made a comment about her outfit she told the teacher that she is a "happenin' chick" which made the teacher laugh and subsequently Emma now likes to use that term fairly often. Except the other day she inadvertently called herself a "Hippenin' chack". We were rolling!

Ryan - He is a lost soul when it comes to navigating, knowing what is where or even really knowing what town we're in sometimes so I have been trying to work with him on these things. We were downtown Louisville not too long ago and I was explaining how numbered streets ran one way and named streets the other. Downtown also has several one way streets so we were doing some backtracking to get around to where we needed to go. I turned on my blinker as we neared "First" and Ryan says "no, no - that's not where you want to turn" and goes on to say that the next street is probably going to be "One S T". He was phonetically saying "1st". This is coming from a straight A student who is also in the gifted and talented program at school. Needless to say, I think we may need to keep working on that area of study.

Rebecca - I turned the mirror down to watch her in the van the other morning as she held a little toy hotdog up as a microphone, holding her other little arm up in the air and was singing very loudly a song she's made up about how much she loves Jesus. She's such a sweet little baby girl!

Feelings and Frowns to Share on Friday

I'll leave you with this picture thought for the weekend. This was taken right before we were leaving to come home from our little trip to Madison, IN. We had told the girls it was time to go, but I wanted just one more shot of them playing in the leaves. This was the best I could get. Ya' think maybe they weren't ready to go home?

Have a nice weekend!

Special Time

I just love being able to spend one on one time with my children, but that seems to not happen nearly as much as I would like nor as much as they would like. We are always on the go with various sports, church activities, school things, gymnastics, etc. Besides the fact that it's just plain ol' hard to be able to carve out such time for 3 little souls. So, with that said - in my inbox this morning was an email listing upcoming events and one in particular caught my eye - JIGU! THUNDER DRUMS OF CHINA. The problem though is that it is TONIGHT! I'm still trying to figure out how I've missed this coming to town. I sent Brian an IM and asked him if he would like to take Ryan since the time frame is too late to have the girls out on a school night. My sweet, kind, caring and loving better half suggested he take the girls to gymnastics and that I have some one on one time with Ryan! So, tickets are in hand and plans are made. Date night for me and the little guy!!! And even better - it's going to be a complete surprise!

My Little Monkey

I just love watching my little monkey on the monkey bars! There's just no way I could swing across the monkey bars like it's no big deal wand smile at the same time.

Clifty Falls, IN

We spent our last day in Madison discovering the Clifty Falls area. It's soooo pretty! I can't believe we've lived within an hour of this place for the last 8 years and had never heard of it. We will most certainly be going back there for another weekend getaway. Not sure how many miles of trails there are, but there were quite a few. Some were more rugged than others, but every trail we went on was beautiful. We saw 4 different water falls too - very pretty. I'm so out of shape though and my legs were a major kind of sore for several days after we got back!



A very rare picture with all of us ... I prefer having my hind-end on the other side of the camera!

We stopped at this creek and the kids just played and played. It really is true that just some running water, a stick or two and a bunch of leaves can keep kiddos occupied for a long time!