The Week in Review & One Week to Go

Wow! The last seven days have seemed like a whirlwind! Last Saturday night, Mom, Natalie, and I headed out to the Ordinary Hero event. Ordinary Hero paired up with churches and other local groups to stuff 700 stockings for children in need in the middle Tennessee area. It was so much fun. Each person went down the row and picked up one item from each basket and stuffed it into a stocking. Then, they handed it to the person at the end who stapled it together. The stuffing was done in no time flat--30 minutes or less I think. It was amazing! Then, afterward we had a potluck dinner. Each person brought something and man was it YUMMO!

Here's a pic of Natalie with a full stocking and Natalie, Me, and Mom

I met a family there who is getting a little boy from the same orphanage that Justus is coming from. They are probably roommates and good friends. I also talked to several other adoptive mamas.

On Sunday, our old neighbors dropped by. Natalie went to play at their new house and then we got to go visit at their house for a little bit. So thankful for them.

I also had the grandiose idea to take the family over to Oakland's Mansion to get a few snapshots of the kids in the leaves. I got inspired by all these pics of people on their beautiful blogs and wanted to save some money, so I thought I'd take some myself......only the kids thought it would be great to throw leaves at each other and climb trees, so what I had envisioned and what went down weren't the same thing, but I got some good pictures nonetheless.

On Monday, Spencer and I did math for over an hour and a half.....I had a crash course in 6th grade math as I helped him learn how to correct his benchmark. When I say I almost lost my mind....really I did... Thank God the email on Tuesday afternoon from his teacher said, "No Homework". Thank you God. You do really love me.

On Tuesday, we had our "preparing for our first visit" call with our education coordinator at AGCI. That all went well. I was thankful for the refresher.

On Wednesday, my brother, sister-in-law, and nieces came in from Texas. We had a great time bowling at the bowling alley. I love them and miss them so very much and can't wait for them to come each year. My brother's girls are the same age as my two with the exception being the oldest. She is 15.  Here's a picture of us all.

Thanksgiving morning, as soon as my brother got here, we headed to MTSU for the BoroDash. The weather was great for running. At the beginning of the week, the weather was supposed to be 47 and rainy for Thanksgiving morning. However, it ended up being near 70 degrees with wind. It was fantastic. We were so thankful!!

Here's some pics of Spencer, Joe, and Trevis before the race. Spencer is with one of his friends from his cross country team.

This is during the race right before the finish line.....It was a 4 mile race.

After the race:

I was so proud of Spencer, Trevis, and Joe. They did a great job! Joe and I have talked about our whole families doing it next year.....uh oh....That would be me too. Guess I better get to training. Thank goodness it is a run/walk......

Thanksgiving continued with more YUMMY food at our house followed by a board game. Every year we play a group board game and this year the game, "QUELF" came highly recommended so I went to the store and got it. I must say....we laughed and laughed and laughed. I would show you pics but some of the family might wring my neck-haha!

I'll leave you with one last pic of all 5 cousins together. They all had such a great time playing together.

I am truly thankful for our family and friends. I am thankful we will have another child in the "cousins" picture next year. I'm thankful for good food, laughs, fun, a home that all of us can gather in, air conditioning when it got too hot, and that God called us to pursue a little boy 1/2 the way around the world.

I can't believe we are leaving in one week to see our new son!! I ran around today gathering medicines from the Dollar Tree for our trip, a rolling duffel from Kohls 75% off-oh yeah, and a thing you hang around your neck that holds ID's, passports, tickets, and moula.

Donations are beginning to roll in and I'm packing and folding as they do. Thanks to all of you in bloggy land who are praying for us. We are thankful for you!

With Much Love,