Halloween 2012

Downtown Monument has Trick or Treating in all their cute little shops every Halloween!  Seriously loving this town more and more with each passing holiday!  So first we headed down there with our friends Caleb, Brooklyn, and Kinley.

Woody, Police Officer Mo, and Optimus Prime

Caleb, Jack, and Boston

Trick or Treating in the shops

Running from store to store

 Then we headed over to Andma's house.  She was so happy and excited, it was adorable to watch her with them.  Every time the doorbell rang, Jack would wait for her to get out of her chair and then walk her to the door and help her hand out candy. 

Jack and Daddy went out in Andma's neighborhood for Round 2 while the little boys snuggled up for cookies and Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin in "Andma's big bed".

 Moses thoroughly enjoyed his Halloween.  He loved going up to everyone saying Trick or Treat (Te, Te) and Thank You (Tank U).  I hope I keep that memory in my mind forever!

 Happy Halloween!!!

Picture Reel

Here are some pictures to catch you up on what we have done this month.

Andma told me that we could unpack all of our toys from storage and fill her basement with them!  The boys hadn't seen all their big trucks and barns in 6 months, they were ecstatic!

We celebrated Mama's 55th Birthday (or as Matt and the boys keep saying, "Double Nickels")!!

 We had a wonderful dinner at the Houle's House.  They have lots of girl toys. :)

After a 4 month break to heal and emotionally recover, I have returned to teaching!  This is my first day back with sweet Amiah!

 LG 65 has expanded!  The Hunter and Stewart families have joined our group.

 Pumpkin Carving 2012

Moses and Mama watching and listening to Taylor Swift videos together when he can't sleep 

I don't know why all of my boys inherently go grab a book when they are learning to go potty.

 Moses loves helping in the kitchen.  This is him tearing up spinach for our soup!

The boys have created this new game at Andma and our house.  They grab pillow cases, sit in them, and ride down the stairs! They laugh hysterically the whole time.

Well that's a little October update.  Happy Halloween!

Please tell me you have days like this...

Today was baking day!

FIRST, I forgot half of the ingredients I needed at the grocery store yesterday to make a meal for a family this week.  Therefore I had to go to the store at 8am this morning in the freezing cold with the little boys.
SECOND, I got home and prepared the kitchen for my morning session of baking.  I turned around to find Moses cracking the dozen eggs we had just bought at the store all over the floor!

Please tell me YOUR kitchen has looked like this at some point in your life.

THIRD, when I took a break because Boston and my song came on the radio (Honeybee by Blake Shelton) and we just HAD to dance, Moses brought this nice dirt pile in in for us with his shovel.

FOURTH, my sister Micki called me amidst it all and since we only get to talk like once every three months, I multitasked making my mom's birthday cake and two spaghetti pies at the same time as talking on the phone with her.  Of course, I lit the stove on fire and have an extra crispy German chocolate cake for my mom's birthday! 
FIFTH, when I poured the noodles into the strainer for the spaghetti pie, they were on top of a cup of coffee in the sink that overflowed and I am pretty sure got on the noodles.

 

SIXTH AND CUTEST:

Moses put noodles into the cake pans for me,

 Kindly spilled sugar all over the dining room table,

 and poured out all the baking soda to make a sand castle with.

Oh and I am pretty sure all he had for lunch was pepperoni, noodles, and cookie dough.

So the moral of the story is...I am not as good at multitasking as I think and I am really hoping that the Schwarz family likes spaghetti pie with half eaten pepperonis and noodles with a little hint of coffee in them.  However, I do have two spaghetti pies, two loaves of pumpkin bread, a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, one crispy German chocolate cake, and several good dancing sessions completed for the morning!

LG 65 Mission

After much prayer, the Lord has very clearly spoken to Life Group 65 and we are beginning our outreach ministry!!!  About 4 months ago, we all took a month to pray separately about how we could serve the community outside of our life group. We all came back together to discuss what the Lord had laid on our hearts and each of us had been given the same word...

ORPHAN

We then spent all summer praying about how to serve orphans and waiting for Him to give us clear direction. He has spoken!  We are "adopting" families who are fostering and adopting children.  We will be serving as a life group, kids and all, to help families who could use a hand preparing for the arrival of children who they are embracing into their homes!  We are so, so excited to help these amazing families who are following the calling that God has placed on their hearts and rescuing the Lord's children! 

Matty V and Josh helped Bob Schwarz put together bunk beds in the "boys dorm room".  In the next month this family will be welcoming two teenage boys from Tunisia into their home!

We have also adopted the Buchanan family.  They were actually the couple that God heavily laid on Ken's heart and in turn, laid on all our hearts to begin this ministry together.  We have spent the last week collecting items from friends and our storage unit (which I desperately wanted to clean out) to give to them for a fundraising garage sale they are having this Saturday.  If you have anything that you would like to donate, please let me know!  I would be more than happy to come pick it up from you to get to them before Saturday.  If not, go check out their sale this weekend!  It's at

4245 Sabin Court, Colorado Springs, CO 80920

  
Join with us to help the Buchanan's bring home their two little boys from Swaziland!  To read more about their adventure, go to www.thegoudalife.org

 Please be in prayer for both the Schwarz and Buchanan families.  I look forward to sharing with you the blessing that I know the Lord is going to bestow upon them for bringing these 4 boys into their families!

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. 

God places the lonely in families.

Psalms 68:5-6

Life with Boston

Life with Boston is always an adventure.  He is the most strong-willed and stubborn of all my children.  He is extremely particular and always speaks exactly what is on his mind.  Lately, if he can't get my attention by saying Mom, he is now calling me Tricia.  Yet he also has the sweetest spirit.  He insists on giving everyone in the family a hug and a kiss before they leave the house.  He loves to snuggle in bed or in our big chair, like he is right now! 
Laura and I went to Target yesterday to shop for bedding for the two boys who are getting ready to come live with them from Tunisia!  Boston's explanation to his dad of what we were doing was..."we are going to the store to go buy new sheets for Ms. Laura because the Schwarz boys sheets are really dirty and we need to buy them some new ones."  He also asked if we could play hide n seek in the store.  I said no, thinking only about the danger of that and honestly the fact that I just didn't want to.  However, my wise mentor and big sister Laura said, "If you aren't going to play now, you should definitely come back and do it sometime because it's a blast."  So thankful for a friend who breaks me out of my box every now and then and reminds me to have fun!  What preceded was ten minutes of hysterical laughter for all.

Boston hiding behind the pole, counting to 10, and then shouting "Ready or not, here I come!" at the top of his lungs!

The hunt to find us...

Boston explaining how our hiding place was not good enough and we should find a new one.

I love this picture!  This is him finding Laura! Every time he found one of us he would shout as loud as he could, "AAGGHHH, I FOUND YOU!"

First Snow of the Year

We collected some snow and set about to make a colorful snow mixture this morning!

This was Boston's creation.  Isn't it beautiful?!  We then drew pictures of rainbows and talked about the rainbow that God gave Noah!
So to sum up life with Boston, it's a blast!  Everyday is a new adventure and quite frankly, it has been fun to not make plans and just see what that adventure will be even if it's just snow and food coloring and watching Cars snuggled in the chair!  I love you little bird.

Some Books for your Reading Pleasure

I have found that I love when other people tell me about a good book rather than trying to find one myself! I have also found that I love it even more if they lend me that book or it takes two days to get to the Hold Shelf at the library!  Here are the books that I have read over the past few months and really enjoyed.

Laura let me borrow this book months ago.  At first, it was a little hard for me to get in to because missions has never been a calling on my life.  I highly support missions, it has just never been a passion the Lord has laid on my heart.  However, children have been and continue to be!  Matty V and I have talked about the possibility of adopting one day and praying about that in our future.  So once I got to the part about her adopting all of her children and her heart for each of them, I was hooked!  It didn't take me too long to finish after that!  The book was amazing and Katie's heart for the Lord is inspiring.  I have at least 3 quotes up on my Wall of Strength from this book.  I highly recommend it!

I waited and waited for this book to come out!  But then being the frugal girl that I am, I couldn't bring myself to spend the $18 it cost.  I was in Mardel right after we had lost John Marshall and I found it on the bargain bin for $3.  I knew right away that the Lord had put it there for me and I grabbed it!  I LOVED this book.  Now, I am a self-professed Bible nerd and love anything that has to do with studying God's Word and how it all weaves together.  My husband would tell you that whenever he asks me to help him on his homework I can't remember answers to anything about theology but I can always remember the stories!  The stories of the Bible and how they come together is like the ultimate Hallmark movie/fairy tale to me.  LOVE IT!  That is what this book was about; how the chapters from Genesis to Revelation fit perfectly together.  The one thing that has gotten me through the past couple months is my strong, unfailing belief that "God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called to His purpose." Reading this book, encouraged my heart and pressed that truth into my heart.

This one was counseling homework and I am still reading it.  It's very interesting though if you consider yourself an introvert in anyway.  I had actually never considered myself one until we started discussing it.  Did you know that you don't have to be a bookworm or want to spend time by yourself all the time to be an introvert?  You could just do things like "prefer one on one conversations to group activities, dislike small talk and prefer in depth conversations, not be a big risk-taker, like to celebrate your birthday on a small scale (I celebrated the big 30 with only my 3 sisters on a getaway my husband gave me), work best on your own, dislike conflict, often let calls go to voicemail."  Crazy how much that describes me and my husband!  The book is about embracing that part of your personality, honing into the strengths that personality has to offer, and famous people in history who have used those strengths to their advantage.  It has encouraged me in embracing who God has created me to be and respecting my husband (and 3 year old) for who God has created them to be as well.

 
Both of these books were given to me.  The first was given to me in this precious bag full of keepsakes at the hospital.  It took me a very long time to be able to pick it up but so far it has been the most helpful of the grief books given to me.  Honestly, it's hard when you miscarry or lose a baby to find a book that isn't completely depressing.  This book on the other hand validated the feelings I was having and where I was in my grieving process. 
The second was given to me by my future MIL, Debi.  This one was encouraging to me and gave me an easy read when life seemed a little overwhelming and I couldn't think about reading more than my Bible devotion for the day.  It is a book of short meditations for someone who is grieving.  Not every page applied to me, which made it even easier for me just to read the subject and skip the page if I didn't need to read it.  However, some pages hit me right where I was at!

I am currently finishing Quiet, reading through Empty Cradle, Broken Heart and excitingly waiting to read a new book that Laura C. let me borrow.  It's about heaven and I am a little obsessed with books about heaven, even more so now that I have two little boys wiating there for me!