National Adoption Month

Among many other things, November is National Adoption Month.
For the fourth straight year, in honor of November being National Adoption Awareness Month, Portrait of an Adoption is running a special series called 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days. Designed to give a voice to the many different perspectives of adoption, this series will feature guest posts by adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, waiting adoptive parents, and foster parents-turned-adoptive parents. Painful and beautiful, these stories will bring you a deeper understanding of what adoption looks like, allowing you to appreciate the many brushstrokes that comprise a family portrait. (copied from their site)http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2014-30-adoption-portraits/
I have read through a few of the stories and love this one written by an adoptee.  
http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2014/11/i-was-never-bothered-by-questions-about-my-adoption-it-was-just-my-story/
My favorite quote from her story is "Is adoption all black and white?  No.  There is so much gray.  But am I Happy? Grateful? Thankful?  Yes, I am.  Because, though many parts of adoption can be bittersweet what I have known in my life is LOVE."

I look forward to adoption being part of our child(ren)'s story. " A story I don’t ever remember not knowing"

Crazy, Busy, Fun Weekend / Halloween Parties

This is the story of Julie's crazy, busy fun weekend. In primary at church the kids have been practicing their songs and speaking parts to prepare for our sacrament meeting presentation where we show the rest of the ward what we have been learning in primary. The presentation is coming up and we have one final practice on Saturday before the main event. We decided to reward the kids with a treat of "dirt cups" (pudding with crushed Oreos and gummy worms) to celebrate getting the bugs out of the songs. So Friday night Julie and Ray made dirt cups.

Saturday morning is the final practice and decisions made for the presentation. It went pretty well and the kids enjoyed the treat. Saturday evening is the church Halloween party that we were asked to bring cut up apples as part of the dinner. Thanks to some neighbor boys for picking a big box of apples for us we didn't have to worry about getting them just cutting them. (this required some research of how to keep cut apples from turning brown. Thanks Pinterest!) We also volunteered to take a pot of chili to the party. So after the presentation practice Julie finished up some details on our Halloween costumes, made some chili, made peanut butter cookies, and started cutting apples. The trick is to put the cut apples directly into a big bowl of water with a little bit of lemon juice, when the bowl got full we put the apples into zip-lock bags and put them in the fridge. Our niece Kaitlynn was there to help and when Ray got home from work we were an apple cutting/bagging machine. 

The Halloween party was fun. Julie and Kaitlynn helped out with some games for the kids and Kaitlynn ended up with a bowl full of candy from the trick-or-treating parade. 

Sunday is the big day we have been preparing for. The kids are excited and leaders are nervous. The best parts of the presentation were that the kids wrote their own speaking parts and the special musical numbers involving sibling groups. The spirit was so strong and I was so proud of my primary kids! And because of the excitement and nervousness we decided as a presidency not to try to teach a lesson during primary and have a movie & cookie party instead (thus the peanut butter cookies mentioned earlier).

Sunday evening is the family Halloween party at Ray's parents home. Julie was asked to bring donuts, invite her sister Jennifer and Kaitlynn and plan some games. Where am I going to find time to plan games? So sometime last week Julie calls her sister, 

Julie: What are you doing Sunday evening?

Jennifer: I have to work until 6.

Julie: Dang it!

Jennifer: Why?

Julie: Because I was going to ask if you could plan some Halloween party games for Ray's family party Sunday.

Jennifer: Why is this my problem?

Julie: Well you and Kaitlynn are invited...

Jennifer: Oh! well you could have told me that first.

Julie: Right, I will still take Kaitlynn if you can't come.

Jennifer: I can see if I can change my schedule so we can go.

Julie: Yay! Thanks!

So Jennifer planned some games and changed her schedule so they could come to the party!

 

Julie as the Queen of Hearts and Ray as the Mad Hatter

Our nieces and Nephews.
A pirate, Pikachu, teenager and baby no costume, a Newsie,
 Elsa and Anna from "Frozen", a Grannie,
a Butterfly (forgot wings) and Sacajawea 

 We all had a lot of fun with the games and costumes. The indoor trick-or-treat is always a big hit at grandma's house on Halloween.
I am so glad everything turned out well and thankful for the people that helped me get my crazy, busy, fun to-do list done.