Madame Alexander Ornament - Little Women Collection - Meg March
Madame Alexander Ornament - Little Women Collection - Jo March
Madame Alexander Ornament - Little Women Collection - Beth March
Madame Alexander Ornament - Little Women Collection - Amy March
Winter Snoopy
I LOVE LUCY!!!
What tree would be complete without a Santa?
One of our puppies from Hallmark's Puppy Collection
Our cozy, Christmas-y living room
JOY - a sweet reminder to live life focused on Jesus, Others, Yourself, in that order.
Not scripted or posed AT ALL... yeah right. lol
Little Bear and Princess decorating the tree.
Pretty sure he is the cutest santa I've ever met. He's powerful, too. The other day I had teasingly told him that he was going to wind up on Santa's naughty list. He proceeded to tell me that he would not, that he was "in charge of the naughty list".
This weekend was Peanut's birthday party at the local Extreme Sports complex. He had invited a group of his friends and was so excited to have his very first "kids party". The little stinker was also under the impression that since he was having another birthday party this month, it meant that he was another year older and therefore was now 7 years old. Silly boy, don't you know I simply won't let you grow up that fast?
Anyway, Peanut had so much fun playing with his friends Collin, David, Christine, Nicole, Colton, Lucas, Ross, and Little Bear. All of the kids had a blast playing on the jungle gym equipment, the large bounce houses and blow-up slides, the trampolines and bounce basket ball court.
See, Peanut? The candle says that you are 6, not 7.
They say they are best buddies
Such cute kiddoes
Yep, girls just wanna have fun!
Go Little Bear, go!
They made a fort underneath one of the large trampolines while playing some sort of good guy-bad guy game. Stinkin' cute for certain.
It has been a rather slow, semi-death for my beloved little purple phone.
It started with an occasional glitch in sending and receiving text messages. Then, as time went by, it began to have an increasingly shorter battery life. Finally, this weekend, it decided to finally alert me of its ever-deteriorating state. Among other issues, it no longer held charge (as in, I would charge it overnight and then might get a two or three minute conversation out of it before it completely died on me). Additionally, when trying to send a text message, my screen would come on and turn off repeatedly without allowing me to turn my phone off at all, resulting in having to completely remove the phone's battery to get it to stop. Eerily of all, it would turn completely off but then mange to repeatedly play my "Low Battery" ringtone in its seemingly lifeless state. Anyway, after two plus years with my faithful little phone, I had to say good-bye.
After a trip to Verizon, it was out with the old and in with the blue. A new, shiny, peacock blue Intensity II, that is.
Not necessarily the highest-tech, top-of-the line that is available, but it is pretty darn cute and I really like the set-up, flow and functionality of this phone. Best of all? It is dependable and NO DATA PACKAGE REQUIRED!!!
At this very moment, I am surrounded by holiday goodness. Christmas music is playing in the background, cookies are in the oven, and as the scent of pumpkin and cinnamon fills the air, I am reminded of all the wonderful things that make the holiday seasons so, well, wonderful. Sparkling lights, trees laden with glistening ornaments that each bring countless memories of Christmas' past, heart-warming holiday movies, beloved Christmas music, the intoxicating smell of pumpkin, cinnamon, coffee, cocoa, pine and snow, yummy food at holiday dinners, spending time with family and friends, manger scenes that remind us of the true reason for all of our celebrations...
So, yes, I am very much in the holiday mood, despite that fact that it is still 70-some degrees outside and I do not yet have any holiday decorations put up (although I assure you I would if I had not been so busy this week.) Anyway, since I am in the holiday spirit and the holidays are about sharing, I thought that would share with you a recipe for oh-so-yummy White Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies. Just click on the recipe card to enlarge it.
Yes, that's right. November is National Adoption Awareness Month. It is a month set aside to raise awareness about the adoption of children and youth from foster care and orphanages in the United States and around the world. According to the United States child welfare website, there are more than 115,000 children and youth in foster care waiting for adoptive families in the United States alone. 115,000 children without "forever homes", 115,000 children waiting when just one child left waiting is too many.
The whole concept of adoption has a very special place in my heart as both of my brothers came into our family through the miracle of adoption, specifically, through foster care adoption. This month serves as a special-sweet reminder of how greatly my life has been enriched by adoption. It also reminds me of just how beautifully families formed by earthly adoptions reflect our relationships with our Heavenly Father.
We, because of sin, were dirty, poor and lonely, in need of care, provision and most importantly, love, and He, in all of His perfection, took us in. In an outpouring of His unending love for us, He washes us clean, He provides for our needs, and calls us HIS OWN. He looks at us not as some sort of second-class relative or as a stranger on the street, but as His beloved, His children. (Ephesians 1:4-6 New International Version - "4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.) In an act of adoption, we, who were deserving of nothing, become heirs to the Most High God, our Heavenly Father. We become part of the family of Christ.
Look at the faces of adoption and I think that you will get a little glimpse of Heaven and see a picture of God's family... People of various races, colors and cultures being brought together from across a city or across the world and joined to create a family. People, parents and children, from all different types of backgrounds, different walks of life and different kinds of suffering, joined together by love.
Adoption is a beautiful thing. It is a lovely, blessed and holy thing. I just don't think it was God's first intention for families. As wonderful and as beautiful as adoption is, it is still an event borne from suffering and tragedy.
Adoption is, in many ways, a "Plan B" sort of scenario. I believe that in a perfect world, God intended for families to remain intact, for men and women to marry before having children and for children to be raised in godly, loving, Christ-centered homes. But the fall of mankind changed all that God had intended.
Now, don't get me wrong. Under no circumstance to I believe that we serve a God who spends His time twiddling His holy thumbs simply trying to ward off the Deceiver's advances. No. I believe that we serve a God who is fully, completely, 110% in control and who completely conquered evil when He rolled the stone away from the grave on the the third day. I firmly believe that He is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-in-control, and that He has a plan and a purpose for each of our lives long before we are born. I also believe that He has given us the gift of free-will and as a result, we live in a fallen world where poverty, famine, societal shortcomings and disease leave shattered lives and broken families. On this side of Heaven until Christ's return, we can only accept God's grace and follow His example. This includes adoption, which becomes a redemptive human response to a human-caused tragedy.
Yes, we live in a fallen world where parents abuse their children, where drug addictions and alcoholism destroys lives and families, where poverty and famine results in the abandonment and/or deaths of countless children, where a lack of any type of personal support system results in abortions or child abandonments, where diseases and disasters leave children crippled or orphaned. We live in a world that should be able to dramatically reduce the number of necessary adoptions... End world hunger or help find the cure for AIDS and many adoptions will no longer occur. We are just not there yet, and we should not wash our hands of and ignore the tragedies that cause the need for adoption in the first place. The fact of the matter is that we live in a fallen world in desperate need of our Saviour's return. But until that time comes, tragedy will continue to strike and children will continue to need a second chance at a family. Our goal, as Christians, should be to help put an end to the need for adoption while at the same time opening our homes, our hearts and our lives to these beautiful little blessings that so desperately need families.
Contemporary Christian musician, Steven Curtis Chapman, and his family are wonderful advocates of adoption, having adopted three little girls themselves and having started an adoption assistance organization (Shaohannah's Hope) here in the U.S. and an orphan care facility (Maria's Big House of Hope) in China. Mr. Chapman has written a beautiful song, When Love Takes You In, about adoption. I love the song and couldn't close without including it on here. After clicking play, you may have to follow the link to YouTube to be able to view the video.
When Love Takes You In
I know you’ve heard the stories
But they all sound too good to be true
You’ve heard about a place called home
But there doesn’t seem to be one for you
So one more night you cry yourself to sleep
And drift off to a distant dream Where love takes you in and everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in And somewhere while you’re sleeping
Someone else is dreaming too
Counting down the days until
They hold you close and say I love you
And like the rain that falls into the sea
In a moment what has been is lost in what will be When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart And this love will never let you go
There is nothing that could ever
cause this love to lose its hold When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in it takes you in for good
When love takes you in
After the chaotic weekend we had and a busy Monday and Tuesday, I was extremely grateful for the wonderful-good news that came yesterday evening. Out of the 50 or 60 entries that other photographers had submitted, two of my photos were chosen for the 2011 CF fundraiser calendar! This was the second year I've had a photo chosen (one of my river photos was chosen for the 2009 calendar, and I did not enter any photos for the 2010 calendar).
