Is it just me...

or is this year flying by at an incredible rate of speed?  Wow, how did it get to be this time of year already?

 I am so thankful for these treasures God has given us.

We had a great thanksgiving weekend.  We were able to spend time with family and we went out and got our Christmas tree.

 We found the perfect tree pretty fast, but Ryan brought only this little dinky hand saw and let Easton saw it down...needless to say it took a while! Eventually he let each kid take a whack at it and it finally fell!

  I think he stood a little taller that day, too stinking cute!!

 We took the dog with and she did better than some of the people for our family photo!  Not too shabby for our DIY photo shoot of setting the camera on the back of the truck, turning on the timer and running up the hill!

 We had a few light issues, (why do only half the strands work? grr...) I dumped several strands and we made due but it was a tad frustrating!

 my light bulb repacers

I had lots of 'help' from these guys, I had to go around and replace a few ornaments as they were all in the bottom 1/2 of the tree!

Years ago my mom bought my Christmas village and painted most of them as a hobby{I did a few,} the problem is that we can't find them anymore, which means they are irreplaceable!  Not good with 6 kids around.  These guys were super careful as they helped me put up the trees, love their concentration, {it is hard to get them to stay put!}

It is so cozy in this house with our warm pellet stove and the glow of the Christmas tree, I am loving it!  So much to be thankful for!

more random updates....

*We got a new kitten.  I really didn't want another cat, but it just came out of nowhere one day.  I must admit, it is pretty cute, so here it stays. {We tried to make it a barn cat, but it kept coming back under the front porch.}The kids named it Lucky.  

*I didn't really want one of these either, I think it's kinda ugly, but...after paying for fuel oil last winter, I was eager to do anything to cut down on our heating costs.  Well, it may not be cute, but it stays because I LOVE being warm!  I have a chair right in front of the thing and I pretty much do school from there everyday!  We have not run our furnace yet, and we estimate that even with having to buy the pellet stove and pellets we should still be way under what we paid for fuel oil last winter!

 The kids had a fun time at a recent harvest party with friends from church.  We went all out with dressing them up...we were so creative, the girls went in their traditional dresses from their countries, 2 boys were dressed in camo, which they pretty much wear every day, and Easton was a soccer player.  We obviously don't go all out for these things, but they had a lot of fun playing games and gathering candy!

*After living in this house for a full year now, we finally got all of our stuff moved out of the pole barn and either put where it belongs or dumped it!  What a great feeling that was! Just in time for Dylan's new purchase...

Yes folks, I cried a little today when MY BABY BOY bought a TRUCK!! Thankfully it will sit in the above barn for a while as he is only 14.  We are proud of the smart young man he is and feel he made a wise decision to buy this very affordable truck from some extremely trustworthy people! The best news is, it's a stick shift!  I love to drive them, my first car was a stick too and he paid the same for his truck as I did for my first car many moons ago!

Jehovah Jireh....

A couple of months ago, we had a little budget crisis of our own.

  So, we sat down and hashed out a very tight budget in order to pay off some debt.  We read some Dave Ramsey stuff and we were both excited at the possibility of paying off this debt, we were on the same page, committed, ready to do what it takes to be good stewards of what God has given us.  Well, October came and we tracked all of our spending, trying to stay under budget or at least not go over, and well, we did very well in some areas, but very bad in others.  It was only month one and I was starting to get discouraged.  We had that flat tire I told you about and all of Dylan's extra soccer games that were hours away made us go way over on gas and 'entertainment.'  {Grrr...what were we supposed to do, not go to his games?  Umm, no, we decided that 20 years from now it will not be important to him that we stayed home and saved $200, but he will remember that we were there for him and celebrating in his excitement.} But anyhow, I digress...

We had the flat tire, and we were in desperate need of 4 new tires, the flat sped up that process.  We were hoping to wait a couple months until we had our emergency fund built up...but no.  So, I started out this month thinking we were going to be in the hole already, but I decided to pray that God would somehow provide for the tires. We picked up our vehicle from the shop after they had closed on Thursday, I had no idea how we were going to pay for it, but kept telling the Lord about it.  Today, Ryan and I walked out to the mail box.  He started going through the mail and said "Lutheran Social Services?  Looks like a check."  I said, "It's probably a bill."  mind you, we've never worked with LSS.
{they are an adoption agency}  Then I thought "maybe it's one of those things like, if you adopt through them they will pay your registration fee or something like that..."  I was about to tell him to rip it up, no need for more adopting just yet... lol!  But then he said it was a $1,000.00 check written out to us and it dawned on me, our agency had just merged with them and this was the refund for completing all of our post placement reports!!!!

"TIRE MONEY!!"  I said!  I told Ryan that I had been praying for money to cover the tires and here it is!!!  So excited to see God provide.  Later we went to church for a prayer service and Ryan happened to talk to the guy from the shop and asked him if he had our bill ready...to which he replied, "what bill?  It's been covered, so don't worry about it."...OH. MY. WORD.  I  was seriously jumping up and down, it was so exciting to share this with the kids, I love when they get to see how amazing our God is.  Jehovah Jireh!!  The Lord will provide. We are studying about Abraham and his descendants right now in school and tonight we sang "Give us Clean Hands" I got the goosebumps and all choked up when I thought about the fact that my God is the same God of Jacob and Isaac and Abraham and how he provided for them way back when and he is still in the business of providing for us today!  Amazing.

Here are some of the lyrics of that song, it is a good reminder to seek HIM as we head into election day....
"Give us Clean Hands"
We bow our hearts
We bend our knees
Oh Spirit come make us humble
We turn our eyes
From evil things
Oh Lord we cast down our idols

So give us clean hands
and give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Oh give us clean hands
and give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Oh God let this be
a generation that seeks
Who seeks Your face, Oh God of Jacob
Oh God let us be
a generation that seeks
Who seeks Your face, Oh God of Jacob

the game...

 What an exciting night we had Friday night!

 Kids with war paint on, rooting for our team!  Even though the game was 2 and a half hours away, we had a great crowd come up to cheer them on!

Dylan's soccer team tied 1 to 1 at the end of the game, it then went into 2 ten minute overtimes, and then a 7 round shootout!
Oh.My.Word. Now I remember why I don't like sports, I get way too involved, it gets me all riled up!
Unfortunately, we lost, but the team played very well, and it was quite an exciting game!
Then...on our way home, at around 11:30 pm, we pulled into Walmart to return a video, I jumped out of the car and heard this loud air leaking sound and realized it was my tire, it had a pretty significant hole in it!  Thankfully, my dad was with me, Ryan was riding with a friend not far behind us and was able to come help.  With the help of a complete stranger who gave us some pliers, fix a flat, a tire repair kit, and some air, we were able to fix it, and it is still holding strong today! 

District soccer champs!

Our team won districts!!!

Tomorrow we are heading up to Suttons Bay again for the soccer regional final game! If they win tomorrow night they have only 2 more games to be the division 4 state champions!!!   It has been so much fun watching these guys play, even Dylan, a freshman on the varsity team has had some playing time!  I don't like sports generally, however, I find myself getting pretty excited and really enjoying it when they play as good as they have lately!  It is fun because we know several of the kids on the team from church.  4 of them were adopted from the same orphanage we have gone to in Mexico, and have all come home since we moved here.  Awesome kids who've had a rough start in life and aren't perfect{who is?} but are loved beyond measure and are amazing on the soccer field.  Dylan's good friend Sammy, also a freshman is number one in the state for assists, and Marcos is number 2 on the leader boards for goals!

Way to go guys, we are so proud of you!

Fall fun...

Check out this sky, it has been so beautiful lately.

We were given some pumpkins and we decided to paint them in hopes they would last a tad longer.

{which, by the way, didn't help, 2 of them are rotten already and we painted them on Saturday.}

The boys painted theirs with chalkboard paint and planned to write on them with chalk.  We have 2 black pumpkins and one with black and orange stripes!  Clever kids.

Dylan decided to try something different, he spray painted his pumpkin to look like a candy corn.

The girls and their hairy pumpkins!

Fun times and great memories made with these precious treasures God has given us!

An update on Luisa... she is still coughing, but only a few times a day and unfortunately, there is still sometimes puke involved!  Please pray it goes away for good!  Thanks.

a few random things...

Anaya, after her first day of Friday addition, looking a tad disheveled!

The boys measuring the size of Noah's ark, which, I might add, was amazingly huge!

School is going well so far for everyone, we are thankful for a great few weeks in.  Anaya is loving Friday Addition, (the kids go to a home school group every Friday) it feels weird to just have Lucy with me.

 I have started including house work as part of school and we call it "home economics class."  {Thank you Dorothy M. for the great idea!}  Since renaming the 'chores' and doing them as part of our day instead of tacked on to the end of it, the kids have been much better about getting it done without complaining!  YAY!

Dylan plays on the varsity soccer team since there is only one team, and even as a freshman has been able to get in some playing time.  Their team is doing very well and it is fun to watch his games. {yes, I actually said that!}

Dylan is enjoying high school.  I feel like we hardly ever see him anymore, he is involved in sports and has practice or a game then homework and it's off to bed, pretty much.  But, as I look back over the years I am so thankful for the time we had together here at home and I pray that he will be a blessing to those he comes in contact with every day.

How many of you have this on your "To Do List?"  Notice it says "last."  Um yeah, they would do this first and spend all day out there with those cows if I let them!

Lucy has been sick..ish for nearly a month now.  She is totally fine until, she has a "Bronchial spasm."  Then she coughs so hard she nearly passes out and sometimes she throws up or has tons of nasty junk...I'll save you the details, but its bad.  Really bad. I have brought her in to 3 different DR.'s and the ER, and all say bronchitis...one even said "mild Bronchitis!"  That was after I video taped her coughing fit.  Mild my foot!  Shes been on steroids, antibiotics and breathing treatments, nothing seems to help.  So that's been fun...Thankfully she is totally fine most of the time and the fits seem to be getting fewer and farther between, hopefully she can start sleeping in her own bedroom soon?!?

I think that is all for now, we are enjoying the cooler fall weather and getting settled into our new routine, it feels good to have turned that corner of dreading the end of summer and I am feeling rather blessed!