Happy Halloween

Mason-Kate thoroughly enjoyed her first Halloween. We had friends over for dinner and then the trick-or-treating began! With our Great Pumpkin, MK, our Friendly Ghost, Pryce and our Scarey Pirate, Colin, all in tow, we set out to tackle the neighborhood. This is the first year that they did not want to stop, we went on and on and on until finally their pumpkin bags were overflowing. Then it was back to our house for the big candy trading event. It was a wild evening of trading (think Wall Street and that is what was going on in our den). The children were shouting their trades as candy flew out of one child's hands right into another. Mason-Kate was right in the middle of it all hoping to luck up with one piece of candy for herself. Finally, she spotted some Whoppers, went in for the steal while no one was looking and practically walked on air as she ate them. Great fun!

Smelling the Love

Pryce is sick AGAIN! Poor guy, he complained to me on Tuesday of a sore throat to which I replied he needed to get some rest. Wednesday morning he complained of horrific stomach pains. I decided to keep Pryce with me as Wednesday was to be a big day for us. Mason-Kate and I have been planning for months to travel to SC to meet a Dianjiang friend. David, who was adopted in May from Dianjiang, China, is just two weeks younger than MK. They spent the first 5 or so months of their lives in the orphanage together. All is well that ends well, Pryce was able to spend time with G-Mom (who graciously accepted the job of spoiling the sick one with a Happy Meal that he "never gets") and MK and I were able to spend time with David and his mother, Mara. It was a great visit and we were so excited to finally meet them in person. I went to pick Pryce up and there he sat with the thermometer in his mouth. I honestly thought Pryce wasn't exactly being honest about feeling bad. I thought he was scheming in order to get a free day from school. Well, today I had to apologize to him. We went into see the dr. and the dr. confirmed that he does has strep throat. Blah. He is still so cute though. I have been worried about his food/liquid intake as he hasn't eaten a thing since his Happy Meal yesterday. I offered him junk cereal this morning that he denied. So, I brought out the real ammo and offered him a Bojangles biscuit. We went to Bojangles and as I gave him the bag with the biscuit, he held it close to his nose and said, "Now I am smelling the love!"

October

Just wanted to post a few recent pics.....ENJOY!

Pryce (left pic) and Colin (far right) all dressed up at Spook-O-Ree.

How Finley keeps warm on these colder days.....

Breaking News

We are jumping for joy! Our pediatrician just called to say that MK is one healthy little girl. The nurses were able to get enough blood to work with and all the labwork that we had done last week came back normal. Yippee for MK (and mommy) (and daddy)! I personally told our ped that I would need medication myself should we need to go through that again anytime soon. Here is the bad news (and news that waiting adoptive parents should take note of)....apparently the vaccines that were supposedly given to her in China were not actually given. Honestly, this does not surprise me as we have been told more than once that this has been the case in other international adoptions. So, this just means a few extra shots for her in the upcoming months :( It is all good though! Lastly, I will end with a prayer funny made by Colin. Colin was saying his bedtime prayers. During this, our dog, Finley, was jumping back and forth from bed to bed in the boys' room. Colin opened one eye as he said "and thank you Lord for the poopy puppy who sometimes bothers us while we are trying to do important stuff and for Mason-Kate who pretty much does the same thing!" AMEN!

Another Sign Reading

Lately Mason-Kate has started to point to more and more objects and say the word to identify it. She does this with books in the house or with pictures of our family or at the store.....so, yesterday Ryan and I were driving in separate cars, he had MK. We drove by the local Republican campaign headquarters that is decorated with their symbol, the elephant. Mason-Kate started her normal "Daddy, daddy...." to get Ryan's attention. Ryan looked at her and she put her hand up to her nose (to make a trunk) and began making the elephant sound. She had her head going up and down the whole time. On a different note, the boys each had their first tennis match of the season yesterday. A good mother (and blogger) would have taken and posted pictures of this but that did not occur. I did take the camera but it never left Ryan's pocket. They both won a match and lost a match so that made for a decent day on the courts. Colin had his first doubles match. He doesn't totally get the whole "doubles" concept yet so at one point he got a little frustrated, came over to me and asked who his captain was. I told him it was me and he said, "good, I am done!" We talked, he reluctantly joined the game again, made a good volley and it all fell into place. I was proud of him for not giving up even when he really wanted to. That is all for now.