Guys, Girls and (toy) Guns

Genesis 1:27 - So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

There are so many ways God shows this verse to be true. One way, however was humorously evident to me the other day:

**I'll preface this by saying that Kyle and I neither encourage or discourage awareness of guns in our home. Of course, we're responsible and don't allow the kids to watch or even catch glimpses of anything like CSI, Law & Order or any of the other similar shows with potential for guns/violence/blood/death/etc. that I, personally, love :) **

I was going through the toybox with the kids the other day, looking for some particular "lost" toys. We came across a clear and neon-colored squirt gun. As I pulled it out, my kids had two very different responses:

ASHLYN: "Mom, what is that??'

MAGUIRE: Took it, pointed it, and began making shooting noises.

I don't recall any time in particular when Maguire might've learned that. I think in most boys that kind of thing is just sort of innate. My mom was actually a little more proactive about keeping gun/weapon play stuff away from us when my younger brother and I were kids. In the absense of any kind of other weapon, my brother would just chew his morning toast into the shape of a gun and "shoot" us all at the breakfast table! I love that God took such great care with the details of creating males and females to be different. I also enjoy watching those differences come out in my daughter and son :)

Annual Trip to Robinette's

Fall just isn't complete without a trip to Robinette's! Kyle used to go with his family growing up (I didn't grow up here, so we didn't) and we've been coming to Robinette's every fall since we got married. We love coming to play on the big wagon-slide, look at the huge apple and pumpkins, get some cider and of course get donuts!

CHEESE!

Aren't my guys so good looking?!

Guitar Hero

This kid is certainly his father's son and his Papa's grandson! He has a love for guitars that is matched only by his love for his daddy and Papa. My dad gave Kyle a guitar to keep at home so he can play/sing for the kids. I think Mac has claimed it as his own, now. Some days he drags it around the house wherever he goes--it's so funny! He even took to taking a "nap" in the case :)

He honestly strums better than I do--the kid's got talent!

Picture This: A Fly on the Wall...

A week and a half ago I volunteered in Ashlyn's classroom. I'd been so curious about how things really went at school--the flow of the day, the social interactions of the kids, Ashlyn's behavior, getting to know the other kids a bit more, etc. The day I chose was a big one. It was Ashlyn's day to bring the snack and to bring items in for show-and-tell and it was also school picture day. To be completely honest I wanted to be there to make sure she looked her best ;) (more on pictures in a minute...)

Ashlyn and the boys! So funny--it looks like Ashlyn's really running the show with these boys, but they were actually listening to "Goin' on a Bear Hunt" and doing all the motions. Mrs. Stoufer said that they LOVE this one! I could tell :)

Ashlyn's sharing time. She brought her "Ashlyn and Dora's Rescue Adventure" book that has her picture in it (such a cool gift idea! Check out other options at shutterfly.com). She also got to do the calendar and weather boards and she was the line leader for the day.

I thought this was a cute picture of Ashlyn and Elizabeth with their cute flower hair bows (made by me!)

So...picture time...sigh... Both girls were a bit of a mess. As soon as we got to the area where they were taking pictures, Elizabeth started crying and didn't stop the entire time. Good thing Kristi decided last minute to skip ordering an individual picture and just get the class picture. I thought Ash was doing well...until it was her turn to get her picture taken. You can tell by the picture above how that went! I tried whatever I could to get her to smile, to no avail. The photographer and his assistant tried...no luck. I decided to leave the room to see if that would help. The photographer said he thinks he got sort of a smile, so we'll see what that looks like! Geez--maybe it would've been better if I hadn't been there that day! The cool thing was that the photographer was really good at working with all the kids, taking as many pictures as he needed in order to get the best one. Thank goodness, too, for digital photography!

St. Peter's Lutheran Preschool Monday/Wednesday 3-year-olds
(front) Gerrit, Will, Ashlyn, Reid, Tyler
(back) Kiersten, Sam, Elizabeth, Kyle, Jackson

It was really fun to be in the room and just watch the kids interact with each other. I have sort of a "mom crush" (I think I just made that up) on little Jackson--he turned 3 at the very beginning of the year, so he's still so young and adorable! And Will really took a liking to me. Any chance he could, he would sit on my lap. And when he wasn't sitting on my lap, he wanted to be next to Ashlyn. Cute :)

At the end of the day we went to Chapel. The kids really love it. They get to hear a bit of a short Bible story and sing "Jesus songs". It was a lot of fun to spend the day in Ashlyn's class and I'm really looking forward to doing it again!

I LOVE FALL!!

I honestly couldn't have asked for a more weather-perfect day than yesterday! Fall is my absolute favorite season--I just love mid-60s and sunny. I love the changing leaves, the harvest parties and decorations, pumpkin stuff, all the fall spices, football, getting Starbucks on a cool & rainy evening, and I just LOVE taking pictures of the kids outside in the leaves! Yesterday I did an impromptu photo shoot with Mac, Ash and Elizabeth. I took about 120 pics and it was really hard to narrow it down :) Here are just a few of my faves!

Best friends!

Official members of "Adorable Toddlers for McCain/Palin 2008"

These 3 have so much fun together!

I don't think I'll ever be able to top this picture :)

Please take a minute...

***Update: Thank you so much for your help! Terri and Paul have been grandfathered in under the previous laws!!!***

...and help my friend, Terri (owner of The Lucky Ladybug Children's Consignment Shop where my blocks are sold), with her adoption process. Here is the letter she sent out and there is a link at the bottom to sign a petition to grandfather in families who have been waiting to adopt:

Dear Friends,
As many of you know Paul and I have been in the long process of adopting our daughter, Grace from China. We have been logged into the China Center for Adoptive Affairs (CCAA) for just over thirty months, yes, I did say 30 months! We have followed to the letter every requirement that our government has asked of us. As well as the Chinese government. We have kept all of our paperwork current, we have completed three sets of federal fingerprints, two home studies, two I-600 forms (the application for processing an orphan child under the US government) and have spent thousands of dollars. Not to mention the heartache of waiting 30+ months, after we were told initially that the process would take 6-9 months. We can not change the Chinese process but we do feel we can impact the change our government is asking of us. We learned several months back that under The Hague Convention there may be changes to the paper work needed to complete our adoption. We feel that families like ours who started the process back in October of 2005 should not be penalized. We are asking that they grandfather us in and allow us to continue with the process we started over three years ago using the I-600.
I had a very long talk with our consultant today at our agency. There is much uncertainty at this time. If we are not grandfathered in we will have to use the new I-800 form, which is much more complex than the original I-600. The agencies are having a very difficult time getting the home studies for this form approved. And the approval process is taking 6 months or more. If we are required to use the new form, China's may review our case and decide to put us under the new guidelines set in place in May of 2007. If this occurs, Paul and I will not be allowed to adopt our daughter, due to our age. We will be done. There is also a chance our government could deny us. My heart aches at the possibility of never holding my daughter in my arms. We are not alone in this situation, the new rules could impact over 10,00 families in the United States waiting to adopt children internationally.
I am asking each of you to please read the attached petition, sign it and feel free to add a comment at the end. It should only take about 10-15 minutes. If at all possible please contact our Congressional Representatives in the House and Senate on October 14th, 15th, or 16th. Ask them to seek a resolution to the I-600 issue and to grandfather in those families who are waiting. There are also two links at the top of the page to send emails to the Congressional Coalition and the Joint Council. This is an urgent matter and we need to take swift action. We need to have at least 20,000 signatures by October 14th and we are currently at 13,000 or so. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think maybe interested in signing. Thank you in advance for your prayers, support and for taking the time to hopefully create more forever families.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
This is the letter that was sent to us by our agency:
The JCICS (Joint Council of International Children's Services) and their member adoption agencies are asking families to read, support and sign the petition that relates to the Joint Council Position Paper on the I600A. This petition is asking that international adoptive families who started the USCIS approval process, using the I600A application, be allowed to continue to use the I600A to renew their I171H approval, until their adoption is complete. Currently, the Department of State and Homeland Security are requiring that these families must now switch to the I800A track, under the Hague Convention, after the one time free extension of the I171H approval expires. We ask for your support to petition these government entities to maintain the original intent of the law by allowing those families in the I600A track to remain so for the duration of their adoption. Please click on the link below to access the JCICS web page entitled Five Ways to Help. There you will find the position paper and the petition, as well as email addresses of both JCICS and a COA representative. With your help and that of other adoptive families, change is possible. Thank you.
http://jcics.org/5WaystoHelp.htm
Our Michigan contacts and phone numbers:
Congressman Pete Hoekstra-202-225-4401
Senator Debbie Stabenow 202-224-4822
Senator Carl Levin 202-224-6221
Terri Sheler The Lucky Ladybug Children's Consignment Shop

If you wouldn't mind taking a few minutes to sign this petition and possibly comment at the end of it, I know Terri and Paul would be eternally grateful! If you have kids, you know how heartbreaking it will be if they are unable to complete their adoption. Thank you--in advance--for your help!!

Lofty the Fish!

Last night Ashlyn and I were going to spend some time together doing something fun. Our original plans fell through, but I improvised and we ended up at Meijer to return cans/bottles and to get Ashlyn her first pet--a male betta fish! Ashlyn and Maguire love to put the cans/bottles into the machines and then to push the button that makes the return slip spit out. Ashlyn returned enough cans/bottles to "earn" her fish, the gravel, and food (we already had the bowl). That's a lot of cans/bottles! She told Kyle that she used her "paycheck" to buy it all ;)
I brought my camera to the store to capture her picking out her fish, but of course the battery was dead!

She was so incredibly excited to feed her fish. The fish she named "Lofty". Can you tell she was watching Bob the Builder when she picked a name?! Ha ha!

Giving the bowl a hug

Ashlyn and Lofty

Daddy and Maguire checking out Lofty

Ashlyn is so amazed by her "pretty-pretty" fish and loves to just watch "her" swim around. Maguire is equally intrigued and keeps saying "bite shish". Does he think we're going to eat it?? I've already caught him fishing out (excuse the pun!) the gravel and trying to eat it--eew!
Ashlyn woke up and immediately wanted to feed her fish. We'll see how long the excitement--and Lofty--last!

Dip, Baby, Dip!

We know Maguire loves "dip-dip". Anything we give him to eat that's remotely dip-able, gets met, immediately, with a request for "dip-dip!" Well, this afternoon we realized the extent of his dip love. Kyle and Maguire were snacking on chips and french onion dip when Maguire said, "forget these doggone chips! Give me the container and a spoon!" We watched in semi-disgusted awe as he ate the french onion dip as if it were yogurt. Really looking forward to some interesting breath and diapers...

Pickin' Punkins

The 3's class had their first and only field trip this morning. It's been beautiful all week long and the rest of this week is supposed to get up into the 70s but, of course, today it had to rain. And I mean it poured! Famous last words as Kristi and I drove out of the neighborhood: Kristi - "Do you think we should grab umbrellas?" Abby -
"Nah, the forecast just said 'light rain'" STUPID! Oh well, we had fun anyway! We went to Paulson's Pumpkin Patch where the kids got to go on a hay ride out to the patch, pick some gourds, a pumpkin and an ear of Indian corn. We moms got to pick some too :) When we got back from the hay ride we got to pick an apple. I've never heard of this variety of apple, but let me tell you, they were delicious! Golden Glory is what kind they were. I'll be hunting down more of them, that's for sure. They were just the right amount of sweet/tart and very crisp. The perfect apple in my humble opinion ;)
Ashlyn had fun chasing and being chased by Kyle and Tyler and then palling around with Gerrit, Kiersten and--of course--Elizabeth.

The whole class, minus Sam

Drowned rats! Kristi & Elizabeth, me and Ash. If you click on the pic to enlarge it, you might just see the water running off my nose--HA!

My sweet girl

Ashlyn and Gerrit

Ash & Elizabeth - friends for life!

The whole class, minus Sam, plus Mrs. Stoufer
Tyler, Reid, Ash, Kiersten, Kyle, Jackson, Will, Elizabeth, Gerrit

While I wish the weather had been better, we still had a great time and Ash couldn't wait to show Daddy her gourds, pumpkin & Indian corn she picked!

On Monday I've invited all the moms over for coffee while the kids are in school so that we can get to know each other better. Out of the 10 moms in the class, 7 (myself included) are able to make it! From what I know of the other moms so far, we've got a great group. Some have even mentioned that it would be fun to this this kind of thing on a regular basis. I can't wait to get to know them better!

Not your school

I forgot to post these pics a few weeks ago--oops! We wanted to enjoy one of the last few nice warm-ish days, so we did something we love to do as a family. We got a Little Ceasar's pizza and Crazy Bread (Ash & Mac's favorite!) and headed to a local elementary school to play on the playground. The playground is so fun and has all kinds of huge tires to play on. We've always thought that this was the elementary school our kids would go to and would say "There's your school!" every time we drove by it. Well, come to find out, it's not the school they'll go to. Oh well, the elementary they'll go to is great too!

On the edge of the playground, there's this beautiful little garden/waterfall area that I'm guessing a graduating class donated and now elementary students take care of. The waterfall is great--it falls into stones and cycles back up to the top of the waterfall so that there's no standing water and therefor no danger of drowning or falling in or anything like that. Mac and Ash loved to walk in the rocks (with their shoes off, of course!) and play in the water.

The kids--and Kyle!--love this little zip-line thing. Ashlyn is finally big enough to do it herself and thought that is was so cool! Maguire thought he was pretty darn cool himself since he could ride it with Daddy ;)

I know, he's not looking at the camera, he's got pizza sauce on his face and shirt...but check out those eyelashes! Why are long, curly eyelashes always "wasted" on boys?! Ha!