Lately, the craze on Facebook is change your profile picture to a childhood cartoon you loved. My all time favorite childhood cartoon I watched was...

"Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears."

I remember watching it ALL THE TIME and have many fond memories of this show.

Today I am thankful for such a wonderful Childhood. Thanks Mom and Dad!!!

Here Comes Santa Claus

Our House has been filled with Christmas Excitement! Ethan has been obsessed with the many decorations spread around the house.

He defiantly cannot leave this alone.

He is His new favorite Christmas Friend. Which made me thing that he would be delighted to meet...

Santa Claus!

Ethan has not shown any shyness when it has come to Santa until this year. He defiantly had some hesitation. Maybe it had something to do with the many Children crying before his turn. ??? When it was his turn, I handed my Little Guy to the Big Guy and Ethan instantly turned my way and said "I wanna hold you Mom." After some encouragement and a bag of treats Ethan gave me his "Cheese" smile:

Which always includes his eyes closed shut. And I knew everything was just fine with these two.

Ethan learned the song Jingle Bells tonight at our Ward Christmas Party. We have several wonderful families in our Ward that absolutely love Ethan and teach him all kinds of stuff. Ethan sings "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all da way." Over and Over, I love it!

The one thing that seems to bring all the excitement to Ethan's eyes is...

Pop-In-Kins as Ethan calls him.

This is Christopher Pop-In-Kins. Santa's Very First Children's Elf. Each day, Christopher hides in a different place – up out of reach, where he can see clearly who is naughty or nice. Every morning Ethan searches the house to find his new friend. It has been such a fun game in our house and I would recommend it to anyone. Check out Christopher Pop-in-Kins and the book online or at my favorite children's books store: Fun Finity.

Today I am thankful for Christmas!

What Adoption Means To Me

In honor of November being National Adoption Awareness Month, I would like to share my feelings about adoption. As a child I never had childhood dreams of being a big career woman, mostly dreamt of becoming a Mom. We had so many hopes and dreams for our lives when we were married in 2002. He made plans to start our family one year later. Long story short, Our dreams of becoming Parents started coming true January 2008 when we got The Call that a Birth Mom had chosen us to become the parents of her Child. The next few months were incredible as we got to know Kirsten and become a part of her family.

Ethan was born in August 2008 and are dreams became true. Ethan has a shirt that says:

Adoption - Loved and Adored by both my families.

To me that is exactly what Adoption is all about. Being loved and adored by both families. We have an Open Adoption and love being a part of Her family.

I truly feel blessed to be a part of the Miracle of Adoption.

Today and everyday I am always thankful for Adoption.

Temptation

Today I gave in to my temptation I have every time this time of year. I try SO hard to wait until the day after Thanksgiving to occupy myself with Christmas music. I've been in such a holiday mood lately. I've started our Christmas shopping (So much FUN), thought about our holiday traditions and think this year is going to be so much fun now that Ethan is starting to understand what's going on around him.

Don't get me wrong. I am an avid lover of Thanksgiving. My favorite memories of Thanksgiving include: making pies with my mom, eating Thanksgiving dinner with my Grandparents, cousins and all, this story, breaking the wishbone and being thankful for all that we have.

So Today I went to my Itunes and clicked on my Christmas Playlist. And I'm so glad I did. The first song that randomly played was this. Lately I've had a few things on my mind, can't sleep through the symphony (snoring - ;)Love you Brett!!!) Brett sings each night and have had a hard time falling asleep. Since my sheep have failed me time after time, I'm going to start counting my blessings instead of sheep.

It's official... the music playing in our home is now Christmas. I think It's gonna be a christmas to remember.

Today I am thankful for this time of year.

OUR OCTOBERFEST

We have been pretty busy lately and that's why I call it OUR Octoberfest. For many reasons, I do have to say that October is one of my favorite months. I love:

The way our back yard looks in the fall,

the smell of a Pumpkin Spice candle, conference and my all time favorite about this month is

HALLOWEEN

I absolutely love Halloween! Is there anyone else that loves it as much as I? My Mom always has a Halloween Party and costumes were mandatory this year. Since Ethan LOVES Buzz Lightyear We decided to dress that Part.

This Halloween has been the most fun with Ethan. He masters saying Trick or Treat, Happy Halloween and putting candy in his bucket.

He even got to fish at the fish pond.

Ethan also helped carve our pumpkin this year

At my Mom's party we had dinner in a pumpkin, had a costume parade, pumpkin carving contest and had a cake walk.

My Sister dressed up as Herminoe from Harry Potter and carved H & P For Harry Potter.

Usually I make sugar cookies for Halloween, and this year I decided to make Cupcakes.

I must have made a bazillion cupcakes. I made them for snack time at play group, I made them for Spooking our Neighbors and I made them for a Halloween party.

We even snuck in a fantastic date night. We were invited to both of our first Murder Mystery Dinner. We were given the parts of Punky Brewster and Scott Howard from Teen Wolf.

We pulled our costumes together and brushed up on our characters. Punky Power and Holy Macanolli. We had a great time getting to know the people there and acting as our characters.

Today I am thankful that Ethan did not get scared of people dressed in scary costumes.

Parade

Give me an A, give me a D, give me an O, give me a P, give me a T, give me an I, give me an O, give me a N. What Does that spell??? ADOPTION!!! Yesterday we were in the BYU Homecoming Parade and had so much fun. Families Supporting Adoption had a wagon for Families to ride on. Ethan and I walked the Parade with a few others and Brett Co-Piloted in the truck making sure no children were ran over. At least that's what he told me ;). We had a great time meeting other families that love and are a part of Adoption. We enjoyed waiving to the people and shouting Wahoo. It was fun promoting Adoption and sharing the joy and happiness Adoption can bring.

At the end we hopped on wagon and threw some candy.

It was so much fun it wore him out.

Today I am thankful that we and so many other families have been blessed by Adoption.

Nursery

Ethan's favorite part about church is Nursery. Each Sunday morning I dress him in his best and he knows just where we are going. "Nursery, Nursery Nursery!!!" He loves playing with the toys and playing with his friends. He must like singing time because he refers to the carpet squares they sit on when I pick him up. Last week I heard him singing Follow the Prophet. It sounds like: Follow, Follow (while clapping), Stray (while he waives his finger for Don't Go Astray) Follow, follow, HAY. The Nursery teachers must be doing something right because he loves Nursery.

Today Ethan saw Brett putting his tie on and Ethan wanted one too. We don't have a child size tie YET so we tied one of Brett's ties on Ethan for Church. He showed everyone his tie neatly tucked under his vest.

Today I am thankful for NURSERY! ;)