Mid September

We are pretty much into a routine now with soccer, football, and cross country plus oh yes school fits in there somewhere.  Nothing too different this week.  September 11th was this week so it was patriotic day for Cate at school.  They were told to wear red, white, and/or blue.  She doesn't really have red clothes.  Now if it were "Pink" day Cate would be all set.  So the only red, white & blue clothing she had in her closet was Cubs wear!  Actually she had to sneak into Josh's closet to find the shirt!  But the hat is legitimately hers.  Here she is folks in her red, white and blue.  

Go USA!  Go Cubs!

We were blessed to have some time with our grandson Nolan this weekend.  Cate was at an overnight birthday party so it was just Josh & Nolan as the kiddos.  These 2 are great together.  Nolan watches Josh every second and wants to be just like him.  Literally he wants to be right next to Josh at all times.  It was a great weekend and I love the way these 2 boys are bonded! 

Off to the park we go!

I believe Josh is telling Nolan not to get his bike to close to the car because it could scratch the paint.  I guess he has heard that before!

 

 

The Porters treated us to Pizza.  Thank you Miss Kim and Mr. John!

 

 

Josh decided he wanted the little boy towel too!

 

 Eating snacks and watching a movie.  Chilling out time before bed!

 

 Time for church at Northview and lunch afterwards! 

 

 

I love the picture below.  Love these boys!

 

  Twins in their jeans & shirts. Can you even tell them apart? Oh except for that totally dark opposite blond thing going on! Both are adopted by God! Thank you Northview for the "Orphan Hearts" sermon. We were reminded no matter how we started our life, (some of us have been orphaned twice but all of us at least once).  We all have "Orphan Hearts"! Jesus wants to adopt each one of us into His family. He wants us to come home to Him!

 

Choosing joy,

Chris & crew

Birthdays begin!

We have a lot of fall birthdays in our family.  They really sort of start in the summer and continue through November.  The latest fun one is for our grandson, Sweet Nolan.  We drove to Carmel, IN for Nolan's 2nd birthday celebration.  We all had a blast that day and Nolan handled the attention perfectly.  Josh & Cate handled the day pretty much well too.  Birthdays are a big thing for all kids but for Josh & Cate it is huge because they never really had their own birthday before coming to America.  When you live in a children's home with 50 other kids someone is always having a birthday and you may share the attention or get no attention at all so that being said these kiddos love birthdays.

We had a work day in order to get our garage under control.  We had bikes and stuff everywhere plus plenty of dirt so we had to do some major cleaning and reorganizing.  Josh & Cate are always a big help on work projects.  Plus they really love  to play in the water on a hot day!

Raytheon has a suite at the local ball park.  We love going to see our Tin Caps play.  Since Josh played Little League this year he was really into the game. 

Josh had his official first football game.  They have been practicing 3 days a week for a month so plenty of practice going on but the first big game was last Saturday.  They were instructed to wear their jerseys to school.  Josh is #21 and he is a safety.

 

  Off to the game.  Here he goes!

Josh did a nice job at the game and made several tackles.  Unfortunately they lost but he handled it pretty well.  We are sure proud of this #21.

Thanks for reading the blog and praying for us.  As always we find great comfort in the fact that others are joining us in our journey.  Have a great week and in all circumstances continue...

Choosing joy,
Chris & crew

Football Football Football!

It is Fall and Josh is into the full swing of football which means we are too!  With practices 3 nights a week from 6 to 8 and games on Saturday it is a busy sport. It has been really hot at the practices and we haven't even had a real game yet but Josh seems to love it! 

We were honored to be invited to a celebration of Sarah Hunt's 30 years.  It was sort of a non-wedding reception.  Sarah is Autumn's sister and she has Rett's syndrome.  It was a fun night and we felt very special to be included.  The kids always love a party and Nolan seems to be the life of the party if he is there.  Sarah is Nolan's "Aunt Sarah".  Notice the princess herself below :)

 

On Saturday morning they had fun with Dad.  He challenged them to build a marker tower taller than him.  They did it and enjoyed the moment!

Sometimes we just have to do homework. Josh had a project for Language Arts that he had to create a collage with pictures on one side and an acrostic poem of his name on the other side.  Cate always wants in on the fun so she created one too!

We had a fun lunch with Aunt Dawn, Uncle Tim, and Grandma Joan at Culver's but I didn't have my camera with me.  Shoot!  I hate it when I miss those photo opportunities.  It sure was fun to have lunch and ice cream with them.  We love it when we can meet up and enjoy a moment together.

To celebrate the homework being done and the last weekend of summer we headed to the lake.  Tubing is always a top priority. 

Always fun to see Grandma & Grandpa at the lake.  We had to get going and Grandpa was on an important phone call so we just gathered around him.  We love you G & G.  Thanks for sharing your lake and your love with us!

 

We are thankful each day for another day to serve our Jesus.  Sometimes joy is easy to find and sometimes we have to look and look somemore but we are determined to continue

 

Choosing joy,

Chris