early

morning smiles....

creating...

and playing with a new punch. It creates an envelope...which resulted in quite the endless array of mini envelopes being created by the mini people in my house. Such a simple thing and yet so much time spent together laughing and being creative. love moments like these.

kisses

her newest thing...
giving kisses to her stuffed animals.
of course it looks like she is going to take a bite...her method is a bit interesting.

Picking apples

a job completed a few weekends ago...
resulting in many (far too many) bags of apples which fortunately we were able to share with friends and neighbors.
apple crisp and apple cake have been making their way into our menus a bit more frequently.
so glad I insisted on planting that apple tree many many years ago.

Walking in the leaves

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

her gown...

I wondered as I unpacked the gown from it's box if it would still fit. Most who had wore it had done so when they were mere months old and here she was 16 months old. As I tried it on I smiled as I realized that it would indeed fit, and this little one would be wearing a gown worn by so many others in her family. I wonder if my mom realized the tradition she started when she purchased this gown for me so many, many years ago. I wore it in 1964, followed by my sister in 1968. My cousins Paulette and Shawna wore the gown for their baptisms. It was then packed away for many years waiting for the next new baby to wear it. That baby would be my first born daughter Beckie who wore it in 1985, followed by her sister Cassandra in 1989. Once again it was packed away, waiting.... Grace wore it next in 2001. I thought that it would once again stay packed for a long while and that perhaps the next child to wear it would be a grandchild. Love how life doesn't always go as one thinks and when Reyna came into our lives I did hope that she too would be able to wear the gown for her baptism. As time passed I thought perhaps that wouldn't be the case, which brought us to the day a few weeks ago when I unpacked the gown just to see if it might work.
She looked adorable, rather clueless to the significance of that gown. I love that the she was surrounded by the spirit of all those who had wore it before her, wrapped in the love and beauty that is each person who wore that gown for their baptism. How special that is.
Something purchased so long ago for one, and shared with another and then another, continuing through time and history of our family...I imagine my mom never imagined the ones who would wear it, or the significance it would hold in our families story when she chose it for her first born daughter. I love that Reyna wore something, picked by her grandmother, who she will never meet, it felt as tho my mom was there with us yesterday sharing that special moment in our family.

Baptism

Yesterday was a pretty special day for our family. We had Reyna's baptism service during church.
Surrounded by her Godparents, family and friends it was an amazing moment.
She woke at 5 that morning and I wondered how the day would go since the time she would normally be napping was during the service, she didn't nap, and fortunately she wasn't crabby. Mostly she was curious by all the activity around her, Rosie watched as the water was poured over Reyna's head, I wondered if her hand too wouldn't dip in to help. Dinner at our home followed and our house was filled with family, and friends, and several of Reyna's birth family. She continued to go strong, not pausing to nap at all throughout the day. I think she sensed it was a pretty amazing day and didn't want to miss a moment. As our house emptied to just a few I smiled at the day we had been given. Surrounded by family and friends, sharing a truly special moment in this little ones life, the sun was shining, it was good. God is good.

water...everywhere

 the road we usually use to reach our house, the houses on this block had extensive water/damage in their basement, we are across the street and all things considering we were very lucky.  We had 9 inches of rain by the time the storm had cleared.  The water in our basement sat for most of the day on Thursday finally starting to drain late in the afternoon...Friday morning began the clean up process, removing totes, and damaged items, cleaning walls, floors and checking on major appliances...followed by a lot of bleach and cleaning.  by friday afternoon the pile at the curb was significant and the basement looked a whole lot better.  The smell of bleach lingered long into the next day.  Things are still piled high on tables and surfaces as we wait for walls to dry completely.  Fans continue to run as does the dehumidifier.  We were very fortunate in the damage we faced, the stuff we lost, was just that stuff, not important life stuff.  Many were not so lucky. 

 early Thursday morning, the kids were watching a tow truck push cars (5) out of the flooded intersection

 the view of the backyard and neighbors yard.

not what I wanted to see when I looked down the basement stairs thursday morning...totes floating in 10 inches of water was not cool.

The rain began on Wednesday early in the day and continued through the night.  Heavy rain.

 

 

Happy Adoption Day!

Today was the day!
The day we officially welcomed Reyna Joyanna into our family....
we have been her family in our hearts for a long time, today the state just stamped it's approval on that.
Surrounded by family and friends we agreed to take care of her, love her and be her family for always.

stamp camp

last night I attended a stamp camp
stamp camp you say? I did, having never heard that terminology before, and being a wee bit apprehensive about anything with the word
camp in it. I attended with Val, (she is the one who shared it with me) What it is....is a night of card making. Through the course of the evening we created 10 cards, each different each beautiful...and bonus it was fun! I have not stepped into card making, being content to create scrapbooks, assuming that was my creative place...and also simply being intimidated by the whole card making process.
It was fun and easy...who knew?
Can't wait for next month, I am already signed up.

csa

we are still going strong with our csa
every Wednesday we pick our share up
and every week I am amazed at the amount of stuff
we receive. Each week there is the incredible assortment
some familiar and some new to us.
I decided to continue with the fall option
looking forward to discovering the bounty that season will bring

birthday party!

7 boys
the theme: space
food: astronaut food of course (freeze dried everything)
and pizza for those non-space individuals
they created comets (way cool, one is still hanging out on the roof)
and raced balloon rockets, and hunted for meteors
after 2 1/2 hours all were energized, except one
that would be the mom who was simply glad she survived

Godahl days

held on labor day each year.
we arrived later than planned, ate quickly and arrived to watch the parade just before it began.
we didn't stay too long after since it was freezing and few of us had coats.
at one point kevin put the kids names in the raffle, imagine the surprise for yahaira when the phone rang late in the day telling her
she had won Wii.

Happy 9th Birthday Anthony!

lego's were the hit as was the remote controlled helicopter
So hard to believe he is 9.
He is amazing! strong! and funny!
I love being his mom.

pumpkin cookies

the Best! part of fall

1st day of school

was weeks ago,
yes it seems I am a bit behind in posting.
thank you kelly for not nagging too much
Anthony 3rd grade
Yahaira 1st grade
Rosie preschool