New pictures of our Ben!!!!!!!

These were taken on Oct. 26 by another adoptive mom who's in China right now adopting Ben's best orphanage buddy, Andrew, who is pictured. Here's what she said:

We were brought into Ben & Andrews room. Ben was sleeping but they brought him outside later and I took several pictures of him. I will try my best to send them along to you. I actually held you little boys hand. He is very sweet. He was sort of like the deer in the headlights because everyone was making such a big deal out of him. The visit went OK and I guess I'm glad we got to see were Andrew spent the first 3 years of his life. It appeared to me that all of the kids in their room have special needs. Some of them reached out their little hands to us. There was not a dry eye in the room.

Andrew is a charming little guy but is getting very frustrated with the lack of communication so he has thrown a few fits. Can hardly blame him. He prefers our guide over us so it will be nice to be home without so many distractions. It won't be long now and you'll be on your way to your boy.

The boys look sad but I don't think they are. There was so much confusion with everyone trying to talk to them and take pictures of them. They were withdrawing. Ben said, "MaMa."

We finally have a travel date to adopt our son in China!!!

We found out yesterday that we leave on Dec. 2 for China to get our little Ben!!! We will probably return Dec. 18, just 7 days before Christmas! We wish it were in Nov., but we're still very happy to have gotten a date! Kind of close to Xmas, but what a beautiful Christmas gift from the Lord!

The first time that immediate family members will see us will probably def. be Christmas Eve or Day in our destined-to-be messy house, as we'll be tired and recovering and all in shock, especially poor little Ben. It's quite possible that friends and extended family unfortunately might not see us emerge until the spring!!!, depending on our dear Ben's adjustment.

We got matched with Ben for our birthday and now, we'll be bringing him home to his forever family for Christmas. We couldn't ask for better presents!

Bad, bad, sorry plant year

Me and my black thumb-yes, black, not green-learned some lessons this year, which proved to be tough on plants.

When it rained, it RAINED too much, flooding my poor neighbor's basement and making a long-standing flood in my garden, causing my tomato plants to turn their leaves yellow. And then, for some reason, some of my tomato plants got disease-like brown spots on them, while the others remained spotless. When the damaged tomato plants finally started growing beautiful tomatoes, the squirrels decided to be especially destructive this year. You'd think they could finish the tomato they started, but no, they had to nibble a little on each tomato, yet nibble enough so that the many tomatoes were beyond me cutting off their portion and using the rest. I tried hot pepper powder, applying it diligently, but even that didn't work this year. There are apparently some squirrels who had some spicey tomatoes and zucchini.

I thought we'd try new plants this year besides tomatoes and hot peppers, so we planted a strawberry plant, cucumber plants, basil, rosemary, and zucchini plants. We got one big zucchini which I proudly fried up for dinner before the squirrlies discovered them...they grow on the ground so this was a super easy pick for them. The zucchini plant also grows extremely large leaves and vines and kind of takes over the garden so it needed a lot more room than I thought it did. The cucumbers did end up being a success and will be a repeat next year!

to be continued...

Isabel comes to town

Me, my niece Isabel, Grandpa Chuck, and Grandma Janet at the Morton Arboretum. It's such a wonderful place for kids and I look forward to taking Ben there.

Isabel plays with Ben's firetruck in Ben's room. Mamita Monica and daddy Michael:
Isabel enjoys one of Ben's books.

At Isabelita's baptism.

Camping in WI with my hubbie and dawggies

At Wyalusing State Park, where the hills are like small mountains:The scenery is always majestic, whether or not the sun shines; the air is so fresh.

Spot we stopped at for lunch:At Nelson Dewey State Park:
Prairie trail; I love the prairie in the fall.

These kind of small flowers come out in the fall in the midwest...we've got them in our yard.

Our stinkers enjoyed our sleeping bags while we were not on them...They had their own beds, but ours were too tempting. The 2nd night, Sienna insisted on sleeping with daddy and got her way.