Fall Fun!

Malia and Cole enjoying a fabulous fall November day!

Halloween Par-tay!!!

Tis the season for some good ol' fashion costume-party-family-fun! My good friend Tracie threw quite the goolish bash this last weekend! I struggled all week trying to find just the right costume...well, the best that you could buy for less than 10 bucks, anyway ;-)!
Chad on the other hand didn't think a thing about it until the day of and he walked away with "Best Costume of the night" award...granted, the only ones who apparently voted were 4 little girls under the age of 8, but hey who can compete with that?! Here are some funny, and scary pictures below! Enjoy!



Here is one of our pumpkin that Chad carved...Pretty impressive if you ask me!

Cole Turns 3!!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Cole!!!!!!!!!!!

We had so much fun celebrating Cole's 3rd birthday! We decided to bite the bullet and go to Chuck E. Cheese...on a Friday night no less! We survived and my sweet boy had a blast!
Below are some pictures of our special day.

WE LOVE YOU, COLE!!!!!!!





Flying high on his big day...

Princesses, Crowns, and stingy mamas...

Boy, O boy, what a day! Today Malia, myself, and Grandma Horton enjoyed the mystery and excitement that is DISNEY. We all loaded up this morning to check out Disney on ice. This was a first for Malia and I, niether one of us had ever been and it was so exciting to be able to share that with her.

Once entering the building, torn ticket stub in hand, Malia blurts out "COTTON CANDY!" Ugh... can we not enter the place without planning out our first snack of the day?! I tried to temper her requests - to no avail. I finally convinced her that we needed to locate our seats and then we'd see about some cotton candy. Once said seats had been located the requests started again "Mom, cotton candy?"...."hello, mom....COTTON CANDY????!!!!" Ok.
I get it, you want cotton candy! About then an all-to-helpful cotton candy dealer swings by so I ask, how much and start reaching for my wallet...then as I glance up I think I hear " $10, mam". SAY WHAT?! I'm sitting there in my chair thinking ok, it's sugar and food coloring, dude. Then he quickly says "you get a crown with it".....uh...ok. I quickly send him away thinking surely I can buy some sugar for less than $10 at the concession right? I promptly exit row G, to 1, make sure we are still in Tulsa and NOT Orlando, Florida and 2, find the chepper cotton candy! I stroll around the corner and ran right into another dealer, YES...success! I see a row of CC missing the $9 crown. I ask, how much and she says with a big ol smile "only $7"....
Wow...OK...I don't know why this came as a big shock. I've been to Seseme street live, I really was not expecting $1 cotton candy, but dude...it's SUGAR AND FOOD COLORING! I went ahead and ponyed up the $7 for the stuff and couldn't wait to hand it over to my sweet girl. Her eyes lit up, they lit up until she asked the question...WHERE'S MY CROWN, MAMA?
UGH........SIGH. I sold out the crown for a lousy $3....but I digress. It was a lovely time and we all really enjoyed the wonder of Disney.

Here are some pictures of our afternoon.

You can tell in this picture Malia's feigning excitment about that bag of cotton candy...

Malia turns 6....

Happy Birthday darling girl!!!!!!!!!



Malia first thing this morning...isn't she a sleeping beauty??!!

I cannot believe I have a 6 year old daughter. She is our light, she is our proof of God's amazing faithfulness, she is our crown of priceless jewels! Thank you Jesus for the miracle of Malia. She is more than any mother could hope for or believe for.


Malia and her tree


Malia and her first pet "Goldy"
She was so proud of her birthday gift!!


Goldy and her pet snail "Tiny" enjoying their new home!

Here are some pictures from Malia's birthday party...

4th of July 2007

Below are some great pictures of our 4th of July neighborhood parade. The kids had a ball!! We just love our neighborhood and all our fantastic friends.











What a great way to celebrate our country's special day!!!

Vacation!

Aside from some overly exhausted children at the end of our trip, I have to say we had a really great time! We went to Branson, MO for a little family R&R and also to help celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. Here are some pictures to prove it!







A great way to end the day...

Training wheels.....what training wheels?!

Whoo hoo, Malia! Below are some pictures of our new fearless two wheel rider!



Chad, the kids, and I had just returned home from a long carride from OKC and Malia had asked if Daddy would take the training wheels off. He decided he would go ahead and let her try it out. She jumped on that bicycle and just flat took off!



No bobble, no near miss fall...it seemed effortless for her. That's our Malia, always blazing trails!

Malia's dancing debut

Malia had her very first dance recital on May 18th. No mommy could have been more proud than I was that night! There is no way I can try to describe the moment your child takes the stage on their own for the first time, I just know I didn't want that moment to end. One of the mom's backstage told us that as Malia was exiting the stage she asked "Did I sparkle?...did my mom and dad see me?" Yes sweet girl, you indeed sparkled and captured our hearts like only you can. Here are some of the precious moments captured that night.

Graduation!!!!

Praise the Lord!!!

Chad is now officially done with school! Woohoo! He has worked so hard for his Master's and we are all so proud of him!




Way to go Baby!!!!

Gotcha Day 2007!!!

Happy Gotcha Day to our precious Malia and Cole!!!



I CANNOT believe how fast time has flown by. It was just 5 years ago today that we brought our beautiful daughter home from Korea and 2 years ago today that my mom and I brought home our handsome - sweetie pie Cole home from Korea! Chad and I feel so humbled and blessed that these two miracles call us mommy and daddy.

Today we started the day off with our anual family portrait. This year we decided to try Picture People. I have to admit, I'm one of THOSE people who want every hair in place and all the clothes to match. Every year I hope for that "just right" photo...you know the one where everyone is genuinely smiling, looking at the camera, no blinking etc...The one where I am compelled to buy the huge wall portrait to hang over my fireplace..you know THE ONE! Well...in the 5 years we've had our family portrait taken on this day I've not been compelled ONCE to splurge on the Big One! Chad had to convince me that they are good (and he is right - now that I'm home and not so critical...I'm happy with them!) and not to get uptight but alas...there I was, a bit down that I didn't get the one great shot and beginning to look forward to next years shot...can anyone say therapy???!!! I know many years from now I am going to look back on all those photos and I won't see the imperfections...just the beauty of the moment and feel so blessed that I got to be apart of these precious lifes.

Once I got over that :-) we headed to Famous Dave's BBQ for lunch and had a great time. Malia has dance class tonight so I believe we'll be caping off the night at Cold Stone Creamery for some sinful decadence! Yum.

Happy gotcha day to my two amazing kids. We love you so much and we give thanks to God for the opportunity to know you. ~ Your mommy and daddy

Howdy!

Well, we thought this would be a good a time as any to start o-pining on the ups and downs of our daily lives. Today has been a good day. We met with the pastor of our church at lunch to discuss the new adoption ministry that we (as a church body) will be carving out soon. Man, we are stoked! We cannot wait to watch it unfold and see the amazing hand of God touch lives for adoption. We are praying that the right people step forward and prepare a way for this ground breaking ministry in our church. Chad and I will be starting a community group this summer for couples interested in adoption. Again...did I mention we are stoked?! Man, I feel so amazingly blessed to be in the middle of all God is doing and getting ready to do...Woohoo God!