A Quick Trip

As much as possible, I love to travel with Peter so I jumped on the opportunity for a quick trip to Palo Alto with him this week.  We brought LB with us, so while it wasn't completely kid free it was still a nice little break.  I didn't get as much rest as I was hoping due to the 3 month old, but we were able to go out and (mostly) enjoy some meals and quiet time together. I love any opportunity I can get to just be away and spend time with the hubs so I am still grateful to have the opportunity for some R & R!

Miss Belle has already traveled across the country so this was a pretty quick flight with her.  The flight home was not so fun as we flew home in high winds and the last 20 minutes were pretty bumpy!  But she was a rock star and didn't let out a peep. 

                                       In fact, she pretty much passed out. I wish I had that ability on flights!

                                                   She loved having our attention all to herself!

And while there were a few meals she didn't cooperate fully on, for the most part she slept and let us have our time!

                                      We ate probably way more of this than we should have

                                    But all in all it was a worthwhile little trip.  I think she agrees!

An Epic Halloween

Halloween was a very eventful day as I posted last time about officially gaining a daughter!  But overall it was kind of a big and busy day for our family. 

The weekend before Halloween, we of course had to carve our pumpkins.  Daddy did an amazing job yet again and all the kids were thrilled!  

 The night before Halloween started with quite the big bang as our large tree in front of the house fell down. We had a huge windstorm the weekend before this and I was keeping my eye out the window at this tree, but it survived and I thought for sure if it survived THAT storm it would make it through the entire winter, but I think a week of  lots of rain weakened it too much. Now this is a tree that we knew was sick.  We actually had 2 trees in the backyard removed when we purchased the house that were also sick.  But those ones actually had a risk of demolishing a house if they fell. The tree in the front was on our massive "to do" list and was in fact the first item of business we wanted to take care of come springtime.  There was a slight risk that if it fell it would hit the side of our house, but this tree collapsed in the best possible position and we were very fortunate.  So a few small parts of our to-do list are getting taken care of now, and we will probably save a good $800 or so over having it removed next year.  Unfortunately it took out our old fence too (also on next springs "to do" list) and so we have to figure out some way to get by this winter without a fence.  It could have been much worse and those were 2 projects that we were planning on doing and it didn't damage anything (besides the falling apart fence) so I am glad! 

After our morning to-do's with adoption finalization, we took off with the kids to celebrate with some brunch.  It's always an adventure when we take all 4 of them out, but they did great!  Then we even stopped at a little bakery and let them pick out a Halloween treat!  

Before we knew it, it was time for naps and then costumes and trick or treat time.  The boys were so excited all day that they were up at 6 and then didn't nap well either.  If they are this excited about getting candy I can only imagine how Christmas will be this year!  

Peter got his wish this year as the boys were REALLY into Star Wars.  I wasn't originally behind my girls going with the Star Wars theme, but I somewhat reluctantly agreed and it was a good choice! 

Then it was off to do what the boys had been looking forward to all day!  They were quite the Trick or Treaters this year and boy were they worn out when it was all said and done!

Finalized!

Halloween was an extra special day in our household as Miss Belle officially became our daughter!  I was kind of caught off guard by just how special this day was going to be.  Yes, LB has been with us since birth and while her birth mother could not change her mind after she signed consents at 48 hours, technically all we have carried is power of attorney over LB since then.  We had to wait 90 days and have 2 post placement visits with a social worker before the adoption could be finalized.  We did a phone conference with our attorney and a judge to make things official!  He asked us each a few questions and told us what a special treat our hearing was as he was filling in for the normal adoption judge and so he usually deals with felons all day and this was a fun change of pace.  It was all a formality but being able to verbalize our desire to be her parents and have the judge grant that request was still pretty special.

We are thrilled and so blessed to have her in our family!  We announced our adoption last year on Oprhan Sunday which was November 4th and here we are completely finishing the process almost exactly one year later!  Adoption is never easy and seeing up close and personally all that goes into making that decision for a birth mother made this one even more difficult. We still maintain contact at least on a weekly basis with LB's birth mom and I am so grateful that open adoption has been in the cards for us this time.  I am just grateful to have the process all done and complete and now we just get to enjoy this girl for the rest of our lives!