The Hartland

Life at our house is slowing down as the weather is cooling. I had ice in my birdbath yesturday morning so I had to retire it until next spring, if I leave it out I run the risk of it cracking from all the freezing and thawing that the water will do in it. It's sad to leave my garden behind for awhile but nice to get a break and focus on other things.

Soccer is officially over for everyone now and David's season was hit and miss. It seems that he played just as many games as he had cancelled for rain or a very wet field. His last game this past Saturday was cancelled but there were no tears shed over it.

We've also had a touch of something or another in our house last week. Thankfully just Ella and David were affected and the rest of us stayed healthy. I'm not sure whether or not it was the swine flu but despite this fact it's gone and hopefully never to return (yeah, right).

Along with all the weather came the falling leaves. We had one round of cleanup last weekend and were going for another but had a strong cold front blow through and fortunately for us, blew all our leaves into our neighbors yard! Before that happened the we all had a good time playing in the large leaf pile (including the dog) that we made out back by our firepit. I've included a small video of that for your enjoyment.

We had one intersting discovery as the leaves started falling from our trees. We found that we had a an abandoned wasps nest in one of the large trees in our yard. It was about a foot or so in diameter and just slightly longer from top to bottom. We saw it near the very top of the tree but that same blustery cold front I mentioned before blew it right out of the tree so we were able to get a closer look. Here it is!

An upclose look at the nest

Jason has spent a lot of time over the past year working with a few friends of his to fix up some of the old UC SAE racecars. They were able to take them out recently and race them on a nearby track and spent two Saturdays in row enjoying the fruit of thier hard labor. Here are two videos of Jason driving in one of the cars!

Jason starting the racecar and getting on the track

Jason racing on the track (in the same car as above)

No fall season would be complete without pumpkin carving and this year was no exception. We did have a twist on the traditional orange pumpkins as Ella and David picked a greenish-grey and a white pumpkin this year. Emily was absent from pumpkin carving as her social life took precidence. I was very interested to see the insides of these pumpkins, never having carved anything but orange pumpkins in the past. It proved to be very intersting.

The inside of David's pumpkin

David getting the "goop" out of his pumpkin

The inside of Ella's pumpkin

Ella getting the "goop" out of her pumpkin

Jason "carving" Ella's pumpkin with the cordless drill

The end result!

David's white pumpkin was white inside but you could see a hint of orange around the edges where it was cut. Ella's on the other hand was a very squat pumpkin and was very bright orange inside. The trouble with Ella's pumpkin was how absolutely THICK it turned out to be. Jason had to scrape for awhile to thin it out and even with that he had to use a cordless drill to carve it as the regular carving knife just wasn't "cut out" for this job!

Days later it was Halloween and with it being on a Saturday it was very enjoyable. I must say that I think that Halloween should always be scheduled on the Saturday in the fall when we change the clocks. It was wonderful to not have to worry about getting everyone home from school, fed, in their costumes, pictures taken and out the door to trick-or-treat and then in bed on time without too much of a sugar buzz! We were able to take our time and let the kids enjoy themselves, and enjoy a little extra candy. Here are our photos from Halloween. We went to Jason's parent's neighborhood to trick-or-treat (as is our tradition) because the houses are so close together, and their are ususally a good number of people around. Emily did not dress up but had a friend over to help pass out candy. Ella was a kangaroo (a costume created by us, with some sewing help from Mimi). David was Dash, the fast boy, from the Disney movie The Incredibles.

Ella, David and their cousin Nataliya (she's a bat)

Ella the kangaroo

David "Dashing" (he told me I had to get an action shot)

Emily and Rachel while handing out candy

Emily and Rachel texting between trick or treaters

David and his candy haul

Ella and her candy haul (the great part is she only eats plain M&M's, we get the rest)!

Our next update will probably not come until after Thanksgiving. We are going to Disney World the week prior to Thanksgiving and I'm sure it will take me time to sift through the many pictures that I'm sure will be taken there. This trip is in celebration of David turning 5. Although his birthday was in March and he's technically closer to six years old, we decided to wait until the fall when the crowds would be smaller to go and enjoy this special trip.

ADOPTION UPDATE

Jason and I went this morning to the federal building downtown and had our fingerprints taken for Homeland Security. This is standard procedure for those who are going through this process but it was a little intimidating. Everything went fine and it was neat to see my fingerprints larger than life up on the computer screen. It makes me think of how unique each one of us are, how God made each one of us special and individual right down the arcs, loops and whorls of our fingerprints.

Well, drumroll please.....we are officially on the waiting list for our new child! As we are open for a child of either sex from the ages of 0-3 years we were told that we are on both the girl and boy waiting lists. We are #47 on the girl's list, with a wait of about 10 months and #20 on the boys list, with a wait there of about 5 months. Because of our flexibility in gender and age we were told that our wait could be less than 5 months if a child fitting our criteria comes up for adoption and does not fit anyone else's. Suffice it to say, we are thrilled! To think that the child that God has planned for our family is only months and days away from being in our arms just gives me goose bumps!