While Dad's away, the kids will play

The kids and I have been taking it easy a bit while Tim has been out of town. Normally we have so much on our plates, it is just go, go, go all day long. With Tim out of town, we remain closer to home and have more time just relaxing and playing around together. Normally Tim and I are working on projects, or have sports things to go to, are running around doing errands, things like that. I guess that is one benefit of not being able to drive, we spend much more time at home :)

On Sunday the kids and I carved pumpkins. Well, we carved one and we have two more to do. Actually, it was more like I carved and the kids watched for a bit and then went off to play while I finished. Neither one of them wanted to grab inside the pumpkin and pull out the gutts. I loved doing that when I was a kid... not so much now, but I loved it then! They wanted nothing to do with it. It was "too cold and felt too squishy". So, I ended up doing it. I forgot to get a picture of it though... I'll take one tonight and post it later.

That same day, I was getting the kids' uniforms pressed for school this week. The kids wanted to play around me, so they asked if they could build a fort in the bedroom. I said sure. This is what they came up with. It was a pretty nice fort. I think Pearl even managed to get in there once. Most of the time was spent with her just watching the kids though. They also had a "store" set up in our closet. They lived in the tent and worked at the store. I had to come to the store to buy "treats". The only things they sold were: popcorn, candy and pop. Thank goodness I like all of those things. Here are some pictures of the kids working the store and Cameron and Anna in their tent:

Cameron making sure the store inventory is correct

Anna peeking out of the tent: Cameron and the tent:
Pearl overseeing the activities (AKA "sleeping"

The whole tent:

The kids also decided that they wanted to "camp out" Sunday night. Normally I would not let them do that on a school night, but for some reason, I thought "Why Not"? I was planning on camping out in Cameron's room, as the heat is working upstairs and was not working on the main floor. The kids wanted to sleep in our room though, so understanding it might be a bit cooler, they decided this was the place they wanted to be. So, they camped out on Sunday night. Here are some pictures of the kids getting ready for bed:

Cameron all snuggled up:

Anna ready for a good night's sleep:

Pearl wishing she could be snuggled up with one of the kids, but instead sleeping on her mat. Doesn't she look pathetic?

Here's one final picture of the kids enjoying their tent. They really did have a fun time making it, and it kept them occupied while I was getting things ready for the week.

As much as we want Tim to come home, we are enjoying our time together.

As for the adoption, we are getting very, very close. We are still waiting on our FBI clearance and hopefully we will get that soon. All of our other dossier documents are complete. We are awaiting an invitation from USCIS to get fingerprinted for our Immigration approval, but hopefully that will happen soon as well. The good thing is, the immigration approval is not part of the actual dossier, so the dossier can be sent without it. We just can not get a referral until we receive it. I'm sure that will not be the time-limiting step anyway! So, that is where we are now. Hopefully we will get all of this behind us soon and advance to the "waiting" stage.

I am so ready to be in that stage!

In Christ,

Charity