What happened to November?

My head is spinning. Not sure what happened to the month of November or the supposedly long Thanksgiving weekend. All this house stuff is keeping us so busy. There is always something else to do. I am a list person and my list never gets finished. But soon enough I will be asking what happened to December and we will hopefully be settled in our new place making preparations for Hannah to join our family.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed an afternoon/evening over at our friends Dave and Tanya's new place. The food was delicious. The company was great. AND Jack slept through the meal allowing us to concentrate on eating the yummy food.

The day after Turkey Day, Black Friday if you will...we did a marathon shopping trip. Walmart, Target, down to Denver for Kohls, SofaMart, American Furniture Warehouse, and Walmart again. Both my boys did great. Neither Mark or I particularly enjoy shopping but we saved a lot of money and were able to get some things for our house that will soon be a rental.

The rest of the weekend was spent packing. We are trying to get as much done as possible so that we can enjoy our time with family this weekend and avoid a repeat of the last move. We packed virtually nothing since we were only moving 2 blocks and it was a disaster. We are going about a half a mile this time and WE ARE PACKING.

Shelter

I am thankful that I have a place to live and call home. It provides shelter as well as a place for my family to call home. I woke up this morning incredibly thankful to have heat that keeps me warm inside my house. We are entering the season of incredibly cold mornings here in Breckenridge. Mark said earlier this week it was -6 when he started his car, yikes! Thankful for the place I live.

Thankfulness

I have so many things to be thankful for and will post every day for the rest of the week on something I am thankful for. Today I was grocery shopping for Thanksgiving preparations and kept passing carts that were filled to the brim with food. The store was absolutely packed with people, the parking lot was full, and there were empty shelves. There is a lot of food that will be consumed here in America over the next month with the holidays. We live in a place where most of us do not go hungry; we not only have food but we have an abundance of food. I am so thankful that I go to bed each night without hunger.

Moving

Mark and I are definitely feeling the stress here around the Hubbard house. We are moving! Mark and I are under contract on a house and our closing date is the 15th of December. We aren't going far, just right up the road, less than a mile. But it is coming soon.

We finally have all of our loan stuff worked out, we had the inspection, etc...now we find renters for our place, start packing, and try to remain calm sane people in the midst of moving right in the middle of the Holidays.

We weren't exactly looking to move, especially because we love our current house. We put a lot of work into our place and we love it. The new place just happened to come up and it has some things that we feel like our great things for our family. Such as an extra bedroom, a garage, a yard with grass (not rocks like our current place), AND we will be even closer to many of our good friends.

Aunt Jemima

Last night I spent a good deal of time in the kitchen. It is actually one of my favorite places to be. I made some baby food; I made our dinner; and I made some pumpkin pie bites (thank you Bakerella). As I was working in the kitchen, Mark told me I am like a white version of Aunt Jemima. I wasn't really sure what he meant by this. I am assuming it was some kind of compliment. She seems cool to me ~ I really love pancakes and her syrup... and like me she is probably the "Boss" in the kitchen.

(This is the picture Mark left for me on my computer desktop)

I googled her and found out that the first woman, to represent "Aunt Jemima" was Nancy Green. She was born on this day, November 17 1834. Pretty neat. I also found the Aunt Jemima website complete with recipes listed on their site. The Banana Bread Pancake Recipe looks particularly tasty. Also, another interesting fact is that the Aunt Jemima Brand spans all the way back to 1889, when the first ready made mix was put on the market.

I am off to make pancakes, because all this talk of them is making me hungry!

Jack meets Rice Cereal

Jack patiently waited for 6 months to try food. Actually, he didn't know. But we figured he was ready for food based on the fact that he is super interested in our food and drinks.

Saturday, was the BIG day.

He liked the box, but as for the cereal itself...

The pictures kind of speak for themsleves.

At least the dog was interesting...



AND...Day 2 went a little better...

Our daughter

Almost 2 weeks ago, Mark and I saw a picture of the little girl who will be our daughter. We have been waiting on more info, praying, and thinking about her non-stop. This last Friday, we got the info we felt like we were waiting on...this solidified in our hearts that she is no doubt the little girl that the Lord has picked for our family.

Because she is legally not our daughter yet I cannot post a picture of her and I won't be referring to her with her given name. But, the name we will be calling her will be Hannah. This was her birth mother's name. Her birth mom gave her to an orphanage when she was just 12 days old and now she is 4 months!! While I can't post her picture I can tell you that we think she is beautiful. She has a head full of dark thick curls and eyes that captivate you when you look at her picture. Mark and I constantly find ourselves staring at her picture. We have already printed her picture off and even put one in Jack's little photo album, so that he can see her every day. We have also started praying for her by name when we do prayers with Jack. We know it will be exciting but a definite adjustment for him too when we finally get her home.

It will definitely be 2010 when Mark goes to Ethiopia to pick her up. Our next steps are to be assigned a court date, pass court, then get an embassy date - Mark goes for this one.

It has been so hard for me not to write about this on here but we felt we needed to wait until we had the papers signed and sent before we could share the news with everyone. We are so excited and LOVE that our children will be so close in age. They are 2 months and 1 day apart.

~Praying that God continues to protect her and love on her while we are waiting to bring her home. ~

Happy 6 months

Oh, how lucky we are...to be Jack's parents. This has been the most wonderful half of a year, EVER! He is growing up and becoming his own little man, here is what he has been up to...

Likes:
our phones
people
the jumper
reading books
Loves the dogs, especially Tanner. Oh if I could count the number of kisses he gives Jack each day.

Dislikes:
NAPS

Discoveries/Developments:
1st tooth
sticking out his tongue so that he can feel his tooth
getting better at rolling over, rolls back and forth all day long
sitting up by himself without immediately falling over

Happy 1/2 Birthday Little Man Jack!

Pink

Real men can wear pink.

Monday Sickness - Part 2

After writing post 1, I managed to pick up the house a bit before Mark came home. I quickly showered and my friend Tanya arrived to pick me up so we could drive down to Denver to see the Pioneer Woman. Who is one of my favorite bloggers - fantastic recipes! We ran an errand, stopped for dinner, and then headed to the Tattered Cover, the bookstore where Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman was speaking and signing copies of her newly released cookbook.

When we got there we were in for quite the surprise - the room downstairs was completely full and there were lines coming up the staircases and out into the main part of the bookstore. Tanya wanted to see if she could go down to get a peek and I told her I was just going to sit down, I was starting to not feel so great. I was starting to feel hot, dizzy, and nauseous and it came on suddenly. Tanya went down heard a few questions, came back up, and we left. By this time I knew I was probably getting sick with whatever Jack had. We left and my health or what was left of it continuted to deteriorate.

To cut out lots of details, the rest of the story goes like this: Tanya drove and I proceeded to get sick over and over for the next 2 hours. We stopped at many gas stations and several places along the side of the road (I-70). Tanya is my hero. She was thoughtful, compassionate, and very understanding. She offered to stop at every gas station, which I pretty much took her up on. I know she reads my blog, so... Tanya, THANK YOU!

p.s. I never got to see the P.W. but I didn't care. And, Jack feeling better and me too.

Monday Sickness Part 1

(Wrote this on Monday, around noon - just now posting)

Little dude is sick. Slept like crazy Friday night - 16 hours, took good naps on Saturday. Why? Probably because he was getting sick. Mark and I woke up to a scream Sunday morning. I rushed in to Jack's room to find him covered in green diarrhea and choking on his vomit. Scary stuff. He has been sick from both ends ever since then and still going. Hoping he feels better soon.

This is Jack watching a baby einstein so that I could change my clothes, start what must be the 10th load of laundry, and attempt to disinfect our house. I'm not even going to bother with a shower, I know he has more for me!

Halloweenie

This year Jack was a giraffe for Halloween. Knowing that he is way too young to go trick or treating, we dressed him up and proudly took our little manimal with us to the Donut shop for breakfast. Later in the day he got to go out again all dressed up to our friends house who are kind enough to let anybody/everybody stop by their house while out and about on Halloween night. We ate some yummy soup, said "hi" to a bunch of friends, and returned home to put the little guy to bed. We had all had Fun!

(Tanner as Santa, Jack as giraffe, Macy as a Princess)

(Dad and son...cute!)