Misc. Pictures

Random pictures from the last few months.

The girls played in the mud! Which is SO much fun until it is time to get hosed off.

"Helping" with the chicken coop.

The kids camped out in the living for a few nights.

Found these two zonked out like this together.

The three girl cousins (on the Crawford side) sitting on Grandpa John's new bike.

It's so great to see these boys hanging out again!  God is doing some great things!

All the cousins on the Crawford side! Soon there will be NINE kiddos! Can't wait to see them all together! 

I was going through some closet stuff and found our slings. The kids and I had so much fun seeing who could still fit.

My biggest baby!

Birthdays!

We had a fun and crazy week of birthdays! It's really convenient that our girls birthdays are just 5 days apart. It makes for one big party and we get the craziness over with in one shot! I'm sure this may change the older they get but for now it's great. Next year I think we will do something smaller with just the girls close friends. Like a movie night or something easy like that!

Reagan's birthday. 3 years old! Can't believe it!
She is in a Minnie Mouse phase.

Caedmon made her a crown and an egg in a toast hole for breakfast.

Payton's birthday. 6 years old, going on 13!
As you can see, we had a very fancy breakfast that morning.

All you ladies born in the 80s, remember Fashion Plates? I had a set and LOVED them! They don't make them anymore but I did find something pretty dang close! It's called Fashion Designer and she likes it a lot.

The P-A-R-T-Y!
Payton has been trying to convince me to make her a Barbie cake for a few years now. I'm okay with my girls playing with Barbie, just wasn't too excited about a Barbie party. This was the only Barbie thing about the party. :)

And of course a Minnie Mouse cake for Reagan.

 I put out a paper pumpkin craft. I think it ended up being a little too hard for some of the kids to do on their own. Oh well.

Girls room.

The bedding that I ordered the other day came and I got it put on all the girls beds. It's a lot of floral print but I really like it.
Can't wait until Miss Madelyn can enjoy it with her sisters!

package of love!

Guess what came in the mail today from Aunt Erin and the rest of the Meschke clan?!
Mr. Easton and Miss Madelyn got their first official mail at their future home. 

These beautiful blankets were inside the package along with a very sweet note!

Names!

We recently decided on names for our African kiddos! We will be keeping their African names as their middle names. For security reasons I can't tell you those, but I can share the names we are intending on using as their first names. All the kid's names in our family end in N for their first names so we just decided to carry that on.

Our son will be Easton.
Why did we choose Easton?  Cause we like it.
What does Easton mean?  Eastern Settlement.  Exciting, I know.
Will we nickname Easton?  No.

Our daughter will be Madelyn.
Why did we choose it?  Cause we like it.
What does Madelyn mean? From Magdala. Magdala means elegant, great, or tower. That's coo.
Will we nickname Madelyn? No.

Besides Jessica to Jess and Jason to Jerk (ha! I made a funny!), I'm just not that into shortening names. Caedmon is still Caedmon and not Cade or CJ. Sometimes he's Caveman by people who can't pronounce his name. Payton is still Payton... or Payton DeBRA with an emphasis on BRA. I know. I'm classy. :) Reagan is still Reagan... or sometimes Reagan Rue, but I don't know why. I'm sure when the other two kids come we will eventually have extended personalized "nicknames" for them too.

So there you go. Hope you like the kids name. If you don't, I don't give a rats applesauce so just keep your opinions to yourselves. Otherwise I would love to hear the nice things you have to say. :)

LOVE DON'T COST NADA!

You don't want to miss this fundraiser coming up on Friday night! It would be a great date night and all proceeds go towards The Fatherless Foundations to help with our adoptions! Very exciting stuff!

http://lovedontcostnada.com/

Adoption update!

I can't tell you how excited I am to be doing this post! This week we have been shopping and gathering together everything that we want to send to the kids. Last night we did a lot of the shopping as a family and it was fun to see our bio kids think about their brother and sister that will be getting these fun things. A brother and sister that they don't even know yet, but are excited to share with.

It has been really helpful to me when other families posted pictures or made list of things that they sent to their kids so I thought I would do the same.  Plus, it's just fun, so humor me.

For Little Mr.

For Little Miss.

My friend, Jen, bought these backpacks a long time ago on sale with us in mind. That was great for us! One less thing to buy!!! Thanks Jen!

I was SO grateful that we were purchasing this stuff at the end of summer. All the clothes and shoes were on mega sale! 

Can I just say that now that I'm on the look out for peach AND brown baby dolls I'm noticing that there is a horrible selection out there for brown baby dolls. I'm not a fan of cabbage patch dolls! They are weird and pricey, but for some reason that's all I can ever find. After going to a few different places I scored and found this one. She's brown, she's cute, she's the great size and price, and....she magically smells like a vanilla candle!

I wish I could see their faces when they open up their backpacks!