Random Act of Culture -- AMAZING!!!

My Baby Girl's Quilt....Finally!

I am finally putting up photos of Baby Bear's quilt, which I FINALLY finished in mid-September, after having started it in May or June. All I had to do was hand-sew the binding, but that takes so long, and it hurts my hands, so I put it off for awhile. But she loves her quilt, and so do I!

Mama Bear

Happy Birthday to Little Bear!

It's Little Bear's 4th birthday today! Happy Birthday, Little Man! We love you so much, and we are so grateful that God chose to place you in our family, through adoption. We have been SO blessed by your joy-filled presence in our family. We pray that God grows you in this coming year, that you learn more and more, and grow to love Jesus with all of your heart. We LOVE you!!!

Mama Bear

Giggles Galore!

I have shared 2 videos on Facebook today, but I had to share this one too, because I just love Baby Bear's baby giggles. We put her tutu on her, for the second time ever, and let her toddle around in it. She is just learning to walk in this video. LOVE this baby, I do!

WARNING: The end of this clip might gross you out a bit. Sorry. She was a little excited.

Have a blessed day in Christ!

Mama Bear

Halloween with Two Very Cute Little People and a Great Big Brother

(Little Bear as "Woody", with his preschool class)

Normally, our family isn't big on celebrating Halloween. It's just not a big holiday for us. For others, including my sister-in-law, it's when their height of creativity really comes out, what with decorated yards, imaginative costumes, etc.

But this year, things were different. Because we have an almost 4 year old, and a 1 year old, along with our 17 year old. It became a little more fun for us. Our little guy is COMPLETELY and UTTERLY obsessed with Woody from Toy Story. He has these little figures that are about 3 inches tall, of Buzz and Woody, that he used to be able to take to bed with him. We made him tuck his little friends into his pillowcase each night. That stopped the night we heard screams and cries coming from the bedroom. I thought he had had a bad dream, but Papa Bear knew exactly what happened, the minute we opened the door. By the way, the screams came from the dark room Little Bear and Baby Bear share, and where Baby Bear was fast asleep...until the screams.

We saw Little Bear with his rear end up in the air, and he was face down...with his arm stuck in the bed railing. See, Woody must have somehow jumped out of his pillowcase to play with Little Bear, when they should have been sleeping. Papa Bear said, "He's stuck...Woody fell." Yep, that about sums it up. Woody fell between the bed and the wall, and Little Bear was trying to reach him, only he couldn't, because Woody was hiding under the bed. From that point on, Woody and Buzz had to stay out in the toy box when Little Bear went to bed. YAY! No more late night parties in the kids' bedroom!

So, here are some photos from our Halloween week. I hope you enjoy.

On Saturday evening, we carved our pumpkins.

(Bubba Bear, with the template for his pumpkin.)

(Getting ready to carve the pumpkins.)

(The finished products. Mama Bear did the one on the left. Bubba Bear did the one on the right. Pretty cool, huh?! We taped our templates on, then poked holes with thumbtacks and subsequent thumb cramps, to create the design. Then, Mama Bear cut out on the dotted lines.)

(Spooky...all lights off...photo of the finished pumpkins.)

(On Sunday, after church, we took our kids over to Grandma and Poppa's house so they could see the kids in costume.)

(We had two costumes for Baby Bear, that were given to us, but both were for much cooler weather, and it was actually in the high 70s on Halloween! So we ended up buying her this little kitty costume on Halloween day.)

(Baby Bear had just woken up from her nap on the way home from the grandparents' house, and didn't want me -- Mama Bear -- to put her down to get pictures.)

(Our very happy "Woody")

This last photo is of the two little ones as we waited for trick-or-treaters. "Woody" didn't want to come to the door when they showed up though, because there were "bad guys" (scary costumes). We had to coax him out from behind our legs when there weren't "bad guys" at the door, so that the could enjoy all of the "good" costumes.

Bubba Bear ended up going to a Christian rap concert with our good friend, Eric. They went and saw LeCrae in Richmond, and had a GREAT time! If you like rap, or if you don't, you should check out LeCrae...he has an amazing and very straight-forward Gospel message in his music!

Costumes will be put away until next year. Oh, wait, the "Woody" costume will likely get more use. Little Bear would wear it to school, to church, and to bed if we let him! His birthday is this weekend, and I can tell you there WILL be "Woody" gifts there, so he'll get to wear his costume then....and likely several dozen more times before it gets too small, or gets worn out...whichever comes first!

Well, have a blessed day in Christ!

Mama Bear

You Capture -- Autumn

I have found a great blog (I Should Be Folding Laundry), where the author gives photography challenges. This is good for me, because I need to be challenged as I work to better my photography skills. So, this time, the challenge is to capture "Autumn". I LOVE Fall/Autumn, so this isn't too difficult for me. We took our little ones (and our big one) to the pumpkin patch this week, and here are a couple of photos from our visit:

Have a blessed day in Christ!

Mama Bear

The Pumpkin Patch

Baby Bear and I went with Little Bear on his preschool field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. After the previous week's temperatures of 100 degrees, we were NOT prepared for chilly, windy, 60 degree weather! But we bundled up, and we had a lot of fun. Thank you, G&M Farms in Livermore, for a great time!

Mama Bear