MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Hope everyone is excited and in the Christmas spirit! I'm very much in the Christmas spirit and so thankful for all of God's blessings. It's really hard to believe that Christmas is upon us. Zachary and I have enjoyed all kinds of Christmas activities in the last few weeks. We went to see the Bearstein Bears perform Christmas carols, visited McAdenville to see the "City of Lights" and visited the Billy Graham Library to see the live Nativity scene and all of the lights and trees. I also joined Zachary last Friday at his Christmas party at school. He gets very excited about the Christmas trees and lights but especially about the gifts. ;-))

We are leaving for SC in the morning to see our family. I don't have to go back to work until Monday! Yippee!!! I have lots to do before leaving though. I have several things to cook and I have to finish packing and load the car. Fun stuff! ;-)) At this point our car is going to be so loaded down that we may have to ride on the roof. ;-) I guess somehow we'll find a way to get everything and everyone in there.

Lastly, what a miracle it is that I have finished all of my Christmas shopping!!! This never happens to me. I am usually finishing up on Christmas Eve. Yay me. ;-) So now to my next big venture. I'll be putting Zachary's tricycle together tomorrow night (more than likely around midnight). I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees it. ;-)


Many wishes for a very merry Christmas to you and yours!

Love,
Rebecca and Zachary

I've been a bad blogger...I admit it!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated. Things have been out of control. Z has officially hit the terrible two's....even though he's 2 1/2. Man, it just hit about a month ago and it's been crazy. Potty trainig is NOT fun at all!!!!!! He is catching on well..but my biggest grief is with daycare. I'll spare you the details but I will say this: I'm getting ready to have a word with them tomorrow. They're going to have to do better.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ours was great!! Now we're gearing up for Christmas!

So, what have we been up to?! Last weekend, my dad came up and we had a wonderful time with him. We are SO blessed to have him in our lives!!!!!! He is the greatest dad in the world! He got here on Friday evening. We went to McAdenville, which is a small town about 30 minutes from here, to see the Christmas lights. At Christmas time, everyone in the town decorates and the town pays for everyone's electric bill. It's been a tradition for years! People come from all over to see the lights. Saturday evening we went to the Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas lights. It was awesome as well...again VERY cold! Zachary got so excited when he saw all of the lights. He was running around all over the place. I took about 100 pictures! Inside, they had live entertainment. The Ice Princess was walking around...and there were two jazz musicians playing Christmas music. We were outside for about an hour so when we came in, we headed straight for the hot chocolate. YUMMY!

Ok, I have to go to bed. I stayed up to finish watching the Panthers game and they spanked Tampa Bay...WHOOO HOOOOO!!! I'm SO excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need to calm down though...because I've got to get some sleep!!

I will update again soon!

((HUGS))

Our Halloween Adventures

We had a really good time on Halloween!! Zachary was the most handsome little pirate around. I took lots of pictures (surprising, I know). ;-)) The thing is...I really didn't get many pictures of him smiling. He mostly smiled AFTER I took the pictures. Go figure! Anyway, he had a blast. He got to play with his cousins for a while and by the time we left to go back to nana and papa's house, he was exhausted! Next year I'll know to get all of my pictures BEFORE he sees his cousins and gets worn slap out... ;-)

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

Zachary and Owen

"Hhhmmmm...how about this one?"

Yeh, I know I'm cute mommy!

"So many pumpkins...so little time."

Searching for the perfect pumpkin
"Mommy, look what I found!"

"This punkin is heavy mommy."

"Cheese"

Zachary cleaning out the pumpkin

Zachary carving "his" pumpkin

"This is really messy mommy."

Alas...a pumpkin face


We had a good weekend. It was pretty quiet on Saturday. We stayed in our pjs until about 4pm and then we got dressed and went to the mall for some shopping. Yesterday we went to church and afterwards we went to the pumpkin patch. Zachary was SO excited. When we got there he went running towards the pumpkin patch while yelling "bunkins". He was so cute! ;-) So we walked around and finally found what we considered the "perfect pumpkin". I got some pictures of him but in a lot of them he's looking at a plastic piggy bank that he found in the pumpkin patch. There were lots of them out there for the kids and Z was totally enthralled with the one he found. We finally found the pumpkin that we wanted and Zachary wanted to carry it. Well as you can imagine, that didn't go very well. ;-)

Tonight when we got home, we decided to carve the pumpkins. We had a great time! Zachary did a really good job and was very helpful. ;-) I swear he is so independent. He kept saying "let me", "my pumpkin" and "mommy's pumpkin". We had a little pumpkin and a big pumpkin. We carved both of them. I was going to stencil a pirate on the big pumpkin but that didn't work out. My fault! I wasn't paying attention like I should have been! Anyway, we finished carving the pumpkins and put candles in them. Z was SO excited!! He loves looking at them. So I put one in front of the window and one on the table. We went outside to look at the one in the window. He loved it!! Ok, so here are the pics.

We are going home this weekend to trick-or-treat. Should be a great time!! We'll take lots of pictures and post them soon!

Happy Halloween!!!

Special Memories from Guatoberfest

Nora and Z in the hotel atrium.

Z and his wild hair!

Making sandcastles on the beach.

One of my favorite pictures of us.

Z and Nora loved the pumpkins.

Here we are with our angels...

This one speaks for itself....

I love this picture!!!

Brian, Megan and 3 of their 6 kiddos

Time to fly the kite....

Pam with Nora and Zachary

A good night hug....

Can you put that camera away already?! ;-)

;-))

Mommy and Z

Mommy's angel

Nora with her mommy and daddy.

Nora wasn't so sure she wanted to sit by Z. ;-))

Mommy and Zachary in the acquarium. ;-))

Another picture from the acquarium.

A really cool picture of a fish at the acquarium.

The view from our hotel room.

Another good pic of the babies in the atrium.

We spent last weekend in Myrtle Beach for Guatoberfest. Our friends Del, Pam and Nora met us there. We had such a wonderful time!! For those of you who don't know, Zachary and Nora spent the first year of their lives together. They had the same foster mom in Guatemala and were "crib mates". They have so much in common, like brother and sister. They really played well together too. While we were there, we had fun playing on the beach, visited Ripley's Aquarium, ate A LOT and just spent time hanging out together. The kids had a great time chasing each other around, playing ball and just being silly and laughing.

While we were at the beach, we stayed at the Marriott Grand Dunes Resort and Spa. It's the only 4-star hotel in Myrtle Beach and let me tell you, it was awesome!! The view from our room was spectacular. I have pictures. ;-) There were 69 families there with their little guatemalan angels. They were all so beautiful! On Saturday, all of the families went to the Ripley's Acquarium. The organizers of Guatoberfest had t-shirts made for all of us so everywhere we looked, we saw the other families (not that it would have been hard to recognize them otherwise). The kids loved the acquarium and so did the parents. ;-) It was really fascinating and the fish were beautiful! The sharks weren't beautiful but they were interesting to look at. I definitely wouldn't have wanted to be in the tank with them. Yikes! We took SO many pictures over the weekend and trust me when I tell you that we had to work REALLY hard to get most of them. We did everything short of turning flips to get them to smile and pose together. ;-)) I have posted some of them so enjoy!

During our time at the beach, we were hooked at the hip with Nora and her family. It was so hard to say good-bye today. Pam and I are going to plan a trip so we can meet up again next year. We want the babies to grow up knowing each other and being close. We made so many special memories last weekend and they will stay with us forever.

So now it's back to reality....unpacking, washing clothes, cleaning out the car and so on. I have to go back to work tomorrow. Bummer!!! My mom and step dad are coming home from their trip on Friday so we are really looking forward to seeing them. So at least we have something else to look forward too. ;-))