a-MAZE-ing!

Allan and I are officially done with the 2nd phase of paperwork!  Next ... the home-study.  That should happen in a couple of weeks.  We are really excited to be done with the majority of the paperwork and moving on to finding our child, where ever he or she may be.

Allan and I had a lot of fun this week in lieu of Halloween tomorrow.  We carved a pumpkin for Family Home Evening.  I think it turned out pretty good.

Allan cleaning out the pumpkin

                                                      

Kami drawing the face

                                                               

The finished product

                                                                   

We also went to the Temple which is always wonderful.  We feel really blessed to live only 5 minutes away.  And we went to the Dentist.  Most people probably wouldn't include this in their "fun" week but Allan hadn't been in 5 years and I hadn't been in 7 years so we were pretty excited to go.  We walked away with only one cavity between us, and I was the lucky winner.  That's okay though, I was thrilled that I only had 1.  I thought for sure I would have one for every year I hadn't gone to the dentist.  That would have been a mess!

On Friday we went to a Halloween party thrown by our awesome neighbors.  They dressed up their little girl as Godzilla!  He was the Empire State Building and she was the Damsel in Distress.  What a cute idea!  Allan was a miner and I was a hippie.

We had a lot of fun and learned a new party game called Three on the Couch.

On Saturday we went to a corn maze.  I was so excited!  I've been wanting to go to a corn maze since we were dating but we never had enough money to do it.  We had a blast.  The corn maze was pretty easy but we took our time and tried to go down every path.  We covered a good amount of the maze but there was one large area that we never got to.  We saw a lot of cute fuzzy caterpillars of all sorts of colors.  Allan helped me move them off of the paths so they wouldn't get squished.

Here is a view from the bottom

There was a bridge towards the end of the maze that gave a great view of the corn field.  Here we are on the bridge.

                                                   

What a great view!

We also saw this crazy looking spider!  Yuck!  He was the perfect colors for Halloween though.

This is the roots of the corn stalks.  I think they look like little fairy huts!

Here we are in the pumpkins.  The lady who was taking the pictures asked if we wanted to "hug a pumpkin" like she makes all of the little kids do.  I told her I already had a pumpkin to hold.

They also had sunflower fields, pepper fields and of course a pumpkin patch, that we walked through.  Here is one of their gorgeous sunflowers.

Today in church the teachers of the other sunbeam class weren't there.  Usually when this happens Allan and I just take them, so when Allan asked me if we could take them all my first instinct was to say yes.  Then I looked around and realized that there were 11 three year olds there that day!  Our room is not nearly big enough to fit 11 children in no matter how small they are.  I was relieved when they found substitutes and we only had to take six.  It would have been quite the adventure!  We only had one mishap when a little boy fell through two chairs that he was trying to sit on at the same time.  He was very reverent after that though.  We asked them all about their Halloween costumes.  We had two cowboys, superman, Thomas the Train, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton, and a little girl who was going to be Tinkerbell and a witch.  We are still wondering how she is going to be both of those at the same time.  Happy Halloween!  

The Tickle Monster

I forgot to mention that the little boy who was sitting next to me in the Primary Program was just the right height for my hair to tickle his cheek.  Every time I looked over at him my hair was touching his face.  No wonder he was so wiggly!

60 + and 3 Year Olds

This week has been filled with more paperwork, but we're happy to say that our next phase of paperwork should be completed by the end of the week!  Woohoo!  Here's hoping!

Allan and I attended the Gila Valley Cowboy Poetry and Music Gathering for our date this weekend.  Just me, and Allan, and ... all the seniors in our community.  We often go to events where the majority of people are over 60.  I guess this tells you a bit about our tastes in entertainment!  Haha!  We do really enjoy spending time with older generations.  They are very good conversationalists and we love to hear all of the great stories they have to tell.  We always learn so much from them.  The show was a blast.  Our favorite was a woman poet named "Sam" DeLeeuw.  She told three or four of her poems about her life as a ranchers wife, her mother, and her alter-ego HILDA.  My favorite was the one that was inspired by her mother, however her alter-ego HILDA (a 6'4", 300 lb plus, trail drive camp cook) was hilarious!  If you're interested you can check out some of her poems at www.cowboypoetry.com/samdDeLeeuw.htm.  It was Allan's first time to hear cowboy poetry and he really enjoyed it.    

I babysat one of my primary kids and her little brother on Friday.  I had them from 8-5 and we had a blast!  I brought over my favorite game, Strawberry Shortcake's Strawberry Land, and she fell in love with it.  We ended up playing it about 10 times!  Then when her siblings came home we played it two more times!  I have had my fill of Strawberry Land for a while.  Allan will be glad!  She is a really sweet girl though.  She played really well with her brother.  We played outside, danced, sang, played Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, and she showed me her tricks on the trampoline.  She also showed me her doll and her teddy bear and told me about how they didn't come from a store, they came from her belly!  What a cutie!  She was disappointed to learn that my doll, Elva, just came from Santa Claus.  When her older siblings got home from school the first thing they asked was "When will Allan be here?"  Allan came over when he got off of work and played football with them.  They loved that.  I think it's safe to say that we all had a lot of fun that day.

It was the Primary program this week at church.  In our ward they have all of the primary children, excluding the Sunbeams, sit on the stand for the entire sacrament meeting.  The Sunbeams sit with their teachers while the sacrament is passed and then go up to the stand.  So, Allan and I  had three, 3 year old boys sitting with us while the sacrament was passed (our two other children wanted to stay with their parents until the program began, thank goodness).  We ended up having a lot of fun with them and they did really well, even without any toys or coloring books.  They sat on the bench the whole time and Allan and I only had to tell them to be quiet a couple of times.  All of the kids did a great job during the program.  They sang all of the songs that they could remember the words to, and said their parts perfectly.  All but one of them even had their part memorized!  There is another Sunbeam class in our ward that also has 5 kids and they sat on the other side of the podium.  Their kids are like statues compared to ours.  Every time I looked over at them they were all sitting almost still in their chairs, looking straight forward, with smiles on their faces.  Our side of the podium however was a constant sea of moving, talking, and chair pushing!  I can only imagine what it looked like from the congregation!  Even though they talked the entire program, picked their noses, kicked the podium, stood up when they were supposed to sit down, and sat down when they were supposed to stand up, I was really proud of them!  They were pretty well-behaved ... for them.

Paperwork, Paperwork, and More Paperwork!

We got access to LDS Family Services adoption website on Wednesday and have been busy filling out paperwork ever since.  There is a lot to do on the site and we are not quite half way there.  We are surprised about how much paperwork there actually is involving adoption but we are so happy to do it!  And, we understand the necessity of it.  Some of it has really made us sit down and think about our plans for the future.  It's been fun as well as tedious.

Allan took me on a drive to see the cotton fields in bloom.  The harvest has begun so we had to get out to see them before they were all gone.  They are really beautiful.  When we moved here we were not too excited about the cotton because we thought it would make our allergies worse but it hasn't been too bad and the view is definitely worth it.  Here are a few pictures:

Allan's favorite board game is "The Construction Game" and we played that for a couple of hours last night.  I won....again.  He very rarely beats me at it.  For some reason both of us always lose at our favorite games.  I rarely beat him at "Mexican Train" and he rarely beats me at "The Construction Game."  It's a good thing we're both good sports and don't mind losing to each other. 

Allan's job is going well.  He finally has enough to do to keep him busy all day every day and he enjoys most of what he has to do.  A lot of it gets him outside into the pit which is where he is the happiest.  He comes home sweaty and dirty...just the way I like him, but he doesn't get a hug until he's showered!

We teach the Sunbeam class in our ward (the 3 year olds).  The children have been getting ready for the Primary Program so they have had to sit and sing for two hours straight for the last two Sundays.  Talk about rough.  I don't know a single 3 year old who would enjoy doing that and our class certainly does not.  They are a constant sea of movement.  I do have to say that they did pretty good for the first 45 min.  For the most part they stayed in their chairs, sang the songs, and didn't talk too loudly.  When they got up to say their parts they spoke loud and clearly and walked back to their seats with big smiles on their faces.  One of the boys gave Allan a big thumbs up right before he said his part and they all gave Allan high-fives and knuckle bumps when they got back to their chairs.  However, when the second hour came all good behavior went out the window.  They sprawled on the floor, played in the curtains, howled like wolves, and tried to dump each other out of their chairs!  They made it very clear that they were done with sitting, and really who can blame them.  Allan and I were done with sitting too.  When we got up to leave I noticed that my hair was disheveled, the sash on my dress was untied and I was generally in a state of disarray.  Needless to say, it was quite the day in Primary.  But, we can't wait to go back next week!