HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Jacob loves to carve pumpkins every year!

We had fun decorating as always. The kids put their homemade crafts in the window. We didn't go all the way this year with the boiling cauldron and black light, but it was still super festive!

Here I am, armed and ready with plenty of candy for the trick-or-treaters!

Here are the kids at our babysitter Jean's clubhouse. We always drive over to visit her on Halloween evening for a bit. Paul (Christina's boyfriend) and Christina did some last minute deadly make-up. Christina is the little girl form the Tower of Terror ride at Disney. Pretty creepy. Matthew looked awesome as a pirate! Joshua switched from being Spiderman the day before at Pre-K, to a Ninja on Halloween night. Good thing we keep all of Matthew's old costumes for plenty of options!

The kids and I. I was sad that Jacob had to work this Halloween. First time he had to miss one and it wasn't the same!

On Friday, Joshua's Pre-K class had a fall festival. Here they are frosting their cookies!

Joshua and his friends. Waiting for more treats!!

Joshua's Pre-K class singing songs. They are so cute!

PAPER WORK.

Switching from Taiwan to a China adoption has meant what? More paper work? YES.

Here is what we have accomplished in the last 4 weeks:

Home Study Visits
Local Police clearances - notarized
FDLE Background checks - received
DCF Clearances
Previous States' DCF Clearances
Certified Financial Statement - notarized
Ordered extra original certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license
Employment Verification Letters requested
4 New reference letters
Copies of past 3 years tax returns
Jacob's notarized medical form, complete with blood tests
Annie's notarized medical form, complete with blood tests
Downloaded the USCIS immigration I-800A and completed
Copies of passports
Collected family/home photos

This is just the beginning.

In addition to all of these, I have been working a lot of extra hours to pay for each step. God has blessed me with plenty of hours doing work that I enjoy!

According to most people, we are aloud to post photos of the little girl we are pursuing once we have Pre- Approval from China, which we do. But we are pretty sure we are going to wait for LOA (letter of approval) since we have not officially logged into China yet. So that won't be for another couple months.

OUR FALL FUN AT A GLANCE! MAINLY CONSISTING OF FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL AND MORE FOOTBALL.

We have been so busy working on updating our adoption paperwork, I haven't had any time to blog! So I decided to just post some of our fall photos and leave it at that!

This is Jacob and I. Mom and Dad. Ready to take on the carpooling, practice, uniforms, costumes, games and shows!

Matthew. Focused and always ready to play at his best. He LOVES Football. He never says that he doesn't want to play. He is always ready to get out there and go, go go!

Let's just say it is HOT here in Florida. We can hardly make it through the game just watching. I don't know how the boys keep going out in the heat, but they do!

Matthew with some of his best buddies from school and from football. An awesome group of kids.

We went to Auburn Alabama for a quick weekend trip to attend Jacob's cousin's daughter's wedding. We had so much fun visiting with family. I was so happy we got a half way decent family photo with us all cleaned up nice! :)

We celebrated Joshua's birthday in Alabama. That cake was beautiful and delicious! Thanks Lolli!

What better thing to do in Auburn than to go to an Auburn University football game???!!!! Joshua was ready to go and ran ahead of us, dressed for the game, tail and all. GO TIGERS!

Matthew, Joshua and Christina waiting to enter the stadium.

We got to sit with the band! Jacob was the drum major for AU back in school!

Back at Jim and Kathey's house, the boys played in the yard in the beautiful Alabama fall weather. What did they play? What else... football.

Christina plays Alto Sax in her high school marching band. She loves it and has so much fun. She also still takes dance classes as well. We spend all week either at Pee Wee Football or High School Football.

Marching back from pre-game. I will have to go and get better pics with their hats on.

The band does and awesome job in their half time show!

Last, but certainly not least, Christina and her boyfriend, Paul, had a wonderful time at their homecoming dance! Aren't they cute?