Trunk or Treat

So how do you explain Halloween and Trunk or Treat to a five year old that has never experienced it? You don't even try and just tell them they get to put on a beautiful dress!! A huge thank you goes out to my gifted seamstress cousin Anne and cousins Kat and Emily for the use of the beautiful Cinderella dress. Jodi felt like a true princess as she strolled around, holding up her dress with both hands like she had seen Cinderella do in the movie. Mama got to hold her crown most of the time as well as the goody bag. We had a ball (no Cinderella pun intended...) at our church's Trunk or Treat. We were so fortunate that Tinkerbell (lovely cousin Emily), Peter Pan ( handsome cousin Andrew), and a pirate (little cousin Alex) were able to join Jodi. We rode down the big slide (a little scared at first), played games, and rode on a cart pulled by a mule. The big finale was Jodi's favorite part! We walked around to the different cars to get candy.

Our Jodi has a big sweet tooth like her parents. She went to the first car, took her one piece of candy, and said "thank you." I then told her she could go on to the next car. She looked up at me with big eyes and said, "MORE CANDY???" It took her no time to get into the swing of things as she ran from car to car. Jodi kept saying,"I got a lots of candy!!" It was so precious and we loved sharing that time with her cousins and her best friends. She thought Baba the pirate was pretty cool too! She was incredibly happy and stayed excited all the way home.

When I was putting her to bed, Jodi started to giggle and said, "Mama.... I got A LOTS of candy.... man...." What a blessing to experience these firsts with her. I'm sure in the orphanage candy was few and far between and I think it was hard for her to grasp so many people wanting to give her such a treasure!! Everyone has been so kind and generous to her and we again say "thank you" and GOD IS GOOD!!!!!!!!

Catching Our Breath

Wow! What an amazing few weeks we have had. As you can tell, there has been no time to write so I'm glad to finally have a few minutes. We had a great first vacation together in the North Georgia mountains with mostly incredible weather. It especially meant alot to me to have Jodi there because I grew up camping there. She loved doing all of the things that I always loved like playing in the creek, going to the waterfalls, and feeding the fish and ducks.

We started our trip with a wonderful weekend with Fred's friends and their families. Jodi got to ride on her first "boat" and was in the back yelling "faster, faster"!! She also got to ride on her first horse which was a 30 year old horse named Patches that Fred and I led around the pen. She kept copying the sounds of the rooster crowing which Fred managed to capture a picture of. Jodi also got to meet her Aunt Mildred, Aunt Shirley, and Uncle Ron which meant so much. We also had some special time with her Nye Nye Huffstetler and YeYe (Fred's dad). She hiked a mile to get to one of the waterfalls much to our surprise with no complaints. She is such a sweetie and still keeps us laughing!

We had a great opportunity this past weekend to go to a 100 year homecoming at the church where Fred first started in youth group. It was such a blessing to meet all of those special people and highlights included seeing a video of little skinny Fred playing Tarzan while flying around on a rope and hearing the reunion concert of the Crystal Critters, a band made up of his old youth group and leaders. What a blast! Jodi was dancing around while her Baba sang with his buddies. We got to stay at Nye Nye Johnson's and Jodi got a chance to meet new friends and family. She was so excited to meet a wonderful new friend Betty who lives in Mom's building, our family friends John and Ann Watson, and her cousins Jack and Will (also 5 years old). She gets especially shy when meeting new kids but eventually warmed up! Mom and I were just shaking our heads because everyone that came was so sweet to bring her gifts. She would run right up to them and grab the bag from their hands before even saying "hi." I think we've created a monster. She's going to think meeting new people means getting new things!! Everyone has been incredibly generous to her and we can't believe how blessed we are. We still can't believe we get the good fortune of being her parents and we pray that God continues to give us wisdom in the best way to raise her. There is no question how loved she is and how loved we are and we thank you for that! God bless.