October

Grandparent's Day

Grandparent's Day

Soccer baby

Bethany meet up with Shiyan and Charlie

Went thru our old home state on our way to FL

"What Cancer Cannot Do" quilt

Last visit with Mom

Hey, I'm eating table food!

Scarecrow day

Love this picture of the kids exploring

Hiking

Walking up then running down the ski hill

Selfie 7 

Boyne Mountain scenery

Julia rode a horse

Family vacation 

Visit with Great Aunt Judy and Great Grandma Jongsma

Halloween

Grandma Jongsma made it to Grandparent's Day with the 3 kids.  Unfortunately Julia's teacher didn't get a picture of Julia and Grandma that morning.  The kids enjoyed sharing a little of their school life with Grandma.

I was surprised when Bethany told us some of the Chinese adoption workers would be at Bethany's Grand Rapids office.  I took the younger 3 kids and saw Shiyan and Charlie again.  Shiyan is Bethany's employee in China and she was our guide/adoption worker for 10 days in Guangzhou.  We really appreciate Shiyan and it was great to see her so soon after leaving China.  Charlie is Bethany's contact person/Chinese adoption caseworker from Lexi's orphanage. Charlie does not know much English. When he saw Lexi he said, "she is fat!"  Shiyan told him the correct English word is "chubby" or "healthy." Yeah, Lexi is far from fat.  Ha ha.  Charlie did not impress Nate and I when we interacted with him at Lexi's orphanage.  So, I wasn't sure how I felt about seeing him so soon.  But, he was very excited to take pictures and videos of Lexi to show the orphanage nannies.

Through the help of friends/family caring for our children, I was able to fly to Florida with Lexi to visit Mom. At that point she was eating a little food again and could sit and have conversations.  Mom and I went through her recipes and pulled out family favorites to share with the family.  I am thankful for the conversations we had and that I could be with her for a couple days.

Lexi decided to stop eating baby food.  Which is good, but left me scrambling to figure out what she would eat.  Right now she eats eggs, chicken, yogurt, PB&J, sweet potatoes and a couple of fruits.  She is getting better at trying new foods instead of automatically rejecting it.  At the advice of our pediatrician, she will continue formula til her 2nd birthday.  She drinks 12 ounces a day.

The day after the outage ended, the kids had fall break.  We took advantage and drove up to Boyne Mountain for a family vacation.  We rented a condo and the kids thought it was awesome! The weather and scenery were beautiful.  We did some hiking, played games, watched TV, and relaxed.  We also went to the indoor water park for one evening.  Our family needed this downtime in the middle of a stressful season of life.

On the way home from Boyne Mountain, we stopped at my parent's house.  My Grandma, Aunt Beth and Great Aunt Judy were visiting for the weekend.  Aunt Judy was enthralled with the kids and Stephen and Julia cuddled up to Great Grandma, which she enjoyed.  Visits with my grandparents are usually too short, but I always love seeing them!

For Halloween we had a football player, ninja, Queen Elsa, bunny and Snow White.  It was cold and rainy so we did about half the neighborhood, which is just the right amount of candy.  Stephen really got into running up to houses and yelling "trick or treat!" And who can resist a cute bunny?