- 17 months waiting since we began our adoption process
- 36 months (3 years) since we began the process of adding
to our family
October has been a busy month! Birthday parties, state fair and Halloween - oh my! I'm not sure what happened - but it's November already!!
We celebrated Ian's 8th and Aidan's 5th birthdays with a Popsicles in the Park party on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in early October.
The boys had asked all summer to have a lemonade stand - they are their father's sons - our little entrepreneurs. We don't really have the appropriate amount of traffic past our house to support their business ideas - so I decided we'd have a popsicle stand for their birthday party. Just so you know, we did NOT charge the birthday party guests for their popsicles! Our Papa and Mimi (my dad and mom) helped construct the popsicle stand and the treat cone holders. There were a few other craft projects I completed to make the popsicle stand complete - sewing the striped table cloth and pennant banner, designing and making the popsicle sign and cutting the paper snack cones. If you know me even a little, you know I LOVE making projects - sewing, painting, creating - I had a great time pulling together the projects to celebrate my boys and their birthdays.
Each of our party guests left with their bellies full of popsicles and a personalized cup with a few more popsicles for their own freezer.
A family that has a popsicle stand together stays together! Wait - that's not the saying, but you get the idea. The boys had a blast simply playing in the park and enjoying popsicles with their friends.
A McGinnis family tradition began 7 years ago just as Ian was celebrating his 1st birthday - we visit the NC State Fair. Brian's parents lived in Raleigh when he was very young, and some of his early childhood memories include visiting the NC State Fair with his parents. We've visited each year since 2006 - except the year Aidan was born - who wants to travel to the fair when you are 39 weeks pregnant with a 9 lb, 5 oz baby boy? It's our fall tradition - the boys look forward to it each year - and I mean ALL the boys look forward to it each year.
This year I took special note of ALL the "deep fried" items available for purchase at the fair. Wow - no wonder there's a health crisis in America! What do you have if you consume all the deep fried sugary treats? Diabetes, my friend, you have diabetes! We did not enjoy any deep fried treats.
But we enjoyed carnival rides, animal viewing, agricultural exhibits, shows and possibly the best fireworks ever. We had a great time - and this year did NOT result in a round of E. Coli for the family - hello 2011!
On Halloween Eve, we participated in our church's Trunk or Treat festivities. Wow - there were more than 1300 people who visited our church - we hope they saw Jesus through the presentation and the kindness of our church family as they passed from car to car collecting sweet treats and a free hot dog meal on their way out. The boys really enjoyed passing out candy to all the costumed kids.
For Halloween, we had superheroes in our house. Wolverine and Ironman had their photo taken - another annual tradition - by Rick Haithcox in Dallas, NC. As an annual fundraiser for our local Hospice, Rick takes photos of children dressed in their costumes on Halloween. He's an amazing photographer and has a way with my children - it does NOT hurt that Rick is always hopeful that the McGinnis boys will be Star Wars characters. We won't disappoint in 2014 - I promise!
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