Holiday Parade 2012

We had a really nice Thanksgiving with Mom and Dad and some friends. The day was very relaxing and the food was yummy. Mike got the Christmas lights up in the morning. On Friday, Tia and I decorated the inside of the house all morning. We are all ready for the holidays, and will go to Red Lodge next weekend for our annual tradition of cutting our Christmas tree and spending the night at the Pollard. We love doing the Christmas Stroll there -- it's such a festive and special time for our family. And we are, of course, hoping that Rosie will be us for all of the fun next year. In the meantime, we are enjoying this magical time of year as a family of 3. :-)) On Friday night, we went downtown for the Holiday parade and had a really great time. The highlight of the parade was the lady coming up to Tia and handing her the biggest stuffed moose we'd ever seen. We were all in shock and Tia was absolutely tickled. It's bigger than all of us! It was such a surprise and just added to the excitement of the night. She named him "Milford" and he's not left her side all day today. It's pretty sweet.

Halloween 2012

Halloween was so much fun this year! Tia created her costume to be a Zebra. It was such a fun idea and quite simple to do. She wanted her hair to be the ears and we made her tail out of a paper towel roll with my scarf wrapped around it. I painted her face. She had never really done the "real" going from house to house trick-or-treating, and she decided that this would be the year for it. It was so much fun! She couldn't believe what a neat deal it was to get candy from every house that we went to. It was a beautiful evening and we all had a really good time. We are hoping that Rosie will be with us for Halloween next year. Keep praying!

The story behind our welcome picture

August 27, 2012

The story behind the picture of the 3 of us standing in front of the Billings MET bus is this..........for Tia's "Gotcha Day" this year, all she wanted to do was ride the city bus downtown for lunch. It was the sweetest thing. So, we looked at the schedules, bus fare, etc. and planned our trip. Grama and Papa joined us. God bless them because we still had to walk quite a bit once we got downtown to get to our lunch place, plus it was almost 100 degrees! But the day was so incredibly special. Tia wanted to be all dressed up and was absolutely tickled about the whole "adventure". As you can imagine, we've been downtown many times before, but it was like we were all seeing it for the first time. As we approached the area, she said, "Look guys, at all the skyscrapers!" We might as well have been in NYC, it was so sweet. The whole trip was actually very fun for all of us, more than we ever would've expected. We had our lunch, stopped by a fun little place for a goodie afterwards, and then back on the bus. We took pictures like we were tourists and the whole bit. It was truly a special day to remember for all of us. Not to mention, it was the day 6 years ago, that they placed her in our arms. The day that changed our lives forever. She continues to be such an amazing blessing to all of us. She is in the 1st grade and absolutely loves school. It's hard to believe she will be 7 in the fall. And that she will someday soon be a big sister. She is SO excited! And we think she will be amazing with sweet Rosie. Hopefully that day will come sooner, rather than later. Keep praying!