Fall Fun!

Our little man ate almost an ENTIRE Honey Crisp apple on his own! He was in heaven! He litereally ate it almost to the core.

Mom & Laine melting the caramel down!!! Mmmm, yummy!

Mmmm, nothing like Honey Crisp Apples! LOVE FALL! We have a unique "coop" here in Arizona that you can order fresh produce baskets bi-weekly for $15 (a tone of produce), and sometimes they offer fruits or vegetables by the case at great price! These apples were....................drum roll.............................get this, $.64/lb!!!!!!! UNREAL! I was so excited! I bought two cases and made and froze homemade applesauce, and my dear mother took the remainder of the other apple box home for me and peeled, cored and sliced and made ready for apple pies. Mmmmmm!

We all dipped our own apple!

Isn't Aubrey ADORABLE! She's so cute pregnant! Can't wait to meet my new nephew! I know she can't wait either! :)

Our new baby boy! Apple half gone!

Our non-stop growing big boy! Laine just keeps growing!

Mama eating her carameled apple and having fresh apple cider.

Here in Arizona, we "create" fall by doing the fall things! We did no less by getting together with family, eating soup and dipping caramel apples! YUMMY! The pictures will tell you the story!

Adoption Party was a HIT!!!!

L to R: Holly (Bouck) McRae, Me, Cheri (Baker) Dubes & Amy (Bohlen) Price

Laine in his ELEMENT! (Amy's husband is a Phoenix Fire Firefighter)

All the kids left at the end of the party!

No pictures to show for it though! Would you believe it completely slipped my mind! And all of our minds! Seriously can't believe it, I was beside myself when I realized not one picture had been taken! Oh well! That happens!

Had a great weekend. BUSY! Saturday morning our family had family pictures done for Ezra's Adoption! The little stinker intentionally turns his face away from the camera! You seriously have to hide it from him before he'll look at you and smile! And he's one of the happiest and smiliest babies I know! Anyway, I'm sure we'll have a few we LOVE. Can't wait to see how they turned out! Then Saturday afternoon around 4 we took off to go to a get together with some friends I went to school with back in Waterloo, IA! There are a few of us that live in Phoenix area and we all attempted a get together at Amy's house! THANK YOU AMY for coordinating and making dinner for us all! We had a BLAST!

Happy Pumpkin Day!

First trick or treat house avaialable! It was open at 4:30!!!!!

Oh, that's because it's OMA'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oma with her grandbabies! Happy as ever!
They are the love of her life!
Well, alright, maybe dad beats them, but they are a close second! :)

Oma giving treats to the trick or treaters!

My nephew, Jack, the goldfish! His bare naked legs made the entire outfit!

Cousins! DARLING! Just three months apart!
Ezra as a giraffe & Jack as a goldfish!

Our Mr. Police Officer! Isn't he darling!?
Thanks Aunt ShiSha for the contribution! He LOVES it!

Mom & Laine hanging out on the curb at COC carnival!

A VERY tired giraffe!

I've NEVER enjoyed Halloween! In fact, I out right, despise it, but guess what! I have kids now that care! :) So, guess what we do now! We do the pumpkin day thing! :) I just call it Happy Pumpkin Day, so Happy Pumpkin Day to you! :)

So, we've had such a big day! We started our day out, Laine and I at his class party! Guess who is "head room mom?" :) Yep, you got it! ME! As if I needed something else to add to my load! So, we had a very successful party, much to my surprise as it was very last minute with everything else going on this week, but nonetheless, it was fun and the kids had fun and that's all that mattered!

Came home and baked four more cheesecakes for Sunday's open house! YAY! Can't wait! So excited to celebrate with friends and family!

Then at 4:30, we started our night trick or treating at Oma's house, and Oma was SO HAPPY! :) We met up with our Aunt Aubrey and cousin/nephew Jack, then all went over to our church's BIG HUGE carnival! WOW! They were expecting about 8,000 people! Exciting! Not for me though past a certain point! We went right when it started at 5:00 to miss the huge crowds. They were open until 10 tonight! WOW! Crazy! So, we were there from 5-7, drove through dinner, then got trick or treating late about 8 and went just a few streets around our home until about 8:45! Laine had a blast, it was a BEAUTIFUL night out, in the 70's and we just had a nice walk! Met a sweet family right down the road too! :)

So, here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

Good night for now!

The Adoption is FINAL!!!!

All of us in front of the Pinal County Superior Courthouse!

Ezra waiting with Opa before the hearing.

Tracey & Ezra, Ezra's adoption worker!

Ben & I and our attorney, Tamara, signing the final paperwork!

King of the day!! Ezra Daniel Baltzly!

Our family with Judge Georgini! Ezra was officially ours at this point!

L to R: Jack, Aubrey, Ezra, Opa, Oma, Joanna, Laine, Ben & Chavalah

L to R: Tracy (adoption worker), Laine, Aubrey, Jack, Dad, Mom, Ezra, Me, Ben, Chavalah, Christina (our CPS friend), Tamara (our attorney), Andrea (our licensing worker).

Walking out after the finalization!

Courtroom 3C!!!!!! That was where it happened!!!

Tamara filing Adoption Decree in the Recorder's Office.

Ezra with his big adoption meal! :) PANCAKES! Mmmm!

What a big day! WOW! It was an early morning, we left our house at 7:30! Courthouse was an hour drive away! Met with our representing attorney before the hearing to finalize all paperwork and sign our final documents. We were called in shortly after 9 in front of the judge. The hearing was BEAUTIFUL! Very small and intimate! We had the judge, court reporter, judge's secretary, Tracy, our adoption worker, our attorney, Tamara, our family, my mom and dad, my sister in law Aubrey, nephew Jack, Andrea, our licensing worker, and Christina, our other CPS worker friend.

We went out to breakfast afterwards to celebrate!

Ezra Singing!

Caught Ezra singing "The B-I-B-L-E!!!" So sweet! He is camera shy and it's SO HARD to capture anything he does on camera! Enjoy! :)

Family Day at the Pumpkin Farm!!!

Our family in the orchard! Sun wasn't in the right spot! Oh well!

Mommy & Chavie!

Me & Johnna, picnicing out the back of their Explorer!

Our little sweetie! Chavalah LOVED being outside all day!

Our attempt at getting all the kids to look at the camera! Impossible! :)

Ezra having fun on the hayrack ride trying to keep his balance!
He giggled and giggled! Such a happy boy!

Exiting the corn maze! We had fun. They had a 'passport' that gave you tips on how to get through it, so it was a fun thing for the kids to do.

Benjamin finally had a day off and we had nothing on our calendar, so we made the best of it and took a little road trip to Wilcox, AZ!!! About three hours southeast of here. Let me just say, WE HAD A BLAST! My close friend, Johnna, and her two cuties, Dalaynie & Dominick followed us down there and we had so much fun!

The cool thing was they had an entire Apple Orchard planted on one farm that had a little gift shop and had homemade pies, ice cream, burgers, mmmmmmm. YUMMY! Then, about 9 miles away, they had the pumpkin patch part of their farm. There was lots to do, including play area for the kids with corn, corn maze, hay rack ride out to get your pumpkins in the patch and much more! We were there from 11:30 till close at 5:30 and headed home at 6!!!! It was so much fun! We were so beat at the end of our day, but we all slept very well that night! :)

Ezra's Adoption Hearing

So, I haven't posted in awhile, have I!? :) And I bet you're all wondering where I am!

Just was sitting here giving the boys baths and thinking about tomorrow! It of course, brought tears to my eyes, overwhelmed with a happiness that just CANNOT be explained in words! It too brought all of you to my mind. You that have played such a significant role, whether by praying, or loving us through the blog, or by actually taking care of him, etc. I THANK EACH OF YOU from the very bottom of my heart for loving us! And for taking this journey along with us! Adoption is an amazing thing!

I put Ezra to bed tonight and cried and I verbally said, "Well, Ezra, I'm putting you to bed for the LAST NIGHT EVER as Amado Joey." Tomorrow night when I put you to bed, you'll be "Ezra Daniel Baltzly." :) And then I started bawling! Again, with happiness! He just looked at me and grinned with his chocolate brown Hershey kiss eyes and sucked on his silly little thumb. Such a sweet boy! Full of life, love and laughter!!

I'll try and post some pictures tomorrow night! I'll do my best! Busy day tomorrow! But check back. I too have a few posts I'll post of our fun Saturday at the pumpkin patch and our fun Sunday night carmaled apple and hot apple cider party with my mom and brother and sister-in-law and nephew Jack!