2010 Ultimate Blog Party For Moms!

This is my first time participating in the Ultimate Blog Party at 5 Minutes For Moms~
Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to say hello! 
If you're a regular reader, then let me send along a giant thank you!- it's extremely gratifying for a writer to have an audience

For those who don't know me and aren't familiar with my blog...
Welcome, my name is Bethany and I've been married for 12 1/2 years

my best friend and partner in life, Bill

pardon the sweat- we love to go on hiking "dates"

and I'm a little obsessed with self portraits, ha!

We've lived in New Hampshire our whole married life (I grew up here too)

and we love to be outside

We have three terrific, fun, talented & crazy sons

Ethan, 10

Jonah, 9

Caleb, 7

And our prayers for a little girl were answered when we adopted our princesa from Guatemala in 2008

Isabelle Kate, 3

We traveled to Guatemala in June 2008 to be reunited with our Isabelle-

it was a precious but very difficult time

(for more details, click on the adoption or Guatemala labels on the sidebar)

 

We'd been in Guatemala just a few days here

Bill had already returned to the States

Caleb on his weekly horse ride after church

Ethan and Jonah had already gone back to New Hampshire
where, thankfully, our family helped take care of them while Bill went to work each day-
I missed them dreadfully!

my favorite picture of Isabelle and me

outside our second apartment in Guatemala after Caleb had gone home for school

it would be another month before I would be reunited with my sons and Bill

So now we are three sons plus one girly girl!

I adore my children and my family, and it's tempting to say that our life is perfect and easy and all that...but it isn't!   Right now we are struggling with a mood disorder with one of our sons and all the confusion and frustration that comes along with it; funding their increasingly expensive activities (and the sneakers, oh my goodness!); trying to keep a healthy balance with practices and game schedules, music lessons, Cub Scouts and ballet class; and of course the never-ending trips to the grocery store, the millions of meals to be prepared, and the massive piles of laundry to be tackled.

We are an active family, and we like to have fun!  We're often playing mini-golf, hiking, swimming, playing at the park, sometimes skiing and boarding, going for walks or bike riding, roasting marshmallows in our fire pit, fishing, sledding, shooting hoops, cooling off on hot summer nights with a good old fashioned water balloon fight, and just playing around in our backyard together. 

PROOF

See?  We really tire them out!
(I think that's the ONLY time all 4 fell asleep on the way home...and check out Isabelle's freaky half-open eye- yikes!  HaHaHa)


You will always hear music in my car, in my home- anywhere I am!- and I love to sing, play the piano and write my own songs.  I think I still want to be a musician when I grow up. 
I love to garden and take pictures...of everything!
  I used to teach high school English and Spanish, and I love that age group!  
I don't know if I'm brave enough to announce that I'm currently 280 pages into writing my first fiction novel...no, I'm not...never mind.     :)



I love Jesus with all my heart, and I am trying to remember to seek Him first in all that I do, to cast my burdens upon Him, as I know He is much more capable than I am!  I'm still learning to be a better wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister, and I'm so thankful that God loves me and never gives up on me!

Lastly, in honor of the spirit of PARTIES, I thought I'd include some of the cakes I've made for my children over the years- with 4 kiddos, it seems as soon as one celebration ends, another is right around the corner!

 Though of course sometimes I cheat, gasp!

One of the perks to having a Christmas birthday- Carvel snowman cakes are always available, yum!  (apparently storm troopers like cake, too!)

I hope you've enjoyed this little snapshot of my life!
Come back and visit or become a follower to stay up to date~
Happy partying!