For the past several years, we have felt called to help foster children. A great local organization is the Adoption Coalition of Texas which works with foster agencies to find adoptive families and support foster children. They have a backpack drive which we are often involved with, and they do Secret Santa wish lists at Christmas.

This was our third year as a Secret Santa family, and we were matched with an 8-yr-old boy, Hayden. It was a lot of fun shopping for boy toys! One of the items on his wish list was a “Hex Bug.” We had never heard of this, but we found a great Black Friday deal for a big set – regularly $30 down to $12! So we stood in 40 degree weather with hundreds of other people outside of Toys R Us to get one for him.

He also requested “spy gear.” Many of the marketed spy sets are expensive and have weird items, so I decided to put one together myself.

It included two magnifying glasses, a fingerprinting kit, binoculars, a flashlight and a secret notebook. I wish I’d had time to track down some disguise mustaches or something.

We also got Hayden a stomp rocket and some sour gummy worms. I hope he likes everything!

As we were buying the toys, I tried to explain to Hannah “These are presents for a boy Hayden. Hayden’s mommy has some problems, so he doesn’t get to be with her right now.” Hannah asked, “Hayden sad?” I said, “Yes, he misses his mommy but he gets to be in a safe place.” Her eyes filled up with tears and she said, “Hayden hug!” I love her tender heart.

There are many toy donation drives for the holidays, but I enjoy doing this because we are personally shopping for a specific child. Every year, we actually end up spending more for “our” foster child than on gifts for Hannah. But Hannah is blessed to have a loving family and grandmas who really like to shop, so there will be no shortage of gifts under the tree with her name. Hayden is in a safe place this Christmas, but he’s away from his family, playing with toys that aren’t his. And even if his family is full of problems, it still must be a hard time for him.

So Merry Christmas, Hayden! We’re praying for you, and we hope you enjoy the gifts.

One of the resources we have found lately is Vision Forum. They have a variety of products that line up with our values of family and faith, and since they’re right down the road in San Antonio, shipping is fast.

One of their fun offerings is the Daily Deal. Each day one of their products is offered at 40-50% off. Last week, they were doing some clearance clean-out and offered a Mystery Box as the Daily Deal. For $30, you could get a box of items worth $100 retail. The catch – you don’t know what you’re getting! Vision Forum sells everything from Christian books to gardening kits to hatchets to classical music to handwriting curriculums, so any combination of things they chose to toss in a box was possible. I couldn’t resist the Mystery Box (and I had a $10 off coupon!) so with a few clicks, a box of unknown items was on its way to our doorstep.

What fun! We knew it would be unlikely that every item enclosed would be applicable or interesting, but we knew it would be a bargain nonetheless, especially including the entertainment value of ordering mysterious things online.

We opened it as soon as it arrived. Our Mystery Box contents: a book on Puritans, a book for stay-at-home moms, a book of short stories for girls, a political adventure novel, a historically styled girl’s nightgown and a butterfly garden.

We calculated, and it is indeed a retail value of $100. I am excited about most of the books. The adventure novel teaser mentions something about a senator and a lady in a coma which sounds kind of corny to me. The nightgown is way too big for Hannah, but it will find its way into the dress up box. I’m really excited about the butterfly garden. We had those when I was teaching preschool, and the kids thought it was amazing.

So that was our random fun for the week. :)

There are lots of sales and blog giveaways going on for Vision Forum for Black Friday, so check them out if you have the chance:

Generation Cedar

Life in a Shoe

Hannah tells us about some backyard insects.

Password is backyard.

It rained! This has become more of a big deal than I ever thought it would. So when Hannah said she wanted to go outside to play, I said, “Sure!”

She ran around, splashed in the puddles, laid on the wet driveway and informed me she was swimming. After a while, she got a little cold and joined me in the garage for a snack. We just enjoyed watching the rain.

We could hear happy birds everywhere, and a giant raccoon ran across the road. We also found this little guy in the yard.

He was so cool I had to run inside for my good camera.

Then we headed inside to change into dry clothes. Hannah has been talking about the snail ever since.

Documentaries have a bad rap for being boring. I’m sure there are plenty of dull documentaries out there, but we’ve enjoyed some funny and thought-provoking ones recently. These are all available on streaming Netflix since that is our main movie source.

Exporting Raymond – The creator and head writer of “Everybody Loves Raymond” gets a deal to create a Russian version of the series. Culture clashes and translation issues ensue. My favorite line from the movie goes something like, “I always thought these themes were universal. Maybe not.”

Waiting for “Superman” – A look at public school performance, especially in low-income, urban areas. It follows the stories of several students who hope to get into charter schools. This is eye-opening and depressing, but this is reality. My favorite line from the movie goes something like, “The US ranks toward the bottom of developed nations in math and science. They rank #1 in confidence.” So kids are being told they can be whatever they want to be but are receiving a crappy education. This looks at why.

Nursery University – This follows several families as they try to get their kids into competitive private preschools in New York City. Several families are absolutely convinced that their kid will be a failure in life if the “right” school falls through. Having worked at a preschool, I found this very interesting. Brett thought all the people were crazy.

Forks over Knives – Two doctors got together to promote a plant-based diet after doing a lot of studies linking current prevalent diseases to consumption of animal products. Their research is certainly compelling, and while I’m not ready to convert to veganism, I agree that the normal American diet is way out of whack and we should all be eating more veggies.

The Business of Being Born – Childbirth in the last century has changed a lot. Are all the “medical advances” really helping the process? And where are OB/GYNs getting the information they’re passing on to their patients? This is a reality check about how the 21st century woman views childbirth and how that should be re-evaluated. (I watched this while Brett was out of town)

Have you seen any of these? Please share your opinion. If you haven’t, they’re worth checking out.

This is Hannah’s third Halloween but the first she has a vague idea of what’s going on. Her preschool did a Pajama Day today, and she got to wear what she calls her “bone jammas.”

I took this picture later in the day when we were at the park. This was the moment she saw Cody coming, and she was so happy. :)

The day before, we introduced the idea of trick-or-treating by saying that neighbors would be coming to our house and we would share pretzels with them. She got really excited about this. Unfortunately, on Halloween night we had to wait a while before anyone actually came to the door, and it ended up being some teenagers drenched in fake blood. That made Hannah much less enthusiastic about the doorbell ringing. Some little kids came later and got a much better reaction.

(backing up – we tried to dress her up as a fairy, but she thought I said “prairie dog” and refused to keep the wings on, I didn’t even get a picture)

She seemed very confused and overwhelmed by everything, so we decided that going out ourselves was definitely not a good plan. We had four or five groups come to the door in an hour, then it was her bedtime and we turned our light off.

So Halloween got a mixed reaction, but Hannah is very excited about fall in general. She is a big fan of pumpkins, and we are all enjoying the pleasant weather.

Happy Fall!