Fresh Baked bread, Homemade soup, and other things....

Yesterday my friend Susan and her children came over for the afternoon. This past summer she picked up a practically brand new bread machine at a yard sale for me for $5. (Awesome deal huh??!) I was nervous about using it for the first time, as I have never used a bread machine before.... so Susan was kind enough to come over and walk me through it. (Read: hold my hand lol!) Anyway, while we fellowshipped in the kitchen baking bread, the kids all played Wii, or various other electronic games in the house. They were outside as well, riding skateboards and setting up jump ramps. At one point, I learned later, there were 10 boys playing football in my yard... (our children and many of the neighborhood boys). Whew! Glad I didn't know how many there actually were!

Chris came home last night with a 27" TV that he bought for the exercise room for $45. It fits well and will be a big help for when I want to work out. Anyway, when he came home I had lit a fire in the firelace, and we were chilling in the family room with some classical music playing. (I don't know what it is about classical music, but it is really soothing!) It was so nice and peaceful and the kitchen smelled of just baked fresh bread. I just love pleasing him like that! Today, because I have been so careful to plan out all our meals, we had homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch with some of that leftover bread. It was delicious, and healthy and I have to say...even budget friendly! I'm looking forward to making next weeks menu plan up to see how frugal I can be, and while still being health conscious...

Last evening after the kids went to bed, we finally finished our adoptive parenting education. Huge relief, as this has been an unaccomplished task in my book for far too long! Today we both received emails that we passed the course with flying colors and all I need to do is print our our certificates as proof of that fact! Yeah! I also received a super helpful email from Becky, just encouraging me through the adoptive process. I had sent her a long vent of an email, and her response helped more than she will know. As a result of that, we spoke to our program director at our agency and feel much better in general about many things. We are 3rd in line waiting for siblings, and hopefully someone will get a referral soon, so we can move up in line. :-) We await a call from our local pediatrician (the one who adopted 5 siblings from Russia)..... we are setting up a consultation with him next week. And we have a tentative travel agency, but if anyone has any recommendations at all...please feel free to leave a comment. We still don't have an International Adoption doctor selected, but we will wait and see who our pediatrician recommends. That's all the news on the adoption front.

I'm off to peruse the new CVS flyer that Chris picked up today. That and some classical music should be a fine way to spend the afternoon!