1.  This coming Sunday, November 6th is officially Orphan Sunday.  Here's a link for more info... http://orphansunday.org/.  The idea is sweeping across to other countries and they even have a Ukraine/Russia Orphan Sunday Campaign to bring awareness to those countries.  How cool is that? 

2.  I read a great book called Adopt Without Debt by Julie Gumm and thought it was great.  It gave a lot of great ideas for fundraising and tackling the financial aspect of adoption.  Check it out!

3.  I'm not a big Halloween fan, but I made these cookies for my nephews (ages 5 and 3) who are coming over tonight.  I found the idea on the Better Homes and Gardens website (not sure how I ended up there....) but I thought the boys would think "monster cookies" are cool -- and my father-in-law probably will too. :O)

4.  Hands down the best italian beef sandwich ever is Portillo's, and I had the rare chance to devour one last week.  (Rare because we no longer live anywhere near a Portillos.)  It was sooooo yummy!!!  I'd include a picture of it if I knew how to get the picture off of my phone.  (I was trying to snap the shot quickly so as not to embarass my family too much by taking a picture of my food before eating it.)

5.  One of my favorite organizations is Children's HopeChest.  I had heard about the organization's CEO, Tom Davis, and his books Fields of the Fatherless and Red Letters from a gal that we met at an adoption seminar a couple years ago.  I read Fields of the Fatherless and it was great!  I then found out about the organization that Tom is involved with called Children's HopeChest, which is an organization that helps orphans in Eastern-Europe and Africa. 

like Miscellany Monday?  check out Carissa's site....lowercase letters

1.  If we only knew that there was sooooo much paperwork involved in the adoption process for Russia before we got started......we still would have chosen this journey!!!  What are hours of chasing all sorts of paperwork, getting documents notarized, apostilled, redone, making multiple copies, numerous trips to the post office and FedEx and so on......compared to the opportunity to be a family to a child(ren) who has none.  Every moment is totally worth the blessing to be a family to the children God has for us.  So, more paperwork requirements we need to work on over the next month or two.....bring it on!

2.  Hey, I have been blessed with a new friend - Melissa!   I met her by following some blogs and she is also adopting from Russia!   So we can exchange stories and encouragement through our journeys. Check out her blog and see what is happening with her too.  She's awesome!

3.  I also joined the group Friends for Adoption with Melissa.  October is officially the first month.  In this fun little group, we pair up and exchange a little goodie of encouragement with our friend.  (And who couldn't use some encouragement?)  Check out what I received from Melissa this weekend.  I LOVE IT!!!!

4.  Have you heard about the major floods in Thailand? Here's an article about it. Some very good Christian friends of ours are currently living in Thailand. They recently emailed us and said that although the situation is devastating the area, they are thankful to be a part of a local church that is helping those in the community who are displaced.

5. The best kind of "home made" brownies are the Ghiradeli box mix.  You can buy a big multi-pack box from Costco to make sure you always have some on hand for those times when you get a craving and need a brownie fix.  I love how they have little chunks of chocolate in them....yum!

6. I recently signed up for Groupon and purchased some great deals on car washes and maintenance.  Haven't used them yet but it seems like they could end up being some great money-saving deals!  Are others out there getting some good deals with them?

7. I'm thankful to have come across the "miscellany monday" group started by a new friend at lowercase letters and to be able to join the group!  I'm not very creative and we don't have much happening with our adoption process right now other than MORE paperwork and more waiting and fundraising.  So miscellany monday gives me a platform to write some random thoughts (and I have PLENTY of those...just ask Dean).

Happy Monday!