Come on baby light my fire!

Here is the fireplace in our house. Outdated. Brass-y. Ugly. Can you say, hello 1972??



And look at what my wonderful husband did today ...

It's not finished just yet but doesn't it look GREAT!! Mark was able to set the tiles today and he framed out the mantel. He's going to sand and stain it but it's really looking good! The decorative tiles in the center are from Steve dePerrot pottery in my hometown of Lititz, PA. We love his work! We try to make a visit to Steve's studio each time we go to PA to see my family. It's kind of hard to see it in the photo but the tiles have leaves on them. We thought that they fit our house and all of our lovely trees very well. So we're on our way with our living room make-over project! It's our last big cosmetic project. Stay tuned for updates as we make progress.

Fall Weekend

We had a really fun weekend! We had over 150 kids stop by the studio on Friday night for free Halloween photos. There were so many people out trick-or-treating, thanks to the beautiful weather. And there were so many adorable kids and costumes! It was a little crazy at times but we had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully, it will draw people back to shop downtown Lafayette and to think of Ailor Photography when they want to have family portraits.

On Saturday, I finished my online adoption course through The Hague. Mark -- the star student of the family -- finished about two weeks ago. On Saturday afternoon, we drove over to Kokomo to meet our friends, Chris and Sarah, who are also adopting from Ethiopia. Chris and I worked together at Manchester and I got to know Sarah when she was a student at Manchester. When Mark and I announced our adoption plans, I got a flood of e-mails from our MC friends telling us about Chris and Sarah's adoption. I was so excited to make this connection! Mark and I were so thrilled to talk with them and to hear about their adoption journey and most importantly, all about their adorable little boy. (Believe me -- he's VERY cute!) They are hoping/planning to travel yet this year and we are very excited for them. Plans are in the works for a gathering here at our house later this month with many of the other families from the area who are adopting from Ethiopia. We are hoping that Sarah and Chris will be able to join us too.

From Kokomo, we drove up to Peru to celebrate Scott and Lorie's birthdays. Scott is Mark's older brother and Lorie is Scott's wife. We had a firepit going in the backyard to roast hot dogs and make smores. We also ate chili and Mark's favorite, hot dog sauce. Everything was delicious! Our great nieces, Braylee and Lily, wore their Halloween costumes -- a lady bug and a bumble bee. They were just too cute for words! I'd show you photos but I accidentally left the camera in the backyard at the Ailor's house. On the ground. Outside. Overnight. How irresponsible am I?!?! (On Saturday night, I had a crazy dream that the Ailor's backyard flooded that night and that my camera was at the bottom of the flooded yard. In my dream, the search and rescue team was there but I was too afraid to ask them to look for a camera. Anyone care to analyze my dream??) Anyway, Saturday was a beautiful evening to sit outside around the fire. Good food and good company. : )

On Sunday, we enjoyed brunch with our friends the Sharp's at IHOP. We hadn't seen them for a few weeks so it was fun to catch up with them. We enjoyed things like the creative face pancake (Sean, their 3 year old), nutella crepes (Chris) and more traditional things like omelettes and B&G's (Mark and Brian). Being the chocolate lover that I am, I upgraded my eggs and hashbrowns to include the chocolate chips pancakes. Can you say, yummy?? I knew that later in the day I would be raking leaves, thus the splurge.

Speaking of leaves, we spent about 2.5 hours raking on Sunday. And that was just round 1! We're fairly certain that we'll be raking at least one more time. Here's a photo of the large mound o' leaves by the road ... and believe me, the photo does not do it justice!

So that was our weekend in a nutshell! We've got a busy week ahead of us ... dinner with the faculty fellow floor tomorrow night, CFS Ambassadors meeting on Wednesday, photographing ladies night at Macy's on Thursday, cleaning and preparing for our home study visit to our house next week and dinner at our house with 'friends-who-formerly-lived-in-North-Manchester-but now-work-at-Purdue-and-live-in-Lafayette' (yes, there is such a group!) Deanna, Brian, Julie, Laurie and Josh. Can't wait! Yes, life is good.

Halloween Picture Fun!

On halloween, we decided to open the studio up for free photos of kids in their halloween costumes. I set up a fall background and people just stop in, have a quick photo and come back and pick it up later. The kids are great and getting to see all the costumes is a lot of fun. Here is a photo of Wendi on the background. She's a good witch. At least...that's what she says.

A Quiet Weekend

Mark and I have enjoyed a quiet weekend. Actually, it started out quite busy. This was Homecoming weekend at Purdue which meant a lot of activities for me, beginning on Thursday evening. Everything went really well, for which I am grateful. I work with an awesome staff of women -- we make a great team! Homecoming on the mall on Saturday was super cold. I know that Homecoming is supposed to feel like fall but good grief, I couldn't feel my legs -- or my feet -- or my nose! So I skipped the game and came home to warm up.

On Saturday evening, we hosted our friends Randy and Karla for dinner. Karla is a nurse and she helped us with some of our adoption paperwork. One of the forms we needed to complete is a medical needs form. We needed to go through a check-list of possible medical conditions and decide which ones we'd be open to, which ones we felt we can't handle, and which ones we'd be willing to discuss. It wasn't an easy task and we were glad for Karla's explanations and guidance.

Today, Sunday, we had a lot of fun. We had a bunch of errands that we wanted to do and found ourselves making a stop at Toys 'R Us. It's alot of fun to shop there when you know that a child will be part of your life very soon! We also bought birthday presents for our great niece, Lily, and our nephew, Andrew. Of course, Mark had his share of fun at the store, too! He can't wait to have a child to share toys with. : )

So that was our weekend ... a nice and relaxing weekend. It's been too windy to rake leaves -- oh well! We're just watching them pile up outside. Oh yeah -- I almost forgot! We also discovered that both of our cars will fit into the garage with ease. Yes, it's the little things that bring us excitement.

And so another week is about to begin. We're looking forward to our second home study visit tomorrow evening and to Halloween fun later this week.

Home Study

Mark and I had our first home study visit with our adoption specialist on Monday evening. We really like her! I felt like we learned a lot from our visit with her. She has been to Ethiopia twice and has a lot of knowledge about the culture and life there. We are eager to learn more from her. Mark commented on our way home that each time we meet with our agency, he comes away feeling more hopeful and positive about the adoption process. It would be easy to feel bogged down in paperwork but by doing a little bit each day, we are taking good steps to become parents. And we can't wait! We have two more home study meetings: one more in Indy and one at our home. We're still on track to finish our paperwork by the end of the year. Thanks for continuing to keep us and our future child in your thoughts!

Shout out to North Manchester

Before visiting with Mark's family on Sunday, we got up early and traveled to North Manchester to attend church and have lunch with some of our North Manchester friends. With the high gas prices over the summer, we hadn't been back to visit for quite a while and I was especially excited to see everyone and get a good dose of the Chet. It was also a beautiful morning for a drive, what with the leaves turning shades of orange and red and a light frost on the ground. It was a spectacular sun rise as we drove to the east.

We chose a great Sunday to attend church at the Manchester Church of the Brethren as we got to hear our wonderful friends Debbie, Jenny, Eric, Anne and Steve sing in an ensemble. Bravo! Magnifico! I also appreciated Pastor Karen's sermon about the presence of God.

Lunch was at the Sandwich Cellar, a favorite of ours in North Manchester. Our group literally filled half of the Cellar! I wish that we would have had more time to visit and chat but everyone's lives are full of good things. I was grateful for even the short visit. I think that while I was living in North Manchester, I learned alot about community, parenting, friendship and the ability to be present with others in life. I probably didn't treasure it as much as I should have when I lived there but my friends in North Manchester continue to inspire and influence me.

So here's my shout out to our North Manchester friends! Know that our door is always open for you to visit us in Lafayette. And we continue to be thankful for the warm welcome, hugs, and smiles we receive from you whenever we return to 'Funchester.'

Stuff and More stuff

Okay....so we have been even more busy with our paperwork over the last week or so. We have managed to complete almost all of the info needed by Bethany. We also received our Dossier and have started working on that. My sister is a Notary so we spent part of last Sunday meeting with her, at my parents house, and having her notarize a bunch of forms. I guess we knocked out more than half of the paperwork for the Dossier. I also got a CPA to review my business tax forms and write a business recommendation on my behalf. Being self employed and doing your own accounting can make this process a lot more difficult.

We feel like we are well on our way to getting all the paperwork done and out of the way. It will feel great when we know it is all on its way to Ethiopia.

Also, Wendi posted a photo of me painting "baby Ailor's" room and we thought we should post a photo of the finished look. It doesn't have any furniture yet except for the $1 throw pillow that we got the color scheme from. We think it looks great and fits in nicely with our VERY colorful house.