FINALLY...

We have an offical confirmed committee date for the twins! Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 1pm. We should know by late afternoon if we are going to be having twins join our family forever.

Pray for all 4 of us! This is very difficult. Putting your family thru this month after month, time after time, is trying and emotional. We realize God is in control, and we know he has the perfect match for us...but none the less it is very difficult. Pray that these two boys would go to the perfect family that can help them become all that God wants them to be. These were our girls favorites from the very beginning of this selection process back in June. And if God's answer is "no", this will affect the girls the hardest. If God's answer is no, we start the selection process over again. All 8 little boys we would have chosen back in June will have then been placed with other families if the twins go to another "forever family". (4 boys were adopted, one went to a siblings home, one we decided wasn't a match for us.)

Thanks for joining us on this journey. We appreciate all of you who have supported us and our decision to add to our family!

Now we WAIT!

Nothing But Problems!!!

So you know that book..."If you give a mouse a cookie?"...well welcome to the Harding's LIFE!

• First there was the metro sexual husband who decided to rip apart the bathroom (that is still not back together!)
• Secondly, there were the ants...who still come back for visits!
• Third, our water heater started leaking all over the garage...
• Fourthly, we needed a new water heater. Do you know what those things cost?
• Then, Rob put the toilet back in the bathroom he is remodeling...only to find out that the toilet needed new "innards"!
• Then, after the new toilet parts, it rocked...so you were not sitting on a "firm foundation" so to speak!
• Then, the last night Nicole took a shower in the bathroom, and during the shower the fan stopped working. (Good news though...tonight during her shower it came back on!)
• Did I mention that the girls bathroom is still not all together yet?
• Our track lighting in our Family room has 6 lights...one never works, no matter what we do, last night started the tradition of only 4 lights at a time working!
• My bosses, live in girlfriend, I mean ex - wife, I mean, Oh I don't know what her title is today, started "working" at my office today, while my bosses mom is on "sabbatical or ?"

I decided I can't stand any more...I AM GOING TO BED!

Halloween 2007!

What a great night weather wise for Halloween! Wow...no east wind, no rain, and it wasn't cold! Amazing for an Oregon October Holiday.

Halloween brought the Harding family the traditional Halloween "Spooky" meal! We had vampire blood (aka Jello) as well as Pumpkin gut stew (aka Chili with cornbread and grated cheese).

We had 135 trick-or-treaters, between 6pm-8:30pm.

Mr. Incredible...hung out with the high school kids tonight!
Goofy and Leopard Girl handed out candy to the kiddos.

And our fine carved friends welcomed our guests.

Happy Halloween from the Hardings!

NICOLE GOT FIRST!!!

Nicole got "1st Chair" today in Symphonic Band! She is so happy! And we are so proud of her! This is the text message that I got today on my phone at work confirming her phone call.

Pumpin Carving!

This weekend...among everything else...we did some pumpkin carving!

Amanda loves the "guts" of the pumpkin!
Nicole, on the other hand, does not!
Nicole's Pumpin! Notice it is the largest! She had to make sure she got the biggest pumkin this year, because normally she doesn't. But she does tend to always get tall, thin long ones!
Amanda worked hard to carve this one!
The girls couldn't believe that Grandma had never carved pumpkins before...even when she was growing up! So, as she watched this weekend they carved her one of her own with the face she wanted!

OUR LIVES ARE A MESS...

LITERALLY!!! Okay...several weeks ago, you'll remember my husband tore out everything in the girls bathroom...pictures of the progress on that to follow. So, if that wasn't enough...we started having problems with "odorous house ANTS!" Although, we didn't know that they were that kind of ant, so we kept spraying for little tiny ants...and they kept coming back and bringing first all of their family, then all of their friends....and then quite frankly anyone they could find they knew to move into the Harding kitchen. Finally, this last week my parents said, "CALL an Exterminator!"...and we did...and they paid for it! Thanks Dad and Mom! Anyways, in order to find out what kind of ants we had they asked that I catch two or three and "squish" them between my fingers and thumb. If they smelled like formaldehyde or cleaning fluid...they were odorous house ants and multiplyed when you sprayed for other types of house ants. So, to get rid of them we needed to entirely clean out every cupboard in our kitchen, wipe them down with soap and water and leave them empty so the house could be sprayed and then "bombed"! So, we have been living with empty cupboards for the last 5 days. The dining room table is now the pantry, spices, and cups. The kitchen table is now the dishes. The coffee table is now where we keep the pots and pans, baking trays, etc. The laundry room is taking whatever else we need to store. And the microwave is where we keep the bread, cookies or anything open we don't want to find ants on. My parents brought over their card table...and as you can see this is where we shared our meals together today.

Closeness at the table!
Notice the dining room table...aka the pantry behind the girls!

Okay...so now we have a torn up kitchen...waiting to see if they are coming back (which I guess usually happens!), and a torn up bathroom. So, we are sharing our master bathroom. I forgot how blessed I was to have two bathrooms!

So, as you can see...the walls are painted, and the bead board is up. There is a new shower rod and curtain. There is a new light fixture and the wall has been repaired where the medicine cabinet was, and the medicine cabinet was moved to a new location. The cupboard is in the midst of remodeling still.

And today, the tile floor went in! It still needs to be grouted and sealed. Hopefully within another couple of days we will at least have another shower and another toilet! This was Rob's and my first tile job. I think we are doing good.

Thanks to my mom for helping with work related stuff, and thanks to my dad for mowing, edging and racking leaves in my yard today.

This was just a peek into how the Hardings have been living! Stay tuned for the next edition to follow.

Pumpkins & Apples!

Family Photo!
Rasmussen Farms - Hood River, Oregon
Nicole & Amanda
Pumpkins & Gourds

The family!
Papa and Amanda!
Thanks Dad & Mom aka Grandpa and Grandma...

We had a fabulous day! Thanks too for lunch at Pietros!