Free Adoption Digital Scrapbooking Kit

I don't know why I have wasted so much time over the years doing traditional scrapbooking. Last year my sister-in-law Jennifer told me how easy it to do digital scrapbooking. I bought the
Memory Mixer version 2 (I believe now there's a version 3). I finally pulled it out this last week and it's amazing.
I used it to create a scrapbook page to turn into the header on my Tall Snob Blog. Then I saved the scrapbook page to my computer, uploaded it to Picnik (free photo editing). I needed to crop and resize it to the right size. I loaded it into my blog and it was incredibly easy.
Anyway, I didn't realize how many websites give away free digital scrapbooking elements. Today I found this free Journey of the Heart Adoption Scrapbooking Kit. I had to register as a free user to be able to download it. It comes with a couple of free put together pages that you can drag your picture into. I noticed that the same company has some Asia themed scrapbooking kits that you can purchase.
Here is a big list of free digital scrapbooking kits and elements on About.com.

I'm On My Soap Box

Pardon me while I jump on my soapbox. In case you missed the Sean Hannity Show last night on Fox news, you may want to watch the video about the water situation in California. I've been watching this situation for a while and I can say that it frightens me deeply that the government can take the water from the farms and divert it to areas that it chooses.
Having grown up in a family that raises fruit, I know the value of water. Without water, crops die and then where are we supposed to get our food? I don't live in California, but I do know that these kinds of governemental actions affect all of us. The food supply affects all of us. If you haven't been paying attention, more and more food is being imported while the United States is producing less each year. Our dependence on other countries causes higher inflation and less ability to control our futures.

Another soap box - How healthy is our food?
We went camping in November and that was the last time we used our motorhome for the Winter. In March we went to use it again, and I discovered a loaf of bread that we had not thrown away. Upon examing the store bought bread, I noticed it was not moldy and was perfectly preserved. I could not believe that there is that many preservatives in one loaf of bread that in 4 months it would not go bad. Seriously, how good could this be for our bodies? This was a huge eye opener to me and we are really trying to eat better and do a lot more cooking from scratch so I can see exactly what I am feeding my family.

Support your local farmer's market. We have spent the last 2 nights canning peaches. Although it takes more effort than buying already canned peaches, it is so worth it! Aren't they gorgeous?

Surviving

I realize I haven't written a whole lot lately as life has been crazy. We are still here. This is a little of what we have been doing.

Summer ended and it seemed to pass all too fast. The kids are back in school. We didn't really go anywhere very far, but did go camping a couple of times. Our highlight of the Summer was having our best friends/cousins Tim and Annette and family come and visit us for an extended weekend. We had the best time just visiting and hanging out with them. We miss them dearly!

We are still waiting for our baby girl referral. I never imagined that what we thought would be an 8 month wait would now turn into almost 29 months of waiting. It's got to happen soon. Right? I am learning patience (SIGH) ...and trust me that is something that I lack greatly!

We are spending our time finishing off the last room in this house for a bedroom for Jeremiah and working like crazy. Keeping up two houses is hard work! We are also praying like crazy that the other house (the one we lived in for 6 months) sells and that we can be done with that chapter of our life. In the meantime we are just trying to survive financially and the vacation rentals are a bit slow right now, but I'm sure (or I pray) they will pick up for the Winter season. Football season starts soon and we will have two boys playing, so I'm sure that will fill any left over time we have.

I enjoy keeping up with everyones Taiwan adoption blogs. They are very inspiring and we hope to be joining you in the next step of the journey very soon.