Dr. Mommy and her pumpkins

Dr Benjamin

2012-01-25T21:54:00.000-08:00

This next story transired while I was on the phone with Keith. The door opens and Ben comes running in..."Ben, why are you inside...you are supposed to be playing outside?" Keith
Ben " Zoe fell out of a tree and is crying so I am getting the doctor kit to fix her"

Any of our other kids would have come in running to tell mom or dad that zoe fell out of a tree...zoe is hurt...blah blah blah. Not Ben, he's got the whole thing under control.

Zoe, by the way, was totally fine. She was already up and playing again by the time Keith got outside. Benjamin just cracks me up.

Christmas

2011-12-26T22:28:00.000-08:00

no..I don't have the pictures downloaded yet...no surprise really haha. I am going to do it soon though! I am off this week so I can get it done I hope!
This was the best Christmas ever.
Christmas eve we had Grandma and Poppy over for dinner, then we had what Zeb likes to call "Jesus Circle Time" . Keith talked to all of the kids about the great gift God gave us on Christmas day and why we give gifts at Christmas time. We shuffled the kids off to bed around 830 after setting out Christmas cookies and milk (with homemade whip cream and marshmallows in it). yum
Around 930 Keith and I had our annual Christmas eve fight #1 and then the real work began. Violet refused to sleep until about 145 so there was gift assembly with baby in lap for part of the night..then I lulled her to sleep and took a nap until 345am...at which time came annual Christmas eve fight #2 which is usually the frantic exhausted husband dragging sleeping wife from bed so I can carry boxes out to the car and I probably did something else too..but was too exhausted and delirious to remember what I actually helped with. I climbed back into bed at 345 at which time violet woke up and started screaming...I do remember giving her a bottle and crawling back into bed at around 450 am. Keith followed at 530 am. Thankfully our early riser....ZEBBY the Rooster kept quiet until almost 830 am. Which was unfortunate for my parents who showed up at 7 for gifts and the like....they just hid out downstairs until we got up.
So, Santa brought 3 gifts for each child and a couple of big family gifts. Santa went over the top this year and we will never be able to top this Christmas that is for sure. Keith used to do a lot of discount toy shopping when we lived in Birmingham...so there are things we have been keeping in our closet since literally before I even met Keith. In an effort to save money I suggested that this year we just empty the closet....wow did we have a big year.
Christmas literally took all day. We played with santa gifts for about 2 hours...then had breakfast. Benjamin had asked Santa for 2 boxes of monkey bread...he even showed Santa exactly how big each box was supposed to be. So we had monkey bread, bacon, sausage, and eggs for breakfast which we actually didn't eat until about noon. After breakfast we opened presents.
At our house gifts are tricky...each kid gets 3 gifts. One from mom and dad, one from the boys and one from the girls. At Thanksgiving we make a wish list for each kid on Amazon.com and then one at a time they leave the room and the boys buy a gift and the girls buy a gift for each kid. It seemed to work out pretty good. We are always on the look out for suggestions on how to work Christmas - but this seemed to work pretty good.
After gift opening...we let kids play while I worked on dinner and dessert. We had a 22 pound turkey...yikes maybe overkill..but I love leftovers so far! haha. Mashed potatoes, rolls, canberry (which is Zeb's absolute favorite we discovered at Thanksgiving...who knew!) and some poundcake. It is a really good thing I forgot about our 8 lb ham...we will eat it later in the week.
After dinner we watched Cars 2 and chilled out.
Lilianna and O got here today and were very excited to see the Santa gifts. They didn't get here until almost 10pm so we let the other kids stay up to greet them, show them the presents and watch them open up gifts. Ben was a total wreck but everyone else handled the late night pretty good.
It was such a relaxing Christmas and I have the rest of the week off to just relax.
This is really the best Christmas ever. I have new resolve to treat every day (especially Christmas!) like it will be the last one I have. I am just resolved to relish how totally abundan my blessings are. How darn lucky can one woman be...seriously. This was the best Christmas ever and today was the best day after Christmas ever. It is so much easier to be patient with my children, smile, and by joyous when I feel truly grateful, thankful and blessed.
So pictures tomorrow...and maybe some more details!

What if...

2011-12-22T20:38:00.000-08:00

OK I am not sure if this a healthy thing or a politically correct thing...but sometimes I try to imagine what my adopted children's lives would be like if they had not been able to be adopted. I do this usually at things like Christmas programs...as luck would have it...there were 2 Christmas programs this last week to ponder that.
It makes me a little teary when I think that Zeb could be at belevodsk right now in like 20 degree below weather without the warm socks he had on with his little donkey outfit on Tuesday for his program. He has such a sweet disposition and heart and a great desire to make people laugh. I wonder how much of that spark he would have if he didn't come home with us when he was 8 months old. How different would he be?
Watching Alex in her Christmas program reminded me of the Christmas after we got the girl's referral but before we travelled to meet them. The kids from Beacon House sang Christmas carols at a hospital and I remember watching the video like 100 times trying to see Alex. I remember pouring over the pictures on the Beacon House blog trying to find pictures of Alex opening up her Operations Christmas Child shoebox. There was like one picture. Later Alex told me she got a Barbie doll in her shoe box and one of the older girls took it from her and broke the head off of it and she cried and cried....ok how heartbreaking is that story!?
Zoe is such a ham - she is so quick to laugh and just wants to be loved. If there was no international adoption from Ghana would she even be alive? Without adoption would Beacon House have had room to take her in and save her life? Probably not.
Our motivation for adopting our children was not to save them from anything...it was just to grow our family with kids who needed families! However, sometimes I do ponder the question...Where would my beloved babies be if UNICEF had been able to stop international adoption. How darn lucky am I that we got to bring these great kids into our family!? OK that is rhetorical...we are very lucky!

Seriously?!

2011-12-17T18:44:00.000-08:00

So I don't talk about it too much, we have been trying to adopt a little boy from Kyrgyzstan for the last 3 years. We got his referral 3 years ago and he was 5 ..now he is 8 and he will be 9 in June. Kyrgyzstan is evaluated the credentials of 5 different agencies in the US and will pick 3 to work there. Our placing agency, Adoption Alliance, is one of the agencies that put in paperwork to try to get accreditation there. The decision is scheduled to be made on the 20th...next week. Things have been moving really good for the last 6 months or so to get the process rolling again in Kyrgyzstan...starting with the waiting families.
Yesterday I got an email that Adoption Alliance was actually closing....bam. Another snag in the already ridiculous process we have gone through in the last 3 years to get a little boy out of an orphanage. UG

I am not entirely sure what this is going to mean for our process. There are more than 3 agencies that had waiting families so there had already been a spirit of cooperation between the agencies and JCICS was in the mix to help protect the interests of the waiting families when the accreditation list comes out next week. It is my understanding that Adoption Alliance had the most number of waiting families and now we will have to switch agencies and I am not sure what all that will entail...I don't know if we will be able to choose which agency we will go to and what kind of cash outlay will be involved.

Strangely, I am completely at peace with this whole thing. I am so NOT stressed out about it. It will work out or it won't. As a point of trivia this will be the second agency I have used that has shut down!

In other news, I work this week, but then I am off the week between Christmas and New Year's and I am going to do some serious baking...I am going to put together my shopping list tonight.

Keith made up his ginormous list of stuff to get done between bedtime on Christmas eve and christmas morning...I am not entirely sure how that is going to get done. We may need to call in reinforcements..haha.

Snowflakes?

2011-12-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

File this post in things I know with my brain but never really connected with. Let's talk IVF. Families that undergo IVF, harvest eggs, fertilize them and then implant some fertilized eggs...the rest of the fertilized eggs go into the freezer for future IVF attempts or just go in the freezer. Apparently there are 500,000 frozen embryos in the US. OK...I am a doctor and that is medicine.

Tonight I was looking around at some adoption stuff for a friend at work who is just starting to consider adoption. I was perusing Nightlight's webpage because they have acquired the agency in Lexington that we did our homestudy with. I had never thought about embryo adoption. Tonight I read the page on it because it might be an option for my friend. I am reading through it...with the brain of a doctor...then I get to this picture....snowflake #208. A year ago this was a 48 hour old cluster of cells in a freezer...just sitting in a freezer indefinitely.

I am not critical of anyone doing IVF or leaving frozen embryos sitting in a freezer...but this little baby is somebody's little bundle of joy and a year ago it was stacked up in medical lockdown.

That is messed up. I am not really a writer so I can't really express how profoundly disturbed I am by this situation. However, let me add how absolutely and completely wonderful it is that there are parents out there who care enough about their frozen embryos to try to find them a literal chance at life and who want to be involved in making a plan so that a frozen ball of cells can grow into a little blessing like snowflake #208.

Weekly update

2011-12-11T18:36:00.001-08:00

So what is new around here? hmmmm....We have our Christmas shopping 100% done. I keep saying that and then we buy a whole new line of items for Christmas...but for real we are done now. REALLY.
In the process we went way over budget and bought a bunch of crap we didn't need and was not on our Christmas list. Oh Amazon.com how evil art thou!
Speaking of Amazon.com....we joined prime a couple of months ago and I have been buying episodes of shows right and left to watch while I am feeding Violet up at night. Bad consumer. I am really, really enjoying watching the shows though. I have been watching Once upon a time and Grimm...can't wait to see tonight's episode of Once. I have also been catching up on some of my fave USA network shows. I am becoming kind of a junkie. I was thinking about getting a kindle fire so I could better support my amazon prime habit! haha
So lots of shopping that is our week. haha
Violet - she is still on the baby growth charts...you go girl...sure she is only 10%ile of height and wt, but it's on the chart! She got some shots and was super duper fussy for 2 days...like not sleeping more than 30 minutes at time...totally sucked. She had been sleeping really good. She is starting to settle back into her good sleeping routine but those 2 days sucked. It reminded me of when Lilianna was a baby! haha. She is sitting up in her bumpo seat and loves to sit up. We are going to start rice cereal sometime this week...we have the cereal and the new spoons and the little bumpo tray. I feel soooo darn lucky to be able to spend so much time with this little baby. We weren't planning on any more babies but what a huge blessing she is if I had known what a great big huge amount of joy she would bring I would have planned her! haha.
Zoe - She is kind of an enigma....we think we have her figured out and then we don't. haha..just like a girl. First we thought she was really, really delayed, then we thought she just had speech delays and was catching up...now I think she is developing normally just about a year behind. Her speech therapy has been so successfull. She is really attempting to say a lot more things and she repeats a lot of the things her brothers and sisters say (which is soooo totally annoying...really) in the same way a one year old might. I know it is good that she is repeating things and working on saying things...but it is driving me bananas! She is sooo darn playful it is hard to stay mad at her even when she is sneaking out of her room in the middle of night and dismantling electric outlets and bringing coaxial cable connectors into her bed for me to find in the morning...oh goodness! What to do. Well...this is what we did. Keith balanced a weighted hula hoop against her partially closed bedroom door so if she opened the door to wander around it would fall. She did stay in her room all night last night....which is more than I can say for Zebby the midnight toy and pencil collector!
Ben - besides throwing up all over the media room last night at my dad's birthday party...he has been doing good. He has been a super-cuddly mamma's boy this week...and I do love it! He is so smart. I have been doing circle time with him and Zoe when I get home from work and he is always so excited to do it. With Lilianna at her dad's house I have some extra homeschool mojo to help me whip our preK program into shape. I have some videos coming for the preK kids and have been working some of the Building Thinking Skills curriculum with the PreK-ers during circle time. Fun stuff. I think that Ben makes me laugh out loud more than once everday with his hilarity.
Zeb - he is the unexpected genius. I love Zebby and think of him as our lovable class clown. However, he is really freakin smart. he brings home his little abeka booklets from K4 and rocks them. He is doing really good with his letters and the phonics. He has some trouble with putting the sounds together as words because I think he doesn't trust himself. We just ordered a set of PreK dvd's that I think will help him too. He loves school and asks to do homeschool computer just about everyday (that is time4learning.com) he is doing great at it. He is also huge. He is in 5T and 6/7 clothes. He has a little girlfriend at school. he asked yesterday if he could buy her a christmas present and wrap it...her name is Paisley. Love it. I didn't have the heart to tell him that none of my kids are allowed to date or have boyfriends or girlfriends until they are 30yo (hahaha).
Lilianna is still in New Orleans - i have only talked to her a handfull of times..she isn't really a very talkative phone girl..I know that will change! haha. I am also not very good at having my phone handy (or charged for that matter!) I will probably try to hunt her down tomorrow. I sent her with about 30 hours of homeschool just some grammar, vocabulary and logic worksheets and of course, free reading. Hopefully it will come back completed...but if not no big deal. We are working on a year schedule so I am not stressed out about it. I read on the Lajoy's blog that they only need something like 700 hours for their year...KY requres 1062....that is soooo not fair! oh well. I actually have so much I want to do it is hard to fit it into 1062 hours a year! I am soooo totally in love with homeschooling I wish I had more time off of work to spend doing it.
Alex....oh where to start. She is doing really well. She comes home from school everyday and is excited to sit down and work on her homework. She also is excited to work on her homeschool work when time permits. We have some explode the code workbooks, language smarts for 2nd grade from Creative Thinking Co, and she is working on the cursive writing without tears book. She does some time4learning too...we have her working mostly at the 2nd grade level at home. Her IEP at school is looking like first grade reading. She brings home a lot of reading homework and I think it is helping. She has really improved a ton since the big incident at school (late september). We are trying to trust her more and give her back some privileges. I hope she isn't working us...it is just so hard for me to trust her and we are still in the fake it til we make it stage with her. At least I am in the fake it until it is real. I have always been a little challenged with the attachment thing with all of my kids...biologic and adopted. I have always gotten there..so I don't expect Alex to be any different...I am just still climbing that mountain. She really is so sweet, and silly and funny just a little spacey and having some difficulty with making good choices at times!

That's about it. I have the week between Christmas and New Years off and I am totally psyched about it. Can 't wait. I am on call a ton this week though. Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and next Monday and Thursday...yikes...then I am off for a week...yeah vacation! Alex has a Christmas program this friday, Zeb's is next Tuesday...good time!

Hoping to hear something about the agencies that get accredited in Kyrgyzstan around the 20th of December...maybe there will be some kind of dossier thing to work on during my week off...that would be some kind of awesome. ok that is all that is going on...pretty much nothing. I am going to post some stupid pictures soon though!

Breakfast with Santa

2011-12-03T10:13:00.001-08:00

With a post title like that you would expect pictures...ok none yet...I have to do some downloading. Maybe tonight. However, we did take the kids to breakfast with Santa this morning. Everyone was so well behaved! Yeah!
Benjamin just froze. Santa asked him his name and what he wanted for Christmas and Benjamin (for the first time ever in his life) was speechless. He just stood there half scared, half dumbfounded. Zeb had practiced all night what he was going to ask for....He wanted an optimus prime and a bumble bee and he wasn't going to share with his brother. He was ready to tell Santa all of that. When Santa asked him his name he said...ummmm..."ben". I said Zeb your name is Zeb.."oh yeah...Zeb". Then he forgot what he wanted. After I reminded him he got on a roll though and just kept naming things he wanted.
Zoe was all business. Santa asked her name and she said Zoe and then he asked what she wanted and she said "your hat".
It is amazing how much more calm everyone is when Lilianna isn't here. She just radiates energy and the other kids soak it up and start bouncing around like her! haha. That being said...I miss my little firecracker!

What a week!

2011-12-02T15:48:00.001-08:00

Woooh what a week! Lilianna was a toy soldier in her dance school's production of the nutcracker. dress rehearsal on monday, 2 shows a day tuesday, wed and thurs. I am exhausted. We made it all the way until the very last show until we forgot something at home....her tights and leotards...are those important? haha
Her bio dad came to her last performance..he drove all the way in from new Orleans. He got her a little bit early and wanted to take her to the show and said he would put in her bun....hahaha. After seeing all of the bobby pins he did finally concede that perhaps it might have been little too difficult for him..haha.
She did great, however, her bubbly energy (also known as uberfidgetiness of doom) in the backstage area just about made me certifiably insane.
One of the good things that came out of this experience (beside my ability to put a bun in her hair), is that Lilianna likes ballet a whole lot more now.
In the midst of this crazy week, we also got our fingerprint appt for our I600A. I hated to reschedule, but there was no way we could fit a 2 hour drive each way in between nutcracker performances! Yikes. So we have to wait to hear of a new appt.
Also Alex started her weekly therapy sessions where they offically burdened her with the diagnosis of RAD (even though I don't really believe that is really her problem). Oh well, we just go with the flow. I have no doubt she will benefit from counselling...I think everyone does! She does have issues with grief and permanency but I just don't see RAD as the issue. I know I am certainly not a therapist. In any case she has been doing great lately.
Lilianna is gone to new orleans until the day after Christmas so that is always tough on everyone. Lots of good things have happened for me at times when Lilly is away......I started the adoption process for Zeb, I met my super awesome hubby, picked up Zeb, I had Ben. I feel like something good will happen for us in the next month. It is so great to be optimistic!
Speaking of optimism....my friend, Shannon travels to Ethiopia on Monday for court on 2 super adorable children. I have been doing a lot of praying for her court date....That both of the cases go through easily and quickly! I have a lot of optimism that her family will grow by 2 next week!
Perhaps my optimism is related to the peanut butter pie I made (and ate a piece of) and the scones I made (and ate one of) sugar = optimism maybe. Ooh..I should have some coffee with French Vanilla creamer now too...
My plans for the night include eating more of above mentioned goodies, watching my favorite christmas movie (holiday inn) and wrapping presents. Of course, if Violet doesn't follow the plan of going to sleep my plans will change!

2011-11-26T20:02:00.001-08:00

We had a super thanksgiving weekend...I know it isn't technically over with yet...but tomorrow will be a busy normal kind of Sunday. On Friday, I had to work but got out pretty early so we packed up the bus and headed to Lowe's for a Christmas Tree. We are such a production when we all go to the store. Keith was walking next to Owen and Zeb and holding Zoe's hand, I was pushing a cart with Violet in it, walking with Ben and Lilianna and Alex were somewhere in the middle...we all headed out to the Christmas trees. In a Christmas miracle, we all picked out a great (and great big!) tree in like 30 seconds, there was no line...they bagged it up and I paid while Keith went to get the bus. He opened up the bus door, the kids climbed in, then he opened up the back door and slid the tree in the back (right down the middle of the aisle) and off we went.
Lights went on last night and teh decorations went up today all the while with Holiday music from Sirius XM blaring in the house. LOVED IT.
Today we also celebrated Zebby's birthday. He turns 5 on monday but we had his party while O was here. I made a dump truck cake...pictures to follow....and we ate the entire thing in one sitting. We are about to take food shopping and consumption to a whole new level for us! Once Violet starts eating food and once Aaron is home (another 8 year old boy!) wow are we going to go through some food! Love it.
I am going to try to get some pictures of tree decorating and Zeb's birthday out of the camera and into the computer.
We have the nutcracker coming up for Lilianna. full run through is tomorrow with dress rehearsal on monday and the 2 shows a day on Tuesday, Wed and Thursday. Yikes! I am not a very good stage mother...I watched about 20 youtube videos today on how to make a stupid bun and what kind of makeup to get for her. Good times.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T19:25:00.001-08:00

Yes, today is thanksgiving. I tried to write 5 things I am thankful for everyday of the month...but I failed miserably! Oh well...there are at least 5 times a day I find myself giving thanks for something. I just forgot to write them all down. There is probably a lot of repeaters though. I am so thankful for my husband like multiple times a day. He is just so darn amazing. He can fix just about anything and just does projects around the house. Today he decided to put up the Christmas decorations by our side door - we didn't put them up last year. They look super.
OK..this is probably a silly thing to be thankful for....but Keith changes the light bulbs. When one goes out....he just changes it. It is almost like magic...it doesn't matter if the light bulb is easy to get to, hard to get to...whether the bulbs haven't been manufactured in 20 years...he just changes them.
He does the dishes...big dishes, small dishes, caked on dishes, pots, pans, cake pans etc...they just get clean.
He spends all day almost every day with 2 three year olds, a 4 month old and an over the top unregulated 8 year old - he takes them to appointments, he gets everyone up in the morning, they get breakfast and he even makes lunches and snacks for Zeb and Alex to take to school. On days when I have to fill in....it is a hungry day indeed haha...kids eat but not as well as when dad is home.
Of course I am thankful for other things in my life....I LOVE my house..well at least my yard. There is so much room for my kids to run around and play outside...I LOVE it. Today was a beautiful day...a little bit muddy...but the weather was awesome and I got to see the kids running around outside. Violet got to stroll or be strolled as the case may be for hours outside and I know she loved it!
I really, really like my job. Yes there are things that I don't like...but mostly it is really great. I like the people I work with and that is something I haven't been able to say about a lot of the jobs I have had!
I love my kids and I feel so lucky to have them...all of them. Some may be more challenging than others in many ways but I am so gratefull to have them. I also feel really lucky to be working on bringing Aaron home. Who knows how long it will take, how much it will cost or when we will be able to get it done. Who knows what kind of challenges we will face when he gets home, but I am really gratefull to have the chance to start thinking about it and to dare to start thinking about our family of gasp....10.
I have plenty to be thankful for.

Paperwork

2011-11-13T18:38:00.001-08:00

I hate paperwork. I can never seem to get caught up on it...I have sooo much in every area of my life. I hate paper and work associated with paper. I hate paperwork that then has to get scanned into a computer to become electronic paperwork.Yes...I have to finish a bunch of postplacement reports tonight..it is true I am behind on paperwork and instead of blaming myself for not having gotten it done already I am blaming the poor helpless paperwork.Off to fill out forms. Speaking of forms, we received notification that our I600A was received at the lockbox...we are waiting for our fingerprint appointment....Speaking of fingerprints...we have to redo our stupid FBI fingerprints again uggg.I'm done complaining because now I have reminded myself of more stuff I have to do.

Benjamin's hair

2011-11-10T19:57:00.001-08:00

My little benjamin is such a trouble maker. We took all the kids voting with us on Tuesday and one of the women in the polling place asked us how old Ben was...but she kind of pointed and said "how old is this one" and I said..he's three and she said surprised..."it's a boy". Ummm yeah. In fact he was probably wearing an outfit like in these pictures...jeans and a orang long sleeve tshirt...totally bad-news bears -ing it. So I guess that is the tip off that I need to get my little floppy haired napoleon a hair cut.These pictures highlight his "gee-your-hair-smells-terrific" hair style. I really need to take some pictures with a sweatband in his hair. Perhaps I am giving him some sort of complex by letting his hair get long. Today keith sent me a text that Ben was making Zoe brush his hair. I am a little bit behind in the things I am grateful for....I am grateful for Benjamin's bouncing and behaving hair.

One little thing I really love...

2011-11-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

After all the kids go to bed...except Violet. We jump into our big chair and a half, with the computer sitting on the table next to it. I pull up Hulu or Amazon Prime and we restfully watch movies, eat popcorn, drink diet dr.pepper and formula (ok I don't drink the formula and she doesn't do the popcorn and diet dr pepper...but still...). It is sooo relaxing. She is chilling out, I am chilling out and I get to watch movies without having to refill sippy cups, pull kids apart or fight for the fuzzy red blanket..haha. I only get to do it on the weekends, Keith gets the weekdays. It is great fun.

Pictures...what are those?

2011-11-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

Who could resist throwing candy at these guys!

did someone say pictures?

2011-11-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

I believe I have some of those!

Gratefullness day 2 and 3

2011-11-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

I already missed a day! haha...I am busy what can I say! Today I was on second call and we had a meeting at 7this morning. So I got up and left for work at the normal time and said goodbye to all the kids...then I came home around 9am. Then I left for work around 1030am and said goodbye to the kids again. Then I came home around 6 so that Keith could go to his first local boy scout roundtable meeting (woo hoo..keith is getting out of the house and making friends!). He got back at 830 and i had to say goodby to Lilianna who was the only kid up and she said..."mom...you had to go to work 3 times today! Lets try to only go to work one time a day ok?". So funny because I always start things with "let's try ____________" when we are doing school work.

Nov 2
1. watching the kids play in the backyard....this one might come up again and again because it is one of my most favorite things in the world.
2. deer in our backyard eating acorns
3. a freshly swept kitchen floor
4. Benjamin's badnews bears floppy haircut
5. Zoe talking non-stop and narrating everything she does in words I can understand (today she was helping me clean the media room - she was picking up socks and kept saying..."I see you under the table sock...I'm going to get you" - it was hilarious)

Nov 3

1. Violet sleeping soundly with her arm draped over mine...I just love those little baby snores!
2. Foggy mornings when you can't see over the tops of our little mountains
3. sound of steady rain on the 20 skylights in the library...a room that we have almost finished unpacking haha!
4. nights when zeb and ben actually go right to sleep
5. the tucking in ritual with Zoe that actually works and keeps her quiet and in bed all night

Pearl of wisdom from Lilianna today....
"Mom, do you want to know how I quit biting my fingernail? I keep them dirty...then when you look at them you are like ewwww I don't want that in my mouth. That is why I like to dig in the dirt and make mud snow men" (the mud snowman thing is a most unfortunate idea that has pushed me to the point of outlawing mud. Yes it is now verboten for my kids to make mud or use nature-made mud to build small snowmen looking guys with sticks and rocks for arms and facial features....oh the horror the day they discovered making mud snowmen)

Pearl of wisdom from Benjamin the other day:

"I didn't poop in my diaper...my butt did. I made my butt sit in the corner...bad choice butt"

perhaps I need to go to bed now!

One time at the casino....

2011-11-02T04:09:00.000-07:00

I am not sure what made me remember this story last night when I was driving back from dropping Lilianna off at dance class...but I did and it was hilarious.

When I worked at the casino, I worked with this very nice couple. The woman was a floor supervisor like me and worked in the craps pit a lot with me. The man was a casino host. One night the woman and I were talking about stuff while we worked...where we used to work that kind of thing. She was talking about another casino and I asked if she and her boyfriend had both worked there and she said....

No, my boyfriend used to be a regular player in the craps pit...he would come into town to gamble at the casino I worked at because of his job he couldn't really go anyplace near his home. "Oh," I asked..."did he work at a casino there?". "No," she replied..."he was a priest." I was a little surprised. "that's not something you hear everyday" I replied.

"We dated for a long time before I went to visit him in Florida where he lived. It was really weird. One time we were hanging out on the beach and he got a call that one of his parishoners was in the hospital and we we headed to the hospital. He changed into his little priest outfit in the car and then we went into the hospital. I waited in the cafeteria and when he was done he picked me up and went back to the beach".

"sounds weird" I replied.

"Yeah, he finally decided being a priest wasn't for him". she said matter of factly.

No kidding, I thought.

Like i said, not sure why this story popped into my head. Maybe some people are just meant for certain things in life and sometimes you just aren't supposed to be a priest.

A month of gratitude

2011-11-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am a little bit late starting this...but I saw it on facebook and I firmly believe that a thankfull heart is a happy heart (OK I may have stolen that from Veggie tales...but it is true).
Every day list 5 things you are grateful for...I am starting a little bit later (by like 30 minutes...so sue me!)

1. Zebby's excited face when fall leaves blow off the trees and into him
2. Benjamin's very over-exagerated attempt to repeat "pillow" after I sound out the LL's in great detail for him.
3. Lilianna showing me her hip-hop dance and singing the song at the same time.
4. French Vanilla creamer in the coffee at work (it is really delicious) and the perfect mixture of coffe to cream making it a creamy light brown color. one of my coworkers accidently threw away my coffee and then tried to replace it by putting a doppelganger coffee in the place I left my old coffee...but it was NOT the perfect color!
5. Pulling into the driveway and seeing my husband sitting on a chair holding the baby while the rest of the kids are playing rambunctiously on the domeclimber with lots of sun and a nice autumn breeze.

This is going to be a good month.

Dave ramsay

2011-10-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

Keith and I have been working the Dave Ramsay financial peace thing for a little over a year and we still don't have it right. We are getting closer though. Even though we aren't 100 percent following all the rules it has helped us soo much emotionally to get our finances in perspective!
Things we should do better on.....
1. We need to sell our stuff we are kind of half hearted in our attempts to sell things. We do have a ton of stuff we can sell and want to sell we just apparently don't want to bad enough! I am sure I have told the story of the yard sale I had before leaving New Orleans to go to medical school that ended in me throwing everyone out of my yard.

2. Using the envelops for what they are designated for....we kind of just raid the envelops when we need money for something. We were really good when we started but now we just use it all! There are certain categories that we try to accumulate money in...you know like school extracurricular activities or clothes so that we have enough money when we need it for those activities....sooo that money all goes to eating out. Really lets face it we are junkies for McDonalds when the monopoly game is going.

3. Second jobs...ok..I have half-heartedly looked for locums work during my vacations..but I haven't found any. I need to get off my butt and get medical licenses in more states. I really don't want to work more, but it would help a lot and I do love what I do so it won't be that bad. The problem is the market is kind of dry right now for locums anesthesia and I only have 9 weeks off a year so it is kind of hard to find things that fit in the weeks I can take off.

4. We are still spending money on projects..money that we should be using for our debt snowball...but there are projects we just really want completed...I mean really, really. That is no excuse, I know, there are a lot of things we could cut out of our budget but we just aren't ready to. We did cut out day care for the 3 year olds which is saving us a ton of money and that was a big step.

OK people, let's face it...we are not Gazelles in the wild...we are more like the Gazelles at the zoo...ok we see a cheetah over in the next enclosure..but we are not in a life or death race with the cheetah.

I digress, but seriously, the whole Dave Ramsay program totally helped us to take control of our money and has shifted the way we look at the way we spend our money and I am SOOOOOOO glad we have moved away from the way we were before. Some of the myths Dave Ramsay talks about I totally bought into! I remember firmly believing that I would always be paying someone something so I might as well have ________ (fill it in with whatever item I couldn't really afford and shouldn't have!). The best part is that keith and I talk more about the budget now and there is very, very, rarely any kind of disagreement about money or tension caused by money stuff and that is huge in any marriage. So, we love Dave Ramsay.

where have i been?

2011-10-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

I don't think I have ever gone this long without a post. I have no excuse..except I have been really busy. Yes, I know I have been busy before...when I think about how busy I have been in the last 10 years..it is kind of funny because I am really comparably not that busy!

Having a baby...baby is really exhausting. It is pretty hard to get anything done. I had forgotten how exhausting that is! Violet is starting to sleep better and is able to entertain herself a little bit with her little activity matt so when she is kicking and cooing away on the matt I can get some work done around the house. Amazingly, we are starting to actually feel moved in up in this big old house. It still needs a lot of work, but we are keeping most of it clean and we are slowly shortening the list of areas that need to be REALLY CLEANED out...you know, closets and rooms that have just had stuff shoved in them for the last 18 months!

Lilianna's homeschool is going really well. Since we have switched to a full year schedule and are not using the icademy...but just an a la cart K12 sprinkled with logic, bible, and some super cool enrichment things from the super cool critical thinking company (which I totally, totally love!!!!!) we have really gotten into our groove. I am also scheduling a day off of work every 2 weeks to just workshop some subjects with LIlianna. It is hard to set up a lot of the science projects and get it done with our schedule of taking care of so many kids at one time..so Art and Science have become "workshops" where we just sit down and work all day on one subject and get a bunch done at one time. That is working out really well for us.

We started keeping the 3 year olds home all day about 3 weeks ago...I think that has been the hardest part of the last month. Keith is super awesome though. It was a really had decision to make because we LOVED our daycare. They did a ton of really great art projects and were really focussed on education and thinking skills..but we had to get super serious about saving money and day care had to go. I think it is going to be better for Zoe and Ben to stay home. Benjamin is so ridiculously cute he was running the show at daycare and getting away with just about anything so being home is helping him build character...ie..get used to not getting his way! haha. Zoe is being pushed to talk more at home and I can already tell that her speech is improving in the last 3 weeks. I think they didn't push her to talk at school quite as much as we push at home.

Zeb is still at Wesley Christian in 4K and he is doing really well. He likes school a lot and loves to come home and do homework. I love to see him excited about it.

Alex has been a trouble maker in the last couple of months..she is probably one of the main reasons I haven't posted anything. It is hard to figure out how much of my life I want on the internet...really. I started this blog and I live my life as an open book. I don't really believe in keeping any secrets because it is stressfull to have secrets really! I am just too lazy to try to be secretive! haha. Alex has been causing trouble for the rest of the family and for herself both at home and at school so that has been difficult to deal with. One of the things we worried about when we started Alex in public school was that she would be able to manipulate and fool teachers into believing she was more scholastically advanced than she is and that she would get away with lying, stealing and avoiding homework. Well...she has been busted and the school has her number now to coin a phrase. It was not pleasant to get to that point, but I think now that we are there...the resources at school are becoming more apppropriate for her. She is NOT at a fourth grade level for any subject and they have finally realized that. Without going into detail, she is now getting the amount of supervision at school that is more appropriate for her and we have a way to communicate to her teachers. Oh the stories I could tell but I just feel like I shouldn't. Needless to say...it has been an interesting couple of months with her. I am really hopefull that things will calm down now with her.

Things are heating up with Aaron's adopting and Kyrgyzstan adoptions in general. We sent in our I600A last week and pretty soon we will send in our I600 and be totally ready when things start moving. It seems weird to think that after all of this time (3 years) that we might actually be able to bring him home. Weird. I kind of think a lot of the issues we have been having for the last 2 months...money, work, Alex, etc..have been the enemy trying to beat us down to back out of Aaron's adoption. I know I was really questioning whether or not we could complete it...whether we could find the money, whether we really could expand our family one more time...we are 2 bigger than Keith and I had decided on when we got married. We were worried whether we could logistically get to Kyrgyzstan for the time we need to both be there. I think as we persevered though, things are falling into place. As much as Keith and I want to travel at the same time...we are just going to have to travel separately for our bonding period and then only one of us will travel to pick him up. We just don't have anyone to watch all of the kids....what crazy person would do that!? HAHA. I was so relieved that we will have that option..although it totally sucks to not be able to travel with Keith. Let's face it, adoption travel is the only time Keith and I get to work on our marriage with some alone time!

I think I hit everyone in this update. we went down to birmingham last weekend and stayed at the KOA down there, went to a pumpkin patch at the train museum and hit the mall. It was really fun. It was the first time Alex saw a real mall and she was in love! it was worth the whole trip. She kept saying...when I am a teenager can you bring me back here? so funny. I have a couple of pictures to post of that trip and of a super cool book shelf we bought from the school supply store in chattanooga on the way back. I am going to be better about updating!

Empowered to COnnect

2011-09-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

We spent this weekend at the Empowered to Connect conference in Nashville. There is good news and bad news.....We really got our money's worth....that is the good news AND the bad news! haha. I would have felt a lot better if we had gotten there and discovered that we had actually been doing everything right for the last year....(un)fortunately, that isn't what happened.

I think the child that is going to be the most difficult in terms of implementing these techniques is going to Benjamin. He is a little dictator with his father's stubborn ness and hard head and a budding napoleon complex and an IQ probably higher than mine already as a 3 yo. He has some control strategies down. Is he our child from a hard place....ummm...no he is just a little control freak!

The conference was full of hope which I loved. We took Violet with us and left around bedtime Thursday night - arriving in Nashville at 3am. Then we hit the conference full force on Friday and Saturday and left to drive home at 5pm (central time) on Saturday. We finally got home at about 2am early this morning.

So far so good. Violet started social smiling this weekend...so cute. I am pretty sure she is going to be a redhead...although there isn't a whole lot of hair right now. I love seeing these little guys turn into big kids...so fun!

It is always something..

2011-09-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

The last week or so has been a very trying week to say the very least. I was off of work last week to theoretically study for my oral hoard exam. however it turned into a week of advanced parenting that required my attention. It was exhausting. Then on Saturday I headed to salt lake city for the exam...which I took this morning. I am pretty confident that I will have the pleasure of retaking it!
Although it has been an emotionally exhausting week...it has really been a great week for painfully cleaning out a lot of things in our life that just hasn't been altogether right for a while.
1. We have 4 mortgages....ouch. We had a family friend who was renting one of our houses...and I use the term loosely because she was paying half of the agreed upon price occasionally. So we finally agreed she should move out and we would put the house on the market. Keith visited the house this weekend and our trustworthy family friend had trashed our formerly beautiful home. It hurt and it will be expensive to get the house ready to sell...but at least we know, they are out and we can move forward. God put a trustworthy acquaintance in Keiths path while he was there and we have someone who can supervise repairs...blessing!
2. We had an incident an over the top incident with Alex that made us realize we had become complacent with getting her everything she needs to be happy and well adjusted. It was quite an interesting night that I am not ready to share all up in this internet! As a result we are now able to go to the empowered to connect conference in Nashville this weekend and I am sooooooo totally excited about it....blessing!
3.I just finished me oral board exams...yeah. Sure I might have to take them again but I don't have to worry about it until I find out if I failed in November!

I have all day today to relax in salt lake city because I couldn't catch a flight home today. It is a beautiful city, the weather is beautiful and I know this week will be Aton better than last week!

The Bus...

2011-09-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

Today, I drove the bus. Yes, I have been putting it off. I was almost able to get out of driving it today too. I had pink eye yesterday...don't know where it came from...but it was the the worst case I have had since I was 5 yrs old! Ouch. Then I woke up this morning and it was basically gone...so I had no excuse.
I loaded all the kids up in the bus and headed out. Benjamin kept saying "did we hit anything yet?" and I kept saying Not Yet. Amazingly, the bus was very easy to drive. Marking that off my list of irrational fears..haha.

Now to talk about something that I haven't really talked about a lot. Aaron, the little boy in Kyrgyzstan that was referred to us for adoption 3 years ago. He had just turned 5yo when we got his referral. The country shut down before we could get him home. We have had friends in Kyrgyzstan visiting him, following him from orphanage to orphanage as he has been moved. He is 8yo now (he is one month older than Lilianna) and started school last year. Theoretically, there is someone teaching him English twice a week arranged through the super cool John Wright.

I bring this up, because I am feeling very optimistic about us actually being able to complete his adoption. Although, I have been optimistic before. When Keith and I decided to start an adoption from Ghana, literally the day after we decided to do it, we got a call about hurrying up and submitting a ton of certified paperwork to the Kyrgyzstan embassy(which we spent like a thousand dollars on) only to have it never even sent anywhere.

So now, we are optimistic again. There were new regulations that were finally signed by all of the many powers that needed to sign it. Agencies have to be reaccredited and we have to redo our dossier (yeah we are talking about $4K). We still have to submit our I600 too. We have been working on our homestudy since like January...but we always kind of felt so pessimistic about it we didn't really haul butt to get it done. We are picking up the last piece of our homestudy on Monday so then we start throwing money at this adoption again.

One of the reasons I think things might happen is because we are soooo broke. haha! The new process looks alot like Kazahkstan's process was before they shut down. We would have to travel for 10 days before court, then go to court. There is a 30 day appeal period before you can travel outside of the country. It is unclear if one of the parents needs to stay in Kyrgyzstan with Aaron for that 30 days. Obviously, it would be easier if someone didn't have to stay in Kyrgyzstan for 30 days...duh...but it is something that we could conceivably do ..Keith would stay with Aaron and whatever other kids went...if my parents would take the kids to school for me and be back up Keith's...haven't asked them yet! Surprise! Haha...of course, we have no timeframe. We were thinking Zeb and Lilianna might like a trip to Kyrgyzstan. Lilianna has been working on her Rosetta Stone Russian...she and I are about tied for the pathetically small amount of Russian we know!

I figure that we will get the go ahead when we have less than the $143 we have right now, and we will have to travel in the dead of winter. However, I will take it.

I look at one of the pictures we have of him ...one that was taken after we had sent him a care package that had our family picture in it. It just breaks my heart that he probably thought we were going to come for him like the other parents had been coming for some of the other kids at his orphanage and we never showed up. UG!

Anyway, in the past couple of years, we had been actively building our family...you know researching and seeking out adoptions and having bio kids. Now we are in passive family building mode! haha. Just getting our homestudy current and do whatever it takes to be ready for Aaron to come home. If he doesn't...I don't have any plans of finding a use for the homestudy! However, I heard someone speak at an adoption conference that said..."we always have a current homestudy because my family is open to whatever God has planned and we want to be ready for whatever blessing might come our way".

So, we are finishing our homestudy and will be submitting our I600 next week. We are skipping the I600A step and going straight to I600 because there is a special USCIS Kyrgyzstan representative and options. We are waiting for Adoption Alliance to get their Kyrgyzstan accreditation. There is some discussion on how long this will take. Elisabeth at AA has sent us an update that they have a bunch of paperwork ready and the in country rep has copies of it all and they will be ready to submit it as soon as they get the actual official requirements. Then we will need to get the new official dossier requirements that we will have to power through. Then the rematch, travel, court, immigration...it sounds easy doesn't it?! I feel like if we actually can get through the first step of agency accreditation then the other steps might happen too. Like I said cautiously optimistic!
We have a bus with a couple of open seats..we will have to get creative with seats at the table and bedrooms...but we are creative people.

Right now the kids are playing outside..they have been playing outside all afternoon even through a brief rain storm (with no lightning!). I just love watching them play outside.

I know it seems like we have a lot of kids but it doesn't seem that way to me. It isn't "our 7 kids" it is just O, Lilianna, Alex, Zeb, Ben, Zoe, and Violet. They aren't overwhelming when you look at them running around in the front yard....maybe a little at bedtime since no one wants to go to bed haha! When we go to adoption conferences we are the lightweights with only 7 kids haha (wimps). There are a lot of dishes and laundry and peanut butter sandwhiches - life is good.

time flies

2011-08-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

when you are totally exhausted by a newborn who refuses to sleep at night! I can't believe I have been off for 3 weeks and never got the house completely cleaned or posted anything on this blog! So bad. I also haven't gotten a full night's sleep.

Violet is a chow hound. She was back to her birth weight by 4 days old and at 14 days had gained 6 ounces. I think she might be my first child who is actually ON the growth curve. haha.

Lilianna had so much fun at her camp. She went to Camp Crestridge, which is the girl's camp associated with the Ridgecrest Center in Ashville, NC. She loved it. She wanted to go back next year for a whole month...that is a little bit too long for my baby to be away so we registered her for a 2 week session next year. I told her that she could go for a month the summer after next if she wants to. Lilianna also started dance classes 2 weeks ago. She goes from 430 until 830 on Tuesdays and is taking Jazz, ballet, tap, lyrical and hip hop. She is going to be in the Nutcracker in December which is going to involve a ton of extra practices I think (there is a nutcracker packet that comes out in November...that is ominous! haha. She has been doing really good (as far as I can tell) She really likes it and noone has called me to complain about her behavior so that is good!

Alex started back to school at the public school here. We have a meeting for her IEP on Tuesday. Right now she meets with her assistant for 30 minutes a day and has been expected to complete 4th grade work in all her subjects...ummmm...right. Everyday we asked her if she had homework and she said no everyday the first week. Then on Thursday she brought home a calendar and said "my teacher said you should sign this"...what do you think was in the calendar...all of her homework that she never did because either she is that much of a space case or she was hiding it from us so she could play. As a result, she didn't study for her spelling test on Friday until Thursday night.
On Friday we picked her up and asked her how she did on her spelling test and she excitedly told us she got 4 right. Lilianna said, if I only got 4 right I would cry. So this week, she has been a lot better about telling us her homework and she got 100% on her spelling test...yeah!
Of course next week she has a math test on division, multiplication, math terms and commutative and associative properties and she can barely add...and a test on a story they read in class that is testing nouns (proper, common, possessive) narrative styles and 8 vocabulary words that she "forgot to bring home" all week. She also forgot to bring home the story so we could help her study for her test. I don't know what is more frustrating her NOT bringing home the material she needs to study "on accident" or the thought of trying to study subject matter that is so far beyond her academic abilities right now that there is truly no hope. Oh well, we will see what happens at her IEP meeting.

We took Zebby to his 4K orientation this afternoon...it was fun. Zebby is sooooooo excited to be in 4K. All summer Benjamin has been sure that he is going to 4K too...even though we keep telling him he can't because he is only 3. Today, it finally sank in that he wasn't going to 4K and boy was he pissed. it was very sad. It is going to be difficult for them to be apart. Benjamin has never been apart from Zeb...literally. They have been at the babysitters, and in preschool together since Ben came home from the hospital. I suppose it will be good for them to be apart a little bit...but they are soooo good together (except maybe at bedtime).

Zoe is doing good...nothing to really update on her. She has been going to speech therapy for a couple of months now and has made such huge improvements in her speaking...I am very proud of her. She is really a smart cookie. I think she has some problems self-regulating a little bit, but she is really bright.

OK I go back to work tomorrow and yes...I do love my job...but it has been ssssooooo nice to spend so much time with my husband. Our anniversary was Friday. We have been married 4 whole years (and added 5 kids in 4 years...is that a record?) He is totally amazing. I am pretty darn lucky.

Violet Joy

2011-08-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah....baby time. Friday afternoon I went to the dr and I was dilated to 4, 80-90% effaced and NOT in labor. I was supposed to be on call this weekend but luckily had found someone to cover for me on Friday and Sunday but was still scheduled to work on Saturday...and boy did I NOT want to work. I was definitely feeling miserable and pregnant. After my dr's appointment she told me to rest in the office for a minute because I might go into labor right then. Of course I didn't!
I ran home and did laundry, packed Lilianna for camp and tried to pay bills and balance the checkbook. Around 930 when I was almost done paying bills....so close....I started with some wussy contractions so off to the hospital we went.

I was having contractions when we got to the hospital but they were sooooooo wussy - they didn't even really hurt but I was so dilated and sooo miserable I wasn't going to take no for an answer haha. Luckily, my OB was here doing a csection so I got my epidural (yeah epidural) and we augmented those wussy contractions with some pitocin...all that got kicken around midnight. Around 4:20 Saturday morning I was still only dilated to 4 and almost completely effaced so they did an amniotomy and literally in 10 minutes I went to complete and we had Violet at 518. She had some buising on her face because I went to complete and she was delivered so quickly. She weighed in at 6pounds 12 ounces...a whole pound heavier than Lilianna!

I felt soooo terrible yesterday because I had been up all day and night and I was cramping so much worse than after my other 2 kids. One of the post-partum nurses told me that mom's always complain more about that the more kids they have had. Seriously, I don't remember the cramping being so bad...and it was really bad while breastfeeding yesterday. I feel SOOOOOOO much better today!

As usual I have been a terrible patient. Yesterday morning I threw up after a cup of morning medications...so I proceeded to call one of my friends while the nurse was standing there and ask him to talk to the nurse and give verbal orders for iv toradol and zofran. Then I refused my labs today (seriously, those numbers would not affect my care plan at all), and I also pulled out my iv today..it was kind of annoying me and I don't need it. Proven once again....dr's make the worst patients! I am sure I would have left yesterday (a day early) if I hadn't been feeling so terrible!

I already posted that LIlianna headed off to camp today. Keith brought her by the hospital to see Violet before she headed out. No one else has seen her yet. The parking at the hospital is a mess right now and I am sure my mom is at her wit's end with the other kids! It was soooo nice to not have to worry about somehow taking care of them and being in the hospital at the same time......THANKS MOM! I know it is tough for her because grandparents like to spoil grandkids and while my kids are great and mostly well-behaved. If you give an inch they try to take a mile and they can smell the opportunity for boundary pushing a mile way and turn into frenzied sharks ...especially at bedtime! haha.

Home tomorrow and 3 weeks off.....yeah!!!!!!!

The cake

2011-08-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

this has cake wreck written all over it! But I gave it a good girl scout try! haha. I was covered in powedered sugar, frosting and sweat by the time it was finally frosted! yikes.

Lilianna loved it though...anyone want to buy a slightly used Wilton's powerpuff girl cake pan...cuz it won't get used again! haha

Lilianna's Birthday

2011-08-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

I think this might be my first official cake wreck! boy will I NEVER make this cake again! There were like 100 different frosting colors and every single one of them needed the same decorating tip and I bought black in a can that was totally impossible to control and made all the black lines completely funky.

I can't believe my baby is 8 years old. She went to camp today and is sooo excited about it. She is growing up so fast!

37 weeks

2011-07-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

Well...I made it to 37 weeks and I am fine if I don't make it to 38! haha. I have not been the best blogger in the last year...oops. I was going to try to be better and try to blog a little bit about being pregnant. While it started out shakey...um....like being so worried about telling Keith that I didn't tell him for 3 days. I quickly became very excited...so I was going to blog about it.

it is funny I had no problem blogging about the adoption process...but really haven't had that much to say about being pregnant. There are certainly many things to be excited about and many things to complain about...especially right now!

Things to be excited about:

1. Little girl baby clothes...come on... way cuter than boy clothes. Although, I must admit I did acquire a taste for cute boy baby clothes. By the way preemie baby clothes are much cuter than newborn babyclothes...looks like we won't need THOSE this time through!

2. A new little baby to cuddle with

3. Sleeping for more than 2 hours without needing to use the bathroom.

4. Taking 2 weeks off of work - boy do I need a vacation!

5. Seeing Keith walking around with the pink baby sling...so cute.

6. I totally love having a bus and #7 totally pushes us out of the minivan seating.

Bummers:

1. Yet again...we don't have enough rooms to make a nursery. Even though I have almost 7 children, I have never gotten to decorate a nursery. This is my last chance (someone knock on something wood) and what I get is the nook in the master bedroom. Oh well, the 3rd hand crib did get some brand new girl-y baby blankets!

2. Changing diapers for another 3 years.

3. The realization that by the time this little girl heads off to college, our oldest will be almost 30 and could be dropping off grandchildren for us to babysit.

4. Changing diapers for another 3 years. Oh did I say that already?

The joy behind the reasons to be excited totally outweigh the bummers...I know that is for sure. I am still kind of in awe or denial about some of the weird bummer things....

Like I can't believe we are likely going to have grandchildren before we have an empty nest. I guess the 3 years between Ben, Zoe and #7 isn't really all that much..I don't know why it freaks me out so much more.

I had also come to terms with no more babies. When we moved I got rid of a lot of baby things and said goodby in my mind to baby stuff and now we are about to re-invest in baby mum-mums (I had totally forgotten about baby mum mums .....YUM!....put that on the excited list).

So I will be walking along in the store or at home and will remind myself in total disbelief that we old 40 yo fogeys will be having a baby soon (ok keith is the only 40 yo fogey..I am still 38). It just seems very surreal.

Yes, we have finally picked out a name. It will, of course, remain top secret until there is a cute little face (and I am betting on a full head of hair) to go with it.

Homeschooling

2011-07-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

So I found out that we can officially start Lilianna's school year on July 1. Our K12 icademy year doesn't end until August so what I am going to do is use all of the hours from july 1st forward for this next 2011-2012 year and keep on with the icademy until August 22. After the icademy year is over we have a new and improved (and cheaper!) homeschool plan.

I really, really like a lot of the curriculum from K12. I like the math, language arts, history, science and art so we will keep those without teacher support. I hate the teacher support. Seriously, it is nothing but annoying to have to email in work samples and have conferences. I think I don't like supervision...it is part of my rugged individualism..haha! The language arts includes Grammar, Usage and Mechanics, spelling, vocabulary, analogies, literature, and test readiness. We have actually finished the analogies and vocabulary for the year...oops. it was just so easy for Lilianna to do on her own! I foresee test readiness going the same way!

The History is really well-rounded - I am re-learning a lot of really interesting stuff so I love teaching her that! She is also very good at getting through History assignments all by herself. She LOVES the art - it is kind of a pain to set up the art projects, but I have been using art as a reward and that has been working pretty good.

We have purchased a Rosetta Stone Homeschool version of Russian we are going to start soon, dance and guitar lessons are upcoming when she gets back from her visit to her bio dad's.

If we run school year roundish from July 1- June 30 I think we won't have some of the time stressors we have had for in the last 2 months. We need 1062 hours of instruction or 177 instructional days of 6 hours each to be compliant with Kentucky law. That is soooo doable!

I am really impressed at how much better Lilianna is at getting her homework done and she has calmed down so much at home since we pulled her out of school.

My big weakness....handwriting and composition. Lilianna hates to write so if anyone has any suggestions on composition programs or exercises...let me know!

In other news...I am as big as a house and every night I go to bed hoping to go into labor so that I can take 2 weeks off of work! I am sooo tired!

Where have I been!?

2011-06-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

I have been really busy and really exhausted! Work has been very time consuming lately I must say. It is almost like a real job..haha. Seriously, I have been working and I have been staying up too late...way too late trying to get things done around the house.

I haven't gotten a whole lot of stuff done, but things have definitely been looking up on the house front. It has been really frustrating to have not really had the time or money to complete any of the projects around the house that we have been trying to do. We wanted to build a giant playground in the backyard...Keith has been making the plans for it for like 2 years and we have been purchasing the toys for like 2 years. We still have all the slides, swings...everything in the stable ready to be built...but we can't afford to prep the land in the back yard. We tore down a big patio thing-y, but there is cement underneath that needs to be jackhammered and hauled off and then the ground has to be levelled. It is so frustrating that we are ending the second summer of not being able to afford to build the playground for the kids. UGGGG!!!! We found a contractor that will do the jackhammer, removal and levelling thing...but we can't come up with the piddly amount of money it will take...they are also going to take some of our old furniture as payment...but we still can't come with it....so frustrating.

We have been trying to spend more time in the pool, because it is such good family time. It has been fairly cold around here at night though so the water is COOOOOOOLLLD. We wanted to put a heater in the pool and last year we decided we would do it this year....no such luck. So our pool is still freezing and we still can't afford a heater. I am still hoping that we will be able to pull off the playground...but I have no hope whatsoever that we will be able to eek out the heater in any way shape or form. Of course, these are things that I want..but I want them because I think it would be so nice for the kids and every year that goes by I just get more frustrated at myself for having gotten us into this stupid financial mess! UGGGGG!
Please don't get me wrong, we are choosing to spend our money paying off bills and other adoption related type things and we are happy with our choices it just gets frustrating to keep pushing these longstanding goals to the back of the line!

We have been able to get some things done though, we were finally able to get all of the crazy, overgrown brush around the house and pool taken down - which is super fabulous. We may be able to afford to actually buy some smooth white stones to fill up the beds around the pool and some black or red ones around the house...that would be really nice.

This weekend we are going to powerwash the weird 1970's cemented pebbly deck around the pool and totally empty the pool house and powerwash that baby so we can try to use it a little bit. There is a covered wood deck out there with a big brick charcoal grill thing (filled with plants and empty bottles and planters) that we are going to try to clean up too. So maybe after this weekend I feel a lot better about our home projects.

I have been pretty good at keeping up with the laundry, although I was on call last night and got a little bit behind when I slept all afternoon instead of doing yesterday's laundry! haha! It was a great nap! We cleaned a little bit today and actually vaccumed and steam cleaned 2 rooms downstairs....it is a miracle! haha.

Lilianna has been at dance camp all week and hasn't gotten in trouble yet...yeah! Tomorrow is a little recital that I will, of course, miss. Keith is going to record it with our 8 year old Hi-8 sony recorder...it is so outdated...haha...kind of like me! I am so glad we have it though because it is the difference between Lilianna being upset about me not being there and excited that we can watch her recital anytime we want. hurrah!

We have been working the Financial Peace U/Dave Ramsay thing since about October and we are slowly making progress...but it is sooo frustrating. We are about to start our kids on a "commission chart". So the kids are going to have to work to earn money. Lilianna has been doing adhoc chores around the house on a pay per chore basis trying to earn enough money to replace the computer she accidently broke so she has been really on the ball earning money. We are going to start a new chart system over the weekend - I am excited to see how it works.

Is this the longest post ever? maybe

Had an ultrasound today for measuring, weight estimates etc. She has a lot of hair and weighs about 4lbs, 10 oz...already bigger than Benjamin when he was born. She looks just like Ben...it is hysterical. Her head is huge too...it is measuring at 35w6 days and her femur is measuring at 32 weeks..haha. We are 33w0 today officially.

Now...I am off to fold 3 loads of laundry and try to get some sleep...the extra 25lbs makes it awful hard to get comfy at night and fall asleep...even though I steal every single pillow on the bed!

pictures

2011-06-20T18:50:00.000-07:00

We have a couple of pictures from the Kyrgyzstan Heritage Festival we went to in Bethesda in May....Keith is looking very dashing and my picture hog children are hamming it up!
Zoe and Ben are modelling some of Zoe's birthday presents. They play together pretty good I must admit.

Birthdays continued...

2011-06-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

Today is Aaron's birthday - he turned 8. When we started his adoption we were sure he would be home when he was 5....he had just turned 5 when we go this referral. In fact, he still thought he was 4. We orchestrated a birthday party for him when he turned 6. Maybe 9 will be his swimming birthday party. Actually, I bet he is more of a jumping castle kind of little boy. Hope we get to find out. We can only do what we can do I suppose!

In other news...ok there isn't that much other news..haha. oh wait...we bought a bus. I full on bus with a wheelchair lift, 10 seats in back, 2 seats in front..the little automatic bus door.

So we kind of need more kids to fill it up..haha.

Birthdays..

2011-06-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

Our busy birthday season has officially started. Wednesday, Zoe turned 3. Although she still seems very early 2years old. She is such a girly girl it is hilarious. I do have pictures and I am really going to post them...really.

On Saturday we celebrated Zoe's birthday...but it was someone else's birthday too...Keith turned the big 4-0. He got a seven man crew of brush clearing magic for his birthday for 3 days of miraculous brush clearing. They totally cleared out the back yard, driveway and pool area on Saturday and it was like magic. Seriously, our yard was being reclaimed by nature...our house was empty for 3 years and then the maintenance and just trying to get through small projects was bordering on impossible even for someone as amazing at everything as keith is. Now we will have a manageable baseline to start from...yeah. I think I will take some pictures of the pool area today to show the comparison..it is an amazing difference.

The next June birthday is Aaron on June 12..maybe it will be his last birthday without a family...only time will tell I suppose.

Then it is Ben on July 5th, Alex on July 10, and Lilianna on July 31.

Of course, #7 could pop up anywhere along that timeline..could be June or July or as late as August.

I have about 45 minutes of naptime so I had better hustle if I want to get anything done!
O is coming up today for a week so I am trying to get the house a little less disastery because we all know how much housework Keith likes to do when O is here! haha....who wants to wash dishes when you can put together legos, play geeky strategy board games and video games?...ok I would rather do dishes than those things...but not Keith! haha.

Our weekend..

2011-06-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

This weekend we drove up to Bethesda to go the Kyrgyz Heritage festival hosted by the Kyrgyz Children's Future.

5 kids, one enormously pregnant and grumpy mom, and treacherous driving weather = a very, very, very long drive there! The kids really handled it well though...much better than I probably behaved...haha.

We got there on Friday night at about 830 and as we pulled up to our hotel I recognized another adoptive mom in the lobby from her blog. It was a pretty exciting time to meet people I have known online for years...literally...most of them I have known online since 2006 when I started the process to adopt Zebby.

Saturday, we went to the main day of events. Lilianna and Alex did some sewing and learned about musical instruments and Zeb played cars with another little boy who was a little bit younger than him. Then we bought a bunch of stuff at the "boutique". We listened to (ok I listened and the kids were in the same room as...) the telling of some Kyrgyz folktales. We had lunch from a buffet of traditional Kyrgyz dishes.

We had to leave before the after lunch festivities because the kids were just too worn out (and so was mom!) So we missed some music and dancing. We will catch it next year! haha.

Saturday night we walked over to the Mongolian Grill (yummmm!) with the funnest farm family there.... and then went for a walk around Bethesda! It was fun...and delicious. One of my more successful Mongolian Grill creations so far!

Sunday there was a picnic with some grilled Kyrgyz food. We went to the park early and rode the train there...kids loved it! We also played for a couple of hours at the park and they had some KILLER toys (killer meaning good not killer like merry go rounds from 1981 surrounded by cement and barbed wire). We got to the picnic around 130 and they were supposed to be serving food at that time but they were running a smidge late. The kids played and we gabbed for about an hour and then grumpy, hot, hungry kids (and possibly a mom) necessitated an early departure before the shashlik was served.....a bummer for sure!

It was a great time and I can't wait to do it again. It was an 8 hour drive and just a little much for me and some of the kids...ok maybe just for me! haha. Next time we will have to have a bigger car and stay for longer than one full day! We will take the time to make it into a homeschool field trip to the fun sights in Washington, DC.

We did take some pictures...believe it or not! Not as many as most people but some! Someday I will post them!

End of the world

2011-05-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

Ok....I think we have all figured out we are still here! I read an article on Friday that interviewed a family. The mother and father believed that Saturday was the end of the world and their three teenage kids didn't believe it. The mom and dad and made the kids leave school and drive to times square to stand around with signs about "judgement day". What I thought was strange about the family dynamic was when the mom was interviewed she said something like....well it is the end of the world and wish my kids were going to go with us to Heaven but apparently they aren't I guess some things aren't meant to be. Ummm....that is a pretty messed up way to parent. I mean if these parents truly, truly believe that their children are going to spend eternity in Hell...they should have been at home trying to convince them of whatever it was the parents believed was going to keep the kids out of hell. Seriously, what kind of message does that "whatever" attitude send to the kids! Instead the parents wanted to stand in Times Square wearing sandwhich boards....priorities people!

The kids were embarassed and the teenage daughter was talking about a party she wanted to go to Saturday night but thought her parents probably wouldn't let her go. I would think after they were willing to let her go to Hell they would be willing to let her go to a party.

I want to know what happened to that family! Did the daughter get to go to the party?

Random Zeb

2011-05-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

Last night a worn out Zebby asked me if you only get adopted once. I told him yep and in a joking way grabbed him and gave him a big hug and said "my zebby" which is from his adoption story ( I grab him and say "my zebby" and then daddy changes his poopie diapie - yes it is a glamorous gotcha story!haha).

He said he wanted to go back to Kyrgyzstan and get adopted by us again only this time bring his star doll and then he started crying saying he missed his star doll. Ok. We bought him a sage minkee twinkle baby bonding doll that Shannon took over for him ( I think it was Shannon) when she picked up her son in April of 2007. We have some pictures of Zeb with his doll that plays on a screen saver on one of my computers. We picked him up at the beginning of August and the doll of course was no where to be found and even if it had been we wouldn't have insisted on bringing it with us.

He has mentioned that darn star doll more times than you can even imagine. Sooo last night I finally ordered him another one. Bad mom...I should have ordered one and brought it with us when we picked him up at the babyhouse. If we ever do an infant adoption again (ummmm....never....but I don't say that...you are just asking for it if you do! haha), that will be the way I roll.

Anyway, our sage minkee twinkle baby bonding doll is enroute...I also got a Lilac one for Zoe. They have tan faces, but none with dark brown faces...that is unfortunate it would have been really cute for Zoe. I probably should have gotten one for Ben too but he just got a super awesome monkey from babies r us.

Faking it...

2011-05-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those moments where you feel like you are still a kid and faking being a grown-up?

I totally had one of those moments after I started Alvin and the Chipmunks for the kids and popped some popcorn. I was walking to the drink fridge and had that moment.

I spent most of my 20's feeling that way, but I haven't had that kind of moment in a long time!

Today is the last day of my vacation and it is the first day in 2 weeks that it hasn't been rainy and cold. I picked up the kids from school and we played outside. The pool people made it to our house last night around 6pm to open our pool..so our pool is officially open and it looks sooooooo inviting. Well the pool part at least. We are still in the process of clearing out the insane overgrowth around the pool - Keith cut down a ton of trees and brush around the pool, but there is some more refining to be done....all the crazy ground covering juniper and cactuses (cacti?). Why exactly they planted cactus around a pool is beyond me! I might take the kids out tomorrow to play and clean up around the pool. We never actually cleaned out the pool house last year and it may be missing part of a wall in the back where the pump goes into it! haha. It is a mess. We might clean up around the pool house if it is not inundated with wasps...I don't do stingy things!

Pumpkin (one of our 6 cats) joined us outside today...he brought down a little squirrel to play with so he could hang out and play with us. Then a little bit later we rescued (for the time being) a chipmunk from one of our other cats. Hence the big push by Zeb to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks. Wednesday night Keith and I came home to Jeb (another one of our cats) eating a bunny. A BUNNY! I didn't even know cats ate bunnies. I was very disturbed. Anyway...this summer our little predators are in full swing. This is their first Spring/Summer...they are young and apparently they are going to keep our rodent and bunny population down. I hope they take out frogs too...because I hated having frogs in our pool last year.

For Mother's day, Keith and the kids got me a new Purple Martin Bird house. We have one in the front yard and they bought me a new one that Keith put up in the side yard and it appears that some of the puple martins have moved in over there at the new pad. Hopefully the cats don't take out the purple martins!

So here is the evidence that I am actually a grown up:
1. I am excited about puple martins moving into a bird house I got for mother's day
2. I am excited about cleaning out a pool house
3. wrinkles, gray hair and maternity clothes..haha
4. I am getting ready to balance my checkbook and that oughtta do it
5. I got the room assignments for work on monday...bummer! I do LOVE my job...but I could really groove on staying home a little bit longer!

Pictures must be taken this weekend for postplacements so maybe I will get some of the pool house and puple martins. Then in like 6 months I will get around to posting them..haha!

Some pictures

2011-05-17T16:00:00.001-07:00

Yes...these were taken a long time ago too! Zeb and Lilianna built a snowman all by themselves. I made lagman all by myself and Zeb didn't like it! haha. I think I am going to make it again on thursday if I can find my awesome recipe from Shannon. I was just craving it today.

I might post some more pictures. I need to take some for Alex and Zoe's postplacement.

The world's longest delay

2011-05-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

this is the world's longest delay in posting Christmas pictures!

by the way.....

2011-05-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

It was interesting to be at a gathering for the last 2 days where WE were the lightweight parents with ONLY 6 kids! haha. I think Keith was getting a little bit competitive....like "I am tough enough to handle 14 kids too"! hahhaa

Orphan Summit

2011-05-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

Keith and I went out of town from Tuesday morning until Friday night. It was lots of fun. Tuesday we drove up to Lexington and met with our social worker to work on finishing our homestudy. We only have a couple more things to get together..our medical forms and the cats' medical forms (seriously ridiculous if you ask me!) and two more letters of reference.

Just a quick gripe here.....apparently to include in our homestudy that we are open to special needs...it will cost us $150 more. How backwards is that. It is $150 more to be open to special needs...In my opinion an adoption agency should try to make it easier for a family to be open to special needs...not more costly. It actually really makes me mad that a Christian adoption agency has the gaul to charge it's clients more for that. It doesn't seem very Christ-like to me.

Anyway, after our meeting we went SHOPPING! Did we shop....oh yes we shopped. We got a little cuddly bunny papasan swing which is the newest generation of the lamb swing that was the best baby investment I ever made with any of the kids....Benjamin would probably still be sleeping in it today if we could have figured out how to reinforce it for a 30 pound 2 year old. We bought a new infant carseat....we decided to retire the orange chico carseat after it's 4 year run as the official pumpkin seat. We bought a ton of clothes with a couple of preemie outfits to ward off evil spirits. We bought a couple of outfits for some of the other kids at the Carter's store....I hate that kids eventually grow out of Carters...it just doesn't seem fair!

I also bought 3 pairs of shoes. Keith wanted to buy some shoes so we went to like 4 or 5 different shoe stores and he didn't find any....but I bought 3 pairs....oooh yeah!

On Wednesday we headed up to Louisville for the Orphan Summit. I enjoyed the general sessions a lot but we made some poor break out session choices I think. We went to one Empower to Connect session which was really, reallly good. I think we are going to try to head to an Empower to Connect Workshop in Nashville later in the year. We could certainly use help with Alex! Of course, as all good parents, we left that session feeling like the worst parents in the world! haha. We also went to a great lunch session addressing the politics of international adoption with a panel from JCICS, CCAI, and NCAF. The representative from JCICS opened talking about the waiting Kyrgyzstan families...how surprised were we! haha!

On Wednesday night we ate at the Melting pot.....mmmmm. It was super good. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of room in my stomach for food. This was by far the most delicious trip to the Melting Pot for us though. yum.
Thursday we crashed out after the conference and watched some tv.

Friday we drove home and got here right before bedtime so we got to spend some time with the kids. My parents stayed with the kids while we went out of town and they did awesome with the kids. We are soooo lucky that we get to do this every once in a while. I am thinking that finding a babysitter for a 3 day trip for 5 kids wouldn't be all that easy! haha.

It will definitely be a while before we can afford another shopping trip!

my vacation...

2011-05-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

My 2 weeks of vacation started with my pager going off at 516 this morning and the house supervisor telling me that one of the surgeons was calling me in for a pediatric appey.....ummmm...I am on vacation NOT CALL! I am glad I had my pager on so I could straighten out the mix up...but then I turned it off! I was sleeping so good too. I finally went back to sleep but had a dream that I had to go in and do an epidural. Got up and got the kids ready for school.

Now Lilianna and I are trying to get a weeks worth of Math done today and a couple of hours of Science, Art and History. All of the language arts stuff can be done away from the computer and my mom can work with her on those while we are out of town! I am very excited about our short vacation.

We are leaving tomorrow for Lexington after we drop kids off at school. Tuesday will be a meeting with our social worker, then shopping for baby stuff, and dinner at a Mongolian BBQ (LOVE those). We might even go to a movie.

Wednesday morning we will meet with out social worker again then drive to Louisville. We have a preconference meeting at 1-4pm...then dinner and a free concert at the church our conference is. I am really excited. Then the conference is on Thursday and Friday. We had such a great time at Together for Adoption 2 years ago. There isn't going to be a day for sleeping in but that is ok!

The last breakout session on Friday ends at 415 and then we will head on home. We won't get home until after bedtime probably. It is no trip to Playa del Carmen like the other anesthesiologist who is on vacation this week..but I am really excited!

Christian Alliance Orphan Summit

2011-05-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

I am officially on vacation for the next 2 weeks....yeah! Next week we are heading to the Christian Alliance Orphan Summitt in Louisville and I can't wait. We are taking some break out sessions on starting adoption/orphan care ministries and we are taking some break out sessions on the empowered to connect pathway. I am seriously looking forward to those sessions.
Every time we seem to make some progress with Alex we find more issues. We had been having problems with finding toys in Alex's bed. She would steal them from her brothers and sisters and hide them in her bed. Very institutional I know. That has diminished and then in the last week, we had been noticing toys randomly showing up places and messes magically appearing overnight...so today we figured out that Alex has been getting up in the middle of the night to go play.
I know in the grand scheme of things and older child adoption this isn't that big of a deal. But of course there is the lying, and acting out that accompanies the discovery of these events. The question is what we should do about it? Is it a big deal?
The thing that is the big deal to me is the lying and the disrespectfulness to the toys she played with at night...a lot of them have mysteriously turned up broken in the last week (before we discovered her nightly visits to the land of unsupervised toy breaking). Most of these toys are Lilianna's toys that were delicate and for older kids so we moved them out of the playroom and the girls' bedroom to keep them from getting broken or stuck in little 2 year old trachea's! So it was another of many examples where Alex has negatively affected Lilianna's life.

Honestly, it is really difficult working on attachment (my attachment to her) when she keeps doing things to hurt the other kids. I know it is not something that people talk about...but it is hard for me to bond with my kids....It has been hard with all of my kids bio and adopted. It has taken me months with most of my children to really attach. It has been even harder with Alex because she does these things which create feelings of protectiveness in me towards the other kids. I am doing the old tried and true fake it til you make it. Everytime we figure out another layer of lying I have to question and revisit who I think Alex really is...how much of her "personality" and her behaviour can I believe or does she have an elaborate plan of manipulation in progress.
Then, of course, is the inevitable perception of everyone outside our immediate family. You know the ones...the "oh she is sooo sweet, how can she possibly be in trouble...clearly you are strict, over reactive, and mean mean parents....Alex is such a poor baby". Keith actually got into a fight on the phone with one of Alex's teachers when we refused to let her go on a school field trip to the movie theatre. OK...what chaperone is going to watch Alex (a large 9 year old) as if she were a 4 year old. Alex is more likely than our 4 year old to walk right out the front door of the movie theatre and into traffic.
That being said, I really do believe that Alex is a sweet little girl who loves her brothers and sisters. She has been through a lot and has issues to process so to speak. She has lots of things to learn and hurts to heal so that she isn't sad on the inside. I do not for one second have any regrets about how are family has come together. It does, however, get frustrating at times. Our issues are small in comparison to some of the issues other parents have....and I am not talking about adoptive parents...I am talking about all parents.
I know we will get there and everytime we have a problem I do remind myself of the problems we HAVEN'T had to deal with and that in itself has been a true blessing. We decided to adopt older children and more children because we love being parents and it is such an amazing blessing to see kids grow and change and become these special and different little people. Sometimes I wish we had a litte more free time and less stress so we could enjoy them a little bit more! haha.

Critically looking at our life right now...are we ready for the arrival of another baby....ummm...NO! Are we ready for Kyrgyzstan to reopen and for Aaron to join our family....um....NO! Are we ready to even plan for company.....ummm NO! but I have an ace up my sleeve. That's right....I have 2 weeks off. I have a cape that says "Super Mom" on it and I am not afraid to use it. We are going to come back from the Orphan Summit with plans and goals and new tools. Then I am going to whip this house into shape and whip our household into a well-oiled machine. OK....that might be a little bit unrealistic...but I am going to pray and plan and make my expectations match what is actually possible. I am going to clean and I am going to organize my house, our clothes, our time. It is going to be a productive 2 weeks.

I have rambled on for quite a while! I am disappointed and overwhelmed at times...but apparently I am also pathologically optimistic!

Blessings...

2011-05-03T16:24:00.001-07:00

I love it when it rains. I love the sound of the rain. I love the amazingly unbelievable lushness of the trees around here. They are soooo green and there is steam that rises out of the hills. We have a birdhouse in our front yard that purple martins have moved into. They are not necessarily the prettiest birds...but they have a beautiful song and they kind of glisten a deep purple in the sun.
We have lots of other birds that flit around in the rain chirping.

Other things that make me happy include Ben's completely floppy bad news bears hair cut. Watching 5 little kids play hide and seek together...completely playing together with no fighting. Yes it can happen.

There are days when there are so many things to complain about and be unhappy about that all you can do is be grateful for the little things that remind you how lucky you are. It helps when the weather cooperates and gives me a nice rain storm.

Exhausted

2011-05-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

I am slowly climbing out of the giant hole of my to do list and many things are left undone! I read a blog post somewhere that basically was "I feed my kids and if anything else gets done it is a big bonus". Haha...I keep trying to remind myself of that as I look at all the toothpaste smeared on their bathroom countertop and the laundry.
I actually have one laundry basket that is consistently filled with clean clothes that need to be folded. I am reminded of the burning bush that is not consumed. I keep putting the clothes away and it does not empty. No matter how many times I take it up the stairs it ends up back downstairs in the middle of the living room (which is just merely feet away from all of the Easter baskets still sit).
I have started to be pretty good about getting 2 loads of laundry done a day...of course that is why the laundry basket is always full...one load makes it unfolded to the basket and the other sits in the dryer.

I swept 2 saturday's ago and one day I hope to vaccuum...it is a long shot but it might happen .... one day.

Keith and I have gotten pretty good at keeping up on Lilianna's school..but involves a lot of Lilianna staying up after the other kids go to bed and working. We are caught up though. Next week I am going out of town (yeah a short vacation to the Christian Alliance Orphan Summit) and the following week Lilianna is going to visit her bio dad. So we are going to have to move ahead. I am going to have to send work with her to her Dad's this time. I hate to do it because they don't get a lot of time together and because I am afraid they will lose it! haha.

We have been spending a lot of time at the ball fields and will be heading there in about 30 minutes for Zeb's tball game (which is hilarious by the way). Every baseball or t ball day (which of course is almost never the same night!) I pray for rain. I know it is wrong...but it is like a reprieve of 2 hours to work on something like homework or laundry.

There are people that do way more than I can fit into a day and I am in awe...but instead of feeling like a messy, unproductive old troll...I am trying really hard to feel good about the few things I can accomplish. Of course, I still have the messy, grumpy old troll look that pulls it all together!

Off to pack a picnic lunch for our trip to tball tonight (please rain...please rain...please rain...it HAS been cloudy all day).

I am still alive

2011-04-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

I have been just awful at blogging. I am waiting for LIlianna to finish a history assignment. She is drawing and coloring a picture...

Easter was very nice. We got up early - ish around 630 kids ate a ton of candy found some Easter eggs and then off to church by 9. We were only 15 minutes late...a success I would say!

We have been having some issues with Zoe being extra defiant in the last couple of days. I am not entirely sure why now...but when you ask her to do something or more frequently to NOT do something she just looks at you and says NO. It is almost like she is a 2 year old...hahaha!

We are still working on names for #7...it is getting tedious. Although, Ben has a good one. He would like to call her Blue...I think or maybe it is Baloo after the bear in jungle book and tailspins....I can't figure out which one it is. Either way Ben is very concerned that I ate his sister. How else did she get in my tummy I guess! I have gone from not really looking all that pregnant to a looking like a giant house in a matter of a week. It is kind of sucky. Additionally, little Baloo is a budding soccer player, mosh pit rock star and stomach speedbag boxer. Lilianna was the same way and she is still a fidgety handful....yikes are we in for trouble.

Alex is still liking school which is a good thing because we are very much liking her going to school. Trying to homeschool her was not fun. Lilianna's school is really fun, however. Instead of doing a little bit of every subject each day we have gone to a block method. One day is science, one day is math...etc. We just go for a couple of hours. She is a pretty quick learner and we are cruising through a lot of these lessons. Tomorrow we are going to skip up some Languange arts chapters and try at the 90 day mark. It is 3rd grade language arts so I anticipate we will have to back up to get some concepts. I am not going to advance her composition yet because I think she really needs to be at the beginning of 3rd grade for that.

Lilianna has also started baseball...coach pitch. We haven't spent a lot of time with her at home working on it. Keith played baseball through high school and coached Owen's tball...but we have been so busy with school and home projects that Lilianna's home practice has been a little bit thin so far. She has done really good at practice. On Thursday they had a little scrimmage and Lilianna got 3 base hits and scored twice. More importantly to me, there are a ton of girls on her team and one of her friends from her old class at Wesley so she is LOVING the socializing with everyone. A good mom would have pictures of baseball...maybe someday! haha

Ben is still 2...oh how long will 2 last with him! He is 2...but he is also his father's son and full of more stubborness than any person I have ever met in the world (with the exception of Keith). Although, there is something slightly satisfying when Ben drives Keith crazy with his stubborness and I can say...."I wonder where he gets that hardhead?" bahahaha!

Zeb started Tball this week too. i am so proud of him. He doesn't exactly know what he is doing but he stays on the field and is excited to play catch with th coach. So while some of the other kids were running off the field to go play on the merry go round (yes the park actually has an old school merry go round - yikes), he was standing in the field playing tball. Even though I think there is a tee and balls in our stable somewhere - we haven't had time to practice with Zeb either so he was trying to beat the ball down into the tee...not a very effective hitting method. He will get it though! He really did really good. It is pretty hilarious to see 5 fielding 4 year olds tackle each other to try to field the ball...Zebby took one look at all the other kids tackling each other and just kind of stood back out of the fray. Good job Zeb. he has his first game on monday and I am going to take pictures. For sure.

Work has been very busy. It really wore me out on Friday and tomorrow is another busy day so I am heading up to bed. Creating life is exhausting..haha. Must get sleep!

Kyrgyzstan?

2011-04-17T11:13:00.001-07:00

I posted a couple of weeks ago that we had our first homestudy visit. A few days ago Keith and I picked the babies (Ben - Zeb..haha) up at school and Zeb asked me when his brother from Kyrgyzstan was coming home....totally random because we don't routinely say anything about it. Obviously because there is so little hope that he will come home...no reason to get the kids worked up about it. However, when we were doing the home visit, we had to explain to Zeb why we were having a homestudy and the social worker talked to him alone...asking him what he thought about getting a new brother...etc.

So, later that day I found out that the Kyrgyz parliament had passed a piece of legislation which overturned the moratorium on international adoptions.

I don't know what will happen for my family with this...but it is certainly very good news for the waiting children in Kyrgyzstan. I thought the timing of Zeb's question about his brother was great! It has also lit a fire under my butt to actually gather some of the more arcane and ridiculous components of paperwork for our homestudy...like the letter from our vet that our cats won't maul a child!

Must make cookies and prepare for our Financial Peace University class...we may be spending a lot of unplanned money soon....that would be nice!

Ukrainian little boy!

2011-04-16T13:46:00.001-07:00

This little boy, Vanya, is 8 years old and is about to be moved to an orphanage where his chances of adoption drop even lower than they are now. No greater joy Mom has just finished a fundraiser that covers 104% of his adoption fees!

If you have considered adopting an older child please head over to www.positivelyorphaned.org or www.nogreaterjoymom.com and find out about this little boy. He is cute and has made quite an impression on the families that have met him.

K12

2011-04-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

Lilianna and I officially started K12 last monday. The first couple of days were a little bit overwhelming...there is a lot of stuff to cover. I was approaching it like I always approach everything. If it is there we must do it. That is definitely the wrong approach for K12.

The worksheets are really amazing - the material is also really impressive. Looking through her history workbook is totally exciting. We started her in the 3rd grade Language Arts and I think that is perfect for her. She is understanding everything and able to complete assignments, but needs some teaching. I think it is totally appropriate for her. Our teacher coach suggested we start at the 90 day mark for everything so that when her semester is over in August she is ready to move to the next grade. I really want her to continue from the beginning because I really think this is where she is...it was a big jump to 3rd grade for her on some of the grammar rules and concepts. So we are just going to work through from the beginning of the grammar, usage, mechanics. We jumped ahead in the literature section to the 90 day mark and did an assignment and she did fine...but we will miss a bunch of folk tales and fun assignments. I think probably the 90 day mark is better for literature...but I have decided I am going to read through the literature book and pick out some of my favorite stories and just do them with her too.
I am the learning coach after all! haha.

Math we started at 2nd grade so when we started the Math on Monday it was waaaaaay easy for her and it took me a couple of days to figure out what and how I was supposed to move her ahead. The 90 day mark would skip a couple of important concepts I think Lilianna needs more work on so we are taking this week to pick out what assignments we need to do to get her to the 90 day mark.

I really like the workbooks, but I am still trying to figure out the online stuff - there really isn't that much of it. Keith was going to teach Science but I have no idea what he is doing trying to do or has done...so I am going to look into that when she gets back.

I think the material in K12 is superior to Abeka and Sonlight but it is a little more difficult for me to get a handle on what I want to teach and then getting it done!

The ooops adoption!

2011-04-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I read somewhere about a family who decided they would always be homestudy ready so when God called on them to adopt they would be ready. I found that to make a ton of sense. So Keith and I decided we would be homestudy ready. To sweeten the pot a little bit, 2 years ago we started the adoption of a then 5 year old little boy in Kyrgyzstan. The country closed and has been closed since then. There is a short list of waiting families and it is possible that our name is on that list. So it definitely behooves us to be homestudy ready. So we are in the process of completing a Hague homestudy in case we need one.

We aren't going to send in any USCIS paperwork stuff or anything, but we are going to get our homestudy done and keep it up to date so if we ever need a homestudy...booyah we have one.

So noone missed an announcement or anything! We would be too crazy to be planning adding another child when we are pregnant with #7...but you never know when you are going to have an "oops!" adoption right!?

what's new

2011-04-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

I found out I was on call this weekend on Thursday - I frantically tried to find someone to help cover the weekend...I was sick and Keith was planning on heading to a camporee this weekend. Thankfully, one of my coworkers agreed to help out by taking my call starting tonight at 11pm...so I am free in 5 minutes - yeah!

Even though there is a lot going on around here to blog about...there is too much going on to have time to blog! haha. So here is a quick update....

1. Alex started public school on Monday. We were just having a heck of a time trying to homeschool her. She was tested and on some 6 point scale (6 being grade/age appropriate) she scored a 1 - 1.2 on everything - they didn't even test her in Math and Science. She is in the 3rd grade and appears to be getting along well socially but has about a 5-7 year catch up plan. Which mostly involves us homeschooling her after school...oh the irony! haha. Seriously, she is much happier going to school so far and we are a lot happier without the added stress and frustration of trying to figure her out academically.

2. Lilianna is starting K12 on monday and she is super excited. Alex heading to school has been a little bit hard on her, I think she misses having Alex to play with at "recess" time. Her and Keith have been really having a great time at home though. She and Keith have gotten a lot closer in the last week. She is a pure joy now that she is homeschooling. Her frantic, manic, jump around fidgetness is down from a 10 to about a 2. She is ridiculously smart and I can't wait to start K12 with her. I went through all of the introduction lessons online and read through the first lessons in all of her books today while I was at work. She is also starting coach pitch baseball soon...we should get team assignments next week.

3. Nothing much new with Zeb, Ben and Zoe except they are all getting so big! With all of the homework and learning going on around here Zeb keeps asking to do homeschool computer so we started him with Time4Learning preK and he really likes that. He also has a little preK book that looks like the big girl's books he does that too. Thursday he was sitting at the table in a big chair with arms working on it and Keith came home. Zeb spun around and leaned over the side of the chair to see keith and the whole chair fell over in slow motion and landed on his head...it was very dramatic but luckily not traumatic...except of course it scared Zebby to death. So...Zeb sits at the bench in the kitchen now!

4. Baby #7 is a girl...still a girl even though Keith keeps trying to find boy parts every time we go in for an ultrasound! I am exhausted, crampy, and have contractions like everyday (although never up to the 8 an hour to really start to get worried!) I wish everyday that we had our old bathroom and big jacuzzi tub but somehow I will survive! She is super fiesty and active just like Lilianna was. Ben was more mellow and less kick-y. I have images of #7 not just kicking, but punching and headbutting. I predict she will be a handfull...I don't think I am going out on a limb on that one!

5. we put a bid on a big old van on some government auction in New Jersey this weekend...it is actually more of a bus with a wheelchair chair lift in the back. We are going to officially need a bigger vehicle of some sort once #7 gets here. Otherwise Keith won't be able to get everyone to school in the morning! Lilianna has said for years she wants a bus. We looked at getting an older short bus, and we still might end up with one. We have a couple of months to figure it out.

6. We had our homevisit for our new homestudy last week. I was post call and we had an ultrasound appt in the am so we had about 2 hours to clean our 6600 sq foot house and then our really sweet social worker arrived 20 minutes early. I hadn't even brushed my teeth yet because I had gotten home and 8am and we had rushed to the dr.'s office and then I rushed around cleaning. I answered the door with a big comforter in one hand, a trashbag in the other and wearing the clothes I had been wearing for 2 days, no brushed teeth or washed face...hahahaha. Talk about keeping it real! Then I hadn't really looked at all the paperwork stuff I was supposed to have together so I ran around the house while Keith talked to her trying to find paperwork. I came across as very organized! However, that is the truth right now I am totally disorganized.

This post is already waaaaaayyy to long. Have to head to bed I am sure the kids will be up at the crack of dawn!

The land between

2011-03-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

I recently read a book called The Land between. This author of this book used his personal experiences to illustrate how hard times are opportunities for growth. They are also opportunities to grow bitterness, resentment, and times where you can lose faith.

Strangely this book seemed to really compliment the other book I read (1000 gifts). The Land between is the time after the Jews left Egypt but hadn't enetered Israel. A time of trials, grumbling and complaining. These guys weren't saying "thank God for the manna that is giving us sustenance" they were saying..."yeah God is giving us this food...but I want meat too this sucks". Count your blessings people!

The author also uses Joseph as a great example. This kid goes from being a favorite son to a slave. Does he bitch and moan about it...no. He works hard, continues to do his best and to have faith. He could easily have decided to be bitter, lazy, and unhappy - but he didn't.

I am digressing a tad...but everyone enters this land between at some point in their life. It is perspective that defines that time of your life...whether it is a time where you build character, personal strength and increase your faith or does it become a time where you lose faith and build bitterness, resentment and more unhappiness?

Good Book.

I really enjoyed this book

1000 gifts

2011-03-25T05:23:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I have posted anything...I have been really busy. instead of spending time online I have been reading books....a novel idea I know (no pun intended!)

I recently read a book by Ann Vokscamp called 1000 gifts. It started out slow...lots of flowery verbose imagery....which I kind of find annoying...it is just not my thing to read a 2 paragraph description on her moms uterus ejecting her into the world. However, the narrative is really her personal journey to peace with God when bad things happen. it is a reminder that there are so many things to be grateful for and joy and happiness can be found in your life if you take the time to remind yourself of all the gifts in your life.

it is human nature to be grumpy and complaining. It is hard to remind yourself of all the things you have to be grateful for...it is much easier to complain about what broke, about what you didn't get etc.

It certainly has reminded me to take the time to literally count my blessings......try it every morning it will make your day a little more joyous!

Check out this super cutie....

2011-03-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

OK...i haven't blogged in a while because I have been super busy. I have a ton of pictures of my cooking adventures in the last couple of weeks and some pictures of the kids...of course I haven't downloaded them because I have to find cables or pluggy in things for my camera. hey it only took me like 3 months to download Christmas pictures! haha

Anyway, I am writing a quick post tonight because I am sitting at the computer waiting for Keith to finish looking over his free annual credit report...how romantic. I was doing a long overdue blogstalk of all my favorite adoption blogs and I ran across a post of the absolute cutest, most adorable, waiting 3 year old in China.

Check This Post Out

If we weren't pregnant, if we had been married at least 5 years (that won't be until August, 2012) then I might be working Kieth right now! haha! But he is soooooo adorable and just reminds me of my kids in his little robot shirt. Seriously, go see how adorable this little guy is and link to your friends who have a heart for adoption.

Being on call

2011-02-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

I am on call this weekend and next weekend. Call here is really not bad except for the fact that everything my family does....basketball training league and church for example....are all outside of my call radius. This means when I am on call, Keith gets to take all the kids to all their activities and I have to stay home in case I get called in. It kind of stinks...I mean it doesn't stink as much as in house call or working 72 hours straight.
I would just really like to be able to go to church and go watch my kids play in their basketball training league. That's all.

However, I had 4 hours home alone yesterday so I was able to work on the laundry, clean the house and that sort of thing. This morning I am going to go to the grocery store and clean the house again.

The weather was absolutely beautiful yesterday so we got alot of things done outside. The kids ran around like crazy riding bikes, climbing up the hill, picking flowers the usual. Keith broke out his chainsaw and took down alot of the brush around the pool...he killed his chainsaw and there are many more trees and bushes waiting to meet Keith's chain saw! haha. Some people came by and bought more of our bric brac and furniture we have been trying to get rid of so that we can now go buy a new chainsaw and we DO have money to go to the grocery store...yeah!

Tomorrow is officially Kyrgyz cooking day....look out.

Now I am off to the store.

Cheese bread

2011-02-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

OK..this doesn't look exactly like it...but it is close it was just in a different shape...it was a square. But I am going to give it a go..here is the recipe I am going to use.

CHeese bread

2011-02-26T07:07:00.000-08:00

After the suggestion of what the Beta Store cheesy bread thing was I glued myself to the internet for the last hour or so trying to find pictures and recipes. I can't find anything that exactly fits my memory...but hey that was a long time ago!
I am just going to pick one. I also got an email with some recipes that I am going to try out too. Yeah for cooking.
While pouring over google and georgian cheese bread...I had an idea that I would check out a blog I hadn't been to in a while. It is a blog of a woman who lived with her family in Bishkek and visited the bishkek baby house frequently and she had lots of pictures on her blog of kids there...one of those pictures actually was a little boy whose referral I accepted and then lost. Anyway.....she did some cooking and had some recipes so I thought I would head over there. To my surprise her and her family recently moved back to Kyrgyzstan and are living in tokmok.
So I was very excited to find another blog to follow from Kyrgyzstan. She hasn't posted many pictures, but I love to read about trips to the bazaar and maybe she will cross paths with the children at the Internat in Tokmok. If you are interested..follow Amira

No, I didn't find a recipe for the cheese filled bread on her blog....darn.

The Wright's

2011-02-22T17:33:00.000-08:00

The Wright's made a whirlwind appearance in Pikeville Ky last night. What a moving program.
I left our house before the Wright's had made it to us through the winding, switchback mountain roads so I could get to the church on time.

about 20 minutes later keith called to report that they had made it and they were immediately hitting the road to get to our gathering.

They got there and I was so excited to meet them face to face...they are kind of like celebrities! kind of...

They had a great table set up with felt hats, toys, mouth harps and tons of pictures.

Our gathering was intimate for sure...there were about 8 or 9 people there and everyone there was sooo excited about the things John spoke about. I was certainly re-excited about all of the projects they work on.

After the meeting, I picked up some pizza (yum) and we stayed up for another 2 hours chatting, eating, and really having a good time. I hope they can come back and spend some time just relaxing and playing.

So very, very glad to have had a chance to hang out with that great family! They are heading back to Kyrgyzstan on March 7th and I really can't wait to follow along!

Go check out their blog!

Cheese filled pastry things at the Beta Store

2011-02-20T18:47:00.000-08:00

Ok...while I was in Kyrgyzstan for my first, I got some cheese filled bread things at the Beta store and ate a ton of them in my hotel room. I would like to make those...I have no idea what they were.

The bread was kind of like Challah (spelled?) and the cheese was mozzerella-y...at least it was a white fairly mild cheese.

Any takers on what it was or how to make it?

Still waiting on that lagman recipe Shannon! haha. I am going to have to practice it at least once before March 12.

Kyrgyzstan stuff

2011-02-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

So, I finally got off my lazy butt and scheduled an adoption playgroup/feast of nations and states potluck. This means, of course, that I am going to have to actually cook a Kyrgyz dish. Yes I have talked about it (mostly in my post placement reports!) but the only thing I have successfully cooked has been glorified funnel cakes....yumm.

So I am in need of some recipes. I have a couple of recipes for things...but I don't have any pictures and the recipes have very little guidance...and frankly don't sound that appealing!

So to all those Kyrgyz loving cooks....please email me some recipes! HELP!!!!!!

In other Kyrgyzstan related news...The Wright family is coming to visit! I am so excited. I baked petit fours today (they are currently freezing in the freezer so I can cut them and pour my fondant tomorrow). Excitement = baking around here...haha. Seriously, we are having a dessert/coffee and short program at my church Monday night and they are staying with us that night.

As a partially related aside, I just LOVE my church family here. I scheduled this last minute event and 2 people emailed me and asked what they could do to help. At my last church (which I also really liked) I would be lucky if anyone even showed up for the event! Destinations is a church full of DOERS! LOVE IT!

I am really excited to meet John, he is one of the first online Kyrgyzstan friends I will have met in person. Although I am super excited about the Memorial weekend gathering with Kyrgyz Children's Future etc. Of course, I may also persuade Shannon and her family to come visit someday...our Ms Pacman machine is calling her husband's name...haha!

The reading room

2011-02-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

Kids enjoying the fuf bag fuf corner

the lockers, books and the big unwanted desk....anyone want to buy it?

The view from the pool room

The game room

2011-02-12T16:17:00.001-08:00

You can see the outline of where the ledge was...we are working on getting that up...but how awesome does that look! keith harvested the bricks from the outside patio he demo'd last week. He mixed up some morter and laid those bricks too...he did the entire project by himself. Not to brag...but I totally snagged myself a hunky catch!

We do have a little more work to do in here...but it is now a USABLE space without a pit of doom in the corner of it!

Keith's jacuzzi project

2011-02-12T16:03:00.000-08:00

The Big whole in our game room once the big jacuzzi was pulled out...The big jacuzzi sitting on our back patio with Little Zoe looking out the window.The whole filled in with a ton of dirt from our hill out back...wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt!Demo of the ledge that was around the jacuzziKeith's first attempt ever at pouring cement...pretty good I think!

Dance recital pictures

2011-02-12T15:47:00.000-08:00

The bored look that pulls it altogether.

Clean House!

2011-02-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

It is a miracle...we have a clean house. Our game room is open...the jacuzzi hole has been filled in and bricked over, the floor has been cleaned, the games are cleaned off and kids can run around and play games in there.
Our kids reading room is up and running. There is still an unwanted giant desk in the room, but our second giant fuf bag is on back order so we don't need that space yet. All the kids love to sit in the reading room and pick books off of our display rack that Santa brought me for Christmas....especially Lilianna though!
The rest of the downstairs is clean...the kids cleaned their rooms.....ok our room is still a small disaster but we can just close the door and we are good..haha. We still have to figure out how we are going to make a little nursery in it for #7.

We officially only have to unpack one more room and we are moved in...at least in my mind. Our "adult library" (Ok that sounds bad....I mean it doesn't have kids books in it...just boring books for grown ups....not like peep show books or anything...get your minds out of the gutter!) is still full of piles of books all over the floor with a couple of strategically placed boxes. OK ... Our basement is still packed full of stuff to find places for and we are overrun by furniture that was left in the house that we inheireted when we moved in.

Keith started the demo on the free standing walled patio that we are going to take out to make room for the playground...woohoo. I feel like we are making some forward movement in making this OUR home. Maybe I will actually post some pictures next...yes...i think I will go take some pictures and post a ton of pictures.

Our fun weekend

2011-02-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

We had a really great weekend...no pictures because I am feeling fat and my skin is doing some nasty teenage girl freak out that is totally harshing my mellow.
We stayed at a bed and breakfast called the Beaufort House Inn. The room was a little small and a queen size bed...but there was a kick ass 2 person jacuzzi tub and a fireplace. We got there on Friday around 430-ish and the weather was coldish (not freezing), rainy and foggy...I kind of liked it. We did stop in Johnson City and ate at 5guys (which is like one of my favorite restaurants of all time) for lunch...yumm.
After we checked in...I took a jacuzzi bath...that's right..it was awesome. I SOOOOO miss my jetted bathtub...heck I miss having a bathtub in my bathroom at all. I do like my baths, especially while pregnant!
The Inn had a wine hour that we went to and drank san pelligrino orangina...haha...we are so cultured.

We went out to dinner at a seafood restaraunt called the lobster trap and it was really good...I have been craving crab legs for months so I got my fix! We had a troutdip for an appetizer which was good and they had a lobster mac and cheese that I ran out of room for...but the one bite I could put away was pretty good. I had one crab leg that had huge creepy tufts of hair and completely formed teeth on it and so I brought it home to show LIlianna...dude it is so creepy! Lilianna wants to take it to school to show her friends..haha. I am going to take pictures..that I can post here...it is creepy!

On Saturday we went to the Biltmore...wow..it is big and I can't imagine the opulence of being that filthy rich. OK I can imagine it. I tried to convince keith that we should build a big pool in our basement like the Vanderbilt's had...but he was not really all in on that one!

Then we walked around downtown asheville for a couple of hours - the weather was super beautiful on Saturday. We didn't find a whole lot to buy that wasn't food...yummm. You have to love a town that has 2 stores within a 5 block radius that is totally dedicated to chocolate. Dinner was at Tupelo's honey grill after having received several recommendations for it. It was pretty good too. It was so nice to have so many restaurants to choose from. I think that is the thing I miss the most about living in Pikeville...there isn't a whole lot restaurants to choose from.

The biggest discovery of the weekend..and I think Keith will agree...happened at the Inn. We watched about 6 hours of cable tv this weekend. We don't have cable and haven't had it in about 3 years. We watched Billy the Exterminator for the first time and it was freaking hilarious. Keith laughed for days about Billy's brother saying "mom thinks I only date trashy whores, but I am just dating women like her". Oh the hilarity.

It is so nice to take a vacation from your everyday life...even if it is only a 3 hour drive for 2 days away!

My parents lost their sanity watching the kids and we are soooo appreciative! Thank you mom and dad. It is no easy feat to keep your cool with these little angels for 52 hours straight.

A weekend getaway!

2011-01-31T16:11:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in forever! We have been pretty busy around here. Well, maybe not that busy...I have been busy taking naps. I have been sooo tired. I keep telling keith it is exhausting creating new life...but somehow he isn't buying it....I am just being a nap-a-holic! haha.

I have also been feeling pretty crappy. I feel much crappier with this pregnancy than I did with Lilianna or Benjamin. I felt moderately crappy with Lilianna and not really all that crappy with Ben...so by degrees of crappiness.....we are for sure having a girl...haha.

We had our first adoption playgroup this Saturday...it was great! The weather was warm and kids were able to run around outside and play on the dome climber, play with balls and just run around in the back yard. It was very lucky for us because there were 22 kids there! WOW! We are planning a feast of nations for February...yumm! I don't think we will have our playground built by then...but maybe by April or May!

We also started an official Dave Ramsay class at church this Sunday...we need some accountability for sure! It is going to be good. We started budgeting, using the envelop system and some of the other FPU things in October..but it will be really fun to go to the class, see the videos and have some accountability partners!

On the heels of starting Financial Peace University....Keith and I are taking a vacation...hahahah! We really do NEED a weekend of just us relaxing. We have never had a weekend of just us relaxing. We have had exactly 4 weekends away for just us....one we went to the Together for adoption conference, one we came up for a job interview in Pikeville, one was house hunting in pikeville, and the other was to close on our house. None of those were just for recharging, relaxing, and spending time together. So I can say that THIS is our first and only vacation weekend Keith and I have ever taken together. We are going to Asheville, NC and we booked our bed and breakfast this morning. I am so excited. Even if all we do is sleep in and go out to lunch and dinner...I am really excited. I know we will do more ...like visit the Biltmore Estate...but there is a fireplace and a jacuzzi tub in our room and pretty much that is all I need! So excited!

I am on call tonight ... it is 9pm (way past my prenatal bedtime!) and at least a couple more hours to go...I am dying here...need a nap!

Just thought I would throw up a quick update!

Now we're rocking...

2011-01-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

We officially started our Rockin Mama challenge this afternoon...I was just too tired last night once I got everyone else off to bed.
We ended up spending more like 25 minutes and even though my mom had suggested some great topics for us...mostly she told me a story about Her and Lilianna being super heroes and a dream she had last night...which was really kind of a free form story she was making up as she went. It was a great story though.
It was a really nice and calm time. I really enjoyed it...with all of the hustle and bustle around our house it is rare to just get 25 minutes of quiet to converse with the older kids and not have it peppered with screaming at a 2 y old in another room!
Church was a great time for Alex and I also. Keith was out of town this weekend so it was just Alex and I in the adult church and she sat on my lap for a while before church started...we got there early. In fact, we got everywhere early this weekend with Keith out of town...mmmm....I'm just saying. haha.
I am looking forward to tomorrow...it will be hard because I am on call...so we might miss.
Alex also did great on her school work this weekend...she spent all day on Saturday doing Time4Learning and doing very well...obviously trying. She had some confusion on one lesson about prepositions what above, below, beside mean...that kind of thing but in her defence some of the questions were confusing!
Zoe is going to start school later this week....we put her on the waiting list on Friday and there were 4 people ahead of her on the list. We figured it would take months...today, the director said we could start her...2 kids moved up and 2 people pulled their names off the list so she is in. We were a little surprised and caught off guard with some immunizations still to catch up on! OOPS. So shots for our little pumpking tomorrow!
I am now off to bed because I am worn out!

The Rockin mama challenge

2011-01-16T10:28:00.000-08:00

We have an awesome glider that we bought right before Zebby came home. It is sitting in our playroom right now...mostly used for children rocking baby dolls.

A few weeks ago I signed up for the Rockin Mama Challenge...rocking your child 15 minutes a day...no interruptions, no ther kids in the room, no books, no cellphones...just rocking and loving. Of course....I haven't stopped my busy life to actually start it. Tonight it starts.

It is 15 min a day for 28 days. We were supposed to start so that the 28 days were up before Valentines day so that I could focus on my honey for Valentines day...but since my husband barely loves me anymore and will be out of town the weekend of Valentines day I figure the over run won't be a big deal!

Hop on over to One Thankful Mom to read more about the Rockin Mama Challenge....
I will let you know how it goes with Alex!

Homeschooling and other issues...

2011-01-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

THIS MIGHT BE MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT OUR ADJUSTMENT PERIOD WITH A AND Z.....so read at your own risk!

I have been researching homeschooling stuff for like 2 years. When Lilianna was in Kindergarten she spent a lot of time getting into trouble so I thought about pulling her out and homeschooling her. Time was a real factor then because I worked such long hours.
After all of my researching I thought I was ready for homeschooling Alex when she got here.
We decided on Sonlight and I do really like it...there are lots of great books, it isn't too time consuming but there is good stuff.

I was so excited when the stuff got here and we started that day. We did some Time 4 Learning with her too before Sonlight got here and it was abysmal. She literally just clicked through without listening or caring what it was trying to teach her....she clicked through the quizzes on anything without even trying to get the right answers...she would just click on an answer before the question was even finished being asked.

When we started sonlight we would go over the same things over and over again. I can't begin to tell you how many times I explained nocturnal to her. Ben and Zoe both know what nocturnal means....Alex doesn't...she just smiles with a blank look whenever she gets asked a question.

Apparently, she says at Beacon House if you didn't answer, they wrote down the answer for you and then asked you again and then if you didn't answer it, they just asked someone else. So she has told us that she doesn't want to learn anything. She has told us that she knows we will give her food and clothes and she doesn't have to do anything to get them so she isn't going to.

How do you motivate that to learn? All we can really do is surround her with the other kids and their enthusiasm for learning and hope it rubs off. Last night, Lilianna spent a lot of time reading one of her new books so we let Alex sit in the dining room with her and read a book too.

As you can imagine....her attitude squashed all of the excitement I had about homeschooling Alex. I think if we had some sort of testing metrics to give ME and Her a feeling of accomplishment that might help. Cindy Lajoy is homeschooling and they have a center or resource that tests her kids and wow what a great feeling for her and the kids get when they keep testing higher and higher! Good for them! I haven't found anyway to measure our success or lack therof!

Last night, Keith caught her chewing on her earring. She said she decided she didn't want it anymore so she was chewing on it so we would give her new earings. Ummm....i don't think so. She now has no earrings and won't get any new ones until she starts showing a little bit of respect towards her things. We have already taken all of her jewelry (that isn't a lot...trust me) away. She just recently earned back the right to play with Barbie dolls and I am not entirely sure how long that is going to last.

We had to move her out of the girl's room to a bed in the living room because we can't trust her with the other kids. She has done some disconcerting and concerning things and says inappropriate things that I don't want the other kids to hear...so she is on parent lockdown. She has to be with a parent at all times and not allowed to be alone with the other kids. I want to clarify that I am not worried about anyone's safety...I just want to be able to be there as Alex's American concience until she understands what is appropriate. It is exhausting emotionally for us and for her. She is emotionally and functionally around 4yo....she loves to watch, sing and dance to the wiggles and barney. I understand and am supportive of her playing with whatever toys and watching whatever videos she likes. I think it is OK. However, my 2 year olds (even Zoe) and my 4 year old are able to focus, and follow directions better than she is and I think that is a problem.

She was in an institution for a year and a half, not 9 years. My hope is that this is just adjustment and depression that will ease up after she has had time to adjust. On more than one occassion she has said that she doesn't want to be a part of "this family". Who can blame her we are crazy hahaha!

So, we have taken a small holiday break from schoolwork as we determine if we need to place her in our local public school or if we need to just keep at it. I have a vacation coming up and maybe I will take her someplace for an educational evaluation. I understand the IA clinic in Cinicinatti is good....

Zoe is responding great with great leaps and bounds. She used to have these spectacular raging tantrums and they are almost gone now. We still see one every once in a while if she is really tired...but for the most part they are gone. Zoe is talking up a storm...some of it is still babble but she is verbally ahead of where Zebby was at her age. Her receptive language is amazingly good...if you tell her 2 and 3 step commands she is all over it. She is a really smart little girl and is full of lots of love.

So any suggestions are appreciated!

Censorship

2011-01-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine had a very personally relevant post on her blog today (or maybe yesterday!) about how she has been censoring her blog. I have been doing the same thing. I haven't posted anything on my blog in almost 2 weeks because I have been trying to keep a secret at work and I know that there are some people at work who might know where my blog is. That is so unlike me....I am an open book in almost everyway...except for the last month or so.

So I am coming out for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I LOVE being able to look back at the last 4 years and see what I was thinking or doing...it is my diary/journal....ok something to jog my rapidly aging brain! The seond reason is that I am really excited about my secret.

This is #7 due August 19th.

I have obviously been pregnant before.....twice before, in fact. For some reason I am more excited about this pregancy. For Lilianna and Ben, I was really busy at work/school and I didn't really get worked up or excited about a new little guy growing in my overtired, overworked, body....I was just getting by. Don't get me wrong, I am still overtired...but I have found myself a little pre-occupied by thinking about our new little one.

This was a complete shock...with Lilianna and Ben there was some sort of planning involved...we were trying to have babies. We had already discussed that we were done with babies....we gave away all baby clothes (for those under 2yo), gave away bassinets etc. We were now old people with older children and we were literally months away from being done with diapers.

However, now I am feeling more like a first time mom....weirdly excited about the kind of things i never got excited about before. Oh well...I guess they say ever pregnancy is different. One thing is the same though.....we still don't have an extra room to be a nursery. I will never get to decorate a nursery! oh well. Another baby that gets to sleep in the crib in our room or the pack and play in the living room! I suppose there are always grandkids for that! hahaha.

How I told Keith? I found out on a Sunday and was going to tell him...but he was on a tirade about how overworked he was and how we had too many kids.....ooops poor timing there! So I ran back up to the bathroom to make sure he didn't accidently find the EPT! I waited and on monday, he was still overworked and grumpy...then on Tuesday he was still grumpy. I was beginnig to think that maybe I shouldn't tell him at all and let him figure it out 6 or 7 months down the road. Needless to say, I was a little worried about what his response would be. It was a little teenager-ish. I kept trying to think of a good way to tell him and I couldn't. I figured I better just tell him..so Tuesday night we were in bed and he was almost asleep and I said..."there is something I have been meaning to tell you but there hasn't really been a good time...we're pregnant". He jumped up out of an almost sleep with a great big excited "are you serious?" and he was nothing but excited and happy (phew!). I really did worry about it for days.

My favorite hormone overdrive moment of the pregnancy was when keith said "by the time #7 is out of the house there might be grandkids....when he is 18 O will be 29 and lilianna will be 26" and I totally lost it ...uncontrollable sobbing at thinking about my baby girl being 26 yo...granted she will still be in a booster seat and not allowed to date yet...but she will be 26 haha....

Tomorrow I will be talking about the terrible job I am doing at homeschooling Alex...tune in for the uncensored tale! haha.

A New Year...wow

2011-01-01T06:15:00.001-08:00

OK...I still don't have Christmas pictures downloaded...it is awful...that should be my new years resolution.

However, another little festive holiday has come and gone.....what did we do for New Years Eve? I was on call, but it was relatively slow and I didn't have to go in once last night....awesome! So what did I do...I went to bed at like 800 just about the same time as the kids and I had one of the best nights of sleep in like a month. Of course it was interrupted by booms and bams of fireworks. Luckily, no children hollered or cried at midnight. So it was a good night. haha

Now, how is 2011 going to be better than 2010? 2010 was a big year for us.

1. I finished residency and got a real doctor job.

2. we moved to our super awesome and somewhat overwhelming house bringing the total of houses we own to 4 (which is at least 2 houses too many!)

3.Our daughters came home moving us solidly to a large family that needs a bigger car of some sort (when O is here we have to travel in 2 vehicles)

4.Started doing the Dave Ramsay money management thing...which was way overdue for us and is giving us some darn hope that debt free is a possibility (although it would help if we only had 2 houses..haha)

5.Found a great school for the kids and a church we totally love

6. my parents moved close to us so that the kids get to hang out with Grandma and Poppy (who is like the pied piper of all 2 year olds...haha)

So how could 2011 possibly get better?

1. Stick to our budget

2. create a daily and weekly chore chart for everyone so that our house doesn't look like a tornado hit it every day!

3. stick to the once a month cooking plan...we are kind of wussed out on that but I am ok with precooking the chicken and beef and then pulling it out for dishes...that works for us

4. Spend more education hours with all the kids

5. Restart our discipleship workbook...we have lost focus and organization

Basically we have been getting by .... not really in control of our lives. This year we are going to take control of our overwhelming house, overwhelming finances, overwhelming children..haha.

This year is dedicated to Janet Jackson (insert me and paula abdul dancing to "Control"...oh I can totally bust those paula abdul 1989 moves)

Christmas

2010-12-28T17:22:00.000-08:00

I should have posted a couple of days ago...but I haven't downloaded pictures...how unlike me...I know. I still haven't downloaded pictures but we all know how long that can take! haha.

Christmas was surprisingly orderly and exhausting. On Christmas eve we watched some of the Rankin and Bass classics and had hot chocolate...old fashioned milk and Hershey's heated up in a pan with marshmallows and whip cream. The kids went to bed around 8...except O of course...O and his dad stayed up playing in his room until 10pm when I finally had to put an end to that. So then there was about 7 hours of putting things together and wrapping the last of the presents. We watched Holiday Inn and WHite CHristmas...Holiday inn is my favorite...although I enjoyed WHite CHristmas more this year than in the past...I must admit.

Around 5am when we were finally finishing putting things together and started laying things out...we saw Alex peaking through her window into the Pheonix room where the Christmas stuff was. We had told all of the kids to stay in bed and not look out of their rooms..I know it is hard for kids to do that...but she had to climb up on top of an armoir that is in front of the glass door from the girls room to the Phoenix room...on top of a 7 foot armoir to look out a window. UGGGG!!!!

We finally got to bed around 530 and my parents got here at 7 to open presents..I was hoping to sleep in a little bit longer...but Keith was ready to go...so up we got and brought kids down. We headed out to the phoenix room and all the kids found their Santa presents (they each got 2 unwrapped santa gifts that were set up waiting for them). They played with their Santa gifts while my mom and I made breakfast and Keith started a fire.

After breakfast, we all went to the tree and everyone picked out one gift and we took them back to the fireplace in the adjacent room and took turns opening gifts. After everyone was done with that gift we went back and got another. We took a diaper changing break and Keith took toys out of boxes for kids. It was remarkable organized....way less pandemonium than Christmas 2 years ago when we had Lilianna, O, Zeb and Baby..baby Ben.

I got a super killer book display stand for my dream children's reading room from Santa...now I just have to get that room rolling...I got Sattelite radio for the house and my car...yeah...now I can listen to some new Contemporary Christian music...I love the songs on my ipod..but I was getting a little tired of the same songs. I can't get the local Christian Channel at our house or in the car. In continuation of a long standing tradition...Keith and I got each other the same DVD...Caprica...I can't believe that show got cancelled...it was a good show.

Alex's favorite present was a little doll that has a bottle, eyes that close and open and it makes sounds like gaga goo and waaaaa. It is a classic and she loves it.

Lilianna's favorite was Squinqies and the nintendo ds game mama's cookin.

Zeb's favorite was his bike ( a car's bike) or any present that belonged to any of the other kids. Every 10 minutes he was bringing someone else's gift to us and saying "will you open this for me"...ummm No Zeb it's not yours.

Zoe's favorite gift is a plate of plastic vegetables that you can cut in half with a plastic knife.

Ben's favorite gift is a buzz lightyear. Although he also got a Larry Boy hat that looks like the top of larry boy's head with super suction ears...and that is MY FAVORITE gift Ben got. He is so funny wearing it singing the Larry Boy heavy metal song by SHux. haha

I am not sure what O's favorite gift was...once they are all preteen...it is probably hard to tell! haha. Keith says it was a game...4 way chess.

Keith's favorite gift was the Pacific DVD ...of course I just turned and asked him what his favorite gift was so he kind of had to tell me it was one of the ones I got him! haha.

After we finished opening gifts, I started the turkey...13.8 lbs of deliciousness. I made stuffing this year for the first time too. After I put the turkey in....I took a nap! I was TIRED. We ate around 330 and it was delish. I have about one more leftover meal left and I am sneaking it work tomorrow for my lunch. I made some really delicious gravy too...yummmmm.

Christmas is really a haze of exhaustion...as it probably should be. We still haven't found places to put all of the new toys...so our phoenix room and the central living room with the fireplace is still a disaster zone. I am hoping to have caught up enough on my sleep to actually clean up the house for the new year.

On SUnday, Keith took Lilianna and O to Birmingham...O home and Lilianna to meet her bio dad. The snow kept him from making it home SUnday night. I was up all night with 2 sick little boys. My red chocolate cake was delicious going down...but a little disgusting regurgitated on Zeb's pillow! It was also the night our washing maching died....so I threw puke clothes and bedding in there and the washer didn't spin out the water....gross.

This must be the longest post ever....that was our CHristmas. Do I feel exhausted, overwhelmed by toys and dirty clothes...yes....but I feel really blessed to have my sweet family especially my mom and dad here to share all this fun stuff with us....and I am super blessed to have all that we have.

Now I am going to finish the dinner dishes and try to catch up on some more sleep! I am still soooo exhausted!

My little black dress

2010-12-17T18:36:00.000-08:00

The first year Keith and I were married....2007, I bought a dress to wear to our Christmas parties..it was a size 4. Then I had Benjamin and drank a lot of 2 pump mocha's with whip cream. This April I had to dress up for my graduation party and my only party dress was too small....by a lot...like couldn't even get it on to try to zip it...so I had to buy a new dress.....it was a size 10.

Tonight, we went to my Christmas party. I had nothing to wear....nothing. The dress I bought in April was too spring-y....so in desperation I tried on the Christmas party dress of 2007....and it fit.

I knew I had lost 8 pounds since we started the Dave Ramsay Financial Peace budget a palooza...and my one pair of jeans (that are 10's) didn't fit well...but they were cheap and never really fit well. Apparently, walking 100 times a day from preop holding back to the or has paid off. woohooo.

The Christmas party was nice...it was very, very cold and we had to walk about 2 blocks from the car to the expo center. It was decorated nicely with a bunch of tables and they had a buffet with Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing...you know all the usual characters in a holiday meal. Keith and I sat alone at a table, ate talked a little bit and left. It was one of our most unsocial party every. Usually we at least sit with people we know but not tonight. We were there about an hour and a half.

...but at least i was size 4 for a couple of hours tonight. Now I have to go eat the rest of the chocolate chip cookies...hahaha.

I just love this picture

2010-12-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

This is Ben's first picture after 33 weeks of waiting...2 years 5 months later...he is now this fiesty genius.

I love all of my kids - I love them all equally but differently. Benjamin is my baby. No matter how old he gets or if other kids come to our family that are younger than him....Benjamin will always be my baby! I just get reminded every once in a while how much I love my kids and love watching them grow into the crazy little guys they are meant to be. What joy this little boy brings me!

bits and pieces

2010-12-16T15:37:00.000-08:00

I am on call today....the weather has been really crazy lately. School has been cancelled almost every day this week so we are on cabin fever overload. I was post call monday, came home sick on Tuesday, off on Wednesday and am on call today..so I have been home a lot this week too.

Keith and I went out to dinner last night which was totally awesome. My mom watched the kids while we went on a half date night. We haven't had a date night in almost 3 months...this is after we promised ourselves we were going to have one every week! We really, really, really have to find a way to do that. It was nice. We had been saving up our "date night" envelope money so we could go to the hibachi place and it was very tasty. Then we went to praise band practice. Keith used to work the lights at our old church so he is joining up with the sound/light team and went Wednesday night.

It was an intersting practice...I have been very frustrated lately at praise band. I am not really a musician, but I love to play and I really like the songs we are playing but I feel super inadequate. I am hoping that will change now that I know where to get the chord charts and I have figured out I need to practice everything in B and Bflat!

I think we are finally done with our Christmas shopping...although I can't be sure! I DO know that we have pretty much reached that window of things getting shipped here by Christmas.

Not a whole lot else going on. I was just glancing back at the last couple of posts and marvelling at how cute Benjamin is with that fork...and of course, how handsome my husband is. I am one lucky girl.

Christmas pictures

2010-12-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

This year is Zeb's turn to put the star on the christmas tree....I didn't realize it was a new family xtreme sport. Next year I am getting a harness.

We also hung stockings with care on the spiral staircase!

It was all around good fun! Every time I took a picture of something going on Ben and Zeb would both scream "take a picture of me!"...it was a little ridiculous...although they both are so cute it is hard to resist.

School is cancelled tomorrow because of the snow and the Christmas program scheduled for Wed has been rescheduled for next Tuesday...so I need to look at the call schedule and see if I can make it. UGGG. I totally had Wed off to go to the Christmas program and I am probably on call on Tuesday.

In other news...I totally have a miserable cold....I am going to go crawl into bed now!

Pictures

2010-12-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

All of the snow from last weekend melted over the week...the head melted off the snowman...but his body remained. Today, today it snowed and snowed and is still snowing.....we tried to do a head transplant....but the snow was too powdery! poor snowman. Lilianna tried her hardest...she kept in there the longest trying to roll a new head! So school was cancelled today and will be cancelled tomorrow. I don't remember getting school cancelled this much for such a small amount of snow! Oh well it is a little hillier here than in Kansas!

At dinner last night Benjamen threw a fit that he wanted a big fork not a baby fork...so this is what he got!

He means business.

This was my favorite place today...

2010-12-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

Chocolate chip cookies (a double batch with m and m's), a fire in the conversation pit and Christmas music piped around the house on our very decadent full house speaker system! We had a great weekend and now I have to go back to work tomorrow....oh well!

First Snow

2010-12-05T19:04:00.001-08:00

This is the most snow my husband has ever seen. He "helped" the kids make a snowman. ahemmmm... where are the kids? It snowed like crazy we have probably like 3 inches so it is not a super huge amount...but did you see that snowman?
I love the truck in the snow...next year's Christmas card picture is totally going to be kids around the truck with a Christmas tree in the back of it....snow would be nice but not necessary.

Our house looks like some crazy ski lodge.

So why does Keith totally rock. When it started snowing he went out and cut firewood...like from a tree he cut down a couple of months ago. A chainsaw, and an axe thing called something else. I know I am sure a lot of people cut firewood from their trees...but I don't so I am impressed. Then we had a great fire in our fireplace...the wood is holly and it burns bright and hot...it rocks.

Keith also plays in the snow with the kids and helps them build snowmen...which I don't do because I get cold! He spends hour figuring out crazy electronics from 20 years ago so we can watch movies with our projector thingy with surround sound and then running cables through the ceiling, cutting old speakers out of custom built in entertainment centers. There is literally nothing around the house this awesome husband of mine can't fix. I don't know how I got so lucky!

Zebby's birthday cake

2010-12-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

Here it is in all of it's puzzle cupcake lopsided glory! It looks like the rocket is shooting ketchup and mustard out of it's engines!

Keith rocks

2010-12-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

I have some great pictures from this weekend that i will post in a couple of hours...but I have been reminded how super awesome my husband is and wanted to shout it from the blogger rooftop....haha

exhausting...

2010-12-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

I haven't written a post in almost a week. There is always such a huge to do list that I can never get to the bottom of. In fact, for the last 2 weeks I can't even get to writing my to do list. It is like I am forever engaged in surviving. There are 5 little people who need something all the time. It has settled down a little bit and at times I can manage to get them involved in one activity or at least similar activities in the same room.
I know it will get easier and I will get better at organizing the kids...but for now I am barely holding on!

I know i need to improve my planning and my ability to stay on point with routines. I am working on it and I think it will help the kids remain focussed and organized if I exude organization! haha. Now all I have to do is find my dormant organization/routine gene!

We have our Christmas tree up and the lights on it. We were going to decorate tonight after dinner, but the boys were soooo tired we just watched a movie instead. Tomorrow we are going to decorate and I have to bake some chocolate chip cookies. Tomorrow evening is a parade in Prestonsburg and our church is having an open house with hot chocolate and cookies. I am really looking forward to it. The kids are really looking forward to it too.

The praise band is playing again on Sunday and I have to get some practicing in over the next day or two...I don't know this song as well as I should. it is a great song though - just some tough timing on a part or two.

Christmas spending is like a giant monster of doom stomping through our checking account and leaving a trail of destruction behind it. I love Christmas, but every year the spending is out of control and overall makes my Christmas a lot less enjoyable. I love watching the kids get excited about opening presents they like...but I want my kids to get as excited about things at Christmas that don't involve materialistic things. I definitely have an increasing resentment of stuff and every month and year my disdain for stuff grows. I am working hard to find a way to reconcile my conflicting relationship with stuff because I don't have the option of selling everything I own, filing for bankrupty and moving to Kenya. Although sometimes that is the most appealing option! haha.

change of plans

2010-11-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

So I didn't actually go and frost Zeb's puzzle cake last night....I went to bed. It was very nice. Of course when I woke up at 5 am and my husband and daughter still weren't home it was difficult to get back to sleep! They finally made it by 530 am and I swear this...never again will I let my husband make that kind of plan again. EVER!

I didn't sleep very good and pulled myself out of bed to get to the soundcheck by 9 this am at church. It was the big debut of the praise band...by big..I mean we did one song! But we did have a fog machine - does that count as pyrotechnics? Zoe was up and wondering the halls when I got up so I just got her dressed and took her with me. She did really good she just kind of hung onto my leg while we practiced and then ran around all cute. Deborah took a cute picture of us as we were waiting for church to start. Well, at least it is a cute one of Zoe! haha.

She definitely spends more time with that little sparkle in her eye than she used to!

I remembered the song and didn't fall down in the middle of it so it's a win for me! haha. I really am enjoying playing so I am looking forward to Wed nite practice and playing next Sunday.

Today is Zeb's birthday so after church we went to McDonald's. Now that we are all dave ramsay financial peacing...a trip to McDonald's really is a big deal! The kids played for a little over an hour and had a great time. We got home around 230 and I still had to frost Zeb's cake. It took me a while. I don't really know how to decorate cakes - but I do a pretty good amatuer job...nothing good enough or bad enough to be on cake wrecks. Although the first birthday cake I made for Zeb was a lion and I unthinkingly placed the giant one right in the ummmm...groin? of the lion (see it here!). Still not really cake wrecks material. We did take pictures, but since my computer died I am at a loss on what to do with them!

We barbecued...which is always fun when it is super cold or rainy out since our grill is INSIDE in a little built in pit in the phoenix room...LOVE IT! Then opened presents...Zeb got a ton of cars things...because he just loves cars...still. He also got a Toy Story 3 leapster 2 game which made Ben run around going "Buzz Lightyear...I'm buzz....zzzzzzzzz" insert 2 year old holding his arms straight out in front of himself bearing down and gritting his teeth (trying to fly). I was worried he might valsalva himself into unconsiousness.

Then it was off to bed. It was a pretty good day! I am on call tomorrow so I don't have to go into work until 11. I promised Lilianna I would take them to school tomorrow though so I am going to have to get my exhausted butt out of bed. Which is probably where I should put it now!

Thankfulness

2010-11-27T19:32:00.000-08:00

I have had a really, really crappy week. The internet abounds with happy and gratefull posts...everyone is thankful for something and I am writing this post to remind myself that I am thankful for things too. This week has been crappy...did I mention that already!?

I could drone on and on about all of the things I have to complain about...but just know I am exhausted and even though Keith has let me sleep in at least 2 days in the last week - sleep is not changing my exhaustion level by much.

SO...here goes the power of positive thinking.

I love my job...even when I am in a foul mood I recognize that this job I have is pretty sweet. I love what I do and the people I work with are pretty great, the hours are fantastic and I get paid pretty well. So that is a win in the job category and I am very thankful for that. I think there are very few people who enjoy their jobs as much as I do. Usually the people that enjoy their jobs this much work a lot more hours and are work - a- holics which is definitely NOT me!

I love my house. It needs some updating and there are definitely things I could complain about..but the kids get to drive their bikes up and down our long driveway and we get deer and turkeys in our yard all the time and rabbits and turtles and who knows what else. Our pool needs some updating but it was so awesome to spend time with my family in the pool and be able to see and hear the birds while floating in it. My house is a total win too. There are definitely things that could be improved upon...but the stuff that really matters...the location and the topography of the property is super wonderful.

I love my church. Everyone there is sooo super nice. Even though Keith and I are really shy and really overwhelmed by our kids right now...they still make an effort to include us in things. I get to play bass in the praise band which has been a huge source of joy in my life in the last 3 weeks. I forgot how much I totally love playing with people. Our church really cares about our community and has great projects we can get involved in...when our kids are not drowing us..haha. Oh yeah...and they have french vanilla creamer at the little coffee stand (love it!). Mostly I love the people, the messages are ones my soul needs and the community activism speaks right to my heart.

My husband is hot. That's right. I am still ridiculously in love with my husband after 3 1/2 years of marriage, I still like him and think he is a babe. I could complain about him all day...as all wives could...haha....but I could never face a day without him. My husband is THE number one biggest blessing in my life.

My parents are right next door and that is awesome. My mom saved me from totally losing my mind tonight by laying with Zoe while I laid down with Ben so the 2 year old cry-off could cease before my head exploded. Then she hung out while I went to the store to buy the stuff to frost Zeb's birthday cake. He turns 4yo tomorrow...my baby boy is so mature (and yet sooo not).

The kids...ok I am thankful for the kids and it is days like today I have to remind myself how much I love them and how cute they are. Seriously, today they were not so much with the cute. I know I am blessed with wonderful kids and when they work me as hard as they have been the last week I feel like I have been blessed with way more than I deserve. Ok that wasn't sarcasm in the way that I usually write it! What I mean is that I feel that I do not deserve to have these great kids - that they have gotten the short end of the stick! I am not nearly as patient as I need to be and as I should be. I sometimes imagine how awesome they would be with a good mother instead of one who barely gets by!

Ok...I am feeling a little bit better. I am exhausted, it is 11pm and now it is time to start decorating Zeb's birthday cake for tomorrow. I can't sleep anyway because my blessing of a husband spent 8 hours in Birmingham today playing at the mall with Lilianna and Owen and now won't be home until 4am. How am I suppose to sleep with 2 of the things I am thankful for are on the road (after being awake for 18 hours and only 4 hours of sleep the night before!).

So frosting, decorating and worrying. Also, church tomorrow is the big debut of the praise band so I have to be there at 9am for sound check and final practice.

I am thankful and lucky and grateful for all I have.

It may have worked.

Christmas

2010-11-22T04:30:00.000-08:00

Cindy Lajoy has a wonderfull post today on the meaning of Christmas. Last year they were in Kazahkstan bringing home their newest 2 additions and had a very different Christmas. This year they are approaching Christmas from a place of giving of themselves not giving STUFF.

I have such a resentment of all things stuff and my resentment grows at Christmas time because we buy so much stuff for our kids. Don't get me wrong - I love to see my children excited and happy - I just don't want Christmas to be all about getting stuff. I know it is my responsibility to teach them to find joy in other things. So that is going to be my goal this holiday season...to work on taking the dependence on stuff out of the Christmas recipe for good cheer.

Read Cindy's post - it is really a good topic to talk about and I hope to have some time to talk about it with Keith tonight.

Small rant...

2010-11-21T19:38:00.000-08:00

The church we went to in Birmingham was great - I really liked it. I had some spare time (believe it or not) and I wanted to get involved and do things at the church..but there wasn't a whole lot of opportunities that called to me.

My church here (what up DCC) is soooo totally fantastic and has things all the time that I really want to get involved in and participate in (like the Operation Christmas Child packing tonight)...but I have too many kids! haha. I don' t think I would have been much help if I had shown up with 4 kids (3 under 3yo!). I guess i should be thankfull that my husband lets me go to praise band practice once a week!

I wish I could go help with set up on Saturdays, I wish I could spend more time being involved there because it is fun. Things will be a lot easier in 2 years. Two 4 yo, a 5yo, 9yo and 11yo will be an entirely different story! I am way over diapers, bedtime battles and not being able to decipher 2yo speak. yes...I am over all of those things. When we were getting ready to move I was all sad and weepy about getting rid of baby clothes...especially the super cute preemie carter's puppy outfits that Benjamin wore..."oh no more babies - how sad" i said....yeah umm...not sad anymore! I can always give those as gifts.

Ok my rant about being a prisoner to my 2 year olds is done...at least they are in bed and I have the luxury of time to myself to blog on the matter!

awkward Usborne moment..

2010-11-21T18:02:00.001-08:00

Day 2 of homeschooling Alex and we whip out the Usborne People of the World book for page 8-9 or something like that. The first sentence is People from Asia are mongoloid and the dark skin people of Africa are negroes. UM...I don't use those words...I don't want my children to use those words and I am pretty sure I am offended by those particular labels - i certainly don't want my children called either of those. I read in my head way faster than i read out loud so i did some quick editing. Guess I need to do some reading ahead and make sure I really approve of all of the parts of the books!

Am I crazy or does anyone else take exception to those terms?

Class is in session

2010-11-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

Ok - I just couldn't wait to dive into the Sonlight books so Alex and I started today. She seemed to stay a little more focused today with actual books in front of her. We didn't have any Math because we are still waiting for out math stuff to get here. We worked for just under 2 hours not including bible study and reading aloud book (Charlotte's Web!).

Zeb kept asking if he could get new schoolbooks and wanted to do Alex's workbook pages. I am in...the P4/5 looks pretty good. One of my favorite books of all time is on the reading list for that curriculum. It is one of Keith's too - we randomly hit upon the topic of that book when we were dating (ok we only dated for like 3 weeks - so not a lot of things fall into the category of things we talked about while we were dating!).
Before I start filling up our bookshelf with Sonlight curricula...I should probably wait and see if Keith likes it and if it works for us longer than one day!

Besides school today we had a pretty fun day. The weather was beautiful so we spent quite a bit of time outside. I managed to keep the house clean (it is a miracle) and everyone was in bed asleep by 8pm. Zebby is sick...he has a terrible cough, is uber run-down and has a little fever. If it were not Saturday night I would probably be preparing to take the little guy into the doctor tomorrow. I feel pretty confident he has a pneumonia...I hate trying to decide if I should call in an antibiotic for him. I would just rather take him to the pediatrician...but it is a Sunday tomorrow. UG! I will probably call in some high dose Amoxicillin. Maybe I will send my friend Ryan a message on facebook and see what she thinks I should do!

I am rambling so I should probably go to bed! Good night all...looking forward to day 2 of school tomorrow!

New Books!

2010-11-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

Today we got our new Sonlight curriculum for Alex. I am soooo excited about it. There are so many fun books. Lot of Usborne books and little fiction chapter books- worksheets and schedules to organize in a big binder (love doing that). It is very exciting.

Alex helped me check all the books with the invoice and started picking out her favorite books that she wants to read. She is really excited and I hope that sticks for a while!

Keith is going to do most of the homeschooling - but I am jealous and might start some this weekend before he has a chance to get his grubby little paws on my cool new curriculum....I mean Alex's cool new...oh who am I kidding. I want them! haha.

We got the core 1 which is for K-2 and ages 6-8. This is our first foray into the world of Homeschooling - but I am really excited about it. We didn't get the math program through Sonlight...I think they use Horizon's - I can't remember. I think we are still discussing Saxon vs Math U See...although I am pretty sure we are leaning toward Math U See for this year at least. Until we make a commitment we will probably just keep on with the Time 4 learning.

I need to head off to bed...it is getting late and this week wore me out!

I killed it...

2010-11-16T04:17:00.001-08:00

I killed my computer. Yes, my husband will attest to it...I am a computer killer. This isn't the first computer I destroyed...but it is by far the cutest. My cute little pink acer is dead. keith may be able to bring it back to life...he is good like that!

I had my first practice with the new DCC praise band. Our director had sent me an email to practice one song .. so I practiced it and felt pretty comfortable with it. It was Matt Maher song "Love will hold us together"....great song! I showed up at practice and he handed me a chord sheet with the song in a different key...so the first time we played it through I kind of stood on the stage and fidgeted uncomfortably hitting one note...it was awesome. Then he pulled up the song in the key I had learned it in and said...oh we are going to do it in this key. So the next time through I was able to play it. I am so not a bass player yet! haha.

It was really fun though - I had forgotten how much I like to play with other people. I am really looking forward to this wednesday when we practice again. I am on 2nd call so I may not make it - but I am going to try really hard. We are working on another song...that I totally love...Chris Tomlin's Our God. I love the part "if out God is for us who can ever stop us and if our God is with us then who could stand against". I have been struggling to drop it a step... but I just got an email that he wants to play it in E (which I think is going to be easier..yeah me!)

We had a great weekend. O was here and Lilianna was at her bio dad's house. I think Lilianna had a good time and she came home with new shoes...yeah! She also amazingly didn't get into trouble at school on monday. Normally she comes back and her behavior is all out of whack...but she had really, really good behavior yesterday.

We have been having great luck with everyone going to sleep at night...except Benjamin of course who would rather eat nails than fall asleep and miss anything! He is still a huge struggle to get into bed...Lilianna was the same way.

We finally ordered our Sonlight Curriculum for Alex...I am so excited about that. We have been doing an hour or so of Time 4 learning with her a day to kind of get her used to doing school work and to keep school in her vocabulary so to speak. She is doing better with staying motivated and actually trying to do the work. She really wants to go to school with Lilianna so that is motivating!
I can't wait until the stuff gets here!

Lilianna and Alex got new bikes from Grandma and Poppy last night and I know that they are so excited to ride them today...it is real gloomy and rainy this morning so I hope it clears up before this afternoon. Lilianna has ballet tonight so she won't have much time to ride her bike anyway.

That's about all going on here right now...we are still plugging along with attachment with Zoe...but it is going amazingly well. Actually, even though I ranted a couple of days ago about being exhausted...our transition is going amazingly well. Don't get me wrong...there are still many moments of ummm...pandemonium...in my home - but overall, it could be soooo much worse and I am very grateful and feel very, very blessed that everything is going as well as it is! Of course, I am mostly well-rested and at work right now! haha.

a quiet night...so far

2010-11-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Keith is out of town this afternoon - home soon..thank goodness. He went to drop Lilianna off with her bio dad for a long weekend and to pick up O for a long weekend here. O doesn't have school Th and Friday so it is a good deal for us!

I got home from work around 1ish and watched Underdog with the girls and then Alex worked on some Time 4 Learning. She is zooming through the Kindergarten level stuff now that she has decided that learning is fun not work! At least the kindergarten stuff is fun. I think we could probably do first grade and start moving up...but I want to keep it fun and I think there are still some simple kindergarten type concepts that she hasn't been exposed to.

Zoe didn't get a nap today so she was starting to get a little tired when we headed out to get the boys around 4. We stopped at poppy and grandma's on the way home from school for about an hour and then headed home. Had some dinner (and there are lots of left overs...yeah!) and sat down to watch Cinderella at around 630. Ben and Zoe were out cold by the time it was over so I sent Zeb and Alex up to get ready for bed and then carried Zoe succesfully up and laid her down followed by successfully carrying Ben up and laying him down. Which means at 809pm all of my kids were in bed! WOW

SO for the last hour I have been practicing my best rock and roll moves with my bass....I mean umm...practicing ...ummm...some of the songs for the praise band at church. We have a brand new building and the first meeting for people interested in being in the praise band is tomorrow. I am not a real bass player - but it is fun and we will see what happens. Hopefully no one that is actually a real bass player will show up so I will be in! haha. It is amazing how easy it is to remember when to kick and jump in the air...it is a lot easier to remember that than to remember what the notes are!

I always hate it when Lilianna leaves to go to her bio dad's - I miss her! It has been a really long time since she went to see him. She will come back on SUnday and then leaves again the following weekend for the week of Thanksgiving. Then she will be back and it will take us a month to get her behavior back to acceptable! She always backslides after visiting New Orleans. Maybe it will take less time to get her back up! We shall see. Be that as it may...she is the sweetest most compassionate little girl. I am such a lucky mommy.

Back to the bass....what fun. Of course it would be more fun if I wasn't huddled in the corner of my dimly lit (half of my light bulbs in the bedroom are burnt out!) bedroom with my computer playing songs at the most minimum volume audible.

Issues creeping up...

2010-11-07T19:10:00.000-08:00

This morning we made it to church...yeah! Our church just moved to a new building so it was a pretty exciting morning there. Did I mention that we have French Vanilla creamers at the little coffee bar...yummm.
We got up around 8ish (after a 45 minute prelude to up-ness by Benjamin at 322am) and had bacon and eggs for breakfast courtesy of me....mom rocking the hot breakfast. Then we ran around crazy and tried to get ready. While Keith was in the shower, my job was to get all clothes out and ready and start dressing the girls. For some reason the girls took a really...really long time so the boys were not directly supervised...I heard them running around and playing. When I was finally done with the girls I headed out of their room to a naked 2 year old boy and Keith picking poop up off the hallway floor....oops. Mom gets a fail for getting the kids dressed this morning.

Benjamin had taken off his diaper then pooped, then walked through it onto his and Zeb's bed and then sat on the bedspread and tried to wipe the poop off his feet with his hands...want anymore details - yeah me either. It is a good thing Keith found it. If I had walked out of the bedroom and found that I would have totally lost it. I think my head could very well have exploded. We have had problems with Ben taking off his diaper and running around talking about using the potty chair...getting on and off the potty chair a million times and not using it. We have been a little permissive of it because we want him to start using the potty chair. However...the hammer has now come down about walking around without a diaper on!

Somehow though, we cleaned everything and everyone up and still left the house on time. As we walked out the door keith made the comment that we were getting the hand of advanced parenting...HAHAHAHA.....however, we did make it to church on time!

In other news, Alex has been very quiet and it has been hard to get her to speak loud enough to really hear her. Today we discovered that she can talk loudly, forcefully, and look you in the eye...but only when she is lying to you. At least we have clues as to when she is lying. She also likes barbie and doll clothes. She likes to take them forcefully, horde and hide them and doesn't give a second thought to hurting anyone's feelings in the process. Oh the opportunities we have to help Alex grow. She is full of energy and I know her soul is sweet - she is going through so much right now and I think she sees our house as a new place to survive in. A new place to try to learn how to beat the system, get what she needs, get what she wants and try to be in charge. I know she doesn't get the family thing yet.

As far as parenting goes, we are kind of strict. I am not sure how this is going to play out - we are prayerful for sure.

Zoe is doing better - she is starting to act like a 2 year old - being playful and getting into trouble - haha. Today she actually got up from lunch and instead of being glued to me - followed the other kids into the playroom for about 45 seconds. Then came running back. Her temper tantrums are still manageable and redirectable (we are on day 2 of successfull redirection - hurray). Her love tank is still close to E though....we are praying for that love tank to fill. She is saying a lot more words and is saying "thank you" when we give her anything...which is big in our house!

Lilianna is as sweet as ever and full of love for her sisters. I think her feelings were very hurt by Alex today and she is just baffled why her sister wouldn't want to play and share and why she would hit her hands away from her own doll clothes pile. Lilianna gets special mommy time today and tomorrow for that one.

Zeb is acting out a little bit at home and being an annoying little brother where he used to be Lilianna's number one playmate. I foresee that Lilianna will start spending more time playing with Zeb again - so I think that Zeb's acting out is going to decline. He is still sweet little zebby zeb with an annoying little brother twist!

Benjamin is doing better too - Keith and I spent extra Ben and Zeb time on Saturday thanks to the help of my awesome mom and Ben really responded to that. I am also a lot more thoughtfull about carrying 2 2year olds instead of just one. Ben and Zoe are actually getting alot pretty good. Even though Zoe is a month older than Ben she is functionally younger than him. They run around and play peekaboo and tickle each other and do that great thing where they just chase after each other and scream.

Mom is going back to work tomorrow...weird and sad. I am exhausted and feel like somethings are getting better, some things are getting worse. I am questioning every parenting decision I make and worry about all kinds of things ( I think that is what mom's do - right?)

Keith has it all under control. That is just the way he is built I suppose.

I read a blog once that was brutally honest about all of the issues her daughter was having. She said she wished she was one of those adoptive parents who had a wonderful easy time of it and was ready to start another adoption. Instead, she said the adoption of her daughter had disrupted their family is so many inexplicable ways that she was just heartbroken. Zeb's adoption was sooo easy and he attached and integrated into our family so well that there is no comparison to his adoption and the adoption of his sisters. They will be work and it will be work for everyone in the family. Even though I knew in my heart that it would be hard work and it would be advanced parenting - I don't think I fully appreciated the kind of work until today.

Bootsy, Smokey, Jeb, Tiger, and Pumpkin...ok they are fine and they have a new cathouse that Keith built for them last night to keep them toasty warm I totally have to take a picture because it is totally amazing and really toasty warm inside. They have definitely adjusted to the girls..haha.

Just to clarify...

2010-11-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

The girls are doing remarkably well...much better than I had anticipated actually. Everyone is sleeping well at night and eating well and starting to laugh more and just be happy more. We are not trying to run a full school schedule for Alex or anything crazy like that. We are reading books and doing Time 4 Learning because our other kids think that online site is fun and it is educational too so that is obviously a plus!

Today, Alex and Lilianna spent time hanging out in a fort they made in their room reading and Alex is getting a lot more excited about reading mostly because Lilianna is infectiously in love with reading and it is contagious.

I ventured out with the girls today to a birthday party for the only other little girl in Lilianna's class. It was kind of a bold move - I took all three girls to the party. It was at a photography studio. When the guests got there everyone got little cheap black tank tops, tiara's, feather boa's and put their name on the list for makeup and photo shoot. Alex and Lilianna both were models for the afternoon and Zoe just cuddled with me (we had one melt down which resolved rather quickly).

We really pushed our luck by eating dinner at my parent's house after the party. When we first got there I was sure we had pushed the excitement of the day a little too far when Zoe had a melt down the first 5 minutes we were there. However, she pulled it back together really quickly. Today, I seemed to be able to work the meltdowns so they didn't last as long...we will see how my strategy works tomorrow I suppose! haha.

There are moments when I am exhausted emotionally and I just remind myself how lucky we are....

Now lets talk about skin lotion because I have got to find something that works on my daughter's skin! Suggestions?!

Yes...we are still alive.....barely!

2010-11-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

So today is my last day off of work - I head back on Monday. I really do like my job, but I wish I had a little more time to spend at home with my family - it has been nice and hard work of course!

Zoe's lovetank is on empty. She just follows me around and has to be in the same room with me at all times. This is much improved from touching me at all times a week ago. Sometimes I can leave the room to run get something as long as I am not gone too long. It is wearing me out. I don't mind it when we are out in public with just the girls because this type of child is way easier to handle in the grocery or the doctor's office. Someone asked me if she is this good all the time. You know sitting quietly on my lap playing with my hair and babbling to me and laughing. She is so good on the outside in those situations.

If she were the baby, the ONLY baby..then there wouldn't be any problems. But she is not - there is Benjamin who up until last week was my baby. My one and only little baby and he was a mamma's boy (in the good way...the independent do everything myself but love to give my mom hugs more than anyone else kind of way). Ben used to just say my name..Mommy, mommy, mommy and when I said "Yes Ben" he would say " I love you". He used to say "I Love you mommy" 50 times a day. Now he doesn't want me to change his diaper even and is hitting people at school and even spit on a little girls toy at school. YIKES!

Today, I dropped the kids off and Keith stayed with the girls and I just spent 20 minutes alone with Ben and Zeb at the school playing with them and cuddling with them. Benjamin finally started giving me hugs and kisses and saying "I Love you, mommy". The boys are just babies and the Zoe attention grab is really hard on them.

This evening Benjamin wanted me to carry him so I picked him up and sat him on my lap on the couch. Zoe was across the room and saw Ben in my lap and came running over and crying in her super annoying to the point of infuriarating two tone whiny cry (no seriously...let me tell you how I really feel about that cry...it is working me..please pray for me!). I kept holding Ben and Benjamin said "No mommy...Zoe on your lap instead...I like this pillow" and scooched off and laid his head down on the couch pillow and patted it. I tried to move him back onto my lap but he said...NO MOMMY - ZOE Lap. My poor babies...all of them...I need more mommy and bigger lap! So I am eating more M and M's to do my part! haha.

Alex is a challenge in a whole different way. One of her BH classmates is in about 2nd grade per her mommy..but after working some with her...she is about Kindergarten and totally and completely uninterested in learning. In fact, after working with her for 2 hours on very simple concepts - she told Keith that she didn't want to learn anything. She puts forth zero effort most of the time. She has very limited reading..she can sound out very simple words but if it gets even remotely difficult she just starts guessing and completely quits trying to actually read the word. We are using Time4Learning and if we don't go through every little exercise with her she just starts clicking and doesnt even try to listen or answer the questions. She is sooo sweet and sassy and I know she is smart..we just have to figure out a way to motivate her...so pray for her education motivation too!

Today was a good day mostly. Everyone has been going to bed the last two night so that is a total blessing...I hope I didn't just jinx the rest of our weekend!

Zoe's stool came back with Giardia and Campylobacter. Campylobacter is reportable to the CDC so I am expecting a phone call from the CDC any day now.HAhahaha. Campylobacter is one of those bacterial infections you get with food poisoning. I seem to recall it is the one you get from the egg salad at the 4th of july family reunion picnic. I could be wrong...if anyone is studying for USMLE step 1 or 2 you can correct me! haha.

I am off to balance checkbook and see how bad it is.....ug!

Around the House

2010-10-31T20:07:00.000-07:00

The girls have taken to climbing partway up the hill (mountain) that is our backyard. keith and I hiked it up to the ridge last week and it took us about 35 minutes to get all the way up and about 45 to get down. It took the girls like 45 minutes to get 100 feet up the hill and about an hour to get down...oh the hilariousness of the conversations yelled back and forth that we could hear in the yard!

Zebby displaying his pout for the camera while Keith was cleaning the nine million pounds of leaves off the pool cover. Zoe being cute as ever

Benjamin deep in thought about something sneaky and super cute

Zebby posing for the camera. He said..."mom take a picture of me" and then he ran over to the table and laid down and said "hurry..I am cute". yes he is.

I LOVE our house and our great big yard. Every time the kids go outside and run around and play I am reminded just how lucky I am and how much I LOVE our house.

We finished off our night with a delicious grilled dinner in the bbq pit in the phoenix room, and one piece of candy from trick or treating for dessert (I am sooo stingy with the candy).

Everyone went to bed pretty good tonight...I guess all the running around and no nap worked to our advantage (so far...the night is young)

Halloween costumes.

2010-10-31T19:57:00.001-07:00

A little princess right before I put her coat on her...brrrr it was a brisk 68 degrees

Lilianna ladybug putting her emergency pants on!
Zebby...oh that smile!

Benjamin and Zebby had matching monkey outfits...they were toasty warm while my princesses froze!

There is a toasty warm princess before we left the van!

We went up to prestonsburg for about an hour of trick or treating. The kids just love to dress up. Next year we hope to have a nice warm trunk or treat somewhere!

Siblings meeting each other...

2010-10-31T19:47:00.000-07:00

Ben refused to join the fun on the couch...he is lounging Everybody loves Fairytopia

Alex listened to Lilianna's ipod until it ran out of batteries

The Girls first day home!

2010-10-31T19:39:00.000-07:00

Mom, Alex and Zoe vegging out in the media room watching Barbie Mermaidia Zoe playing in the Phoenix room

Alex playing with the dollhouse in the Phoenix Room

Getting ready to leave the airport in Charleston, WV

DId someone say pictures?

2010-10-31T19:33:00.001-07:00