Our little Abi

May 28th was Abigail's 10th birthday!
We had a small party (of course we double any typical party and bring our own fun!)
with just the 7 of us and my parents.
We enjoyed a yummy meal of Japanese Hibachi--always a favorite with this crew!

A-adorable smile
B-bubbly personality
I-incredible joy
G-giddy
A-able to achieve
I-intonation in song
L-laughing little lady

Her new Little House bonnet from Papa and Gramommy.
Don't let the balloon topper fool you!
(Not pictured: her new 18 inch doll)

She was happy to get a horse for her doll.

Her new blanket sewed lovingly from Grandpa and Oma.

Enjoying smores on our first camping trip.

Abi-You really are full of life! We love you and look forward to watching you continue to grow in the Lord as you fully enjoy His journey.

xoxo, Daddy and Moma

Abigail is NINE!

Abigail turned 9 yesterday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET ABI!
Your smile is contagious.
Your songs tell a story.
Your care for your little brothers is admirable.
We love you!
xoxoxo




Overjoyed at getting to hold her cousin Emmie.

Excited for her birthday breakfast (it's an all day affair around here...okay, all week affair!)

The birthday hugs start!

For birthdays we allow the kids to pick out whatever (within certain attainable limits) they want for breakfast. Abi picked eggs, sausage, bacon, donuts and strawberries. One of the small blessings to having a large family is the abundance of birthdays, hence the abundance of donuts...Momma likes donuts but only on birthdays. Whew, we need some more kids! ;)




The day before Abi's birthday we took a trip to Luray Caverns in Virginia. We left our house at 6:30 am and didn't arrive to Luray until 11am. It's a good thing we travel with a porta-potty. We sat in turn-off-the-engine traffic for a while. The destination was worth the journey. We listened to Jonathan Park the entire way.
The kids love it and it is packed with Creation Science.

We love it when Daddy is home and field trips are possible.
Thank you Head of the household. You really do R-O-C-K.
No pun intended, really!

Kid Quote

While spinning in circles with his "Light Saver" (yes we know it's Light Saber, but he is only 5):

John: "I am getting wizzy!"

Mom: "Well, let's hope not."


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John: "Come on! Let's go play Wii!"

Abigail: "I don't wanna play Wii. I get tired jumping all around."

Mom thought: Isn't that the point!!??

Friday Fevers and Fun

Seriously, that's my title. I have two down with colds and slight fevers. Although the day involved a lot of tissues and hand sanitizer, we still had fun.

I "twisted" or "locked" Abigail's hair while we watched a bit of our school movie. This style should last a few weeks since we are not in and out of the pool anymore for the season (sigh). It is really cute on her.

I made this for dinner! It doesn't look as good in the picture, but it was fun. Any guesses?
It's a non-seafood seafood theme. The turkey-dog is an octopus. The noodles with cheese are sand. The almonds are shells. The grapes are sea nettles. The cucumber is seaweed. Although Daniel preferred to call it a snake! The black beans are "ink." The kids really enjoyed figuring out what each thing was supposed to be and then they enjoying gobbling it up! Tip: Cut 8 legs onto your hotdog while leaving about 1.5 inches together at top, then boil. The ends will curl, helping to create your octopus.

Face stuffers! Ashley doesn't really eat like that; she saw me coming with the camera.

Don't let those cute, clean faces fool you! These are my sickies.
Come on, look sick or noone will believe me! Papa and Gramommy will just think I was teasing them in order to get them to take Ashley to her 9:15 pm soccer game. Yes, you read that right, 9:15 pm. Huh?!
Thanks Dad and Mom aka Papa and Gramommy!!!

The non-sickies after dinner. They had a great time on the trampoline.
These are their funny faces!

Hope you enjoyed our day in pictures. All photos were taken on my cell phone, so no excuse now. I will just post kind of blurry phone photos. Have a happy Saturday!

A little blog refreshing!

I did something for "me" tonight. I updated my blog page. I hope you like the new color scheme and family photo atop. Is that really the best photo we could do?! Actually, yes.

As you can see from the picture the children are in full swing for soccer. We will actually be finished the first week of November (if we don't have any more rain forcing us to postpone games). The boys had their first game last night and really enjoyed it.

John gets a little Mommy coaching before the game
while another player practices making a goal.

Daniel worked so hard. He is still only 3 and smaller than the "big" 4 and 5 year olds that he is playing with. He keeps up so well and does a great job! He is our wonderful soccer dribbler!

John is hungry after making 3 goals all by himself! He worked hard too.

The girls had soccer photos last night so Aunt B stayed with them to make sure they were primped properly while Daddy and Mommy took the boys. The girls and Aunt B made it to the field to watch the last 10 minutes. The boys LIT UP when they saw Aunt B was there!

We are halfway through our third week of school. It is going well and the children are learning so much. We stepped off the actual size of Noah's ark yesterday. It was so fun and such a great way to get a real idea of the massive boat. The children couldn't believe it stretched almost from our house to Papa and Gramommy's. Wow. They are also enjoying Math U See. They are really understanding their Math concepts. Even the boys!

We dug out an old camera and are hoping to get more photos of the children. We will post them as events happen. Maybe. If the old camera continues to work. If we remember to bring the camera. If we don't leave it in the bathroom of whatever event we are at and then fly, in an airplane, several hours away from that bathroom, never to find the camera again. Maybe. We'll see. You'll see.

Well, I have one tiny boy with a bad cold who kept me up for several hours last night. Another big boy came in before said tiny boy and decided to cuddle me no matter where I went on my bed. So, I was up for about 3 hours... Wonderful Husband is gone on a trip tonight so I am off to sleep, sleep, sleep, sleeeeeep..... Good night!

Braids

I had the girls hair braided on Friday. I wanted something that would last with swimming nearly every day. I decided on corn rows. Abi had extensions added to hers. The girls look so cute. I am not able to put a picture on here as our camera is still lost in the mall. If you could only see them. Abi's hair is to her waste. Ok, a little, ok, a LOT ridiculous, but it is really fun for her. Ashley's is great as it is tight to her head and braided down her back. Her layers are starting to pop out so I am not sure this will last as long as I had hoped. I have been faithfully moussing and wrapping their hair every night to ensure long-lasting braids. For the pool I purchased swimmers caps to save those braids! Well, Abi lost a braid today. The entire extension unraveled and her hair did too. I checked the rest of the braids and they are all loose. So much for a hair free Summer! At least Ashley's will last through our trip West. Abi's, I am not even sure hers will last though the night! I paid $60 per head for these braids. Have you ever felt like you just flushed $60? Of course you have. Well, I have a feeling I did!

Our only picture...

This is the only picture we have from Abigail and John's adoption day.
Please continue to pray that someone finds, and is willing to return, our camera.
We are all well and continuing to rejoice that things are official.

Adoptions were finalized...here is the story!

What a time it was! We rejoice that Abigail and John are both finalized! I hope you have not been "biting at the bit" waiting for my update and lots of pictures. Here are the events as played out beginning the night before we left:

5/21/08 Wednesday Night

10 pm Daniel was extremely uncomfortable with the hand, foot, mouth virus. He started with blisters on his lips and couldn't fall asleep. He finally did fall asleep at 10pm.

12 am Daniel (and Mommy) awoke miserable

12:45 am Daniel (and Mommy) awoke again, miserable

3 am Daniel (and Mommy) up again, sweet boy, just miserable
John came in to announce he had to pee

4 am Our alarm goes off for us to get ready for our flight. Mommy up, Daddy and Daniel sleeping through alarm.

4:50 am Daniel doesn't want to wake up, but does and seeming better, downs some water! Yea God! We are out the door to the airport.

6:10 am Board flight

6:30 am Flight Attendant announces that there is a problem with the engine indicator light for the left engine and that we will have a 20 minute delay.

6:50 am All is well and we pull out onto the tarmac.

7:00 am Flight Attendant announces we have a problem with the right engine indicator light (hey, didn't we just go through something like this for the other engine?!)

7:50 am After sitting on the tarmac with high hopes of taking off shortly, we pull back into our gate and change planes. We were gracious and I even thanked our Captain for the nice short nap. He was surprised that we would have such a good attitude.

8:00 am Board and get all six of us settled (again!)

We arrived at our destination a few hours later than we expected...

11 am (somewhere east of our residence) We arrived, rented our mini-van, changed the children out of their "pjs" (really just comfortable sweat/sleeping/travel gear).

12 pm Drive through Hardees for a burger, fries and soda. Yum! Everyone's doing great now that we are sugared and fattened up!

1 pm Run around a very wet, muddy park before changing into court attire.

2 pm Show up for court hearing

2:30 pm Court hearing time comes and goes

4 pm We get in to see the judge!

4:10 pm All is final and we walk out of court room, snap a few pictures with all those who helped to make the day possible. Woo-hoo!

5 pm We grab some yummy ice cream at the Crayola restaurant and let the children each pick an item from the adjacent store in celebration.

6 pm Return the rental car, change back into travel gear.

6:30 pm We are at the airport and ready to grab some dinner before we catch our 8 pm flight.

What, what's this I see? OH, we are DELAYED! Hmmmm? We get to entertain the children with pizza and sodas for FOUR hours in this tiny airport. Oh well, OK!

10:30 pm We take off

2 am We land

3 am We are home

3:30 am We are sleeping

8 am We wake up, unpack

8:10 am We realize we left our camera in a bathroom at the mall

8:11 am We smile at each other

Just another day in the life! But this day was complete with a happy ending...never to be seen on film!

The Things We Do-Trampoline

My husband and I had a fun time on our trampoline last night. We sent the children to do their nighttime routine while we played. We laughed and I tried whole-heartedly to "take him down" with my smooth wrestling moves. I have to say that my husband is very strong. He outweighs me by 90 pounds! But I was a pistol and determined. It was all to no avail until he decided to "fall down" (aka: rest). I then tried to pin him and he was able to take both of my feet in one hand while I tried to get away. He let go and my foot came flying without control! The result was a direct kick to his face. The laughing stopped, at least on his part. I tried to get myself under control after laughing for almost 40 minutes straight. He held his head and I repeated, "I am so sorry, I am so sorry, I am so sorry, are you okay?" He wound up with a nice "egg" right above his left eyebrow. It is still sore today, but not quite as pronounced. As I have proved myself as a woman who should not be messed with, I don't think I will need to challenge him for a while! Yeah, right.

This is not the first incident on our trampoline. Although we have strict rules on what is allowed to take place out there, accidents still happen. Several weeks ago Abigail was jumping with reckless abandon and came right up into my nose. The result of that was a bloody nose and two black eyes.

Would I still recommend a trampoline? Well, yes, I now have a claim to fame. So, wouldn't you?

Easter and Our Spring Break Dream List

We had a wonderful Easter Celebration. We spent the morning at church celebrating our Risen Lord and watching Abigail and John sing. Can you pick out my kids (see video below)? We spent the afternoon at my parents, sharing in a wonderful meal and a fun egg hunt for the children. Enjoy the pictures...

Yummy Easter candy!

Easter with Papa and Granmommy

Daniel hunts for eggs on the beach...

while John hits the jackpot on the grass...

and the girls, with baskets full, also head to the beach to search!

Most of our Easter crew went outdoors to watch the children. Our wonderful PA family and Granmommy were responsible for the egg stuffing.
So much fun-thank you!

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We have been on Spring Break at home this week. Peter took off of work for the first 3 days of our sweet vacation. A few weeks ago I sat down with the kids and had them brainstorm about things they would like to do during our time off of school. They had some great ideas, which I built upon and then formulated, on paper, how we would approach getting their individual ideas done by doing one per child per day.
This is how we spent our 3 days, at home, limited expense, lots of fun and all 6 of us together!

Monday:
1. Trip to Toys R Us to spend gift money from Gram. Everyone picked out what they wanted. The result was a nice long time at the store and sweet joy watching their faces as they tried to decide what to purchase!

The boys are happy with their purchases!

2. Rearrange girls room to accommodate organization of toys, dolls, etc.
3. Jump on trampoline (all of us together).
4. Play choo-choo's and build the spiral track (all of us together).

Tuesday:
1. Ride bikes (all of us together).
2. Host a Tea Party. The girls baked scones and a doll cake, made egg salad, set the table and donned their bonnets for impromptu (it was only going to be the girls and Mom and Dad originally) afternoon tea with their Mom, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Aunt and Great Aunt. When offering teas they accidentally offered their Great-Grandmother a laxative tea. Fortunately I caught it before my grandmother found it an appealing choice!

3. Play Spiderman. We let John (our Spiderman dude) play the part and try to get us all in his web (silly string) in the front yard. We all picked up the string when his can was empty and covered him with it. It was such a fun time. The laughs were wonderful.
4. Play a choo-choo game. We were all excited to get back to our spiral track rather than play the game that Mommy and Daddy had invented for this event.
5. Watch a movie. Yea!

Wednesday:
1. Paint/Arts and Craft We let the children get out the t-fabric paint. The girls designed their t's from their Great Uncle and Aunt in PA while the boys covered some boxers with trains, spider webs and beep-beeps (this is the word for cars in our house).
2. Gymnastics at the new homeschool class in town. All 4 were able to attend and it was fun to watch them run, jump, bounce, swing, etc. This may turn into a regular event.
3. Eat a fun snack. This was John's brainstorming idea. We let him (the 4yo) plan dinner and boy am I glad I did. He picked hamburgers, french fries (we substituted tater tots) and a special drink. I found the new AirForce sodas at Sam's Club and we all enjoyed one.
4. Last but not least we intended to camp on on the trampoline or in the family room. This actually turned into the kids watching another movie and camping out downstairs for a while. Daniel was not feeling well yesterday (runny nose, cough, etc) so he didn't camp out.