Boys Day With Daddy

The little brave snowboy.

This 6 year old boy brings in our fire wood. Today, in the big storm, he thought it was a good idea to just run out in his thin t-shirt to grab a few pieces. He went back and forth about 5 times. He was very brave. He was very strong. He was very cold. But that is the way he wanted to do it and being that he is the one with the most energy I decided it may not be such a bad idea to let the cold wear him out a bit. Good job John!

The Boxing Boys

I smiled while I watched Peter explaining to the 6 and 5 year olds how to mold a mouth piece. They practiced three times before he started the real molding, hot water and all. They had it down, they knew what to do. Then, he dipped the piece in hot water and put it in their mouths. It became hot chewing gum! Not molded, rather bitten repeatedly. Daddy saying, "Now wait to bite... okay, bite, wait! no! ow!!" At this point I was rolling with laughter. He tried a couple more times and then told big J to spit his in the trash. They tried again. It was better. He re-dipped Daniels and it went a little more smoothly. I only wish I could have caught the whole thing on film. I cannot do it justice. My husband was so animated as he described how to do it and so calm while he said, "wait, bite, no, ouch, bite, wait, suck, suck the water out." "Good job boys!" My husband, my hero. Especially in circumstance like this. He is a good example. I love you Pete!

And now, The Boys!


Come on Daddy! Come box!

All I want for Christmas...

I was going through my phone videos and found this one of John. I thought it was a good way to kick off the Christmas countdown. Just for the record I am the "mean Moma" stating that I didn't think he would get that for Christmas! This video is from last year. He had justed turned five...iPod!?!?

A birthday boy and the last few months!

Our birthday boy:
John T turned 6 on Saturday!
You are joy to us John!
Happy Birthday smiling, "sticky fingers," cowboy John!

I have been extremely behind on updating this blog!
This is a quick run down of what we have been up to...

June: one week in Texas, one week in California visiting family

July: one week in Boston for Reformation 500

August: hosted a missions fellowship in our home, hosted a missionary, started school, Isaiah's adoption was finalized (insert shouts of joy!), went to Pennsylvania for a weekend of family fellowship and missions MAF, Peter started a week of vacation at the end of the month and that took us into...

September: spent a night on my parents boat with them at a cool resort, went apple, peach and blackberry picking, did not labor on Labor Day, took a one week whirlwind road trip to Georgia for a Jesus in the Quran conference, visited family on the way home, visited Liberty University (where I was attending when Peter stole my heart) and our pastors son, a visit from Oma and celebrated John's birthday and still more to come!

Lost tooth

John lost his other front tooth. Needless to say my older kids are singing a famous Christmas song about him. What do you think his apples will look like now?

Other things lost this week include one female hamster. Yet to be found. I am a little freaked out every time I pick up a load of laundry from the floor. Where could she be hiding? No sign of her anywhere. Perhaps she has fled the property due to my inability to really love her. I wonder how long before the other one leaves.

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!

Wedding Bells!

We just got home from my sister's big day! She is now the Mrs. to her tall Mr. My kids made up most of the bridal party as the flower girls and ring bearers. We didn't take any pictures, so stay tuned for when I have some sent my way.

The wedding was on my parents pier with the guests all standing on the beach. I spent most of last evening rolling my girls hair in spongy pink rollers. This morning I pinned their hair up. They were beauties! The boys all had matching Hawaiian shirts. So sweet! I am sure our family photo will make it as the main photo at the top of my blog.

The story that we will look back and laugh at (but is not completely funny to me yet!) is...
Our John thought it was a good idea to roll down the grassy hill in the backyard. He did this a few minutes before he was supposed to take the ring bearer walk down the pier. Well, he rolled in dog poop!!! It was all down his pants legs, a little on his shirt and my dad (Papa) was having to wash it off the couch (John had come in and sat down to wait). We stripped him down, through his pants in the wash and then ran home to see if we had another pair that would work. We did! We had him changed and looking spiffy before my sister was even ready. We are sure that the delay in the wedding will be blamed on John for the rest of his life, but in reality, it was the bride (hair, make-up)!

After the beach we headed to a nice reception and enjoyed plenty of yummy food, cake, fellowship and dancing. I had to ask the DJ to play something a little less sensual as it was mainly my kids out on the floor and I didn't want to hear one more song about anyone's backside!

It was a fun day. Peter has taken the girls back to the beach for an evening swim. The boys, having missed their nap, are down early for the night. I am hoping to watch an episode of Little House before falling into bed.

Here is the song that played while the Bride walked down the pier to meet her Groom. Be blessed by it!

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!

WE REJOICE!

We received news today that we will are scheduled to finalized Abi and Johns adoptions on the 22nd. That is only a few days from now and we are required to fly in order to get to the state where their adoptions will take place. We rejoice! I have spent the afternoon getting things organized to have a celebration in our home on Sunday from noon to four. If you are reading this and are family or friend who did not get the email invite, please know you are invited!

Abi is overjoyed and John, being only 4 is just confused about what we are doing on Thursday. I told him we are going shopping for a new outfit for him and he became excitedly hopeful that we were getting a "costume" like Superman. Well, we are a homeschool family with "dress up and go out in public in costumes" tendencies. Okay, not me, but John definitely!
Please rejoice with us, pray for us and thank the Lord with us that He is repaying what the locusts have stolen. Yea God!

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:4-5

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.