First Day of *Summer*???

Well today is the first day the kids are not packing up to go to school. They have this one week at home and then start a 4 week summer enrichment program. Last night at dinner, Jackson said that his favorite part of the day was knowing that he gets to stay home this week.

Then came morning. Our plans to play outside and enjoy the fresh air was cut a little short. Yep. We woke up to clouds moving in. By mid morning there was lightening in the sky, and raindrops on the deck. So much for outdoor play. Oh well. I love having all the kids home. I will miss them next week, so I am just focusing on enjoying them now.

End of Another School Year

Every year I say that the previous year just flew by. This year is no different. Last week, Jenna had her very last day of pre-school, and Jackson had his 5th grade recognition ceremony on that same night. What is a mama to do?

We have had our kids through the church pre-school since Jackson was in pre-k. Jacquelynne did not attend because by the time she was old enough we were homeschooling and I sent her to the homeschool co-op instead. But then, we transitioned away from homeschooling and the 2 younger kids went to pre-school there. Jenna's pre-k graduation was the week before, and it hit me that we are really out of that stage now. Sad to see it go, and excited about what the future will bring at the same time.

The older kids have field day today, and a half day tomorrow is the last day of this school year. Jackson will be done with elementary and moving on to middle school. Oh my. It was only yesterday that we attended his pre-k graduation, wasn't it? What happened to the little boy who was fascinated by the solar system and could diagram the entire solar system in kindergarten? Now, he is heading off to middle school. He is such an amazing young man. He is still fascinated by science, and is the proud caretaker of his very own bearded dragon. He is an avid reader, and wonderfully creative. He is caring and compassionate. He is a perfectionist to the "T." If you haven't noticed, this is one very proud mama. I could not ask for a better young man.

Joseph is excited to move on to first grade. His reading and writing have come such a long way this year. We celebrated his 7th birthday yesterday. He is such a little man. He loves to dress in long sleeve button down shirts, and does his best to look "handsome." Forget the t-shirt and sweatpants, this little fellow is a snazzy dresser.

Jacquelynne will be moving on to 4th grade. She is quite the perfectionist herself. She is driven to master any mathematics challenge that comes her way. In her first two years of school, she hated math. It challenged her and was very difficult for her. Now, she thrives on achieving 100% on her timed tests and moving up to the next level. She has a passion for science that focuses on animals. She delves into studying animal habitats and relationships to each other. Her favorite TV station is animal planet and she is transfixed by the creatures highlighted by the animal experts.

And then there is my little Jenna Boo. She has been promoted to kindergarten. Isn't she the "baby"? What happened? She went from being carried on my hip at all times to running around with her best friend from next door. She cruises around the yard in the power-wheels cars. She knows her colors and shapes, and has begun to write out letters. She assures me that she is too big to take a nap anymore, but after a long hard day of playing she will still crawl into my lap and lay her head on my shoulder. She is at that age where her arms and legs have lengthened out and she lost the toddler shape a while back. She is a little girl excited to be joining the "big kids" at school, but will secretly whisper in my ear that she will miss being with me and she is afraid that I will be lonely while she is at school.

OK, so enough of the ramblings and nostalgia. We will celebrate the ending of another school year and look forward to the next one. Our school system offers a 4 week summer school enrichment program in June, and they will all be going into their new grades the first week of June. Then they will be off all of July and half of August before the fall session of school begins. There are so many changes coming, and we are all ready to jump in feet first.

Prayers

I find that I have been following international news items more lately that I used to. Of course I don't have to hunt around for the news about the earthquake that hit China on Monday. So much devastation. So many injuries. So many lives lost. And somewhere in the aftermath, we have a little girl waiting to come home with us. Sometimes I feel completely helpless to do anything. All I can do is pray. And yet we have been promised that God will hear our prayers, and answer our needs. So, if you have a moment to offer up a prayer for those hurting, He has promised to hear.

New Rose Bushes

I must admit that I have slacked off of my gardening duties since we moved into this house 2 and a half years ago. When we moved in, we installed some basic bushes and trees and I put in some tulip and daffodil bulbs that fall. I added a few little black-eyed-susan plants and a couple of hostas, but that was pretty much it. I was doing good to put down new mulch with each new spring and to be honest my poor little front flower garden has been on the pitiful side of sad for some time.

Tonight, I finally got my rear to the garden center and picked out some roses. Even with 4 kids in tow, it was glorious to browse the rows of perennials and flowering shrubs. By the time we were done, I had two kids pushing carts, and I think I have decided which fountain I'd like to get for the front flower garden. I lined one area of the front garden with yellow and coral tea roses, and picked up one red climbing rose and some red shrub roses and dwarf English boxwoods for one side of the house. I will stop by the nursery tomorrow and have mulch delivered to finish off the project.

The late snow we had last year did some serious damage to my dogwood tree last March, but I held off on trimming it until I could see how much would come back this year. I got the dead branches out of it tonight, and actually pulled out over half of the branches. Hopefully it will have a better year this year and recover. That is my favorite tree.

Here's my post from the Lots of Kids blog:

Mother's Day Roses:


In my family we give yellow roses. I am not sure how far back the tradition goes, but I know that my grandfather would give my grandmother yellow roses and my parents had yellow roses in their wedding. Whenever there was an anniversary or a birthday, there would be beautiful yellow roses. At each house my parents owned, we planted yellow rose bushes. I cannot imagine sending my mother anything but yellow roses. I love yellow roses for the family tradition, but I also love coral roses, and my husband spoils me with them occasionally.

Now spring is here, and it is time to fill the flower beds. I have been using annuals for the past few years, but it just hasn't worked out the way I'd like. So, I told my dear hubby that what I wanted for Mother's Day this year was to plant roses. Tonight dh is away so the kids and I went out and purchased 4 yellow tea rose bushes, and 3 coral colored tea rose bushes for the front flower bed, and 5 red shrub rose bushes and one climbing rose to plant along the side of the house. We also picked up several other little fill-in perennials, and when I opened the back of the truck my neighbor across the street asked if I bought out the nursery :-)

I was able to get the front bushes in the ground before dark, and the side bushes will be put in tomorrow. Then we can mulch it all and it will be fresh and finished for Mother's Day. Better still, as each Mother's Day comes, and the plants mature over the years, I can enjoy the beauty of our family tradition in my very own front yard.

Needs, Wants, and Good Old Convenience

I've been pondering the process of prioritization, and it has me examining my decision making process in the simple everyday bits and activities of life. I like things organized. I like to know that everything can fit in a neat little box that can be labeled and pulled out as needed. Well, the same goes for thought processes and priorities, in budgeting and time management. You know the old mantra, "Do I NEED it or just WANT it?" when making purchases? Well, this has led to an interesting couple of weeks around here. To us, it is no big deal, but after a conversation at work last week, I realized that maybe for some it is a big deal. Let me explain:

A few weeks ago, our dryer was giving us fits. Can you really blame it? After all, it has faithfully dried as many as 10-12 loads per week for years. Once again, Scott worked his magic on the poor old dryer, and it tumbled away, but couldn't really handle the heavier loads. So, we compromised. We washed the loads as usual, but hung up items that would air dry quickly and only loaded the dryer with about half of each load. After doing this several times, I realized that I was hanging almost the entire load of laundry to dry either on the rack in the laundry room, or on the shower rod in the bathroom across the hall. Then, the dryer gave a last tumble and went kaput. No biggie, we just kept hanging the clothes as we had been doing, and we draped the towels and sheets over the banister to dry.

We mentioned to each other that the dryer really has had it this time, and needed to be replaced. OK. We'll get to it. It is not that we can't replace it, but neither of us really wanted to go scouting the different models and compare prices to get the best deal. We'll get to it. Now, it has been a couple of weeks since the dryer went out, and it is still sitting there unplugged in the laundry room. No new machine yet. We'll get to it. We have talked about those new large capacity, stacking washers and dryers... Mmmm. Yep that is what we decided on about a year ago, and we still haven't made the leap yet, but maybe soon now that the dryer needs replacing anyway... and if we can swing it, I want to invest in 2 sets; after all, we are still doing 10-12 loads a week, and the kids are growing so as their clothes get bigger, there will be more loads.. add to that we are adding another child, and 2 sets would be very convenient.

Back to the issue at hand. What would have happened if the washer went out? That seems to be a no brainer to me, we would have piled in the car and had a new one purchased within 2-3 days (if not 2-3 hours). We just cannot go longer than 3 days without becoming buried in dirty clothes. But, is a dryer a need, a want or just a convenience? Well, we certainly need to have clothes. We need to clean those clothes, so I drop the washing machine in the need category. But we have been without a dryer now for several weeks, and we still have clean clothes. I can even see benefits of not running the dryer. For one thing, we are saving on electricity. I haven't seen the bills come through yet, but that is a pretty easy benefit to come up with. Next, we are forced to do at least 2 loads a day so that we have enough space for everything to dry. I mean, I don't want the laundry to take over the house literally, we may lose each other, and I only have so much "drying space." But, this means that we don't get bogged down and behind on the laundry either, so it is a benefit. And, finally, my house smells WONDERFUL! Let me tell you that whoever thought of combining Downy softener with Febreeze is just plain brilliant.

So, my conversation with a coworker last week was an eye opener. For us, it was maybe a little inconvenient to have to wait for the clothes to dry, but it isn't really a big deal. We deal with laundry daily anyway, so by the time I need to hang something today, the items from yesterday are ready to be put in the closet. But, when my coworker found this out, she was pretty shocked that we have waited so long, and I have still not set a date to go dryer shopping. It will get done eventually, but there are just so many better ways to spend my time right now. Air drying clothes doesn't take up any more of my time than the dryer. They just hang there and dry all by themselves. It's not like I have to stand there and watch them. I'd rather spend quality time with my hubby, or my kiddos. This is where I was pondering my process of setting priorities. A dryer is only a dryer, but having the windows thrown open and watching my children play outside on a beautiful spring day, or cuddling up with them and a book on the sofa on a rainy spring day just seems to be so much more important than carting them off with me to look at dryers. Besides that they are expensive, and I can still come up with ways to spend my money on other things, and still have the laundry done.

After all this rambling, you may just think I have finally lost my mind for good. But as silly as it may sound, being without a dryer has been a blessing in disguise. Sure we have our needs met; we have a lot of our wants met too, and, there is nothing wrong with convenience. But every so often we are allowed to see convenience for the blessing it is and be grateful for it. So I am grateful that I have the opportunity to examine what I have taken for granted (a functioning clothes dryer), and it only reminds me that God is so amazingly good to us, He will always meet our needs, and He will teach us something new everyday if we are willing to listen. He can even use an old worn out dryer as a teaching prop.

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Here's my post from the Lots of Kids blog last week:

Fresh Paint:

Oh, I love it! OK, so I don't love the clearing out the rooms, taping off the trim, etc. But, once it is done, I love the way it brightens up a room and makes it fresh and new again. We spent this weekend painting into the wee hours of the mornings, and there is still some finish details to do, but it is beautiful.

The girls' room is bright with a soft lavender on the top, a mint green stripe around the middle, and a robin's egg blue on the bottom. We rearranged the furniture, and hung white paper globe lanterns from the ceiling. It wasn't my first choice of color scheme, and is a little funky for my tastes, but I wanted them to have their say too. They said that they have gone from a little girl's room to a big girl's room. :-)

We had plenty of the green paint left to paint the girls' bathroom a solid green. We added new green and blue "frog" bath accessories to complete that one.

The boys' room is a rich red. Their bedding and decor is "Country Americana" and with a blue carpet, and white trim, the red is a perfect match for their quilts and such. We have to finish a second coat of paint down there tonight, then we can put the room back together tomorrow. The red is warm, and cozy. The boys (and Mommy) love it.

Finally, the new guest room (used to be Joesph's until he decided to move in with his brother), is a butter yellow on the top, and navy on the bottom with denim and multi colored bandanna accessories.

We will add new molding in all of the rooms to really make the colors pop and give them all a finished look, but the painting was enough for one weekend. Who knows, I just may get motivated by how good those rooms turned out to paint the whole house. :-)

Hmm. Fresh Spring breeze coming in the window and the sun is shining on fresh new paint.

Out of My Hands, and Sharpening my Focus

Friday, I sent all of our dossier papers to the various Consulates to be authenticated. We had two documents that had to go to the US Secretary of State first, and then they will be forwarded to the Embassy in DC. They are all out of my hands now. All documents were received on Monday and are being processed.

We sat down on Monday night to work on our adoption parent education, but started with our dossier checklist to see what we needed to get done this week as our papers are being authenticated. We were able to check off all the various boxes on the list! There is such a sense of accomplishment when I get to place a check mark in the little box. Once the documents are sent back to us from the Consulates and the Embassy, we can put them all together and submit them all to the agency, who will submit them to the CCAA in Beijing.

It seems like a lifetime ago since we began this journey, but it was only October. Since then, so much has happened, and I am forever changed because of it. My father went to be with the LORD on December 28, 2007. He taught me so much about life and love. Even in my rotten, rebellious teenage years, he loved me unconditionally. He had the courage to stand up to me when I was wrong, and tell me so. It wasn't easy, and there were years that I thought my relationship with him was irreparably damaged. By God's grace, and my father's faithfulness, our relationship was restored. At the time of his death, he had become, once again, my biggest encourager and prayer partner. I spoke with him at least weekly, and I miss him dearly. I am not writing this to make you feel sorry for me. No, I know with all confidence that my tears of sorrow will be wiped away and I will be reunited with my earthly father one day when we meet again in heaven.

There are many lessons that my father taught me over the years. One of my most treasured lessons that I learned from my father's life is that success is measured not by the amount of monetary profit at the end of the day, rather it is measured by the lives that are touched by our service. My father would not be considered wealthy by most American standards, but he was richly blessed in his service to others. He told me more than once that I could not have anything I wanted, but that I could have anything I was willing to work for as long as God was glorified through my actions. This has become the cornerstone of what I want my children to learn.

I know this is wordy, and you are probably wondering if my rambling has a point. Well, here it is. Can you look back on your life and see how your purpose has been shaped by those around you? Can you see how the ones in your past have shaped your future goals and desires? There are too many people to list in one little blog post, but I can say that I can look around me and see those who have influenced me toward where I am today. Some people, like my father, have been positive influences in my life, and others have been shining examples of what I do not want to be. I can name many, many people that could be labeled as successful by worldly standards, and yet I look at their lives and see squandered potential. It breaks my heart to see amazing, talented individuals who could have used their influence to God's glory, but for whatever reason, they do not. I am not saying that these are bad people, don't get me wrong, they are not bad, only short-sighted. Have you ever been given a God-sized dream, and realized that you can be part of His purposed to bring it into reality? Think about Noah for a moment... others thought he was crazy, but he followed God's plan and humanity was redeemed for it.

This adoption process has sharpened my focus on the needs of orphans around the world. James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (NIV). I have always had a heart for humanitarian aid organizations. But the needs are so great and diverse, it is easy to get lost in the sea of needs. All of these needs are real. They all need workers who will toil towards an end goal that is bigger than themselves. Many of these needs overlap and mesh together. For me, orphan care is the need that affects my family in a very real way. I am touched by the amazing families who work in this area through adoption. But what of the millions of children left behind?

That is where organizations like Children's Hope International, Compassion International, East-West Ministries, Shaohannah's Hope, and so many others come into play. These multifaceted organizations have humanitarian aid divisions that can focus on the care and need of the orphans who are not yet chosen for a forever home. And they need our help. Fundraising, donations, and raising awareness to the needs out there are all important. And, I guess this is just one little way for me to help out. I know that there are many causes out there that need help, and I am not trying to say that one is more important than another, no, this is one of many good causes, and unfortunately one person cannot focus on them all. I will not tell you that you have to choose orphan care as your primary focus, but it is a very real, viable option to consider.... just a little food for thought.

God Bless.

Adoption blog surfing...

So what do I do when I am in need of inspiration and encouragement about this adoption process? I go blog surfing. I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you. Now, keep in mind, I have not even met these folks in person, but they have all touched my heart in one way or another. And, you know me, when I find something good, I have to share. So, here are a few of the people that I follow and pray for on a regular basis...

Cindy has the most beautiful set of triplets from Ethiopia. Her blog is always inspiring with photos and videos about living life through the boys' eyes. And, they are cute beyond words. Seeing them grow up and change over the course of the blog is wonderful.

The Bushel and a Peck blog wows me over and over. I have to say that Lisa is one of my new heroes for her ability to balance faith, family, and 10 children.

A blog that I just found last week is by Farmboy and Buttercup. Oh my, their humor is fabulous, and I was blown away by some of the scripture references they posted. I can only say that God has blessed me many times over through reading about their journey to adopt twins from Ethiopia.

And, I would be remiss to leave out one of my absolute favorite blogs ever, for Mac. Mac's story is not about adoption. He is a precious little boy battling a horrible illness. But I have to say, his mama amazes me. Her courage and grace in the midst of the toughest battle I can imagine is the most inspirational story I can think of. Mac's smile can brighten a room. I have only met this handsome little fellow once (at my father's funeral), but Amy (Mac's mama) is one of my sister's best friends, and I try to keep up with his prayer requests as best I can. And on that note, I want to give God praise and glory for the wonderful report that Mac's little brother is not a carrier for this disease!! For any of you who may go blog surfing, please hop on over to his page and say a little prayer for this wonderful, precious boy, and for the researchers who work daily to find a cure. God bless you Mac.

So there it is... just a small sample of the people who inspire and encourage me, even if they don't even know it.

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My Lots of Kids post today:

March is finally here:

Spring is on the way. I know it is. Really. The calendar promises that it cannot be winter forever, it just feels that way. But, March is here, and we had our first days of 65 degree weather on Saturday and Sunday for March to come in like a Lamb... wait, isn't that backwards? Oh well. The temperatures dropped back to 35 for Monday and today, so our little snippet that Spring is coming was short lived.

I love Spring. The spring and fall are my two favorite seasons. The moderate temperatures are perfect for ditching the heavy coats in favor of light sweaters. The trees will soon be sprouting little green buds, and before long, the daffodils will shoot up in all their brilliant splendor. Our wimpy dog (who despises the cold weather) will get to spend more time lazing around in the warm sunshine, and we will be able to keep the windows open for a fresh breeze.

And, as crazy as this sounds, I love rain. Spring tends to be our rainy season in this area of the country. I love the patter of rain on my windows and roof. I love to see the plants perk up as they drink in a soft gentle shower. A gentle rain shower is romantic, and cozy; perfect for snugging on the sofa with a quilt, a cup of tea, and a good book (or with a pile of kiddos and a bigger pile of their books)

But the spring cough and cold season have hit us full swing. Oh the joys of trying to comfort little people who are wracked with coughing fits all night long.... and without cough medicine too. Can you feel the sarcasm? Thanks to the good old scare about giving kids cough and cold medicines, so much has been pulled off the shelf. Now what are we supposed to do? Around here, it means the poor little tykes get lots of warm showers to try and help with congestion, and very little sleep for mom and dad.

Last night, it was Jenna's turn to be up coughing. No fever, just cough. Bless my dear hubby, he's the one who has to get up the earliest, but he was still valiantly trying to give sips of water and keep her propped up on the pillows while I rubbed her back with my eyes half shut. Poor little thing. All 32 pounds of her shakes with every cough. I don't know about you, but around here spring and fall weather changes just reek havoc on our health. And, with 6 of us in the same house, and whichever kid is sick at the time crawling into bed with us at night, we just keep it going around.

But, even this pesky spring cough is a reminder that warmer days are coming. Spring is finally on its way.