Tuesday, January 31, 2012

One of the many ways I know I'm parenting a toddler

I couldn't pick my favorite intro., so I'll give you all three.

In the spirit of keepin' it real around here:

Lest you ever, ever think I have it all together:

One of the many ways I know I'm in the throws of parenting a toddler again:

This is what the bottom of my purse has looked like for the past several days.



And, to really, really keep it real, I'll have you know that the food contents there loose in the bottom of my purse right on top of my trusty Carmex, are not even the result of just one incident of snack spillage!  Nope!  That, my friends, is the combined effort of a pretzel snack, a mixed nuts snack, and a Cheerios snack, which all spilled out into my purse in separate occurrences over the past week!  I blame the fact that my 3 year old loves putting things back in my purse, but can't properly seal a Ziploc bag!

At least I didn't have ants in there!  This time.  Yes, that's really happened to me.  Ants in my purse.  That time I blamed a different toddler spilling snacks in my purse combined with putting my purse on the ground at a soccer game!

Feeling better about your own self yet? 


Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Ethiopia, Utopia, Eefeeopia or Eathopia

It's no secret that Ethiopia has been a much used word around here for a few years.

Ethiopia is and always will be etched on our family's heart.

But, it means different things to each of the six of us.

My husband and I fell in love with Ethiopia and not only adopted a child from there, but feel like we adopted the people of Ethiopia as our own, too. 

We pronounce it as typical Americans, "Ethiopia".

My youngest child was born there, spent the 1st three years of her life there, it is her homeland.

When she pronounces the word "Ethiopia", it sounds like she's saying "utopia".

My husband says this is because in the Amharic language there is no "th" sound.  Most Americans would never consider Ethiopia, utopia, but I've been there and maybe Little Girl's on to something.

We live in the United States; my 4 year old can quickly and easily point to Ethiopia on a world map, but Canada?  Not so much!

He calls it "Eefeeopia".

My 6 year old traveled with us on our 1st trip to Ethiopia in August, but just today when she brought home her journal from the 1st half of the school year did I realize she thought she was going to go with us again on our 2nd trip (which she did not and I thought it was always clear just Mom and Dad would go on the 2nd trip), but I had to smile at her unique way of saying Ethiopia.  Her journal entry from Dec. 16, 2011 reads: "Over the holiday I am going to eathopia."





Ethiopia, Utopia, Eefeeopia or Eathopia, no matter how we say it, this is true:  You have changed us and we are forever grateful!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Everybody's


There was a huge breakthrough here today!  Since coming home from Ethiopia, our daughter has taken the complete opposite extreme from living in an orphanage where nothing was her own to claiming pretty much everything in our house as hers.  Especially with clothes and toys she's been real territorial, adamant that they are "(her name)'s!"  

This has driven my other kids crazy, in particular my 6 year old and 4 year old.  They have many times come to me distraught, "But, she thinks that's hers now!" when she's claimed something they really like.  I've had so many conversations with them assuring them that she is just playing with it right now and of course they will be able to play with it again and explaining to them that she has come from a place where she had nothing of her own.  But, it's made them be more territorial back to her, when they are typically pretty good about sharing their toys.

It's been one of the hard things.

But, today, my 6 year old daughter was playing dress-up with her new 3 year old sister, the 3 year old was claiming various things as her own.  And this time instead of getting upset and running to me about it, my 6 year old taught her sister the term "Everybody's!"  

And it's been magic!

All evening the 3 year old delighted in calling things, "Everybody's!"  And my other kids are a whole lot happier with that idea!

Praise God for progress!!!

__________________

In other household news, the 4 year old who has been saying for months he's going to be a pastor when he grows up has now informed us that he no longer wants to be a pastor when he grows up, he wants to be a clown!

"Wherever God leads you, Baby!  Wherever He leads!"

"Just remember when you're a clown to hook us up with some free circus tickets because those things are crazy expensive!"
__________________

Tonight after all the kids were bathed, my husband was laying on the bunk bed in our boy room quizzing the 8 year old on spelling words for his test tomorrow.  I didn't realize that's what they were doing in there and I came in with the 3 younger kids to read a story.  Kids were romping on the bed, there were discussions on the book selection, and just some general loud that often accompanies my children.

Then from his spot sprawled on the bed, my husband asked, "Why are there so many people in here?"

I had to laugh at him!  "What are you talking about 'so many people'?  This is your family!"

I think being in his private office all day has spoiled him and he comes home and has a bit of culture shock!

Six people does have a way of filling up a room, though!  Just remember it's "Happy Squished"!




Mommy's Idea

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

When life gives you puddles

When life gives you puddles, you should jump in with both feet!


Yes, I let 3 of my 4 kids wallow in the mud for much of the afternoon today.  (The 8 year old had homework to do.)

This picture portrays my 4 year old's personality perfectly!

So, the puddle fun started off innocently enough, but because we're talking my children here, of course things had to turn crazy!


No worries, though, Sister to the rescue!


Then this happened while she was helping him get the boot on:


So, what did Little Girl think of all the craziness?


I know, Baby, your brother and sister are crazy!



Yeah, just laugh at them, that's about all I can do most of the time!


Or join them, that works, too!



Somebody I don't know walked by in the street about the time this happened:


The lady gave me a strange look.  What can I say?  My kids like to wallow in the mud like pigs!


The bath tub and my washing machine definitely got a work out tonight getting those 3 clean, but the mess was so worth it for their smiles and laughter!


Monday, January 23, 2012

4 Weeks of Having 4 Kids

This past Saturday marked 4 weeks since we got home with our new daughter from Ethiopia.

We survived 4 weeks of having 4 kids!!!!

A couple things became very quickly apparent to us in life with 4 kids.

First thought, just a few days in:  we need color coded cups!

You know, each kid is assigned a color and that's their cup for the day.

Okay, our kids actually get 2 cups each per day, 1 for milk (that they drink at all 3 meals) and 1 for water (which also doubles as the very occasional cup of diluted juice, gets rinsed and used again as the water cup).

Why?

Because the dishes!  Oh my!  When each kid was using 4 or 5 cups per day times 4 kids -- well, you really don't have to do the math to know that = too much to deal with!

So, I bought a little set of plastic cups (Nuby BPA Free 4 Pack Fun Drinking Cups, 9 Ounce ) and now child #1 = green, child #2 = purple, child #3 = blue, and child #4 = pink.



Feel free to wager on which child looses their cup 1st.  My money's on green.

Second thought was:  we have too many toys!

Turns out, the more kids I have the less STUFF I want in my house!

The toys were overtaking the place.

And it's not that child #4 brought with her suitcases full of toys, she actually came with nothing, it's just that life with 4 kids made the excess of toys we already had too much.

The downstairs we could keep fairly presentable, but the upstairs with the kid rooms and playroom just couldn't stay clean with 4 kids getting out our multitude of toys and scattering them around.  We would work hard to clean up and then in just minutes it would be disaster again.  

During a moment last week where I was trying to open a closet to get out clothes for a kid, while 4 kids were all simultaneously calling "Mom!" for various reasons, and there was a pile of random toys in front of the closet door keeping it from opening, I decided something had to be done.  I told my husband Friday night, we had to tackle the toy situation before the weekend was over or I was going to go crazy.

I launched a quick PR campaign with the kids to get them on board, started referring to it as "The BIG clean-out," you know to generate some buzz and excitement.  It kinda worked.

Then we got distracted Sat. morning when we decided it would be more fun to go the zoo, but we rallied Sat. afternoon after the 8 year old's basketball game and made some real progress!

We cleaned out a ton, moved some toys with a lot of little pieces up high where they can only be played with under supervised conditions rather than scattered at will, took down a train table the kids don't use much any more except to junk up, saved all the trains, track pieces, and train buildings in a 3 drawer unit, and you know what?  My 4 year old has had the best time building train tracks on the open floor the past couple of days -- no edges of the table to encumber him any longer!

And I'm loving the open, empty space!  



It allows me to breathe again.  

To be able to sit down and play with my kids without being stressed over the mess I see around me!

To have conquered some of the chaos, instead of letting it overtake us, makes me think maybe we can do this 4 kid thing.  Maybe.


We'll see what the next 4 weeks brings!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Too Tired To Title

One night this week our 3 year old, only home from Ethiopia a few weeks, was coughing. While she slept I set up the humidifier right near the bed, hoping to ease the cough. Little girl woke up a few minutes later pointing and screaming at the humidifier, deathly afraid! 

Epic parenting fail! What was I thinking? She'd never seen a humidifier before, much less one shaped like ours! She woke up to the equivalent of a smoke-breathing penguin standing right next to her bed!



___________________

I have a million blog topics I'd like to write on, but I'm lacking in the time and energy department.  I remember a few years back I blogged on wanting a scribe (no time at all to look up where or when that post was to link to it), you know someone to follow me around all day, enduring the loud, messy, and occasionally hazardous conditions of my mothering 4 young children job, and ready to record a blog post whenever inspiration strikes me.  All for no pay, of course!  Because my homemaker job pays me exactly zero dollars!  Now accepting applications!

___________________

For nearly the last 2 months, every day my 4 year old son has told me the same exact piece of information about himself.

He says at some point every day, "Mom, do you know what my 2 worstest holidays are?  They are Halloween and Thanksgiving"

"Halloween because there's scarey stuff and Thanksgiving because you have to keep eating the same foods over and over again!"

I promise that I only served Thanksgiving leftovers 3 times after the main meal and some of those were lunches!  But, it seems the leftovers scarred my little guy for life!

___________________

I'm currently blogging this while sharing the couch with an unfolded load of laundry.  Just thought you'd like to know my priorities are clearly in order!




Mommy's Idea

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Learning English

My daughter adopted from Ethiopia is 3 years old.  She's been with us 1 month and I thought I'd give an update on the language situation, both to document milestones for our own family history and to share with other adoptive families because I know language was always a big question I had relating to us adopting an "older child" from a country where a different language is spoken.

Before we adopted, I talked to many families who had adopted toddlers and a bit older kids from Ethiopia and granted they were all several months or even a few years into their adoptions, so maybe they'd forgotten the early days, but they all said the language barrier was not really a big issue, that the kids caught on so quickly to English and that they felt they were mostly able to understand each other.

I would say that has been our experience, too.  The language barrier has not been the hardest part (although it definitely complicates things at times) of our transition so far.  We mostly understand each other and not because we learned tons of Amharic before taking custody.  We learned a few very basic words like the words for hello, bye, good job, milk, water, ball, pee-pee, poo-poo, dog, come here, all done, thank you, you are so precious, car, etc.

One word we didn't anticipate being so important, but we quickly asked someone at our guesthouse in Ethiopia what the word was for "dirty".  Being that we've parent 3 other children, you'd think we would have thought about just how often little kids try to pick up dirty things and you have to point out, "No, don't pick that up, it's dirty!"  or in a public restroom with a small child, and they are touching everything, "Dirty!" is essential!  So, "ko-sha-sha" (Amharic word for dirty) has been used and is still used a ton!  In fact right now we have a "Ko-sha-sha wusha" which means dirty dog and my daughter loves to point out this very true fact -- the dog has an appointment with the groomer on Friday!

Here at month one I am really impressed at how much out new little girl seems to understand what we are saying to her in English!  However, she is speaking back to us still in mostly Amharic.  Sometimes she goes into these long paragraphs of conversation and I really wish I knew what she was saying!  But, for essentials like "I hurt my finger" or "I want a cracker" or "I'm tired" or "I'm thirsty", it turns out gesturing and tone of voice and facial expressions pretty well communicate even when I don't understand the words!

Two funny stories about language:

First, a week ago, we were leaving an activity for my other 3 children and got into the car, my 3 year old climbed into the area of the car between her car seat and her sister's booster seat and sat down.  I patted her car seat and asked her to get in.  Still she sat, smiling at her own contrariness.

I patted the car seat and said, "Nay", which means "Come" in her language.  But it was totally obvious that she understood exactly what I wanted her to do and was just choosing not to do it.  Plus, the car seat battle is a common one (But actually this week that battle has disappeared!  However, there are new battles that have come on the scene -- one step forward, one step back . . .).

Then, she looked at me patting her car seat, smiled at me and said, "Mommy's seat!"

My other 3 kids erupted into huge laughter and although I did have to get her into that car seat, I had to appreciate the humor in what she said, suggesting that it was my seat.  I mean to be able to make a joke in a language you've only been immersed in for a few weeks is really impressive!

She a stinker at times, for sure, but a CLEVER stinker!

As I buckled her into the seat I suggested that maybe in fact it was "Daddy's seat".  She cracked up laughing and then the whole 5 minute ride home she repeatedly asked me, "Daddy's seat?" and then burst into laughter.

The second funny language related story comes from my 4 year old English speaking son.  With young boys it seems that talking about poop becomes a fascination around age 4 and doesn't quit for a few years.  I've seen this lovely phase in my own boys, friend's kids, and even the little boys I teach in Sunday school.  I do not like it and so I always point out the obvious to the offending little boy, "That's gross.  That sounds like something we talk about in the bathroom."  And then, if he is my own son, I actually make him go into the bathroom until he's done with the bathroom words.  If he comes out and says them again, right back in the bathroom he goes.  Usually this curtails the words pretty well.

BUT, my smarty pants 4 year old has caught on to several of our 3 year old daughter's Amharic words and today while we were playing he started talking about "caca" and that is what our Ethiopian daughter calls poo-poo.  Yeah, I was still onto him, even talking about poop in another language, it didn't get by me!  But, nice try, Little Man, nice try!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Four Weeks in our Arms

It was four weeks ago, exactly, today, when a car drove up to our guesthouse in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, bringing us our new little girl.  

Four weeks since she lived in an orphanage.

Four weeks really getting to know this child we've called our daughter since April 29, 2011, and I can say without a doubt, we are more convinced than ever that, 

Yep, she's a rock star!



I'm not saying the last four weeks have been without the hard.

Because there has been and will continue to be hard things.

But, that little girl, the one we are privileged to get to call "ours", amazes me every single day!  The way she's handled this transition, they way she's handled the long list of hard things from her short 3 years of life, makes her more awesome than any rock star in my eyes!

***Rock stars are typically very picky and opinionated about their appearance, and for the record, my 3 year old daughter is no exception!***

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Happy Squished

The other night I was reading to my 4 year old and 6 year old, they were sitting with me in the rocking chair.  My 3 year old came in.  She's not much into listening to books, yet.  Partly because she's so active, and partly, I think, because I'm reading them in a language she doesn't fully understand. 

But, little girl is a bit jealous when anybody is getting attention she's not getting, so when she saw her sister and brother in my lap, of course, she wanted in!  I squeezed her into the middle of us and continued reading.  

"I'M SQUISHED!"  my 4 year old son shouted.

And I said, "Yeah, but it's a happy kind of squished, right?"

Then this morning I was getting dressed and he and his 2 sisters were all riding the same 1 plasma car around the living room and he said again, "I'M SQUISHED, but it's happy squished!"

Then he explained, "Happy squished is when you're squished with lots of people who love you."

Wishing you a happy squished kind of weekend!


Find more Finer Things Friday here.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

It's like she's always been here.

 You know I never understood before when I'd hear adoptive parents who had recently taken custody of a new child say, "It's like he/she has always been here."

Now, I get it.  I totally get it!

Our new little girl has only been home about 2.5 weeks, in our arms forever just over 3 weeks ago.  And it's so hard for me to believe those numbers are so small, I mean of course I remember time without her here.  I definitely remember all the hard days of waiting for her to be able to come home.  But, she just fits so well in our family that sometimes it really does feel like she's always been here.  

I keep having to remind myself that my daughter lived in an orphanage just 3.5 weeks ago!

I still have piles of random stuff I'm tackling.  Things not yet put away after our trip to Ethiopia, new things we got for Christmas that need a place to belong, mail that has entered our house any time in the last 4 weeks, etc., and today I came across the photo book that I took with us to Ethiopia when we took placement of our daughter.  It is an exact copy of the one I left in the care center with her after our 1st trip when we met her, the staff gave it to her after we passed court and were officially her parents (which happened on Oct. 20th).  This is the book she got to hold on to of her family when we could not be with her.  We flipped through the book a lot during our week together in Ethiopia before coming home, talking about her siblings and her house, but then I kinda forgot about the photo book once we were home.  It got stuck in a pile.  I came across it today and little girl was excited to see it, "Photo!  Photo!" she cheered and carried it around much of the day.

Here she is pointing to her referral and update pictures that I included in the book, because it was her family book, of course there would be pictures of her in it, too!


I was so excited for her to be given this photo book while she was in the care center in Ethiopia, really, really wanting her to know she had a family coming for her.

And now she has the real thing.  A family, not just pictures of "her family" to hang on to.


In awe of God's goodness!


Find more Thankful Thursday here.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Concept of Mommy

It has been fascinating to watch my new 3 year old begin to grasp the concept of Mommy.

 I noticed some time last week (so about 2 weeks after taking custody of her in Ethiopia, 1 week after coming home) that she started hollering out, "Mommy?" about every 90 seconds.  I know from a lot of adoption training that this is a really good sign, to have your child "checking in" with you every so often.  But, also it seems like she's just really amazed that someone answers every single time she calls out "Mommy" AND it's always the same person! 

***Insert here the reality check that it is exhausting to be the one answering that call for "Mommy" so often, to be so physically there for a child, especially one that is wrapping every bit of her body tightly around you one second and pushing you away the next.  But, oh the privilege to get to be the one to teach her the concept of Mommy!***

A funny thing happened yesterday.  Well, the not funny part was that my town had some pretty intense flash flooding.  We're kinda used to it because we are at sea level and can get heavy rains, but yesterday was the worst we've seen in a few years and it came on pretty unexpectedly.  My 3 year old had a follow up at a doctor's office for one of the routine tests we did since bringing her to America.  When I left the office the roads had become really flooded and I could not get home.  I had already driven through higher water than my nerves were comfortable with, so I just wanted to stop some place safe and wait it out for a bit, but with my 3 year old I couldn't stop just anywhere.  I needed a place with decent public restrooms (she has to go potty about every 30 minutes), something I could do with her to entertain her (girl is high-energy!), and a place where I could buy some snacks because I hadn't left the house with much, considering I didn't think we'd be out too long.  Also, a place with a parking garage, would be nice, since it was blinding rain!

Only by the grace of God did I think of the perfect place -- the mall!  And I was able to get to it via non-flooded roads!  So I found myself taking my new 3 year old to the small kid play place at the mall, something I never would have chosen to do with her this early into her transition home, and mostly she did great (only ran out of the play area once -- she thinks it's really funny for me to chase her -- we're working on that lovely behavior!).  But, the funny thing was, at one point I was standing near her (actually at every point I was only about 1 foot from her, remember new-to-me child here!), but this time there was a little boy near us and he was crying for his mommy who wasn't especially nearby.  My 3 year old took one look at him crying "Mommy!" then she pointed to me and said to him, "Mommy" as if to say, "She's Mommy, she'll help you!"

I thought it was really funny, but made a point not to respond to the little boy's cries and watched my daughter's face as the boy's mommy came over to him, it was like I could read her thinking, "Hmmm, he has a 'Mommy', too and it's a different person than my 'Mommy'!"

Monday, January 9, 2012

Photographing Four Children

I can get a cute picture of one of my children at a time


maybe even two of them together on a good day

three?  well, getting a good picture of three children is hard.

but four?  is just ridiculous!


we will keep trying


oh yes, we will





this next one is my favorite:

i think my husband was attempting to calm our youngest and oldest

it didn't work

our 2011 Christmas card might make it in the mail sometime in 2017


Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A picture is worth a thousand words

Up front warning:  I'm going to torture you with many pictures!

Today my 3 year old decided she wanted her 6 year old sister to carry her.  They both thought this was hilarious and my older daughter lugged my younger one all around the house this afternoon!
Sweet sisters!!

My 4 year old son officially initiated our new 3 year old into the house today with a ceremonial pass through the doggie door.  


Remember when his older siblings enticed him through it?  
Here's the picture from April 2008:


Now she's a Texan for sure -- driving a pick-up truck, only not everybody in Texas gets a brother on top of their truck!


This was homework time one day this week.  My 6 year old doing real homework and my 3 year old very serious about her pretend work.  She even shushed a brother several times who dared to be too loud during all the concentrating!

Last, this picture represents some really BIG progress in the relationship between our new little girl and our dog.  We had heard before we brought her home that many children adopted from Ethiopia are terribly afraid of their new family's dog, so we expected it.  And sure enough she has been crying and wanting to be held any time the dog is around, so the dog has spent a whole lot of time in her crate these last couple of weeks.  But, there have been baby steps of progress.  In this picture, I gave the dog the command, "Shake" and our 3 year old shook her paw and gave her a treat!  I cannot describe the progress this all is!  For her to even be standing next to the dog (notice the dog is on a leash, though) without hysterics is HUGE and to be touching the dog, well, Madeline, maybe there's hope your days of doggie jail are numbered, maybe?




Happy Friday, my friends!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Choosing our Battles

Everyone who is in the throws of parenting a preschooler will tell you, choose your battles carefully!

I know this rule well.  My 3 oldest children have given me MUCH practice in choosing battles, what's worth fighting for and what's not.  

But the whole choose-your-battles deal takes on a whole new level of importance with a newly adopted 3 year old child!  Oh, yes it does!!

For example, my 6 year old daughter was distraught last night because our new 3 year old was flushing the toilet when nobody had actually used it!  An extraneous flush, if you will.  "She's wasting water!!!!" my older daughter insisted to me all upset and bothered, pointing at her new little sister.

Right now, the extraneous flush is not at all on my radar screen as far as issues to correct with our new child, so I told my 6 year old, "Well, when she speaks English you can explain to her the whole part about wasting water."

Now, when my little 3 year old refused to be buckled into her car seat earlier today, well that was a battle we had to fight, it was an obvious one being a safety issue.

But, yesterday I had a grey-area battle, I had to make a grocery-store run, all the other kids were at school so it was just my 3 year old and me, she loved riding in the luggage cart at the airport, so the grocery cart should be a hit making the grocery store a doable thing and it was, except little girl rifled through her big sister's dresser drawers and dressed herself for the day before I could give her the usual 2 Mommy-approved choices she could pick between.

I emerged from the closet where I'd been looking for outfit choices and my 3 year old had on her big sister's pink sparkly gymnastics leotard and some yellow striped leggings!  Then to top off the ensemble, she had a woven belt that she insisted I tie around her head!

All I could think was, "Oh sweet mercy, I've taken some interesting outfits to the grocery store with me in my 9 years of parenting small children, but nothing quite like this!  I can't take you to HEB dressed like that!  And besides it's cold outside!"

Of course she understood nothing of my objections, aside from her belief that the outfit was rockin', there is the whole language barrier, too!  So, I had to scramble to find an acceptable outfit that I could talk her into.  I knew it had to be something she hadn't already seen in her 2 weeks with us, so I frantically dug through a bin of my older daughters old clothes and found some polka dot tights with a satin pink skirt I thought might just be fancy enough to spark my 3 year old's attention -- it worked!  

However, I had a plain long sleeve t-shirt with a cardigan sweater picked out for the top half and she balked at the plain t-shirt, wanting instead to just go straight to the sweater.  But, it was a sweater that really needed a shirt under to look right and it was kinda scratchy.  I tried my best to pantomime "scratchy", rubbing my tummy and making a frowny face.  It didn't work.  I showed her the sweater over the shirt on the hanger.  It didn't work.  So, I let it go.

And you know what?  Little girl put on that sweater without a shirt under, frowned a bit and took it off and let me put on the shirt underneath!

Ha!  I WIN!!!

AND we got tons of compliments on her outfit yesterday!  I resisted the urge to point out, "See, Mommy, can pick out a good outfit!"

Now if I can just win about 15 more years of clothing battles with her!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Extraordinary Days

Today was back to reality.  Real life.  The regular routine of packing lunches, homework, dropping off and picking up at 2 different schools.  No more kids in their jammies until 4pm kind of days like so many we've had the last 10 days since bringing home our new daughter from Ethiopia.

But, as I did the many, many ordinary tasks of my day today, things I've done countless times before, the ordinary couldn't help but feel extraordinary!  Because of a certain little 3 year old Ethiopian girl I got to have as my sidekick.  So many times today I was blown away by the fact that she's home

It's the first of the month and we are not getting an email with some pictures of her and an update on how she's doing!  Hooray!  Hooray!

This little girl we've prayed about for so long, who had always been in Ethiopia, is now here, right in the midst of our ordinary family.  In my home.  In my car.  Riding in my shopping cart.

The only way to make sense of any of it is:  ONE EXTRAORDINARY GOD!

Our new 3 year old has been sleeping with my husband and me, but last night when I was tucking her 6 year old sister into bed, little sister crawled right in and went to sleep.  She slept there next to her sister for about an hour before a certain dog woke her up (Would anyone like a 1 year old goldendoodle?  Kidding!  Sort of.  Offers still welcome.) and then we took her to our bed.  But tonight she's back asleep with her sister and may sleep there all night.  Someday Big Sister will move to the top bunk, but for now I think they both like the togetherness!

I took this picture of them and couldn't help marveling at the thought of all the times my 6 year old daughter prayed for a sister, all the times her brothers were tucked into bed in the boy room and she would ask sadly, "Who's going to sleep with me?"  The month she slept on the floor in her brothers' room so she wouldn't be alone in her room!

God has been so faithful to both my daughters, to our family!  May we all continue to see the extraordinary in Him long after the newness of these days wears off!

Find more Thankful Thursday here.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Proof I really have 5 kids

For a whole week since Christmas we've watched our 4 children ride around the house on the new red plasma car and finally my husband could contain himself no longer.  

Tonight after the children were all tucked into bed he Googled, "Plasma car for adults".  He did not find such a thing, but he did discover one interesting tidbit, the plasma car has weight limit of 220 lbs.

Shortly after that discovery this happened:



The same man strapped on roller blades for the first time in many years yesterday.  Being the ever supportive wife that I am, I told him, "You better not break a leg and leave me to care for these 4 children all by myself for the next 6 weeks!"

Find more Wordless Wednesday here.