Baby Pictures

Ah, baby pictures.  We all have them of ourselves as chubby little babies and we all treasure the tons we have of our own precious babes!  

Only that's not the case for everyone.  Many children who lost their first families, and are orphans or have been adopted, do not have baby pictures.  No sweet images of their babyhoods!

I stood up in a court room last Thursday and fought for two precious children from my Child Advocates case, children who have been without family for far too long.

It was not easy, there was opposition to my recommendations.  But, I had many friends praying for the situation, for God to give the judge wisdom.  And an hour into the hearing when it really began looking like things were not going in the direction I wanted and truly believe is best for these two children, I prayed right there in the courtroom standing before the judge (silently, of course).  And God worked in His mighty way! After a short recess we came back and the judge granted my recommendations for a plan for these children to give them what every child should have, family!

Outside the courtroom, as we worked out the details of visitation with a family member who the children have not seen in years, she asked the kids if they had any questions for her.  The 10 year old boy sheepishly asked, "Do you have any baby pictures of me?"

Oh, my heart!  Sweet boy who has been through so much!  But, God is a God of restoration.  And this relative DOES have baby pictures!

May all children have families to cherish them.

8 Things I Learned Over the Holidays

1.  A remake of the movie Annie can be a great thing.

We took the kids to see the new Annie the weekend before Christmas and I was a little worried because the original Annie was one of my favorite movies from my childhood and remakes are never as good as originals.  But, this movie was different enough, that it was lovely in it's own way.  The main actress is amazing and she really makes the movie!  For other adoptive parents, be warned, there are a few hard scenes, ones that portray some of the heartache our kids go through when they don't have families, thankfully I'd been forewarned and we had a few conversations with Little Girl before and after the movie.  I think those conversations, although never easy, bringing up that dialogue, stopping from the busyness of life to acknowledge the pain in our child's past, is ultimately a really good thing.

Now, as a bonus, my kids are singing the song "It's a Hard-Knock Life for Us" when we have family chore time!


2.  I really need to capitalize more on the before Christmas clean-out.

As it turns out, the statement, "We don't have room for anything new, so nobody is opening any gifts until we get rid of some things," is a really motivational mantra to encourage my kids to actually part with some of their things!  Unfortunately I didn't have time to figure this out until Dec. 23rd, so the cleaning out that we could do was limited, but we did fill a few bags.  I just love our playroom game shelves all organized by size of the game boxes!  Notice there is no before picture with them all just crammed wherever there was space!

3.  Taking a Christmas Eve picture of 4 kids plus 1 dog in front of the Christmas tree will not produce a picture where everybody is smiling at the same time, but oh how cuddly they all look!

4.  Christmas morning is definitely a time to just ignore the mess.

I think I already knew this, but I love our Christmas mornings at home, no stress, nowhere to be, time to reflect on the BEST gift of Jesus, seeing the delight in our kids as they open gifts from us, and enjoying time together as a family.

5.  Getting the 11 year old a camera for Christmas was a really good idea!

It's so hard to buy for kids as they get older and we are still resisting the iPhone thing for my middle school son, although he'd still really like one.  His Christmas wishlist was pretty pathetic and no help, with things like new shoelaces on it! Honestly, poor deprived child!  When I saw the list in November I was like, "If you need new shoelaces, I think we can probably get you some before Christmas!"  I was at a loss for what to get him, but then I thought of the idea of his own camera, a DSLR (which my husband and I don't even have), because he's gotten very interested in photography and he's taking a photography class at school this spring semester.  Well, he loved it, and I love that he is learning a real skill as he plays around with lighting and lenses and shutter speed.

6.  With all the racial issues going on in our country right now, this happy scene I discovered in my foyer brought me great joy.

My 6 year old daughter wanted a doll bed for Christmas and after she opened it, she promptly set it up and snuggled two of her dollies in it.  I just think this is what the world needs more of, people of dark skin and light coming together as family.










 


7.  I'm so glad we started the Christmas morning tradition of homemade doughnuts years ago!

Because, yummy!  

 
And the doughnut holes?  Even better, because you can justify eating several they're so small!

8. Hilda the Hippo, although tested on lions and bears at the zoo, is not actually an indestructible dog toy!

This year I researched to find a stuffed toy to buy Madeline, our goldendoodle, one she wouldn't be able to de-stuff in just a couple days.  I had high hopes for Hilda the Hippo after watching the view about how the toy was even tested on zoo animals and even paid more that I typically pay for a dog toy, but sadly Christmas night, Madeline was able to rip both ears off the hippo and soon got all the stuffing out of Hilda's leg! If I can ever get it uploaded, I have a funny video of Madeline wildly pulling stuffing out of the hippo.  I'm thinking I should send that video to the company that made the toy!!

When I assign my 11 year old yard work chores . . .

One benefit of not hiring a yard crew to take care of our yard, like all our neighbors do, is that it makes a great consequence for bad kid behavior!

A few days before Christmas the 11 year old was relegated outside to put in some time doing leaf duty.  (Our autumn is more in December so our yard was covered in leaves.)

I was busy doing some things inside, likely wrapping presents, or some such holiday prep.  After a bit I looked out the window to see how the 11 year old was progressing in his chore and I saw his 7 year old brother was out working alongside him.

I took their picture because they were so cute and then continued on with my inside work.  When I looked outside a little later, lo and behold now the 11 year old had also recruited his sisters (who were still clad in their pajamas because no school so why change out of jammies) into the backyard to assist him in leaf duty.

I couldn't believe it!  How in the world did he convince all 3 of his siblings to help him complete his chore consequence?  And they were happily working!!  AND he had trained them all to do the various tasks of leaf blowing, raking, scooping and periodically changing the trash bag once it got full!

Sure there was some of this:

But, real work got done.  The entire backyard was thoroughly raked and about 6 bags of leaves generated!

My 11 year old son is always telling me when I encourage him to learn to do menial jobs well, that he won't need those skills because he is going to be the boss when he grows up.

Well, I gotta hand it to him, the kid does have some managerial skills!

Christmas isn't really over.

How is it that Christmastime seems to go so quickly from this:

To this:

 

And before you know it you're ringing in the new year with sparkling grape juice and 2015 pancakes

And the tree is undecorated and the children get to watch from the playroom window as the iron claw from the recycling truck picks it up from our curb on January 2nd and hauls it away.

Christmas is over, boxed up, hauled off, and we're on to all things new.  New calendars, new goals, new plans, a new school semester.

But the old magic of Christmas never ends.  That baby in the manager is the same savior for you and me today in 2015 as He was over two thousand years ago when the angels declared his birth!

So call it denial, that I don't want to face the reality of packing 4 lunches at 7am tomorrow, but I'm claiming Christmas has not ended.  Yes, the decorations are down, but The Greatest Gift is one that keeps on giving.  And praise God for that, because truly, I need a savior all year round!

We wish you a merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:10-11

Baking with 4 Kids and a 1 Crazy Dog

My 4 kids made Christmas cookies today.  For the first year, it wasn't total chaos; they were actually really good at the rolling and cutting out of cookies!

Do not fear I'll have to change the name of this blog, there was still chaos in the kitchen due to the dog desperately trying to help make cookies (she is in all 4 of the pictures below, although very hard to spot in the 2nd one):

Would anyone like a 4 year old goldendoodle for Christmas?  I can drop her on your doorstep complete with a large red bow!

My Christmas Elves

My Christmas elves have been hard at work.  

Getting cards ready to mail (we got 250 out this past Monday - yay!):

Smashing candy canes to make peppermint bark for teachers:

 Drizzling the chocolate on top:

And leaving me little notes like this one.

Notice my answer at the bottom to the, "What do you want for Christmas?" question?  "A clean house!"  Do you think I'll get what I'm asking for?

Now to get the elves wrapping presents . . .