Caleb teaches Nathan about obedience

The other day, while Nathan was serving a timeout for eating a candycane without permission, Caleb said this to him:

"Nathan, did you know that the Bible says, 'Obey your mom and dad?' That's what I'm doing. I'm just sitting here drawing. Nathan, you're not going to have any fun today if you keep acting this way."

He wants to be a rockstar

Caleb sang a solo at our churches Christmas program. He has been wanting to get on stage for years. When he was little I'd have to hold him back from climbing up on the stage. He finally got his chance yesterday. He was so happy that he actually got to use the microphone.



I must say Nathan was pretty cute in this performance as well.

Baby Mama

No, I'm not talking about the Tina Fay movie, which I'm sure is hilarious, I haven't seen it yet.

Anyway, I was thinking last night when I should have been sleeping...Timing wise we'll probably have our Ethiopian addition by this time next year. That means that she's most likely in utero right now. Which means that there's a mother in Ethiopia that is going to have a horrible year. She's going to carry this child and birth her all the while loving her deeply. Then she's going to get sick, probably with some disease that is completely preventable, then she will pass away leaiving her precious baby.

I so often think of how excited I am that we're adding to our family and how wonderful it's going to be. But all day I've been thinking and praying for my baby's mama. That the Lord will be real to her as she deals with all the hardships that are coming. I can't imagine what it would be like, not being able to watch my children grow up, not even having the peace of mind knowing that my babies would be taken care of by my family, but giving my child to strangers, hoping for a better future for her. What a brave lady, my baby's mama is.

I'm also praying that this problem of people dying of curable diseases would decrease. It's just plain stupid that people around the world are dying when they don't have to. More on that tangent later. I'm reading Red Letters by Tom Davis for the second time it's got me thinking.....

Miracle Baby Update

My niece, Taylor, is home. The Lord has shown his power so miraculously in this little baby's life. It was so wonderful to be able to hold and love on her last Sunday. I'm praising the Lord for working wonders in Taylor's life since she was born in October.

As you can see from the pictures, the kids love her so much. Nathan was smitten with her immediately and all the way home from Lansing Caleb would randomly say "isn't Taylor so cute?" They've been asking when we can see her again. We're all really in love with that sweet girl.

The boys also had fun playing with Trevor. It took Trevor a little while to get used to their craziness and he just watched, but by the end he was running around, kicking balls all over the place.

Hair emergency

This picture was a complete accident. I was trying to take a picture of Caleb and Aunt Jenny in a deep discussion, but Nathan jumped right in. It was an eye opener for me though. I'm so used to seeing this crazy spike, I don't even notice it anymore. Since this picture, I've been working on taming the shark fin. It hasn't worked much but ahh well. It doesn't help that he's so opposed to a haircut. He hasn't had one since the time I cut it during his nap....That gives me an idea, he's sleeping now. I'll try that again.

Why you shouldn't go to McDonald's playland

Today we were eating lunch at "Old McDonald's," as the boys call it, and I see my friend Missy's face gloss over with shock...I followed her eyes to Nathan's little, naked bootie. I ran over and I pulled up his pants and said what are you doing? (through lots of laughs) He giggled and said "I don't know. I forgot I was twying to take off my socks."

This reminded me of 2 years ago when we were at a busy, really large, filled the whole ceiling playland. When I look at the bottom of the slide and see a pile of clothes. Horrified I realized they belong to my son. Then I look up and through a little, plastic window see a completely naked Caleb. Michael brings him down and asks him what he's doing---"I'm a tiger. Tiger's don't wear clothes." It's true about the things being funnier later. I thought it was pretty funny then but now I think it's hilarious.

You never know how many naked booties have been in those plastic germ stations. In our fam alone it's been 2.

Nathan's Happy Machine

Nay Nay is having a bit of a cranky day. He's a little emotional (I have no idea where he gets that from). Everything was setting him off. I had been warning Caleb to keep his distance, that Nathan was having a rough time. Caleb went into the backroom and returned with "Nathan's Happy Machine." A big, red tractor hanging from a rope. Caleb said when you swing it around and say "woogooboogo" it makes Nathan happy.

Nathan's response "NO. No, it won't make me happy! I not happy!" over and over again.

Nice try Caleb. If only it were that simple:)

Birthday Moments

Behind in my blogging again, sad for me because if I don't write things down I completely forget...
So my birthday was a couple of weeks ago and Michael did an awesome job of making it a fun weekend for me. He had the kids spend the night at Nana and Papa's for a night and we hit the town:)

Here's the cute poem that Nana and Papa worked on with the boys:

Another memorable moment to mark before my brain loses it.....Michael singing kareoke! That's right. U2--with or without you. Very fun!

I have an Ethiopian Nephew!!

My sister, Aimee, got her referral yesterday!!! We are so excited for Micah to be in the family. I can't wait for them to go and bring that baby back. Congrats Neal family.

Taylor Isabelle

Taylor was born a couple of weeks ago. She is a miracle baby! I don't have a picture of her because I haven't gotten to see her yet. She's still in the nicu. Jenny was measuring huge, really huge towards the end of her pregnancy. They did an ultrasound and saw fluid on Taylor's heart and other areas of her body. They did an emergency c-section at 37 weeks. The first few minutes of Taylor's life were rough, but with the help of the doctor's the Lord sustained this sweet baby's life. For two weeks now they have been draining fluid and they have finally figured out that her Thoracic duct was leaking. They have put her on a special formula and are hoping that this will allow the leak to heal on it's own! Hopefully, she will not need to have surgery. Jenny and Brian have been through a lot in the last couple of weeks. We hope they can take their baby home soon.

It has been so amazing to pray for Taylor and see how the Lord has worked miracles in her short life. We're hoping that she will be free of all her tubes and be able to be loved on by all of us soon:)

Apples, Apples, Apples

I haven't posted in a while and lots of stuff has happened.....

We went to the apple orchard with Sarah and we had so much fun. The boys love this apple orchard! We rode a fun tracker to the apples, got out and picked away, then we took the tracker to the fun play stuff and ate doughnuts and drank cider! So much fun.

Nathan thinks that Sarah's his girlfriend. He has a serious crush on her. He was at preschool before we went to the orchard and his teacher said he was talking about Sarah all morning:)

Three's Company

So I've moved Addie out of her "lofty" room into the boys room. We've been thinking about moving the boys to the bedroom on the first floor so that we won't have to walk through Addie's room all the time. A couple days ago I set up the pack-n-play in the boys room to test things out. She was so crazily excited about it. Her and Caleb played in it for a long time. Just laughing and laughing. Then when it was time for her to take a nap she just sat in there talking and laughing for over an hour.

That night was a little rough though she kept on waking up and I couldn't tell if she wanted to sleep in her crib or the pack-n-play or what, so I decided yesterday to just move the crib into the boys room.

She completely wigged out when she saw that I had taken the pack-n-play down. Then when I started to take her crib apart she was following me around whining...."Mommy, what the heck, where am I going to sleep?"

Our crib is all cracked out so it took forever to take apart. I actually didn't take it all apart because the screws are stripped so I had to wrestle a half-taken apart crib down a couple of stairs and then up a couple of stairs into the room. Addie seemed a little relieved when the crib was in the room.

So I got over the hurtle of getting the crib in the room but then I had to put the sides back on. This crib is a hand-me-down (that I totally appreciate) and it's seen better days. In order to get the sides on everything has to be lined up at once, by the time I'd get one side right the other would move and I was losing it! Lots of AHHHHs and grunts happening. Addie was walking around the crib with a wrench, helping. All the while Nathan was reading books and resting in his bed, he totally didn't even look at me. Seriously, it took me way too long to put it back together. I was sweating like I had just worked out for hours. Real sad.

So she's in the room now. She's loving it. The boys are loving it. Everyone's happy.

Hint-Hint

This morning the boys were quiet for way too long, when I checked on them this is what I found.

I'm wondering if they are hinting that I need to step up the cooking and the cleaning:)

Fat chance boys!

But really they read Rachael Ray and Real Simple for a very long time.

Haircut Update

To talk Nathan into letting us cut his hair I showed him this picture:

Then I pointed out what Michael's hair looks like in the back. He then let Michael cut off the tail, but only the tail. Now he looks like this:

After Michael cut it he said "Now do I wook wike Daddy?"

Notice the sucker in the picture:) "Wow Nay Nay you let us cut one little piece of hair, you get a sucker right before bed." Pretty smart:)

Even though he can be a little tough to deal with sometimes, he's so cute. His voice is really endearing. He makes me laugh....here's a little snipet of cute Nathan talk:

Mommy's Naptime Barber Shop

Nathan is ridiculously opposed to grooming. He hates getting his nails clipped and completely freaks out when I cut his hair. The last night I cut his hair I really thought I was going to get a call from CPS. I brought the clippers outside and tried to convince him it'd be fun to get a haircut while he sat on his bike while eating sucker (I'm telling you, I've tried every kind of bribery out there.) I ended up having to pin him between my legs and hold his head with one hand while, cutting his hair with the other. All the while he's screaming, crying, almost hyperventaliting. Caleb meanwhile is trying to convince him that it's not bad and that it doesn't hurt. When trying to talk to him didn't work Caleb started singing to him, to comfort him. He was unsuccessful, but he made me laugh which took the edge off my frustration with Nathan:)

So.....I'm trying a new thing....cut it while he's sleeping.

He woke up before I could do the back, hopefully he'll let me cut some tonight:)

K-wub

This morning before church Caleb was playing in the toyroom. From the other room I heard this when Nathan walked in:

C--Nathan, can you go away please, I want to play by myself.
N--No, K-wub, I want to play too.
C--But, Nathan, I just want to be by myself.
N--Guess what K-wub.....
C--What?
N--I wuv you, K-wub.
C--I love you too but can I play by myself.

Traumatizing Addie

Today I was being sassy and Michael picked me up and threw me on the couch. Addie was watching the whole thing and even though I was laughing, she stood there staring for a second then she completely broke down and cried and cried. She was really upset with Michael for a while.

Being the good parents that we are, we decided to do an experiment, how would she respond if Michael was the victim? So I pushed Michael to the couch, very similar situation as before (we're super scientific around here), she just watched, no emotional response. Then Michael pushed me..... she was so sad and burst into tears. It took her a while to calm down. For some reason it made me feel so loved:)

I think this picture is Addie's vision of Michael while he's bullying me:)

We inked ourselves

We have to send our prints in to get state clearance for the adoption. Michael thought we could do them ourselves. Hopefully it will work. (Michael says I sound sassy when I say that, I don't think I mean to, but maybe I do, who knows.)

Last week we got our adoption planner and we are officially in the Ethiopia program. We had a conference call with Christy yesterday and talked about the the paperwork we need to do. She's super nice and I'm excited about working with her. I warned her that I'll probably become her stalker over the next year. She wasn't too scared of me so that's good:)

So here's how it'll go--we'll work on our dossier which will take 2-3 months. Then we'll official be put on "the list" 6-8 months later we'll get our baby!!!

For now, we have so much paperwork to do with finishing up our homestudy stuff and starting our dossier, my head's spinning a bit. :)

Feeling horrible for 9 months wasn't bad enough.....

a rough delivery and then my hair. At first I thought it was normal then it kept falling out. When Michael noticed, I knew it was bad because he doesn't notice anything. I thought that it was just in front though and I ended up cutting bangs to cover up the section that had completely fallen out. Then a couple of weeks ago I realized I had a lot more whispies then any normal human with a ponytail. Upon further inspection, I realized yup, I must have lost a ton of hair in back as well. So now I have a reverse layer. Pretty huh? The funny part is that I've always wanted curly hair, this hair is curly-ish. I took for granted the fact that my hair was a cohesive piece. Now I've got this crazy layer that's curly. It looks funny when I wear my hair down or when I put it up.
What do I do now? Chop it all to the crazy layer length? Use 2 hair products--one for curly, one for straight?
I'll probably end up doing nothing, crazy hair fits well with the crazy mom look I'm going for.
In the picture it doesn't really look like it's curly and my hair looks pretty oily, that's not because I haven't washed it or anything...I guess it has been a couple of days...maybe tomorrow.

p.s.
Addie was totally worth the rough pregnancy, labor, delivery and hair loss. She's super sweet, funny, adorable, wonderful. I love her so much.

Orientation package finally sent and sicky sicky

Today we sent out our orientation packet for AGCI. It's taken us 3 months to come up with the money we needed to move on to the next step in the process. We finally have it:)
Our neighbor came over today and notarized lots and lots of forms then Nathan and I headed to the post office and shipped if off:)

Our fam has been a little under the weather over here. I was feeling yucky all day yesterday, then last night Michael got really sick. I ended up taking him to the hospital at midnight (my wonderful sister came over to stay with the kids), they hooked him up to an iv and gave him some drugs. After hanging out in triage for a few hours, being jealous that Michael had a bed to lay in and all I had was a lousy chair, listening to some crass teenagers on the other side of the curtain talk about things that would make me neaseous even when I'm not sick... Anyway, the doc decided to admit Michael and I headed for home. He felt much better this morning. My mom picked Michael up this morning and took our boys for the day. So very helpful. Thanks Mom.

Oh, I forgot the funny part---Last night in my crazy state, I left the hospital and completely forgot I had Michael's shirt in my bag (I took it when he put on the lovely hospital gown). This morning when he called I told him I felt too sick to get all the kids in the car to come pick him up so someone else would get him. He said--"Do you have my shirt? I'll see if they'll let me where the gown home." I was cracking up at the thought of him walking out of the hospital in a gown or shirtless:) They gave him some scrubs to wear, so it was all good.

AHHH, Addie!!

Up until this point in Addie's life she's been super easy. She doesn't really get into things or make big messes, she naps often, she's friendly and fun. All of those things are still true except for the getting into things.

I'm a little off my game because she's been so easy. With the boys, especially Caleb, I could walk into a room, scan it and instantly know what needed to be moved or avoided. Since she's been so lowkey I've become so lax.... Here a few of her antics today:

--I walked into the room and found her standing on the chair

--She walks into the kitchen sucking on a Wallflower, you know the air freshener from Bath and Body. At least she smelled yummy for the rest of the night.

--She found the ant traps.

--Fun with t.p.

The boys were really helpful and ran into the bathroom and rolled the t.p. back into place. I wonder if they were secretly wondering "why'd she go so easy on Addie, if I did that I'd be in big trouble." They were good sports though and just laughed along with me.

"I'm so glad my kids aren't pukers"

Why do I do it? Why do I say stuff like that? I'm only asking for trouble. I don't remember who or what I was talking about, but I remember making this comment in the recent past. It's true usually they don't puke, but still I shouldn't say it. Asking for trouble and received trouble.

Lots of puke from Caleb last night. Michael took care of most of it, which was so wonderful. The middle of the night puke all over the bed isn't my thing (like it's Michael:) ). So we didn't sleep much. Caleb came into our bed, then when Nathan came in our room (as he does every night) I said "you have to go into your bed because there's no room, Caleb's sick" he gave me the evil eye for a really long time. I'd close my eyes for a while, when I opened them again--still with the eye. I was scared of him so I let him in. I then became a mommy sandwich. I had no space. I would look over at Michael sleeping peacefully with no one touching him and push Caleb over to cuddle with Michael but he'd always come back.

Around 5:00 I made the biggest mistake of the night--Gave Caleb the water he'd been asking for. 10 minutes later I had puke all over my back. Gross. Sick. Disgusting. Showers all around. Long night, leads to a long day....

I think the worst part of the ordeal was the smell. It's the worst. It lingered on Caleb even after his shower. It make me a little nauseous to think about it.

Now I get to go and fold the 3 loads of laundry...

Any idea how to get puke smell out of the mattress? The last time I washed the sheets, the mattress pad was still wet when it was bed time so I made the bed without it on. Hence the puke on the mattress......

Vote out Poverty

"Day after day they seek me out;

they seem eager to know My ways,

as if they were a nation that does what is right

and has not forsaken the commands of its God...

loose the chains of injustice, set the oppressed free,

share your food with the hungry, provide shelter for the poor,

clothe the naked."

Michael and I have been struck by how much the Lord calls us to social justice and caring for the poor. We have committed ourselves to reading Isaiah 58 daily for a month and praying the Lord will direct us in how exactly we can help. I was amazed by this chapter a few months ago as I was reading the book "Just Courage." Then, earlier this week when I came downstairs in the morning Michael had left his Bible open to that chapter and a message for me on the answering machine (since we generally wake up hours after he leaves) saying "we need to talk about this chapter." When he got home he said "What are we going to do about this?" It's so obvious that the Lord's heart is for his people to be serving the oppressed and the poor, yet our daily lives don't reflect that. Did you know that there is more human trafficing and slavery going on today around the world then when Wilber Force (Amazing Grace guy) fought to end the slave trade. What am I doing? How can I live out Isaiah 58?

Michael and I figured it was too big of a problem to solve in the ten minutes we have to talk a day (sad but pretty true, he gets home around 8:30 or 9:00 and I've usually put the kids to bed and have started working) and to read Isaiah 58 everyday for a month.

I love how the Lord brings things together, I just got home from listening to Jim Wallace from Sojourners talk to a large group of us at University of Detroit Mercy about our role as Christians to change the political environment in America. He encouraged us to "be the wind" of change. There are 30,000 people that die everyday of starvation, we need to stop this. We need to make noise about getting rid of poverty in our rich nation. He spoke about revivals and how a revival is only considered a revival when it changes something. Our churches need to come together and fight for poverty to end. The UN has Millennium Development Goals to end extreme poverty over the world, I had never heard about this until tonight. How crazy is that since it's been going on since 2000 and the goal is to elliminate extreme poverty by 2015. I guess I need more education. I also heard tonight that the United Kingdom came up with a plan to half poverty in 10 years and it's working. America needs real plans that are put in action and measurable to end poverty here. It's not so much about which candidate is perfect but about Christians coming together to "loosen the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free...Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear" again with Isaiah 58....

Sojourners may be a little liberal for some. I definitely don't agree with everything they say, but I think they are on the right track....encouraging Christians and churches to live how we are called to. Their goal is to Vote Out Poverty. Let's do it.

I for real need to go to bed. Addie's due to wake up in about a half an hour and do some crazy middle of the night, scratchy voice yelling and Nathan due to come and cuddle with me in about 2 hours. I'm real busy even in my sleep:)

“The church must be reminded that it is not the
master or the servant of the state, but rather the
conscience of the state. It must be the guide and
the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the
church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it
will become an irrelevant social club without
moral or spiritual authority.”
—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Strength to Love, 1963.

Soccer Updates

For those of you who are wondering how the season's going for Michael, read this.

The kids and I have been to most of the games. The boys absolutely love it, they run around like wild banchis. Addie's a little baller herself, after the game on Friday she was kicking the ball all over the place. It's pretty funny considering the ball is half her size. She also has come to associate Fordson's field with Dada, since he's not home much during the week. When we got to the game on Wednesday, she pointed to the field and said "I, Dada"

Preschool

Both of the boys started preschool this week. They love it. This is Caleb's second year he has a new teacher this year, he was a little leery of Mrs. Guelli but after the first day he was sold. He told me he thinks she's the best teacher and she's funny:) She's pretty entertaining and the first day was mesmerized by her.

Nathan has Mrs. Hadwee (Hadley) I was so surprised by what a mature little 3 year he is. The first day of preschool the parent stays so that the kids can get used to the class. While all the other kids were being regular 3 year olds and wondering around a little and clinging to mommy, he was sitting quietly and listening to his teacher. At one point he was annoyed with the other kids during story time because they weren't "wistening." He took his preschool experience pretty seriously:)

It's a co-op preschool so I have to work in the classroom, this year I'm also on the board because I'm apparently a crackhead and thought I had a ton of extra time on my hands:) Anyway, I receive and deposit all the checks that come in, because I'm so great with numbers. Again with the crackhead bit. Anyway, I'm practically going to be living at preschool between dropping off one of the kids everyday and the meetings I have to go to. But it's fun. The other mom's are great and the kids love it.

Wemonade for Afwica

All summer long Caleb has been wanting to have a lemonade stand and also asking me if he can give some of his toys to people that don't have any. So last Friday I decided it was time to follow through with his good ideas. We made a poster days earlier and while I was babysitting for my sweet nieces and nephew we had the lemonade stand.

They were all so sweet and a lot of people stopped and gave them $. Everytime a car would drive by Nathan would say "Wemonade for Afwica" with his raspy, little voice. He was so adorable. Our neighbors were so great too. We only had our little stand open for an hour and the kids made $35.00.

We used the money to buy mosquito nets from Sharing International . I got the idea from this great website: http://www.kidslake.org/. They feature monthly projects for kids to raise money for. The nets were the project for June but Caleb was set on getting those. He's had his run ins with bugs this summer and wants to help protect people in Liberia:)

Here's a blurb from KidsLake about this project:

In Liberia mosquitoes are EVERYWHERE! Here in America if we get bit by a mosquito it is not really a big deal. Sure, they itch but we do not fear for our lives! In Liberia most mosquitoes carry a deadly disease called malaria. Kids over in Liberia have to be protected not only during the day but also at night while they sleep! Their houses don't have good roofs and doors so mosquitoes can get in.Malaria kills 58 kids in Liberia a day! 58!How we can help:Earn,Save and Raise your money for mosquito nets.They are seven dollars for one mosquito net but they will cover four kids! The orphanage they will be going to sleeps two kids on each bunk. So seven dollars could help save four precious lives!

The Rockstar

So my brother in law, Jerry Schroeder, is an awesome musician. You can hear his music and vote for him on IndieHeaven.

TO VOTE:1. Click here.
2. Find "Creation" on the chart. (Currently #19!)
4. Vote 5-stars once-a-day, everyday, for the next two weeks!

Ethiopia on the brain

Caleb is such a thinker. He's been trying to wrap his brain around this adoption stuff. We checked out books from the library about Ethiopia and he's been reading them for weeks. The other day Michael was reading one of them and somehow a conversation ensued about how some Ethiopians live in Michigan....Fastforward to days later, Caleb says to me "Mommy, guess what? We don't have to wait to get our baby, because there are Ethiopia people in Michigan." The picture he drew above says "Ethiopia is ahead of Michigan." Translation of thought--we are close enough to go to Ethiopia now.

Another funny thing... Michael has a wad of cash from his soccer kids (they owed him $ for socks). Caleb saw him pull a $20 out of the envelop and said "Daddy, you can't use that we need it for our adoption." I hope we aren't turning him into a crazy person:)

I constantly watch the wheels turning as he wrestles with understanding this process, I'm not too far ahead of him in understanding all the adoption intricacies.

Bye-Bye Surfer Dude

This summer Caleb's hair turned an awesome shade of blonde with great highlights. He wanted to grow it out so we haven't cut it in a while, it was just getting to a good length. Today while we were working on a project, he got the urge and followed through with it. He took a huge chunk out of the front of his hair.

The funny part is, I was rushing around to get everyone ready for Michael's soccer game (which they won 5-1) that I didn't even notice until we were walking out the door and it was too late to do anything about it. Since we rode bikes to the school he had his helmet on for much of the game so that was good.

It's going to look crazy for a while even with the buzz. Ah well....

Michael's Insane Schedule

So Michael is coaching both the Varsity soccer team at his school and the boys U5 team, the Thundercats. On Tuesdays he will work all day then go to soccer practice with the boys, then have about 45 minutes before he has to go to Fordson's practice. Which brings us to him arriving at home at 8ish. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he has games. On Thursday he only has 1 practice, then I have Bible Study. He only has 1 Saturday game. So we'll catch up with him then:) The boys soccer games are on Sunday. Soccer, soccer, soccer! :0

All of this on top of teaching rascally teenagers. Yikes! At least our home is super quiet and peaceful--almost!

This was our first Tuesday with this schedule. The kids and I had to drive to Lansing to pick up our van that was getting repaired and come back in time to make it to practice. This whole schedule is even more wacked out because Michael's hooptie, which was given to us and has been a real blessing, isn't working. So today we had to chauffeur him to and from practice. We're trying to decide if it's worth putting more $ into it.

We're all pretty pooped tonight, except for Caleb who's totally wired because his best friend Zoe just got home after being gone half the summer. Anyway, I'm hope Michael can keep up with this crazy schedule. I'm tired just thinking about it.

This is last season's Thundercats team. Nathan is so excited that he's 3 now and gets to be on the team too!

Fordson Soccer

(This is from Michael) Lauren asked me to put a link to the article about the soccer team that I coach. It is from the Dearborn Press and Guide. I am coaching at Fordson High School for the first time this year. It's been pretty fun so far, but a lot of work, responsibility, and sometimes heightened nerves! The article was written about our first game, which we won 8 - 0, (the article says 9 - 0). I can't take much credit for the win....I have a lot of good players, and I just watch and say, "great job! Keep it up!"

My counseling degree is coming in handy, as some of my players seem to be a little on the sensitive side. I had to stop practice last Friday to remind my players that we don't chew each other out when they make a mistake. I told them to use a kind and gentle tone when speaking to their teammates and to be encouraging. Sounds pretty sappy for a guys varsity soccer team!

So here is the article if you want to read it:

http://www.pressandguide.com/stories/082408/spo_20080824014.shtml

Spinach--Yes, Green Beans--No!

Nathan doesn't eat any green veggies, but he loves smoothies. So for months I've been putting spinach in his smoothies and he loves it. Well, last night after dinner I was making smoothies for dessert and I had green beans left over from dinner...I figured why not...and then realized why not. Nathan didn't eat it and Michael even had a hard time with it. Caleb said to Nathan, "Just keep on mixing it and it'll taste good."

I guess I stick with just spinach for now.

New friends at the Riverwalk

I wrote this post a while ago but I never finished it because I had more details to add, but my brain's fried and I still wanted to post it. I was reminded of this meeting tonight when I talked to my friend, Marie. She just finished all of her paperwork for a domestic adoption!! I'm so excited. I'm planning on hanging out with Marie and my new friend, Bev......

On Saturday we went to the Riverwalk, we met some new friends there who have adopted. I had a reallly good conversation with Beverly and Matt (they have the cutest little boy). They have a ton of wisdom about transracial adoption and they shared a little bit with me. They adopted domestically and have spoken on many adoption panels.

It was one of those cool God things that we met.

Continued Conversation in the car...

Nathan remembered our conversation from dinner and out of the blue on the way to Grammy's:

Nathan: "Mommy are you going to drop us?"

It took me a minute to make the connection.
L: "No honey, it's just a phrase people say. It means I'm going to take you to Grammy's and then leave"
C (very matter-of-fact): "Nathan, it means that Mommy is going to throw us in Grammy's house."
L (cracking up): "No, I'm not going to be dropping or throwing anyone!!!! I'm really just going to take you to Grammy's house to play, then Mommy or Daddy will pick you up later."

By the way they were talking you'd think that I spend a lot of time dropping or throwing them. I must admit I'm a little clumsy and have dropped many things. Maybe even fallen down the stairs with Nathan resulting in a spiral fracture on his little, 18 month old leg (real traumatizing for all involved). But I've never thrown anyone!

Those idioms will getcha every time.

Dinner Conversation....

L to M: "I'll drop the kids off, if you clean the kitchen."
Caleb: "Which kids and where?" with a concerned look.
---Laughing from the parents, dragging out the suspense a little.---
L to kids: "Mommy and Daddy both have meetings. Boring! So you guys are going to Grammy's"

Nathan to L: "But I wuv bowing, Mommy."

Homestudy Stuff

Just an update on the Ethiopian front....We're plugging away at our homestudy. I must say this binder is huge and a little overwhelming. Slowly but surely we're getting there. My goal is to have the bulk of it finished by the end of August before I lose my husband to soccer:)

Happy Birthday, Addie!

I can't believe Adeline Joy is 1 already. She still seems so brand new to me. She throughly enjoyed her cake at her party. I love the picture on the right, she looks so proud of herself for being covered in frosting. Caleb and Nathan decorated the house for her, she's been giggling at the wall ever since.

Happy Birthday, Addie!