passion with a plan!

 

Click here to read about 15 year old Addisyn’s passion.

And spread the word!

now THAT’S some singin’

So... from the sublime to the ridiculous. American Idol, baby!!! I admit, I love it.

I love the music, I love the nerves and the anticipation. I love the unbridled talent.

And I’m actually starting to love STEVEN TYLER!!!

“Baptist PK Mom of 5 falls for Steven Tyler”  News at 11!

Seriously though. I still think he’s a kind of a creeper (and the dirty lyrics are just unnecessary) but some of the SWEEEEET THINGS he’s been saying to contestants lately... he’s got a wicked soft side! Gotta love a MAN with a soft side. (even if he does wear eyeliner)

When he kissed Chris Medina’s fiancé in her wheelchair and told her that Chris “sings so good, cause he sings to you.”

Oh. My. Pass the Kleenex.

ANY-way...

My 3 favorite girls so far:

• Molly DeWolf Swenson (Love those low, husky notes from a girl. And the way she ended this song made me almost forgive her for working with Obama.)

• Thia Megia (Don’t think I see a winner there, but top 20 maybe. Memorable quality to her voice, super cute, and her name is fun to say.)

• Lauren Alaina (Come on! Adorable personality, not too shy OR too forward. And that great depth and range to her voice. She’ll go faaaar.) (says me and everyone else with ears)

My favorite guys so far:

• Rob Bolin. (Scratchy voice, dripping with character, would be instantly recognizable on the radio... LOVE IT!! (He needs a little help from Wardrobe & Hair, but no biggie.)

• Chris Medina (Yes. I said it. The heart-breaking-story-guy gets my vote. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has known me more than 10 minutes. Plus -bonus- he actually sings pretty good!)

What about YOU guys? Any favs so far?

F is for Friggin’...

I can not get over how often Spicy plays dumb.

I am learning that this is a common characteristic of attachment challenged kids.

They are super smart, but pretend they don’t get certain random things as a way to control the situation/get attention.

We have been working on the alphabet and today we got to the letter “F”.

‘F’ as in Friggin’ annoying

 

I carefully showed (on a dry erase board) how easy it is to make the “F” if you already know how to make the “E” (which they do), because all you do is LEAVE OFF the bottom line!

(insert faux enthusiasm)

Well, Spicy just couldn’t quite wrap her little mind around it.

uh huh

From my reading on attachment issues, I’ve learned to play it cool. Keep my voice calm and basically act like I believe her. It would have the opposite affect if I were to get all flustered and TELL her that I KNOW she’s fakin’ it. She would gain 1) the response she wanted, which would encourage repeating this tactic 2) control over the situation. That’s not the outcome I’m seeking.

She tried her best (*ahem*) but somehow instead of leaving OFF the last line, she just kept making tons of EXTRA lines.

go figure!

So I bit my tongue and calmly suggested that she keep trying (over and over and over again) until she got it. I sprinkled in some smiley “I understand. The letter ‘F’ is just harder for some people. But you’ll get it! Just keep trying!”

pass the barf bag

Oddly enough, when it was time to get the stickers for good work and her brother got one but she couldn’t because she wasn’t done yet, (dragging her feet, “struggling” with those DARN “F’s”),

she suddenly figured out how to MAKE ‘em!

don’t tell her I said this, but...

I want to write so much more than I do about my teenagers but, being teenagers, they are not thrilled to be made spectacle of, so I bite my tongue (or should I say fingers?) and try not to blog TOO often about them.
But, birthdays. Come on. No self respecting bloggy-mom can let a birthday go without a few pics and a little mush. Am I right?

Today is E’s 19th birthday.
When we met her in Ethiopia when she was 13 years old.
On our very first day together in the hotel in Addis, I told her not to do something and she said “No” and did it anyway.
That’s when I knew there was big fun ahead.
Headstrong. Gusty. Determined. Passionate. Opinionated. Stubborn. Unflappable.

(My mom always said God would pay me back for all those years she had to put up with my strong willed, immovable ways. I have 3 daughters like this, so I’d say she was right.)
She is a lot like me, which is probably why we butt heads sometimes, but she possesses some characteristics that I only WISH I had.
Like stick-to-itiveness.
The girl WILL NOT QUIT.
My husband taught her how to ride a bike and she must have fallen off that thing 648 times, but every.single.time. she got back up, wiped off the blood, and climbed back on that bike.
A couple of weeks went by and she was bruised and scraped from head to toe... but SHE CONQUERED THAT BIKE let me tell ya.
This is her MO. Persistence.

She argues with persistence (Lord help us), she plays sports with persistence (watch your back!), and she loves with persistence.
She’s got the guts to walk up to a total stranger and ask him if he knows God.
She loves Tai Kwon Do, drawing, fashion, Facebook, baking, movies, soccer and Jesus. (not in that order)
She isn’t sure yet what direction the Lord is leading for after graduation, but she’s potentially interested in nursing and, as soon as she can earn enough money, she’d like to go back to Ethiopia to visit relatives and volunteer in an orphanage.
She’s an awesome person, brimming over with potential, with more guts than any 10 people, and we are blessed.

fast fix

It’s quarter of 8:00pm and you’ve only got 15 minutes to find chocolate before Idol starts.

WHAT DO YOU DO???

Microwave Hot Fudge Fix!

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• dash of salt
• 1 cup water
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix dry ingredients together. Add water. Nuke for 90 seconds, stopping to stir every 30. Stir in butter and nuke/stir/nuke/stir in 20 second increments until it’s at desired thickness. Add vanilla when it’s done. Pour on anything edible. Grab the remote!

homeless NO MORE!!

Remember “2 weeks away from homeless”?

Well this little boy’s FOREVER FAMILY was FOUND!!!!!

This is a picture taken of him right after he was told he had a family!

Click here to meet his lucky blessed parents!

And remember WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!  ONE KID AT A TIME!!

thankful thursday

I’m thankful for...

cute little french kids.   (especially around 2:13)

I don’t understand a word she’s saying, but I’m smitten.

Sleepy gerbils.

This movie - which feels like putting on my favorite bath robe and fuzzy slippers.

(if I wore fuzzy slippers)

Do you have a fuzzy slipper movie which can pretty much ALWAYS make you feel good?

my favorite photo EVER

 

This week’s Project We subject is “winter”.

This is probably my favorite (not of my kids) photo I’ve ever taken.

I snapped it just as snow was beginning to fall on our window.

Other than zooming in for a close up, nothing is altered in this picture.

Is God the most breathtaking artist, or what.

[check out SandDollar Days for my daughter’s winter post]

midnight epiphanies

Couldn’t get to sleep last night.

While I was laying there it came to me.

The perfect advertising slogan for Jell-o.

.....drum roll please.....

..........

..........

“You had me at Jell-o.”

 

(Okay, so maybe some stuff is funnier at midnight)

[Update: apparently I’m not the first to think of this.]

delurking day!

Okay, so I didn’t create the oh-so-tacky image for this National Holiday...

but I DO support the cause!!It would MAKE MY DAY  WEEK MONTH if a BUNCH of you guys who read here would drop me a quick little ‘hello’!

Some people blog for the love of writing.

Not me.

I blog in the hopes of spreading the word about adoption.

In the hopes of encouraging, sharing the load, bringing a smile.

Honestly, if no one ever commented, I would probably shut this down.

It would just feel pointless.

So I’d like to THANK THE SOCKS OFF YOU, my few faithful commenters!!!!

The extra minute or two that you take to say a few words is TREASURED BY ME!!!

And to those of you who lurk...

pleeeeeease...

DE!!!!!!

(I’m off to comment my day away for my bloggy friends!)

I smile

This week’s Project We subject is “smiles.”

Some of the many things that make me smile:

drawings by my kids

Matthew McConaughey  my husband

the tiny ‘meow’ of my cat, Bindi

this blog

the last acapella chorus of “How Great is Our God”

brownies

___________________

On another note, this week I was coming out of Stuff-mart and caught the eye of a woman going in and

she actually SMILED at me.

I mean a BIG WARM SMILE that really spread across her face… to her eyes and everything!

The reason this caught my attention was because of how RARE it has become.

I am a smiler. - When I see people and our eyes meet, I SMILE.

But I have increasingly noted over the past few years how less and less they genuinely smile back.

People are so weighed down by the pressures of society.

So bogged, so burdened, so tired.

I hope that when people look at my smile they see a warmth and brightness that shows all I have to SMILE about!

‘I smile when I think about
The way You've turned my life around
I smile when I think about
The happiness in You I've found
I'm so amazed at what Your love has done
And when I think the best is yet to come
I smile!

Cause You've turned all my gray skies
To the brightest blue, yes, You did
And my life feels like sunshine
And it's because of You
All because of You.. I smile’

[Check out Boo’s post about ‘smiles’ here!]

2 weeks away from homeless

Please take a minute and read this boy’s story.

Are you willing to sincerely ASK the Lord if He is calling YOU to rescue this child?

Click for many more pics!

becoming teacups

A couple in England passed a china shop that had a lovely teacup displayed in the
window. As the couple walked inside to see it more closely the teacup suddenly spoke.
 

“You don’t understand. I haven’t always been a teacup.  There was a time when I was
a lump of red clay.  My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over.

I screamed for him to stop, to leave me alone.

But He continued to mold me answering, ‘Not yet.’”

“Then, I was placed on a wheel and spun around and around.  It made me dizzy,
spinning on and on like that.  But He didn’t stop when I was begging Him to take me off the
wheel.  He continued shaping and molding me and then put me in the oven.

I had never felt such intense heat and I wondered if He wanted me to burn up.

  I screamed and beat on the door to get out.  I could see the Master through the opening.

I read His lips, as He said, ‘Not yet.’”

Finally the door did open.  He put me on a shelf and I began to cool.  That felt
better.  Then suddenly he brushed me and painted me all over.  The fumes were terrible!  I
thought I would surely choke to death. I was gasping for air and hurting inside from the heat
and choking fumes.  Soon He put me in another oven. It was not the first one and it was twice
as hot.  I know for sure this time I would surely suffocate.  I begged my Master to stop. All
the time I could see Him shaking His head and saying, ‘Not yet.’” 

I felt there was no help.  I know I could never make it.  I was ready to give up.

Just then, the door opened. He took me out and I could see that He was pleased with His work. 

He handed me a mirror and told me to look at myself.  I did.  And I said, “That’s not me! It
couldn’t be! I’m so shiny and beautiful!”

“He said to me, ‘I want you to know I had to roll and pat you to shape you.

If I had left you then, you would have dried up.

I know the wheel made you dizzy and sick but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurt and was hot and disagreeable in the baking oven but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked.  I know the fumes were bad when I
brushed you and painted you all over.  But you see if I hadn’t done that, you would have
never hardened.  If I had not put you in the second oven, you would not have survived for very
long.  You would have been brittle. 

Now you are a finished product.  You are what I had in
mind when I first began with you as a lump of clay.

-author unknown

blood was everywhere!

Yeah, it was like an episode of CSI right here in our living room (and dining room) (and hall way) (and bathroom).

Spicy just fell down during her acrobatic efforts to get a banana (nothing is done simply by this child)

and when her teeth hit the floor, one went flyin’!

As she stood up and staggered across the room with intense dramatic flair (while wailing and gnashing most of her teeth)

blood ran down her chin/shirt/pants to the floor, sprinkling here and there and everywhere.

So… I (stupidly) suggested that she run to the bathroom and dribble there… after which a trail of blood drops followed her

1/2 way across the house.

Oh joy.

Yet, as I wiped up the blood (and the subsequent splatters all over the bathroom sink/mirror/wall/cupboard/floor) I once again

smiled

because I couldn’t help getting a kick out of how much this scenario would have freaked US out before we caught the truth!

A couple of years ago I would have thought that having an HIV+ person’s blood splatter around my other kids was ‘dangerous’, but now I know that HIV has N.E.V.E.R. been transmitted in a normal family environment.

Knowledge is so cool.  :-)

---------

If you’d like to catch the truth, check out my videos and PositivelyAdopted.com

newness

A brand new jar of peanut butter.

I’m not a huge peanut butter lover, but that first dip into unsoiled creaminess...

All hail the unsullied surface of pure, unadulterated nuttyness.

Before any sticky little fingers, bread crumbs, jelly drips (or, oh my gosh, that’s not a HAIR is it?!?!) have gunked it all up

and made it fit for consumption only by children who already eat off the floor have somewhat lower culinary standards.

-----------

A newly fallen snow.

A new box of crayons - full of red-violet possibilities.

The clean slate of a new day.

“His mercies are new every morning.” (Lam. 3:22)  

Yep, new.

catalog living

When I need a good hearty chuckle I sometimes go to Catalog Living.

(“A look into the exciting lives of the people who live in your catalogs.”)

And sometimes Hubkins and I even venture to make up a few of our own…

‘The bears held a prayer vigil, not knowing little Becky was only away at camp for the weekend.’

‘Billy searched high and low… but he couldn’t find the picks for his giant guitar anywhere.’

Introducing…

I’ve pondered it for some time,

but this post by Jenny On The Spot gave me the final little push I needed to

let my oh-so-prolific 9 year old daughter

have a blog of her very own.

(Psst. Don’t tell her, but I think it’ll be a tremendous help with her writing and grammar skills too.)

Thus, Sand dollar Days was born.

I would L.O.V.E. to point her (and all of her new-found bloggy enthusiasm) towards other blogs

of nice little kiddos her age.

Any suggestions?