Their little brother to be

Have I mentioned how excited our kids are about their baby brother?

When John and I were thinking about adopting again back in October, we asked the kids to see how they felt and what they thought. Almost everyone was very excited and supportive and once we told them we would be adopting a baby boy, all of them got on board. But, the excitement that they had back then is totally different than the excitement they have now.

Back then, the thought of when their little brother would actually come home was not in the near future, therefore it wasn't discussed too often. As time went by and we had our home study visits and they knew our dossier was complete, they started thinking about the adoption more.

Finally after learning about Dennis through another family and committing to adopting him, the kids are always talking about their new baby brother now. All of a sudden they can picture this little boy who in their minds is already their little brother and they ask about him all the time. We pray for him every night, and we are all thinking about how great it will be once Dennis is home.

Because Dennis has what Jonny calls an "owie" on his face, they are very concerned about his well being and want him home with us as much as John and I do. It is really very touching for me to witness as their parent.

Opening Day

Today was opening day for Little League Baseball. Here are all the teams at the Opening Day Ceremonies.

The Reds, Adam and Caleb's team, were recognized and honored for being last years undefeated champions. They didn't lose one game all season.

Sad to say their streak is over. They lost the first game of the season, and they were crushed 10-0. This was humbling to say the least.

Here is Anna and Jonny riding down the hill on their skateboard at the ballpark. Aren't they adorable?

Adam's blue tongue

Adam had Julia take this picture of him after he ate a blue popsicle. He doesn't know that I blogged it. Heh heh. :)

Jonny tricked Mama

As I was checking my email this morning little Jonny came up to me with both hands in a fist and asked me, "Which hand is the quarter in Mommy?" I chose his right hand and he opened it to reveal nothing. I tapped his left hand and he also revealed nothing.

"So where is it Jonny?" I asked him, and he pulled the nickel out of his ear.

"You tricky turkey you," I said to him as I tickled his tummy.

"I can do tricks like Daddy."

Columbia State Historic Park

Today Annalyn, Julia, and I went on their fourth grade field trip up to Columbia. It was a great day. I'm worn out, but it was fun and informative. You'd think that after my third field trip there, I'd have learned all there is to know about Columbia, but no. I learned tons of new stuff today.


Here are Annalyn and Julia standing in front of Columbia's first brick school house built in 1860.


Here they are lined up, girls on one side, boys on the other, waiting to go into class.


This is a very old pump organ that the school marm would accompany the children in their hymns.


Today happened to be Columbia's 158th birthday! All of the volunteers were dressed up and they served cake and everything.


Annalyn showing off her precious gems and specks of gold that she panned.


"Eureka!" Julia found a few specks of gold on her own.


This is how everyone got around back in the 1850s.


Had to get a picture of the three of us just so I could prove that I was there. :)

Here's what's up with Miss Anna

This morning Anna got a Husky Reader award in her class. Way to go Anna! She has done 19 book reports this year. I think she is an excellent reader. Anna has been a part of our family for 2 1/1 years now and her report card has the equivalent of all A's and B's. She is one smart little cookie.

I finally got a call back from the Endocrinologist that she saw five months ago and all of her lab results came back negative. She does not have Turner's Syndrome which was a possibility according to the doctor. I never thought she had it. ;)

The doctor says that Anna's bone age is that of an eight year old (she is 9 1/2) and that her shortness is due to idiopathic short stature which simply means that there is no known reason why she is short. She qualifies for growth hormone treatment which we will discuss at next month's appointment.

Other than that, Anna is still our little firecracker that is cute as a button!

How do you eat your Top Ramen?

Funny how this is my second post about Rachel and Top Ramen. You could read about the first one here. This is a picture of her drinking the broth through a straw. Creative, huh?

Probably my shortest post

Boy, it feels like forever since I last posted. Once a couple of days go by between posts, it might as well be a month because I get into this funk where nothing seems interesting to write about. Do you ever feel that way?

Well, besides the kids going back to school today, and Adam and Caleb officially playing baseball now, and me back to drinking coffee, nothing too interesting has happened lately nor do I have anything nagging me to write about (except puberty issues)..........oh and maybe one other thing.

Why don't you head over to my other blog to find out what news I am talking about. :)

A Muddy Buddy

Jonny thought that Daddy needed a helper.

I'm not sure he was much help.

Jonny left these cute little prints everywhere!

Happy Easter!

Grandma Kathleen brought the kids homemade bunny cookies.

Decorating Eggs

Isn't Jonny artistic?


Everyone was very focused on decorating their egg.


I helped Jonny draw stars on his egg with a white crayon.


"That's cool Mom!"


Everyone got to decorate 3 eggs.


Anna painted one of her eggs purple.


Isn't Sveta's egg pretty?


Here are some of the dyed eggs.

As soon as they finished dyeing the eggs they wanted to eat them. Jonny and Annalyn each ate three eggs!

2008 Reed Photos

Here is a video of pictures from a family photo shoot.

Down Memory Lane

I don't really have time to post anything new so I thought I would take you down memory lane. I have enjoyed reading other people's blogs who have shared some of their older posts so I thought I would try and get away with doing the same thing. Hope you guys don't mind.

about touch - Sharing my feelings on the importance of touch.

Something to Treasure - Did your kids take anything from their orphanage?

Detski Dom Tour - What does the inside of an orphanage look like?

Gray Hair is Gone - How do you bond with your kids?

How Rachel became a Reed - A disruption story

More on FAS - Living with a child with FAS

Spring Break

Easter break. We just ended our second day. So far, so good. The kids who dared to brave 59 degree water jumped into Grandma and Grandpa's pool. Brrrr. Did it look cold. The kids didn't seem to care so I didn't play the overprotective mom worried that they would get sick. That was me 6 or 7 years ago. Not anymore.

I rented the Bee Movie and Enchanted. The kids enjoyed both movies. I'm sure they are worthy of watching at least three or four more times before I return them in five days. Yeah! That makes me feel like I got my money's worth.

We are going through tons of cereal and milk right now. All of the kids have at least two bowls in the morning. I buy the Malt-o-Meal bags of cereal because they are so much cheaper. I have my kids mix a non-sweet cereal like Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes with any sweet cereal like Honey Combs or Cocoa Puffs. It works out really well because ounce for ounce they are eating less sugar and yet they feel like they get to eat the sugary sweet stuff they insist is so fun to eat. I'm going to surprise the heck out of them tomorrow though when I serve them actual Malt-O-Meal. Ha, ha. I'm sure I'm going to hear some groans.

I bought three dozen eggs tonight and an egg dyeing kit. You would think that eggs would be cheaper right now, but noooooo. An eighteen pack is around $4.00. What a rip off. You better believe that none of these eggs are going to go to waste. Any great hard boiled egg recipes would be much appreciated.

We recently had a photo shoot of our family for a local magazine doing an article on adoption and the pictures turned out awesome. I hope to update my blog header with one of the pictures soon, so keep an eye out.

Sugar Cookies

These cookies are so creamy, buttery and crunchy tasting. No joke. They rock!

Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter
1 cup oil
1 c. powdered sugar
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
4 c. unbleached flour
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
extra granulated sugar to roll cookies in

Cream butter, oil, powdered sugar and 1 cup of sugar. Beat eggs and vanilla. Add to butter mixture. In a separate bowl sift flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture. Mix well and chill. Chilling makes it easier to roll the dough. Roll tablespoon of dough into balls. Roll in sugar. Place on cookie pan and press with the bottom of a glass. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Makes about 80 cookies.

Don't try this at home

Jonny scraped his chin when Rachel thought it would be cool to roller skate with him on her back. What was she thinking?

Get Creative!

Here is a vegetable chicken pasta that I put together last night. I don't have a recipe for it because I just made it up as I went along, but it turned out great! I sauteed some chicken breasts and then set them aside. Then I sauteed onions, garlic, red bell pepper, zucchini, and mushrooms in olive oil till they were tender. I cooked a pound of pasta. I mixed together the diced chicken breasts and juice that they made, vegetables, cooked pasta, and jar of Alfredo sauce and seasoned with pepper and then reheated. I broiled a loaf of buttered bread in the oven. It was the perfect dinner so I encourage you to get creative in your kitchen tonight because you might end up with a masterpiece! You really can't mess up such basic ingredients.

More milk

They never drank more milk in one sitting than they did today. With silly straws, William, Anna, and Andrew just kept drinking milk... and blowing milk bubbles. Who knew this could be so much fun?

Friday Fotos

Waffle Pretzel necklace. The newest and coolest in edible jewelry.

Caleb loves to skateboard! He is getting better all the time!

Earlier in the day, Caleb had his five teeth pulled. He was a trooper!

Watching the premier of H20 on the Disney Channel.

Julia putting beads in Sveta's hair.

Always enough food

Sveta loves to go grocery shopping with me. Honestly, I don't always like to take her or anyone else with me for that matter because I selfishly use the time to spend some moments by myself, but when I take her, she is always marveled by all the good food in the store. Sveta can't really understand shopping or what I buy or how to pick out the best sale price or anything like that, but she sure likes to help unload and put away the groceries once we are home. I think all the groceries set out on the counter waiting to be put away bring great comfort to her. She always tells me what a good job I did buying all of the groceries and filling our home with food.

"You did a good job, Mom," Sveta praises me.

To me, it is a no-brainer. I am the mom, I have a family, we must eat, and so I shop and bring home food to cook. But for my dear Sveta, I think it is so much more meaningful to her. To her, she has a mom and a dad that provides for the family and makes sure that there is always good food to eat and enough of it. Best part is that she sees me bring home food consistently, never failing, and always providing. I am sure it very comforting for her.

Thanks Sveta for singing my praises. So often I feel like I don't do things right, and your excitement over my going shopping helps me to feel like I am not a total failure. Shopping and shopping well is something that I can do without messing up too bad. ;)

Would you like that piece of gum?

Christie left me this comment on my post "Pieces of your heart part 2." Sorry to highlight you on my blog without your permission Christie, but it was so worthy of an analogy in my opinion. If you want me to take it off, just let me know. I'm almost certain, I will be doing this little exercise with my boys sometime in the future.

"One time while having a discussion on marriage with the guys, we took a wrapped piece of chewing gum and had them hold it, and we kept passing it around while we were talking. When we were done talking, we asked "Who wants to eat the chewing gum?" Nobody wanted to . The wrapper was all messed up and so was the gum, from people holding it. We said, "Why not, nobody has chewed it! Go ahead!" Nobody wanted to. We asked them to let that be an object lesson for dating. Our hearts are not the same if we give them away, even though we remain pure in body. Just a thought."

Beverage of Choice

Remember how I was drinking hot water. I got quite a few comments about that, so under the peer pressure of all of you out in blog land my new beverage of choice is hot chamomile tea. It is quite delicious with just a bit of sugar. And frankly, I really think this tea makes me feel cozy.

So, what is your beverage of choice?

Pieces of your heart part 2

Since I have gotten many responses on this blog and off with such differing opinions, I wanted to elaborate a bit more. Thanks for all of your comments as you have given me much to think about.

My intention of this post was for me to share three main points about dating and waiting till marriage.

1. My desire is for my kids to wait until they are married before they have sex.

2. I want my kids to focus on God, school, family and friends until they get out of high school because they will be more mature, it is the right time to start dating in my opinion, and there will be less temptation to give into peer pressure if they know and embrace the boundaries we have set before them. I never had a school crush end where I didn't end up strongly disliking the person because I was hurt or rejected by them. I spent way to much time chasing boys and not enough time on focusing on things that I should have been. I JUST WANT MY KIDS TO WAIT!

3. I have had numerous crushes and have dated several men and I regret them all. However, I had many friendships that showed me what I was really looking for in a guy. John and I both feel that when two people love like Christ calls them to love, all marriages could work. I want my kids to go into a boy-girl relationship only if they feel that the person could be their spouse. If they have a regular friendship with someone of the opposite sex, that is okay because they are not dating, and if it turns into more, great!

Hopefully this clears things up a bit.

Pieces of your heart

My husband was talking to one of his co-workers a while back. I forget how the subject came up, but this man was telling John how all of his kids waited to have a boyfriend or girlfriend until they were out of high school. This really intrigued John and so he inquired further and found out that this man had began telling his children around the age that they were getting interested in the opposite sex, that school work and God needed to come first and that there would be plenty of time for relationships later. Having casual friends was okay but absolutely no dating until they graduated. I'm sure that there is so much more to the story, but after John shared the story with me, we were both left with more questions about how something like this could actually really work.

We really love the idea since we both wish that we had only been with each other, but to actually relay this to our children and get them to fully understand and embrace our same desires is probably going to be a full time job if not next to impossible. With all of the outside influences that my children are faced with everyday, they have a lot of peer pressure to stand up against.

Now I could probably take them out of the public school system and home school and have a good amount of control over who they get crushes on and so forth. But because John and I believe that our children are learning how to stand up against many of these pressures in school, thus preparing them for the real world, and that they are salting the path for their fellow classmates, public school is and will remain the best option for our family.

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My strong desire for my kids to protect their hearts and wait until they are out of high school before they get serious with a boy or girl is going to have to be explained to them in a way that makes them think that I have their best interest at heart, which I do, and I am not just being some strict, controlling, old-fashioned, uncool, battle axe of a mom.

That is where I was truly blessed through my friend Denise who happened to bring up this subject the last time we were sipping coffee at Starbucks late one night. She put my thoughts and feelings into words that I had been searching for to share with some of my older kids. I listened and was able to later share with my two older boys.

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Of course we want our kids to wait to have sex until they are married, but honestly, I want so much more for them which means them having to wait to do so much more too. I want them to wait to get seriously involved with someone. I want them to wait fall in love. I even want them to wait before they start focusing on looks to the point of infatuation. Basically, I don't even want them to have crushes because they think someone is cute.

Sounds ridiculous, I'm sure. But let me share why I want them to wait.

As it is, I'm already late coming to my two older boys who in their minds believe that they have already had a girlfriend. If you ask them, they have both had the boy-girl relationship where they think a girl is cute, they find that that girl likes them back, they have a friend ask if she wants to be go around, she says yes, they flirt with each other but never even hold hands or sit by each other, then they find out that she thinks some other guy is cute, so they break up after two weeks. Can you picture it?

I want my kids to avoid even this scenario in the future.

First off, marriage is a one time commitment, or at least we are teaching our kids that it is. So if marriage is a one time thing, why is it okay to have numerous, frivolous boy-girl relationships leading up to it?

Second, if marriage is such a special thing and your spouse is supposed to be the one that you save yourself for, why would you want to have had numerous other people in your past that you had essentially given a piece of your heart to by getting involved with them first? Each time you fall head over heels for someone because you think they are pretty and it doesn't work out, they have taken a piece of your heart that you can no longer give to your wife.

"Don't you want to give your whole heart to your wife? Don't you want her to be your first true love? Or do you want to risk having your mind cluttered with other girls from your past? Or better yet, don't you want to be their first and only love or would you prefer wondering if she is thinking of some other guy when she kisses you because your kiss reminds her of him?"

"Or would you rather know that your wife had numerous boy-girl relationships before you?"

"Your body and mind is a special gift that you give to your spouse when you get married and all I am saying is that I think you would have an even awesomer marriage if you saved as much of both as you can for her."

As I explained this to Adam and Caleb in more detail, they really seemed to get it and even went as far as to agree to not give pieces of their heart away. As I expressed what great choices they were making, I also let them know that their decision did not mean that they could not have friends of the opposite sex or couldn't dance with a girl at a prom, or couldn't go out for pizza with a group of girls and boys. It simply meant that they were saving serious relationship stuff till they were ready to get into a serious relationship that could end in marriage... like after they are out of school.

Smash!

Andrew was out riding his bike. John taught him how to do all kinds of cool things on his bike this past weekend and Andrew was out doing all kinds of big boy stunts and stuff. You know the things that really cool, big boys do. And......... he hit a parked car and smashed his pinkie finger real good.

If you can't tell, the nail is no longer attached to his nail bed, but rather, it is laying on it. Ouch, poor guy.

Summing up Saturday

I started the day by making a double batch of Oatmeal M&M cookies. Yummy!

Later I gave haircuts to the boys that needed them.

Here is Jonny before.

During.

And after!

Here is William's shaggy hair.


Doesn't he look much better?


Guitar Hero pooped Jonny out!


Here is Rachel and Julia coloring a poster that Julia bought at Dollar Tree today. A few of the kids earned money doing extra jobs above and beyond their regular chores. They don't get a regular allowance. We don't think that the kids should get paid for helping out around the house and doing their part to contribute to the family. I don't get paid for washing their clothes so why should they get paid for taking out the trash or washing the dishes they eat off of. They do get spending money for extra curricular activities and they have the chance to earn money if they have done their chores with effort and without lip service. It works pretty well.

Andrew and Jonny couldn't help watching the girls color this magnificent piece of art.

It's Friday!

Caleb had another ortho appointment today. After an hour and a half of waiting before being seen, he was not a happy camper when the doctor finished up the appointment by telling him that he needed to have five baby teeth pulled. At this point, he would rather just yank off his braces and call it quits. Can't really say that I blame him, poor guy.

I had William's parent teacher conference this afternoon and it went very well. William is excelling in all areas except in reading comprehension. Surprise surprise. He has a language processing disorder that explains this very issue. I was a disappointed to see that all of the tests in addition to what his teacher says indicates that he is still struggling in this area. And here I thought things were getting so much better. Now don't get me wrong, I am not disappointed in William... I know without a doubt that he is trying his best, it is just hard to accept that maybe just maybe this is something that an IEP or all the help in the world for that matter cannot fully fix. Silly, optimistic mom here thought different. I guess it's back to the drawing board.

As I close, I can tell you that I am totally amazed by my girls right now. Guess what they are watching.... and enjoying. A 1968, James Garner Western called, "Support Your Local Sheriff," given to us in a hand me down bag.

You gotta love hand me downs!

Adding to my blogroll

Hi everyone. I've just got to say what a blessing all of you have been to me in Blog land. I have met so many new people that have left such nice and uplifting comments that I wanted to just say thank you. I also wanted to know if I could add you to my blog roll. Maia, Major Mom, Pricilla, Marlene, Lori, and who ever else I am missing, please leave me your blog address and I will add you.

BTW, aren't all of you guys excited to have spell checker up and running again?!

Hugging his bowl

My poor Jonny is sick again. Being the youngest he can't yet fight off all of the germs that all of the kids bring home. Poor guy. He must have thrown up at least ten different times last night, three of four times each time. By the third or fourth time it was mostly dry heaves. Since all he has wanted is for me to rock him, I got in a good two hour nap today.

Up in the fort

I took this picture around 8:00 am. It's a picture of Sveta, Andrew, Annalyn, and William. I was still in my pj's.