Lots of Beach....and Too Much Sun

It's already day three of our four beach days. Day one was a blast, but I didn't reapply sun-screen like I should have and several children got burnt. It was also quite cool and windy, so we spent more time playing in the sand than swimming. Elijah loved the water and sand, it was so much fun to watch him enjoy his first trip to the beach.

Julia practiced surfing like the big kids. She was quite the riot as well.

The kids had a sand castle contest. Of course, it was a tie as they were were very different but both impressive.

We had a lot of laughs, thanks to the sea-gulls. I gave the kids corn-dogs and they made the mistake of giving the gulls a few bites. After that, the gulls stalked them. At one point, Tori was running with her corn-dog and the gulls were diving at her. She ate the rest hiding under her beach towel. Ben actually lost his to a gull that nabbed it out of his hands. I thought Elijah would be scared, but he loved them hovering overhead.

Moriah (and her chex mix) had their own little following.

I know that this vacation will provide a life time of good memories.

As we feared, the beach isn't the best choice for the girl's hair. In fact, it's kind of a a nightmare; but the memories are worth it.

Day two at the beach was chilly enough that we didn't swim, so we went to a beach that had an old lighthouse. Pictures to follow shortly.

4-Wheeler Nap

It's grass seed laying day and Elijah has been hard at work. JD called me out to snap this picture. The humorous thing is that he woke up when I was carrying him in the house and he asked for a tractor ride.


Now he's looking at this picture and asking to go "back, Dad-Da, back." I guess we are going to get some sun-screen and head back out.

Wide Open Spaces

JD has spent the last few beautiful days out in the future cow pasture. He has plowed and tilled and raked and smoothed, so now we can actually plant grass. We aren't the most successful grass-growers on the planet, so I really hope it takes. It also costs a fortune to plant this big of an area, so I really, really hope that it grows! All good farmer-daddies give tractor rides; here's Julia's turn.


Elijah basically bases the quality of his day on how much tractor time he gets.

From where I was standing in the field, here's the view to the road that runs along the side of our property - it's our "walking" road; thankfully there are only two cautious drivers that live off of it.

Here's the view to the right -

And the view to the left -

Here's a common site in our yard. Reagan, our dog, gathers them from the woods for us.

When Elijah is trapped inside, he makes do with his little tractor.

He discovered that his keys fit perfectly on the hole on the side. Now he "starts" the tractor before driving it around the kitchen.

Tomorrow we will be offering 4-wheeler rides while spreading grass seed. I'm so thankful for such perfect Easter weekend weather!

Julia Continued

When I re-read my yesterday Julia post, I just wanted to re-emphasize that I can't imagine my life without Julia and I would adopt her again in a heart-beat. I think adopted kids can really suffer from any behavior issues being labeled as "adoption-related" or "attachment-related." Quite frankly, I have seen issues in my biological children that I would quickly classify as adoption-related IF they were adopted. It is often an impossible task to correctly classify the root behavior challenges in children. I am beginning the paperwork to see a counselor that can perhaps refer us to someone for testing. I am still not completely convinced that her behavior is due to her beginning life, but hopefully we can receive some help either way.

I whole-heatedly agree with my commenting friend, Shi, that most people, even those from ideal family settings, could benefit from some counseling at some point, adopted or not.

I'll keep you posted.

On a fun note, I found the perfect t-shirt for Julia's birthday. It says, "we can't all be princesses, some people have to sit on the side-lines and wave at me." That really sums her up!

Before 8:00

Before 8:00, Elijah managed to get his diaper changed, find his keys and scale several objects in the house. Here, he was contemplating what to do with the light-bulb in the lamp.

Here, he turned around and smiled when he saw the camera; before that, he was making a few alterations to the settings on the printer.

Thankfully, he really doesn't scale the computer desk too often, the kitchen table is his regular domain. Here he is after putting on his boots to head out and do chores with the boys. As long as he has his boots, he isn't concerned about clothes.

On an even more exhausting note, I would love ANY input from adoptive Moms about my sweet Julia. Julia is the little girl they wrote about in the poem that says, "when she is good, she is very, very good - but when she's bad, she's horrid." (Something like that, anyway) Julia is a complete, loving sweet-heart, but she is so, so demanding! She whines and demands to be held several hours a day. I have thought for the last few years that she would out-grow it, but now I'm concerned that there is something actually wrong. When we hold her, it's not enough - she demands that certain people not sit by her, she hangs on our necks, she digs in our hair, etc. The attention she receives seldom seems to be enough and her demands are often so unreasonable that she isn't satisfied.

While I've tried "meeting" these demands, I've also tried not. When I insist that she sit by me during school (instead of on me, in my hair) she will scream. I have sat her on her bed before and she can scream for over an hour no problem. I've given up on naps, because they were commonly a two hour scream-a-thon that didn't result in any sleep at all. I can not just sit her in time-out when she is going, because her volume is piercing and she kicks at the furniture, etc.

While I don't think she exhibits common attachment disorder signs, I do think there is some connection to her early days of switching from a family, to an orphanage, then to our home. On another note, she never performs these sessions for JD; all he has to do is tell her to stop crying and she immidiately stops - but not so for me or my teens! There are days that seem to be an endless cycle of demands and other days flow smoothly, with little hold-me demands.

Any wisdom? Any ideas of where I should go to even know if there is something that I need to treat? Thanks!

Back on Track

Now that we are done working at the rental house, I am hoping that I can get life back on track at our house. We spent Friday finishing up details at the house and helping our friends that are moving in pack up their kitchen. As a HUGE blessing for us, we have other people that we know, and trust, lined up to move in once our friends move out in July. It will be so nice to have all this rental-turmoil behind us!

Here's my snap-shot of the last few days. Here's our barn kitties enjoying left-over carpet padding that was awaiting a trip to the garbage can.

Here's a perfect example of farm princess Julia. She has her ballerina outfit with mud boots, holding flowers while hanging out on a tractor attachment. The best of both worlds.

Elijah turned 20 months yesterday; time flies.

We need to take a walk everyday. Here we are heading to our walking road.

It's a blessing to have this area to walk, where seldom a car ever comes to meet my children and dogs all over the road.

I hope to be blogging more this week. I have a lot swirling in my head that hasn't had time to develop.

School Computers

You may wonder how I have time to blog. Well, it's because I don't actually teach my children, our electronic devices do. I'm really just kidding, (but some days I wish they could completely take over and I could have a break.) I just happened to pull out my camera this morning to take a picture of Elijah and this is what I saw around me-

Tori and Julia each playing on a school computer -

Ben doing his new Math-U-See. See the guy on the DVD player? Well, he's a math teacher that doesn't get stressed, even when he has to repeat the same thing six times in a row. He is working out really well for Ben (and me.)

Remarkably, Alyssa is doing math the old-fashioned way, with a textbook and a notebook.

However, Elijah is playing "pink puter" as Julia calls it.

Alyssa was assigned the task of watching "Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang" by her music teacher. So, JD dusted the old VHS off and watched it with the kids. Since it is long, they only got 1/2 way through it on the first night. The next morning, Julia asked me if Daddy was going to finish "Shake-a Shake-a Boom Boom" with them that night.

Shake-a Shake-a Boom Boom put Elijah to sleep, notice he's still gripping the keys he carries all day.

The Gipper

"For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones. The time has come for us to decide whether collectively we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around." - Ronald Reagan

One Week

Well, it's been a whole week since we were blessed with the departure of our free-loading renters - therefore, it's been one full week of cleaning, and painting, and cleaning, and new carpet and CLEANING. We pretty much wrapped it up this afternoon; I just have to touch-up paint and JD needs to fix a basement water leak. After cleaning for a week, Alei told me that she appreciates our cleanliness level. (Trust me that her statement isn't due to my impeccable house-keeping, just the fact that we do house-keeping!) Here's Alei and her friend, Amanda; why only take nine children to clean a house when you can have 11?

Little Elijah fell asleep on the way over and took a long nap on the new carpet. He must like firmness, because he slept way longer than he usually does in his own bed.

Speaking of new carpet; it looks great with the newly painted room. Since I needed to use a flash for this picture, you'll just have to trust me that the camel color is a billion times better than the neon pink that was in this room! For the record, it took four coats to cover the pink - two of primer and two of the paint. I've never painted anything so difficult before. Due to this little incident, we will be adding a clause to our contract about having paint colors approved; of course, these renters didn't follow anything in the contract, so it probably wouldn't have prevented this disaster.

Here's my hard-working husband repairing screens, another casualty of the "illegal" dogs. So, this is where we lived before our big move to farm-life. Although I have fondness for this house and I'm still friends with several of the neighbors, I get kind of claustrophobic there with my kids running amok up and down the drive-way. See all the houses lining the streets? I'm really cut out for farm life, where kids can feed chickens in their pajamas on Sundays so they don't mess up their church clothes!

A departure shot - another pick-up load of stuff. Check out the farm plates - that's the life for me!

Our friends move in next weekend for a few months, then we are praying for good renters!

Spring

Spring is here -
Spring is here -

It's my favorite time of the year -

We are loving our wonderful weather and I love it when the kids can run and play for hours outside!

Happy spring.

Laundry and Such

Ever have a laundry day where your choices of clean attire are jeans with a small hole in the thigh or jeans with a huge hole in the knee?

I'm not sure what's happened, but it seems my laundry has recently doubled. I do load after load every day and the hampers never empty.

Here's Tori basking in the sun, with a few pieces of clean laundry.

I'm off to paint; school has definitely suffered this week.

Keys

Elijah has spent the last week carrying JD's keys around. Not just any key ring, but he's only interested in the few that house a blue tractor key! He wakes up asking for them in the morning and we generally pry them out of his little hand once he is asleep at night. I'm quite sure he holds them all day in hopes of getting a tractor ride once JD comes home from work.

Here he is this morning with his entire face in the wheat bucket; you can see a glimpse of the key in his hand.

What is amazing is that he hasn't put them down anywhere, not even when he's playing outside - until this morning! This morning we had to do a thorough yard search for Daddy's key ring. I sent Ben and James out twice to look and nothing turned up. So, I pulled out the "big guns;" a $2 reward for the first one who found them; then I started looking myself. In no time flat, Ben recalled that he had taken Elijah into the barn and sure enough, there the keys were found. Now Ben is $2 richer (and Tori and Julia are a quarter richer since Julia started crying that she didn't find them.)

I hid the keys and distracted Elijah with pop-pop, it's about the only food that he'll stop for.

We are still busy, busy at the rental house. I'm preparing to paint the ugliest pink room you've ever seen and carpet installers are beginning to work tomorrow. The carpets smell like dogs since they had two huge blood-fang dogs that they were never allowed to have. (For the record, we do allow pets, but they are supposed to be approved and they are supposed to pay a pet deposit for carpet cleaning.)