Post Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving Day. We extended our new Amish table with two leaves to fit everyone around. Julia announced "Happy Misgiving" to everyone several times and Ben said that we should have this for dinner every night!

At clean up time, Elijah jumped in to help. After not eating at the meal, he decided to try the mashed potato serving spoon and found it to his liking.

He then thought it may taste even better if he dipped his slipper in it.

On top of good food, we are all thankful for the love of family.

My clan went Black Friday shopping at 3:00; then we are heading for breakfast at Aunt Deb's house. She may be regretting hosting a Black Friday breakfast about now since she got up at 2:00 a.m. to stand in line at Best Buy for a new lap-top!

Pre-Thanksgiving

We, as most families, are busy getting ready for Thanksgiving. We are having dinner here with some family and friends. JD hurt his back and hasn't even been able to go to work all week, so the kids are stepping up and helping with the cooking this year.

The only way that I don't have Julia and Elijah's help is if I let them watch TV. Elijah is quite fond of Baby Einstein. In fact, he climbs in the rocking chair and points at the TV several times a day. I usually whisk him away and distract him, but sometimes I put on the only old VHS we have of Baby Einstein. It is baby animals, which he is thrilled with. He doesn't ever want to watch it alone, he likes a big kid to sit and discuss each animal's sound with him. Here's Alyssa, with baby Keyla, that kindly volunteered for the job yesterday. Keyla was pretty impressed with Baby Einstein as well.

On top of Thanksgiving cooking and cleaning, it was hair week again. I re-did only 1/2 of Julia's and Dena did all of Tori's. Here's little Tori yesterday heading to the grocery store with me; she has always loved hats and looks pretty cute in them.

I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Busy Making Books

I am always feeling bad that my oldest four children have scrapbooks filled with pictures of them and my younger crowd doesn't have a single one. In fact, I haven't done one scrapbook page since I brought Ben and Julia home. Since Snapfish sent out a 50% off photo books coupon, I got the crazy idea of whipping up the kids a book of themselves for Christmas. Needless to say, these things always take more time than I hope, but I've worked the last few days and ordered one for Tori and one for Julia. Here's the cover of Tori's; it covers her from arriving in America, fall of 2006, until Christmas 2007. This picture was taken September 2007.

Julia's didn't cover as much time, as I got my good camera about this time and there were more pictures that I couldn't resist using. Her book covers her arrival in America, summer of 2007, through the same Christmas 2007. Here's the cover picture of Julia also taken September 2007.

I think the girls will be thrilled to have their own books, now I only have to hope that they run another special before Christmas that can motivate me to whip up a book for Ben and James!

Flashback Friday - Benjamin

This Flashback Friday post is the story about the day that we met Benjamin in Liberia.

When we traveled to Liberia in August of 2006, we didn't know any details about Victoria's biological family. When we were taken to meet her mother, she brought along 5 year old Ben and we were told about their two older sisters. I remember how badly I felt that I didn't have anything with me to give to him; we dug around in the diaper bag and only came up with a few packs of smarties. He sat quietly for the entire meeting, stared at us and ate those smarties. When he left with his family, we asked the social worker more questions. He revealed that Ben was already cleared for adoption, but not admitted to the orphanage due to lack of room. I remember standing in the hot sun and trying not to cry. Once we came back to America, we prayed about Ben's adoption for over two months before beginning the process all over again. It was JD in the end who really pushed for the adoption, which was the opposite of our first two adoptions. I rested in the fact that he really felt it was the Lord's will, although I found adopting a six year old out of the Bush of Africa a bit scary. We returned for Ben in June of 2007, along with Julia, but that's another story for another day.


Here I am with Ben and Tori at our surprise first meeting. I had no idea he would end up being my son!

One time Ben told me that before us he had only seen white people once on the beach. I asked him, "did you ever think you would end up living in America with white people?" He laughed and said, "no, I never thought that!" Life is full of surprises!

It's the Best of Times, It's the Worst of Laundry Times

If you are wondering where I've been, I'm buried in house-hold chores. After my main washer and dryer were out of commission for almost a week, JD hooked up our new boxed pair in the future laundry room. The room isn't ready for a permenant placement, so they'll have to be unhooked and moved again, but it enabled us to get back to laundry. I can't wait for the day that I have both pairs running smoothly!


Due to the forced laundry break, we were buried pretty high in dirty clothes. This is about 1/3 of the mountain that is now washed and awaiting folding. As you can see, I've never been one of those fold-as-it-comes-out people; I'm a mound and fold all at once kind of Mom. The washer part box and all the laundry doubled as fun for Julia and Elijah; here's Julia playing "I'm gonna get you" with Elijah.

In between laundry mountains, I've been on a few rounds of grocery shopping. I like to stock up on turkeys at the Thanksgiving sale time. I'm up to six turkeys and two hams in the freezer. That should get me through until next Thanksgiving's sales.

Lastly, I've painted the sun-room again. When it was Tori and Julia's princess room, it had to be pink. Now I painted it a camel color. I'm actually quite unhappy with the color now that it's done; I think it's kind of peachy-camel. It's going to end up being Elijah's room whenever he moves out of our room, so I didn't want it girly. For now, it's just going to be the sun-room and a guest room when needed.

(Like a good preacher, I have another comment after my lastly one...) In between my work, we've had our normal fun moments - like tea-party with real tea. I need to find Julia a plastic tea set as she broke at least 1/2 of Tori's this week.

Never a dull moment - never!

Water 4 Christmas

I missed blogging for water on November 13th, which was first gift day, but it's not too late. Consider taking $20 out of your Christmas fund and provide an African in poverty water for 20 years. Did you know that more Africans die from dirty water than war? Considering the volume of civil wars across Africa, that's horribly remarkable.

Check out water4christmas.com and know that every $20 gives another person clean water and every $20 goes completely to water.

Smothered With Love

Aunt Deb came over for the day. Since she moved out, she is quite the novelty when she comes to visit and is smothered with love. Here she is, sewing a repair with all kinds of help. She even had children taking turns pressing the sewing machine pedal for her. I repetitively heard, "slow down, press gently."

Julia is the real leech, she will hardly even get off her lap to sit next to her. At least Aunt Deb knows she's loved!

Adoption and Risk

Do you know how many times, before I adopted, people said to me things along the line of, "you don't know what you are going to get?" No, I didn't know what child I was going to end of with, but God did and He chose accordingly. This statement is really annoying along two lines. One is that people are assuming that other family's DNA is more flawed than their own. I don't know about you, but we have plenty of "issues" in our combined DNA that the statement, "you just don't know" certainly applies to a biological child as well. The second reason that I don't appreciate that comment is the simple fact that a child is worth a risk. To not provide an orphan with a chance because they are viewed as a risk goes against the very love and compassion that we are called to as Christians. Thankfully, people don't say that to me anymore after four adoptions. At some point, people consider you too far gone for their "helpful" advice and that's OK with me.

Here's a saying on risk that really hit me. I really like the line, "the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." I don't think it's possible for most people, if anyone, to live the life they are called to without risk.

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.

My Boy

Looking at Elijah, I've thought over and over that if every baby in the world was loved as much as my little guy, the world would be a better place. It breaks my heart that there are babies with no mommies, that there are babies who go to bed hungry, that there are moms that try to nurse their babies but don't make enough milk due to malnutrition. I wish every baby was loved as much as my baby boy; and no baby grew up to suffer from attachment problems later on.

It's been remarkable to watch Elijah at every stage of his little life. He is pushing 16 months and has really started to play. Today I had the boys bring up the animal tub that's been tucked away in their room. Elijah loves animals and it held his interest for quite some time.

He was really thrilled with the bears. After having the bears growl and bite, he bit one of them back.

He's also figured out that the camera is connected with saying cheese and smiling. Here he realized I had the camera.

The good thing about being child #9, is that there is usually someone to play with you. Today was no exception.

I think we can do one more. One more here means one less hungry, cold and lonely orphan somewhere in the world!

Some Days

Some days, little needs to be said when you have a camera. Here's a small sample -

Yes, that is my washing machine. It's only five years old, so we put money into parts. The bad news is that we are now up to $500 in parts, but the first parts couldn't be returned to call it quits and buy a new one. My washing machine does receive probably four times the use of a normal family considering our size and our setting.

This is Tori resting on the laundry pile that is awaiting our attention. The good news is that it's clean, done right before the washing machine died.

This is Julia after a piece of gum. Add gum to the growing list of things that Julia shouldn't have unsupervised!

Here's a positive note to end on. Elijah loves shoes; so much so that he often wears a pair on his feet and his hands. Any one's shoes are game for his hands, so today his top choice was a big pair of cow slippers.

The slippers doubled as a toy; he made them crawl around and say, "moo."

Thankfully, tomorrow's Friday!

Soccer and Issues with Questions

We are thankfully nearing the end of the soccer season. I'm quite thrilled to be done with the time commitment for now! Here's James and Ben playing before Ben's game -

So, part of the reason I decided to not send my difficult learners to school for a year was that I didn't want Ben to hear the other kids make comments about him being Liberian or having an accent or any other ugly thing that some kid would say some day. I just didn't think he was strong enough or established enough to deal with it yet. Well, we got it at soccer again the other day. We've played this other team twice now. The first time, Ben complained about a particular boy on the other team saying rude things to him. I played it down and hoped we wouldn't have to deal with him again. So Saturday, Gabriel took him to his soccer game and they were playing "mean boy's" team again. This time, after picking on Ben, the boy told him, "I don't like you because you are black." Well, this has brought the Momma bear out in me and I immediately wanted to speak to the boy's parents. I've waited a few days to calm down and now I think I'm going to call the other team coach and ask for the contact number for little #5! What do you guys think? Should I assume the parents are better than this and give them a chance to straighten out their son's thinking? I really feel like I at least owe that to Ben. The good news is that Gabriel took a ton of pictures during the game, so we have no doubt which number the bully is! (I'm not picturing him, however, that could be a scandal in our small county!)

Like most Liberian boys, Ben is a natural runner and soccer player. We only need to work on his agression; he doesn't like to take the ball if someone on the other team has it. It's a nice character trait, except in sports.

Any suggestions before I make the call?

The Cow Pasture and Chirpy

It finally dried out enough this weekend to till the future cow pasture. It's a lot of work to prepare the soil and grow grass, then we have to fence the 2 plus acres!

Looking the other direction -

Yesterday it was warm and beautiful, so I had the little guys outside taking turns on the 4-wheeler. Julia and Elijah don't really grasp the turn taking thing, so if it's not their turn, there's crying until the 4-wheeler is out of sight. While I didn't get any pictures of the rides, I did get a few afterwards. Elijah was loving on Lincoln, our dalmatian mutt, until he didn't know what to think. He is the nicest dog, but a bit insecure. The poor dog was obviously mistreated in his former home because he is scared of so many things. I acquired him a few years ago when he was dumped on our street.

While JD had Elijah on the 4-wheeler, Julia and I were walking around taking a few pictures. We saw that Chirpy, our resident rooster, was out of the fence and Julia was a little nervous. I assured her that she was fine since she was with me (and I honestly don't think Chirpy had been mean in months.) No sooner were the words out of my mouth, than Chirpy puffed up his neck, charged at Julia and attacked the back of her leg. I promptly kicked him off of her. When JD returned, he scooped him up, "spanked" him and tossed him back over the fence.

Poor little Julia cried and cried, more out of offense than pain. JD told her that if she wanted, we could eat Chirpy for dinner. This is kind of a joke, because we've never eaten any animal on our farm. Anyway, Julia cheered up immediately and was thrilled with the idea of eating Chirpy.

30 minutes later we were heading in for the night when Julia told me that she was hungry. I asked her what she would like for a snack. She very seriously replied, "Chirpy, remember Mom? Dad said I could eat Chirpy!" That idea doesn't bother this little Liberian in the least!

Beads, The Basment and Orphan Sunday

Thankfully, last week's hair event was a success and I don't have to do any hair this week! I cornrowed the front of Julia's for the first time and it isn't too bad. It's not like I'm ready to open a braiding salon in my free time, but I'm learning. I also put beads in Tori's hair after Ms. Dena worked her magic. Here's my beaded princesses.

Tori and Julia had two birthday parties on Saturday. The first one was a fancy tea-party. Thankfully, I got a deal on this year's Christmas dresses, so we broke them out. Here's Tori -

and Julia - The girls did well with the tea and china.

JD is back to Geo-thermal work in the basement. He finished the down-stairs last year, but has about three rooms left to install for the upstairs. In the meantime, we have regular forced air heating, it just costs a lot more to run than the Geothermal. Here's the beginning of the end. The grey tracks have to be drilled in, then the red hoses snap into the grooves, then the foil, insulation and ceiling can be installed. It's going to be a long project I'm afraid.

The good news is that Elijah is pretty capable on the stairs these days, so he makes his way down to "help." Here he is selecting a tool to help his Dad.

His glue choice was actually one of the safer options. The unfinished side of the basement isn't exactly child friendly.

Far more important than beads and basements is that today is official Orphan Sunday.

Orphan Sunday from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Orphan Statistics and One Little Face

I've read and compared a lot of orphan statistics; these seem to be quite conservative. I've heard over and over, "well, you can't save them all." No, I can't, but if everyone did their part, we could make a huge dent. The reality is that each one of these children are a soul and matter to God every bit as much as our children do. Can you imagine what we would be capable of if our child's very life hung in the balance? You can literally save a life for $20-30 a month. That is the cost to feed, clothe and educate a child on a child sponsorship program. I can highly recommend Mission of Mercy, we've sponsored children with them for our entire marriage. 100% of the funds go to your child, their over-head expenses are covered by corporate donors. Consider saving an orphan today!

Every 15 SECONDS, another child becomes an AIDS orphan in Africa
Every DAY 5,760 more children become orphans
Every YEAR 2,102,400 more children become orphans (in Africa alone)
143,000,0000 Orphans in the world today spend an average of 10 years in an orphanage or foster home
Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…
Every YEAR 14,050,000 children still grow up as orphans and AGE OUT of the system
Every DAY 38,493 children AGE OUT
Every 2.2 SECONDS, another orphan child AGES OUT with no family to belong to and no place to call home
In Ukraine and Russia 10% -15% of children who age out of an orphanage commit suicide before age 18.
60% of the girls are lured into prostitution. 70% of the boys become hardened criminals.
Many of these children accept job offers that ultimately result in their being sold as slaves. Millions of girls are sex slaves today, simply because they were unfortunate enough to grow up as orphans.


Tomorrow I plan on doing a Flashback Friday on my little Victoria. I am still amazed at how God spared her little life. Here's our referral picture of Tori; she was about 1 1/2 at the time of our referral.

I spent hours in 2006 staring at this picture; it's the only one we ever got before we arrived to get her!

Always Cooking

No matter how busy the days are, people still have to eat; therefore, we cook...and cook...and cook. Thankfully, Julia (and Tori) are expert egg crackers. Here's Julia cracking a few for breakfast.

When I make bread, Julia always eats the raw wheat. I assume it's good for her, so I let her. Here she and Tori made "wheat cookies" which were small piles of wheat on napkins. It was a great game, but the wheat ended up being all over the floor before it was over.

I often make chicken noodle soup for lunch in the fall and winter, most of the kids love it. Here I gave Julia the task of peeling carrots. She, at the age of three, can peel a good eight carrots and run them through the food processor. I don't let her chop the ends off yet however. What's funny is that she held a play phone and chatted with her friend, Abby, Dad and Aunt Deb while she peeled. When you listen to her, you would think she really has someone on the phone, as she pauses and laughs.

For dessert....Elijah helped with the oatmeal cookies and sampled a bit of dough.

The other thing that is always in need of attention is laundry, but there's no cute pictures to accompany that.

The Princess Room has Moved!

Here's coming in the door of the new princess room. I bought a few African art pieces for the kid's rooms in Liberia.

I hung the beautiful quilts that the church presented to the girls at their dedication.

Look at that smile on Julia's face, makes it worth the work!


My blogger is still messed up. Until I hit post, the pictures show up as enormous text. Anyone else having this problem? I can't re-arrange the pictures or write anything between them. (Not anymore, thank you, Donna!)

Room moving was a lot of work, but now that the princess room is done, I can move on to painting the sun-room/guest room/Elijah room/whatever it will be room.

I was so sad watching the Orphan Relief video of the children's moldy foam "beds" and then looking at Tori and Julia's princess comforters. I love bedding and I want to see the children at Gold Child orphanage have beds and sheets! That's what I really want for Christmas!

Yesterday Today

Today a friend informed me that yesterday's post teaser's actual event (did you follow that?) is this Wednesday. Hillsong's We're All In This Together is in theaters all over the country this Wednesday only. The web-site that shows the theaters is:

www.i-heart.org.

See if you can go, unfortunately, I don't have one anywhere near me.

Hillsong's We're All In This Together

We need to realize how truly blessed we are! If you own a computer to read these words, you are among the wealthiest in the world!

Make sure you pause the music at the bottom of my blog, to be able to hear the video.