What's Going On....

Things have been great here, just busy. We tried to accomplish a lot of school last week; it went well until Thursday, then we fizzled a bit. I guess I'm going to continue with school at least part of this week.

We spent Saturday cleaning the house. I also made a mental note of all the things that I'd like to get done before our Christmas company arrives. JD resumed working in the basement; he had taken the last few weeks off due to a back injury. We then attended a Christmas party Saturday evening, it was a nice treat after working all day.

This week I need to finish shopping, finish wrapping and make lists of meals and groceries. It is also the much loved HAIR WEEK, which means that Julia has spent a few hours whining this afternoon while I've taken out braids.

The front is out (as you can see,) but I still have the back to go. There's always plenty to do around here!

Little Kids, Big Kids

Today's post is a perfect example of what I said yesterday about the little guys getting all the pictures. While I went out to take pictures of the big kids, Julia and Elijah accompanied me; I can barely even go to the bathroom without them!

Anyway, the camera eventually was turned on them, because they are just so entertaining.

When Elijah saw the puddle, he ran straight to it, into it and started stomping and splashing.

He got down on his knees at one point like he was going to swim in it, but I decided it was too cold to get soaked.

So, another boy/girl difference - look how Julia remains on the side with dry shoes while Elijah stands in the puddle.

No one could ever convince me that boys and girls are born the same; Elijah ignores all the girly stuff and focuses on balls, tractors and dirt.

The Oldest Four - Seldom Seen

The pattern I've noticed is, the younger the child the more pictures I take of them. I guess it's proportional to the amount of time they spend right under my feet. Today I deliberately took some pictures of my oldest four; for many years before adoption entered our lives, they were the only four.

Gabriel -

Alei and her dog, Toby.

Moriah is holding her kitty, Tally.

Alyssa also has her own dog, Charlie.

Prosperity and the Gospel

I have been really pondering the whole rich American, money and Gospel thing lately. Two things have greatly impacted my thinking in this area. The first is the last lesson of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace course, which is labeled "The Great Misunderstanding." Dave explains the reason behind being out of debt and financially stable is not to hoard wealth, but to advance the Kingdom. I was especially impressed when he opened with an adoption story. The reality is that we shouldn't view our money, possessions or even our life as our own; we are accountable to God with how we use all of them and we will answer for our decisions. In the face of that, it's hard to imagine explaining to God our fat retirement in the face of starving children. I am not saying that we aren't supposed to save, because I believe we should and we do, but our wealth shouldn't be our focus nor should a cushy retirement be our life's goal.

The second thing I have been pondering is this short ten minute YouTube video by John Piper on the prosperity Gospel. I urge you to watch it. I have never been a fan of the prosperity message, but this ten minutes summed up for me some things I wouldn't have been able to put into words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRue4nwJaA

Someone has well said, "Our pocketbooks have more to do with heaven and hell than our hymnbooks."

Cyprian, the third-century bishop of Carthage wrote an amazingly up-to-date look at the affluent of the day, which could have been written today. "Their property held them in chains... which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their souls.... If they stored up their treasure in heaven, they would not now have an enemy and a thief within their household...They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves."

Present Training

Gabriel used his birthday presents as a training session for Elijah on present unwrapping. I'm not sure Elijah got the idea, but he thought it was fun.

I have to design one more online photo gift, then I think I'm about done shopping!

Christmas and Birthdays

We didn't go the Christmas parade that we planned to yesterday, due to 20 degrees, snow and ice. Since we stayed home all day, it enabled us to put our tree up and have friends for dinner. I have to say, decorating with nine kids is a little loud and chaotic, but Christmas memories are made never- the- less.

My job is Hallmark ornament box preservationist. The younger kids tend to be a bit rough on the boxes and I'm trying to make them last.

Back when I had a "small" family of four kids, I bought them each a Hallmark ornament each year. Those days are over! Now we just hope that Aunt Bonnie makes her better-than-Hallmark ornaments each year!

So, my oldest son, Gabriel, turned 18 today! We opened presents before church and took him out to dinner after church. It's weird that he's that old now, time really does fly and it seems to go faster and faster the older I get. We want to have a birthday bon-fire and game night for him, but we have to wait until the mud dries out and the game room is done! This time of year is too busy for birthday parties anyway, it'll be more appreciated in a month or so.

Quote

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism." ~Nikita Kruschev

One of Those Days

I'm having one of those days that make me consider a less-stressful job, like the stock market!

Fall Pictures

I wanted to update my littlest people's 10 x 13 pictures on the wall, so I hauled them outside on Saturday and snapped a few. Here's the best I got of Tori and Julia, not too bad for a few frantic shots. I'm going to use one of Elijah that I took when we were up in the mountains. The older six children haven't changed enough in a year that they are getting replaced yet, maybe in the spring.

Tori will be five next month, which is really hard to believe.

Julia is almost three and a half.

I took the girls for physicals and shots (which was not fun!) yesterday and they are both in the 95% for height and weight! They've come a long way from the malnourished babies in Liberia they were when I got them.

Crazy Days

I can already tell that the month of December is going to fly by. JD spent the morning in court evicting our renters. In over 10 years of renting out a few houses, it's the first time we actually had to begin eviction proceedings. I agree with Dave Ramsey, it would be way less stressful to own rental property if it were paid off! I don't think our renters grasp that when they don't pay the rent, we still pay a mortgage and when they don't pay their water bill, etc, it is sent to us. We are still hoping that it will work out against the odds since they showed up late last night and paid part of what they owe.

I spent time this morning meeting a lady in the Food Lion parking lot and buying a large horse from her. Since my little ones are thrilled with horses, and we aren't getting a real one anytime soon, I bought a Fur Real pony off of Craig's List for Christmas. I'd never pay the new price, but I figure that a few years of fun for three little guys is worth the discount price I got it for! Elijah got to see the horse for a few minutes and was thrilled. Thankfully, out of sight out of mind applies to his age, so it will exciting all over again on Christmas.

I'm wishing we had started school way early, so we could have December off, but we didn't - so we can't - so I have to go do more school. I'll leave you with my favorite Elijah picture from the park the other day.

Happy Tuesday!