Update and a Book Review

I am kind of alarmed at my lack of summer. When I decided to take the summer off from swim team, I envisioned time to do things that don't normally happen during the school year. So far, most of them still haven't happened. At the moment, my hurt back, thanks to the cooler on vacation, has limited my tear-through-the-house-and-get-rid-of-junk campaign. Other than that, I have tons to do to prepare Gabriel for his school-year move to Colorado and the school year with my other six school-aged children. I really want to start the school year early, so we can have a nice, long break at Christmas (to do all the things that we normally don't get done at Christmas - notice a theme here?)

So, the last few days, I have been trying to wrap up lots of loose ends; everything from scheduling Alei's wisdom teeth removal to preparing the guinea keet cage. Once I work through this list, I'm going to update Gabriel and Alei's transcripts and order my homeschool curriculum. Then, while I wait for it's arrival, we are going to do a deep clean and organize house campaign before we start school.

Grandma is here until Saturday; yesterday she read Julia to sleep, which was great since she has VBS every evening.

On a separate note, we had a HUGE blessing with our rental home. This month marks the one year anniversary that our nightmare renters moved into our house. They lived month after month paying nothing, or very little, and conjuring up lie after lie. We finally evicted them in the spring. We had friends move in for three months - the only three months of dependable rent the entire year. The house has been sitting empty since they moved out. We have had three different people commit to the house and back out for three different reasons. The third was not supposed to move in until the end of August, so we still had 1/2 of July and all of August to pay the mortgage, utilities, water and lawn care. They backed out Saturday night; Sunday morning, we showed it to a military family just moving to the area. They took it, PAID and are moving in today. As an added blessing, they signed a three year lease. I can't even tell you how wonderful it will be to have dependable rent-payers for three years!

Lastly, I have to recommend this book -

It is a true story about the International Justice Mission (IJM.) They are located in the D.C. area but are a Christian organization that is devoted to freeing human slaves around the world. This particular story is about a little girl brothel in Cambodia. It sends chills down my spine that people will exploit little girls for money, but it is happening in abundance all over the globe.

One more reason that Christians have to stand up for widows and orphans; to prevent them from being sold into a life of slavery!

Quick Sunday Funny

I really was hoping to get time to blog my Saturday organizational tip yesterday, but it didn't happen. We are having missionaries (to Hungary and Slovakia) over for lunch today, so I have lots to do, but I thought I'd share a quick clip from Julia.

Last night I was out sweeping the front patio. Julia came out, put on roller blades and was skating around. At one point, she almost fell, caught herself and did her traditional angry "AAAHHHH" yell. I said, "What's wrong, Julia?" She replied, "You should have taken these away from me!"

That's my girl.........

Adoption Things Too Good to not Share

Here's some definitions that I've thought about many times; it obviously just takes a PhD to put them so eloquently!

Natural child - any child who is not artificial.


Real parent - any parent who is not imaginary.


Your own child - any child who is not someone else's child.


Adopted child - a natural child, with a real parent, who is all my own.


(Rita Laws, PhD)

This reminds me of an episode that I had at a photography studio shortly after bringing Ben and Julia home from Liberia. The photographer was very interested in our family, but was feeling a little too free to quiz us down in front of the children. Since Ben was hanging out with James, and obviously adopted, she pointed at James and asked, "is he your real son?" Both boys stopped and stared at my answer, so she definitely wasn't going to get the information that she was prying for. I answered, "they are all real; I don't have any imaginary children." She replied with, "you know what I mean." I corrected her that the term was biological, not real. I also told her that James was a chosen treasure, just like Ben. I hope it made her think.....

My two least favorite questions that I commonly get are: is he your real son and are they real siblings. I guess the word real should be avoided in adoption questions!

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I know a lot of people struggling with adoption related behaviors in their children right now, just as I've had struggles lately with Julia. The following quote was a real (there's that word again, but in a better context) comfort to me. I took it from a blog, who took it from a blog, so I am just crediting the original blog.

"It isn't that the enemy is attacking you...it is that by helping the orphans we are going behind enemy lines...we are attacking the enemy and he is simply defending his territory. So, when things go wrong, just keep in mine, YOU are making a difference and are a threat to the enemy or he wouldn't feel the need to defend himself against you."


(http://www.torresfamilyadoption.blogspot.com/)

Dressed for Success

Elijah chose James' winter hat and his black cow-boy boots for his morning 4-wheeler ride and trip to the garden.

Later in the morning, he found a nice pair of mittens to compliment his ensemble.

I love kids around the age of two; they are always so entertaining.

Grandmas, Gardens and Chickens

JD's mom is here visiting for two weeks; his sister and husband brought her down and stayed for two nights, then JD will drive her home at the end of her visit. Tori was funny, as usual. When I told her that Grandma was coming, she asked, "which one? the white one or the black one?" I started laughing, as both Grandmas are quite white. She then started laughing and said, "what I mean is... the one with white hair or the one with black hair?"

Here's the white-haired Grandma trying to enjoy her morning tea with Elijah's help.

Elijah and I made an early morning trip to the garden to pick a few things. I can't get over the cantaloupe - they have totally taken over the 20 foot long bed, but that's OK since my blueberry bushes have died and my kiwi have never grown!

I think we are just days away from having our first ones ready to pick.

Elijah likes his mud-boots now. It cracks me up how you can't see any of his legs between his shorts and boots.

Lastly, we got eight more Rhode Island Red hens the other day from a local family. (We also took their two roosters that they assured me are nice - so far, so good.) We moved our afro and silkie babies in with our big chickens, they are all getting along fine after living side by side for so long and put the new chickens in the far side alone.

First, we clipped their wings, however, so they wouldn't fly out and become fox food.

Julia was less than impressed that we got roosters again; she remembers Chirpy and his evil ways! These roosters are no different; they will end up free on Craigslist if they aren't nice!

I finally collected pickle supplies, so that's my now project.

Bountiful Blessings

Perhaps it takes a mother of nine to get excited about produce, but I was pretty thrilled with our haul from my friend, Wendy's, garden.
We had to tote all these peas in and out of the hotel room to keep them cool.

I had lots of little pea workers. They are all now blanched and in the freezer.

I also blanched and froze okra for winter stew.

Today I am hoping to can some pickles; I am just having a hard time finding the needed mix without driving to "town."

I'm Beached Out!

We lived by the beach for nine years before moving to the area we live now; I think I've spent more hours at the beach this summer than those nine years combined! We just spent another few days at the beach, only because JD had to work there, so we went along. We also still have good friends in the area, so my motivation was visiting with them as well as hitting the beach.

The reality is that while we had a lot of fun moments, it was tough to be there without JD hour after hour with seven kiddos. Gabriel and Alei stayed home because of work and school, so I was a bit overwhelmed at times. The worst is usually when Julia hits her high-pitch scream and it's incredibly difficult to calm her down. Elijah has also taken up high-pitch screaming just for fun, so I exert a lot of energy just keeping the two of them from screaming in the hotel and at the pool!


We did have a wonderful time visiting with two long-loved families from our days of living there and my friend, Wendy, blessed us with tons from her mega-garden that we are eating and freezing. We did cut short our last planned visit due to our AC at home leaking in the basement and me straining my back lifting the cooler. I'm OK now as long as I don't look down, lean down or lift anything or anybody. It could be worse, but not fun never the less.

Here's a few beach shots -

Elijah and I had a hundred conversations about the King Neptune statue that went like this:

Elijah - "MOOOOMMMM (grabbing my chin and turning my face so I'm staring right into his eyes) - THAT?"

Me - That's King Neptune

Elijah - "I scared, BAD Neptune, BAD!"

Me - Don't be scared. He's just a big rock.

Elijah - "I scared, BAD Neptune, BAD rock"

Then we'd play for two minutes and repeat the above.........He did like the blue slides, however, when the sand wasn't too hot - like at 9:00 p.m.

One of our trips to the beach, Julia found a few friends and they spent hours gathering little sand crabs. They must have had 100 in the bucket. The one little girl would get mad at Elijah anytime he came near the bucket. I saw the little girl's parents eye-brows shoot up when Julia announced that Elijah was her brother. I always find it humorous to watch people's reactions to my very African and very blond children. (You've got to entertain yourself somehow so many hours at the beach!)

There's my little screamer. She is a cutie and she loves, loves, loves the water.

Oh, the sand. It doesn't matter what precautions I take, we seem to eat and sleep in sand for a week after a trip to the beach. The one day after I outside showered off all the kids and boogie-boards, I turned around and Julia was rolling around in the sand. Amazing.....

Here's Elijah soaking up some rays. He broke his sun-glasses, so he wanted to wear mine!

All in all, the kids had a great time and I survived. I may need a little vacation to re-cover from my "vacation" but that generally is part of my normal life.

I have some okra to freeze (never mind, I've never even eaten it - Wendy told me how to freeze it for stew this winter.)

Why? In Contrast to Common Sense...

I honestly feel like I would set international adoption aside if the Lord had not given me such a clear sign. The following excerpt is from my previous blog a little over a year ago. At that time I felt that the Ethiopian orphan crises was continually being set in front of me and yet, there was no way I could walk through that door with our housing market crises and a large Liberian adoption loan. Now I know that Ethiopia is in our future, but it's not immediate and I have been able to rest in that


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June 2009 -

Our second issue was the boat that we bought, and shouldn't have, several years ago. This isn't a little fishing boat, this is a big, big boat with beds and all. When we bought it, we had five children and fit in it; now we don't fit or have time for the beast. We have been trying to sell it for well over a year and it isn't the kind of thing that people are snatching up when it requires 100 gallons of gas (no exaggeration required) to even put it in the water. We finally resorted to putting it on eBay and were willing to take a size able loss just to be rid of the monthly payment that we've been making on it. So, week after week, the boat hasn't sold and I hit relist on my add; paying and praying for a miracle.

I now jump forward to Ethiopia. Over and over, I feel like we are supposed to do another adoption and Ethiopia keeps presenting itself. As much as I'd love to jump on that bandwagon, the reality of our home loan and current Liberian adoption loan is overwhelming. On top of the reality that we have two children ready to start college classes this year, and the most unreasonable thing in the world that I could fathom was the idea to do another international adoption. The weight of feeling like I was supposed to research adoptions in Ethiopia, etc, was really present this last week while JD was away in San Diego. I stayed up late several nights reading. On Tuesday night I prayed before bed that I didn't want to continue looking into adoptions if we were not supposed to adopt again and it was all just me. I told the Lord that I needed a CLEAR sign from him if Ethiopia was in our future. I decided to lay out the fleece and prayed, "Lord, unless that boat sells from this eBay listing, I'm done looking into Ethiopia; I'm resuming my normal life." I believe at that point, there were only two or three days left on the listing. The very next day, JD called me from San Diego and told me that there was a guy who was interested in the boat and that they might want to come up and see it on Sunday. I asked JD if he wanted to know my prayer at that point or if he wanted to wait; of course he wanted to hear, so I told him. I told him that my deal with the Lord was that it would sell from that listing, without relisting it. Well, the man came today. He and his wife and baby made a five hour drive from SC; they spent a bit of time here and negotiated a bit, but didn't leave until he wrote us a check for the boat. The boat sold! The boat that we've advertised for 18 months sold the week that I asked the Lord for a clear sign!!!

So we both firmly believe that Ethiopia is in our future. I still don't see how, but I have faith that God will make a way where there seems to be no way! I also believe that our home loan is going to work out without devastating us financially. We see this house as far more than just a home, but that's another post for another day. So, we are just sitting here today, amazed that God cares enough about us, our current children, and our future child/children that He sold a boat to show us!

Trying to Figure It All Out

I just finished the book, Crazy Love, last night. It was very good and I'm looking forward to ordering and reading the new David Platt book, Radical. Both deal with the idea of true Christianity and "the American dream." I have personally struggled with this since my trips to Africa! When you see hungry children that have NOTHING, it changes the way you view things. I really struggled with building our current house; on one hand, it was too big and too nice, on the other hand, we would never pass a home-study to adopt again without more room (oh, and I might have lost my mind with everyone piled on top of each other one more winter!) My compromise was big, but not fancy; we got a lot of room with a finished basement, etc, that didn't have as big of price tag. I don't agree that being poor is more "spiritual" but I have a keen awareness that one day we will answer for what we are given. Scripture is clear that to whom much is given, much is required. In the worldwide arena, we have been given MUCH!

With that in mind, I am always scouting for children that need a home (after all, I have room....) but I really know that I am not supposed to search too hard until next year. I never like waiting once I have an idea of what I'm supposed to do. That's another tough thing to understand - why God calls us to wait when we think we should contribute at the moment. Although at any time, I am completely capable of convincing myself that I can't possibly adopt again - all those people are right, I do have my hands quite full and I have a hard time balancing it all now! I know, however, that the reality is that we are called to adopt again, at least one more time and we are willing.

So, for now, I focus on what I'm supposed to do and July is full. We are heading out of town for a few days tomorrow, then I have family coming from out of town, then we have VBS, then it's August and time for my big back-to-school clean, organize and plan!

The summer is flying by, but we have made good family memories. Yesterday was great fun as well. After church we had friends over for a cook-out. The kids played and swam and we adults talked (and ate!) Last night, Aunt Deb headed to the fire-works with us, although for the first time, my two big kids did something with their friends instead of coming with us. There are lots of occasions lately that there are "only" seven kids instead of nine! Here's Alyssa in the van on the way to fire-works. She started reading the Left Behind book series and they are rather challenging to put down; good thing I bought her that book light.

Here we are in our festive red, white and blue watching the fire-works. Aunt Deb was taking a picture with her phone, not texting her friends! Elijah yelled the colors of each one; I've never had an under two year old know his colors before.

I hope you had a happy July 4th; we are so blessed to live in this great country!

Our Baby

I've been faithfully paying my Y membership for over a year and have never gone. I kept paying because we get it cheaply, since Gabriel works for them, and my teenagers do go and work out. Since Gabriel is moving away in the fall and I'll be forced to pay full-price, I thought this summer was a good time to try it out and see if I want to continue. So, this week I've tried three different classes while the kids have had a blast at a few kid classes as well. All the kids, except Elijah, that is! Elijah doesn't stay with anyone outside of the family, we've been blessed that Aunt Deb keeps him when we have to leave him. We are still at the point that we alternate staying with him in the nursery at church as well.


So, at this point I am taking all the kids to the Y with me except Lijah - he is staying home with Alei, who he calls Lee-Lee. He misses his kids while they are gone, but not enough to go in that room full of strangers!


I don't know how long this will last; he is turning two later this month. But for now, he'll be home with Lee-Lee for that one hour three times a week. I don't think it's worth pushing him yet; I'd rather he feel safe and loved.

Alei took these pictures of him yesterday while they played together. And someday, I know too well, he will want to do all kinds of things without his Momma in tow; but for now, he can continue to be our baby.