Sometimes It Has to Get Worse

 Sometimes things just have to get worse to get better. When I started my storage room clean-out project, I decided that I wanted to move the shelves to allow for more Rubbermaid space. What I didn't realize is that my husband had the shelves bolted to the wall. Once I had unloaded them, I was determined to move them, so James and I worked until we had them dismantled and "remantled". The clean out took a full two days. 


Storage room mid-project -  

The view inside now - (I got three of these shelves from the local video store when they went out of business for only like $20 each.)

 The play-room during the project - 

The play-room now - (The playroom clean out stemmed from the storage room clean-a-thon and is thankfully just one more room finished.) 

JD was out of town for the two days I worked on this (otherwise I would have enlisted his help with the shelves). Once he came home, he suggested that we move the 3rd white shelf to the other side of the room and he could build a shelf that would hold about another dozen Rubber-maids. We will be revisiting that wonderful idea at some point.

More Selah and Isabella Pictures

 I'm about to head out for six hours of oppressive heat at a swim meet, but wanted to post a few more pictures. This picture was as they were walking Selah and Bella towards us for the first time; it shows their personalities so clearly. Bella took off running, thrilled to meet her Mom and Dad for the first time. Selah was looking at us and processing it all, although it only took her a few minutes for her to start smiling and playing also. I often imagine how Julia or Elijah would react in this situation - I don't think there would be much smiling! (There are some huge differences in kids raised in orphanages!) This was also the first I was really sure Selah wasn't five - she is barely taller than 2 1/2 year old Bella and seems to about Elijah's age (of almost four).

This was lunch the first day. Selah had no problem eating her bowl of food (with her hands) but Bella didn't finish in the time the other kids did (there were two tables of six kids each in the eating room), so they showed up with a spoon and literally shoveled it in as fast as they could. You could tell Bella was accustomed to it as she just opened and swallowed as fast as she could. I'm just thankful they are being fed well!

After the first day, if we had the girls for meal time, they would just deliver their food to us and we would feed them. 

We spent as much time with them as we could, but there were so many trips away that they are never allowed to go on. It was so different from Liberia, because we hauled our adoptive children all over the country with us. Ethiopia only allows them to go to the embassy trip and then to the airport!

There will be more, but now I'm off to pack my cooler!

Isabella Truth Addisalem

Isabella means "pledged to God; God is my oath." Looking back, God was planting the idea of her in our mind before she was even born. He, obviously, has great plans for her. It has been a remarkable path to her and Selah and God has revealed Himself all along the way. We are so thankful to present our 11th child - 7th daughter - Isabella Truth Addisalem.


This is the first moment we met - 

She has to be the happiest, most easy-going two year old I have ever met. She was just happy with anything we did.

Cute, or what?

I can't wait to get her home!

This was our pre-approval picture for court.

And this wasn't staged...she just is that sweet.

Tomorrow I can show you the Selah and Bella pictures together.

Blessed

 I had to make the 7 a.m. pool run to drop Moriah this morning that JD usually does. When I returned, this is what I found in my bed. I feel blessed to have such a sweet snuggle-bug that joins me in the early mornings (or late nights). I am blessed beyond most!

The Waiting is Killing Me

I talked to the adoption agency - there is still no word in Isabella's MOWA letter. It is the final piece that we need for court to be complete. According to my recent guesstimation that really means nothing...it will be around two months after that piece of paper before we can hope to travel (give or take weeks or even months). It's so easy to say it's God's timing, etc, but sometimes I just feel like screaming from the roof; right now is one of those moments. So, if you feel led to pray for our adoption, pray for our MOWA (Ministry of Women and Children) letter to be processed. Then I can show you sweet, little Bella's face. 

Finally Summer

 Friday was a big day around here, in spite of it getting no blog coverage. It was Ben's last day of math (thus the last official last day of the 2011-2012 school year). I know, it's way late, but better late than never, right? It was also Julia's last day of summer school, which was a wonderful program that was three hours a day for three weeks. My mind can switch to summer now, although I spent several hours today working on fall schooling plans. I need to call tomorrow and register Alei with her Liberty University online classes and I'm working on ordering Alyssa's books for her second year at Classical Conversations.


In the meantime, we had five baby chicks hatch the last two days. Here is Elijah analyzing the whole hatching process.

I started one more of my "adoption nesting" projects that I've been so anxious to work on. I ordered a dozen plastic shoe boxes, whipped out the the label maker and tackled the master bathroom cabinets. Imagine all this junk in here with only two boxes...yeah, I didn't take a before picture. It would have been too embarrassing. 

I think I'm going to start on the storage room tomorrow and I'm not taking a before picture of it either. A lot needs to leave that room to make it a comfortable storage space again. Oh, and hair...I have four more days of Julia hair. 

Hair, Bathrooms and Garden (for Grandma)

 My mother-in-law pointed out that I hadn't updated my blog in a few days, so I'm taking time away from more exciting things ( like hair and laundry) for a quick post. HAIR has been my daily routine. I try to do two corn-rows into micro-braids a day, but some days we spend over an hour on just one and I don't get to the second one. You can't see my progress in this picture, but fear not, there will be a hair post when I get done (in about another week)! I really love the look and may be repeating my tedious procedure on another African daughter or two.


(Julia with a friend's super cute baby)

We have also re-painted the two girl's bathrooms. Alei chose this shower curtain and rug and I bought paint that matched; then Alei taped and painted the bathroom. 

The first bathroom went very well, so I sent Moriah and Alyssa to chose the items for the second girl bath across the hall and they came home with this combination. I taped the bathroom, but Alyssa painted it. 

All that fun in the bathroom (and my pointing out that we are about to have two more people needing bathrooms) prompted JD to begin on the empty shell of the downstairs bathroom. Since Gabriel leaves for the Navy in October and the new girls are coming home, we are re-figuring out the bedroom and bathroom assignments. I may end up painting this new one again, because it's a rather ugly color I chose in a hurry four years ago; we'll just consider it a base coat.

I am so thankful for this house. It is the first time we have adopted and not been stressed about where to fit the new little guys! 


My other time-taker is my garden. The time I spend out there is so, so worth it to me. Humor me while I show you a few shots. 


These are the cherry tomato plants that I pick a nice size bowl off of every day. I love them; James eats a few but Julia and I eat the rest. 

I planted these purple peas less than two weeks ago with straight seeds in the ground; they are growing like crazy. Last year I did only two rows and had space between the rows, so this year I put in four. 

I counted about 15 nice watermelon growing. 

The cantaloupe (and watermelon) are from seeds that Wendy saved from her garden last year. The cantaloupe are covered in flowers and baby melons and have grown over the bed on both sides. I'm going to look into freezing the excess honey-dew and cantaloupe this year for the winter. The bagged frozen fruit from Costco contains them, so it has to be doable. 

Here's today's tomato pick. I actually canned three quart jars the other day and broke two in the cannery because I didn't heat the jars long enough. What a waste of tomatoes - I won't be doing that again (breaking them - I'm still going to can them)!

Get a Look at Her...

 The majority of the time I forget what a spectacle our family can be. This morning I was cruising down the road on the way to church (JD had gone on ahead with a car) when a red mini-van passed me in the left hand lane. The lady had her face smashed to the glass and the man driving was leaning way out over the steering wheel so he could stare at me without being blocked by his wife's head. It was so obvious as they were driving next to me that I started racking my brain, wondering if I drove off from the gas station with the pump hanging out of the side of the van or something. Then I realized, it's just because of my stickers. They literally were just trying to get a look at someone who has that many kids. (I wonder what they thought I'd look like? Hopefully, I appeared normal!) 

Along the same line, a few weeks ago we were sitting at the ATM with the doors open while JD deposited checks. Two men walked by the van and one said to the other, "don't you think you are supposed to stop having kids before the stickers have to hit the second window?" I just laughed.


The back of our van - 

Here's something that has nothing to do with a large family, other than the fact that we eat a lot of watermelon. This year, three watermelon plants started growing alongside the flowers in the front flower bed, (I'm assuming from spit seeds). I decided to let them grow and we carefully sweep around the growing vines everyday. 

So far, we have three bonus watermelon growing on the patio; thankfully I also have more in the garden where I intentionally planted them. It made me think, why wouldn't I plant some pretty "food" plants along with flowers next year; we do have a lot of mouths to feed.  

Just Words

We had a really great 4th of July and I just headed for the camera to download a picture to prove it, but apparently the camera headed to PA with JD. We decided just yesterday that JD should head up and spend a little time with his Mom, because she was forced to spend her 4th in the hospital instead of the family reunion that was planned. JD and Moriah got up early and were on the road when I woke up late, 7:45 actually, which is the exact time that Julia's bus comes. I decided it was not a big deal, so got ready and left to drive her. Since the AC repairman was scheduled to come, I had to wake up Alyssa so there would be a vertical person in the house when Elijah woke up and if the AC guy showed up. I was really feeling good about the day because the house was clean and the laundry caught up, so I could focus on school and a few other things that are on my long "to do before leaving for Ethiopia" list. As I headed out the door, I saw a text from JD to call him as soon as I woke up.


I knew it wasn't good when the first thing he said was, "have you been down-stairs"? Uh, no, why? He told me that we had a flood...something about the AC that isn't working right, and a coil, and the shop-vac, carpet and fan. Great! Somewhere in that conversation it hit me that he had said, "a couple of bad things." I interrupted him to reassure myself that the flood was all I had to deal with the two days he was away, right? No, he then blessed me with the news that our new renters, that we moved into our missionary friend's home just last week, burnt down the garage with fire-works. OK, stopping right there, I just have to tell you that this is the second rental home that we have had renters burn down the garage. Both times, the garage was attached and caused enough overall damage to the house that the people had to move out. I think we're going to need to add "no fireworks" to the rental agreement. (People laugh at the length of our leases, but much of it has originated from the school of hard knocks).


You know, we still had a good day. I didn't have swim team and we accomplished a lot of school, two more sections of Julia's hair and the first coat of paint on the bathroom. Other than that, I did a good bit of water clean-up and tried to convince Elijah that he wouldn't drown in double floaties in the pool, even if I let go of him. 


The really good news is that JD is coming home tomorrow and can take back over emergency situations. I did enough of them as a Navy wife and now enjoy being a retired Navy-wife!

Still Working

 JD is heading down the hall with the wood floor. The progress is fast, but the trim pieces on order will not be in until Thursday, so we will be semi-putting furniture back for our 4th of July company. I am very, very happy with it; I have always wanted wood floor and this is the first time we have ever installed it.

I am working on putting Julia's locs in. Last weekend, I corn-rowed her hair into three levels of ten corn-rows each. I am now removing a corn row at a time and putting nine to 12 locs in that spot. It is slow tedious work; it took me an an hour and 20 minutes today to do two corn-rows. If I try to accomplish two a day, we can complete the locs in a little over two weeks. 


I love the look though!