OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: Fun, Fish and Chili

OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Fun, Fish and Chili

If I was a more creative Mom, my kids would have more exciting costumes, but we always pull out the same big box and wear generally the same several costumes. I bent my $2 limit per costume rule when I bought Elijah the Gap monkey costume at the thrift store for $2.50. I guess $2.50 will be my new limit - inflation you know.

We had Julia as Tinkerbell, James at Batman (he's always Batman or Spiderman,) Tori as a princess, Ben at karate kid and Elijah as a monkey. The kids had a great time at the church harvest party and collected quite a candy stash that I may or may not have dipped into once or twice today.

This year there was something even more exciting than candy - prize gold-fish. When we got there and I heard the report of fish, I immediately informed my boys that they were not allowed to win a fish. After all, I have 9 kids, 7 cats, 3 dogs and dozens of chickens, I really don't need to be bothered with fish. Ben came to me once and told me that he didn't mean to win a fish, but did accidentally. I asked if there were any prizes at that game other than fish. The answer was no. I asked how many times he played the game. He told me four! We jumped the lecture that was swelling in my brain straight to, "Give away the fish." Unfortunately, I didn't hunt down my daughters to let them know my plan, so look at this...three daughters, three goldfish. They are sharing them, if you are feeling sorry for my sons at this point!

The real fun began on the drive home. Alei, Alyssa and I were each holding a little bowl, with saran wrap on it, when Alei exclaimed in the dark, "I don't think my fish is in the bowl, the saran wrap is loose." JD had to pull over and we had to dig around the floor of the van in the dark amidst jackets and shoes to locate the fish. We chucked him into one of the other bowls and he's as good as new. The bowl on the left side's rocks are still on the van floorboard! (Have I ever written a post explaining my I'd never even want a new vehicle? I guess it's self-explanatory now.)

As we were carrying in all the stuff, my crock pot also got dropped and chili spilled up the front porch. The good news is that I came in 2nd in the chili contest; next year I'm taking it! The bad news is that we've broken two crock pots this year and now I really need a third one!

I can't believe it's November already!