OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: First Day Photos

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.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

First Day Photos

Every good mother has to take first day pictures - here is Tori and Julia heading for their first day of 1st and 2nd grade. Tori's teacher warned me that she had P.E. today so she had to wear tennis shoes; Tori was pretty happy because I didn't make her wear "fancy clothes." Tori is really the only "Tom-boy" I have raised, so I'm more accustomed to the girls who want to wear dresses everyday, like Julia. I have had the hardest time getting Tori to look at the camera lately; she stands still but looks every direction other than the photographer.

I'm pretty happy with the Lands End lunch boxes and coordinating backpacks that I bought on clearance a few years ago; I think I paid $8 or $9 for the backpack and $4 for the lunch box. Julia used hers part of last year and it washed totally clean. It is, however, floppier than Tori's crisp new one.

Waiting for the bus-

After a quick trip to Walmart to buy lunch items and $1 clearance shorts for the orphanages in Ethiopia, we got to our first day of pre-school with Elijah and 5th grade with James and Ben. Moriah also had her first day of 9th grade, while Alyssa is on her 3rd or 4th week of Classical Conversations for the year.

Things were definitely quieter around here without Tori and Julia, but we have another contribution to the quieter atmosphere; Kylie is sporting her new anti-bark collar. It has been so wonderful; I had no idea a $37 purchase could be so liberating. Kylie would bark and bark, now she gets out two small ones, gets a little vibrate and promptly stops. Our only problem is that due to the fact that she isn't the brightest dog on the farm, we had to put an electric fence in for her also, so we alternate her fence collar and bark collar. At this point, she just assumes that whatever she is wearing works for both, so she hasn't run away with her bark collar yet.