Wise Words

We have had almost a week of 'pure joy'......all good things must come to an end, I guess. But I so wish I would have read the following quote about a week ago, when things were all but pure joy, I think I will write it on a wall....

Remember that when things are getting near unbearable, that is the time to celebrate because glory is coming- Heather Forbes

Love this! We have indeed been enjoying the glory and hopefully will again sooner than later.

The switch.........

still flipped! I am probably going to jinx it by posting this but since shouting it from a mountain top isn't an option I will just shout it into cyber land-Her behavior has been nothing but totally delightful both at school and home. Throughly enjoying every second of it-PURE JOY!!!!!!

The switch has been flipped and I am LOVING it!!!!!

This afternoon has been nothing but delightful!!!! Despite the rainy cold weather we have had the BEST afternoon in a long time. Granted we have only had 2 of the 4 this afternoon (two are at a musical with Oma) but we have had so much fun. We even went grocery shopping and yes we have had fun. The Ghanaian Princess has had the very best attitude and behavior this afternoon. Not sure if it is because we have had a hellacious three or four days (paying Mom and Dad back for being a quick our of town trip), or the fact that she has been the only sister at home this afternoon.....quite frankly I don't care but I have LOVED every second. She has been full of smiles, manners, giggles, holding my hand because she wants to (not a hand in my pocket) has been gracious, kind, helpful........oh my I think I am in Heaven and am sad that the night is coming to an end. Right now Dad is doing bath time and I just had to share some of the GREAT since I often share some of the not so great. Now I fully know the switch to craziness will be flipped back but I am SO enjoying the great day!!!!

Praising God!

Friend of the Week

I LOVE the preschool/kindergarten my children have attended. The director is an amazing Christian woman who firmly believes in the importance of play and enabling children to be capable beings. I wish my kids could stay in this school forever or at least have a few more teachers, better yet administrators who shared this philosophy. I love this school for so many reasons and could write many posts on what a wonderful place it is, how wonderful the teachers are and the invaluable lessons my children have learned. But for this post I will just share one of the many great things the kindergarten class does-making a friendship book for each child in the class. Each child has their turn being the 'friend of the week'. Everyone in class makes a picture of the friend and writes why they think they are a great friend. Each page has "_________ is my friend because ________. I think__________. From your friend_________." They either fill in the blanks or dictate to a teacher what to write as well as draw a picture. When they are all finished the drawings are made into a book and the friend of the week comes to the front of the class while one of the teachers reads the book. What an amazing experience this is. The child (even the shy ones) beam as all eyes are on them and they hear what an amazing person they are. What an esteem building activity this is along with giving each child time in the spotlight. Here are a few of the things written in the Princess's book:

*she is fun to play with

*she is funny

*she is a good person

*she sits quietly on the rug

*she is good at playing monkey bars

*she shares

*she is smart

*she is fair

*she plays girls chase boys with us (written by a boy, of course)

*she works hard

*she does nice things for people

*she is pretty

*she is good at climbing

But my favorite page in the book is written by the Princess herself "Madison is my friend because it's me. I think I am very smart. I also have good friends" My prayer is that she will maintain this positive self image when the world tries it's best to fill her mind with other thoughts. I think I might have to pull out the others books so they can reread a positive book all about them.

Go Away Snow!

I like snow, really I do......however I am DONE with snow for this winter! I am ready for warmer weather and DRY ground. I am done with the mud and yuck being tracked in, the wet clothes, and the coats, hats and gloves along with having to 'thaw' the car out to even get in it. All the extra time spent indoors is making our home seem even smaller. I think our toilet has even gone on strike-when the one toilet in the house for the six of you breaks, it becomes a bit of a crisis-especially since it is too cold to go outside ;-) Happy to report Dad and his little plumbing apprentices fixed it last night. Kudos to all of you that live with white stuff on the ground all winter. Our great state is just not prepared for all the snow we have had this winter. In the big scheme of life I know that my gripes are so very trivial and we are blessed beyond measure! But I am human and I do gripe, and since this is my blog I can gripe. If you would like to gripe to, feel free to leave a comment ;-)

In the game of Building a House vs. Weather, Weather is in the lead. Hoping that yesterday's snow does not prevent the framers from finishing up the first floor today. Here some pictures from a few days ago-sorry if it is boring, but there have been a few out of town requests to be able to 'see' how the house is coming-so here are some pics.

Looking forward to sun filled warmer days!

Dumb Game in Full Force!!!!

Wow!!! We are going on day number two of the constant dumb games. There is a particular Mom that might just lose her mind, not naming any names or anything :-) Thankfully there is another Mom who brings so much encouragement, hope, laughter and joy to this parenting journey-visit her here www.welcometomybrain.net Christine has recently posted a video on parenting the' dumb game'. Before I share more of our two 'not so fun' afternoons playing the dumb game read or perhaps reread this blog I posted-it will make me feel a bit better about sharing (being honest) Really, read it.....please.

So both yesterday and today when it came time to do homework, J decided to play dumb. Yesterday the two first graders in the house had 100 day projects to work on. Brother decided to link 100 paper clips together and J decided to put 100 stickers in the outline of 100 she had drawn with a crayon on a piece of paper. One minor problem with counting to 100-whether by 1's, 5's or 10's ( I wasn't picky)......you have to use your brain. I must admit she was using her brain and working really hard not to EVER make it past 29!!!!! J is very smart and very capable of counting to 100-by 1's, 5's and 10's-WHEN SHE WANTS TO. Yesterday she didn't want to. After "trying her best" because it is "so hard" and "I can't do this" counting wrong too many times to count.......the blow up came. Man oh man it was a doozy! Replaying many of Christine's videos in my brain, pulling out every therapeutic parenting trick I had, she became regulated-and completed her project in less than 5 minutes! This is where you say WOO HOO!!!! At least I did when it was all over. If your curious as to what flipped the switch and stopped the screaming, yelling, kicking and throwing-it was this-me very excitedly saying "Oh wow.....no way...can't believe that.......did you see you that?........I can't believe that was right out our window.........did you see it?" J looking at me like I had lost my mind (little did she know I was on the brink of it). Anyway, she immediately stopped the screaming and fit throwing because she just HAD to see what had ALL the attention of her Mom, since it was not her. I smiled and said welcome back let's use your smart brain to count to 100 and finish your work. Now, totally regulated she counted to 100, by 1's then by 10's and just to show off a bit by 5's..........because she wanted to. The project was proudly on display this afternoon when I picked them up-WOO HOO!!

Same song second verse........ this afternoon during homework time-practicing spelling words. She is only required to do 4 of the 10 because she is an ESL student. The words are all 'art' words:art, cart, mart, part, etc. So I gave her 'art' to start with-she wrote 'rat' -I asked her to sound it out she said 'rat' and knew it was not 'art'. I praised her for having the right three letters and for correctly sounding out the word she wrote and asked her to write 'art' using the three letters she had, just putting them in a different order. Wow, she is smart-she figured EVERY way of using those three letters BUT 'art'. UUGGGHHHH!!!!!! Ready for the dumb games to find a new home!

Daddy Daughter Dance

Hard to believe this is the second year of having three daughters to get ready for the dance. J had been home just about a month and half last year, seems like so much longer. Looking at last years pictures they have all grown so much. This is such a fun tradition-from Grammy taking them dress shopping to Kade's date night with Mom-fun is had by all. Last year Daddy decided that dancing with three daughters at the same time didn't work so well and he didn't feel like they got the undivided attention he wanted them to have. He is setting high standards for their future dates and I LOVE that! This year we enlisted the help of two of the Godfathers. there are three dances so two tickets were bought for each dance so each girl would get to be the center of attention. Unfortunately, Big Sister's Godfather planned a get-away trip with his wife (guess we will let it slide this year). So Dad was on double duty. He took the littlest Princess to the first dance, then came home and picked up Big Sister and took them both to dinner, dropped the little one off and took Abbie to the last dance.

J paced the floor for 15 minutes waiting on the arrival of her date-no he wasn't that late-she was that excited. After the paparazzi had finished taking pictures they were off to a dinner of nothing other than chicken and rice. Her Godparents are amazing people who have been there from literally the very beginning of our adoption journey-covered us in prayer, have laughed and cried with us, encouraged and supported, even showing us some tough love when we needed it. We are so very blessed by the role they have taken in J's life. Mitch, being the father of two boys, really stepped into a foreign land tonight and made a little girl's night. He had quite the dancer to 'keep up' with and brought her home still able to walk and with a smile on his face ;-) THANK YOU! I think the girls wore the 'dads' out-they all commented on how much their dates were sweating.

My husband was in a tie for over 6 hours-that is AMAZING and he danced for about THREE hours! This is the guy who won't even dance ONE dance at a wedding with me and wears ties only for weddings and funerals. He will do anything for his girls. I am so thankful that he is teaching his girls to expect a lot out of a date. From a corsage to opening doors he is laying the groundwork for high expectations for their future dates. I love how he treats each girl as unique and as a Princess, each deserving his very best. They all came home beaming and with tired feet. Another successful year-all the tired Princesses had a night of their dreams. Big Sister even said "I think this was the best year!" So Dad, better get busy planning next year's night ;-)

So Brave!

Brother had to have some 'bumps' taken off the back of his head. They have been monitored for some time and we knew they needed to be removed, so we let him choose the timing of it. We had met with the surgeon his dermatologist had recommended, and none of us felt comfortable with him. After waiting over an hour in an empty waiting room we were greeted with a man who wanted to put Kade to sleep-which hasn't gone so well in the past and wanted to do the surgery immediately. Needless to say he was definitely not the guy for the job. Dad in 'venting' a bit to a friend about the situation realized the perfect doctor for the job- the cousin of his friend/hunting buddy and someone the guys have hunted with. Dr G didn't come to mind when looking for a surgeon because he specializes in 'womenly' plastic surgery -no desire for that here ;-) We scheduled an appointment with him and were at ease from the moment we walked in, but more importantly Kade was. Dr G talked to Kade and told him what all would happen and encouraged him to wait until the winter time so he wouldn't miss any swimming days. Dr G also felt like this surgery could be done with out having to put him to sleep-woo hoo!! Dr G had two small boys and said he would treat Kade as he would them. So this past Thursday, the bumps were removed. He was SO BRAVE. The most painful part was the multiple shots to numb the area. He was SO TOUGH! Then he was able to lay still while Dr G and his nurse went to work, while they conversed with Kade and sang to the oldies music playing. His pain tolerance amazes me! Some more medicine was needed to numb the area up a bit more-ouch-but he laid so still. I was so blessed to be able to be there with him the whole time. (Dad bravely waited in the waiting room) I couldn't be prouder of how well Kade did-facing fear and pain and maintaining control! I was also blessed with realizing just how much my little man trusts me and takes me at my word.

Battle Scar

Kade and Dr G(sorry your eyes are closed-what can you expect from a phone camera) post surgery. Dr G told Dad that "He is the toughest kid!" Recovery is going great and Kade is confidently wearing his head wrapped like a mummy and hasn't noticed the stares of others. He has even patiently answered the some 'too nosey' questions asked of him by strangers.

Car Conversations

The other day while driving with the Princess we passed a big building:

Princess: What is that.........a church?

Mom: Yes it is

Princess: Wow, that is a pretty big church

Mom: Yep

Princess:..................Mom, why does Oma's church have a stage with a curtain?

Mom: Because they used to have a school there and I bet they had programs like the big kids school does (we went there for a fundraising meal in November-why the thought came up now-no clue)

Princess:Is that where they praise God?

Mom: will you say that again, I didn't hear you

Princess: Is that where they meet to praise God?............in the room with the stage?

Mom: Are you asking is that where they have church services on Sunday morning, then no-they have a different building where they have services

I LOVE this kid- she continues to amaze me! She didn't ask if that is where they had 'church' or 'met on Sunday morning' or 'had services' she asked me is that where they 'met to praise God'! Wonder how many adults think about where they go to praise God, on the way to church on Sunday mornings after getting everyone fed, dressed and out the door hopefully somewhat on time-are we thinking about going to praise God, when you pass by a church do you wonder where they meet to praise God? Have you invited anyone to church recently? Maybe you should invite them to meet with you to praise God!

Giving thanks for another lesson from a small child of God-so blessed!