The Googeg Family -- Strangers in the World

Deep Waters

2012-01-21T16:53:00.001-05:00

I have to say that I have been a little overwhelmed and so busy living and doing in my life, that I haven't made time to write at all. My kids always remind me of a quote from "Night at the Museum" which says "We're Americans, we don't think -- we do!" We have been doing.

We had a wonderful Christmas and after Christmas made it to the Creation Museum for the Live Nativity. Yes, it was after the celebration of the Nativity, but it was still right and good to go. The kids were amazed at the beautiful lights in the garden and all of the scenes of a real live Nativity. Afterwards they got to ride a camel.

Spontaneously, we called Jerome's brother and took his family with us.

Quite a crew on a chilly night.

Camel Rides.

On the way home was interesting. One of our children became quite carsick. We thought this child just needed a little air until we could stop at the rest area. We rolled the window down a crack and NO! What the child meant was I need to be sick now. Consequently . . . it was a mess . . . one we were still cleaning up the next day. Always an adventure.

After Christmas, we had the lovely Quick ladies stop in for a visit and it was Christmas all over again.

We LOVE these ladies.

Before I knew it my oldest boy turned fifteen.

A little powdered sugar makes quite an effect a candle blowing time!

Thanks Grandma!

In the midst of all these wonderful, reportable events there has been much behind the scenes. We have children who are struggling with school, struggling with authority, some moving from adjustment in a new family to testing the boundaries. We have even had spiritual turmoil. Not to mention some physical issues -- like a dislocated kneecap and physical therapy. You know, physical therapy looks suspiciously like exercise! I am thankful for the rolling waters in our life. Rolling waters, questioning, searching, praying with all our might means that we are living life deep and deep is good.

Holidays = Busy

2011-12-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

The holiday season at our house left me breathless and quite tired. The day after Christmas found my 15 minute nap turning into an hour and a movie watching evening with my children into another nap. Fully recovered now, we are back in school and trying to get a little routine going again.

Thanksgiving was a grand time with the Grandma from the land of twinkle and Shine (Las Vegas). I have diligently searched my hard drive and can not find the pictures that we took from that day. My best guess is that I will find them after I finish this post. Oh well. Everyone was as busy as bees preparing for the dinner. Grandma was a great recipe reader!

On the heels of saying Goodbye to Grandma we headed into Christmas preparations. For anyone who receives the family Christmas letter -- my cards were late. Way late. I mailed them on Christmas Eve. It is because of the Letter. I always write a Letter. This time I wrote the Letter. I didn't like it. I wrote it again -- not quite satisfied I read to as many people in the house as I could corral to sit still. Everyone said Hmmm. Jerome said "something's missing". Finally, I wrote the Letter. Done. Three drafts put me seriously behind.

Of course we started the cakes:

Every year our family delivers cheesecakes to as many friends as we possibly can. What a neat thing this year -- my girls baked the greatest share. Between the 4 of us we baked 17 cheesecakes. Two for our dinner and 15 for delivery.

The youngers were geared up for the trip. We had the blessing of cousin Joanne who spent the night and got to go on the delivery trip!

The tribe is ready to roll out with the cheesecakes.

Now here's the real trick. Jerome had to load up 9 kids, 15 cheesecakes and a box of cookies. All he needed were eight tiny reindeer.

He did it! and they were off.

Christmas day was a lot of fun. Jerome cooked some great ribs.

Since we take the children on the Great Googeg shopping trip to pick out their favorite gifts -- Mom and Dad kept their gift giving far more practical. What touched my heart the most was how the kids were very creative and a lot of homemade gifts were given. Jerome had the boys in the barn for some very long days and few late nights to make a special gift for Mama:

The holidays were busy and fun and tiring and occasionally difficult -- but it was special. We spent days remembering that Christ indeed came and came for each one of us. He took off his glory and came to be a tiny, humble baby. We also spent time just being thankful for our family.

My little songbird asked me to spend a couple of extra minutes sitting on her bed to talk tonight. I sat down and she said: "In this family we talk. We talk and laugh and smile and share."

Traditions

2011-12-21T22:27:00.000-05:00

It is amazing how family traditions build up. Here we have hit the holidays and I haven't updated the blog since early November. We have been running in this house. A lot of it to fulfill great things that we consider traditions for this season. Traditions often keep us busier than we are used too.

I am thinking more about our traditions as a family since we are adding our little songbird and preacher man to the mix. It is an interesting thing to see what you have "always done" through the eyes of new ones.

We have cheesecakes we bake for friends, the Jesse Tree, New ornaments and Santa pictures to name a few. Here's the thing about new eyes -- they want to know the why. Why are you baking? Why so many -- when can we eat it? I keep telling them this is our season for giving -- I hope I can get enough done for us to have one, but these we are working on for others. Santa they got -- but we took the picture today and now they want to know if Christmas is tomorrow!

We kicked off our season with a full production of The Messiah at a beautiful Mennonite church in Indiana. Songbird thought the lady had a pretty big violin -- I whispered "No sweetie, that's a Cello." She was exasperated and said, "That ain't no Jello!"

We also have all survived the big Googeg family shopping trip. We give our kids money each year to buy what they really want for Christmas. Living in such a small town limits our shopping opportunities. On that day we take them to Cincinnati -- to any store they ask for and we WAIT patiently for everyone to do their thing. It may sound crass to be looking forward to shopping, but we are all together hanging out and listening to everyone's interests and likes. At the end of it all we eat a good dinner -- at a real restaurant. A funny tradition I wasn't sure our new little ones would get -- picking out their own special toy or two and wrapping it themselves for Christmas -- but they went right along with the flow and had a great day.

We participated in our family night program at church:

The anticipation was building in the car. Unfortunately, I had a new camera and couldn't figure out all the settings, so I don't have many pictures from this night.

Even that night has traditions -- even a new one:

Wokelle's first year at this church Mrs. C sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer with him. She would like to sing it with him every year... she told him when she called him up to the stage.

Sometimes it is just hard to sit still that long.

I am still working on Christmas cards (I know!) and my wrapping is not done, but in the midst of traditions life has stepped in too.

The men in our family have built a new bunk bed for two of our ladies.

It was a real team effort.

And it turned out sweet.

Much more woodworking is happening in that old barn. I think we will know the full story on December the 25th.

I have been having some pain in my knee -- just in time for all that shopping. Today I found out that I have a dislocated kneecap. The Dr. keeps asking me if I can remember injuring it -- Nope -- lots of activity in this house... must have went right by me. So somewhere in the middle of it all I will get to do physical therapy.

As our children keep asking "Why" I hope I am getting Christ through to them. Traditions tie us together and serve as markers for us, but should never replace the worship of Christ.

"Why Mommy?" Because Jesus was born for you.

Recital

2011-11-08T22:05:00.001-05:00

Every November we head off to a local nursing home for our kids' piano recital. This year was an extra special recital. Riane is a senior and this is her last. She has been taking lessons since she was 5 years old. She started out working with me and then a teacher I found in Sidney. After we moved, I found Mrs. F. This is one fantastic teacher -- her prices are reasonable and she works 45 minutes with each student. She is somewhere in her 80's and she is tough, but kind. Riane and Mrs. F have formed a great bond over the last 9 years and it is sad to see it come to a close.

Here they are warming up for the recital.

This year we were at a new nursing home, with a beautiful interior and a lovely baby grand.

Mrs. F teaches more than Riane -- Mary has been taking lessons.

I took the above shot just to see her dress. Mary has grown up!

She had a duet with Riane.

Adela, has started learning.

And Ricky.....

Ricky played a solo, but in this picture you can see all three: Mary, Adela and Ricky playing a trio together. There were a little nervous about getting all their counting right and ending together. But they pulled it off fantastically. Now that's a family in harmony.

Nope -- this guitar player belongs here. Braydon took lessons from Mrs. F as long as we required him. Then he informed her that he was switching to guitar. She didn't take it lightly and he had to politely argue his case with her. She finally said that if he learned anything good enough he could play at the recital. She had to hear him play the song once before he could be added to the program,but he did it -- and he taught himself.

She was happy with his playing and has already been offering him guitar pieces that she has run across. As for Braydon, he was very proud of his listing in the program former student, now plays guitar.

Riane played Brahms Rhapsody. I could hardly believe that this was the little girl that tinkered away on our ancient old upright 12 years ago. Who would have thought? This is a thundering piece that tried my patience during practice at the house, but rocked my socks at the recital.

The seniors traditionally exchange gifts with Mrs. F. She gave them a lovely musical picture frame.

Riane gave her a picture she had cross stitched herself and had Dad frame for her. She wanted the gift to be personal.

Here's a little better picture of it:

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

Quotables

2011-11-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

Things we have actually said in our house this week:

• Ya' know ... it's one of those things... he was just talking to your face.

• I have been living in ignorance.

• You are worse than yourself.

• Take off your tiara and get your hands dirty.

• You have to have humor to be a Mom.

• Dexter's licking my lunch chore.

• Wait... Mom says I have a problem.

• Unscented is my favorite scent.

Milestones

2011-11-05T16:36:00.000-04:00

No more training wheels.

Seat Assignments

2011-11-03T23:06:00.000-04:00

We have a Ford Excursion as our family car. It seats 9. We have a conversion van as a second vehicle. It seats 7. There are now 10 people in our family. As we went into this last adoption we knew that we could potentially have a seating problem. However, we did not know if we would have one or two children. So we could not make a purchase until we knew for sure. One more child would still fit in our SUV. When we received the news that Songbird and Preacher Man would be joining our family we had to make a decision. A new car was out of our budget so we decided to buy an extra seat for our SUV. I had never heard of one before, but it is made by a company called Little Passenger Seats.

Since each one is custom made -- we had to wait about 10 weeks. We have been driving two cars when the whole family travels together. Two cars to Kings Island in September and two cars to church every single week.

Finally, a rather plain box showed up on our porch.

I was doing the happy dance all day.

A little work from Jerome and Braydon:

And... it was in!

Made to exactly match the interior of our car and it has headrests and seat belts.

The three were very excited to try out their new place.

and...

They're in! Now our car seats 12.

The great thing is they can not open this door by themselves from the inside. So they must wait for a parent or older sibling to let them out. They cannot just get excited and jump out into a parking lot unattended. I worry about these things.

Ahhh. and the Lord's timing is so good, because this is the current state of our second vehicle:

New fuel pump coming soon.

Just a side note: This was completely my own opinion on having purchased a Little Passengers Seat -- I did not receive any compensation. But I am very happy!

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up

2011-10-25T16:50:00.001-04:00

This is a post that I originally wrote to be posted on Homeschoolblogger.com -- on their Front Porch. Unfortunately they are discontinuing their blog and so I will post it here for your perusal.

It is always great fun to see what young children are going to say when you ask them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I have gotten the funniest answers from my children like one young guy who thought he might like to be a police dog, or a child of a friend who decided after a funeral that he would like to be a grave digger. However, we usually keep asking the question into the teen years so that we can help our children get focused, streamline their studies and plan for college. After reading our unit study on the life of William Borden, I realized that we have been focused on getting the wrong answer.

According to our study book, William Borden was asked the infamous question by his mother when he was six years old. His response was, “I want to be an honest man when I grow up, and true and loving and kind and faithful.” (Wisdom Booklet 40 Published 2006 Advanced Training International). His answer was about the kind of man he wanted to be and not about his vocation. How often have we prompted our children to tell us what they want to do instead of what they want to be?

I know for myself that I can get sidetracked by the planning needed for after graduation. Where do you want to college? We have to know whether they offer your major. What is your major? What do you want to do? Even those waters are pretty murky. I have a child that expressed an interest in nursing. Well, OR nurse? ER nurse? OB nurse? Even before that they are levels of nursing with different degrees. Nursing schools don’t always offer all of them. What do you want to do? Trying to be leading in the right direction I did begin to ask, “How will you serve Christ with this?” I didn’t even think enough at the time to ask “Do you feel led of the Lord?”

It is more than serving Christ with what we do; it is what we are going to be. This is character training. Don’t I want my young men to be men of God? That requires that they learn to be obedient (first time), honest, compassionate and willing to stand for their Savior at all costs. It also means to stand up for others when they are given the opportunity. For my girls, don’t I want them to be young ladies? The list would be pretty much the same: obedience, honesty, compassionate and willing to stand firm in their faith. I want them to learn to walk out of step with the world and in step with Christ.

Most of us start this pretty young, by teaching our little guys to be obey Mom and Dad and tell the truth. Then, we keep saying, “when you grow up…” 1 Timothy 4:12 says, “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” That means right now – no matter the age “be thou an example”. I have started calling my boys “my mighty men” and my girls “young ladies of virtue”. I want them to know that is what they are right now. To be honest, it is a messy business. They don’t always get it right. They aren’t always obedient, or truth-tellers or compassionate with each other. When I look at myself, I see that I have some years on them, and for me it is still a messy business. As we are told in Philippians 2:12, “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” So, we are all working it out – no matter the age.

As I approach the launching of my teenagers, I am changing my emphasis from majors and vocations to the kind of man or woman that Christ is asking them to become. I am urging them to keep “working out their salvation” and let the Lord lead their steps. I counsel them to be faithful and diligent to “…Seek ye first the Kingdom of God…” (Matthew 6:33). Finally, I have stopped asking “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, and I have started asking: “What is the Lord calling you to do for Him?”

You are Gifted

2011-10-22T21:48:00.001-04:00

I have spent most of my life saying that I am not gifted or talented. I don't have anything to offer. I was so excited to see that my kids -- all of them have gifts that I have long thought were so cool. They are very musical, artistic, well-spoken kids (I may be a little biased!)

Here's an example:

Riane took some old postcards from Yap and an old picture I was given in Argentina and came up with a nice display.

. . .old dried stuff from the creek for her windowsill.

And it is not just Riane ... they all have interesting things.

Then I listened to a sermon by John Piper: "We Were Eager to Share With You Our Own Souls" . He was telling us that we have the gift of the Holy Spirit -- we always have The Gift to share. We ought to be seeking ways to give instead of saying "I'm not gifted." Even saying we have much to learn and heading off to Bible Studies -- are we giving or just receiving?

Please go and listen to this message for yourself. I have to tell you that I turned it on while I was mopping the kitchen floor. Not only was I was mopping, I was constantly redirecting "Go around, I am cleaning the floor." "It will be dry in a minute, just wait." "What do you need, I am mopping the floor." So, I may have missed essential parts of the message or even misrepresented.

I will say this, since I have the Holy Spirit, I am guessing that is the message he had for me that day.

You are gifted, now go share it.

Then and Now

2011-10-09T21:20:00.001-04:00

This weekend the kids were messing around with an old video camera and found a memory card. We looked at the pictures on that and couldn't believe it -- they were taken about 9 years ago. I vaguely remember Jerome using the video camera to take some still shots on this new "memory card thing" and I couldn't figure out what we would ever do with them. At the time we had no way to do anything with it. What a blessing it was this week.

Adela then:

Adela Now:

Ricky Then:

Ricky Now:

Braydon Then:

Braydon Now:

Riane Then:

Riane Now:

Then:

Now:

The WHOLE tribe then:

The WHOLE tribe now:

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Psalm 127:3

From One Big Family to Another

2011-10-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

Encouragement. We all need it. It can be hard to find sometimes especially if you don't fit the mold of this world. Today we were encouraged.

My friend, who has been my friend for a good 8 years brought her family to our house to welcome our new children. They sang a beautiful hymn to us and shared some favorite scripture verses and then they prayed over us.

Sounds so simple, but this was a big and wonderful surprise for us. First of all, my friend has 10 children. Many are married and have children of their own. All but two of the children were able to come today. We have stood with each other during weddings, emergency room visits, high school graduations. We even held hands over a crash site that we are thankful her daughter and son-in-law survived. We have been to zoos, museums and even a news station on homeschool field trips. We both walked through painful decisions to change churches with our families. We have worshipped together and knelt at the altar in prayer. We have weeped, and laughed and prayed some more.

She is rocking grandchildren, I am still having children.

From one big family to another ...

I love you my friend!

The Adjustment Period

2011-09-18T22:28:00.000-04:00

I have really been neglecting this blog lately; but I feel it may be time to update where we are right now. First, there is some adoption lingo that may be helpful. These are by no means official or scientific -- it's the best way I know how to explain what I have seen three times over.

When children come to your house you may first experience a "Honeymoon Period". This is a time when the kids are sweet as pie, you may not be as strict and everyone just can't believe how wonderful this all is.

Then there is the "adjustment period". This is when the kids start testing the waters, acting out or pushing all the limits. As parents, instead of having the "how wonderful" feeling -- you may begin to have the "what have we done?" feeling.

Right now we are experiencing some of the adjustment period. Having adopted before, I will be honest and say, I do not have the "what have we done?" feeling. I kind of know where we are and I am ready to be moving forward. The good news is we are already beginning to move forward.

Since I do not feel free to post identifying information about our new children I will give them blog nicknames. Our little girl is 5 and she can sing so pretty -- I will call her Songbird. Our little boy is 4 he loves that we gave him a Bible and he loves to pray -- he is our Preacher Man.

So Songbird has had a terrible time sleeping. It has been something akin to having a newborn. She would hardly go to her own bed and spent a few nights screaming and running out -- literally. One night she camped on our floor and woke every two hours to pat me awake and give me a hug. She complained of nightmares a lot. Adjustment. Now, she is going to her own bed (sometimes slightly weepy). She asks me to turn on music; leave on some lights and pray over her. Then she sleeps -- and she sleeps all night. Moving Forward.

Preacher Man used to scowl a lot. He didn't want anyone to laugh about something he may have done before. For example, at dinner I was recounting a really cute event during the day and everyone chuckled. He screamed and ran under the lunch table and screamed and screamed that we were laughing at him. Adjustment. This is ending and he is enjoying talking at the lunch table. He is still emotional, but it is the sweetest thing. I wake him in the morning and he will suddenly shout "I LOVE YOU MOMMY". Moving Forward.

Adjustment / moving forward this isn't only for new children moving into the family. It is for everyone who is going through the process. Everyone has changes and we are all adjusting. I went from one child who needed help with serving food, brushing teeth, etc to three children that need help. We went from one booster seat in the car to three. We are trying to finish building a new room in the basement. School has started again and I now have these grades to facilitate: pre-school, kindergarten, 1st grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 9th grade, and 12th grade. The Lord provided well for us, but it involved a lot of canning which Jerome headed up. Over 50 quarts of tomato products.

We don't want to forget to have fun and enjoy life as we move along. So, we have taken a trip to Kings Island, completed our Bible Bee and try to make each day honor the Lord.

The Lord has been faithful to bless us: Ephesians 3:20 .. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think...

And so we are moving forward ....

Still Writing . . .

2011-09-07T16:19:00.000-04:00

The general busyness of life has caused my blog to suffer; however I am still writing. I am going to be a weekly blogger at homeschoolblogger.com. My posts will be focused on high school. Read my first effort here: The Front Porch.

Placed!

2011-08-23T21:31:00.000-04:00

Four hours there -- Four hours back and our new children are placed. The paperwork has the Googeg last name and they are home for good.

It was an emotional goodbye to an awesome foster family that loved these kids unselfishly for so long.

It was bittersweet all around, but we are happy to be home and happy to be TEN.

Pre-School E-Book

2011-08-18T22:11:00.000-04:00

I have recently been published in a new book on pre-school. It is published by The Old Schoolhouse magazine -- my favorite home school magazine. My article deals with formally educating your pre-schooler, but there are tons of other great articles included.

If you have a pre-schooler you might want to buy a copy. Here's the link:

Pre-school e-book .

In the Midst

2011-08-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

I feel so caught in the midst of it all.

The Bible Bee competition is coming soon and we are completing our study, but I feel that we aren't particularly competition ready.

Jerome's brother is very ill, but half a world a way. The first thing we do every morning is pray for him and check the e-mail for updates. It weighs.

Our adoption is proceeding and we have 8 children in our home this week -- eight! I am still trying to say that without stuttering. Adding new children is always an adjustment for ALL involved and we are working our way through it. However, this is considered a visit. They will go back to their foster family and we will start adjusting again when they are placed for real.

School is looming. Our summer break has been longer than usual and it makes me antsy. To top it off, I haven't done any substantial planning. The kids aren't starting any new books right off, so we know where we are and how it works, but I would like a laid out plan.

Jerome is building a brand new room in our house (for Braydon) and it consumes all time at the house. It must if we are to finish it soon.

Our rental house is rented by a tentative tenant. We know they are leaving and the date is coming soon.

Now, this probably sounds like I just wrote my own pity party list. For each one of those items I could list blessing after blessing:

No, due to a lot of interesting family challenges we have not been as diligent with Bible Bee study as I am sure we could have been. However, we spent the entire summer inductively studying a chapter of the Bible together and memorizing verses. Amazing.

Jerome's brother is very ill, but we have truly experienced the peace of God that passes all understanding. We have prayed fervently and we hear that others have been meeting and praying together. We sincerely pray for his healing and for the will of God in his life, but we rejoice in the lifting of the Lord's name by so many.

Well, adoption, easy... how could two children not be a blessing. However, the sweetest sight has been watching my older children take on and love two new children. They have just opened their arms and brought them in.

School is coming, but the Lord is teaching me (Miss Chaos) how to develop priorities (nope I never got it!) Things are beginning to move forward -- in an appropriate time, as I learn to not stress over the undone, can't get done stuff and learn to just keep chugging on the next important thing.

Jerome is building a brand new room -- and it is time consuming. Watching him build it with Braydon and Ricky at his side -- tool belts and all is a precious thing. It will be an unforgettable time in their lives.

Our little house -- we always called it the education house -- because WOW we have received one extreme education by owning it. True, timing is short on this tenant, but the Lord has always provided and I can rest in that.

In the midst is a great "God-spot" to be. In the calm times of life, God is still there because we know he never changes, but we almost have to work hard to see him working because we are humming along. Not so the midst -- it's a busy, fast-paced place and God's hand is right out there everywhere you turn. I have been amazed at the things he is teaching me. Can you believe that he would time everything like this because he wants me to get something new? According to 1 Peter, God wants to perfect, stablish and strengthen me.
He is going to keep perfecting me, set my feet in stone and make me strong enough to take it.

I love verse John 20:19. This a great midst of it all verse. Jesus had been crucified and the disciples were huddled in a room scared out of their minds I am sure. If they had killed Jesus might they come for them? Why did Jesus die anyway? Where is their savior? The scripture says "...when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews..." They gathered themselves together and locked the doors. And then..."came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you." He didn't call the disciples to step outside -- he stepped straight into their midst and declared peace.

Sometimes, I am just scared out of my mind too. Where is God in all of this? Why is he timing it this way? Why isn't he healing/fixing/delivering or just plain doin' it my way? I want to check out of everything on the calender lock my doors and stay home. And then, Jesus doesn't call me out of my list of midst - he just steps right into the middle of all and says "Peace be unto you."

In the midst of it all God is at work and God is declaring peace.

State Fair, Visit and Home Church

2011-08-08T22:16:00.000-04:00

This whole summer has been so busy and eventful. Maybe it is what some would call a watershed summer. I know I am tired; but it is a good tired.

We started off another big weekend with the Ohio State Fair on Friday. We caravaned with another family two hours away to Columbus. Here we are circling the chairs to camp out for the judging. Riane and Braydon's shooting sports projects had made it to state.

15 minutes before their assigned times they must stand in a big line and sign in for judging.

Right away Riane was up and discussing the finer points of shotgun shooting with her judge.

Sometimes that wait for your judge can be long and lonely.

Finally, time to discuss the rifle.

They didn't win any special awards at State, but the experience was awesome.

When this official part was over we went to enjoy the rest of the fair. We walked through a lot of displays and even across the midway (interesting!).

We eventually ended up in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources section which was awesome.

We toured a log cabin.

Walked through a garden of Ohio Native Plants:

And were diggin' up bones:

We drove the two hours home so that early in the morning we could drive 4 hours to visit with our new children. We took a picnic to the park and spent the afternoon together. Unfortunately, there was a golf classic in town and no motels were available, so we drove the 4 hours back home. The visit was wonderful and we can't wait to have our children with us forever. I will be protecting their privacy as best I can until all the legal t's are crossed -- so no pictures or names. We will have a some visits at our house the next two weeks and then plan on a final placement the end of August. We are so excited!

After all that we were physically, and emotionally drained. We decided to spend the entire day at home on Sunday. Jerome chose a sermon video that we own and he set up the basement like our own home church.

You can see the framing on the right where Jerome and Braydon are building Braydon's new room. I couldn't believe how much rest we actually needed. 10 minute Mama slept a LOT on Sunday.

After all of this running Jerome and I were discussing the arrival of children #7 and #8. We looked at each other and knew that this is likely it. We are about to have a full family. We have started to exhale....

Timing is Everything

2011-08-04T21:52:00.000-04:00

Timing lately is on my mind. We decided to do a few things this summer: National Bible Bee and 4H. This does not sound like a schedule that would boggle any one's mind, especially since all of the children are doing it together. However, Proverbs 16:9 says:

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

So, this has been the busiest summer on record. Jerome has a brother that is very ill, but halfway around the world. We thank God for cell phones and e-mail. Our adoption process is flying and we will be visiting our new children again this week. Then we have visitation plans for two more weeks with a plan for final placement on August 23rd. Our kids did well in 4H and two made the state fair. We have hosted visitors, celebrated birthdays, gone to fun shoots, visited the local fair, and even made a camping trip out of our visit to our new kids. In the meantime -- two more kids are arriving. We need extra seats for our car, rooms and beds re-arranged and school planning has yet to be finished. Riane is entering her senior year of school and has begun looking into schedules for special trainings and passport applications.

I often wonder why God made the Bible Bee, 4H, adoption and family illness to all coincide, but I know this.. He has a plan and it is to glorify Him and produce righteousness in my life.

And.. the blog suffers, but rest assured it is not forgotten. Updates will come.

Bible Bee Practice

2011-07-24T18:53:00.000-04:00

I have mentioned before that our family is participating in the National Bible Bee this year. We attended a Bible Bee practice this Saturday. We have to travel about an hour and half for this event, but it is a privilege indeed.

The kids have been working hard on memorizing many scriptures. During the actual Bible Bee they will be competing in an oral round.

Here Wokelle is doing his part with Dad as his judge. Wokelle isn't an actual participant, but a "supporting sibling". Since, the Bible Bee's focus is family discipleship one verse at a time -- there is an important part for everyone. Supporting siblings do just that -- encourage and support. They will not be participating in the final competition, but they are learning right along side the rest of us.

The other part of the actual Bee will be a written test. We didn't practice that part this time, but we did have a fun way to practice some Bible knowledge:

JEOPARDY! The kids did really well at this game. It took quite awhile to break that tie at the end.

Of course, an important part for us was the gathering with other like-minded families who are endeavoring to raise their children with Biblical principles.

Ricky's making friends.

Here they are all hanging out in a room together playing games. All the different colored t-shirts indicate their age level. Yellow is a primary, blue is junior and red are the seniors. All the parents were in the next room visiting and the kids came in here and got along and organized games for themselves.

All of us enjoyed the fellowship and encouragement.

Clean up time.

Thank you to our wonderful host family and all their planning and time. We also appreciate that a church would allow us to use their facilities on a Saturday afternoon. A great day.

4H Fair Judging

2011-07-22T22:04:00.000-04:00

This summer our kids decided that they wanted to try a 4H group. Riane was involved in 4H once last year by herself for sewing. However, this year we wanted to stick together as a group and believe it or not, most of my children have some interest in shooting or hunting. So, we joined a shooting sports 4H club. It has been a great summer. The advisors of the group have had a great sense of humor and especially safety. They care about these kids and want them to learn, but want them to have fun too.

Today was the fair judging day. The actual fair is a week or two away, but this day they were to dress professional, show their knowledge in their discipline and present a completed project to a judge. They were very nervous, but it all turned out fine.

They walked into a very crowded junior fair building and had to register.

After registration, we joined our group and found out that due to unforeseen problems in the morning, the judge was behind quite a bit. So, we had to do a lot of waiting.

Some of the younger kids found fun things to do.

The nerves were mounting as we waited.

There were some really cool projects out there:

Finally, the judging began.

Riane's discipline was shotgun. She did a lot of trap shooting this summer, and yes, she is a pretty good shooter.

Mary was in archery. She learned a lot. At our last shoot she actually hit a jug of water thrown in the air.

Braydon was a rifle shooter. He did a great job shooting and isn't he a handsome presenter?

Adela was also a rifle shooter and she is explaining rifle targets to her judge. She knows rifle targets, because she can nail them pretty well.

Whew! A long and exciting day over. 4 presenters -- four A projects. We will see what the fair brings.

God has sure sent us on quite an unexpected adventure this summer.

A Match . . .

2011-07-22T21:25:00.000-04:00

In my last post I indicated that our family was being considered for two children. I had a long talk with the children's social worker. Actually, I had two. One was more of an interview, and the second was my confirmation that we had reviewed a package of information and definitely wanted to proceed. She seemed pleased with our family and told me that this case was going to a "matching conference" on Thursday.

A matching conference is when a committee gets together and discusses the possible matches of children and families. I didn't ask if they were considering other families I was just glad that she was going to present our family. She promised to call me Thursday after the matching conference.

I waited, hoping, expectantly (pun intended) for that phone call. At 4:00pm my adoption agency called and said the worker had to leave her office, but the agency was allowed to notify me that our family was chosen as a match for these two children. Excitement just abounded at our house.

Unfortunately, this being a public forum and no papers being signed yet -- it would not be appropriate for me to share any information that would breach confidentiality. I will say that we have one picture and that we will be meeting them next week.

How the process proceeds from here is still not clear; right now we are rejoicing and next week we will start figuring out the next steps.

Laboring

2011-07-19T21:59:00.002-04:00

Every so often I announce: "I am expecting. Can't I put my feet up and have a milkshake?" Believe me it NEVER works.

WE are expecting, because we are in the adoption ring again. Consequently, WE are all laboring. It's a labor of love, but it is a labor. It involves a lot of e-mails. I make sure to say that WE are all laboring, because every family member is involved in this process. Jerome and I review, talk and pray about all of the possible children. We talk to our kids about them and ask them to pray. We don't share all the information we have, but enough that they can pray appropriately and consider what it might be like. Then we trust God and watch Him work as he opens and closes doors.

Here's an example. We received information on a little boy. He had a lot of challenges and we went back and forth about whether to consider adding him to our family. We all prayed we all discussed, and finally we decided to take the next step. We just made a 3 hour drive to have a meeting and meet this little boy we were pretty sure we would like to adopt. All 8 of us took this trip and all 8 of us went through an hour and a half at the agency. The adults sat a big table and discussed all the ins and outs and challenges that might be involved. All the children were in a room (pretty small!) with a social worker -- trying to play and hang out. At the end of all of this time and effort it was clear to all of us that this was not a match. It was clear to us as parents, and the children could see too that this probably would not have worked out well. We were at total peace saying no to proceeding. We certainly hope this little boy finds a family of his very own.

In the midst of this consideration, our family is also being considered for the placement of two young children in our state. Today the package of information arrived with a picture. Again, Mom and Dad have reviewed it all -- shared what we could and asked the whole family to pray. Again, the whole family will be taking another trip for another one of those meetings.

Adoption -- The family in Labor. It is an amazing thing and an exciting adventure.

Adela's 12th

2011-07-19T21:43:00.000-04:00

Adela turned 12 on July 9th. It may seem as if I have totally forgotten her birthday, but not so. Our family has been on a whirlwind ride lately, but that is another blog post.

Adela had a lovely 12th birthday with Key Lime pie and cards and a wonderful gift from Grandma. Lots of pictures were taken. In the transfer between my digital camera and the computer all the pictures were lost.

Adela's gift from Grandma was a digital camera. She has been having the most fun with this camera. She takes great pictures like these:

This being Adela's 12th birthday it came to be that special time when we take the "preparing for Adolescence" trip. The idea originated from a book and CD set created by James Dobson. Every kid's experience has been a bit different, but we take them on an overnight trip one on one and discuss the body changes that the teenage years bring on and also kind of see where they are spiritually. We talk and pray and do something fun that they like. For Adela we shopped and shopped and shopped. We went to every store she could think of and she made sure she bought a gift for everyone in the house before she bought one special thing for herself. She is a simple girl -- no fancy meals or restaurants required. Just Taco Bell and some card games in the hotel room. It was a great time and I really enjoyed my daughter.

Since I don't have any pictures of Adela's special day I decided to post one of Adela at her very best -- Serving at our local Nursing Home:

Family Picture 2011

2011-07-09T19:28:00.000-04:00

It was getting late, but we persevered and took the family picture. This is the one I think looked the best. Riane had the preparation job of finding coordinating outfits for us all. Apparently, other than black, we have no colors the same for everyone. So we clung to the idea of coordinating -- or at least not clashing. I think she did a very good job.

We decided to take as many pictures as possible and went on to take a few more:

The Maidens of Virture

The Three Mighty Men

Taking Mom and Dad's picture was a little bit harder.

We just could not be serious! When we did settle down a bit we could not both look good at the same time. So, here's my best:

Here's his best:

Then we had our individual photos:

Ricky gets two pictures, because he was so funny! He could not stay still (true Ricky -- he is never still).

Ah! Standing still.

Knowing that we are a family that has adopted people always ask me -- well, to be truthful -- they often whisper. Which ones are biological? Whispering is just not necessary. We are very open and these things are openly discussed. So these are the biological connections:

That's biology.

Now let me tell you the truth. By the sovereignty of God and his all encompassing grace they are brothers and sisters:

Isaiah 8:18 Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me!

June

2011-06-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

Remember those lazy days of summer -- hanging out with your friends and telling your mom how bored you are? When Riane and Braydon were really little we lived in a very old house with a wraparound porch. We spent a whole lot of warm days sitting on that porch rockin', readin' and watchin' the traffic.

Well, those days have passed, in a mighty way! I don't know what happened this summer, but we are so busy even my kids will voluntarily take a nap if there's time (Okay... only the teenagers really WANT to nap). It's busy, but it is definitely good busy.

One of our new activities this year is our participation in the National Bible Bee. It is really an awesome program. We have chosen to meet together once a day to work through our Sword Study notebooks.

This picture is not very good, but it is the only one I took with all the sword study books. This is the book we use and write in for our inductive studies.

All the kids have color coded t-shirts based on their division. We do our study and then we are supposed to be using some of our time memorizing a lot of verses! I came up with a verse basket and everyone has a card with 3 peoples' names on it. During the day you are to find your three people and go over three cards each. When your card is checked off you can have the special caramel candy that is in the basket. This is helping us a lot -- I still see the most precious site -- all my children in various locations studying and quoting scripture.

June also has two birthdays. Wokelle turned 6 on June 20 and Riane turned 17 on June 22.

Well, that is how it feels to have a 17 year old and to start having discussions about passport renewals, mission trips and saying things like "we don't have much time to do that before..."

Riane has grown into quite the young lady with a sure love of books and definite ideas. Even her birthday dessert -- she picked sweet potato casserole and whipped cream. Home made whipped cream, not whipped topping. Interesting pick, but surprisingly good.

Master Wokelle has ideas too. Mostly about how he hopes our next adoption includes somebody younger than him.

He decided on ice cream cake, which looks great in this picture. However, I did not get it frozen long enough and it went smooosh when I cut it.

In our family, we have a big meal at lunch time. Birthday meals are no different. We end up laughing a lot when we are at that table.

Sometimes we laugh so hard we begin to rock ....

Forward . . .

Backward . . .

Some of us look so wonderful

But ... I can see just a glint of ornery . . .

Wonder where he gets it from!

Always making faces!

Seriously, Wokelle loved his new scooter from Grandma. As soon as he wrangled it out of the box he was figuring out how it worked.

A few years ago, we stopped giving our kids gifts for birthdays, but began to do family friendly activities instead. This year Wokelle wants to swim at a local pool and then get an ice cream cone. I haven't had a chance to work that into our schedule, but it is coming soon.

Riane chose to take a tour of the Mazza Museum.This is a children's book art museum. We didn't know what it would be like, but off we went. We had a fabulous tour guide and it was so interesting -- everybody loved it.

At the end our guide did an art project with all of us. She asked us to use glue and tissue paper to create either an animal or something that represented ourselves.

Here's the final smattering of some of our pictures. I will leave you to figure out what goes with who.

Curious Case of the Missing Camera Cord

2011-06-21T22:19:00.000-04:00

I had no pictures from vacation because I could not find the camera cord. Silly Mom! On vacation we let the kids watch some movies on the laptop. The camera and cord were in the same bag and I took the cord out and put it in the glove compartment. Lately, my memory goes quickly. I never remembered doing it until last week. So, I missed photo opportunities and that's Okay.

I found a lot of pictures on the camera that had never been downloaded. Mother's Day, our Garage Sale among others. I will not bore you with so many family photos, but I would like to share a few from our vacation.

The first part of our vacation was spent in Georgia visiting Jerome's sister. We could only stay one night before heading to our conference, but it was worth the drive.

Jerome's sister has seven children, but some are all grown up. We got to spend time with almost everyone, but most of our time was spent with the youngest three boys-- the only ones on have pictures of this trip. We were able to visit an awesome little water park close to their home.

The cousins right before we left.

This was taken in Nashville getting ready for our first day of conference. This was Ricky's first opportunity to part of the Alert Cadet Challenge -- he was so excited! He worked really hard and earned a new wallet.

Braydon was an old hand at Alert Cadet, and a great encourager to Ricky.

That's it -- then the camera cord was mysteriously misplaced. One of the reasons I am struggling with memory (I am really NOT that old!) is that we are beyond busy right now. We are involved in the National Bible Bee, we are working some Saturdays at our farmer's market, we are in 4H, piano lessons, sometimes a crochet group at church, as well as making monthly visits to a nursing home. In between, we have visited a friend in the hospital, made to a garage sale and hosted a friend overnight in our house, as well as having our niece and nephew over for a day. Wokelle had a birthday and Riane will have one tomorrow. I have loved every minute of these activities, but my brain apparently can not keep up.

ADOPTION UPDATE: We are receiving referrals quite often and our home study is being sent out. No match yet . . .

Vacation 2011

2011-06-07T21:42:00.000-04:00

We have just returned from our summer vacation to Nashville, Tennessee. This was a much anticipated vacation as we were attending the ATI Regional Conference.

The first two days of our vacation was spent in Atlanta, Georgia visiting Jerome's sister. We enjoyed seeing our family so much. We didn't get to spend much time, but we did go to a local water park and that was a blast!

After that we drove to Nashville to get ready for our conference. We had one afternoon to do some walking and maybe shopping downtown. The kids were itching to spend some money. What they found on this "touristy" street of Nashville was a great spiritual analogy. Everything looked good and fun -- Even, I daresay, a bit foreign. Guitar players on the street -- bars with twinkly lights -- glitzy stores. As we walked their faces all got a bit longer. The guitar players on the street looked pretty tired and worn. The bars with the twinkly lights as we walked by were full of sad people and were not so twinkly as much as garish and dingy. The glitzy stores? Anything we might be interested in was way overpriced and many things were just flat out wrong. Wokelle stood in one store pointing at Yo-Yo's. "Mom, that's bad!" He said as he pointed at ying-yang symbols and more. The sales clerk stopped in mid-approach and decided we were probably not going to be a good commission. However, there was a haven. A really great ice-cream shop. As the kids faces were smiling again, we gently reminded them that this world has nothing for them and now they know it for sure!
Soon we were off to our much anticipated conference. All the children had classes to attend while Mom and Dad attended general sessions. Riane is older now and attended our session about half the time and student sessions part of the time. She also participated in choir. Mary attended Commit and choir Adela was a Pre-Excel student. Wokelle attended Children's Institute. Ricky and Braydon attended the Alert Cadet Challenge. I would encourage you to click the links for these programs if you have never heard of them. They are Godly ministries that often have much larger programs, but are presented in a shorter format at the regional conferences.

Our conference was a real spiritual mountaintop. We were in the fellowship of like-minded believers striving forward for the cause of Christ. There were many resources (books, DVDs, etc) for sale. This was a great opportunity for us as we would not have to pay for shipping. It has been 3 years since we have been able to attend a conference and Jerome and I were like starving men at the banquet table; we could not get enough. Every so often we would say, "We have bought enough, we will get more next time. It will take us all year to get through what we have." Only to walk by those tables again and find one more thing! What a blessing, we have so much to learn this year. We met many wonderful people and it was a joy to share with them. The end of the conference was a huge choir of young people singing "It Will Be Worth It All When We See Christ." So moving, when Dr. Gothard stood and said, "Now, that is worth giving my life for." Sowing seeds and equipping our young people for their lives -- indeed.

We drove right off that Spiritual Mountaintop into the Valley of Circumstances. We decided to join the National Bible Bee this year and the materials were arriving while we were gone. I spent so much time on Saturday preparing for church and unpacking that I didn't even open the boxes until Sunday Night at the family meeting. Right then, I could see that to do this right we needed a lot of organization . Even though it was late, I headed to Walmart for binders and 3x5 boxes. The first Walmart (a 20 minute drive), was power washing outside. I barely made it in the front door. The store looked fine, until I got to the office supplies section, which was corded off and they were running machines to strip the floors. I had to go to another Walmart (30 minute drive). By the time, I got home and put all 8 binders together it was 2:00am! I have never found the cord to our digital camera (that's why there's no pictures). Every one has some touch of cold -- runny nose, cough and Wokelle spiked a 102 fever. Today, one car has ended up in the shop and we still don't know the problem (it had to be towed there).

We are trying to remember all those glorious things that we were learning in our conference, about Anger (frustration and irritation are anger too), blessing our children, giving thanks in all things and being creative. God is faithful and has brought us many small miracles to smooth the way. We left a container on our porch so that the UPS man could put our Bible Bee materials in the container in case of rain. When we left Ohio it had rained nearly every day. We could see on our drive home that it had been dry while we were gone. However, a major storm was brewing. It was starting to let loose when we pulled in the driveway. Our Bible Bee boxes were too large for the container and had been left on our porch. Jerome pulled the boxes in the front door and the storm dumped. The entire front porch was wet in minutes. Amazing the timing! In that box were six beautiful new Bibles and all of our study materials and God held off just long enough ...

Many things like these keep reminding us that mountain or valley, we are not to focus on our circumstances but our God.

Philippians 4:11-13
Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, [therewith] to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Mary's 11/14

2011-05-22T17:43:00.000-04:00

This week Mary celebrated her birthday. The reason we call it her 11/14 has to do with international adoption and that her legal paperwork did not accurately reflect her age. To see my original post on the age questions click here. She is 11 on her legal paperwork and biologically 14.

Birthdays have become a bit quieter around here. She picked out the cake she wanted (caramel cheesecake) and helped me bake it. She wanted to be the one to light her candles.

The children usually make cards for each other, or have found some other unique or creative way to wish each other the best. If they have a little money they will often buy small things way in advance and save them. If not they make things, or have even been know to put on "shows". As parents we buy a nice card (usually with music) and promise a family fun event, which the kids take weeks or even months trying to figure out what they want to do.

Mary enjoying all the cards and things her brother and sisters prepared for her.

Grandma always sends the kids a nice gift. Mary has been very good at learning crochet and working with her hands. This year she was asking for tatting supplies. She just really wanted to learn how to tat.

Boy did Grandma come through!

Everyone was really surprised by the box of materials that came from my mom's mother's things. The idea that Mary would get her great-grandmother's tatting shuttle made a big impression on her. I kept telling her that tatting skipped two generations!

Grandma also sent along some great new teaching resources.

Mary could hardly wait to get started.

Already tatting!

For our family-fun trip we took off for the local bowling alley.

A great night and a happy birthday!

The New Appliance

2011-05-17T22:07:00.000-04:00

Let me just say upfront: Jerome and I love coffee. We really love coffee and we drink more than we probably should.

Consequently, every so often, we need a new coffee pot. We like coffee, but we really aren't willing to spend big money on a really fancy coffee maker. So, we sometimes are not satisfied with how our coffee comes out, but it's Okay.

The time came, and our current pot was definitely on the way out. I stopped in at our local thrift store for a few things and lo and behold I saw it:

THE PERCOLATOR

Ah! Now there's something I hadn't thought of before. Why not? I plunked down my $4 and headed home. I washed it up and then I turned it on with only water in it. I just wanted to see if it worked and I didn't want to waste actual coffee. It worked! The girls and I drank tea that evening.

I had to Google Percolators to figure out how to actually use one, but what do you know, it is so simple. Add water to the line (20 Cups!). Put the metal bar and ready made plastic (forever!) filter in . Fill the filter to the line (20 cups!) and plug it in. No fancy timers and clocks. No paper filters. Just water and coffee.

Did I tell you it makes 20 cups! I only have to set this thing up once the night before and we are good all day. The coffee tastes great and doesn't end up with that burnt flavor.

Riane really hates the '70's green motif, but I say embrace the retro-ness of it.

I just don't think I will ever get a drip maker again.

Takin' a Break

2011-05-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

The Tribe is taking a break. We finished our required days of school (and a little bit extra). We finished taking our standardized tests (we prefer the CAT), and now we are taking a little time off from our homeschooling.

Mother's Day was the beginning of our slow down. What an awesome time we had. The kids got up early did the ironing for me, and prepared breakfast. They also gave me my favorite perfume.

We had our first garage sale as a family. We have been studying thriftiness and the integrity and business practices of John Wanamaker. So, we tried to implement some strategies. We clearly marked all of our prices with computer printed signs. Service: We offered free coffee (clearly advertised on all our signs). We made sure everyone was greeted. We are working as a one-accord family, so any projects are worked on by all and any profit is shared by all. I was so hoping we would make enough money to split for the kids to have a little fun money. When the economy shlump hit our family the very first things to go were kids allowances. At the end of our one day sale, we had made some money, but only enough to make a couple dollars each. I was praying hard and at the last minute a family pulled in and they were in a buying mood. Before they left they had bought our largest ticket item (a TV) and several other things. Wow! God even answers our prayers for little delights. That gave us enough to get about $10 each. Doesn't sound like much, but we were pleased with our day. We were also pleased with the clean closets and the fact that we got rid of so many things that we don't use anymore.

The weather has been a bit interesting during this time too. We had some really hot days. Now, I wouldn't call them dog days yet, but I don't think Dexter knows that.

He was floppin'! As I am writing this, it has already turned cold again -- so the huge sighs and big flops all over the house have subsided for awhile.

Just this weekend we had some friends over. What an awesome time to visit and have fun! The girls got together to take some funny pictures. The process started out like this:

And ended up in cute shots like these:

How fun and creative is that?

Mary has also been a busy girl. She can really work with her hands so well. She has produced so much work and it is all beautiful. She put down her crochet for a bit and tried her hand at embroidery. This was her first pillowcase:

Awesome job!

Oh, and by the way we are STILL working on that family picture:

My Mama

2011-05-07T21:27:00.000-04:00

I am usually so busy being a Mama that I don't take time to honor my Mama. This is a shame really. I talk to my Mama a lot. At least once a week, and at least an hour -- sometimes two. It's one of those conversations that ends up being mighty one sided. I tell all the exploits of life with the tribe, not to mention the frustrations, the delicate emotional balances and the angst of whether or not I am doing anything right. We laugh and laugh and then I hang up. My kids always ask what we talk about and I say "Not much." Then they will say "How's Grandma?" To my shame my response is usually, "Uh ... good... I think.. I told most of our stories." Needless to say my Mama is a good listener. So here's the story of My Mama.

She grew up on a cattle ranch in Colorado and can tell real stories about how she walked a mile to school in the snow. And how the Dr. that delivered her was paid in chickens. She grew up with three older brothers and spent a lot of time reading the Farmer's Almanac.

She wasn't much of a shrinking violet though. In her 20's she entered the foreign service and became a clerk-typist at the American Embassy in Israel. (Oh, how I love to tell this story -- it sounds like movie!!) While there she met a handsome (of course) marine guard. His ploy to get my mom was to call her all the time asking her how to spell words for his reports. It sounds goofy, but nobody can beat my mom at a game of scrabble without thinking real hard - she can SPELL. And there were no spell checker, word processing programs in those days. Anyway, their foreign romance grew and my father left for the US with a promise to marry my mom when she got back to the States and he did not leave her with a ring as a promise -- he simply promised to mail her one later. I think she took a lot of ribbing for that -- who would fall for that from some marine?

Ah, but he was true to his word and mailed her a ring. When she returned they were married the day after Christmas when my Dad had leave. They had two boys and then me (the only girl!). We spent our young lives moving every 2 1/2 years as my Dad's assignments changed. He even spent the better part of my first year in Vietnam.

Growing up with my Mom was a fun time. She may not have been crafty or up for many parties, but she let us do a lot of stuff. We were allowed to keep various critters. We had toads in the window wells that we feed with hamburger meat, dogs, cats, guinea pigs and even a pet duck. We spent hours playing games like monopoly and scrabble (of course). She taught me my first cross stitch and I can remember making a lot of tree ornaments.

She also just hung on through a lot of years of hard kid raisin'. I usually had a loud opinion and went through one terrible rebellious time in my teens. She just kept hanging on. She pushed me to join the swim team, hoping the physical exercise, change of friends and structured time would help me out (it did). After all that, she still allowed me to take a one year foreign exchange trip to Argentina when I was 17. It was one of the most pivotal times of my life.

When I came back and got ready for college she must have thought I flipped my lid again. I kept changing majors and living arrangements from dorm to apartment and then came home complaining about how I was "done with it all." She helped me dump everything and move to Denver to go to a 6 month secretarial school. I have a better perspective now about how she must have received that phone call announcing my intentions to get married. WHAT? I hardly sounded ready to settle down on a mature life.

Once again she came to Denver and spent one whirlwind weekend planning my entire wedding. That's right -- one weekend. No 6 months of planning for us we did in it in ONE WEEKEND. We had so much fun doing it, I would do it again! To be honest she was a bit circumspect about this marriage, but she didn't say much after we got married. She still listened to my hour long conversations (nothing's changed). She gave counsel or caution, but never butted in or had emotional tirades.

I sat with her at my Dad's bedside after his open heart surgery, and a few years later as he lay dying from cancer. What I remember about those days at Dad's bed were how much we laughed. We talked and talked and drank way too much coffee. As we went through the planning for and the actual funeral I can remember telling her I was worried about her and she said, "Oh, honey I have already done my grieving for the last six months." I have never forgotten it. She did not deny that he was dying -- she didn't neglect to face it and grieve it, but she grieved it with my father.

She has rescued me more times than I can count, like coming to help with the tribe when I had a hysterectomy and started major emotional therapy with one of my kids in the same week. Can you imagine stepping into that landmine. Come she did -- and cooked dinner every night.

She still comes to spend a lot of time at our house. Either for holidays or vacations. The whole tribe wishes we could get her to give up her time in the land of twinkle and shine and move to Ohio. We haven't sold her on this idea yet, but we will keep trying.

So that's my Mama. Happy Mother's Day Mom -- I'll call you!

Little Boys and Pocketknives

2011-04-27T17:52:00.000-04:00

Well, it's "nothin' to write home about" as my Dad would have said. What makes it enough to write blog about?

My boy is fine -- not enough to do more than clean up and bandage up. He is growing up "all boy" as my Dad would have also said. Runnin' to the creek with a knife in his pocket, big plans in his head and dreams in his heart.

And it makes me smile. This is the boy that faints at the sight of blood and today he didn't. Today he learned what we have been saying since the pocketknife stage entered our house, "It is not a toy. You will have to be careful. These are sharp." Yep. Today he knows..

Sometimes we fall and hurt a little and in the end it is to teach us greater things.

Ecclesiastes 7:8 Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof . . .

Today he knows.

The Not So Famous

2011-04-25T18:52:00.000-04:00

In the last post I showed pictures of us trying to take a family picture. What you didn't see is some of our little friends off to the side wanting to join us. We kept saying "Wait, Wait". Afterwards, we had them run up and join us. Their parents and us had to run off to family functions, so we didn't have time to show them all the pictures on the camera.

"Don't worry I will post them on the blog. You will be famous."

I don't know how famous anyone will become by being on my blog from Podunk. But I sure love these little guys and don't want to miss a chance to keep my promise.

Easter 2011

2011-04-25T11:05:00.001-04:00

I so hope that all of you celebrated a very blessed Resurrection Day. We were very busy and very blessed. Writing this blog gives me a bit of trepidation as it may appear that we spend so much busy time that we did not reflect on the true meaning of this day. I certainly hope that was not true. We ended our Saturday night as we always do in family devotions and discussion preparing our hearts for Sunday Worship. This time we had a discussion about what we feel leading up to Easter. Of course, we all say we are thankful for the sacrifice of our Risen Savior. However, we all had to admit that activities surrounding Easter often distract us from proper meditation. We fight this urge as fallen humans and believe that we spent the day serving and enjoying the family in beautiful excitement and praise for the free life that Jesus has given us.

I woke the children at 4:00am so that we could be at church by 5:30am. This was our second year helping some other families serve breakfast to the crowd that attends our sunrise service.

We have become so close and love these two families so much that some of our kids have just opted to call them Auntie and Uncle. This is the egg prep counter. A lot of our eggs were donated fresh eggs from a member of our church. That's a lot of eggs!

Braydon was on duty frying the ham. This year I remembered to bring a few aprons, so that we could attend church presentable.

Everyone in our family does their share. Amber is helping Wokelle learn the fine art of scrambling eggs.

The kitchen is one busy place.

Jerome never slowed down enough for me to get a good picture!

Some of the people we served. We figure we had about 60 for breakfast.

After all have been served we enjoy a nice meal too.

For sometime we have been wanting to have a new family picture taken. It is always a struggle to get this done. First of all, we forget! Then, we want to all be dressed nice. We figured Easter at church would work. We have camera, everyone looks nice.

Here's a self-portrait of our photographer - Go Ben!

It is still a hard thing to get done. First, there's always a lot of adjusting.

There's always somebody who is not particularly happy.

And somebody gets caught with their eyes closed. (BIG SIGH) I think we still have more pictures to take.

When we got home, our family arrived and we did get a great picture of The Tribe with their cousins Joanne and Josiah.

After our meal, we put all those eggs we stuffed into good use and got ready for the great egg hunt.

This was JP's first egg hunt. Not Wokelle -- I think he found his first egg. Wait! We haven't said "Go" yet.

GO!

Adela wanted to be JP's helper and he was getting the hang of it.

There goes Joanne.

It is just fun!

The observers.

Braydon was Uncle Ayin's helper as he went out to catch video.

Braydon had a lot of ideas for his Uncle.

Braydon eventually commandeered the camera himself and caught the hunt footage.

It was a good day.

The Spring Busy

2011-04-23T15:48:00.001-04:00

What is the first question people ask when they see you? Usually it is "How are you?" My response seems to be "Busy." It sounds cliche, but it is just the truth. I would tell you that it is at times a good busy and other times a bit of a pressing busy.

We have two vehicles and one has been giving us problems for at least a week or longer now. Managing the trips to the various shops and money flowing out has been interesting. Considering Jerome and I are the only drivers right now -- it is always a matter of interrupting the family flow. However, just yesterday the job is done and the car is fixed.

Riane is working on becoming another one of our drivers. Drivers Education is not like it used to be. First of all, it is expensive (at least $200) and long! Riane had 8 classes over two weeks each lasting from 5:00 to 9:30. She has one class to make up in May and 8 hours of driving with her instructor to complete her course. Before she can get her license, she must log 50 hours of driving time with one of us.

This year we joined 4 H and the kids are loving it. We decided as a family to join the shooting sports club. The boys all want to hunt someday and my girls are pretty good at shooting and enjoy it too. So Riane is taking shotgun -- may seem a little rough for my Classic Reader, Seamstress, but she hit two out of three traps her first night shooting. Mary hates guns, but loves learning archery. She just learned that she is right handed, but left eye dominant. She is learning to adjust her bow stance, but she really enjoys it. Ricky, Adela and Braydon are all taking rifle. Jerome required the boys to take rifle this first year as a better preparation for hunting. Wokelle is young yet, but he enjoys the meetings. So, believe it or not, this mama is hanging out at my local gun club twice a month!

As part of the 4H experience the kids are all required to give a short demonstration talk. It does not have to be on their shooting discipline, but anything they like or enjoy. Riane is planning baking, Mary's is all about cultivating roses, Braydon's is on knives and Ricky and Adela each picked an animal - Ricky has his turtle, and Adela loves our old barn cat

Spring, as you know, starts garage sale season. This is a very serious time for us as we plan the children's wardrobe. I go through closets and re-arrange and assess clothing needs. Then we head out. This year, the first town with good garage sales had a rainy start date. We were not deterred and soldiered on anyway.

We came home with lots of great finds, but one unplanned purchase was this "leather" looking jacket.

Okay, he didn't need it, but who could resist $3? A lady at another garage sale gave him the glasses, because she wanted to complete the look.

Now we are in the thick of Easter. We don't do as much anymore for Easter as we used to. As our focus on Jesus gets stronger and stronger the things of this world truly fade away. We give the kids a basket, but it is very small. We used to color eggs,but haven't for a few years. We usually stuff plastic eggs with candy and invite family over for a backyard egg hunt. This year, two ladies at our church asked if they could have an afternoon to color eggs with my kids. Okay -- we were game. It ended up being a fabulous day. We had the color eggs station.

We also had the stuff the eggs station.

Mary and Wokelle had never colored eggs before and Riane had been missing our old tradition.

We got out our resurrection eggs and read the story of Jesus.
I am so glad that we decided to take a day to enjoy these ladies and have some fun.

Tomorrow we will be rolling out of our house at 5:00am to help a team cook breakfast for the sunrise service attenders. We will be praising the joy of our risen Saviour and enjoying our family.

He's Back ...

2011-04-07T22:19:00.000-04:00

AND . . .

HE'S HUNGRY!

His first words off the plane were "Mom, I am hungry!"

To which I replied, "Is that all you have to say to your Mother?"

It is so good to have him home. It was quite an experience for him, one he is still processing and resting up from. He came back pretty wiped out and keeps trying to catch naps. Unfortunately, we are kind of a busy family -- so I am forever making him wake up and move on to the next thing. I am sure that in a few days or so he will get back into the routine.

To this Mama's ears his guitar strumming is sweet indeed.

Other family news:

Our old dog Dexter is looking like his days are winding down. Today I took him to the vet and I made every kid go with me just in case we had to decide to put him down. The Dr. thought that a cortisone shot and some anti-inflammtory medicine would make him more comfortable for awhile and would could buy some more time. His arthritis is in his neck and he could hardly lift his head. He is looking better tonight already.

Our adoption is still in the matching/waiting phase. We sent out a some homestudies and one worker has responded with additional information to see if we would still like to be considered. We said Yes. Beyond that we haven't heard anything.

In Business

2011-04-02T16:57:00.000-04:00

We are branching out as a family and trying some new things. Our first enterprise is setting up our own Etsy shop. If you don't know what Etsy is, you realy should check it out. It is a venue that sells very similarly to ebay, however, all items must be handmade or vintage.

Our girls have been learning to do handwork and Mary has come out with some beautiful dish cloths. I asked her to make them on the big side, so they could be used as burp cloths for the baby or generous dish cloths.

At this point I have only listed one item to get us started. Keep watch! We hope to grow. Our shop is Evidence Not Seen. (as in Hebrews 11:1). We have Busy Hands.

And So He Goes . . .

2011-03-26T11:37:00.001-04:00

Braydon left this morning for his Journey to the Heart.

2 Timothy 2:22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

We pray this for our son.

Determination

2011-03-23T22:06:00.001-04:00

In our school curriculum, we study a character quality a month. It is amazing how the studies in the Wisdom Booklets seem to correlate with our life. Maybe the truth is, that the more we study the character quality the more we become aware of our shortcomings. Whatever the case may be, this month we are on Determination (vs. faintheartedness); defined as "purposing to accomplish God's goals, in God's time, regardless of the opposition". Life, of late, has not been for the fainthearted.

First of all, we were in recovery mode after our tiny flood. We took a day off of our regular studies to put our basement back in order. We sorted through every book and item in the basement. Some we disposed of, definitely all of it was reordered in a more organized fashion. We are very pleased with our results. Then, Braydon and I hit the couches. So sick neither one of us was getting up. The rest of the kids were invaluable helpers in keeping the big 3 going (laundry, dishes and food).

After this, I decided a wise schedule would help us keep an even keel in times of stress, so I dusted off my copy of Managers of their Homes, and determined to teach my kids to make and use a schedule.

Instead of using a paper and little papers we did things "tribe style" and laid the whole grid out on the floor.

The kids and I worked together and laid out our school subjects and activities all together. Afterwards, I took my laptop and worked around the cards to come up with our spreadsheet.

Everyone received a notebook with their small version inside and some monthly calendars to put our events on. Whew! Note the date -- it was Tuesday. We didn't have a regular day -- we just scheduled as I was recovering.

Recovered from the sick day, the time organized, the basement together and we are on! First of all, the last Bible quiz of the season was moved up a week, throwing our first Friday off to accommodate an extra practice. No big deal right? A Schedule is a guideline. So Tuesday we set it -- Wednesday and Friday accommodating quizzing that wasn't on our schedule, but that was ending so it didn't really count right? Thursday we followed our schedule -- I think.....

Monday -- Jerome was feeling so icky he wanted to sleep and we went back to bed after our prayer time. No one in the house moved until after 9:00am. Strange, but it felt good. Everyone needs to catch up -- we'll get this schedule going soon. After family devotions Jerome asked me to call the Dr. -- Unreal...Jerome hates to go to the Dr. He had numbness in his left arm and "discomfort" in his chest for a long time. I had been patiently waiting him out.

Of course, he ended up in ER and was admitted to the hospital. Tests and many tests later, we realized he was staying the night. The kids were handling it well, but you could see the worry coming on. I just kept taking them down the road to visit Dad so that they could see he was fine. So, we went to see Dad, we went to dinner, we went to see Dad, we went to 4H, we went to see Dad. We got up in the morning had breakfast and went to see Dad. We came home, trying to salvage our schedule and jump in and do something. Jerome called and said he was meeting the cardiologist and maybe I could come too. Okay, I left the kids home for lunch and told them to at least get to a math paper. Not on the schedule, but at least it would be something to keep them occupied. The cardiologist came two hours later than anticipated and agreed to release Jerome with medications to bring his blood pressure under control. Then I got to came home.

So, today is Wednesday -- we followed the schedule.

Life continues....

2011-03-02T21:53:00.000-05:00

As the fans blow downstairs, drying out what was left of our flood, our life has resumed a sense of normalcy. We realize had blessed we are. The Bible tells us that God "sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45). However, Jerome was hearing stories at work of people still shoveling out mud and sludge, and here we are with our few fans.

Many people who homeschool are certainly not blessed with a huge basement. So doing with less should not -- and really is not that hard. After all, the command of Deuteronomy 6 has certainly not been rescinded ("And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up"). Since we continue walking we keep teaching in it.

The white board has found its way to the breakfast room.

Mary is concentrating on math in the so-called "fancy dining room". In the 7 years we have lived here, I can count on one hand how many times someone has actually eaten in this room. Mostly it is now Dad's study den.

Riane prefers Mom and Dad's bedroom.

Braydon was in the living room classifying creatures for biology when Wokelle decided to help out.

The beauty of our messy lives. They happen amid all the doings of the day with 5 year olds listening into 9th grade activities and someone learning in a quiet bedroom or spread out in the breakfast room.

Two boys even lost some teeth today.

ADOPTION UPDATE:

The central registry reports are finally back. They are awaiting a couple of signatures and then our profile will be passed onto the matching department. Things are beginning to move.

And the rain descended, and the floods came...

2011-02-28T21:47:00.000-05:00

Mondays. We really like Mondays. The kids get to sleep in until 8:00am. Jerome and I rise alone and have a prayer time together. This Monday we heard the thunder at night, but all was quiet when Jerome headed into the bathroom at 6:30. One look out the window and the shout came:

"Get up! We are in TROUBLE!"

This was the view out back. The trees in the back are on the banks of a small creek. A creek my kids play in regularly. It had definitely run amuk.

Jerome and I ran into our walkout basement and saw a flood coming. I have no pictures for about an hour. The water was just starting to pour in the walkout door and he was frantically pulling the computer up and yelling "Wake the kids, we need 'em!"

I usually sing as I call the kids to rise up. Not today, I was flipping light switches and yelling: "GET UP, WE NEED YOU THERE'S A FLOOD IN THE BASEMENT!"

We pulled everything out of that basement as fast as we could. Books we loaded on tables and other items we ran up the stairs and dumped wherever. After an hour we had all important items safe.

Jerome was keeping a very watchful eye on that equipment room you see in the back. We did not want anyone to get electrocuted. The water was ice cold. When we realized how cold our feet were getting we worried about the kids and had them scurry to warm up and find boots.

The flow through the back door.

To stop the flow, Jerome and Braydon built this dam. They left for the store to get another sump pump and 20 sandbags. Our sump pump had never stopped running, but couldn't handle the flow. The second one got so hot it stopped working for awhile.

Our neighbors in the "cornfield" behind our house.

One of the things we thanked God for today was having a large family. All hands on deck, meant even the youngest. He was so proud of all the work he could do. We couldn't have done it without all of them. We saved everything in the basement. More than one child came to me today and said "This was fun." They knew the flood was bad and an emergency, but they loved the camaraderie of working together and being a one-accord family.

After using shop vacs and a rented carpet cleaner, this was the end of our day.

A lot of progress!

Our basement is around 1000 square feet and was used for all of our homeschooling. We had to relocate a lot of stuff. We had basically dumped everything during the emergency hour and could barely walk through our main level. The girls were incredible as they sorted and stacked and arranged so that we can now operate upstairs while the carpet is being dried out.

A corner of my bedroom.

Part of the living room.

We have many such stacks and corners around the house, but it is livable and workable now. While helping with all this, Riane kept the ever present laundry and dishes up too.

The hardest working man I have ever met!

Insurance will not cover us at all because we do not live in a flood zone and did not choose to buy flood insurance. This was the 100 year flood! However, we praise God. We just have to dry out the carpet and we are back on track -- no real damage. We will have a clean carpet and an opportunity to purge all the stuff that has been accumulating in the basement -- all jobs we had intended to get to.

We ended the day feeling thankful -- for our family and for the protection of the Lord.

Now let me finish that verse I started:

"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house; it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock." (Matthew 7:25)

Walking On

2011-02-27T21:43:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in so long. In the last month I have attended a funeral, a wedding, and held a brand new baby on the day of his birth. I have cried and prayed with friends who are walking a rough and rocky road. As a family we have struggled and prayed over some decisions, and we have a child who is walking through a bit of a trial right now. I caught myself saying, "I'm tired." just one too many times. I am living with the light of Christ how can I be tired? The truth is, when we wrestle we get tired, but in the wrestling we return again and again to life-giving words of scripture and encouragement from others, and I expect to come out stronger.

I decided to leave you with some quotes that have rumbled in my brain this week:

From a book called Freedom from Fear: Overcoming Fear and Anxiety by Neil T. Anderson

The coward always asks, "What do I stand to lose?" The courageous person always asks, "What do I stand to gain?" One sees the risks, the other sees the opportunities.

AND...

King Saul and his men saw themselves in relation to the giant and trembled. David saw Goliath in relation to God and triumphed.

From the book Great Voices of the Reformation: An Anthology by Henry Emerson Fosdick

As quoted by John Wycliffe in writing on temptation:

He that truly loveth his Maker refuses in will and liking all things that are in the world. ... Sometimes there are reared against him despisings, reproofs, scorns, and slanders. Therefore it is needful that he take the shield of patience, and be ready to forget and to forgive all wrongs, and to pray for the turning to good of them that hate him and hurt him.

Proverbs 29:18

Where there is no vision, the people perish: But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T15:03:00.001-05:00

I am really not big on Valentine's Day. It is not something Jerome and I necessarily celebrate. When we were younger I think we tried to do the whole romantic "thing". It just never fit us.

The last couple of years, I have tried to do something special for my children -- something small and unexpected. A little "I love you" from Mom and Dad. One year it was a household hunt with clues and they ended up with a Yahtzee game that we all played. One year they all got a gift I had found at the $1 store. This year I had almost forgotten all about it, but then I ran into these great scissors packages at Aldi that I knew the girls and I could really use. So I bought 4 of them. Unfortunately, I never ran into anything I thought would work for the boys.

Monday is our rest day. We do a lot on the weekends and always get home late on Sunday night. This morning Jerome and I were up for our weekly prayer date and he decided that he would take me to Menards for some boy things. I announced to the children that Daddy was taking me on a Valentine's Day drive. Of course, they knew something was up.

I came through the door holding a Diet Coke, "Look what Dad got me for Valentine's Day!"

All the kids peeked behind my back saying, "Yeah, but, what's in the bag?"

We found little things for each child. Braydon loves root beer and we had some particularly good root beer at a friend's house -- so we bought him a 4 -pack of his own.

Ricky is a fix-it man, so we got him a level. This is something he has been asking us about for awhile. I got him started on straightening out all the pictures on our walls.

Wokelle received a little pocket knife tool, thingy that he calls a spy -knife.

Of course, I gave the girls their scissor packages.

The younger girls went right to their projects!

It was a great morning -- honoring our love for our kids and how much we love their unique personalities.

The Storm Hit

2011-02-07T22:00:00.001-05:00

The storm (Snow, ice and all that) hit here, but a lot of other storms have blown in lately too. We are changing some directions in our home -- which involve some re-orgainizing, re-thinking, and lots of prayer. Some kids are happy and some kids are not. All that being said, I am not in a time of discouragement or unrest, I am just riding the waves, but they have been sweeping me along at such a rate that some areas (like blogging) have been taking a backseat.

Just keeping up with everyone's shoe sizes has challenged me lately. Jerome reached down and touched some boys shoes and realized that we were long overdue. Ricky's last pair of Goodwill $1 fill in the gap tennis shoes, were small and in sad shape. Wokelle was pushing the edges and Braydon had run the bottoms off of his. I think Moms are supposed to be more on top of this. Wokelle found some snazzy shoes in the infamous shoe box in the garage (Yeah!). Ricky and Braydon were treated to brand new pairs of shoes (not Goodwill stop-gaps!) I found out that Braydon now wears the same size as Jerome.

Some good news. Mary had her back checked for Scoliosis and is fine indeed. I finally purged the file cabinet (before tax time) and pulled out a large lawn and leaf bag of things dating back to '06! Seems like shoes aren't the only thing running away from me. I was told this week that for sure all of our paperwork for the impending adoption is complete. We are just waiting on the Child Abuse Registry report that the state has to send. When that piece of paper is in, our homestudy will be considered complete. Almost there.

On to our latest pictures. I thought the storm would feel confining. But indeed it energized the tribe. For the first time they have been going outside everyday to sled on the fast ice and snow. It has been good for them.

The first day of the big snow, Jerome cleared the driveway and started up the generator to make sure all was in working order and then he left for work. It really didn't look that bad out. I was sure we wouldn't lose power. What do you know.. out it went. I thought we might be able to wait on Jerome to come at night. Jerome made a quick call and reminded me, that if the power stayed out for a significant period of time, it would be harder to heat such a cold house and ... the biggie.... no power, no flushing (we are on well and septic in the country). Six kids... no flushing... we are going to have to hook that generator up ourselves. I am glad my boys are coming into their own. First they had to get into the crawl space of the house to feed the extension cord to the equipment room.

It's a small space.

Braydon made it!

Ricky had a much easier time.

All hooked up and generator going.

Just a safety note -- always well-vent a generator. We propped open the garage door and put the generator right next to the open door. We had the furnace on and the water pump. We ran in and checked the systems - we were a go! Just then the electricity came back on. It never went out again the whole storm. I am glad the electricity came on, but we had just got it all running on our own. I figured it was a good test of our abilities.

although I am not found of being outside in all that snow -- these guys are loving it!

A Mom’s Nook Post

2011-01-19T21:39:00.001-05:00

Hanging Out to Dry

As a mom I can sometimes get lost in all that I do and forget that God is working in my life at all times. This summer as I was hanging out my laundry, I started to think about how "hung out to dry" I was feeling. My husband had recently begun teaching a young adult class at our church. Then, he was asked to fill in occasionally in the adult Sunday school class. Not long after he started his rotation teaching a children's church class. I was feeling a little put-out that I did not have a specific ministry in which to participate. Don't get me wrong, I didn't really want one. I was (and still am) teaching six children at home, attending a regular Bible Study and participating where I saw a need, i.e. helping out in Vacation Bible School, cooking for the Easter Breakfast, whatever. I was just having a pity party that morning as I was hanging out the laundry. I realized that it didn't matter if I was hanging out the laundry, teaching a class or cooking a meal. The Lord is to be glorified. If I am out front at this moment or behind the sheets, it doesn't matter where I am; it matters where the Lord is in my life. I began to see how much our physical lives are a "dim reflection" of our spiritual lives.

Sometimes we feel "hung out to dry" by the Lord. I hate that feeling. What am I supposed to do out there? When I am hung out, I get the fresh sunshine and wind to blow through my life. I have the opportunity to come in refreshed and aired out. I am also seen by all who care to take notice. Think of the laundry on the line. Should anyone care to look, they can see that I took everyone swimming, all the suits are right out there, or maybe they see that I have a lot of boys who put holes in the knees of their pants. How I live my life and praise or not praise the Lord during a hang time can also be seen by anyone who cares to look. Am I praising or complaining? Looking for the opportunities to grow and serve where I am – Or wishing I had ended up somewhere else.

What I realized that day did refresh me. It's not my circumstances or my position or my anything – it's really just whether I am glorifying the Lord during my "rinse and spin" or the "hang to dry".

Braydon

2011-01-17T18:26:00.004-05:00

As a mom I have always felt that incredible tick of the time. I realize that my children are passing through my life so fast. The time for me to influence, train and pour myself into them is flying by every day. Today Braydon turned 14 -- FOURTEEN! What did he want for his birthday? The promise of a trip to Journey to the Heart, a ten day spiritual retreat that is sure to bring him back as a man. Today I took a walk through a few of my memories:

He was a chubby little bald baby -- whose appearance into this world nearly took me out of mine. He came in during an ice storm and he does live dramatic.

All those years of dragging around his "b" and sucking that bottom lip; I thought he would never give them up. Long gone -- Long, long gone.

Always a Daddy's boy -- If Daddy loved the Broncos so did he.

I spent the first few years of his life with my hand on the back of his collar. He was daredevil from the git-go. Now I just close my eyes and swallow hard.

There is nothing like a good movie.

He has always loved the guitar.

Even from the youngest age; he just could not leave his sisters alone!

This little boy....

Happy birthday!

Oh Riane!

2011-01-14T15:33:00.000-05:00

Teenagers are a fun lot to raise. I know there tend to be lots of complaints out there about teenagers, but I don't seem to have those issues right now. My "olders" as I call them are big helps to me and great fun. Although, they have their goofy sides.

Take Riane, she loves funny things. Like wearing my hat all day with the brim not rolled up the way it is supposed to be. It looks like she is wearing it wrong side out.

She also loves shoes. Lots of shoes. Lots of really high, pointy shoes.

And books. Really old difficult books or entire sets. She is slowly amassing her own library for when she moves out someday.

She is growing and very responsible. She even does her own laundry -- in time. Laundry day is pretty evident... as in "Why are you wearing THAT?!" Because it is laundry day!

The Long-Delayed Holiday Post

2011-01-13T21:54:00.000-05:00

I have been quite re-miss in getting a post out with all the joy of our Christmas and New Year's, but we are finally back into our routine and I am getting it blogged.

This year we really tried to make more gifts. We feel that if we made it is just a bit more personal.

Adela made this scarf for her Sunday School teacher. It was one of her first crochet projects!

I made my Mom an afghan and Mary made one of her prayer shawls. Okay... we know she lives in Vegas.... but it gets chilly at night.

The three boys made a lazy susan for their aunt and uncle.

With many hands to help, the cheesecake team made their Christmas Eve deliveries to our friends. Fourteen this year!

This year the kids were given a certain amount of money and we took a family Christmas shopping trip. So, they knew what those gifts were and they were excited about them. However, Mom and Dad always give one gift (as well as stockings) and Grandma was here this year. Well, Grandma and I wrapped the special presents after the tribe had gone to bed. We through numbers in a hat and randomly gave everyone a code instead of a name. It kept those kids guessing all the time. There were hoping that number on the present they were sure was a book, was for Riane. Who else but Riane would ask for BOOKS!

Finally, code revealed Wokelle headed to unwrap his present from Grandma and old beach towels fell out! I thought he was going to cry, until he saw that inside the beach towels was the much wanted nerf sword -- relief!

Let me tell you -- Christmas Eve was one restless night. The kids are allowed to look in their stockings -- but no opening gifts until we are all up. And we gave them a 6:30am time for Mom and Dad and Grandma. Some of our little lovelies were up wandering the house all night. At 3:00am poor Grandma wanted to make a quick potty trip and was surprised from excited chimes of "Good Morning!" from the living room.

They were most frustrated that the long awaited presents from Mom and Dad did show up -- six small, light boxes all exaclty the same size. What? On Christmas morning they excitedly opened all the other presents, until Adela finally handed the dreaded, not too exciting looking box to Braydon and said "You should open yours first." He was the test kid.

The box had nothing but a 3x5 card with what I thought was a pretty pithy little piece on it! At the end it instructed the kids to go to Dad for something special. Meanwhile, Dad had been sitting there with a big black trash bag.

Braydon got a kiss on the head and then.... he was told to go to Grandma's closet. He drug out a big box with his long awaited guitar case!

Oh, now those kids were into this! They all grabbed their little boxes and wanted their turn!

The smiles on their faces was worth all the anxiety leading up -- they so didn't expect this one!

The other fun part was watching what the kids had decided to give each other.

Mary bought the younger boys these lovely fake teeth.

After the unwrapping we were thankful there wasn't much snow. Ricky figured out his ripstick.

In the spirit of homemade giving Riane had given the boys little coupons for things she would do -- like make apple dumplings or participate in an acitivty of their choice for 30 minutes. Braydon picked boxing....

Yes! Jerome did throw something on the grill for Christmas dinner.

Jerome's brother and family made it over for Chrismas dinner. That little JP sure loved the nerf sword. It was bigger than he is, but no one had to teach him what to do with it. He could even fake dying.

Christmas was done and we marched on to New Year's Eve.

We were all so glad that Grandma was able to stay with us a little bit longer this year. She even made it to midnight!

Be My Guest - The Hair Adventure

2011-01-08T09:54:00.000-05:00

God (and Jerome) has been prompting me to keep developing my writing and I do work on it in fits and spurts. Part of the delay on my holiday posting for this blog has been the general holiday excitement, a stomach virus and my work on posting a story for someone else's blog -- guest blogging.

Of all things, this time I am writing about hair. It has been quite an adventure with Mary's hair and I decided to share it (with Mary's full knowledge and agreement) on a blog called Keep Me Curly! This blog has been the best I have found to help me learn to handle Mary's hair appropriately. There are style ideas, basic videos on care and how-to. I highly recommend it.

If you would like to read my post please click here: The Hair Adventure.

Mary Ponders

2010-12-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

Christmas is filled with joy and a lot of activities. My Mom has come out from the Land of Twinkle and Shine (aka Las Vegas). We are really enjoying her visit. She does a lot of dishes and plays a lot of Uno Attack.

We did get the yearly picture with Santa at the mall and this year Wokelle was the only one still riding the little train at the mall. Sort of sad that all the kids have grown too big for our annual train ride.

Riane was working hard on a dramatic presentation of Mary Ponders. A dear lady at our church used to teach Riane's Sunday School class when Riane was little. When we returned to the church and Riane is all but grown up, she came up to me and said, "I have finally found my Mary!" I didn't know what she meant, but apparently she had Riane in mind for this Christmas Cantata. The choir was behind her singing the whole cantata and there was a narrator and Riane was upfront representing the young Mary. Our friend rehearsed with her several Saturdays to work out all the blocking and emotional responses. It turned out fabulous.

The church secretary and choir director surprised us by putting her picture on the front of the bulletin.

It is something to see your children come into their own and use their gifts to glorify the Lord.

Family Night

2010-12-13T16:54:00.000-05:00

Once a year before Christmas our church presents a family night program. Anyone that desires signs up with a "talent" they want to share. Some sing, some read stories, some play music, some groups get together and put on skits -- however creative anyone can be. It always ends up to be a great night of informal fun. We really get know people in our church family as we see them display gifts and talents we may not have known they had.

Jerome and I lead a Young Adult group and we decided that we would put on a skit. One lady came with an awesome idea and I went home and wrote it into the short skit. Jerome agreed to play the rebellious teenage son. He was really "feeling" the part. Before we left for the big night, he came out of the bathroom totally clean shaven. Mind you, he hasn't been without facial hair for 20 some years.

Our girls loved it:

We arrived early to get ready and our girls got a little silly decided to trade one shoe each. They went this way for the whole night.

The teen's Sunday School Class had an awesome performance of the song "Mary Did You Know". It involved sign language and dowel rods -- a human video.

The end was quite dramatic with a star.

They also put on a puppet show.

The young-en's put on a quite little skit of the blessed night. Ricky and Wokelle were fine angels. They almost remembered their lines.

Okay. So here is Jerome as that rebellious teenager texting away. THAT is true acting as we don't even have texting on our phones.

Riane and Braydon asked me to drag out my dusty flute and play "O Holy Night" with them.

The night always closes with our Pastor reading the children the true Christmas story from Luke 2.

A great night.

Six kids, One picture

2010-12-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

so it is time to write the Christmas letter. I LOVE the Christmas letter. I love to get them, I love to write them. I really like to send a picture of the kids along. This year we had visions of putting a family picture in, but alas, I am not a great planner and time got the best of us.

One night we were all dressed up to go to the "Messiah". Of course, we were in a rush and I started barking orders, which never works well. Those pictures just didn't come off right.

First this was not the best background, and what happened to Braydon?

Okay, Mom is really not doing this thing well, emotions are starting to fray and we are heading out to see "The Messiah"

Next day, calmer heads prevailed (Jerome's mostly) and we got started again.

Braydon is taller than Riane. She is pushing up on his shoulder and standing on tip-toe; which I didn't really notice until later.

Pretty nice picture, but when I was previewing the lot Braydon kept saying "Look at the faker Mom! She is SO Faking!" It is a little obvious here isn't it?

Braydon's getting annoyed.

In the middle Wokelle had a little gas. Apparently Mary was the first to know.

At last, the final picture. The best I could do.

Thanksgiving

2010-12-11T16:10:00.000-05:00

Preparing for Thanksgiving was a hair-raising experience. Mary and I decided to yarn-braid her har, and hopefully it will stay until after Christmas. I am not the fastest braider and this took me a few days to accomplish. Adela and Riane baked all the Thanksgiving pies (5!) so that I could braid on.

Mary in progress.

I did finally finish!

She liked it!

On the actual day, we had lots of help in the kitchen.

Even our niece Joanne was in the kitchen helping with our Angel Eggs. We refuse to call them by that other name.

This is how we do a big dinner at our house. We are in the basement for space reasons and that is where we do school -- so there is usually a world map and other things on the wall. We also re-purpose all of our fun tables. This time the air hockey table became our buffet and we always eat at the ping pong table. That's just life -- use what you have.

We had watched "Fiddler on the Roof" that week and so kids spontaneously broke into the famous bottle on the head dance.

Joanne had spent the night with us, so here we got some lovin' from our nephew.

Who do you think JP needed to call?

Joanne worked so hard on building her castle that she broke into a sweat.

The camera was just set on the table and I saw it the hands of many children. Kind of nice to have digital -- they take as many as they want. It was kind of interesting to see what they decided was picture worthy.

The turtle.

Themselves.

Half-eaten food?

The dog.

Their aunt and uncle.

Even the flowers.

Piano Recital

2010-12-11T15:40:00.000-05:00

Every year right before Thanksgiving, our piano teacher schedules a recital at a local nursing home's chapel. It is always a fun night. We love our piano teacher, she is a local older lady who has lived in this town all her life. She is somewhere close to her 80's and can show you pictures of her with the high school cheer leading squad. She has a strong personality and keeps those kids in line.

Braydon has had a respectful "argument" with her for the last couple of months. He kept telling her that he got a guitar and that he was far more interested in guitar and did not want to pursue piano any longer. She told him he would regret it, he should persevere. However, he held his ground and finished the books he was working in and told her he was leaving. She pushed him to practice and play for the recital at least. He agreed. She called me to make sure he was practicing. I love her!

So this was his farewell recital... he thought. She told him to learn something on his guitar so well that he could play during her recital next year. Isn't she great?

Ricky went to an all day hunter safety class with Jerome. He studied and worried over that test for a couple of weeks. He wanted it so bad, but sitting still, listening to teachers and taking a 100 question test is not exactly easy for this boy. He did it! He ran into the recital while the person before him was playing. Whispered "Mom, I passed!" Plopped down and played his songs perfectly.

"Okay, Mrs. F, I will practice for the recital."

Riane is becoming quite accomplished. Mrs. F had asked her to work on a song to accompany a group at her church. They found a semi-professional to hire and so Riane did not get the job. However, since she worked so hard Mrs. F said she wanted to sing it at the recital. Riane has been taking lessons with her for 7 years and she is already feeling pangs of sadness that her time with Mrs. F is running short.

1965

2010-11-14T23:38:00.000-05:00

Gas cost $.31; bread $.21. Australia joined the Vietnam war and Malcolm X was shot in New York. Lyndon B. Johnson announced the new medicare program and on November 13, I was born.

Forty-five years later 6 kids baked and crafted like mad, while their Dad took me to Red Lobster. One of the best birthdays I have ever had.

Good thing they creatively put 45 on my cake. All those candles would have created a smoke screen.

They had a Bible open to one of my favorite verses: Hebrew 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. The kids had all made me gifts.

And baking! WOW.

More presents - even a map for a treasure hunt.

Some goofy presentations.

Sometimes - he can be a little ornery.

Everyone got active and these two caught some air.

I gotta tell ya, ALL boys end up in a wrestling match -- it's just how it is.

Poor Dexter, he really hates the sound of popping balloons.

Jerome really put effort into playing the guitar.

Braydon showed us how it is really done.

Everyone had a lot of fun.

Thank you family -- it was a beautiful day!

Read This

2010-11-12T21:58:00.001-05:00

This is a free digital holiday magazine from my favorite Home school Magazine. This is not just about Homeschooling though, this one has ideas or the upcoming holidays. One special note, I have an article in this issue. My article discusses the holidays and the extra stress that puts on adoptive families. Let me know what you think.

Book Titles

2010-11-05T21:32:00.002-04:00

Mary has been writing down the story of her life. She doesn't want anyone besides Mom to read it yet, but she is working her way through it. When the subject came up at dinner, we all got silly and were trying to think of the book title for each one of us should we write the stories of our lives. Honestly, the writer in me has had the book title for a couple of my children in mind for a long time.

Here's where we landed:

Riane - Born to Sparkle Called to Shine

When Riane was little, I saw some sparkly stuff on her face and told her she was sparkling. She said, "Oh, Mama, I was born to sparkle!" A friend had a t-shirt printed with the "born to sparkle called to shine" phrase on it. So it has a long history with Riane.

Braydon - Marching On

I really wanted to call Braydon's title "Golligog". That is what he called horses when he was just a toddler. He was embarrassed by this and went with a total military book title -- since he is bound for the academy someday.

Mary - Stronghearted

This was totally Mary's idea and I think it fits well.

Adela - Mariposa, Her Flight for Freedom

I have called Adela "Mariposa" for a long time. It is the Spanish word for butterfly. She has had some struggles in her young life and I tell her that God has a plan for her life and it is beautiful and she will break the cocoon of her past and fly like a beautiful butterfly. So I call her my Mariposa to remind her.

Ricky - Life in the Patch

Okay, by this time we were getting silly and when Ricky was little I called him my "punkin head" sooooo..... life in the patch......

Wokelle - Man with a Message

Mary tells us that one time Wokelle was named Jeremiah and it sort of bothers her that we were only given the name Wokelle. I keep telling her, Wokelle is what we named him and it is fine - to me he is always Wokelle. One day, hit by inspiration, I explained how Jeremiah was an old testament prophet, proclaiming a message to God's people and John (as in Wokelle Tithin John) was a man in the New Testament who "was the voice of one calling in the desert. Make straight the way for the Lord." Since that day, Wokelle has always been my man with a message.

Jerome was not present at our little book title dinner, but Riane offered up a title for him anyway, Growing up Island

And mine -- as always I am the Last Mama

Adoption Update

Today was the first meeting with our adoption assesor. She will be back for her second visit next week. The paperwork is flying faster than Jerome and I can keep up with it.

De-clutter = mess

2010-11-03T22:57:00.000-04:00

Last week we took a week off of school. I had dreams of cleaning the whole house, a thorough fall clean, de-junk, reorganization project. Alas, I made a priority list and hoped that I would at least dent the first item.

The first item was clothes closets. At our house this is major. Clothes get handed down, clothes get hung in wrong closets -- clothes tend to overwhelm us. I decided to be super bold and set a very lean limit: 5 everyday clothes, two church outfits, two sweatshirts and 3 pajamas. The boys were thankful -- too many clothes was giving them a headache. I tackled their closet first and all the extra was given away or stored into tubs clearly marked. They were happy, I was happy.

The girls.

Another story. Little frowns danced across their foreheads when they heard my new numbers. Except for Riane. She is exempt from the clothes plan. She receives her own clothing allowance (extremely modest!) and as long as she manages that -- she is on her own. She manages very well -- she buys used and sews like mad.

The girls.

They are still frowning. I was firm and we swept through their closets. The remains of their day is stacked all over my room. Piles are labeled - give away - possibly sell. De-cluttering their room made my room a mess.

I am already seeing the results of my closet slashing week. The boys no longer have piles all over their room that they can't identify. As in: "Are these clean or dirty?" "dunno - dirty I guess."

I am totally caught up on laundry. Less choices means I know what I am wearing and I know what is clean or dirty. There is no temptation (girls) to run and change every 5 minutes and dump the morning clothes in the laundry room.

I have promised to slash my closet too. However, the week went by and some unforeseen activities infringed on my time and now I have the girls' mess on my floor and my closet is still glutted. I WILL get there.

On another side note, since we were off for the week I took a secret box off the top of my shelf. A very gracious friend gave me a set of quilling items. Papers, tools, books -- the works! I had never heard of this craft and I assured her we would use it .... someday. I didn't want to give it out without a project in mind, Proverbs 29:18 "Where [there is] no vision, the people perish:"

We help out at a nursing home ministry from our church and Jerome asked if we could make a craft for this month's visit. Ahh .... vision.

Some kids enjoyed it more than others, but we are giving them to others so they all gamely participated.

All that paper could sometimes be a mess!

The cards are turning out quite beautiful. We have to finish them up with some messages, but so far we are pleased.

The Process of Adoption

2010-10-19T22:22:00.000-04:00

Having announced that our family is actively pursuing another adoption has been met with varied responses. All positive! For Jerome and I, this had been a good year of discussion, prayer, consideration... before we really arrived at the place where we both felt that God's call was to step out and start another process. We prayerfully hope that it ends up in more little Googeg's.

I was a little circumspect about telling people that we were signing up to potentially have 8 children. This after I already received my bifocals -- I am not a young mama. Mostly I get questions about the process.

I will tell you what the process is .... paperwork. It is a whole lot of paperwork. It started with the initial brief application to the agency, then the application for a home study grant, we moved on to the Child Placement Application and I was told today that another packet of forms was being mailed out. Sometimes, it is even re-doing paperwork. We had left a couple of small boxes blank on our Child Placement Application and couldn't get the PDF file for the signature page to print. The whole application got sent back for me to re-do and gather original signatures. Having been through this process before, I imagine the soon to be sent paperwork involves Mom and Dad biographies to be written, requests for background checks and fire safety checkoff sheets for a fireman to perform. We will have to have water from our septic tank checked. We may have to ask others for letters of reference.

Once some paperwork is flowing we will be visited by an adoption assessor who will ultimately write our home study and (new this time!) a large family assessment. Concurrently, we will begin training classes. We may have the opportunity to waive some of our training simply based on our experiences and because we aren't accepting foster children placements. However, we were told that everyone is absolutely required to attend the Cultural Diversity class.

Once all of these items are written and gathered and training classes are completed we will, hopefully, enter the arena where we will be matched with kids in the foster care system, legally freed for adoption and needing a home like ours.

That's the process in a nutshell. Just imagine --this time we don't have to deal with immigration and foreign governments!

Basically, we are buckled in for another adventure with the Tribe.

The Breadmaking Adventure

2010-10-13T22:20:00.000-04:00

A gracious friend lent us a hand mill and gave us some wheat, rye and millet. How blessed -- we just happened to be studying a nutrition unit in school, on that specifically outline the benefits of bread baked from freshly milled grain.

Milling was a little bit of a work out. But it was lots of fun too -- especially if you are an energetic boy.

Well, my squatty little loves! I couldn't decide how much to put in the pan. I believe we should have yielded closer to two loaves. What a shame, because the dough had two awesome rises and baked well.

So... even with my error how did it taste?

Good.

NO! I mean AWESOME!

A good project.

The Home School Life

2010-10-08T22:41:00.000-04:00

The toughest job you will ever love. I hear that quote all the time about a lot of different professions. As corny as it sounds, home school Mom has to top the list of deserving that line. I LOVE homeschooling -- always have. I don't how you could do it if you didn't love it. But tough... It can be the toughest thing I have ever done. First of all, those students that fought all the way through the day, don't go home, they ARE home. The job isn't teaching. It's teaching, facilitating when their older, curriculum planning and purchasing, discipline, conferences with the principal, conflict negotiation AND responsibility for maintaining the facility as well as meal planning and preparation.

One of the great gifts that come from homeschooling is time. We have time to spend with God every day as a whole family together. If one of us is struggling there is time to pull aside for talking it out, praying it out and hugging our way through it. Time for us to learn how to live with one another. Varying personalities, ages, bents and issues, we aren't going anywhere so we have to figure out how to get along. Time to work. We are all home all day, the house takes more wear and tear and no one can just sit by and let someone else work. We all benefit from the service we are called upon to share.

I will never regret homeschooling. We share some mundane times, some frustrating times and even, angry times. Ah, but there's the key we share them.

Even some funny times, which have us laughing out loud -- here's few:

Riane: Learning Latin has been quoting verb conjugations. Amabo, Amabat, Amabant
Braydon: "Yeah, I can speak Latin to: I'm a boo, I'm a bat, I'm a bum."

Jerome is very choosy about how many holes get put in the wall, especially since our house is covered in so much wallpaper. We don't hang anything without consulting him first. Riane's response: "Ah, Dad, Life is short, drive the nail."

Of course, Homeschooling gives kids a REAL picture of their parents as Ricky noticed, "You don't know your pecks and bushels!!??"

He also got a peek at someone else's handwriting while I was grading, "Wow, it must be a chore to read her papers."

As with most aspects of mothering, I say homeschooling is worth every tear.

The Pictures

2010-10-06T22:36:00.000-04:00

I promised to follow my last post with some pictures and here they are:

We got to spend some time hanging out with our niece and nephew.

I was really brave and tried to put locs in Mary's hair. This picture below shows how tiny I braided all of her hair. It took me forever and eventually we considered it a failed project. A little disappointing for both of us, but I sure did learn a lot in the process. Many things that I needed to improve upon in the care of her hair type. The best website / blog I found is called Keep Me Curly. It has helped me immensely!

On Labor Day we visited a local lake with our family. This lake does not allow any motorized water craft. It made for an awesome day.

Jerome was the master chef!

Mary, Adela, Ricky and Wokelle took swimming lessons. My camera kept dying, but I was able to catch this photo. The older three have passed enough that they won't be needing anymore lessons. Wokelle improved so much. They even had him diving off the side. If he would just swim on top of the water...

We made it to a local library sale and had a wonderful time spending money. Can't say that very often! For $12 each I ended up with solid wood chairs for our homeschool area instead of these rather worn-out office chairs we desperately needed to get rid of.

We also snagged two computers. We still need to hook them up and see how they work, but $5 is pretty good.

Braydon is a full-blown teenager now. Which means he eats, plays guitar, eats, sleeps, eats, plays basketball, eats, sleeps and it starts over again tomorrow.

Riane, Braydon and Mary were involved in our church's youth Sunday. One of Riane's contributions was sewing this tiger puppet with no instructions!

As you can see, life this summer has been full and exciting.

Just a note of coming attractions. The Tribe has prayerfully decided to enter the adoption ring again. We have chosen an agency and started the paperwork -- the adventure continues.....

For Shame...

2010-09-27T21:40:00.000-04:00

I have been meaning to do a lot of things lately, and, for shame, they have not been done. One is updating the blog. I love my blog -- other than my mother I am not really sure who reads it, but I love writing it. Here we are for shame, almost a month and no update.

I have to tell you, I am really tired and was ready to go to bed and leave this thing for yet another day (shame). Really it is because I don't feel like going downstairs and going through pictures. So, I said no more shame I am updating without pictures and just keep going.

We did have a restful labor day going to a nearby lake. The coolest thing was that we found a lake that does not allowed motorized watercraft. That means that on Labor Day, there was hardly anyone there. The kids did some fishing and some swimming. We were eating burgers and watermelon and had a great day.

We have been living in a time of GREAT Abundance. Mostly tomatoes. Jerome G. Master Canner is on the job. He has canned tomato sauce, tomatoes and salsa. Salsa at our house comes in HOT and GOOD FOR MAMA. We still have bags and boxes of tomatoes lining our garage. We give them away, we cook them, we eat them, we have canned them...

Driving has been taking up a major portion of my days. Just for the month of September, some of my kids have been taking swimming lessons. So, this involves driving out on Tuesday and Thursday evening. Here has been the driving schedule of late -- Monday - off, Tuesday -- piano lessons and swimming, Wednesday -- library trip and quizzing practice for teens, Thursday -- swimming lessons. Friday -- well, here is where I catch up, grocery store, etc. We are almost at the finish line for this one.

The teens at our house have been busy. They are involved in teen Bible quizzing and had their first meet. Riane had a day with no errors -- Braydon did very well, but I don't know his standing yet -- Mary's team took first place on junior level!

The teens also were very active in the youth Sunday this past week. Every year the teens take one service at church. It turned out very well, we were quite pleased with all ways they came up with to serve the Lord this week.

Believe it our not - with all this activity, homeschooling continues and Mama has been sneaking in a little writing time. I have "sold" articles to two eBooks. I say "sold" because compensation has been a magazine subscription or copies of said eBook. But hey - it is writing and people are willing to compensate me for it. Jerome tells me to be faithful in the little things.

It may have taken a month -- but I have not left blogger land. Pictures to arrive later.

Lately...

2010-08-31T19:59:00.000-04:00

The one legged race:

The Church Picnic:

At Home:

And Then There Was Tuesday

2010-08-20T22:56:00.000-04:00

I wrote up our "Day in the Life Post" and that really is a day in our life, but then there was Tuesday. Some days just don't run on any body's plan. It doesn't lay nice in the day-timer; and there is nothing like putting your head on the pillow after that day, even if it went well.

We had a Tuesday. I actually planned it to be a crazy day. Sounds crazy to even plan for crazy, but I did -- in the hope that one crazy day would make for 4 relatively sane days in the life... and it worked, for the most part, but Tuesday...

I raised the kids for devotions and egg sandwiches (some liked; some didn't). While the tribe was eating I was readying myself and throwing any manner of snack food and water in the car. That's when I realized that we had cleaned the toy closet and loaded the overflow in the back of my car for donation. OOH -- add "drop off" to the list.

With everyone fed and brushed we got in the car. I had my big red bag packed with a plethora of Mama to do items, planner, crochet project, Bible, Writing project, cell phone... The boys loaded in Dad's car for a project at the rental house, the girls and I headed off to their teeth cleaning appointment. What luck! In the dentist's office instead of horrific "Don't look at the TV!" soaps they turned the waiting room TV onto HG TV. The girls filed out one by one, I made calls, crocheted my project and watched people try to sell their house.

Halfway through Jerome dropped the boys off. Next stop, Braydon's Bee shot. OOPS! Office closed until 1:00pm. Well, we just shifted the schedule and headed to McDonald's. After downing $1 items and water we had time to kill. We headed to Walmart for a few items; time still not up I got in one extra errand.

Now the Bee shot. The most boring appointment. The office is 30 minutes from our house, necessitates a visit every 4 weeks, and Braydon walks in POP! Wait 20 minutes. Shot administered, wait accomplished we head to get that drop off project handled.

We head off to Piqua (a town 7 miles away) and let Riane goes into the closest Joanne Fabrics around. I have given her a very ambitious cross-stitch picture when I had fantasies of completing something beautiful. I gave up as the children kept arriving. She is chugging away at it and needed more DMC floss.

I can hardly believe time is on our side, so we head into the Salvation Army Thrift Store. SCORE! New khakis for Braydon and Ricky for a couple bucks. Might as well get shoes for Mary and a skirt for me.

Time's up we load back into the car and drive to our 3:00pm appointment at a friend's house. We help her weed her yard. In return, we get to love her dogs, eat snacks she prepares and then she pays us and takes us swimming. The pool a private, country retreat owned by her mother. Woo Hoo!

The kids are wearing thin, but she invites 4 of them to ride in her powder blue, VW Cooper Convertible to the pool. Oh yeah -- This is a memory! Top down hands waving we follow behind. All I can say is "I want to ride in the cool car too." Riane thinks that perhaps I better concentrate on driving.

We arrive to what I thought would be the big wind down. Everyone's frayed nerves lash out and I end up with 3 of the tribe banished to the grass before we leave.

We got home at 7:00pm rustled showers and dinner and then... the head on the pillow... sweet. And Tuesday was done.

A Day In The Life

2010-08-13T22:48:00.000-04:00

When I first started homeschooling, I would devour any article, essay or blog post that would start with, "Here's what a typical day in our life is like...". I either left feeling challenged with a new way to try something, overwhelmed by the amount someone else was able to accomplish or amazed that so many interruptions didn't drive that family crazy! They helped me keep my boat on an even keel.

I am ready to write one of my own. Not because I have it all figured out and certainly NOT because I think we do it so well everyone should know. Now I can rest in how we manage in our own unique style. It is not perfect -- I am learning how to do it better every day, but maybe someone out there is like I was and just needs to know that it is possible to accomplish -- even with life's interruptions.

So here it is -- one of our days:

6:30am Walk around the house waking up all the children and stop off to start a pot of coffee. On a good day I have already been up and had some quiet time with the Lord and the coffee is done. Lately, I am in need of improvement.

As soon as the children are assembled we have family devotions. We start with prayer requests and a prayer time and then we start our Bible Cd's. We have been following a reading plan that takes us through the Bible chronologically and we just play the next segment. Afterwards, we discuss we have just read. This morning the kids look bleary eyed and Dad and I do most of the talking -- we are in Leviticus.

The children are excused, I start breakfast and they start cleaning up. They are supposed to dress, make beds, brush teeth and straighten their rooms up. However, this time is often punctuated with "What is for breakfast?" and "Did you really brush your teeth?"

I call a hearty "BREAKFAST" and they all appear. I dash out to make myself presentable for the day and Jerome and I sit to have breakfast and a cup of coffee.

8:30am School begins.

Wisdom booklet time lasts until 9:15. All the kids are around the ping pong table and we read from our ATI Curriculum booklets. We usually go around the table reading a paragraph or so and discussing as we go. This morning it is on Geology and the terms are a little rough. I just read on myself. I have one son that always keeps his head down. I really like to see his face when I am teaching. We have been working on this for years, literally. At least now I can get him to sit upright in a chair and actually SEE his head. Now, I would like to start seeing his face. To, yet another reminder of "Braydon, head." He holds up a crudely drawn sign with a smiley face on it.

9:15 Wisdom Booklet over we head to scheduled time. Math until 10, 10-1030 grammar, 1030 -11:00 history, 11:00-11:30 science, 11:30-12:00 reading. Everyone working in their own textbook. I sit at the teacher table and teach Kindergarten to my youngest. Kindergarten is part teaching Wokelle and answering questions from any child with questions on their work. So I might be counting pencils with Wokelle and turn to check the angles on an isosceles triangle.

When Kindergarten is over, I grade the papers the older kids have already turned in. Today was awesome, everybody had been graded for Math and Grammar before I went up to prepare lunch. Kids papers can be so entertaining. I usually have fashion models and princesses drawn on some -- after which they tell me they can't believe they didn't finish more work! One kid takes grammar assignments with a little humor. Today for different types of sentences he tried to hold a theme:

Imperative sentence: Bob be cool.
Declarative sentence: Bob is cool.
Interrogative Sentence: Is Bob cool?
Exclamatory Sentence: Bob's cool!

That's creativity in my book!!

11:00 - I head up for Lunch Preparation. Jerome leaves for work on second shift so lunch is our main meal. Usually I turn on my laptop to "Mom's Lunchtime Seminar" (Something from the Internet like Focus on the Family.) Today I plan on grocery shopping so I am making a list and checking coupons in the middle of cooking.

Again, there is a constant stream of chatter with all that I do -- millions of school questions, work questions, and what's for lunch questions. AND the every day fuss about who is going out to check the mail and who checked it last. Someone is usually playing the piano, guitar or something. It's noisy.

12:00 LUNCH

After lunch the kids are charged with cleaning the kitchen and today I take a cup of coffee to the bedroom to read for minute. Loved it. Off to do more grading.

1:30 Teacher tutor time. Riane and I work together to help the kids finish up, run flashcards or whatever. Today is Friday and she is not available, this is her day to bake for Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I miss my partner, but we do get finished.

3:00 AMISH HOURS. Jerome has asked us not to run any large appliances from 3:00 - 6:00 as it is peak hours for electricity and could affect our rates. We have come to call this time of day Amish Hours. I start and turn off the washer twice -- forgetting the time.

I MUST get to the store today. No one wants to tag along, so I am going solo. Before I leave I have to do the Mom thing and discipline some errant children. My least favorite part, but I assign them to rooms and head out the door. I spend my time doing my quirky coupon/sale matching. I ordered coupons at the beginning of the week to match this sale -- so I am buying things like 8 boxes of Kleenex and 8 boxes of granola bars -- it pans out -- I saved 45% this week. I even snagged some fancy SOBE water for free.

I approach the driveway and can see Wokelle and Ricky jumping up and down mouths running, but I can't hear them. As soon as I open the van door they thrust their arms in my face and say "Look Shower Curtain Rings!" Indeed they are wearing one ring each on their wrist. Gotta be a story there, but it is time to unload.

Everyone helps with the unloading and put away, while I ponder what I am going to feed them. We have got to move if we are going to get the Friday night movie in. Grilled cheese it is.

During dinner I hear the story. Ricky and Wokelle were "helping" Riane clean her room. They found some random shower curtain rings left from an old craft project. I guess nothing else looked too exciting in that girl room and so they latched on to these as treasures. I understand that jumping up and down on her bed ended in an "you are overstaying your welcome" announcement.

Dinner done and the kids are working on the last quick round up of the house so that we can get movie night underway. Many are suspect of movie night -- Riane has won the prize of picking the family movie by memorizing her wisdom booklet information. She picked a BBC production of Little Dorrit. I don't know how it is going to go myself, but I have decided to try putting locs in Mary's hair. This requires mini braids on her whole head. I figure this is two hours of prime braiding time. I have one kid that did not properly do school work today. He spends the first 15 minutes of movie time finishing his folder. The movie turns out to be awesome and everyone loved it. After two hours of braiding I am approaching the halfway mark -- ugh!

Movie done we have some last minute snacks, kisses all around and we are off to bed.

Ricky turned 10!

2010-08-09T19:09:00.000-04:00

This is my favorite picture of "little Ricky" -- and it always moves me to tears. He had been an emergency foster placement and had been with us just a couple of months. We were allowed to take him on vacation with us, but his future was very unsure and murky. In this picture he looks as small and lost as he really was...

BUT...

Look at him now. Ten years old on August 2nd. He received some great things including:

This great rocket kit from Grandma. Which turned into this:

And gave us quite a show.

Ricky's family fun birthday trip was to the Creation Museum. We absolutely love this place that proclaims the truth in such an excellent way. Of course, they have all the wonderful displays and planetarium, but along the way we read signs like this:

I really love this last one: "Adam Believed, Satan Questioned, Humanity Abandoned....."

It was a wonderful day.

Ricky was walkin' with the wise...

and riding a camel.

This door says: "The world's not safe anymore!" Some of my kids can act better than others.

The botanical gardens portion added this beautiful Japanese Garden.

The tribe liked it.

And so ends the Googeg's birthday season for 2010.

4H and VBS

2010-07-27T15:29:00.000-04:00

This year Riane signed up to join the local 4H club. She is quite a seamstress and she thought this would give her some focus and be fun. She walked to all her meetings at the town hall and even became treasurer of her group. For her first ever fair judging she decided to sew a 1960's lined coat dress from a vintage pattern. WHEW! nothing like challenging yourself! I don't know yet what the judge thought, but I give it an A+.

Last week we had Vacation Bible School at our church. Our theme was the rainforest and it was a lot of fun. I have to let the secret out -- Braydon WAS Cameron the Chameleon:

The younger set loved him!

Wokelle and his cousin Joanne had a great time in their class:

I was a helper in Ricky's class:

The great leader of our 3rd and 4th set was Miss Carol. You can see her sitting in the back. She had everything organized - super crafts for all and everything timed out just right! I couldn't believe it -- I just showed up and smiled a lot.

Mary made new friends with the teen group and her class put on a puppet show on the last day.

Adela was in 5th and 6th this year and struggled a bit with kids she didn't really know, but in the end she had fun.

Riane helped out in the 1st and 2nd grade class and she loved those little guys more than she ever thought she would!

It was a busy and full week and, before I knew it, I found these little guys hiding out in my bed:

Country Livin'

2010-07-20T10:31:00.000-04:00

Life in the country is always full of surprises and good work. We have been struggling with another varmint -- one we will not be willing to eat. A raccoon! He has been getting into our barn and sniffing out the barn cat's vittles. Unfortunately, he also leaves behind his "business" in the barn. Now, that is a smell I wish I had never experienced. Lately, he has been creeping around the garden and I do believe he is waiting for our tomatoes to ripen.

After consulting more experienced country friends we borrowed some of these:

A live trap. He was so scared and so cute.

Onto the next job.... we had an awesome harvest of potatoes.

So Jerome G. Canning master was on the job.

His set up is looking more professional every year:

Country livin'... one adventure after another.

Adela is Eleven!

2010-07-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

I can hardly believe it. The birthday season is in full swing. Adela joined our family when she was 2 1/2. We have had some rough years and times when I wasn't sure I was her the best Mommy.

But now we have days like this!

Some of our kids are all about the music, some are all about the sport, some love a good story ... but Adela.... She is all about the people! She notices everybody and befriends and chats up anyone. One of her best friends is an older lady that lives down the street. One of her favorite things is visiting our local nursing home. She just loves people.

We had a great time celebrating her day. She usually asks for Pumpkin Pie and this year was no different. She just wants pie -- NO whipped cream.

She certainly loved the jewelry Grandma sent -- so grown up.

For her familiy fun time we headed to the Toledo Zoo.

Where the tribe rode the train:

Sat in a polar bear den:

Climbed on a gorilla:

And, well, these are just cute:

Happy Birthday Adelita Bonita...

Stretching the Budget with Fake Money

2010-07-15T21:49:00.000-04:00

Recently some tenants moved out of a rental house that we own. As most tenants will do, they left behind a few of their treasures. Like this awesome guitar:

Actually, I have always called it the kindling guitar -- 'cause it is really not good for anything but kindling!

This baby started a fire alright. Braydon was determined to learn guitar. He learned chords, built up calluses on his fingers and strummed this thing night after night. A string broke the first night and I would not replace it -- it did not deter him.

Seeing his determination to really play a guitar, we set out to buy a real one. Only to discover that we really ought to spend about $200 to get an acoustic worth learning to play on. Well, that is a little steep for us right now, having tenants that just left and all.

So we decided to use our fake money resources and get this job done. First of all, we have a credit card that gives us points when we buy things. For quite awhile, I used it for grocery shopping and just paid the card online when I got home. That way I didn't run up card debt, but kept earning points. We had enough points there to get $125 at amazon.com.

My second source was a nifty little deal called Swag bucks. You sign up at their site and load their toolbar on your computer for your internet searching. There are other ways to earn points with them, but this is all I really do. As you normally surf the web you earn points. Every time I am up to 450 points I "buy" a $5 Amazon card. I had up some money saved up in this account. Which I ended up using to get some free printer ink and his new guitar stand (I didn't spend one cent on these items).

In the end we were able to get him this:

A nice little Yamaha. We also got the stand, a chromatic tuner and some picks -- total out of pocket $89!

I love FAKE MONEY!

If you want to earn some swagbucks with me just click here an sign up:

That Pesky Varmint

2010-07-09T12:07:00.000-04:00

Lately we have had one pesky varmint -- the rabbit. He hops around our yard and EATS our garden. We have children that own BB guns and have been to gun safety and hunter safety classes and these mighty men were at the ready to help their family.

When we got home from the grocery store yesterday evening -- there he was... and so were my boys. They got him! I dropped the groceries and ran. What a moment!

No time for pictures, I sent one to get that pocket guide from hunter class and one to get me the sharpest knife. We headed to the far edges of the yard and Mama learned how to dress and skin that rabbit for her boys.

The sweet spot:

Waiting up 'till midnight so share the moment with your Dad.

The 4th

2010-07-04T20:55:00.000-04:00

I am so glad the 4th fell on a Sunday. There is no better way to honor a country that was founded on Biblical principles than to head off to honor Him first. Church was fairly emotional as we began to ponder how much our country is turning from its Godly beginnings and how much we are needed to not ride on our faith, but stand for it by standing firmly on the Word of God.

After our service we headed over to Jerome's brother's house to have lunch with our family. What a great time to hold the baby and love on our niece.

We left our lunch to participate in a Fourth of July celebration at a nursing home. Our church is starting a nursing home ministry and it is headed up by a great lady. We have been scheduled to have an hour on the first Sunday of every month -- just so happens we got the 4th.

I do believe our time at the nursing home was the most worshipful experience I have had in a long time. I talked with a lady who struggled to put any language together and couldn't even tell me her name, but when we stood for the Star Spangled Banner I saw her looking around and I sprang forward and grabbed her hand. She sang all the words right to me - I sang them back. I held hands with a woman who told me "I have no real family left, this is my last home, I am going die here." She talked with me a long time and encouraged me over and over to "stick with it" every day with those kids. They will never forget these years -- keep teaching them the Bible and showing them Jesus -- "it won't leave them alone when they are older."

I watched my son pat the shoulders of little old ladies who missed their sons, and wrinkled hands grab the face of my youngest and cry and say "cute, cute". We sang hymns, we pledged to the flag, we prayed to our God and I left richer for having spent an hour with Wisdom and Grace.