Honor thy Father and Mother

Tonight the Missionettes held a special dessert reception for their parents.

The dress was semi formal.

Here is our beautiful girl.

The girls had spend the month focusing on

honoring their fathers and mothers.

They decorated the room, made desserts, some shared about their parents and....

Rob and Megan had their first father ~ daughter dance.

There are no words to fully describe watching your husband and daughter dance together for the first time.

It was a lovely evening. I just love how her head is resting on his shoulder.

Sandy and I finally have a picture together with both of us smiling

and

no dumpster in the background.

Did I mention it was a lovely evening.

8 years ago today

What a day.

 It started with Helen coming into our room this morning to tell me she had a bad dream that I had died.

Poor girl was so sad and concerned.

As way of explaination, children with Attachment Disorders get uncomfortable when they start to feel close to their parents and will often follow up a sweet moment by doing all that they can to push you away.

So you can imagine how crazy my morning was after Helen crawled into bed with me and started to feel safe and glad that I was actually alive. Let's just say she missed the bus and was still in her jammas when I brought the boys to school. I brought her home and said "I think today is going to be a home day for you." I now understand what "a peace beyond understanding" truly means because I did not get the least bit upset with her antics this morning. I was actually amused (and a little sad) that she was acting out so hard. So I called the school and declared a mental health day and she just sat there and looked at me quite confused.

It wasn't until 9:35 that I realized what today is.

Eight years ago today, Rob was holding 4 month old Logan when he answered the phone.

It was the adoption agency.

We had asked for a 6 month postponement in our adoption when Logan was born.

So when what was supposed to be our travel group received their referrals on the 25th and 26th of April 2002, I was sad when we didn't get ours but "knew" it was for the best because we really thought it would be better to wait until Logan was closer to a year old to adopt.

It was late in the afternoon on Moday afternoon, and the director of our adoption agency was calling.

I heard Rob say,

"Wait a minute, I think Debbie is going to want to be on this call."

I looked at him quizically because I just figured it was a paperwork call about the postponement.

Suddenly I hear Lilian say that somehow our adoption paperwork went through and she had a referral for us in front of her.

She explained that she understood that we had wanted to wait 6 months but felt she had to tell us about the referral because we'd need to accept or decline it.

I just looked at Rob on the other phone holding Logan, stunned.

With no time to discuss it, we looked at each other, I nodded to him with tears in my eyes and said, "yes."

Here are the very first pictures we saw of our sweet girl.

And the picture that melted my heart....

I just LOVE that tongue sticking out.

Suddenly we had another daughter. We had gone from 2 children to 4 children in 4 short months.

A sweet baby girl was waiting for us in China.

My mind was racing.

How were we going to do this? Who would travel to China?

We had a 4 month old baby at home and now a 7 and a half month old baby in China.

Our international twins.

We soon decided that I would go to China and Rob would stay at home with the 3 kids. I had 6 weeks to buy whatever we needed for another baby, pack, figure out how to travel 1/2 way around the world, what was I going to eat there, how was I going to leave my one baby to go bring home another, and that was just what was going through my mind in the first hours.

Our sweet girl was waiting for us in China. We made it work and I brought her home on June 19th.

The first moment I saw her...

The first time I held her...

That was 8 years ago today.

This morning she was doing her very best to push me away when she started to feel close to me.

I told her that I still love her.

I told her how excited we were to know she was our daughter and we couldn't wait to bring her home.

We will always love her.

Someday she will feel safe enough to trust that love.

That is another day I will treasure forever.
 

What will the neighbors think? (the first in a series)

I pondered over the title of this entry and realized that this will probably be one in a series. There are SO many topics that I could write on that could be entitled "What will the neighbors think?"  Today's subtitle could be something along the lines of, "I just asked you to clean your rooms, but your moaning and screaming will make the neighbors think someone is being TORTURED over here." Which I guess in a way they are, you seem to believe cleaning your room or even the suggestion of it is TORTURE and listening to you is definitely TORTURE for me.

There are no pictures for this entry. BEFORE PICTURES suggests that there is HOPE that there will be AFTER PICTURES and at the time I held NO hope except for the hope that our neighbors would not call 9-1-1.

So did they clean their rooms? AFTER I scooped up anything that would fit in the large laundry basket and stormed out with it... wondering WHAT I was going to do with it all now... their rooms DO look better and the shock of mommy's taking their toys DID lead to SOME picking up by them. What did I do you ask? I came downstairs and visited blog world. My happy place where everything is pretty, funny stories are shared, and everyone has BEFORE and AFTER pictures.

Everyone in Blogworld seems to have a special day to post on a theme. I wanted to start joining some of these "parties" and now I think I'll have one of my own.. What will the neighbors think? will be a "special" place to come and share your crazy, ridiculous moments or story that has to be true because noone would believe you IF you made it up, about your family. I'm not sure I'll get many attending my party. I still need to make a special button to allow links to it. Please forgive me since this is an idea that has grown as I wrote this entry. I'll work on it during this upcoming week.


Keep smiling,
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Papa's Shares His New Toy

So Papa (my father in law and our neighbor) came over Sunday with his new toy.
Here are Logan, Nathan and Helen with Papa. Look at those smiles.

Megan behind the wheel.

They did NOT like sharing. Look at those sad faces.

Off she goes.Rob and I join in on the fun.Justin takes it for a spin.Off we go.

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I thought I might get hot

I can't resist this quick post on my funny girl Helen. Yesterday morning I noticed her shirt was on backwards. For some reason she puts her tagless shirts on backwards and I always.usually mention it to her. She may or may not change it to the front in the front depending on her mood. Yesterday morning I made a conscious decision to let it go and not make an issue of it. (insert chuckling soundtrack here)

So off to school my girl went on the school bus and home she came. I DID notice that it took her a long time to come in after Logan.

Well little Miss Helen was very helpful yesterday after school. Cleaning off the kitchen table all on her own and then happily organizing the plastic container cupboard at my request. Can you see the bells and red flags waving that I should have seen? I was just so happy that she was helping out... such a silly mommy moment. THEN I looked over at her sitting on the floor with plastic containers being all organized (this girl is one amazing organizer) and I SEE it.... the strings hanging out from the back of her shirt. "Helen what are you wearing under your shirt. (This is a long sleeve pink shirt.) She shows me the tank top that has strings wrapped around the neck that she has on hidden under her shirt. "Helen why do you have this on?" "In case I got hot at school today." (it was 60 degrees today by the way) "REALLY? AND WERE you hot in school today?" "yes." "Did anyone comment on the fact that you were wearing a tanktop in school today? Did you have gym today?" (that second comment was my last HOPE that she actually did not do what I was pretty sure she did.) "Well Natasha and Aiden asked me if I was naked on the bus." Lovely, just what a mom wants to hear.

Basically my girl wore the tank to school, "got hot" on the bus on the way to school, was "hot" all day at school and

suddenly on the bus ride home as she came to our street got "colder" and put her shirt back on.

How curious... "Does that sound the least bit sneaky to you Helen?" "No I just was hot." "Well isn't that interesting that you knew you'd be hot all day and suddenly as you got closer to mom the cold chill came over you and you put your shirt back on." At that point I went for several walks up and down the driveway trying to work out

1) if this was a big deal

2) what to do with an EIGHT year old who is already sneaking innapropriate clothes to school

My first response was that she can not be out of my sight for a minute, why didn't the teacher wonder about my daughter's choice of clothing considering, and she will now be homeschooled.

Then I took a few breaths... saw some weird humor in the situation and settled on going upstairs and quietly taking all of her clothes out of her closet. "Helen since you did not wear this shirt today you can wear it tomorrow." Nate went and got the notice that REMINDED parents that there is a dress code at public school and he was pretty sure his sister had violated it. Logan shared that when he saw her in school he gave her this odd look. (which he demostrated for me)

What bothers me is that she is only eight, she did not take any responsility for it and basically does whatever she wants to. Now there were times when my parents took note of some of my fashion choices, such as the time my father looked over his newspaper at me and said, "Did you cut your head?" I gave him my best "whatever could you be talking about look" and he went onto explain that you use hydrogen peroxide for cuts so with my new lighter shade of hair... maybe I have a head injury he should know about. That lead to me explaining how my hair became this lovely shade of WHITE and that I liked it. I had to live with it. He then went on to explain about ROOTS and I would have to live with them too.

I also remember not being able to wear makeup. My mother never did so I really had no one to help me through this rite of passage except some overly helpful friends in the girls room at school. Again I was asked if I had some strange illness... my eyelids were green. This lead to a heart to heart about not sharing make up because you could get pink eye and then my mom and I worked out what types of make up I could wear and at what ages. I was also told I did not NEED to wear make up but that fell on deaf ears to a girl who worshipped SEVENTEEN magazine and those models knew a thing or two more about make up than my mom who was going naturally grey and did not wear make up. Funny thing is she did start wearing some makeup like eyeliner and lipstick shortly after. (at least that's how I remember it)

So it's not like I never did ANYTHING sneaky as far as make up or fashion choices went but the difference is that I was like 13 or 14 not EIGHT and I admitted it and we talked things out.

I can not even imagine our house when Miss Helen turns 13 if this is what it's like at 8.

So my quick post ended up being a walk down memory lane to when I was 13... but did you really expect less from me. OH and if you see Miss Helen today she SHOULD be wearing her long sleeved pink shirt.

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Alphabet Parade

Yesterday was Nathan's kindergarten Alphabet Parade. He drew the letter Ii. Not a mom's first choice but he is an incredible kid and made it work. The first challenge was show and tell Wednesday. His teacher suggested "inches" or "insects". I could tell he was less than enthusiastic... although teaching his class about inches was a little intriguing. He remembered the "Indian" shirt he wore to school for the Thanksgiving feast. His teacher wanted them to share about what they brought in so he asked me when he got the shirt. I explained that actually someone made it for Justin when he was in second grade and he wore it for a report on Native Americans that he presented. Hmmmm.... talking about your big brother is sometimes cool but not on YOUR special show and tell day. So we thought some more. I googled "show and tell for the letter "I"" and got one idea of an ice pack for an illness. Nate got a flicker of excitement, "I want to be a doctor when I grow up so I could bring in an ice pack." Then I got a flicker of excitement and came up with, "How about bring in your cast from when you broke your arm and use it for injury?"
That was the idea we'd been looking for. He was so excited. I wrote the word injury on a piece of scotch tape and put it on the cast so his teacher would understand what he is saying.

I don't know if I've mentioned it but Nate has a pretty severe speech impediment. When he was screened we found out he was at the 1% for his age which means that he speaks as clearly as a 2 year old. We also found out during the screening that his cognitive level is in the 96% for his age. So we have a 6 year old boy who has this incredible vocabulary but he can only pronounce parts of words (leaving endings off etc.) and can not make certain sounds like "g". It makes me sad to know how much of his world we are missing out on because of this but he also has the patience of a SAINT. He will repeat himself a half dozen times, slow down, act out what he's trying to say and even is starting to SPELL what he is trying to say (he is a very good reader and speller) to help us understand what he is trying to share.

So he was set to go with show and tell. Here he is holding his cast. He ususally holds it up to his nose as an elephant trunk... this is more of a musket look. (okay I can't seem to get the picture off from the teacher's page without posting ALL of the kids' show and tell. I'll keep working on it.)

In the mean time here are 3 of my favorite pictures that I took with my computer. We were just hanging out after school and ended up with these pictures. So my Indiana Jones boy is quite the character. I especially love this hat because I just bumped into it at Michaels for $3.99. I so thought we'd be paying much more for a real Indiana like hat but we were all happy with this one. OH and by the way during the parade each child went up to the microphone and got to tell what they were for their letter. I saw his speech teacher before the parade and she mentioned that they had been practicing just as we had been at home. There were 3 kids she had been working with for the parade. Rob and I were so proud of him as he so clearly said, "I is for IN DE ANNA JONES" It was a proud moment for us all.

We're 5 & 2....


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All Grown Up

Today is my oldest daughter's 12th birthday. I call her Meggy Ruth. She was named after her great grandmother Ruth, whom she seems to share many characteristics with.

(we found out we were expecting Miss Megan soon after Grandma Ruth Scott's passing

and have always felt that Gram lives on in Meg)

I absolutely adore her. She is such a neat kid. (Okay as I type this she is bossing her brothers around which is definitely a strong charasteristic of hers as well) She has her own mind. She makes friends based on character. She does not go along with the crowd.

She is funny, quirky and an absolute individual.

The ice cream cake didn't fit in our freezer so it ended up melting in our fridge. The candles were NOT helping the situation. Megan came up with the idea of taking the melted ice cream cake and making them into root beer floats. How cool is this girl...

"when life gives you melted ice cream cake make root beer floats."

Here Rob and I are with the birthday girl. I love how her head is tilted towards me in one picture and towards Rob in the other.

Make a wish birthday girl.

Papa and the birthday girl

Nana, Logan the girlies and the birthday girl.

Uncle Rick and his girls.

Nate wearing "birthday yellow" doing the how could you resist this fac"e look with mommy.

Helen and Justin looking on.

I even got Justin smiling in a picture.

me and my girl

me and two of my boys Nate and Logan

Logan wanted a picture of just the two of us.

Meg showing off her new dress from Papa and Poppy.

 Today my Meggy turned 12. She is truly a delightful daughter and I am blessed to have her in my life. I am looking forward to watching what this year brings... because my oh my next year she'll be a teenager. Thank goodness I have a full year to prepare for that. But truly is there any preparing for that???? I think I'll just keep enjoying today.

until next time, it's just me


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Tickle Me Pink!

My two girlies wore matching shirts on Friday. They were just so darn cute that I had to get some pictures. H LOVES having her picture taken too so we really got some nice photos of the three of them.

It was a beautiful Spring day with temps in the high 70's to low 80's.

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