Self Indulgence and Pride

Life is funny.  Today my calendar appeared to be empty.  So, at 8am I began school with the kids after making sure they'd gotten their morning jobs done after breakfast, gotten dressed, and made sure their rooms were at a decent level of cleanliness.  We did U.S. history, watched some "minute physics" videos on Youtube, and were in the middle of bible lessons for the 5 to 9 yr olds and algebra for my 11 year old.  Then the doorbell rang.  It was the speech therapist who, I'd forgotten, had rescheduled her usual appt for today.  So I cleaned the top two floors of our home at lightening speeds while she did her therapy games with "Happy" (and Katie joining in).  Then I did math with the boys and Gloria, followed by a fun lunch where we made our own "lunchables" using tiny metal food shape cutters.

After lunch, I put the girls down for naptime and finished math with the kids.  Then we did our new science program downstairs.  The boys also had fun with their Pathway Readers "Learning Through Sounds" workbook and the white board games that go along with it.  The older girls did their workbooks on their own, asking me for help as we went along.  After that, "Hoops" and "Lego Man" came home from school and I helped them with their homework.  While helping "Lego Man" understand how to multiply fractions, I was also trying a new cookie recipe with my three year old, Katie.  Gloria helped, too.  Throughout the entire day I continuously tried to get Brianna to finish her job of cleaning the basement family room toys up.  She never did get completely done. 

While in the midst of all this, the phone rang.  It was "Lego Man's" teacher.  I'd forgotten that she rescheduled his parent teacher conference to be by phone this afternoon.  So I paused the cookie making and the fraction multiplying and everything else to talk to her about "Lego Man", his progress, and his difficulties slowing down to think things through.  Oh, and "Lego Man" also mentioned to me that he got in serious trouble at school today for putting a pencil in a girl's chair.  AND we got one of those automated calls telling us that the Daddy/Daughter dance for "Hoop's" school is THIS Friday night.  We thought it was next month.

Next, I finished the cookies with the girls, cleaned up the kitchen, had the kids get ready for AWANA, helped some of them with their verses and parent pages, and sent a text asking Daniel to please bring home dinner because there was no way I could deal with trying to cook and dirty the kitchen all over again on top of everything else.  He came home, we ate, he left with the kids for AWANA.  I chose to stay home since I'd already missed band practice.  After I finished a private bible study, reading the first three chapters of "The Excellent Wife" to learn what God expects of me in order to be a Godly wife, I folded and put away laundry and then cleaned our master bathroom and bedroom so that I could surprise Daniel with a candle lit bubble bath when he gets home.  Then the phone rang.

It was "Creating Keepsakes" magazine, wanting to know why I haven't renewed my scrapbooking subscription.  I informed him that I'd be adopting between three and five kids soon and our income is going down this month by $1,000, so I don't have money for my hobby right now.  I went back to cleaning the toilet when I got a text message from my sweetie, Daniel.  I'm assuming he was thoughtfully sharing the pastor's message at church since I'm not there to hear it.  It said, "Self indulgence is a form of pride."

AWANA Derby Race 2012

 Once again the Elliott kids carefully designed, built, and painted derby cars for the annual AWANA derby races.  Once again we prayed the same prayer that we pray every year: Please please, God, let the cars make it down the track.  We were semi successful as usual.  I don't know what the trick is.

Last year we thought it was that we didn't buy our cars from Hobby Lobby.  This year one of the cars was from there.  It didn't make a bit of difference.  Our poor kids.  Their parents'

 lack of skill in this particular sport leaves them with nothing more than a sad hope that maybe we could win the prize for an interesting design.  Unfortunately, that was a futile hope this year, too.  On the upside, they got to spend time with their Dad working on a fun project and they enjoyed being at the races and buying junk from the snack bar.

Court

It's very hard, the not knowing.  We keep getting calls out of the blue saying that two of our former foster daughters may be coming back to us.  Their lawyer is pushing very hard for that to happen, but she can't seem to get anyone to agree with her.  They are with an uncle who is not doing a good job of looking out for their safety.  However, he's also not doing bad enough that the system is willing to remove the girls.  Until then we just keep getting asked to come to court again and throw our whole lives into upheaval.  We've repainted and moved beds around and gotten the boys to all share one room so that we can have a room available at any time for the girls.  I know God has a plan, but it's hard not knowing what it is.

Molly's Baby Shower

 Molly's baby shower turned out very nice.  Several ladies from church came and several others dropped off gifts.  Molly's baby girl was very blessed.  I think Molly had a nice time, too.  We had fun decorating our Sunday school classroom with a jungle animal theme.  She's been trying out various names including Layla, Rose, Bethany, and an "A" name I can't remember.  The first name she thought of was "Jordan", but our daughter, "Hoops" liked it so much she decided to choose it for her new name when she gets adopted.  I can't wait to see my first grandbaby.  She's due April 19th!

Photo Scavenger Hunt

Danya, Gloria, and Jordan are all in the older girls group of AWANA called TNT, which stands for Truth and Training.  These fourth through sixth grade girls got together for a photo scavenger hunt in February.  They met up at the mall on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  Each team was given two pages of photos and a time limit.  They ran all over the mall trying to find the exact location each photo was taken in.  Some were easy.  Some were impossibly hard.

They laughed, they giggled, they tried on funny accessories.  They even took pictures with the guy in the giant cookie costume.  Afterwards, Danya took her sisters and a couple of her friends, Lauren and Sarah, out to the movies to see "Hugo", which turned out to be a very good movie.  It was a great day!

Options Fun Day 2012

I'm not sure whose idea a "Fun Day" was, but my kids certainly enjoyed it.  They got to do a three-legged race and play games after school.  It's always nice to have a little extra time to play with friends when the school day is done.

Homeschool Daddy Daughter Dance 2012

We went to the big Daddy Daughter dance for all the different Options locations this year.  Unfortunately, I didn't verify where it was located.  We were running late to begin with.  Then we showed up at the kids' Options school location.  That was about 30 minutes North of our house.  It was closed.  So we called a friend who told us that the dance was being held about an hour South of where we were.  Ugh.  The girls were very worried that they'd miss the dance.  We missed the first half.

It was much bigger and nicer than I'd imagined it would be.  It felt like a high school prom.  They had a masked ball theme.  There was a whole room for refreshments with all kinds of foods including a chocolate fountain.  At the end, Jordan won a prize in the drawing.  She got a 3 bedroom cabin up in Estes Park for a weekend!  We're all looking forward to going.  The girls enjoyed getting their hair and makeup done and shopping for new dresses and shoes for the night.  By the time we were painting finger nails, Daniel was getting pretty antsy to go.  He had already put on the tux he'd rented for the night and taken the van through a car wash.  Men have no idea what the most important parts of a special night are.  I was very glad that the young trumpet player from our church band, Luke, was willing and available to babysit.  I was able to take pictures and try not to cry every time they played a special "daddy daughter" song while Daniel danced with each of his girls.

Super Why Birthday

Katie, my youngest biological child, has turned three years old.  It seems a little unreal to me.  I keep thinking "this is my last time to..." with everything she and "Happy" do.  As far as I know, we aren't having any more babies.  We're in the final stages of toddlerhood for our family forever.  I know there will be grandchildren some day, but it's not the same.

Her party was fun and noisy, just like a three year old birthday party should be.  Several of her friends from church came to share her special day.  She dressed up in her Super Katie costume because her favorite "Super Why" character is Super Wyatt.  "Happy" went as Princess Pea.  They were both very cute.

Homeschool Valentine Party

This year we hosted the H.U.G.G. for Life Homeschool Group's Valentine's Day party.  We had crafts and food followed by a Valentine's box judging contest.  Everyone said it was a lot of fun.  We even had about the right amount of guests.  Many more and it would have been a mad house.  I'm not sure if we'll do it again next year, but I enjoyed pulling it together and the kids really appreciated it.

Valentine's Day 2012

Jordan's 10th Bday Party

Selina and Maleah came to Jordan's tenth birthday party.  We went to McDonald's for dinner then played at Chuck E. Cheese.  That place was PACKED on a Saturday night!  She had a Hello Kitty theme for her party.  Her friend, Maleah, gave Jordan a big Hello Kitty stuffed animal from Build-A-Bear.  That was probably the coolest gift she got.  We gave her yarn and fancy duct tape to make projects with among other things that were on her wish list.  The girls giggled like crazy and generally had a great time.

Besties

Best friends, sisters, partners in crime.

Love Comes to Visit

 Our former foster daughters, Molly and Selina, went to church with us and spent the weekend at our house.  We took some seven months photos of Molly.  I still can't believe she's going to be a mommy soon.  She's been the daughter of my heart since she was 12 years old.

Jordan's Double Digits

 Jordan turned 10 in February.  We had a mini blizzard hit that day, so her official party got postponed a week.  Still, she did get to have Molly and Selina over.  She and Selina had a sleep over in the basement on the fold out couch.  I'm still dealing with some sadness over the fact that I didn't really get to be her mom for the first decade of her life.  She's halfway to adulthood, and it's hard to think that I have so little time with her.

What an amazing young woman she is.  Jordan is tall and beautiful, smart and funny.  She's kind to younger kids and talks easily with adults.  She's patient while I take hours to do her hair.  Her creativity shows in the drawings and crochet projects she makes.  Her fun sense of humor matches mine, in some ways.  For instance, when we were at Best Buy looking at electronics I came over to her and Selina to ask what they were doing.

They were listening to music on the big stereos.  So, I made a funny face and started doing a goofy dance.  Jordan burst out laughing, but Selina turned bright red and ran off in embarrassment.  Ah, the fun of being a mom and getting to embarrass your kids!  Of course, Jordan just gets my craziness and tops it.  She'd be the first to jump right in and start doing an even goofier dance.  It's so much fun being her mom!

Pizza for Books

My kids have been doing the Pizza Hut Book-It program again this year.  They've been doing a great job reading.  I've been doing a not-so-great job of giving them their certificates and taking them to get their pizzas.  I always seem to be behind on this for some reason.  So, just lately, I've taken them a LOT to use their certificates.  They are probably getting sick of all the mini pizzas by now.  Or not.  They are kids, after all.

Expanding our Circle

 When we decided to adopt African American children, we realized that our circle of friends was rather narrow.  Part of the problem is the area where we've lived and gone to church for the past five years.  It's not exactly diverse.  The only AA friends and loved ones we have were all back home in Oklahoma.  That's fine for our yearly visits, but not good for an everyday basis.  It's important that our children have strong role models that look like them, so that they'll grow up feeling proud of who they are and of their heritage.

Fortunately, our new neighborhood is much more diverse.  Even more fortunately, Daniel knows some good guys at work, like Leo (pictured here), who are willing to get to know all of us better.  We invited Leo over for dinner and he invited us to try out his church.  We'd like to give our kids the opportunity to experience the major difference between our church and an African American Methodist church, so we're hoping to do that within the next month or so.  We want them to see that even though cultural and worship styles can vary greatly, the important thing is the underlying foundational love for Jesus Christ. 

Talent Show

 Jordan (a.k.a "Hoops"), played the bells with her fourth grade class for the school talent show this year.  She did a great job and the music was fun.  I think she enjoyed being on stage.

The thing that I found the funniest, however, was before the show.  I told Jordan to pose with her friends for some photos.  She rounded them up for the shot, and they all started saying, "Where's your mom?" She kept saying, "Right there!"  I was cracking up laughing as they tried to look past me and around me to find a black woman.  Then their eyes got all big when they realized she was talking about me.  Jordan and I laughed about it later together.  I'm glad she was able to keep a sense of humor about it.

Libraries are for READING

I'm a bit frustrated with our library system.  They spent a ton of money remodeling and building new locations.  They're all very pretty now.  My problem is this.  I take my kids to the library so that they'll be excited about all the books and want to spend an hour or two reading.  Instead, in these nice shiny new buildings, they walk in the door and get bombarded with giant flat screen t.v.'s and computers.

If I wanted them to watch t.v. and play on the computer, we could stay home.

What Snowmen Read

The kids made snowmen reading books as a craft project to display in January.  We got the idea from the school at our church.  They have the cutest projects on the walls and I'm always taking mental notes as I walk around on Sundays and Wednesdays.  This project was a bit more complicated than I imagined it being.  Next time, I'll cut all the pieces ahead of time.

Church Cleaning Crew

The church cleaning crews are often short handed.  We're fixing that problem for our particular crew that works the third Saturday of each month.  We just bring our own crew.  Our older kids are getting the opportunity to serve the Lord and our church family while also learning some new cleaning skills. 

Cleaning a huge worship center is a much different experience than cleaning our house.  They have to wipe down the arm rests of several hundred chairs, vacuum football fields worth of carpet, wash windows higher than their heads, and dust all the equipment used for the worship team.  It's actually a lot of fun and they get that good feeling on Sunday morning looking around a bright shiny clean church and knowing they helped make it that way.

AWANA Rodeo Night

It was Rodeo Night at AWANA in honor of the National Western Stock Show in Denver.  Danya was an adorable rodeo clown.  Michael, Kevin, and Brianna were cowboys and a cowgirl.  Shane, our off beat little boy, went as chicken feed in an old pillow case.  The judges must have thought it was unique, because  he won.  What I never quite understood, was how Gloria thought a rabbit had something to do with a rodeo.  The teeth were pretty cute, though.

Mashed Potato Head

She's a handful, all right.  If there is something that she can smear all over herself, she will.  If there's something she shouldn't touch, she makes a bee line for it.  If it's something I carefully put out of her reach, she will drag a chair over, climb tables or shelves, open the drawer, and dig it out.  My scrapbook supplies are no longer safe.  I'm planning to get a lock for the pantry door.  I keep my room locked at all times.  But most importantly, I keep my camera handy.

Katie's First Haircut

We took Katie to Great Clips for her first real haircut.  The before pictures are on the left and the afters are on the right.  Katie's hair was all different lengths, making it look a little crazy most of the time.  After this haircut, we bought her some curl styling mousse to make her naturally curly hair look a little more defined.  She likes to tell people that she has curly hair "like Grandma".  It's true.  She gets her gorgeous curls directly from Grandma Nancy, Daniel's mom.

Polar Bear Tennis

There's a Polar Bear Club of people who actually like to jump into freezing cold lakes and oceans in the middle of winter... just for fun.  Apparently, we are almost as crazy as they are.  We actually tried to play tennis on a bitterly cold day in January.  The wind was so sharp we almost gave up just walking from the van to the tennis courts.  The kids were nice enough to pretend to play for a minute while I got a picture of each of them.  Well, everyone but Kevin.  He hid behind a shed, turning blue and trying to block the wind.  But hey, I got these nifty pictures, so it was worth it, right?  Right?

Meeting Their Brother

"Hoops", "Lego Man" and "Happy" all got to meet their little brother in January of this year.  He was about 18 months old and put the Energizer Bunny to shame.  Although he was a little slow to warm up, after we'd been at McDonald's a while he started to relax and let "Happy" hold his hand and play with him.  He really liked Katie, too.

"Y" isn't very talkative, but he squeaks and squeals happily.  He's very curious and wants to explore everything.  He has been adopted by an African American and Hispanic family which is perfect since that is his heritage, too.  They are also a foster family, but their biological kids are all grown.  "Y" just stole their hearts.  They'd had him since he was born and couldn't imagine him being adopted by anyone else, so they decided to keep him.  Luckily, they don't live too far away.

Commitment

 Danya wanted to learn to play trombone.  I wanted her to go to a local middle school band program so she could learn the basics that I missed when I was a kid.  Since I didn't start band until the 8th grade, I always felt like I missed out on the essential foundational knowledge that has taken me years to learn.

For Danya, that translates into me requiring her to attend a one hour 6th grade band class four days a week, rain or shine, whether it's freezing cold outside or not.  She's had such a good attitude about it over all.  I know she's wanted to quit a few times now because of the interruption in her day and the tedium of class time some days.  But she has stuck with it.  I think mostly for my sake.

I'm so proud of her.  We've enjoyed seeing her performances throughout the year.  She says the next (final) one will be the best because they are playing music from Indiana Jones and Harry Potter movies.  I'm looking forward to the day when she can join me on stage in the church band.  Who knows?  A few more kids down the line I may create my own brass section!

Sweet Boy

Ah, Kev-Kev, why can't you be my sweet boy every day?  Some days Kevin can't wait to help me with every little thing.  Cooking is high up on the list.  He's excited to do his school work and begs for more.  He even plays with his little sisters nicely and keeps them entertained while I get other things done around the house.  Then he hugs me and tells me he loves me.  I wish that little boy would never leave.

Sensory Chaos

2 yr old "Happy" has had an occupational therapy session every week for about a year now.  The therapist, Christine, tells me that "Happy" used to have an extreme aversion to all sorts of things.  She didn't like the feel of water, most foods, finger paints, etc.  I guess she was over all that by the time she came to us.

Christine tested "Happy" a little after Christmas to see if she could handle the finger paints.  The tree on the left is the one that "Happy" made with her therapist's help.  The one on the right is the one I let Katie make real quick with a piece of my scrapbooking paper and the left over finger painting supplies.  You can tell who knew what they were doing, lol.

Slow But Steady

We continue to see Shane make slow but steady progress in reading and math.  He enjoys the computer math program and the new easy reader books we got him (all three letter words or less), but often forgets material he learned just a month before.  I know it's frustrating for him to see his younger brother, Kevin, advancing at a much faster pace in reading.  Kevin surprised Daniel this week by reading a polar bear book that we had no idea he could read yet.

Meanwhile, Shane says he has made friends with the boy who was bullying him at the Options program.  But yesterday, when I picked the kids up, I was told that the solution seems to be to ignore the bullying and let this boy take whatever Shane has.  I told him to be nice to the boy and super friendly in the hopes that he would stop being so violent.  I also tried to get the school involved, but their solution was to have a school assembly about bullying that didn't really make much sense to the kids.  The principal brought dogs and talked about the fact that, even though the dogs are very different and have different jobs when they are hunting, they don't bully each other and treat each other badly because of their differences.  The only problem is that bullying isn't always about kids treating a "different" kid badly.  Sometimes it's just bad behavior.  I was hoping they'd spell out direct consequences and lay down the law, but instead it was handled in a "let's just all be nice" manner.

He seems happy, though, with the way things are going now.  I'm trying not to be a "helicopter mom" hovering over him and zooming in to fix everything.  At least he has his brother in class with him as support and an interpreter when trying to talk to teachers.  His teachers have told me he's doing well in class.  Here's hoping it all works out okay.

A New PHAD

A lot of people have gotten into the "picture a day" fad, where you take one photo every day to document a year.  I'm jumping on the bandwagon... but not on this blog.  I don't want to have to comment on every photo for the whole year.  So, I'm trying out a separate blog, just for my "Photo a day" or "PHAD".  If you want to see our family's daily photo starting with today you can find them at Scrapsofhome2012phad over on Wordpress.  I've always wanted to try a different format.  It's a lot more complicated over there.  But then again, the new changes that Blogger has been making are not for the better.  Daniel says he's going to encourage me with the photo a day challenge.  As a matter of fact, he took this first photo on his cell phone at church this morning.  Wish me luck!  I'm hoping to get a great 2012 memory book out of this.

Another Fabulous Year 2012

 Our first ever New Year's Eve party was a success.  We had two families join us (which is plenty when you add in all our kids) and we celebrated at 10pm which is when the New Year arrives in New York.

We played Minute to Win It games that came in a board game that Daniel got me for Christmas.  The kids had to do things like toss a shoe right side up onto the coffee table with their toes, balance an egg on their heads, and generally do funny moves that we all enjoyed laughing at.  Daniel did a few of them, too.

Then, at midnight, we used our computer to watch the ball drop online and then Daniel and another dad dumped balloons and confetti on the kids.  It was a really fun party, but I think the preparations were just as fun.  We blew up 75 balloons, decorated the house, took photos of each of the kids in a fun New Year hat and made silly appetizers.  The kids used mini cookie cutters to cut shapes out of bologna and I divided biscuit dough into thirds to make little sausages into mini pigs in a blanket.  It was the best New Years we've ever had.

Merry Christmas 2012!

Can you spot all 11 kids?

Christmas Eve Fun 2012

 We were so excited that our former foster daughters, Molly and Lina, got to join us for Christmas weekend.  Their family is Buddhist and does not celebrate Christmas, but they didn't mind if we included their girls.

On Christmas Eve we went to church about 4pm for a short service.  Or, I should say, Daniel and nine of the kids went.  I got stuck at a Supercuts waiting for Molly and Kevin to get hair cuts.  We came in ten minutes before three.  They said we could get done by 3:30.  They didn't START until 3:30.  So we missed most of the Christmas Eve service at church.

The part we did get to enjoy was very nice, though.  It was fun having all our kiddos there, although we were all missing our other two girls who left in August.  Afterwards, we went home and opened our traditional Christmas Eve gifts, which are always new PJs so the kids will all look nice on Christmas morning.  "Hoops" especially loved her Pink Panther PJs, jumping up and down, smiling and laughing.  She said it was the best Christmas ever... before it was even Christmas yet.

We also did a special family lunch.  I prefer to do the big meal on Christmas Eve so that we can all relax on Christmas day.  I spent most of the week leading up to it wrapping presents every night until midnight and then most of December 24th working on it, too.  Christmas was much more relaxing.

The Reason for the Season

So many people talk about remembering the Reason for the Season every Christmas.  They put up little manger scenes in their homes and yards and make sure they send out Christmas cards with some sort of Christian message.  And yes, Christ's birth is important.  But if He'd only been born and lived and died, there would be no "good news", no salvation from sin and death, no eternity in heaven with our Lord.  This year, I'm reminded even more of the importance of what Christ's sacrificial death and resurrection means.  Because this year, my son Kevin asked Jesus to be the Lord of his life.  This very night, my only begotten son has also become my brother in Christ.  And just like the night our savior was born, there are angels rejoicing in heaven this very night.

Fun with Friends

My friend, Deanna, called yesterday while Daniel and I were out Christmas shopping.  She invited our whole family over for a play date today.  Now, anyone who willingly and without nudging, invites a family of 11 to their home, is a good friend and should never be turned down.  It's not like we have droves of people asking us to descend with our horde upon their house.  Deanna's house is not overly large, either, which makes it interesting when we arrive.  Just getting in the door can be tough with that many kids trying to get out of snowy boots and coats.

The kids had fun playing dress up and Wii with their friends.  Katie and "Happy" had some difficulties sharing with two year old Elizabeth, but they worked it out.  Katie especially loved taking care of nine month old Braeden.  She held him and fed him some baby cereal.  She played with him in his walker.  She's going to be a very good mommy someday.

Braid Envy

 I've been spending so much time braiding "Hoop's" and "Happy's" hair these past couple of months, I think the other girls are starting to get a little envious.  It's true, their hair needs do mean that they get hours of one-on-one time with me weekly.  Just recently, Brianna and Danya asked if they could have their hair braided special, too.  I gave it a shot, although it's really not anything like braiding the other girls' hair.  What I'd really like to try is braiding all six of my girls' hair in the same style sometime.  Maybe I'll do it on a Saturday night, so they can match on Sunday morning.

Tbone Talent

Danya, my little trombonist in training, had an end of year test of sorts.  She had to perform a piece, all by herself, in front of the class, accompanied only by a background CD.  She was nervous, but she did fine for a first year player.  I was very proud of her.