My Nemesis

The ever present enemy: laundry. It lurks around every corner in my home, ganging up on me, waiting until that moment when I think I've conquered it to surprise me with a hidden pile in the downstairs bathroom or a monstrous stash horded for weeks under Brianna's bed or in the dark recesses of Gloria's closet.

Sometimes, I'm lured to the downstairs bedroom by a strange malodorous smell that I slowly track through the basement, sniffing the air like a hound, until I locate it coming from some exotic new location like the bottom of Danya's toybox, or hidden inside a board game that was roughly tossed into the closet.

On the days when I am completely overwhelmed, rather than surrender, I and my family gather up every single article of clothing of vaguely suspicious cleanliness and outright dirty status and pile it high in the back of the van. Then we haul it off to the laundry mat where we can line it up as if in a firing squad and attack it all at once for the price of some laundry soap and my life savings in quarters. But despite my best efforts, the laundry always wins in the end. For even though I have succeeded in washing it all, we are then too tired to put it away, or there is no room in the drawers. So there it sits, gloating in the laundry baskets, as it slowly transfers from the clean piles into the dirty hampers, reminding me that, when it comes to the war on laundry, the only true winners are the happy people on nudist beaches.

She Likes Carrots

Katie has been trying out quite a variety of new foods lately. Some of her favorites are bread, marinara sauce, and any kind of fruit. She also likes carrots, but they don't seem to agree with her. I'm not too thrilled about the orange diapers.

She's also been working on foods that she can hold and bring to her mouth like biter cookies and graham crackers. She's a good eater. Sometimes she's too good. We have to watch her carefully to make sure she doesn't tear off a piece of whatever she's eating because she might choke on it. She still doesn't even have any teeth yet, but she can gum her food ferociously.

OK or Bust!

I'm taking my courage in my hands and attempting something I've never tried before. Tomorrow morning I will load up all six kids and make the ten hour drive to Daniel's parents' house in Oklahoma. We'll be near Stillwater. Daniel has always been the driver on all of our trips. I don't think I've ever driven longer than about three hours on my own before.

We talked it over and we just can't pass up the opportunity. Although Daniel can't take the time off of work right now, this week is a perfect week for the rest of us to travel. The kids' Friday school (Options) doesn't start until the following week. Neither does AWANA, gymnastics, or Brianna and Shane's new speech, counseling, and OT/PT appointments. Now that we've adopted them, we don't have to get anyone's permission to take them out of the state either.

One more good reason is that the kids' godparents are moving to Virginia soon, and this may be our last chance to see their godmother and her two kids before they go. Finally, it's possible that Daniel's sister, Robin, who is in the hospital eight months pregnant with her eighth child, may have the baby any time now. And it's her birthday, too. And even though I said "finally" I'm going to also tack on the fact that my oldest friend and my sister both have birthdays in September, so I'd like to visit them while I'm there. The kids really want to see their cousins, although, since they don't homeschool, we may not be able to be up where they live at a time when they aren't in school. Anyway, wish me luck on the trip. I'll be praying that I can stay awake and focused for that long!

Recording Keeping & Lesson Planning

This is our 5th year of home schooling. You'd think we'd have it all figured out by now. Actually, the one thing I've learned for sure about home schooling is that every year is different. Why? First, because our kids are all different and what works for one kid at a certain grade level might not work for the next kid. Secondly, I'm still trying new things and seeing what fits our family. It's fun looking back over my old blog posts seeing all the different ways we've kept track our home schooling progress over the past four years. Since we're trying something new this year I thought I'd create a post about it. I know I personally love getting a peek at other mom's lesson plans and record keeping, so here's a glimpse into mine.
If you click on each image you'll see a larger, readable version of our lesson plans. There's one for Danya and Gloria since they share a lot of subjects, one for Brianna, since she's mostly on her own this year, and one for Shane and Kevin. I'm attempting to teach them together even though Shane is older by two years. Kevin is advanced for a three year old. He already knows all but two of his colors (he mixes up pink and purple) and can count to 10 and do simple addition. Shane is working on counting past five and knows some colors. They both know some of their letters and can recognize their names.
The basic concept with these lesson plans that I created is simple. I wanted to have a quick overview I can glance at to see what to work on next in each subject, and I wanted to be able to record when we got it done. So I gathered up all the books and things that I wanted them to work on and put them into these spreadsheets so that I can see the next 20 days worth they'll be doing. Obviously this is not a comprehensive list of everything they will do. I didn't include games, flash cards, videos, or any of the extra things we'll do. I also didn't include a place for independent unassigned reading. This is just the basics. Also, we won't work on every subject every day, so it's not literally the next 20 school days worth of work. I guess if I wanted to I could have made two pages worth of assignments for each kid. I was trying to keep it simple. Now, as we complete each section, I just note the date (or the older kids do) in the box next to the assignment.

We've been using this for about two weeks now. I printed them out and keep them in a small binder. I've got dividers with tabs for each month in it and I hope to add more pages as we complete these. Originally I didn't have a sheet for Shane and Kevin. I didn't think they needed one. Then I realized that they really do have quite a bit of work they do. I also wanted to set aside specific books to read to them and keep track of what we've read. I'm going to do this with library books, too, so that I'll have a record of just how often I'm reading to them. I figure Katie doesn't need a record sheet yet, lol.

The Mini Homeschoolers 11: The "S" Word

Danya and Gloria have added another video to their Mini Homeschoolers series. This one is about the dreaded "s" word: socialization. If the video doesn't work yet, here's the direct link.

Finally Ours

Introducing the new and improved Elliott family (version 6.0) ! We're so happy to finally be able to show pictures of ALL our kids. For the record, Snow White's real name is Brianna and Brother's name is Shane.

This family photo was taken on adoption day right outside the courtroom. We also took pictures with the judge, the caseworkers, and the GAL (kids' attorney). Unfortunately, I didn't get very good photos since I wasn't the one taking them. I've also included a recent photo I took of Brianna and Shane close up. They are some seriously beautiful kids. But then, biased as I am, I think all my kids are pretty cute. I love having some brunettes in the family. Finally, children that look like my side of the family tree! The first thing we did after the adoption was call and leave my mom a message. She agrees that Shane looks a lot like my dad, Clint; dark hair and gorgeous baby blues.

To celebrate we took the kids out to eat and then went swimming in the South Platte River. The kids had a great time and got a nice sunburn. Danya and Gloria had an exciting moment as the current started to pull them away, but Daniel saved the day. Afterwards he said, "I'm pretty sure this activity wouldn't have been approved for foster kids." We're enjoying the freedom we have right now to do whatever we want as a family since we don't have any foster care involvement right now. We're taking a two month break while finishing up our training hours so that we can become a specialized "emergency intake" home.

Since Miss Lady and Thumbelina went home about a week and a half ago Brianna is deciding which room she wants to sleep in. She could be the big sister of the room if she shares Katie's room. She could stay with Gloria. Currently it looks like she's going to move her things into Danya's room. I hope that works out since Danya has been very lonely in her room since Thumbelina left. Gloria is adjusting to the idea of having no one to help her clean her room. I'm just loving the "just us" feeling right now and enjoying the peace and quiet.

American Symbols

One of the things the kids are learning about right now are the symbols of our country. Snow White really picked up quick on the meaning behind the stripes and stars on our flag. I'm also trying to incorporate plenty of craft projects into our school days because it keeps the kids excited to learn and gives them a goal for when the book work part is done.

This time the girls made paper flags and the boys made star mobiles. I think the girls were a little bit jealous of the boys' mobiles. We hung all of their projects up around the house. They really enjoyed showing them to all the caseworkers and other people who've come to visit since then.

Superman turns Three

If Kevin was a foster child instead of our biological child and I had to come up with a nickname for him on my blog I would definitely call him Superman. He loves to sing along with that song on our Kids Bop CD, although he gets the lyrics slightly wrong. He runs around stores and everywhere else singing, "If I go crazy will you keep calling me SUPERMAN!?" And he's constantly informing us that he's "superhuman". Then he tells us to look at his muscles and says, "Yeah. That's cuz I'm really strong."

For his birthday we took him back to the Children's Museum. We had originally intended to have a party at the local outdoor pool, but after trying the place out we didn't feel up to trying to keep multiple 3 year olds safe in that environment. In the end none of his friends were able to come anyway, so it didn't really matter. He really likes the museum and had a great birthday. Some gifts we gave him were a train set, Lincoln Logs, and big dinosaurs. His favorite gift was probably his Speed Racer car. He calls it "Feed Racer", but that's alright.

Yankee Doodle Girl!

Katie was so cute in her Fourth of July outfit. She actually had two different outfits since the one I'd been saving for her for months now was what she wore on July 3rd when we celebrated at Sarah's house. This is the outfit she actually wore on the fourth.

I can't believe she's already 5 months old. She can do so much more. She getting really good with her hands. When she's hungry she can even get some foods into her mouth after a few tries all on her own. For some reason she thinks it's hilarious to bang rattles against her diaper. Best of all, she mimics everyone around her. If we smile, she smiles. When anyone laughs, she giggles and wants to join in whatever the fun is. She's so ticklish, too! When the doctor was examining her for her check up she was giggling on the table. Of course, she stopped smiling when the nurse gave her a shot. But she was back to her happy self again within a few minutes.

Pool Boy

We let Kevin open one of his birthday presents early on the fourth of July. We thought he'd get a kick out of having a little wading pool. What we didn't anticipate was how difficult it would be finding a suitable spot in our yard to set it up. I told Daniel to put it in the front yard first, but the slope was too steep and the water wouldn't stay in. It ended up in the backyard next to a tree, but not before I got some fun photos of the kids playing in it out front.

It's not big enough to actually swim in, but the kids have enjoyed being able to get wet and splash each other on super hot days. Right now it's looking a little green, so I guess I need to send Daniel out this weekend to clean it out. One thing we discovered is that bath toys transition well to use as pool toys!

Fireworks and Friends

We had a great Independence Day this year. We bought way too many fireworks, as usual, and I forgot to take our yearly photo of the entire pile. Our babysitter, Sarah, and her family agreed to let us light our fireworks at their house. Our city has a policy now that you basically can't do any fireworks at all. Sarah lives in Westminster where you can do smaller fireworks. We had our traditional tank wars and races with anything on wheels. All the kids enjoyed the sparklers and smoke bombs. Some of the best ones were these little things called Zips that made a quick zipping sound and took off into the air.

We let each of the kids pick out about $10 worth of fireworks that they didn't have to share with anyone (unless they wanted to) which made their day. We had an interesting time trying to find actual fireworks stands, as opposed to warehouses within city limits. Sarah's dad decided to go all out and turn the evening into a cook out. He grilled up all kinds of delicious things and sliced some fresh watermelon. It was great! We brought our own diet pop and baked chips so that we could stay within our Weight Watcher's points. Sarah's brother and his friends helped our youngest kids light their fireworks since Daniel and I couldn't be everywhere at once. It was a really fun night. The only tough part was that we ended up staying up WAY too late!

New Creations

Danya and Gloria have both given their lives to the Lord. Danya had made a commitment when she was five and was baptized at that time. However, she feels now that she was too young then to fully understand her decision and wanted to rededicate her life to Christ. This was all new for Gloria.

Grandma and Grandpa were able to be here for their baptism, which made it extra special. They were baptized by their TruthQuest pastor, Mike. He said that he could see changes in both their lives and that they were a joy to have in the kids' program. They both wrote a short personal testimony that Pastor Ed read out loud before they were dunked. We're proud of both of them.

3 John 1:4 "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."

Eating her Veggies

Katie is learning to eat baby foods of all kinds. She really loves sweet potatoes but doesn't much care for green beans, peas, or carrots. She'll eat any kind of fruit blend. Katie makes the cutest faces when she first tastes something new.

When we are eating something soft we usually let her have a taste. So far she's gotten excited and actually growled and whined when we paused after feeding her some cheese sauce and also some marinara sauce. I just know she's going to follow after me in loving all sorts of Italian foods.

She also gets to occasionally chew on bread sticks, pizza crusts, and biter biscuits. I'm sure we're breaking all the doctor recommended guidelines but our other kids survived it, so I'm guessing she will, too.

What I'm not so sure about is what I plan to do in regards to her vaccination schedule. My friend, Deanna, took me to a seminar that discusses childhood vaccines, what's in them and how they are made, and also the potential side effects. I was properly shocked and horrified and now I'm concerned about which vaccines I should allow her to receive. At her recent check up I talked it over with the doctor and we're going to spread her vaccines out over a period of weeks instead of letting them give her several all at once. We're also skipping a few. I'm not sure what else we'll do since, as a foster family, we're required to have all our kids' vaccinations up to date.

The Denver Children's Museum

While Daniel's parents were visiting in June we decided to make our very first visit ever to the Denver Children's Museum. Daniel's parents surprised us by offering to gift us with a family membership for the year! We are excited to say the least. We've gone twice more since then and still love it.

The kids really enjoyed getting to dress up and pretend to work in a veterinarian's office, a theater, a supermarket, a diner, and various other places. They especially liked painting, but their absolute favorite area was the construction site. They got to paint a room in a house, build with giant LEGO's, and play with a conveyor belt.

A Little Help from our Friends

Grandpa Wayne, Daniel's dad, started it. When he came to visit us he spent some of his time taking care of some home maintenance issues for us. He cleaned out the gutters, helped connect the dryer venting to the outside, and sprayed all the grass out of the air conditioner.

We've also hired a guy a few times this summer to mow our strange pathetic yard. I won't call it grass since it's mostly weeds. Just recently we also hired a handyman friend from church to trim the tree in our front yard. The branches were getting so low that every time we shut the side van door we'd break off a few leaves inside the van.

The most helpful person lately has been our babysitter, Sarah. She's stepped up often to watch the kids while we attend foster parent training, get errands done like shopping for Brother's birthday party, and just spend a couple of hours reconnecting with each other. Tonight, Sarah and Miss Lady are on a Youth Group camping trip together. I definitely would not have felt as comfortable letting Miss Lady go if it weren't for Sarah being there.

We're going to submit paperwork in August to try and get in on a program where the airport, via the city, pays for families in this area to have work done to their house to mitigate the noise. Before we bought the house someone else used that program to get new windows put in here. We're hoping to get the back patio door replaced.

Now if I could just find a really good, really cheap landscaper to fix my yard I'd be happy as a clam.

Bike Upgrades

We got Danya and Gloria new bikes in June when Grandma and Grandpa Elliott were here. Their knees were hitting the handle bars on their old bikes. So we passed one of the old bikes down to Snow White and let Thumbelina ride the other one. Then we found a really nice second hand bike at a yard sale that we gave to Thumbelina so that she'd have one to take home with her when she leaves. At the same yard sale we found a good starter bike for Brother. He's not ready to go without training wheels yet, but he's happy about having a "big boy bike".

Danya and Gloria were really nervous at first and got hurt a couple of times when they started riding without training wheels. They're getting better, though. I think it's mainly due to their wanting to keep up with Miss Lady, Thumbelina, and Snow White who can all ride really well. The real kicker has to be having little sisters that ride better than they do. I've ridden my bike a few times, once about 3 miles with Miss Lady, but mainly I've been getting practice on the stationary bike at physical therapy. After making it up the hill beside the park I've learned there is quite a bit of difference between stationary biking and the real thing.

Approaching the End

This picture is from a family bike ride down a nature trail that we took with Daniel's parents in June. He's got Snow White slung over his shoulder looking down into the creek we stopped next to. Snow White has seemed to become more attached to us lately. She tells us that she loves us often and asks every day how much longer it will be until we adopt her. It's getting pretty close now.

We were originally set to adopt them on July 15th, but the caseworker postponed that because we couldn't get their Sewell evaluation done until July 14th. The evaluation was a comprehensive series of tests to figure out if Snow White or Brother were suffering from FAE (fetal alcohol effects). Thankfully, neither one of them are. They both fell into the "normal" range for most things. It turns out that a lot of the strange behaviors we've been seeing, like inability to comprehend what we're saying to them, or follow simple instructions, or remember how to do simple things they knew how to do before can all be explained by one problem. Their receptive language skills are extremely low.

That means that they just don't understand a lot of the words and phrases we use. So if today we say "put your socks on" Brother might understand us and do it. Tomorrow if we say, "You need to hunt for some some socks and get them on" he may have no idea what we've told him to do. The sentence was too long, too complex, and used an expression he didn't understand. So we have to be very clear, very simple, and very concrete in what we say until their vocabulary improves over time. We also have to teach them to ask us what we mean if they don't understand us. Another thing we found out is that Snow White has very poor muscle tone. So she's going to be starting physical and occupational therapy soon. That should help her with things like holding a pencil and throwing a ball. It's something that will also improve over time.

It's such a relief to know that the issues Brother and Snow White have are correctable in time and that we are so close to the adoption so that all the waiting will finally be over. They are both getting new middles names, but their first names are going to stay the same. Snow White is already practicing writing her new names. She really enjoyed choosing what her middle names would be. Neither of them know what their middles names are currently, so we didn't think it'd be a big deal to change them. I'll write about the names and the meaning behind them after the adoption is finalized next month.

Party at Pixie Hollow

Danya's best friend Lauren had a really great birthday party this year. It was a Tinkerbell slumber party. Her mom went all out designing backdrops and giving the girls manicures and pedicures. She even hand sewed Lauren's costume!

All the girls were supposed to dress up as fairies, and the birthday girl would be Tink. Danya and I had an interesting time coming up with her costume. We used an old pair of angel wings and a frilly skirt, her gymnastics leotard, a maroon scarf, and a headband with green hair attached. I put glitter eye makeup and lip gloss on her and combined the green hair with her regular hair and put it into two buns. At the party all the girls loved Danya's green hair. The birthday girl, Lauren, wanted to run right out to the Dollar Tree and get some for herself. Danya had an absolute ball at the party.

Summer School

The boys recently completed all the classes they were taking on Fridays at the rec center. They really had a fun time learning about bugs, the ocean, cooking, and other things. I think they liked that it was a special class that the girls were too old to go to. I was glad that they had each other for support in the class. They really stuck together. I heard one of their teachers telling Kevin to come sit by her because he didn't seem to know where to sit when the kids lined up outside. Then he pointed to Brother and said, "I'm sitting by him. He's my brother."

They are so cute together. I love the funny looks people give them when they say they are brothers since they don't look much alike except for the blue eyes. Their gymnastics coach just asked me last week if I was Kevin's mom or Brother's mom. I smiled and told her, "They're both mine." She said that Kevin seems to have a little fear of heights when it comes to walking on the balance beam and jumping off things. So we're supposed to work on that by having him jump off everything we can.

Summer Movie Madness

This is the last summer before Sarah's senior year begins in high school. She has been such a wonderful babysitter for us. When she told us that we should ask her to babysit as much as possible this summer since she's going to be very busy during the school year and then going away to college after that, we took her up on it.

Normally we only see a couple of new movies actually at the theater per year. We are much more likely to wait until they come out on Red Box video before seeing new movies. This summer, though, we've seen quite a few movies.

Some movies we've seen are Transformers 2, Xmen: Wolverine, Harry Potter, The Proposal, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and Night at the Museum 2. We're looking forward to seeing the new G. I. Joe movie soon. We've also rented on average about 2 movies a week to watch at home. This particular photo is of me, Sarah, and her sister Shannon when I took them and Miss Lady to see Transformers after youth group one Thursday night before Daniel's shift changed at work. I've been enjoying having special girls' nights out with Miss Lady since she is going home soon to her parents. Have I mentioned that I'm REALLY going to miss her and Thumbelina?

Foster Parent Recertification

Our annual recertification for foster parenting has to be completed in August so Daniel and I are working hard to get all the requirements done. We are planning to temporarily close our home to new placements for a couple of months after the adoption of Snow White and Brother happens on August 20th. When we open up our home again in either November or December we will officially be an "intake only" home. That's a specialized foster home that only takes emergency placements for a short period of time. Usually a few days to a few weeks. No more than 3 months.

To be a regular foster home we only need 20 training hours a year. To be a specialized home we have to have 32 hours. Currently we have 16 hours. By the end of August we'll be up to 27.5 hours. We also are working on getting physicals completed for our whole family. The doctor has to fill out a form that states we're all healthy. Then there's a huge questionaire regarding our experiences over the last year and what we've learned as foster parents. Finally, we have to submit documentation of our taxes and Daniel's pay stubs to prove that we are financially able to support ourselves. That way they know we aren't trying to use foster parenting as a way to make money for our family.

Speaking of money, we just signed the adoption subsidy agreement which is going to lower the amount of assistance they give us for Snow White and Brother by about 25%. I'm just glad that they'll continue to send that since we'll be taking Snow White to about 5 different appointments per week and Brother to three. That will probably continue for the next several years at least. The cost in gas alone for our 12 passenger van is significant since I normally have to bring all the kids with me. We were very excited to complete that paperwork and also the adoption petition to the court which should be submitted by the caseworker this week. I can't wait until I can officially announce Snow White and Brother's real names on my blog and stop putting black dots on their faces!

Perfection is Overrated

I tried to take another photo shoot of the kids recently since our family will be changing soon. Miss Lady and Thumbelina are expected to be going home before the end of the month. They are already having overnight visits. Brother and Snow White will hopefully be adopted by us sometime in mid August. The photo shoot didn't quite work out as well as it usually does. I didn't get a single one of those eye catching, just right photos that usually occur by chance if I take enough pictures. I got a couple of "nice" ones of each kid, except Katie who refused to smile until I let Danya hold her.

So, instead of posting lovely photos of my children this time, I thought I'd share some of the outtakes that made me smile. Sometimes it's the imperfect photos that end up being the most special. Sometimes it's just nice to remember that our kids aren't that perfectly posed sweet little angel in the portrait on our walls or in our scrapbooks. They're just kids. Funny, messy, exasperating, normal kids. Miss Lady asked me the other day when she was feeling a little overwhelmed after a long day rushing around with all the kids in the van, "How do you deal with this many kids and not get frustrated? How can you be smiling still right now?" I told her the simple truth. "Because they're mine." She'll understand someday.

The Best Father's Day Gift Yet

For Father's Day this year a miracle occurred. Daniel actually had something he wanted. Most years it's like pulling teeth to try and get him to give me a straight answer on any potential gift for Father's Day, his birthday, our anniversary, or Christmas. This year he talked about wanting a pocket sized camera for months. I was against it because I was afraid it would be an inferior quality camera that took bad photos and I wouldn't want to use them in our scrapbooks.

Then, shortly before Father's Day, Daniel found a new camera that was a reasonable price and actually took better quality photos than our current best camera. He was so happy when I surprised him with it on Father's Day. He has become a picture nut since then. I'm getting a little overwhelmed at the sheer number of photos he takes now. But I have to admit, it is convenient to be able to just pop that little camera in a pocket and take it with us where ever we go. On the first night he got it he took it to work and played with some of the features like the ability to "stitch" panoramic photos together. Above is one he put together of his work area. Of course, they just moved his group to a new location in the office, so that's not his desk anymore. Good thing he took a picture of it, I guess.

But You're at Disneyland!

There we were; meeting Princesses, riding fun rides, eating pretzels shaped like Mickey Mouse's head, and generally having a blast. But what do my kids say? "Thanks, Mom and Dad. This is the best trip ever!" Nope. All we hear is, "When can we go back to the hotel and swim?" Apparently the highlight of the trip was not when Danya got chosen to play the drums in the "tomorrow land" exhibit, nor was it the shockingly creepy real-ness of the 4D Bugs Life Show with the sensation of spiders running under our seats, nor the heart racing moment when we plummeted to the ground in the elevator on "The Tower of Terror" ride.

No, the best part for the kids was getting to swim at the hotel every day which had two big pools, a kiddie pool, and two hot tubs. Daniel and I agreed that next time we'll save a few thousand dollars and just rent a room at a local hotel that has an outdoor pool.

What a Character

I'm so glad we took the time to make sure we got special pictures with as many characters as possible at Disneyland. We waited to meet the princesses for over an hour and a half, but it was worth it in the end. The kids were so excited. Thumbelina had been hoping she'd get to meet Mulan, because her therapist said she looked like her. Then when we met Princess Jasmine she actually told Thumbelina that she had hair "just like Fa Mulan's"! That made her day!

We ended up getting pictures with all the main characters, except Daisy Duck. We only got a quick photo of the kids near Goofy because he wouldn't stand still. Brother almost knocked Buzz Lightyear over in his excitement. The kids didn't seem to know who Chip and Dale were. We also saw several minor characters, but didn't take pictures with them. We saw Cinderella's fairy godmother, and some evil queens. The kids also got to meet the Mad Hatter. It was really fun for them. Brother actually thinks that Winnie the Pooh was real and was frustrated that Tigger hopped away too fast to hug him. My one regret is that I didn't get a picture of Daniel with Donald Duck, since he does such a great impression of him.

Little Things

Today the kids and I were reading a story during homeschool time that was about a boy who was learning that "little bad acts" like lying or covering up something small are not so little and are really like tiny acorn seeds that eventually grow into enormous oak trees. We also talked about how small acts of kindness can have a profound affect on someone's life.

I told the girls a true story about a boy on a church youth group trip who decided to take pity on the new girl and invite her to sit with him at meal times and join him and the youth pastor for card games when she was feeling left out and ignored, wishing she hadn't even come on the trip. They were such small acts of kindness. But if he hadn't done that, the two wouldn't have become friends, and a year later husband and wife, and eventually become a foster family with 8 wonderful kids. Isn't it funny how the little things can change so many lives?

Crazy California Drivers!

You know, I've heard plenty of stories about those crazy California drivers and how dangerous it is on the freeways there, but I never would have believed it was this bad if I hadn't seen it for myself. And they're letting kids drive so much younger these days!

I blame the influence of Hollywood. Kids get the idea in movies that you can drive recklessly through the city and no one will really get hurt. Well, I've put my foot down in our family. I told my kids that they can drive when they're 40... with a permission note from God.

Hee hee. While we were at Disneyland the kids actually got several opportunities to drive. They all loved the bumper cars in the Bug's Life area. Miss Lady got to sit in the driver's seat on the Indiana Jones ride. The funniest time was when Thumbelina drove Toad's car on the Wind in the Willows ride and it got stuck in the scene where the judge is sentencing them for reckless driving. She and Miss Lady had to sit there while the giant mechanical judge kept pointing his huge finger at them and shouting, "Guilty! Guilty!"

Disney or Bust!

The whole process of flying to Disney went incredibly well. The kids were all so cute in their matching VBS shirts. They got lots of compliments on their good behavior and general adorableness. Is that a word?

This was the first time on an airplane for most of them. We packed a lunch and had them eat at the Denver International Airport before we went through security. Daniel had brought a bunch of water bottles that mostly had to be thrown away. They let us keep two for making bottles on the plane, but they did a chemical test on them to make sure that we weren't bringing anything dangerous in them. The kids thought it was like a cool science experiment. The security people were all incredibly nice and helpful. They seemed to get the humor of the situation trying to get that many little kids through security.

We *HEART* California!

We had such a fantastic trip! Every single thing went well. I can't wait to update my blog and tell all about the trip with lots of photos and everything. Unfortunately I'm insanely busy and not sure how soon I'll get the necessary time to do it. I wanted to at least add one picture. Here's us at Disney's California Adventure park.

This week we are all going to be busy with starting our homeschooling year and also participating in our church's vacation bible school program "True-rassic Park". Daniel will be sheparding a group of first graders while I work in the three year old class. Even Miss Lady is volunteering to help in the crafts room. It's going to be fun!

Disney - Here we come!

We're packing like crazy, trying to make sure we don't forget anything crucial. The kids are all so excited. Kevin fully understands that we are going to see the characters in his favorite movies. Today he brought me the Peter Pan movie box and pointed to the characters on the back. He wanted to know if we were going to meet Captain Hook because he's a bad guy and he fights with swords. Kevin thinks we should definitely avoid meeting the crocodile.

Daniel also tried to trim Brother's hair while I was out this morning. Usually that's my job. Let's just say that we are going to try to find time tomorrow morning to buzz it all off. Yes. It's that bad.

In totally non-related news... Today I went to my first Weight Watcher's meeting and signed up with my baby sitter, Sarah, and a friend from church, Amy. We're all going to try to hang in there together and support each other's weight loss efforts. Maybe I'll even update my weight loss blog next week. Our class leader said she won't really expect me to lose any weight between now and next week since I'm heading out on vacation tomorrow. I'm secretly hoping to surprise her. Today I did good.

Hopefully, next week I'll have lots of great photos to post. Until then!