What a wonderful life

Today at lunch while taking a break from taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning the house...

Daryn: "Man, I will be happy when all of our projects are done."
Brooke: "Honey, they will never be done...that's our life"
Anteneh: "Daddy, but it's a great life, isn't it?"

Christmas Eve

How many families do you know still do this? Thanks, Uncle Scott. I love how all the little cousins are in their new jammies and if you listen you can hear the girls' sweet voices.

There's nothing like a handmade ornament with your kid's picture on it.

I am convinced: The best Christmas decoration displays are set out by the little ones who are more excited about Christmas than anyone...

The best pets are not the most expensive purebred pets, but the ones that are strays and fall into your life unexpectantly or because as you walk by their kennel at the Humane Society they stare at you asking you to take them home...
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The best Christmas lights are not the ones that you pay hundreds of dollars to have prfessionally put up or the big blow up moving displays, but the ones that your 5 year old is allowed to help you string up...

and I'm convinced the best Christmas trees are not the ones that have only one style of ornament on them and have theme colors and designs, but the ones that are covered in only handmade preschool ornaments, tacky gold 1970's elf ornaments that were handed down from your grandma, and fun spiderman ornaments your kids pick out...

Merry Christmas...from the house that may have a leaning Christmas tree, pet hair all over the floors, dirty cereal dishes in the sink, messy kids' rooms, kids still in their jammies...but smells like Christmas cookies, sounds like Christmas music, and is filled with happy kids.

Let's Be Honest-the blog is the last thing on my mind

I have to be honest. Updating my blog is the last thing on my mind! Our household seems to be in slight disarray lately. A week ago Daryn and I decided to finally paint the family room and move all our living room stuff into there and use THAT room as our main gathering room. It has sat basically empty for a year because we didn't have the furniture to put in there...anyway, the wallpaper scraping took longer than we had expected and the weekend job quickly turned into a week long job.

Little did we know our poor sweet daughter would be sent home from school Tuesday morning for vomiting. And not just any vomiting. The poor child threw up in the auditorium in front of her whole class and 2 other 1st grade classes who were coming in for Christmas musical practice. When I got there to pick her up, I almost busted into tears for her as they told me she'd spilled her breakfast while all the little boys yelled, "ew, gross!!!". Poor thing. (And now I advertise it on the blog for everyone to read).

Then, 14 hours later Luke started. I'm sure you don't all want a play by play of my family's vomiting so I'll move on. I will end the vomiting stories by saying we ended up in the Emergency Room with Luke for 3 hours last night after he woke up from a nap with shooting pains in his abdomen and a swollen 'right lower quadrant'...basically they thought his appendix was getting ready to burst when I called the after hours clinic and they asked us to rush him into the ER. I ended up at a hospital that was out of our network and had to reload him into the car and drive to a different hospital. (Actually the one Daryn's brother works at in the ER but he wasn't working-the nurses had a great time teasing Luke for being related to Uncle Derek, though!). Lo and behold....the swelling and pain were gone by the time we reached the doctor and they wrote it off as gas due to vomiting. GREAT. Better safe then sorry, I guess, right? One nice thing about spending 3 hours in the ER and getting your sick child to bed at 11pm is that we got an anti-vomiting med prescribed and the entire family can use it if it spreads to us!

So, today Grace went back to school and while it took a little coaxing to convince her that the entire class was not going to make fun of her (I desperately broke out a new cute top from her favorite overpriced girl clothing store, "justice", to give her a little confidence boost and acted like we'd got it for her special for her Christmas program today), she went to school looking confident and ready for her Christmas program!

So, I'm going to try to finish painting our family room...I don't want to...the job is now turning into a 2 week job...I have to finish it-the inards of the room are spread all over the house, mixed with palates of blankets and pillows in front of the TV the sick kids have used...I also have to wash the 7 loads of laundry I've ignored (not including the 3 loads I've done b/c they were pukey), finish Christmas shopping, wrapping, and disinfect our house so Anteneh and his busy parents (us) don't get the pukey stuff.

If you've been reading by blog for a year or so you'll remember me saying that we were convinced we'd be in the ER with Anteneh soon with the way he takes risks and is so impulsive...well, isn't it ironic that both Luke and Grace have been to the St. Mary's ER and Anteneh never has? Haha-Go figure. (Grace was there when she was 18 months)

All I want for Christmas is for my family room to be done being painted and for nobody else in this house to start throwing up!!! Oh, and for the cat to stop knocking over the Christmas tree :)

Is He Seriously Making a Snow Angel?!

It started snowing today! What a great day...I picked the boys up from preschool and they were so excited they immediately started running around the yard, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues...and Anteneh had an idea...watch the video...
Then when Grace got home we decorated a gingerbread house and drank hot chocolate while Daryn unloaded firewood he'd been cutting all afternoon with his dad and brother. Sounds like it's officially winter!Yes, that is the kitten in the napkin basket...he just crawled in there. And Luke is not growing a real mustache-that's his hot chocolate mustache!

When the Cat's Away

Grace and I spent the afternoon Christmas shopping at Target and came home to find this: This is not a posed picture. They were all three snoozing away in a big pile. And the cutest part is that on Luke's lap was a pile full of Chuck E Cheese coupons he'd just cut out before falling asleep. The perfect Sunday afternoon for the girls: shopping at Target. The perfect Sunday afternoon for the boys: falling asleep on the couch while watching the Colts game!

Homemade Pizza

We made homemade pizzas last night...so much fun! Our WyldLife leader friend, Alex, came over and enjoyed them with us...Anteneh is sick so he looks a little lethargic. Haha. I love stuff like this. I love that we have to eat anyway...why not make it fun?! Nevermind that the kids' pizzas looked really weird and not very appetizing...haha...they loved them!

Fall!

I love this picture...it's the perfect snapshot of fall..Grace tossing leaves in the air, the boys in their hanes T's climbing the tree in the front yard...Shadow making sure everyone is playing nicely...And how handsome is my son? I caught him watching the commotion from the tree.

Anteneh's Birthday

Well, I posted Halloween without posting anything about Anteneh's Birthday! Here are some pictures...this first one is one of my favorite pictures of him. It captures his personality just perfectly-a mischievious smile. It was taken while we were all singing Happy Birthday to him...I love how unposed it is...it's just Anteneh's personality-fun loving. This next shot is Anteneh just posing with the 'grown up' cake! I made low sugar vanilla minicupcakes with sprinkles for the kids and a black forest cake for the adults...This last picture is of Grace and her teammates after their last soccer game this year...she had such a great time playing and really improved over the season! Her team was called the Rowdies...and they won all their games this season except one!Grace is in the middle...the tallest one, of course! The girl on the far left-well, her dad is 7feet tall and Grace is taller than HER! I have no clue where Grace gets her height.

Halloween Fun

We had a great time trick or treating yesterday!
I love our great Halloween tradition...
After all the cousins trick or treat around their own houses, we all meet at 6pm at Daryn's mom's house and eat chili, hot dogs, fruit and veggies and dip and a pumpkin shaped cake....and all the cousins answer the doorbell every time a group of trick or treaters comes by! It's a noisy affair with 10 dressed up cousins, all the aunts and uncles, Grandma Darlene, Papa Richard, and actually a few second cousins, but it's so much fun!

As you can probably guess, Luke was Anikan Skywalker (the boys are very in to Star Wars lately-a blast from my past! Haha), Grace was a black cat (I DO NOT recomend spraying your child's hair black- it was so disgusting, got everywhere, and I had to soap it up 3 times to get the black nastiness out!), and Anteneh was a Red Power Ranger...
Jocelyn went trick or treating with us for a while...she was TinkerbellGrace and I, hissing...are you scared? Haha

I'm IT

OMG! My friend Tracey (there we are at Tooties in downtown Newburgh) tagged me in this game on her awesome blog...I've never seen a game like this...I was tagged by Tracey(Tracey-tell me if I'm doing this right!)
The rules are:
1. To link the tagger and provide the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.
5. Post the 6th picture from your 6 file folder of pictures
Here is mine (Daryn just moved all my picture folders off my computer except Fall 2008 so I'm using my 6 picture from my ONLY file folder!)It's of Shadow's scars from when he got attacked by a mean stray dog. You can see the pucture wound on this arm and the teeth marks under his armpit...He's OK now...after some pain meds and antibiotics...my poor doggie was just minding his own business...random picture, huh?

here are my 7 facts about myself:

1. I really like being a perfectionist
2. I am good at guessing the ETA "Estimated Time of Arrival" of things down to the minute ( I know this is totally strange but I've noticed it-haha)
3. I like to shop at LLBean and I am a Purdue Boilermaker. I've come to realize these are both due to the fact that I love being the 3rd generation to do those things-thanks, Dad and Grandpa.
4. I love tradition and I'm very intentional about creating it...for instance: every weekend that we camp with the kids I cook the same meals. That way when my kids are older and look back on memories of camping they will always say, "remember that snack mix mom used to make only for our camping trips?" "Remember how as soon as we got to the camp site, mom would give us each a different color of gatorade and a can of pringles and we'd run around with it while she and dad set up the tent together?"
5. I love to cook-especially desserts-YUM!
6. All of the best decisions I've ever made in my life gave my dad a heart attack when I first told him: 1996 I became a Christian, 2000 I got engaged to Daryn, 2000 I got pregnant, 2002 I got pregnant again, 2004 I adopted a 3 year old orphan-bahaha-sorry, Dad but you know it's true (Note: He later warmed up to the ideas and is a proud grandpa and loves his son in law-jury is still out on the 'taking my religion too seriously' one)
7. I love American History-it totally excites me.

now I am tagging:(my goodness, this is time consuming! I should be doing housework)

Sara Trombley
Marisa Nottingham
Megan Clements
Lauren Thompson
Nikki Brendel
Debbie Wankel

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANTENEH JAMES WEST

Today is Anteneh's 5th Birthday!
Mimi(my mom) let him open the Speedracer movie (which he and Luke are watching), I'm baking a Black Forest Cake and Funfetti mini cupcakes...
It's raining and cool outside...
The cat is curled up with the boys, the dog is running errands and Mimi...
The house smells like baking cake batter and clean laundry....
All the cousins are coming over for cake and ice cream tonight...
Before they started watching the movie the boys helped me make one of the cakes and then started dancing to the worship music that was playing on the computer. Anteneh was doing some interesting dances that included the robot and some saluting moves...haha...and some that looked like Napoleon Dynamite movements...

Anteneh(while concentrating on his dance moves): "Mommy, when I grow up and go to heaven I would like to take these worship songs with me"
Me: "Why would you like to do that?"
Anteneh: "Because I want God to watch me dance for Him"
Me: "Well, He is watching you right now and He thinks it's awesome"
Anteneh: "Mommy, so God likes my moves?"


Haha...
It's an awesome day to turn 5 :)
The boys got new Power Ranger bicycle helmets and elbow and knee pads for Anteneh's birthday. Even though it's raining today, they modeled them for me...

Reader's Choice Awards-Vote for us!

I had forgotten I had even submitted a picture to this contest until a blog friend of mine told me she had voted for our picture!
The contest is for the 2008 Readers' Choice Award picture for Adoptive Families Magazine. If anyone wants to vote for us, go to Adoptive Familes 2008 Readers Choice Award Contest and you can find our picture in the "Most Viewed" category labeled Anteneh, 3, Ethiopia. I'm excited now! You have to click on the picture then click "Vote as Favorite".
Don't be confused if you see something that makes it look like the voting is closed...that is for the 2008 photo contest (winners picked by editors)...this is for the Readers' Choice so it's a different contest...
Please vote! Maybe I'll win a new camera or a trip to Hawaii...probably not but it would be cool to see our picture in the magazine!
You know, this picture is very special to me b/c it's only 3 months after we brought Anteneh home and it shows the bond that the boys already had...and it's the first time Anteneh saw the ocean...I should have submitted it in black and white...it's evern cuter like that.

Fall

Well, what family blog would be complete right now without the annual pumpkin patch picture? So, here is ours from today. Unfortunately there are no real pumpkin patches around here where you can pick a pumpkin so we had to settle for Englebrect's Orchard, which the kids were totally pumped about! The owner of the orchard came out and offered the kids a cut up Gala apple that he cut with his pocket knife. That's the kind of situation where a mom has to check her germ meter at the door! Were his hands clean? No. Was his pocket knife? Were my kids' hands clean? Did he wash the pesticides off that apple? Haha...yes, all those thoughts went through my head but it was so fun, it didn't matter. The kids ran around like madmen screaming about which pumpkin they wanted and eating their apple pieces. At one point we went inside the building for a minute to look around and Luke got very concerned about leaving his pumpkin outside. He was convinced a 'bad guy' might try to take his pumpkin but I assured him it was safe. The one bad thing about the day? It was 80 something degrees. It is just NOT RIGHT to pick out pumpkins in shorts and tee shirts! We might as well live in Florida with Aunt Tracey and Uncle Bry!

I had to post this picture. It REALLY makes me laugh. Not in a million years would I think my husband would EVER LIKE a cat. I think he has softened a little. I came down the stairs yesterday to find him cuddling with the animals.
Runt has actually been renamed-well, kind of. KiKi or Speed or Pouncer are the current options they've thought of. The poor thing. The kids can't decide so he is still "the kitty"!

Runt

I'm going to skip the paragraph where I explain why I haven't added anything to our blog in a super long time and go straight to the good stuff...the special surprise the kids got yesterday morning when they woke up. Friday evening Daryn caved to my pressure and agreed to let the kids have a cat! I was pleasantly surprised at how little I had to pressure him! Haha-actually, I just asked him, pleaded my case and he agreed. An inside cat, even. Less than 12 hours later (and that includes sleeping time), they had a kitten in their arms. Now, do I work quickly or what!?
I never meant to work that quickly but my mom found this kitten at her neighbor's barn and it is a real charmer. You know how cats CAN be-where they are antisocial, claw or bite you if you pet them, and dislike kids? Well, this little guy is NOT like that. He runs up to you, hates to NOT be held, purrs even when the kids are toting him around the entire day, and actually seems to enjoy 4 year old boys NEVER leaving him alone! Now, if you come across a kitty like that and you've considered getting one, it's time to get a kitty. Yesterday we took him to Grace's soccer game because we hated to leave him alone after we'd just gotten him. We carried him on the field in a little tote bag w/ his head sticking out. Grace was mighty popular with her teammates at that game! The little girls on Grace's soccer team all passed him around and he just laid on his back in their arms and purred.
The kids named him Runt b/c he was the runt of his litter (I've never seen a kitten this small. You can't really tell in these pictures).
This shot of Luke is my favorite. Having a kitten is his dream come true. Literally. The boy is totally in to cats. Runt slept with him last night and purred against his face while he slept-it was so sweet!
Well, it wasn't my dream of having the kids come down Christmas morning to see a kitten in their stockings, but we did put him in a Christmas box and let the kids open the lid...the look on their faces was priceless! Now the next step is convincing Runt that Shadow doesn't want to eat him! They will be good friends, soon, I'm sure. And Runt will keep Shadow company when we are gone. The goldfish weren't doing a very good job of that.

Going to the Dentist and Fun with Bubble Containers

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I blogged! Get ready for my odd soapbox...we just had a good time last night on our family outing to the dentist:)

...well, not the normal dentist....

We go to the University of Southern Indiana Dental Clinic. We don't have dental insurance so instead we take the kids to the university and let dental hygiene students practice on them-haha-I'm laughing to myself because it sounds like something dangerous but it's so great. The students really know what they are doing b/c they've already been trained and are doing 'clinicals'. They spend 2 1/2 hours (I know this sounds ridiculous but wait till you hear the price) in the chair and the students do the most complete examan I've ever seen. And the kids get all that time one on one with a college aged person who just showers them with attention. They EAT IT UP! Check this out: (I'm way too excited so bear with me)

Price of a dental exam and cleaning at the pediatric dentist: $80 per kid
Price of X-Rays at the pediatric dentist: $25
Cost of a Fluoride treatment at pediatric dentist: $15

Price of a dental exam and cleaning at the university: $5 per kid
Price of X-Rays at the pediatric dentist: $15
Cost of a Fluoride treatment at pediatric dentist: included in the $5 fee

Luke is so young that they did his x-rays for free and the other 2 didn't need it.
So, instead of $310 we would have paid at the pediatric dentist, we paid $15 and each kid left there with at least $5 worth of prizes and teeth care supplies. Now you tell me how worth it that is to drive 30 minutes from home and read magazines for 2 1/2 hours while your kids get showered with attention.
And we left there with 5 travel toothpastes, new toothbrushes for all three kids, floss for all three, stickers, posters, and free little dental tools for flossing(with refills)...

and their teeth get 10 times cleaner b/c they're in the chair for so long! Plus, a real dentist does the final exam.

If you consider that we paid $15 but left with 3 kids with clean teeth and $20 worth of stuff, it's like they paid us to clean our kids' teeth.

Luke's hygienist was especially smitten with him and we took his picture...how funny is this? It was taken with her camera and she emailed it to me-haha-he was having way too much fun with the air sucky thing. he probably did it 20 times and she'd just laugh at him...Oh, the things that entertain you when you have kids...

Speaking of entertainment...listen to what the boys did to entertain themselves a few weeks ago...One day I saw a 2 gallon bubble container they were messing with and didn't recognize it so I picked it up and looked inside. The contents were odd looking so I took a big wiff...urine. I looked at them with those eyes that moms give their sons when they do something like this and they admitted to peeing in the empty bubble container. Then I notice it's filled with tools. Yes, they'd peed in there and dropped their good tools in it. I told them to dump it out. They dump it in the middle of the yard, clean up their tools and we don't think much else of it..until the next day when Daryn comes home from work and says, "Honey, why is the grass dead right there?" Of course, it's where his sons emptied the bubble container. (sigh)...that's my life-haha... :) And I love it...

Bald Sons

It's 10 days before preschool pictures.
I came home from running errands today and the boys had gotten into the scissors.
It's not because they were unattended.
Daryn was here, and my mom and sister.
15 minutes alone is all it took.
Huge patches out of their hair.
Now Anteneh is bald-I had to shave it all off to make it look right.
Like, really bald-I'm not exaggerating.
Luke looks like he's going into the military.
Ah, the joys of having 2 four year old boys.
It was only a matter of time.

Purdue

Well, we just got home yesterday from a GREAT weekend at Purdue. Look at two of Purdue's running backs, class of 2024...

More later on our trip...I forgot my camera so we're waiting on people to send us pictures!

How Grace defines herself

I loved the paper that Grace brought home from school today...I love to read the way she defines herself... here is what her paper says:

The One and Only Grace!

This is what I look like: I have brown hair. I have green and brown eyes. I am tall

These are people in my family: Luke, Anteneh, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Papa, Eli, Meredith, Rachel, Ethan, Ava, Mathew, Aly, Scott, Camille, Jocelyn, Megan, Levon

These are some things I like to do: I like to play soccer, swim, go to parties, and read

These are some places I like to go: To the movies and to Florida

Here is more about the one and only me! I love animals. I adopted. I have a dog. I am a Christian

To me, this is a really special paper...I am going to love to look back with her at this paper when she is a grown up and see the way she defined herself at 6 years old...I love her last answer. That is her...she is all about animals...and the fact that her brother is adopted is PART of WHO SHE IS...she is a dog owner...and loves Jesus...I love her.

First of the First

Well, yesterday was the FIRST day of FIRST grade for my little baby Grace!
How cute are these kids? The boys and I drove Grace to school and walked her to her classroom...
Daryn and I woke up at 6:15am and Grace was already dressed and brushing her teeth-she was SO EXCITED for her first day of school! I have been dreaming of packing her lunch for probably the last month. The first day I was so excited that I tied her little baggies with ribbon and put a very special first day of school note from Mommy and Daddy in there...after school she said, "momma-I loved my note" (tear....) Grace putting on her backpack...special lunch box from Aunt Tracey-she was the coolest girl in school with THAT lunch box!
I think I'm going to make the self portrait and annual thing before every first day of school...beginning with Kindergarten...this was 1st grade...and below is last year's Kindergarten self portrait! Grace looks SO MUCH OLDER this year...and somehow I look less wrinkly...that's strange! The funniest part of comparing these two pictures is Grace's shirts-Grace picked out a teal horse t for the first day two years in a row-bahaha-I love her.

All Natural

OK...so, I'm making dinner last night and my recipe calls for 'breadcrumbs'...I was about out of bread so instead of making my own I glanced in the pantry to see if I had any canned. And I did. And then I read the label. Here is what it said:

Ingredients: Enriched flour(four, malted barley, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate[vitamin B1], riboflavin[vitamin B2], folic acid), high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil(soybean and/or cottenseed and/or corn and /or canola oils), water, yeast, salt, brown sugar, honey, molasses, sugar, wheat gluten, whey, soy flour, whole wheat flour, rye flour, corn flour, oat bran, cornmeal, rice flour, potato four, butter, dough conditioners (mono and diglycerides, sodium and/or calcium staroyl lactylate, soy lecithin, calcium carbonate), yeast nutrients(ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, momocalcium phosphate), distilled vinegar, skim milk, buttermilk, lactic acid, calcium propionate (preservative), potassium sorbate(preservative), may contain sesame seeds and/or poppy seeds.
Now, that just took me 5 minutes to type....literally...does that sound appetizing!? I just wanted some CRUMBS OF BREAD!UGH...needless to say, I left the storebought breadcrumbs unopened and toasted my own 100% Natural Farmer's 12 Grain (w/ no trans fat, no high fructose corn syrup, no artificial preservatives, colors, or flavors)for breadcrumbs...
And taking the advice of a good friend who would rather stick a random picture on a post than post something that's just words...here's a shot of the boys torturing their dog:)Look at Shadow-under their blankies...this picture makes me laugh so hard...
PS-I just did spell check on this post and the spell checker couldn't recognize NINE of the words in that ingredients list...why do we as Americans eat like this? Maybe most of those things aren't bad for you but what ever happened to a few simple, healthy ingredients?

246 pictures

Literally. That is how many I took. I have 3 8"x11" frames around my kitchen table that have been empty since November when we moved in. It's pathetic. And with my best friend, Tracey, coming to visit(w/ her cute hubby, of course), I had to fill them. So, the kids and I braced eachother for a 94 degree photoshoot yesterday-they were good sports and all I had to do was bribe them with some gum! Haha. So, here they are: the best of the 246 from yesterday! Not bad for just sticking them in front of some of our flowers...I think in a few weeks we may go to the park and so do a few more:)



This last one was literally the last picture I took...see, they are all still smiling after 246 shots! See, I'm not too cruel!