Little Miss

I took lots of pictures this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to get some posted this week. Meanwhile, here are a couple of the little miss, oh, and Ellie of course!

From God's Arms Lyrics

Check out my link in the previous post and these lyrics will make more sense.

From God's Arms, To My Arms, To Yours
So many wrong decisions in my past, I'm not quite sure
If I can ever hope to trust my judgment anymore.
But lately I've been thinking,
Cause it's all I've had to do.
And in my heart I feel that I
Should give this child to you.
And maybe, you could tell your baby,
When you love him so, that he's been loved before, By someone, who delivered your son,
From God's arms, to my arms, to yours.
If you choose to tell him,
If he wants to know,
How the one who gave him life
Could bear to let him go.
Just tell him there were sleepless nights,
I prayed and paced the floors,
And knew the only peace I'd find,
Was if this child was yours.
And maybe, you could tell your baby,
When you love him so, that he's been loved before,
By someone, who delivered your son,
From God's arms, to my arms, to yours.
This may not be the answer,
For another girl like me.
But I'm not on a soapbox,
Saying how we all should be.
I'm just trusting in my feelings,
And I'm trusting God above,
And I'm trusting you can give this baby
Both his mothers' love.
And maybe, you could tell your baby,
When you love him so, that he's been loved before,
By someone, who delivered your son,
From God's arms, to my arms, to yours.

The season of Lent really makes me reflect on my life and its many, many blessings. I am eternally grateful for the selfless decisions of the birthparents of my children. Sometimes I feel like shouting my story from the top of a mountain in the hopes that others can be educated about adoption and really know what it "looks" like!

In addition to the song above, I also found this beautiful song . I hope you will take a listen. I needed tissues! Guess I was due for a good cry tonight. What exactly is a "good" cry anyway? I'm pretty sure I was almost at the ugly cry.

This is turning out to be a long post, but I decided to post an excerpt from the letter to the editor I wrote last mother's day. It was published in 5 local newspapers and one even did a front page cover story. It was exciting to be spreading the Pro-adoption message! I'm hoping maybe someone who reads this blog will also benefit from reading it.

"When my children hold hands and dance across the kitchen, I am grateful. When they call me “Mommy”, I am grateful. When they are having a temper tantrum about watching the television, I am grateful. I am blessed to be the mother to my two children and I try to never take the role of motherhood for granted. I have been given the opportunity to do what I consider to be the greatest job on Earth because the birthparents of my children made the selfless decision to place them for adoption.

Even as things have progressed over the years, there are still often times when the stigma surrounding adoption is evident. I hear comments like “How could anyone give up her child?” and “I could never do that.” Statements such as these used to cause me frustration, but I now see them as opportunities to educate others about the “real” face of adoption. Birthmothers are mothers; they are my children’s first mother and took care of them for the first 9 months of their lives. They felt their first kicks and heard their first cries and I am certain that they think of them daily. They are comforted knowing they are happy, well-adjusted children. The birthmothers of my children will always have a connection with the child that I have been given the opportunity to raise and call my own. I am their mommy, but I must never for one minute, forget their first mother, the one who made the brave decision to give their child an opportunity that they were unable to give. Birthmothers do not “give up” children; they give their children the prospect to have a quality of life they humbly admit they could not provide.
It is because of their unconditional love, that I have the title of “Mommy”. How do I ever truly thank someone for this priceless gift? "

Sorry for standing on my soapbox today. I'm not really sure what triggered it...it could have been when I was cleaning off the desk handmade by Little Miss' birthfather or moving the picture of E and his birthparents...whatever it was, it gave me the urge to "shout" my story and it's hard to shut me up once I get started.

From God's Arms...

I had to post this; I'm certain you'll know why after watching. Get your tissues ready!

To tell the truth...

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.”

-Spencer Johnson

Just feeling a little frustrated that the world is full of dishonest people who in turn are raising children who also struggle to tell the truth! I hope my children learn the value of honesty just as I did from my parents. There were certain things that just rubbed Mom the wrong way and telling a lie was one of those things. Today, I was rubbed the wrong way!

Spring Fever

Right about now, I'm ready for some of this...

...and this...

...and this.

I'm so ready for Spring!

"It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!" ~Mark Twain

Happy Monday!

Starting the week off after vacation is sometimes a little rough, so I needed to find something to make me smile...these pictures did it!

Sometimes you just need to be a little silly.

Memere and Pepere also got in on the fun of playing Ring Around the Nosy, but I didn't think they would be too thrilled with me posting those pictures. To me, however, they are priceless!

"The best things in life are silly."
-Scott Adams

Happy Monday everyone.

Who's the dirtiest of them all?

Mr. E of course! Soccer in the mud..what's more fun than that?

I see mud as a sure sign of Spring creeping in on winter. The snow is starting to melt, the ground is starting to thaw and soon the flowers will be starting to poke through the ground. I can't wait!

E was surprisingly embarassed about how dirty he was and intially didn't want me to take a picture of him; I tried to reassure him that he should be proud of his dirt because that means he had fun. I'm hoping I won't regret this statement, but it's true, don't you think? Check out the smile on my little man's face! (in the last picture :)

This post reminds me of my very first blog post.

I'll leave you with this very fitting definition of a boy.

Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it.

Museum and Cashing In

We visited this place today; the last time we went was this past summer. The kids had a lot of fun, but I think E was more excited to stop at Target on the way home and pick out a new Star Wars Lego. He's been earning $1 for staying in his own bed at night and not calling for Mommy to sleep with him. He gets three calling tickets when he goes to bed and each time he calls for Mommy or Daddy he has to give us a ticket. If he has one left over in the morning, he earns $1. It has worked like a charm and I must say I think he's quite proud of his accomplishment...and Mommy is very happy to be sleeping in her own bed for a full night's sleep...ahhhhhh. E has earned them all week, so off to store today to cash in his reward.

Anyway, here are some picture from the less preferred (in the eyes of E) activity of the day.

I seemed to get some looks from other mothers at the museum who were painting their children's faces oh so cute with lovely decorations like hearts and stars. My kids preferred to paint their own faces...what can I say?

We washed off the face paint before leaving the museum, but the fabulous green hue it created was still there. I think some of the shoppers at Target may have thought the kids were just not feeling too well.

Fun Stuff...I love this place!

On the way to the museum I spotted an outdoor skating rink; we may have to check that out before the weekend is over.

and for all those moms giving me the "look"...

"Children are universally seen as being pretty creative, whilst us adults struggle to recall how we did it, all those years ago. If we can learn from them, if we can regain their open wonder and talent, what new ideas we could bring into the world!"

"Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with it apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence."

Pajamas and Moon Sand

These are two of our favorite things...

The first day of school vacation week was a lounging day. The kids stayed in their PJs all day and they played with Moon Sand for a looonnng time! We love Moon Sand, but I think we have to do something to prevent MOST of it from getting on the floor! Daddy does not do Moon Sand for this exact reason; he saves it for Mommy. I don't mind, it forces me to mop the floor afterwards to get rid of the slippery, sandy feel it has.

On another note, I have decided to go without my social networking for Lent and will not be logging onto facebook for awhile....and Mr. E has decided to go without computer games ...Mommy is VERY excited about that!

A Lenten Reflection
Give up complaining——focus on gratitude.
Give up pessimism——become an optimist.
Give up harsh judgments——think kindly thoughts.
Give up worry——trust Divine Providence.
Give up discouragement——be full of hope.
Give up bitterness——turn to forgiveness.
Give up hatred——return good for evil.
Give up negativism——be positive.
Give up anger——be more patient.
Give up pettiness——become mature.
Give up gloom——enjoy the beauty that is all around you.
Give up jealousy——pray for trust.
Give up gossiping——control your tongue.
Give up sin——turn to virtue.
Give up giving up——hang in there!

A quick thanks

We are just about finished writing out the thank you notes for E's party. The actual writing part is not too quick, but putting the cards together is fast and easy. Here is a step by step of what I usually do.

Michael's usually has a great selection of preprinted notecards in the dollar bin. I like to pick up a couple packages whenever I see them; it makes things a lot easier when we have cards to send out.

I suppose we could just send out generic thank yous or perhaps not send thank you notes at all, but for me, it's part of the fun, and I think it teaches the kids to be grateful and appreciative for what they have.

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice."

~Meister Eckhart

Happy Valentine's Day

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return."

Sweet!

My boy is a sweetie! You'd never know these are the same two kids who are constantly yelling at each other....well, not constantly, but a lot. In "public", however, E is so good to his "baby sister" and very protective. He takes good care of her and this makes my heart so very happy!!!

Last week at the Y, he said to one of the big boys "look out for my baby sister"...so sweet! ..and a little humorous too, considering she is almost the same size as some of the big boys and can definitely hold her own.

This was at tonight's Red and White Family Dance at E's school; it was a bit loud and crazy, but the kids had a blast, especially Little Miss. She made herself right at home with the big kids. After an hour, E was ready to go; I think it was a little too much for him. He was content and happy with having stayed for the hour. Did I mention that for almost the entire hour that we were there he was being chased by 3 girls from his class? That would wear any guy out, never mind a 6 year old.

Both my babies were off to dreamland as soon as their little heads hit their pillows...Little Miss even fell asleep without her beloved Ellie. Now, that's tired!!!

E wins a white belt

After 5 weeks of training and practice, E earned his white belt in Tae Kwon Do, although he likes to say he "won" it. Apprehensive of this new venture at first, he is now a fan! This is especially true after breaking the wood at his testing.

Master Oh breaking a stack of boards.
Our proud little man after he earned his belt.
We are so proud of E for his hard work and focus!
To quote him from the other night, "Focus on my eyes, focus on my mind, focus on my body."

Rockin' Pirates

Well....E decided at the last minute he wanted a Pirate Party, so we compromised and it was a Rockin' Pirate Party. Little Miss even looks like she's talking like a pirate in this picture.

I like to have some things for the kids to do; it tends to keep them occupied in a productive way rather than just running around the house acting like pirates! First, they decorated buckets (bought at the Dollar Tree for..well yes...a dollar!). They decoupaged cutouts made on the Cricut and put stickers on them....1/2 the kids liked the project...and yup, the other 1/2 ran around acting like pirates (E included, of course!). After the project was complete, they used the buckets to hold the gold and pink coins they found outdoors. Later they cashed in their coins for prizes...that was fun!

FINALLY it was time for cupcakes and hoodsie cups...the most popular event of the day!

There was still some time after cupcakes to search for treasure. We definitely had some "sneaky" pirates in the group...or was it really a coincidence that everyone came very close to the X marks the spot?



And here is the cutest Rockin' Pirate on the block! I still can't believe he's 6!!!

"On your market, set, go!"

Little Miss starts every race with those 5 words. Her big brother got a big kick out of it when they were racing down the backyard hill the other day. Here are a few pictures.

When I didn't move fast enough to carry the big wheel back up the hill, this is the face I got.

Being outside without snow makes me wish for Spring....can't wait!

No Serving Utensils Needed

When Little Miss turned 1, I made my first cupcake cake and I have been hooked ever since. With cupcakes and Hoodsie Cups, there are no serving utensils needed. It's the quickest and easiest way to serve, especially when there are several kids waiting for cake...and who doesn't like cupcakes? Here is a step by step of E's cake for his 6th birthday.

Six Years Ago

We received the phone call that a beautiful baby boy was born. Twenty-two days later he came home to his forever family! We love you E!!!! Happy Birthday!