Fashion Show

We were treated to a fashion show last night that the girls set up. The runway was Ami's bay window sill and the audience of mostly boys cheered for them as classical music played in the background.  Ami loves to play dress up and Johanna had just been digging through her spring and summer clothes, so they decided to put together our evening entertainment.  I love seeing our girls, with five years of age between each of them, work together and have fun.

Without further ado, here are the stars of our show, Ami and Johanna, with Michaela as stage manager, choreographer, and costume assistance.

You can't tell from the pictures, but the room was dimly lit with Johanna's desk lamp as the spot light.

Microwave Scramble

This video just doesn't do the "real" thing justice.  Just watch, then I'll try to explain.....

 

My kids (usually all but Michaela) have been doing this for weeks now.  I'll even be downstairs and hear Benjamin upstairs by himself setting the microwave, then running to the closet until it beeps.  I have now idea how it got started, but it's hilarious to me!  They will put something in the microwave, then when there are about 30 seconds left they'll all run for "cover", even going so far as to running to a downstairs closet to hide.  Then when the microwave beeps they come out safely and declare that anyone that was left in the kitchen blew up.  What?!  Who's kids are these??  Never a dull moment I tell ya, never a dull moment.

And yes, that's a pretty normal lunch time at our house.  We all heat up leftovers or make sandwiches.  It's quick and easy! 

Week in Review

What a gorgeous pre-spring week we had!  We had temps in the 60s almost all week and everyone enjoyed getting outside.  We went for walks, hiked to the creek, and the kids played for hours in the water that was constantly running down our ravine due to all the snow melting.  We still have just a tiny patch of snow next to our driveway from where we shoveled, but other than that it didn't feel much like February.

We started out the week with Valentine's Day.  We celebrated the day with yummy treats and made Valentines. 

Here are pictures from our muddy hike to Wolfe Creek.  With a foot and a half of snow to melt, the ground was saturated and the creek was running high. 

Ami, such a poser!

Memorial Box Monday - Eternity

As today is Valentine's Day and it's also Monday, I thought it would be appropriate to retell our Memorial Box story of how Chris and I met.

I was in my second year of college and was spending a semester abroad in England at a sister college to PCC.  It was a very memorable time in my life, one filled with friendship, learning, traveling, and growing by leaps and bounds in my faith.  At the end of the semester I had made arrangements to spend the summer in France working with missionaries before returning back to the States/PCC in the fall.

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, my plans for spending the summer in France fell through at the last minute.  You can imagine my anxiety at having the rug pulled out from under me and wondering what I was to do.  A few different options were presented and I talked to mentors, prayed, and prayed a whole lot more.  In the period of about a week I knew without a doubt that God was directing me to return to southern CA and work for the summer.  It didn’t seem very grand compared to spending the summer in France, but it was a time like very few others when I have felt God so real and present, a very intense week of spiritual growth for me.  The disappointment of failed plans had disappeared and I was excited about what was ahead.

I flew back to CA and spent a week with my grandmother before driving down to school to look for a job.  I spent the first couple of nights in the dorms with a friend until we could move into our apartment.  While there she pointed out a guy that had said he wanted to meet me.  I had never seen him before and naively thought that maybe he wanted to talk to me about my time in Europe or my time in Japan.  Just a bit later I was walking out of the dorms and “the guy” was walking towards me.  I smiled at him and expected him to say something, but he just looked down and kept on walking.  I thought it was weird and wasn’t sure what to think, but I started to wonder if something else was up.

Meanwhile I had been blessed with being able to return to my old job at the drugstore.  Just a couple of days later I was working at the cosmetics counter and over walks “the guy” straight towards me and smiling.  My heart was pounding and I’m sure my cheeks were burning.  “The guy” and I made some small chit chat about our mutual friends and we also learned that we had quite a bit in common.  He said he had just come by the store to say good-bye to a mutual friend that worked with me.  He said he was driving back to the Midwest and all of a sudden in my heart I felt a panic and was so sad that he was leaving.  I was greatly relieved when he explained that he was just going for a visit and would be back in a couple of weeks.

I’m sure you’ve figured out that “the guy” was none other than Chris.  After he returned from a visit home we quickly started spending lots of time together and I knew from the get-go that this was my future husband, this was why God had closed the door to France, this was His summer plan for me.  I wasn’t  “supposed” to be in California, and Chris wasn’t even “supposed” to be there either.  He was supposed to be in school in Missouri.  But God.  We dated for a year and were engaged for a year before getting married and the rest is history.

This is a picture of our first Valentine's Day together.  Sweet memories!

So in our Memorial Box we have a small bottle of Eternity perfume to represent where Chris and I met (the cosmetics counter) and how God’s timing was everything.  It’s the perfume I wore at the time and I think the name also bears significance, too.  Thank you Father for guiding our steps and for bringing us together in such a memorable way.  You are good all the time!  When we think the worst has come and OUR plans have failed, YOUR plans prevail and you bless us with far more than we ask or imagine.

Happy Valentine's Day, Christopher.  I love you with all of my heart, more than I could have imagined 21 years ago on our first Valentine's Day.

If you are unfamiliar with what a Memorial Box is, please refer to my original Memorial Box Monday post or to Linny’s blog to read more about a Memorial Box.

Random Things

Just wanted to catch up on a few random things from Wolfe's Home that have been going on recently.

First of all, a funny.  I was grocery shopping yesterday and needed to pick up some cheese.  I found a "great" sale!  Seriously?!

 

Next, after having so much snow that Benjamin's team missed three of their first six practices, it's been fun to watch them do so well at their games.  Last night Benjamin made his first basket of the season.  I don't think he lost his grin the whole rest of the game!

And finally, some mundane things like chores have taken a turn at our house.  I mentioned the book, Large Family Logisitcs, recently.  I've always considered myself a fairly organized person, but this book has given me a lot of great ideas to keep our household running smoothly.  As you can imagine, with seven people in our home that are home most of the day, things can get a bit disorganized.   The ideal is to have a household that runs like a well-oiled machine and that's what we're working towards.

One thing that has become more organized is how the children keep their bedrooms more orderly.  We've always done most of these things, but having a list in writing and posted in their rooms and then me following up to make sure that they are done has been huge.

(The "bathroom chores" are something that they each have responsibility for, such as one person wipes down the sink and counter, one person wipes down the toilet, etc.)

I have created many more lists in my "Home Management Notebook" that have become so helpful.  I may share more of those at a later time.

Apparently Ami thought I needed a list for my bedroom, too.  Translated, it reads, "Make bed Mom.  Go Benjamin (guess he needed some cheering)."

And last, but not least, I implemented a new filing system, File Solutions.  It was well worth the investment, and even though it took many hours over several days, I am super pleased with it.  Anyone in our family should be able to find any paper in just a few seconds.  I don't have an after shot, but here is one from during the process.  A huge amount went to recycle to the shredder!

Brrrrr!

Happy 5th Birthday, Ami!

This has been a fun day.  It has been anticipated by Ami for oh, just about the last year!  We had to wake her up to get the festivities started so that Daddy could get to work, but she brightened right up.  She first declared that she wasn't five until she had eaten cake, though.  Ha!

We started out with her requested cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then moved quickly to opening her gifts.  She was thrilled with each and every one.   Below are pictures with the gifts that her siblings chose or made for her.

Ami played with her new things while the rest of us got a bit of school done.  Then we had her requested chicken nuggets and fruit salad for lunch.  We spent the afternoon out running errands while the older girls were with a home school group, then stopped by to see our neighbor, Grandpa H.  He had a gift of beautiful mini-daffodils and a picture of flowers waiting for Ami.  During the warm months he is always bringing flowers from his garden to her, so thoughtful.

Ami requested pizza for supper, so we each made our own pizzas.  Then we followed it up with yummy strawberry cake. 

What a blessing this treasure is!  She was our "unplanned" pregnancy.  A huge gift that we never asked for.  I am so thankful that we listened to His plan for our family and did not miss out on this spunky, joyful, precocious, loving girl. 

 

This "finding ad" (required in a local newspaper) is the earliest picture we have of our sweet girl.  She was found the day after she was born, an abandoned treasure waiting to be found.  Who knew, but God, what a beautiful girl, both inside and out, she would turn out to be.

Thank you, Father, for this indescribable gift!  We love you, Ami Jo-Li!

Memorial Box Monday - Ami's Adoption - The Red Bracelet

It's been a little while since I posted a Memorial Box Monday story, but before I do, I want to give a little update on my dad.  He received the results of his bone scan and CT scan, and it was the best possible news.  The cancer is very localized and has not metastasized at all.  They will be carefully monitoring the situation while they try some natural treatments.  We are so thankful for the prayers and love that has been shown to our family.
 
In honor of a little girl about to turn five tomorrow, I’d like to repost our Memorial Box story of Ami’s adoption.  It is so hard to summarize such a significant event by telling one short story, but I’ll try to keep this story in as small of a “nutshell” as possible.

In early 2004 we had three biological children and we were feeling quite comfortable with the size of our family and the busyness that it entailed.  But somewhere back in the far reaches of our hearts and minds we were not 100% sure that this was it.  So together Chris and I began praying and seeking God’s will for our family.  We began to have thoughts of foster care, domestic adoption, and international adoption.  It left us both with a feeling of vulnerability to ask God, “Do you want us to foster children?  Do you want us to adopt?”  It was such a humble feeling, yet strangely comforting to be so open and moldable before Him.  We had so many fears about everything from money and how it would change our current lifestyle to how it would affect our children.  Yet as we prayed God began to soften our fears as we gave our control over to Him.  It’s laughable to me now to look back at our various fears.  Oh how He has stretched and strengthened our faith!

After a year of praying and continuing to seek God’s will for our family we heard from Chris’ brother and sister-in-law that they had felt led to pursue an adoption of a baby in China.  Over the past year we had shared together our consideration of adoption, but neither of us had felt confident in that decision at the time.  As they shared their excitement with us about their decision, Chris and I felt totally convicted that this was our calling as well.  It was instant, like a light bulb had gone on for both of us.  This was what we had been praying about for a year, this was God’s direction for us, this was his calling!

We were so excited that God had brought both of our families to this point at the same time.  Yet we so did not want to “steal the show” from Eric and Kate.  This was to be their first child and we didn’t want to take anything away from their big news, yet we knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was from God.  They were so very gracious, though, and were very excited along with us.

We independently settled on China, a baby girl, and the same agency.  That was just the beginning of seeing God along our journeys.  We pursued our paperwork without pressuring each other, yet we also prayed all along that God would see fit to allow us the privilege of traveling together to receive our girls.

Our wait to be matched with a child was a very tough one for this mama as the months stretched into over a year, but during that year we knew God was at work.  A year and a half after we began the adoption process we received the most wonderful call from our agency.  We had been matched with a 6.5 month old beautiful baby girl.  She was so much younger than we had anticipated, but oh how happy we were.  She was living in a rural orphanage in southern China waiting for a forever family.

Another very exciting phone call was received on that same day announcing that our 6 month old niece was matched with Eric and Kate!  The girls were only one week apart in age and were in the SAME orphanage!  But God.  He had answered our prayers above and beyond what we had expected or imagined.

Here is Ami waiting for her Daddy and Mommy to come.

We traveled to China together two months later and we received the gift of another child in our family along with a very special niece.  I have said many times that I cannot imagine having missed this “surprise pregnancy”.  These were not our plans.  But God.  He knew how much of a blessing little Long Li Dan would be to our family.  He knew as He knit her together in her China mommy’s womb.  He knew.

During our long, long wait to receive our Ami Jo-Li, Chris wore a simple red thread bracelet that he had made.  It was simply a reminder of what was to come, something to physically grasp while we waited to physically hold our China doll.

This photo was taken during our stay in Guangzhou.  It was so sweet that Ami discovered this bracelet on her daddy’s wrist.  In our Memorial Box we have this simple bracelet as a reminder, as a standing stone, to the amazing adoption journey that led us to Ami.  Thank you Father for this most unexpected and excellent gift!

Chinese New Year Party

For the last five years we have enjoyed getting together with our local FCC (Families with Children from China) group.  We meet three or four times a year for different events.  It's always nice to be around other families that somewhat resemble ours and for our adopted children to blend in with the crowd more.  It's also nice for the parents to be able to discuss adoption related issues with others that go through similar things.

Today we met for a nice luncheon at a Chinese restaurant (very yummy!), then went roller skating afterward.  The kids had a blast and will all surely sleep well tonight.  It's fun to see our kids reconnect with kids that they only see once in a while.  I love how kids quickly become pals!

Benjamin got a double fortune....two cookies in the package!

Ami and her "twin".  They are the exact same age with the exact same birthday!