Hanging Out at the Library

Where would we be without our library? And where would the library be without all the books we help them buy with our late fees?

Beautiful Girls

We had each girl's picture made recently. They were all so good. Here are just a few of the ones we bought.

I don't know how to make these look better since they had to be scanned. But I love the pictures and the girls in the pictures. I'm so glad we had Betsie's picture made pre-haircut. And that is Mary Evelyn's dog Foster with her. Notice he is all dressed up to match her! And Rachel is becoming such a grown up beautiful young lady!

How Can A Little Girl Break Her Mommy's Heart?

By giving herself a haircut! All three of mine have done this. And now Bestie has done it twice. But tonight's is by far the worst of all. Time is the only thing that can repair this hack job I'm afraid. You can laugh, but not too hard. And we have a family reunion AND an adoption travel group reunion coming up! Big heavy sigh...

Doesn't she look awfully proud of herself?

(I considered using my prayer request and for sale tags for this post...)

More Party Stuff

Okay...my sister Laura has better pictures of the party at her blog so go here to see more!

Birthday Pictures

Getting ready to celebrate

Opening gifts (This one is a friendship bracelet kit and how to book.)
At the Japanese steakhouse on her birthday with Jason's parents. The restaurant gave Rachel a chef's hat, a candle in her rice, and a nice set of chopsticks.
Betsie would be fine if she never steps foot in that scary Japanese steakhouse ever again...no matter whose birthday it is!!!

Enjoying her birthday dinner

Mary Evelyn skating on Saturday, with a little help from her Daddy

Rachel, skating like a pro (almost!)

Rachel and her two buddies

After skating, we were hungry and went out to a more kid friendly restaurant (At least Betsie thought so!). All the girls got balloons.

Betsie and her booooooon!

The Week in Review

We had several "blog worthy" happenings this week, but I wanted to leave the posts up about Cohen and Ellie for a few days so you all would pray. FYI...both children are doing well. Ellie remains critical, but more stable.

Rachel's 10th birthday is next week and I have always told her she could get her ears pierced when she turned ten. (Worked for my parents with me so I just copied them on this one.) So Thursday we headed to the mall and got it done! She was very excited and feels so grown up.

Rachel's nervous face

Here we go...

One ear done!

Here comes the other one...not enjoying this so far.

Yes! It's over! Now she can smile!

In other news...yesterday we went to a horse farm for a field trip. Here are a few pictures from that. Unfortunately my camera battery died before they got to ride the horses. You'll also be able to see that Mary Evelyn is sporting a cute shorter do in these photos...another thing we did this week.

Yesterday My House Was So Clean

You may remember that Jason gave me the gift of house cleaning service for Christmas. Well, the cleaning people came yesterday and the house looked really nice. I always pick up really well before they come so they can vacuum and dust and mop and do the big stuff. Well, this afternoon I have been in my bedroom planning upcoming birthday celebrations and when I came out, this is what I found.

Big.
Heavy.
Sigh.

The girls made a road out of MANY children's books. But that is only the beginning of this HUGE MESS! (Yes, I am yelling.) The road is also partially lined with all kind of buildings (farms, dollhouses, and other toys I now regret purchasing) and even GRASS from outside. Did I mention the cleaning people vacuumed yesterday? The town started in their bedroom, pictured above, and then went down the hall...

...and into the schoolroom...

...in front of the couch... (That black line is the dog's leash tied in a knot between two chairs. I have no idea why.)

...all the way around and then behind the couch. See that towel with the bowl and toy dolphin sticking out? There's water in there. That must be the zoo or Seaworld or something. At least they put down a towel.

Now, the lovely part is that I had these books somewhat organized on the shelves. Not perfectly, but I could find most any book I needed. Some go in our book basket for school time. Some are LIBRARY BOOKS (that will hopefully NOT be mixed in with the others or I know two girls who will be working hard to pay off some fines), some are books from their bedroom, etc. Fortunately Betsie is asleep so the books in her room are still there.

I know this is cute and creative. If this were your blog, I would be laughing. If this were 5 years ago, I would be laughing. But it's now and it's my house, and I have to be the bad guy at clean up time. And this is one job that I will definitely have to supervise closely to make sure the books end up in the proper place. Someone please tell me that this is a short season and I should enjoy it. And then tell me whether or not it's worth it to pay people to clean my house when it doesn't stay clean for even 24 hours.

Okay...there, I took out my frustration on you and my kids are still happy. At least they like books, right?

Valentine's Day/My Birthday in Pictures (so far)

(Looking rough, I know)

My curriculum came today!

Having a Ball

This ball went to the beach with us last fall, but I found it recently (forgotten until now) in the front pouch of Mary Evelyn's suitcase. We even forgot about it at the beach.

Does anyone know of an inflatable globe this size that I could order?

Something is gonna get broken.

What a Good Little Helper

Jason got some toys out of the attic today for the girls. (We rotate some of their things or we'd be overtaken by their TOYS!) We found a toy vacuum cleaner and Betsie is really enjoying it. I had forgotten all about it and even thought about getting her one for her birthday...guess I don't have to now. (Maybe we should have saved it for her birthday...duh!)

School Is Messy

Here are a few pictures from this morning. We have three tables in our school room. And all of them always have a ton of "stuff" all over them. No matter how hard I try.

The first picture is Mary Evelyn doing her math at our official "seat work" table. It is a folding type table that we got for Christmas last year. We keep all the workbooky things here, plus pencils and erasers and that sort of thing. I try to straighten it every day but as soon as we do school again, it is right back to one big mess.

The next picture is Rachel drawing. We all call this the "school table" even though we never do school there. We used to and that is why we call it that. Before it was a school table, it was the kitchen table (in our other house). I gave up using it for school because my girls draw All. The. Time. There was never a cleared off space for school work. So I gave up and got the folding table above for that. We keep crayons and markers and and other messy stuff at the "school table." A regular chore for the girls is to clean up this table and the floor underneath.

This last picture is Betsie at the table known as "the little table." (Ignore the fact that she is in a bathing suit and it is 38 degrees outside. The heat is on, okay?) We got this for Christmas when Rachel and Mary Evelyn were itty bitty people and I will never, ever get rid of it. It is still as sturdy as ever and my grandkids can sit at this table one day! I think Betsie was getting ready to play with the Funtastic Frog manipulatives. She probably sat there for all of 30 seconds before she moved on to another activity. This table is never as messy as the other two, but it does get used a lot.

Tea Girls

This is just a picture of my big girls serving tea at the Food For Life ministry the other night. For now, Jason takes them. When Betsie gets a bit older, I hope she and I can join them.

You can read more about the ministry at the Homeless on Tuesday blog.

We Got Snow!!!

Hooray! My girls were so excited this morning when they got up! It's our first snow of the year. Actually, some years we get no snow and it rarely snows more than a couple of times at the most. It seems our "winter weather" is usually a nasty ice storm. So when we see the white stuff, it's BIG NEWS!!! Betsie loves it but she gets SO COLD! Rachel and Mary Evelyn have been in and out all day, but they are having so much fun. They managed to make a pretty impressive snow lady, but we don't have a decent hill for sledding...of course we don't have a sled either. But they are enjoying themselves and we have lots of blessings for our blessing jar today.