Good Friday and the Resurrection Trail

We decided to venture out of the house (AKA our cocoon) and go visit a kid's hands on activity to celebrate Good Friday. A local church has a resurrection trail that allows kids to understand a little more about the events that were part of Christ's death, burrial and resurrection. I'm all about purposeful activities and learning experiences.

We ended up running into another homeschooling adoptive family that recently brought home a boy who was at HH (the orphanage) in Ethiopia. It was interesting to watch the boys greet and say hi and then just look at each other in slight confusion. Oh I wish I could read their thoughts. It must be odd to see someone from your "former world" here in your current life. Lots for these little minds to process.
The Resurrection Trail had stations where you would walk to and hear someone share a bit about the different events that were part of the Easter story. I loved how the used hands on activities to teach.

Petting the donkey.

Washing their feet.

Listening to the disciples share.

Sorry to say, I bet most of this goes over the kid's heads, but hopefully they catch some of it. I so deeply desire them to understand what our Lord went through for us. For His love for each of them.

Nailing the nails on the cross.

We visited an "empty tomb" and rejoiced in the truth that He is not here, He has risen.

A good time out as a family. But it did reinforce the importance of cocooning during these first few months. Our world is VERY simple right now and that is what works for us.
Hope you all have a great Easter weekend. Focusing on God's LOVE and sacrifice for us.

homemade play dough...and a good way to entertain all the kiddos

One of the challenges for me has been to carve out time with just the big girls. My time and energy is monopolized most of the day by 2 little guys (well - honestly the littlest one in our bunch). I have been trying to skip the nap for mommy when I put the boys down for rest and do something with the girls.

One afternoon, we decided to make some play dough. I have had this recipe for years and have never done it. Not sure why...just too busy, I guess. But when you are cocooning at home and looking for something to do...you bring out all your ideas and try to keep the little ones entertained. This is a fun book with cool recipes for all your homemade goodies. Our next project will be homemade bubbles. I'll let you know how it turns out.
The girls often enjoy working in the kitchen with me and although this was fun, it wasn't quite as fun as making brownies or cupcakes and getting to lick the bowl clean.


I made a REALLY big batch and here is the recipe I used to make enough dough for all the kids to share.

4 cups boiling water
2 cups salt
4 cups all purpose flour
4 tablespoons alum
4 tablespoons veggie oil

Remove the boiling water from the stove and add the salt. In medium bowl mix the rest if the ingredients. Add the salted water and mix the dough. Add food coloring if desired. Kneed it by hand when it has cooled a bit.

Once the boys got up from their rest time, they got to play with it too. I just had to let them know we don't eat it. And as you can imagine around here, I act all of those concepts out to communicate to them what I need to get across.


I love how these kinds of activities bring all the kids together and allows them to bond and connect as siblings.
If you look closely, you will see little man Tate smiling (well, kind of a smile that says "watch out, I am a handful"). He is so fast it is hard to catch him smiling. Well, that and I am using my phone as a camera. I still haven't gotten back to taking the time to uploading real pictures. Good thing I can snap a shot and email it to myself. At least I am documenting our life here at home.

My little helper

This little guy loves to play the "transfer game". Moving things from one spot to another. Papers, books, toys, whatever he can get his hands on. So I figured, instead of fussing since I can't hold him and do laundry at the same time...why not involve him.

He can transfer the clean laundry to the basket and move the wet laundry to the dryer. Keeps him entertained and his favorite part...shutting the door when we are done.

I think someone might be ready to start some school

Yesterday I was able to do a little school with the girls ( and I mean A LITTLE - Grammy has been helping with school around here and I am sooooooo grateful ). With it being St. Patrick's Day, I we all dressed in green and I printed some things off of Enchanted Learning for the kids to do. My little guy wanted to participate.

Actually, when I was printing the papers, the fascination of watching the paper come out of the printer was just adorable. All those kinds of things that are so normal to us are brand new discoveries to the boys.

Tyce is able to color inside the lines, trace some letters and he is beginning to write some letters on his own. Not bad for a four year old. =) We also tried tearing papers and pasting it to paper. He enjoyed that. And since it was going so well, I thought we would give scissors a try. He doesn't have the motor skill for that one yet, but it shouldn't take too long to learn. He seems to be a eager learner and wants to be involved with our projects. It will be fun to teach him.

It was fun to show Daddy all the work he had done. I put it up on the back of the door in the kitchen for all of us to acknowledge his hard work. (My camera is giving me trouble, so I am using my phone for my pictures. I do have some nice new pics on the adoption blog of the boys looking TOO CUTE. Click on the peapod to the right and head on over there for a look-see.)

How we fill our days...now that we have 4 kids

I have been BUSY...BUSY...BUSY. The boys keep me running and I love it. We have only been home about a week and a half and we are working hard at keeping a routine. I find that all kids thrive on routine. It helps so much for them to know what is expected for each part of the day.

So our day if full of lots of play time.

We will spend more time outside playing on the playset.

Then after we used up all of our energy we have
lunch and clean up before nap time.

Oh...how we love our nap time.Yes...I rock him to sleep for both nap time and bed time (and I LOVE IT).
And after rest time we start all over again.


But most of the day...these pleading eyes look up at me and reach up for momma. And then...I spend my day holding my Little Man.

Tissy's TENTH birthday HUNT

Staying in fashion of letting our 10 year old have a birthday shopping hunt, we spent the morning out with the kids opening envelopes filled with clues. These clues led Tristen (who turns 10 tomorrow) off on a birthday shopping hunt.

This was a big adventure for the whole family and we weren't sure how it would end up. We are deep into the cocooning stage of adjusting to our adoption, but we had to break the rules to celebrate this sweet girl of ours. (If you haven't heard, we just got home a week ago from Africa with our 2 newest Sweet Peas).
The morning started off with a hug from her little brother. Can't you just feel the love???
The clues took us to our local shopping strip plaza where Tristen got to pick out goodies from some select stores. First a treat from the store at Cracker Barrel (somehow my camera stopped working so all these pics are from my phone).

With her toy of choice (a sock monkey), we headed to the department store for some new clothes. She picked a new outfit (always a huge treat to get something NEW in stead of hand-me-downs) and quite fashionable I might add.
We stopped off at Ross where she picked out a new hand towel for her bathroom. And then off to the dollar store where all the kiddos got to spend some birthday cash. Little man Tate just stayed in the sling and didn't seem to care much for shopping. But big sister Tally and little brother Tyce were all about finding goodies too.

Then we headed to the book store for a new book and toy too. She had a limit to spend at each store and worked hard at finding things within her budget.


Our next stop was Target for a new bike helmet and a DVD to watch with the family.

Last stop, ice cream at the creamery. Yummy !!!! Dessert before lunch.
All in all, the kids did well. Even though it was lots of stimulation with stores, we didn't interact with friends or people so we felt like it was a pretty safe activity. We have asked the girls to sacrifice so much during this whole adoption, we need to make sure and meet their needs too.

Such SWEET girls. Oh how I love them and enjoy them every day. What a blessing to have such a beautiful family.

Using up that LAST little bit of snow

The girls think this snow man (or lady) is doing a little dance. I think they might be right.

We leave for Africa tomorrow and meet the boys on Sunday. Oh.....we have been BUSY around here.

Stepping back and watching my little girl grow up.

As much as I have intended to be more consistent in taking the kids out on one on one dates...I have failed. This is an area I want to work harder at. Since I have a hard time doing things half-hearted, I tend to just not do something if I can't make it fantastic. So in the spirit of resisting the urge to have planned out a fantastic evening with clues to a special location...I just asked Tally as we were cleaning up the dinner dishes if she wanted to go out with me.

We headed over to a local book store and got a special hot cocoa and settled down to just talk. About all kinds of girly things and about nothing in particular. I just wanted to keep the doors of communication open. As our little ones grow up, I think we need to be even MORE intentional in our time with them.

We read a book together and used it as a tool to pave the way for more detailed talks to come. I just loved Tally's response to the whole thing. She is so mature and wise. At one point we were talking about finding appropriate people to go to if you need help or have questions. And it was her idea to talk to a grown up, she thought it would be better than seeking out a peer, since someone older might have already gone through the same circumstance and have better advice.
In the end I bought her a nice journal and gave it to her to use as a prayer journal. I shared that there will be times that others won't be there for her. Or worse yet, I will respond to her emotional needs the wrong way. But I reminded her that God is always there. Always listening. Always caring. She can use this journal to write down her thoughts and share them with God when she is struggling with something.

making little AG doll goodies

Just wanted to share what I made here this past weekend when we had our big snow storm. I wanted to make some goodies for a friend's daughter who is getting an American Girl doll for her birthday. Since the Kirsten doll is no longer available through AG, she found one on Craig's List. I helped her fix the doll's hair to make her look more like new. She didn't come with any accessories so I borrowed the pattern from a friend and worked on Friday night and Saturday on some fun accessories.
I made the apron, spoon pocket, hankie and bonnet. I think they turned out SOOOOO cute. I just love them. Making dolly clothes are extra fun (even though they are extra small and hard to maneuver on the machine).


I couldn't just stop with those. I thought it would be fun to make the Kirsten "undies". So sweet. Hope she likes them.

homemade quilt made from old clothes

I recently made a quilt made from some baby clothes that I had saved from the girls. I wanted to make something on the sewing machine, but I didn't want to buy a bunch of fabric. So, I thought the quilt would work just fine, plus, we are often in need of extra blankets around here.

I will be honest, I didn't measure ANYTHING. I just started cutting and made sure the squares were about the same size. I am a "wing-it" kind of gal. I had no plan, just wanted to be crafty. The squares are about 9 by 9 inches. Lots of different kinds of fabric, sweaters, knit dresses, Chuck's racing t-shirt, old shorts that Tissy wore out before she grew out of them. Each piece brings memories and the girls LOVE IT. They love what it represents.
By the time I was ready to attach it to the backing and batting, I was in no mood to "quilt" it. The fabrics are too varied, so I decided to tie it with yarn. That alone took several evenings in front of the TV watching movies while I worked under the warm snuggy quilt. I can't wait until I can make one for the boys in a few years.

SNOW !!!!!! (and our homemade sled)

We had a BLAST this weekend. We got lots of snow (lots for here at least) and we enjoyed every moment. Friday Chuck made it home from work in record time. It took him an hour (only takes about 10 minutes on a regular day). Cars were all over the place and stuck in ditches. He was safe and took it nice and slow. Friday night we took a walk in the snow after dinner. It was beautiful. We walked over to my parents house and visited, then bundled back up and walked home. Our cheeks were stung with frozen flakes hitting them, but it made for great memories.

Saturday was a true "snowed in" day. They don't plow the snow here and no one shovels. It usually melts within the day, so there is no need to worry. But this snow was deep and lasted several days. It would freeze again at night and make it a glistening iced over wonder each morning.

We let the girls wear our OLD snow clothes (yep...they were huge on them but it didn't matter). The kids bundled up and wanted to sled. We have a little hill in our yard and Chuck found some things for them to sled on.
We used an old toboggan and a runner sled. Both are truly antiques. But it was worth it. I think Chuck used this little toboggan when he was little.
Took a break for lunch then decided to head back out in the snow again. This time Chuck took a second to look for ideas on how to make a homemade sled. You see around here people will use anything. Boogie boards, cardboard, laundry baskets, baby pools, garbage bags, blow up pool rafts. You name it...and someone has used it.
This is what Chuck came up with. We call it SPEEDERS. Old skies (that Chuck's parents brought last time they were here) and wood. And it is FAST !!!! And FUN !!!! By the time we were done, Chuck had drilled holes in the tips to tie on the rope. I know you are jealous. =) Talk about a great way to reuse and recycle.
I have to say...what a good Daddy Chuck is. He spent hours helping the girls sled and have fun in the snow. What a special time together as a family.

Well...it wasn't ALL for the kids. We had a fun runs too.