Today Is Brought To You By Hasbro and By The Letters "C,E,R,E,A" and "L".

Because I don't want anyone to think our house is boring and monotonous, I bring you this morning's kitchen floor offerings.



See...we have colorful neon Playdough, sparkly leftovers from New Year's Eve party hats, and strawberry shredded wheat, tossed onto the floor courtesy of an irritated 17 month old little girl. This is oh-so-lovingly swept into the center of a square of my flooring, size 6"x6".

Yes, I have bigger plans for my New Year than constantly sweeping up crumbs. Tomorrow, I move on to Airing Dirty Laundry. Stay tuned.

A Torturistic Ritual I Insist Must Happen Annually

If you think that it's easy to get 6 kids properly aligned with the stars at just the precise moment you need them to be, wearing semi-matching clothes, sporting semi-respectable hairstyles, and semi-smiling simultaneously...

Find another blog to read! One that's written by a Non-crazed Mother!

At ten bucks per person for a sitting fee, even the local Walmart studio would cost me a minimum $60, just to walk in the door. Tack on the price of the photos, all the extras they guilt me into purchasing, plus the ones that actually ARE adorable and I've just plunked down the equivalent of what's left in gold at Fort Knox. (Scratch that...the politicians spent it on their mistresses.) Regardless, large families and photography studios for a one-income-earner family in a bad economy just don't mix. Then, you add in the hilarity of trying to get a child with Angelman Syndrome to co-operate with his annoyed-at-having-to-dress-up siblings and keep his hands out of the baby's hair while being gripped around the neck by the three year old...

Just. Ain't. Happening.

So, to make up for all these issues, once a year, I tell the kids what color to pull out of the dresser drawer (or pick up from the floor, depending on the child in question). They groan. It's simultaneous! Why can't the smiles be like that?!? I make sure the camera batteries are charged - this project usually takes a while, and I'm not about to let a little thing like dead batteries cause me to have to start over! Tom dons his armor, and collects a significant amount of noisy toys and other paraphernalia that may prove useful in distracting and/or attracting attention, deflecting flying shoes, and removing embedded articles from walls, Christmas trees, and heads.

Following below, in no particular order, are the results of this group effort. Individual photos are in order, oldest to youngest.

I need a good stiff drink, thank you!






The best shot of the day...we'll take it.



Bucky, trying to convince everyone of a job well done. Emphasis on DONE. Tiffany, praticing mid-air River Dance moves.



Bucky, posing goofy, since we're NOT done, while Tiffany tries to clean Dylan's ears.



Dylan, whining because Preston is enforcing Mom's "Keep Dylan's socks out of this picture" request.



Bucky, catching Tiffany as she decides she can't stand the pressure and will be in her trailer! Preston is apparently considering growing a mustache for those thoughtful, yet fun-loving moments when one pauses to stroke the upper lip.



All children are in various stages of recovery, following Tiffany's foot connecting with Dylan's cranium. He only required 97 stitches and a sidestop at Sonic Happy Hour for 1/2 price slushies.




Preston, nearly 18



Bucky, 16.5



Gabe, 15



Savannah, 12.5



Dylan, nearly 4



Tiffany, 17 months



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Granny, Help! My Bread is Terrible!

Typically, junk mail causes me to sigh, roll my eyes, head straight for the closest trash receptacle, maybe even get a blood pressure check...it rarely makes me smile.
There's one catalog, however, that always makes me chuckle.




My Granny was a junk-mail queen. Among her garage sale plastic flowers, Conway Twitty 8-tracks and homemade yarn kittens, we could always find items she purchased from Fingerhut. Trinkets, dust collectors, most of it junk. All Granny. She bought a lot of flowered hand towels, probably from Fingerhut. She cut them in half, crocheted across the top, attached a button so the towel could be looped over a drawer handle, and gave them away as gifts.




Granny was little more than a feather. Barely five feet tall, she probably weighed a hundred pounds on a good day. She struggled with heart disease and several other health concerns, so she didn't have a lot of good days in her last years. She may have been small, but she was anything but weak. She raised nine children. She worked in a diner on Broad Street in St. Louis, Missouri. When she felt well, she was always on the go.

When I was about ten years old, my mother took my younger sister and I, my aunt and her boys, and Granny to a local park. The kids were all playing on the swings and slide. Mom and Aunt Joyce decided to enjoy a trip down the slide as well. Not to be outdone, Granny nimbly climbed the steps and began the trek down the shiny metal. Apparently, Granny had, over the years, forgotten how to gracefully bring yourself to a halt at the bottom of the slide. KERPLUNK!! Into the dust Granny landed, directly on her tailbone, legs out straight in front of her. I can still see the look of complete shock on her face. As soon as her daughters were sure she wasn't badly injured, they did what all good children do when their seventy year old mother falls off a slide...they burst into raucous laughter.

Around this same time, I recall sitting in Doc's Place, an ice cream shop, in Homer, Michigan where I grew up. Granny was relaying to my mother a story that my aunt had shared with her. I do not have a clue what the story was about, but I can remember that it involved how gravity affects a woman's upper body parts. My grandmother, being the proper lady she sometimes was, didn't want to mention this issue in front of my sister and I, but she wanted to make the point to my mother. Sitting at the table across from me, grinning and eating her ice cream, she kept drawing her hand down her chest. "You know, how they...you know...fall...down". I'm not quite sure why she thought that I wouldn't know to what she was referring!

Granny made The. Best. Dinner. Rolls. Ever. THE BEST. Try as we might, no one in the family has ever been able to duplicate the taste of Granny's bread. Countless times, we asked her to write down her recipe. "Oh, you just throw a little of this and a little of that in and stir it all up."

So you can probably sense my frustration when my bread machine malfunctions on Thanksgiving Day and I get this! (Great for having Communion with the family, though!)



Granny has been gone for 21 years. She would love my children. They would love her fuzzy TV with rabbit ears, her crocheted slippers, her bread.




Granny, I miss you.

The Real Thing

If Reality TV, and specifically Contest-Type Reality TV, has it's way with America, soon there will be no free time to leave the 63-inch HD set and go to the bathroom. The recent season premieres of several popular shows proves my point. "Tune in to watch the 3-night season premiere of Dancing With The Stars!"

Wow! 3 nights to view the return of a show, followed by the mind-numbing, butt-widening 2-3 nights weekly of the same show, for the next several months.

It's entirely possible, especially with the magic of DVR, to watch reality TV 24 hours a day, on any possible topic your mind could conjure. I'm pretty sure I know some people who are testing that theory, give or take a few side-trips to McDonalds and StuffMart!

We started watching American Idol during the CLAY SHOULD HAVE WON 2nd season. Due to moves and various other activities, we missed episodes and, some years, entire seasons, but still managed to mostly stay in the loop through relatives and entertainment news. We saw Daughtry get booted when he shouldn't have. Tom accurately predicted during auditions that Taylor Hicks would land the top spot. For the life of me, I couldn't tell you the current Idol.

A friend told us about Dancing With The Stars, so we tuned in to that midway through the 2nd season. Waaaay cool, Savannah and I both loved it. It didn't take long, though, for me to start pondering the whole concept of DWTS. Yes, it's a competition, albeit with a cheesy trophy for the winner. Yes, it's fun. Yes, it's beautiful. But many of the other things that it is go directly against who I am as a Christian wife and mother.

If it's true that people are influenced by what they see on TV, (we are - bought anything you've seen advertised on TV lately?) then it stands to reason that might include negative influence. Call me crazy, but it doesn't seem logical to teach my daughter to be ladylike, and then let her watch Cheryl and Drew grind all over each other to "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy". It doesn't make much sense to talk to my boys about respecting women, when the TV set is showing Edyta and Karina's attempts to recover from their costume malfunction.

While a once-in-a-while viewing most likely won't corrupt the kids' minds, a steady diet of skimpy clothing and often overtly sexual dance acts does not reinforce our values, and does nothing to honor God. So, where do I draw the line? What is ok to watch, what is questionable and why, what is a possible learning experience, and what is definitely off limits? It isn't just my kids that need the limits, either. I, like my children, am vulnerable to letting something ungodly impact my life, and therefore affect my relationships. Can I continually watch DWTS, where the women are all put together, have gorgeous bodies, and can turn a man on with their dancing, and not compare myself to that? Probably not. In my head, I KNOW my value is not based on how I look, but society tells me otherwise, and I sometimes fall for that lie.

I do not attempt to shelter my children from all situations that could be construed as negative influence. Children need opportunities to make choices, right or wrong, when consequences are small, to help prepare them for making (hopefully) right decisions when the stakes are higher. I don't tell my children "we shouldn't do THAT" without giving them explanations WHY we shouldn't do whatever it is we're discussing.

I don't think dancing is evil. (If you know how I was raised, you'll find that comical.) Actually, one of my secret (until now!) fantasies has, for years, been for Tom and I to take ballroom dancing lessons. It is beautiful, and extremely sexy. If I could convince him to accompany me, I would put myself through the pain and torture. Not to be on display for other people, but simply for us.

Over the past 2 years, changes in our family lifestyle and budgeting issues have forced us to be out of the house during Primetime Television on many nights. What I've discovered - well, it hasn't been so much of a discovery as it has been a confirmation - is that we're just plain not missing all that much.

So while I appreciate the offer, ABC, I'm going to have to pass on this "Television Event of the Season". Your reality is just So. Not. Mine.

Hallmark, Please Take Notice or You're Fired!

My Circle of Friends includes many families who have adopted, or plan to adopt, one or more children. This is a BIG DEAL. Promise!!

So when I went looking for an Adoption card at my local Stuffmart the other day, I was more than a little perturbed that not ONE card celebrating one of the most momentous occasions in family life was available.

I found plenty of the general run of the mill cards...
Birthdays, anniversaries, marriage, baby showers, engagement announcements...

There were other celebrated events represented...
Bar Mitzvahs (obviously being mailed out of our county - our Jewish population isn't huge here)
New homes (yeah, THOSE cards are flying right off the shelves these days!)
Moving away (Think my neighbors would get the hint, if I sent one to them?)
Moving back (Apparently some people LIKE their in-laws)
New job (Ha! Unemployment rate in our county is the state's highest, at 17.5%)

You can also find some great cards for your pets to send to each other, your friend's mother's brother's uncle who treated you like one of the family, coming out of the closet, and having your gall bladder xrayed prior to surgery to remove your heart of stone, and apparently these occasions are all MORE IMPORTANT THAN ADOPTION! More power to ya! I just want a dang adoption celebration card. Guess I'll make my own! It'll be prettier, anyway.

We didn't know it, but my sister and two of my nieces were waiting outside the courtroom when we finalized our adoptions last week. When we exited the door, there they were with balloons and stuffed animals for Dylan and Tiffany, and Hershey's Bars for the rest of us. Had my younger sister been closer than 1200 miles, she would have been there, too. They both had pictures of my kids on their Facebook pages within hours. Now THAT's what I'm talking about! It's a big deal!

Introducing...

Thanks for waiting so patiently! Without further ado...here are our babies!







Growing up, I had a List of Names I Plan to Name My Children. The list was rather long, and I fully intended to utilize every name on it. When I married Tom, his list wasn't quite as long as mine, but he didn't run away screaming when I mentioned it. We didn't have a specific number of children in mind, but we both knew we wanted several. The only name he talked about using was Preston. Try as he might to convince me it was in honor of the trucking company, he eventually had to confess to hearing it in the movie Tucker: The Man and His Dreams.

When I was about 11, I watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie that featured a teenage boy named Dylan. I loved the name, and it immediately went on my List. I planned to combine it with Michael, as my closest cousin bore that name. (Even though he was 5 years younger than me, we shared a special bond that probably had much to do with him ALMOST getting away with cutting my stringy, long hair when I was about 10 or so. My brother, unfortunately, saw Michael sneak the scissors into the room, and put an immediate stop to it. Darn it all, but that's neither here nor there for purposes of this story.)

Tom had no problem with the name Michael, but he wasn't so crazy about Dylan. It reminded him of the singer Bob Dylan. Not being aware of anything more than the fact that there IS a singer named Bob Dylan, I wasn't qualified to determine if one of our children should be saddled with the same name, so I left that choice to him. Each time I was pregnant, however, I would ask again if we could name our baby boy Dylan Michael. The answer was always "No".

So the children arrived. (For proof, see the sidebar ---->)

Preston Thomas - naturally, Daddy's namesake. Fine. I like it.

Emmanuel Lucas - compromised, because Daddy wanted Clayton, and I didn't care for it all that much, so we sat down together with a baby name book. Emmanuel is only Emmanuel when he's in trouble, however, as he prefers Bucky, his nickname from birth.

Gabriel Timothy - again, compromised, because I had agreed to Clayton this time, but still didn't really care for it. Daddy acquiesced when Mommy had to endure 48 hours of labor and an emergency C-section. Timothy is a family name on both sides. Gabriel is a Biblical angel, Gabe has Angelman Syndrome...yes, I do look for the small connections.

Savannah Renee - a name on my List from early on, chosen after seeing the previews of the movie Savannah Smiles, which I never even watched until after she was born. Renee is my niece and my high school best friends' middle name. And obviously, Dylan wouldn't have been a good choice for a female.

Then the babies stopped. Having 4 children in 5 years tends to make one rethink their List, and the worsening post partum depression with each pregnancy played a major role in our decision to save some of the cool names for other people.

If you've been around here for very long, you know that we didn't stop wanting more children just because we made the final decision to not birth more. You know that we now have 2 more children, placed here courtesy of the Ohio Foster Care System. You also know that we received adoption approval for those 2 children a few months ago.

Today, I can introduce you to the newest members of our family.



At 9 AM this morning, our two babies legally became our children.



After a 16 month, 19 day waiting period, the adoption is final and they share our last name.



Our babies are biological siblings. Our little boy came to us on April 9, 2008. His birth mother was pregnant at the time. On July 7, she gave birth to a little girl, who came to live with us at 9 days of age.

We changed their last name only. Our daughter's name is Tiffany Navayah.

...and our little boy's name?

Dylan Michael.



Is my God good, or what?!?

See Bucky See Chicago

See Bucky.

See Bucky when he's in Chicago for his 16th birthday and has a splitting headache.





See Bucky when he's trying to find his bus from the top of Sears Tower.





See Bucky when he's standing outside Briar Street Theatre with his dad after watching Blue Man Group.





See Bucky try to stay warm on the Tall Ship Windy, while Bucky's mom grins at him.




See Bucky eat.




See Bucky's Mom and Dad not even trying to keep straight faces while standing next to a very strange-looking man who DID keep a straight face for TWO SOLID HOURS without SAYING A WORD...(Bucky's mom could never perform in this theatre!)






See Bucky's very, very small self staring up into the Bean at Millennium Park.




See Bucky not be able to stop the smile when his mom is trying to force one on him.





See Bucky stand, quite casually, in Union Station, one of the most beautiful buildings in Chicago.



See Bucky with some unintentional cool special effects.




See Bucky laughing at the waiter in Ed Debevic's, where the insults flow faster and wilder than the drinks.




See Bucky possibly auditioning for BMG in the future.






See Bucky and his parents at Millennium Park.




See Bucky enjoying the view of the river and Navy Pier from his hotel room.




See Bucky eat.



See Bucky after eating.



See Bucky make crazy faces at his mom.



See Bucky eat. Again and again and again.



Chicago made us come home. They had no food left. But we had fun.

The End.

Need Some Time Away?

Happy Anniversary to my oldest sister and her husband. They've been married for 33 years today.

If you're around Kimmell, Indiana, (Ft. Wayne, Goshen, Shipshewana, Nappanee area) stop in and see them.

Stay for a meal, or a night. They're pretty accommodating!

My Son and My Dad

Today he is 17. Wow.




Pop-Pop and Preston - born on March 24th, 55 years apart.




Each one goofy in his own way.




I love 'em both. Very much.

A Favorite Author of Mine

Several weeks ago, my aunt suggested that various family members begin reading and commenting on a book together. After several days of bantering, bartering, bargaining, and bickering, my sister Teresa managed to pull the group together with the first book chosen being Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot. Our group consists of myself and my 3 sisters (although my oldest sister may be incognito as her husband), my favorite aunt (she's pretty much my ONLY aunt, but even if she wasn't, she'd still be my favorite 'cuz she has red hair and laughs at my stupidity), some nieces, a few in-laws and accompanying relatives I may or may not have met, and perhaps a stray or two of which I'm unaware. Teresa named us The Book Bunch. (She's good like that.)

I've never subscribed to a Book Review Club, mostly because I have a mental image I'm not prepared to handle. Stodgy old men with pipes and plaid jackets, middle aged women wearing Christmas sweaters, and a lone gorgeous gay guy who thinks he signed up for a cooking class all gathering in a dark paneled room discussing poetry by B.T.Donethat and drinking weak tea with lemon wedges. That's the picture in my brain.

The pipe would be cool, the Christmas sweaters not so much, I don't get poetry, and the gay guy - well, hopefully he can make a better cup of tea by the time the book review is complete. As for The Book Bunch, it's been humorous, if nothing else, reading the emails flying back and forth between Michigan, Texas, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina (who am I forgetting?!?) in just simply preparing to begin to commence to think about starting the first book, and all the resulting confusion! So far we've learned that Keeping a Quiet Heart apparently doesn't quiet the fingers very fast.

Moving forward...

Over the past several months, the concepts of quieting my heart, being content, waiting on God's timing, and holding my tongue have been very present in my mind. Anyone who knows me in the slightest way will most likely need a paramedic's assistance at the mere thought that I could be successful at any attempt of patience or shutting up. So believe me when I say that while it isn't easy, it also isn't under my own power that I'm learning. Learning not perfected by any stretch of the imagination. I don't see myself hitting the road to promote my latest book on Virtuous Living with an Emphasis on Taming the Tongue anytime soon!

God's timing is a very strange thing that makes no sense to humans. I don't presume to understand why things happen the way they do when they do. I would drive myself crazy trying to figure it out. Actually, I nearly did! Not so fun - don't really wanna go there again! But one of the really cool things about learning to rely on God is that He gives you peace about the unanswerable. He makes it OK that you don't have all the answers. He helps you accept the realization that your life isn't perfect but He loves you anyway. He puts people in your path for specific purposes and while you may not like it one little bit, it's part of His plan for you.

A few months ago, I caved to technology and created a Facebook account. I've found people from "way back when" just as the creator of this monstrosity must have intended. Friends I'd lost touch with surface on a frequent basis. They've married, divorced, remarried, survived cancer, birthed children, adopted children, buried family members, traveled to other continents, lost jobs, become grandparents, acquired possessions...they've lived. Like me. They've been happy. They've also suffered great loss.

I haven't been involved in the daily lives of most of these old friends. With the exception of my best friend from high school, I have rarely spoken with most of them. It isn't particularly my preference that I only get updates at weddings and funerals, but life is busy. I would love to be with a friend who's undergoing cancer treatment, but my prayers don't have to come from her bedside. They're every bit as effective from my own.

What I would tell my friends, in their good and bad times, is that God is always with them. He knows. He planned. The challenges they face shouldn't be considered their lot in life, but rather what God has assigned before they were ever born. God IS in control, and we can rest assured that His ways are better than ours.

I believe that what gives us a quiet heart is our acceptance of God's plan. Yet, maybe we're so busy asking "why" that we don't see the answers around us. What we perceive as a struggle can be the avenue through which we learn to trust God. God is supreme and He wants us to know Him.

In Keep a Quiet Heart, Elisabeth Elliot says, on page 76:

When we find ourselves most hopeless, the road most taxing, we may also find that it is then that the Risen Christ catches up to us on the way, better than our dreams, beyond all our hopes. For it is He - not His gifts, not His power, not what He can do for us, but He Himself - who comes and makes Himself known to us.

That is what I want.

Under the Tree This Year...

Christmas this year was a day late at our house, because Daddy had to work on Thursday. So... while everybody else in the county was out trying to find deals on wrapping paper for next year's gifts, exchanging ugly sweaters for things less-Dr.Huxtable, and attempting to keep their cars out of the ditches?? Well, this family, oblivious to the icy weather conditions, was more than happy to stay at home.




I always like to take a picture of the tree looking neat and orderly...



as it never takes long for this...



to devolve into this! Gabe has just as much fun ripping up paper and boxes as he does trying out his new toys.



No matter how old he gets, if it has wings or rotors, he'll find it amusing.



No matter how old he gets, if it shoots, he'll find it amusing.



Bucky and Savannah's wish list was easy to accomodate in the clothing department. Hint: NEVER pay full price for Aeropostle clothing, just like you shouldn't EVER pay full price for things at Hobby Lobby. Aero had sales the week before Christmas - everything in the store was 50-70% off. Now, in my opinion, the sale prices are about what the clothing is worth, for the most part. Anyone who would pay $24.50 for a cami tank top is just nuts! But $6.00 - that, I'll do. Apparently, that's the opinion of most parents, because when Tom and I braved the mall crowd on the Saturday before Christmas (I shudder just recalling it!), you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting people with arms full of hoodies and jeans in the Aeropostle store. I knew what I wanted when we got there, so I grabbed a few things and had Tom get in the checkout line - I continued shopping, comparing prices, etc. By the time I was ready to go, Tom was at the cash register. Team Shopping - now that's a good deal.



Bucky gets ticked at me when I talk about how much I paid for something. But hey, when ya find a bargain, you want everybody to know. At least I do! This was, by far, the absolute BEST deal I got this season. Originally $49.50, I picked up this adorable Aero sweater, while shopping with our friend Jordan, for $1.99!!! Again, anyone who would pay that much is certifiable! Watch the clearance racks, people!!!



My sister is a Monk addict. (If you've never seen Monk on the USA network, watch him. He's hilarious!!!) She got Savannah hooked on Monk a couple years ago, and so we got her a season of the shows this year. She liked it even more than she did her...



...cash register, which she'd been asking for. It had fake money, though - SIGH!



I think the rest of Preston's body is in the next gift.



We found a Tic-Tac-Toe Thomas the Tank Engine game for Little Mister D. He carries the tin around all over the house.



Gifts from the Corny Department included Season One of Alf...



Followed closely by Season One of Chuck Norris in Walker, Texas Ranger...



and Chuck Norris in three different movies...Somewhere in the mess was a Chuck Norris poster...having a bunch of boys in your house just doesn't leave room for a ton of femininity, but boy can we all offer a great imitation of the Roundhouse Kick!



And if that doesn't do the trick, the foam sword will do just fine, thank you!



My husband did great shopping this year! New stainless steel pots and pans, and I was SO excited to find out that the steamer pan from my old Pampered Chef pans will fit in my new pans!!



My very favorite...My Cuisinart Coffee Grinder Brewer!!!! It's working well, and will play a huge part on this blog for a long time!!



Baby T was content to chew the wrapping paper. We tried to offer her several kinds, for a balanced diet.



Mister D was so happy with his kitchen set that I couldn't get him to look at anything else!! Good thing we saved it for last!


After spending the afternoon cooking the traditional Ham/REAL! mashed potatoes/corn casserole/sweet potato casserole/WAY too many pies and buckeyes for dessert meal, we passed out watching movies.

Every year, we say "Let's go on vacation next year instead of buying all these presents." So far we haven't done that - maybe next year...Unless of course, our Christmas present next year is Adoption. That's what I REALLY REALLY want...