Isaac playing piano

Just wanted to share a recent video of my oldest doing the thing he loves so much:

Friday Funnies

I've been resting in the afternoon some days and letting Hannah watch a show while the other three kids play Legos upstairs. When I was done today Hannah says: "Let's play Mommy."
Me: "Okay. What should we play?"
Hannah: "Let's play Mommy and Hannah."
Me: "Okay."
Hannah: "I'll be the Mommy and you be ... wait ... I'll be Hannah and you'll be the Mommy."
Me: "Okay. Then I'm taking a nap."
Hannah: "No. Mommies don't take naps."
Me: "They don't? What do they do?"
Hannah: "They stay up all night and make dinner."

*****

Me praying tonight with girls: "and thank you Jesus that they were good girls today."

Hannah: "except for me."

(Hannah may have squeezed glue on my handmade Turkish rug today.)

*****

A fun video just watching Hannah and I playing together in her room:

How to Answer Ignorant Questions about Your Adoptive Family

Here's an article helping to answer ignorant questions about adoptive transracial families with grace and understanding while also protecting my family.

The Interiorista: The love seal

My house is under construction at the moment. A few months back we had a leak in our living room that ruined part of our wood floors. Our home insurance checked the damage and decided to cover the expenses for a new floor. So what once was a disappointment has now become excitement. Brand new, free floors is something worth doing a happy dance for, right?

However, reality is always somewhere different than the fantasy we create in our heads. In my mind I was going to have beautiful floors in 7 days, but like in almost any project you tackle, hiccups come up that lengthen the process and leave you sour inside. Moving every single piece of furniture around, having exposed subfloors, lovely nails, dust everywhere, and workers in your home all day, doesn't sound that glamorous when you find yourself in the midst of the project. And then... a delay happens. A pause. A stop. And you are left with... A MESS! I'm telling you, when this occurs, impatience arises and kindness transitions to pointing fingers.

Yep! That was me a few days ago. I'm not proud of it, friends, but I want to be real. However, I also want to praise God for his patience with me and his teaching hand. During my devotional time, I came along this well-known bible verse:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." 1 Cor. 13:4-5

Just at the right time! The Holy Spirit was getting a hold of me! Am I truly loving? It's easy to love when things go your way, when people are nice and when you feel good. But what about when things are difficult? Am I loving in word, deed and in truth? Ouch! Guilty! I want my relationships with others to be MARKED BY LOVE. I want to have the kind of love that is slow to anger. A love that is capable to bear with other's imperfections and give them time to change without coming hard on them. A loves that gives without a need for repayment. A love that has the ability to soothe hurt feelings. A love that has good manners. A love that doesn't need all the attention and doesn't make others jealous of what it has. A love that is not touchy nor seeks its own glory. A love that forgives.

LOVE IS WHAT LOVE DOES. All our good intentions go down the drain when our actions and thoughts don't match our words.

Father, help me to see my own imperfections. I mess up all the time. In no way am I better than my neighbor, yet you love me so deeply and have mercy on me. Help me to love others in this way. Help me to display the fruit of your Spirit so others can see YOU in me.

Having a rough week? Having difficulty loving others? You are not alone! We are imperfect people but serve a perfect God that knows our hearts and forgives our mistakes. Tomorrow you and I are given a new opportunity to love well, to marked our interactions with love, to impress a love seal because we are being loved with excellency by a loving God. Do over? Absolutely! Because at the end of the day, I care way more about having a pretty heart than having pretty floors! ;)

                           Love,

                                         Angelica

Dear Pre-Mom Self: It’s Time To Let You Go

I really like this piece discussing who we were before and after we became a mom.

Review: Kwik Stix

I did a review back in May on the Kwik Stix 12 pk from The Pencil Grip, Inc.  

I was recently contacted by Kwik Stix again with an opportunity to write another review for them. And I was happy to do it.

You know that there are certain things in your house that just cause you to cringe when your kiddos bring it up. Painting is one of those things for me. So many kids. So many projects. So many messes.

And then there are these awesome paint "sticks." These are solid tempera paint sticks that you just uncap, twist, and paint! They dry in 90 seconds, but the painting dries looking like paint. You don't add water. You don't need paint brushes. You just uncap and color!

They are AP certified (meaning they are non-toxic and perfectly safe for young kiddos!)

And they work beautifully on paper, wood, canvas, cardboard, and many other crafting mediums!

For a mom with four kiddos, this is nothing short of a painting miracle!

I love being able to use these and put them right back in the box for easy storage.

Abigail just LOVES these paints.

This chick is a painting machine!

So where can you buy these? You can get them at Target (as of November 1), Target.com or FatBrain Toys. 

The Kwik Stix 6 packs of Basic and Metalix colors will be available in Target stores. Target.com will have a bigger selection, and FatBrain will have all the paints available.

We Bought a Farm: Enjoying our Duck!

I love when my husband cooks. Because he doesn't just cook. It is like art to him. He puts together amazing things and makes them taste and look just .... amazing.

Unfortunately, becoming an ER doc meant he couldn't cook every meal in our house anymore. When he works, he works until 7pm. And when he is home, the farm takes a lot of time. So he now cooks maybe once a week. But each time he cooks, it is just so, so, yum!

Yesterday JB decided that the nine ducks we have had in our freezer for half a year needed to be used. So he defrosted all of them and used all the breasts for the meal above! (This is only half of it as with two WWOOFers and Grampa and Grampa we have 10 at dinner right now.) Now he is using the rest for some stock. There's a huge pot on the stove doing some sort of magic. JB said the pot will be going for about a week. Seriously!

No, seriously, the pot is big. Look.

Wee-wind Wednesday

I really want to make it a point to do more wee-winding on my Blog and not forget my Wee-wind Wednesday post. So today, I jump back to September 2010. Isaac was just over two years old. My little man. He's growing up so fast. 

Review: Heirloom Audio Productions ~ Cat of Bubastes

I consider my family incredibly lucky to get to review The Cat of Bubastes -- another one of Heirloom Audio Productions amazing pieces of audio theater. Back in July we were able to review Beric the Briton. We loved that one, and we loved this one just as much. If you have children in middle elementary and into high school grades -- and heck, even if YOU just love good stories -- you will want to pay attention to this review.
Featuring over two hours of absolutely incredible acting, this is a story of perseverance, responsibility, and God's providence. It is a story which presents Christian heroes for kids of all ages. 
The exact ages they note are ages 6 and up. To be fair, we listened to this with our four children (aged 3-8). Our youngest didn't really follow at all. But our 5-year-old daughter was actually following and asking questions. And the boys (ages 7 and 8) were right in on the action. However, if I was going to place the ideal age on this performance I would probably say at least 7 and probably closer to 10 as the bottom end of the age bracket.
Here are some photos of our family taking in the performance:

Here's my youngest daughter (not paying attention as expected) hanging out with her big brothers during our evening adventure. We listened to this for about 30 minutes four nights in a row.

To be fair, my husband did have to stop the production at regular intervals to help the kiddos follow along. With his explanations, my 5-year-old daughter (shown in picture above) was really able to participate and enjoyed the story a lot.

This audio production was done by veteran actors -- names and faces you would recognize from movies you have seen. Some of the top names include:

• Brian Blessed (Star Wars, Tarzan, Robin Hood)
• Anthony Daniels (C-3PO from Star Wars!)
• Sylvester McCoy (Dr. Who, The Hobbit)
• Elizabeth Counsell (The Chronicles of Narnia)
• Russell Boulter (Ben Hur)
• John Rhys-Davies (The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones)

There are many "levels" of purchase. The lowest level is $19.97 and includes two free bonuses. However, if you purchase the top level (which I was given access to), you receive some incredible bonuses including:

• The complete The Cat of Bubastes eStudy Guide and Discussion Starter. This is 47 pages and includes discussion points, history-learning guides and story-related bible study. It was designed by Christian educators as a complete story curriculum to complement the audio adventure. This is a little too old for my kiddos to use right now. However, we truly plan to reintroduce this when our children are in more upper elementary/middle/high school grades and have them work through this guide. It is very detailed and very, very well done. A fantastic addition to a homeschool curriculum. This is an incredible product and a great addition to the purchase!
• Printable copy of the inspirational verse found in 1 Chronicles 17:20 "Oh Jehovah, there is none like Thee, neither is there any god besides Thee."
• Official Sountrack MP3 download. This contains all the original music by Emmy-winning composer John Campbell!
• Unlimited access to the Live the Adventure Letter E-Newsletter. 
• G.A. Henty's original The Cat of Bubastes E-Book with all new colorful graphics. This looks awesome and I have definitely saved this so we can use it when the kiddos are a bit older. (It's 350 pages!) This is the other really high level inclusion in the bonus features.
• Printable promotion poster
• A behind-the-scenes documentary. We watched this! We loved it! It was so neat to see the characters that you had only heard on the soundtrack. We learned a lot about what goes into producing something like this. Very interesting!

This is simply an amazingly well-done and powerful story. You can actually listen to a summary of it on the website by clicking here. You can also check them out on Facebook, and Twitter.

Tribe Life Tuesdays: Relationship Status

“Bring your heart and watch it inspire people around you!” – Danny Silk

Let’s talk relationships. This topic is one of favorites because it is constantly stretching me and what I think I know about it. Take a minute and think about a time when you were the most satisfied or fulfilled. Did it involve other people?

Hopefully, you said yes!

Relationships are one of the hardest and most rewarding feats you’ll endeavor on. They require every emotional component: you have the ability to feel love, fear, emptiness, and fulfillment. Healthy relationships, community, and finding your tribe are all interchangeable for me right now and they are one of life’s greatest accomplishments. I believe we were created for community. There is an innate void in each of us that can only be filled by meaningful relationships.

Research shows that relationships can improve health in a variety of ways: by helping us manage stress, improve the functioning of the immune system, and by giving meaning to people’s lives.  (Time, 2015)

It is a profound life statement when YOU step into community and choose to pursue connection with people. The experience of letting someone in and learning their story places value on them and on yourself. It’s there that vulnerability demolishes the walls of competition.

You and I can probably list all the pros and cons of relationships (why they do and don’t work, etc.), but today, let’s focus on their importance in our lives and all the positives.

Straight-a-way, let’s clarify what I’m talking about when I say, "relationship". This means, anyone you relate with in life! HA! From acquaintances to your most intimate relationships. Those you live everyday life with to those you don’t see very often. All of our relationships hold unique places in our lives and I want to expand that thought for a moment… 

ACCESS: One of my favorite books that has helped me countless times over the years is, Keep Your Love On by Danny Silk. I highly recommend it. Below is an incredible excerpt that sums up the levels of access people should have in our life through a diagram Danny Silk created to communicate the necessity of having levels of relationships in our lives: 

“This is a little diagram I created to illustrate the levels of intimacy we need to cultivate and protect with boundaries.

The innermost circle is your core. Some people like to call this the, 'God Spot' because nobody else deserves your heart's primary allegiance and worship and nobody should hold the place of influence He holds in your life.

The next level of intimacy is for your most intimate human relationship, your deepest soul tie. Only one person is going to fit into that spot. If you are married, this should be your spouse. If you are unmarried, this person could be a friend, a parent, a sibling, or even a business partner.

The further out we go in the circles of intimacy; the more people can fit in them. The next circle contains people like your kids and grandkids, followed by your closest friends. Heading out further, you have good friends, then co-workers, and then acquaintances. Keep going and you find people in the same geographic location, and finally the rest of the human race.”

And so Danny unravels this further in real life terms:

“The level of intimacy people have in my life determines how much of myself I will offer them when they pull on the relationship.

If I am chatting with someone from church for the first time and he tells me that the engine in his car blew up, I am probably going to give my sympathies and offer to pray with him for provision.

If I have interacted with the person a few times and know him a little, I will probably say, “Oh I am so sorry. Here is the number to my mechanic.

If one of my good friends comes to me with the woes of an exploding engine, I may toss him my keys and say, “Here, borrow my car until you can get your car fixed. Take your time.”

If my daughter or one of my sons comes to me and says, 'Dad, my engine just blew up.' I will pull out my checkbook to cover the repairs. And finally, if my wife, Sheri, comes to me, there is no doubt in my mind that I am talking with the person who will be picking out the color of our next car. Because she is my most intimate human relationship, I am willing to put all my time, money, energy, and resources toward helping her with her problem. After Jesus, she is my greatest priority, and has greatest access to my life.”

Building our relationships on choice is our most powerful tool. A healthy relationship can only be built between two people who continually choose one another and take full responsibility for that choice.

I recently had a “come to Jesus” moment with one of my relationships. This is one of my intimate relationships and I forgot that I chose them. Honestly, all my relationships are valuable -- and this one is, especially. Through gradual ignorance I began to grow apart from them. My friend would graciously keep me accountable and I graciously ignored the accountability. I still wanted their friendship, but in part. 

Then, not to surprisingly, the day came and unbeknownst to me our relationship had changed, drastically. What an onslaught of emotions I felt -- shattered, responsible, selfish, dismayed, and grieved. How could I have treated this friend so carelessly? I couldn't get to them quick enough to beg for their forgiveness not because I had to beg but because begging wasn't enough ... I needed them to know how much I loved them even though my actions many times did not display that. Of course over much crying there was resolve and celebration. It just reminded me that being aware of others -- of humanity -- is a necessity.  

Let’s not be afraid to trust our inner circle with fragile parts of our lives. Authentic and vulnerable living is a gift to be shared. So bring your heart and watch it inspire people around you!

See you next Tuesday.  

We Bought a Farm: How we budget online

We've always needed to budget. But with all the changes that owning a farm brings, we really needed a way to figure out where our money was going.

It was just a few months after we got married that JB happened upon Dave Ramsey on the radio. It took me awhile to buy into the system of using envelopes and cash to budget your money. We used this for many years, got completely out of debt, and truly enjoyed living within our means.

What I cannot explain to people who haven't done it is how freeing budgeting is. It seems like it would be a form of bondage to be required to follow guidelines. But in fact I felt freer to spend. It allowed me to know how much I had for my clothes or my kids clothes and to spend accordingly.

However, with six people in our family (and eight if you count JB's parents), envelopes just were not working for us anymore. The reason is that they were too big. Our grocery budget, for example, with that many people, is really, really big. To carry around that much cash just wasn't safe or feasible for us. But we still wanted to budget.

Enter www.goodbudget.com. There are a couple of different programs out there like this so shop around a bit and find one that fits you. Goodbudget has a free trial before you decide on the program. (After that it is a couple of bucks a month to use it.) But there are many other programs that do the same thing.

Basically how it works is that JB and I both have the program on our phones. (We also use it on the desktop.) Our phones are synced together. You can also sync it with your bank, but we decided not to do that as it made us a little nervous. We have "virtual envelopes" that we use. So for example, we have a "grocery" envelope. If JB buys something for groceries, he enters the receipt into his phone, and I see it on my phone. If I go to the grocery store on the same day, I enter the amount spent in as well too. At a glance, we can see how much we have in each of our envelopes.

We have a "farm" envelope. This envelope allows money to be added to it as well. When someone buys chickens or eggs from us, I add money to the envelope. And when we buy feed from the animals, we enter it in as well.

At the start of a new month, we tell the program to automatically enter in our new envelopes for the month. The program does this and the money we still had rolls into the next month. In addition, you are allowed to go into the negative which works well for us. There are some months where we are heavy on a category, and I know we will recover in a few months.

If you aren't budgeting, I cannot implore you enough to START doing it. We know exactly where all of our money is going every month. In addition, if JB works an extra shift in a given month, we add that money wherever we want it added or simply put it in savings. Whatever we decide to do.

Sunday Sermon

We Bought a Farm: Fantastic Football and Farming Fame

This story always resonates with me.

This is sometimes how I feel while farming. What are we doing and why are we doing this? And yet we feel so called to do this. And so we keep doing it. We truly have no idea what the Lord is  calling us to do exactly, but we have told him, "If you tell us what to do, we will do it. We will keep moving forward."

We know He wants us to ready this land for him -- for people He will bring here? for missionaries we may train? for the saved and unsaved to find peace and respite.

We remain totally confident that He is going to show us what He wants us to do with His land. And so we are going to keep moving forward.

Encourage me to remember that when I forget.

If I coulda been fired today ...

... I am sure I would have been. Each of my children woulda fired me on the spot. I was off my game. I had very little patience. I was crabby. And overwhelmed. And just not up to snuff.

And if I could have quit, I might have quit today too.

I'm getting over a really bad cold and a fierce allergy attack, and I am just not on my game. Add to that JB is on the tale end of a long run of 12-hour days, and I'm just cooked.

I had to go to the Post Office today and the grocery store. I also had to get the boys hair cuts. Isaac reminded me of these tokens he'd earned in his geography class at co-op for a free snow cone. We'd never been there before, so we added that to our day too. Four stops was about three stops too many. 

I managed to snap the picture above right before Abigail dumped out half her snow cone on the table. 

I shoulda realized how things were going when I went into the Post Office and the lady at the desk was feverishly scanning my items. She looked like she was about to cry so I finally said, "Is everything okay?"

She replied by saying, "No it's not. Everyone comes in at the last minute and I have so much to get done and they won't pay me overtime."

I honestly had no idea what to say so I said nothing, but I did think, "She's having a worse day than I am."

(And by the way it was 10:45 and the Post Office closed at 12:00 so I didn't really think that was the last minute.)

I'm serious.

We arrived back home, and Hannah promptly climbed into the dog's bathtub and soaked herself. Then she peed on the floor.

Honestly. You can't make this stuff up.

JB always does bedtime at our house (when he isn't doing nights). He gets the kids all wound down and tucked in and then I come in and just snuggle and hug and love them. I so appreciate He does this. It is such a blessing to me. Especially on a day like this one.

As I hugged each of my four miracles, I said to them individually. "I'm sorry that I was a crabby Mommy today. Will you forgive me?"

Here were their replies:

Abigail: "You are the best Mommy in the whole world!"

Hannah: "Mommy look at my silly face I am making!"

Isaac: "I didn't think you did a bad job today Mommy."

Sidge: "Do you feel sad? That makes me sad if you are sad."

Kids are so awesome. 

And tomorrow is a new day.

Why God Took So Long To Give Me A Baby

Please jump here: Why God Took So Long To Give Me A Baby for an excellent piece on infertility and what was taking God so long.

I have often thought that if I had gotten the baby I wanted WHEN I wanted it, then I wouldn't have these exact four little babies I have right now.

Love them.

They were worth waiting for.

Abigail grows up

I love watching my children grow and learn. I want them to stop growing up so fast, and yet watching the things they come up with is just so fun for me!

Here is the first ever picture Abigail colored. She was about 1.5 years old.

Here's what she busted out yesterday. It is a story about a duck and a duck's friend. She asked for help with some spellings from Grama, but otherwise wrote it herself.

About that time I drove five hours with four kids in a Ford F-250

Our van got sick this last week. It's better now. But it decides to get sick the day before I am going to drive to North Carolina to visit two different sets of friends.

So the night before we decide that I will still go. But I will go in our big black Ford F-250 (which we call "Midnight.")

Honestly, I am 6'3" and I nearly have to launch myself to get into that truck. And I drove it through three states with four children by myself.

Seriously.

Who am I?

I wish my teenage self could have seen what I was going to become!

Review: KidsEmail.org

Okay so I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about an email for my kids. They are young. The Internet is risky. How safe could it be? But I tell you what: we were BLOWN AWAY by the Annual Subscription we received to KidsEmail.org. This is definitely a program we will be using to help safely introduce my children to the wonderful side of technology for years to come.  I allowed both of my boys (ages 8 and 7) to have an account. I set up the account for them. What I most loved about this was amount of safety settings I was able to institute for my kiddos.  I decided to pick seven people they could email. I added the email addresses of the people that they could email. I included their three grandmothers, one aunt, their dad, me, and their brother. That's it. I was then allowed to determine the following things:

• Receive mail from contact list only?
• Send email to contact list only?
• Allow child to edit contact list?
• Send a parent a copy of incoming email?
• Allow images from incoming emails?
• Allow links in received emails?
• Allow attachments?
• Allow bad words in received email?
• Add tagline to bottom of message?
• Send email sender a notification when email goes to the mail queue?

I also had the option to install time restrictions (what time of day they can get on, what days of the week, etc.) I could also ground them from the program! How amazing is that? (And I can set up a custom message when I ground them!)

I decided to only allow them to receive email from those seven people. They could not edit the list. They could not get images, links, or attachments. And I obviously outlawed bad words too. I opted to not receive a copy of the messages (mail monitoring) they sent simply because I truly trusted their list of seven people. 

There was also an option to block certain senders. If my kids were old enough, I could add a GPS tracker so I can see where they are! Wowzers. Seriously folks. There were so many amazing things I could do. 

And then my boys started emailing. Here is a sample picture of what their screen looks like:

And here is a picture of Isaac on his email page. While both my boys greatly enjoyed the program (and were able to log on and do this themselves), my older son really got into it. Isaac absolutely LOVED emailing and was able to log-on and write emails without any help from me.

Okay here's what I love tons too. YOU can partake in a free trial of this program. The trial is 30 days and for ONCE they are not going to automatically bill you when the free period is over. (I really hate when companies do that! It totally seems like they are taking advantage of our busy lives and the fact that we will probably forget to change our status.)

If you decided you wanted to keep going, you can pay monthly ($4.95) which includes four email accounts. Or, if you just get it for a year, it is only $3 a month which includes up to 6 email accounts. This means that for your whole family to use the program it is $38.95 a year. VERY reasonable. And honestly folks, this is SO worth it!!

Please take a moment to visit this company around social media:

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