Bluebonnets and Bikes!

This past weekend we ventured out for our annual bluebonnet pictures.  Well, I shouldn't really say 'annual' because we've only done it once before, two years ago.  Nevertheless it should be an annual event because my children (and the flowers) are just so gorgeous!  The bluebonnet field we chose wasn't quite as prolifically flowerful as before, but we still got some great shots, as you will see.  My favorite is the one of Adrian with his hands on his hips.  It's as if he's saying, "First you shave me bald and then you want pictures?"  (FYI if you don't know the story, Daniel cut off a big chunk of Adrian's hair last week and the only way we could fix it was to buzz it all off.)  Anyway, on to the pictures:

After the pictures, it was time for bike riding!  (Used as a bribe to get them to cooperate during pictures.)

Kindergarten, Here We Come!

Great googly-moogly, where did the summer go?  It flew by in a flash of fun for sure, and it makes me realize that's how quickly my kids are growing up.  Yesterday Joe started Kindergarten and I'm having anxiety that the school years are now just going to zip by and tomorrow my babies will be moving out of the nest.  Not that I won't be a bit relieved to go back to doing laundry for 2 instead of 7 (it's a killer, I tell you), but man, I love these children and can't imagine my house not being filled to overflowing with them. 

So how did our guy do on his first day?  Great, of course.  Joe has a huge advantage in that he went to Pre-K at the same school last year, so he's already familiar with the school, teachers, and "school culture" which is basically what a lot of these first days of Kindergarten are about.  One funny thing that happened was in the morning after Billy dropped Joe off in the cafeteria with his class, Joe apparently opened up his lunch box and started eating his lunch!  I'm sure he saw other kids eating breakfast and figured since he was in the cafeteria that's what he was supposed to do.

Here's Joe and Billy before heading off to school together.  Billy began his 10th year of teaching yesterday, by the way, and this will be his second year teaching 3rd grade.

 Here's Joe and his new teacher.  She's wonderful and I can already tell Joe's going to thrive in her class!

In the afternoon I pretended to be June Cleaver and baked fresh chocolate chip cookies for Joe.  Aw, how special.  Hee hee.  (I can tell you it's been a long while since homemade cookies were made in this house.)

So there you have it.  Joe's first day of Kindergarten.  It left me a little sad, a little happy, and a lot proud!

Summer Kick-Off

The "Fummer of Sun" has begun!  Oh, I mean "Summer of Fun".  Yikes.  Listen,  I had to get up 6 times between midnight and 6 this morning, so my brain's a little foggy.  Three times were for Joe (he needed a tissue, then he lost his tissue in bed, then he was scared to go to the bathroom), two times were to feed Rebekah, and the sixth time was a false alarm when I thought I heard a little voice calling out, "Mom".

Anyway, now that school's out for the summer I have two whole months to enjoy with my husband at home.  Obviously I'm relieved to have the extra help with the kiddos, but I also just love having my best friend with me all day long.  We've got tons of fun activities and outings planned for the family this summer and we kicked things off Saturday night with a birthday celebration for Nana!  Nana is the children's great-grandmother and she is one amazing lady.  We were honored to celebrate her special day with her!
                            
                         

Then on Monday we celebrated Uncle Nate's birthday and the children met many of their cousins for the first time.  For some reason my camera refused to work so there are no shots of the glorious occasion.  But after consuming inordinate quantities of ice cream, candy, cake, and Slim Jims (ok, Mikea was the only one who ate the Slim Jims), the kids were moving so fast the camera probably wouldn't even have captured them.  You think I'm kidding, but just ask anyone who was there.

These two birthday celebrations were a great reminder of how blessed we are by our families.  Our children were surrounded with loving, warm, and fun individuals who are true gifts to us.  We love you,  Extended Family Members!!!

Adventures at the Hospital

If you would have told me that between me and my husband we would be spending the majority of the past six days at three different hospitals in two different cities, I would've said, "Not possible."  (Of course I also never would have believed that we'd ever take two kids to the ER in one night, either.)   But, that's exactly what happened this week. One of the patients was the little cutie you see below, and the other was my mother who I doubt would appreciate pictures of her in the hospital plastered all over the Internet.  The good news is both ladies are much better and resting comfortably at home.

                       

Rebekah was hospitalized with a viral respiratory infection.  I'll spare the details except to say we had taken her to the doctor twice last week and again this week when she was sent to the ER.  All of our kids had been sick the week before but it hit Rebekah the hardest because she's a preemie and therefore more susceptible to these types of things.

                   

The time I spent in the hospital was a bit of a break from the grind of daily life, yet tiring in its own way.  Billy and I switched shifts, each spending two nights with her.  Family and friends pitched in to help care for the big kids, transport Joe to and from school, and help Billy prepare substitute work for his classroom.  And of course there were so many more people who offered their prayers and words of encouragement - thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Adopting Adrian

For the third time in under three years we have had the blessing and privilege of adopting our foster children into our family forever.  You can read about Joe's and Daniel's adoption here and Mikea's adoption here and here.

This time around we were a bit more anxious about the day because it would be the first time venturing out with all 5 children.  We spent hours the night before getting ready and actually made it out the door on time.  However, that was about the only thing that ran smoothly.  Our first trial came when we had to go through the metal detectors at the courthouse.  We had 2 diaper bags, 3 activity bags for the big kids, and 1 purse to put through the scanner.  Problem was, they were all underneath the double stroller and were wedged in pretty good.  We had to take out Rebekah's car seat anyway so she wouldn't have to go through the metal detector, but the bags were still stuck.  So we tried to yank out the bags and corral Joe, Dan, and Mikea at the same time.  Meanwhile a line of people formed behind us, a line of people all in a hurry to get somewhere.  Unfortunately, some of our family members who had planned on attending got sick and couldn't make it and the others received bad directions and didn't arrive at the ceremony until after it was over.   So we were all on our own.

Well, we eventually made it through security and had to walk through a couple of buildings and take an elevator ride to get to the jury room where the ceremony was held.  We breathed a sigh of relief and began strategically arranging children in their seats.  There were fewer families at this ceremony than in previous months, which meant we sort of stuck out and I wasn't really surprised when a reporter from Channel 12 came over and asked to interview us.  That's when things got really intense for us.  We were trying to sit, hold 4 children, keep an eye on a baby in a car seat, and attempt to answer questions as coherently as possible.  Both Billy and I were extremely sleep-deprived and worn out from the ordeal of getting everyone to the ceremony.  The kids, on the other hand, were highly squirrelly.  Joe and Daniel kept grabbing the reporter's microphone, Adrian was head-butting me, eating my necklace, and trying to wiggle out of my lap.  Mikea was attempting to sneak away.  And Rebekah was due to wake up hungry any minute.  And so while we did everything we could to stay calm and look like we had it under control (because we didn't want it to look like we couldn't handle the kids ) in fact it felt like everything was falling apart.  Throw in a healthy dose of straight-up terror of being on TV, and you'll understand why the whole thing was incredibly intense and stressful.  Though the end result wasn't as bad as I thought. You can read about it here or watch the interview here.  Another channel interviewed us after the ceremony for a story on adopting sibling groups.  It's supposed to air on their morning show but I haven't seen it yet.

All that aside, what kept us going was the reason we were there: to make Adrian an official member of our family!  Here are a few shots of the day:

Hooray for the new Mr. Adrian James Morrison!  Praise God.  Now we stand at four down and one more to go...

All About Adrian!

Adrian is finally all ours!  I'll do a separate post about the actual adoption ceremony itself, but for now enjoy some of my favorite photos of our charming little guy!

                                 

                                 

  We love you, Adrian, and are so glad you are now an official member of our family!