Sunday, February 22, 2015

Mennonite Chinese New Year Party

It still involves food

fancy clothes, 
but just fewer people
and in this case people from further away.
We skipped the dragon and the bubble wrap in favor of lots of talking 
and discussing wheel chairs and external fixators.

So glad to meet Tyler and Rachelle tonite
Mr Gabe went home early and I didn't get a picture

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Keeping Warm

 Keeping people warm and well-fed is a daily challenge.
Ben works outside/inside he never knows, but mostly he is in the cold.
When the weather was first getting colder he requested "something other than
cold sandwiches"
But there is no microwave in the work truck
So I bought another thermos not quite the same as the other kids have.
I ordered one for Shekinah awhile since the price seems to keep going up.
But ...
"Mom, it's not very hot when I eat it."

I came to realize that these thermos' aren't made to sit in a work truck in below freezing temps
for 5+ hours. So I made a thermos jacket!
I was quite pleased with the results....no not the looks
but it works!
Took some thinsulate, covered it with some waterproof fabrice (that whole bolt I bought a few months ago) stitched on some velcro and viola!
The other thing that helps keep this boy warm...besides the seven layers of clothes...
is something we call a neck ruff...?? 
It's a piece of fleece that is tighter than an infinity scarf, but looser than a turtleneck
Stitched it together real quick one morning and it is right up there with the credit card
"never leave home with out it"


 My friend gave me "wall words" and I finally got up the nerve to
read the directions and put them on my wall
Zeke: "you just couldn't stand and empty wall?"

Then...on to feeding these hungry people
40 pounds of sour cherries will start us off
The local orchard is selling frozen fruit this winter
along with a bunch of other close-to-date items.
It is sales like these that help the bank account.

And someone reminded me tonite that next week they will be half way to 30
Actually it was I that reminded him he is not only getting close to 16, but 
30 as well and that.....is a third of the way to 90.




Sunday, February 15, 2015

Looking For Good

Last Sunday, I stayed home from church, with a friend's foster baby (he's supposed to stay out of crowds for a few months)
I listened in on our church service, while the sermon was on Barnabas and being and encourager, something the minister said struck me.
He mentioned how we are so programmed to think negatively of any given situation. Lyndon Johnson pointed out, "If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read : 'President Can't Swim'."
We read the weather forecast and cynically snort "yeah, we'll see." Do I give credit when the forecasters are actually right?"
In the international adoption world we first meet our child the day before adoption, parents are advised "prepare for the worst, and hope for the best."

It's way late for New Year's resolutions, but I thinkit would be a good idea to look for the positive in all the interactions with my children. A child makes themselves annoying by standing in my way...he/she is just needing some closeness with me and not actually trying to be annoying.

Then another child leaves yet ANOTHER load of laundry sitting in the washer, I am sure he/she is just so busy doing math or history homework that they really didn't have time to do their chores.

You get the idea ( I know those pronouns are off but they read my blog!)

This past week has been interesting, on Tuesday I took Parker and Shekinah along to do some banking and a stop at the post office. When I was getting Parker out of his seat I noticed a catch while I was closing the roll door on the van. I opened it and tried again and THE BACK PART OF THE DOOR FELL DOWN!  Thankfully I had already taken Parker out of his seat and the bottom roller stayed in its slot. Otherwise the door would have fallen on my toes or worse. The door was too heavy for me to put back in it's place. My dear hubby was able to put it back into place when he came home that evening. Needless to say everyone has had  instructions on how to PROPERLY open the van door and the replacement part is in the mail.

In other news: Shekinah is rising to the challenge of getting ready for Kindergarten. A number of times in the past few weeks I asked her to do something and she was reluctant. All I needed to say was, "well, you should learn that before yougot to school, but if you want to stay home another year, that's OK too."
We suddenly know how to open the van door from the inside (not the one that fell off), draw the letter "K", and recognize a bunch of numbers. Tying shoes and getting the letters of her name in the correct order are next on the list.


Then the big boys had a youth group function. It was labeled "color night"
The colors selected were pink and brown
If your birthday fell in the last half of the year, you got to wear pink
Guess which half of the year these boys were born.






This dapper young man left the house in his father's wedding suit coat
(he doesn't fit into the pants)
carrying his great-grandfather's cane and wearing great-grandpa's glasses.
Old-fashioned night with a different youth group

If these pictures should suddenly leave my blog, it would probably be because
 my children read my blog