I Have A Dream

 

This is a book we got for Hamony this Christmas.  I want teach her about what it means to be African American.  I want her to have a solid understanding of her cultural heritage.  I want her to feel a sense of pride in who she is and where she comes from.  This is challenging in our small town.  Harmony loves to read and loves to be read to.  We read every night at least one, usually more books.  I try to make sure she is exposed to stories about all different people and places.  Some of the books we have enjoyed are: The Junnie B. Jones series, Fancy Nancy books, The Anna Habiscus series, books about adoption, seek and find books, and so many other classic books.  These are all great and give us opportunites to talk about being us, dealing with different situations, what it means to be a family, how to look at differences, and God's unconditional love for all of us along with what his Word tells us about all of this and more.   These books are great, but it's time for us to start exploring the actual people and events in history that brought us to where we are today.  I want to focus on historical people and their contributions to changing our country.  I also want to focus on people who made a difference in a positive way who can act as role models for my daughter. 

I found this book about Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream speech", at Harmony's school book sale.  To be honest, I've heard bits and pieces of the speech, but have never heard the entire speech.  I have never really thought about what was happening at that time in our countries history and the profound message he was spreading for that time.  Every page of this book has large colorfull illustrations clearly offering a visual of Dr. King's vision.  All of the text are exerpts from Dr. King's speech.  At the end of the book is the word for word speech for parents.  The book also encludes a CD of Dr. King's speech in his voice. 

After reading this book, I realized that it's not enough for Harmony and I to just talk about accepting differences and loving her exactly as she is, and telling her she is beautiful inside and out.  It's time to start teaching her about her history, our history.  This book was a great starting point.  We read it together yesterday.  She likes when we take turns reading every other page.  It was moving to hear her reading the words of this amazing man.  It's a realativly short book, but we stopped along the way and taked about what the words meant, what really happened, and why Dr. King's work was so important.  One part of the speech states "I have a dream that one day the sons of slaves and the sons of slave owners will sit together at the table of brotherhood".   Harmony struggled to understand the word slave.  I told her it was when person "buys" another person.  She smiled and said, "yeah, like how you bought me".  Ugh!  Not exactly.  We ended up spending a great amount of time on this.  It was a very hard concept for her to understand, which part of me is thankful for.  Yet it's also an important concept to understand in relation to her history.  We talked about this sensitive topic in a way a 7 year old could grasp.  I'm sure this discussion will lead to future discussions, actually I hope it will.  This has also presented an educational opportunity for our boys.  These discussion will help us all to grow together, and to have a better understanding of each other.  Although we are trying to teach Harmony about her history, I feel as though we are learning along with her.  This is just the beginning.  I'm going to start searching for books about other important African American people to learn about. 

Another waiting angel?

 

I love this picture. 

 

We just celebrated our 1 year anniversary of Harmony's adoption.  We've come a long way since she has come into our family.  Steve and I have been talking about and praying about starting the process one more time.  Why would we want to do this again?  It's a hard road to travel and a tough journey when bringing a child into our home who comes with a great deal of hurts.  I don't have an exact answer for this question of why.  We feel called by Jesus to embark on this adventure again.  This time it was Steve feeling strongly about opening our hearts and home one more time.  I was quite surprised, as we've been through a tough year, but when he looked into my eyes and said, "I know it's right", I couldn't argue.  That was several months ago.  We've continued to pray about this and research  how it would/could effect our already big family.  We took our kids our for brunch at one of our favorite cafes one Sunday after church.  We decided to put the idea out there for all of them at the same time and see how they reacted.  I have to say I expected the worst, and we did get one, "your crazy", but then we started talking about what we has been thinking and praying.  Very quickly all of the kids agreed that it was a good idea.  Harmony's first words were, "will they be brown like me?".  I hadn't realized that being the only brown member of our family was so dominant in her mind.  We knew as soon as Steve and I began duscussing the possibility that we would only request to be matched with a brown child.  We've completed the renewal of our foster-to-adopt liscence for another 2 years.  Our SW is going to submit it to the same county Harmony came from when she returns to work on the 2nd of Janurary.  I'm feeling a little nervous, and a lot excited.  Jesus knew what he was doing when he brought Harmony to us, I'm trusting he already knows who he will bring next and that she will be another perfect match.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. 

And then there were 2..

We started with Zoey, the little brown girl puppy.  Then we brought home Zeus, the little black boy puppy.  They are from the same litter.  No families wanted to take him home, so we decided to bring him home with us.  How much room could 2 puppies take up anyways????!!!

 

 

 

1-year later....  they're huge!  But, they are so good and cute, and the kids love them..so they stay.  :)

Time Flies, what a year it's been!

 



 So, time gets away on me.  I have not posted on this blog since February and now its the day after Christmas.  It's been a very busy year for all of us.  Spring was track season.  This year Kameron tried pole vaulting.  That's a little scary for a mom to watch, but also exciting to see how high the kids could vault themselves.  Kam's highest jump was 10 feet.  Not quite olympic matertial, but impressive none the less.  Summer went by fast. We followed the high school marching band all around the state for several parades.  This is so much fun!  We've also always got projects going on in and out of the house.  This year we painted all of the down stairs, put new flooring and counters in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, and removed the last of the wallpaper the house.  (YEAH!).  We also took down our pool and re-landscaped the backyard.  There is still work to be done both in the house and outside, but it will have to wait until next summer.  We did not get to go camping, as we were hoping.  Harmony has never been camping.  Maybe next year. 

 

We did make it to Lake Michigan over the summer. It's one of our favorite places in the world! As you can see, we navigated the miles of riverbed to get back to the clay pit. What great memories! Harmony is such a trooper. She keeps right up with all of our craziness. 

 

Late summer and early fall mean football season.  We had 3 teams to follow this year.  That means 3 games each week!  Kam and Jay both played, Kam played both varsity and JV.  Jay played on the 8th grade team.  Again, Harmony is amazing with this.  She has a group of friends (little sisters of players) for each sport we follow.  She's also a great cheerleader and can't wait until she's old enough to be on the team.  She never complains about going to games, just grabs her things and away we go. 

 

We made it to the circus in the fall.  This is the last time the circus is allowed to have live elephants in the show due to the animal rights activists protesting following the book/movie "Water for Elephants".  Here is Harmony and my dad (Papa Larry) riding on a pony.  She was a little nervous to get on the horse, and refused to go unless grandpa walked with her.  He looks quite proud to be helping her with this task. 

 

Now it's basketball season.  Doc and Jay are both playing basketball this winter.  With games almost every Friday night and tournaments on the weekends we're busy again.  I'm thankful the Christmas season is almost over.  Don't get me wrong, I love Jesus and am so thankful for his birthday here on Earth.  We do our best to keep this true meaning of Christmas the focus and not get caught up in all the earthly demands of the season.  The problem is the stress our society puts on this season for all the wrong reasons.  The expectations to make Christmas a "magical" time with homemade cookies, household decorations, music, gifts all wrapped in fancy ribbons and bows, big meals, entertaining, visiting, traveling, not to mention blizzards, shoveling till it hurts then some, along with all of the normal daily chaos in our lives all packed into the shortest days of the year.  It's exhausting! 

 

Now little Missy is 7 and a 1/2 exactly tomorrow.  She's been reminding me that tomorrow is her half birthday.   Her real birthday falls in the middle of summer vacation and her half birthday falls in the middle of Christmas vacation.  The poor girl just wants to bring treats to school.  We'll have to plan for her 3/4 birthday in March and send treats then.  

 

She is such a beautiful girl, both inside and out!  



Puppy Love

Meet Zoey, our newest family addition.

(She's chewing on a crunchberry she found under the cupboard, that's why her mouth looks funny, but it's the first time she's sat still in 3 weeks!)

Several months ago my son Doc, the youngest of the boys, was having a hard time adapting to having a new sister and no longer being the youngest.  So he was spending a lot of time with his best friends out at their house.  Doc's best friends are two boys only a year apart, Sean and Declan. He fits right inthe middle of them age wise. Sean and Declan's mom, Gina is one of my very good friends.  She is an animal lover and had 3 dogs.  I think they are all rescue dogs, but not positive.  One is a German Shepard, Thunder; one is a yellow lab, I'll call him D because I'd never spell his name right, and a bloodhound named Lila.  One afternoon Gina let D out and could not find him until she went around the house where she found him sharing hugs and kisses with Lila.  A month later we were pretty sure Lila was going to have puppies.  Doc was so excited, since he spent so much time at Gina's house. 

We had a dog, Mali, a black lab for almost 14 years.  She was the best dog ever!  She helped me raise my kids.  Last fall we had to put her down.  It was so sad.  I said that I didn't want another dog.  When we got Mali we had 2 kids and I was a stay at home mom.  Now we have 5 kids all involved in extracurricular activities, and I work full time.  It just didn't make sense to me. 

Doc and I spent time going out and seeing Lila, and Gina and Sean and Declan.  Doc so badly wanted to be a part of the puppies being born.  About 10:30pm one Monday night (Dec, 20) Gina called saying that she was sure teh puppies were coming.  I woke Doc up and together, he and I went out to Gina's farm to watch.  It was awesome!  The boys did such a great job of being quiet and respectful to Lila.  We all kept our distance and just watched. Lila had 8 puppies, 4 males and 4 females.  All of the males were black and all of the females were brown. It was nice to share this special experience with Doc. 

Of course, then came the begging for a puppy.   After almost 3 weeks we could finally handle the new puppies.   

Ok, so I'm a big sucker for puppies and my kids.  We decided to take a female puppy.  Doc named her Zoey.  She's been home with us for 3 weeks now and she's 10 weeks old. 

Now for puppy training.....   I don't remember Mali being this exhausting...   It really is like having a new baby in the house! 



Girls day at the salon

Today Harmony and I went with her God Father Jack, (whom she calls Uncle Dawn) and her God-Sister Ketia to the inner city to have the girls hair done.  The salon we went to is owned and run by real African women.  In fact they don't speak more than about 10 words of English.  Jack has been to this particular salon before with Ketia so he knew the ropes.  This was Harmony and my first time.  I was a little nervous, as I didn't know what to expect, but as soon as we arrived I was quickly put at ease.  The braiders were beautiful African women who knew what they were doing.  Our braider was Matie pronounced ma tae.  Before she started she looked closely at Harmony's hair then came over to me and said that the girls have "much hair, $250 for both".  At first I hesitated then said, "I don't have that much with me".   Eventually I figured out that she meant $125 each not $250 each.  That's still expensive, but about what I expected it to be.  I said "good" and she got to work. 

Last night we took Harmony's previous style out and washed her hair.  Then we carefully combed through all of her hair and put about 6 large twists in just to keep it combed out until the next day.  This morning we got up early and met Jack and Ketia at their house.   When we took out the twists from the night before, we had this:

Then Matie combed out Harmony's hair into her full afro.  WOW, it's getting so long.  Her hair is very soft and has such a nice curl pattern.  She doesn't like it out like this, but I think it's adorable.



Here'e a picture of teh girls in the salon.  It's nothing fancy, just a small old storefront in a crowded downtown neighborhood. 

We arrived at 9:15 am and got started by 9:30am.  Here's where we were by 10:30, after 1 hour.

Harmony was doing pretty well the first hour.  That's Matie in the background.  She ws on her cell phone for most of our time there.  Of course she didn't speak much English, so it didn't really matter. 

One more hour later: 11:30am.  What Matie is doing, is pinching off small sections of Harmony's hair then adding some synthetic hair to it.  Then she starts by very tightly braiding the synthetic hair into her natural hair.  After about half an inch of braiding she twists the hair tightly.  At this point I was getting a little worried about what the final product would look like since her twists were not very long.  Later she went back and fully twisted Harmony's hair all the way out. 

Hour 3: 12:30pm.  It's getting to be a long time of sitting and pulling at hair.  Harmony is getting hungry and of course all I brought with my was gum.  Next time I'll bring snacks.  So, by the end of the 3rd hour this is what she looked like.

 By this point all of the braiding was started at her head.  Now Matie was finishing out the twists.  This next picture is at the end of hour 4, 1:30pm.  Yes, there were tears, but she did a great job over all.

When this step was finished, taking only about 20 minutes, Matie carefully trimmed up the braids to remove and loose ends, then she curled the extra synthetic hair at the very ends with rollers:

When all the ends were rolled up Matie dipped the curlers into almost boiling water.  This made me a little nervous, since Harmony can be quite wiggly, but she sat very still and we did not have any injuries, thank goodness.

When the ends of Harmony's hair had cooled and dried for alittle while, Matie took the curlers out and whaa.. laaa:

By 2:30 we were done and on our way to McDonalds.  It took a long time, was quite expensive, made my baby girl cry at times, but in the end she's happy and says that it was worth it.  Here is a picture of Harmony and her God sister Ketia on our way to McDonalds.  What beauties! 

A Photo Timeline

Lets take a look at some of what we've been doing since God brought us all together last February 5th:

This was the first time we actually saw our beautiful daughter.  It's the closest thing to a baby picture we'll ever have for her.  We fell in love with her instantly! 

We had visits every weekend until she moved in as a foster child on April 17th. 

Then the real fun began.!

This is only the beginning!  I can't wait to see what happens next! 

Finally a Family Adoption Day

On December 19th 2011, we finallized our adoption.  Now I can post pictures.  Here's a few from that amazing day. 

Then on New Years Day (2012) we baptized her.

We are all so very blessed!