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! 

Fall Fun

Yesterday was our official 6 month anniversary of having H live with us.  We were required to have her live with us for 6 months before the courts would allow us to adopt her.  We're ready to adopt, and so is she.  H is always asking when she'll be adopted, but we cannot tell her a date yet.  The last we've heard, the court still has not finished up the appeal process started 9 months ago by H's birth mother's attorney.  Our SW comes tomorrow evening for her monthly visit.  Hopefully she'll have good news for us on this front. 

We have had a very busy beginning of school.  H has been doing very well in school.  She is such a smart girl!  I love her little brain!  When we talk to her about something new to her I can see in her face how she's really thinking about what we've said. Academically she has no issues, other than racing through her work ocassionally.  She struggles a little more with social skills and appropriate behaviors such as using an inside voice, treating others with respect, and following directions.  H's teacher gives H a conduct grade each day for school.  Every evening we check her conduct grade together and talk about how her day went.  I think this has been a tremendous help.  Each week we set a goal for H's conduct grades.  For instance if she earns 2 S+ or E (excellent) in one week she earns an outing.  If she earns 3 S+ or E's, she earns the outing and gets to bring a friend along with for the outing.  This has also been a great motivator for her to improve her social skills. 

So much of life that we take for granted is all new for her.  When H first came to us she had never ridden a bike, she had never built a snow man, never jumped in a leaf pile.  She's never been Trick-or-Treating.  When we first brought her to our home from the city, she would get very excited, point out the window and yell, MOMMY, MOMMY, LOOK AT THAT ANIMAL!  We'd be passing a farm with cows.  I'd tell her, that's a cow.  Another time we passed a horse farm.  She pointed out the window and yelled, MOMMY, MOMMY LOOK AT THAT COW!  I explained to her the difference between a cow and a horse.  A couple of weekends ago my Dad took all of the grandkids, and parents to an Indian Summer celebration.  There were horses there we could pet and even ride on.  I've never seen H's eyes so big as she took in this massive horse, up close and personal.  At first she was quite afraid to get close, but by the end of our day she actually got to ride one of the horses.  It was great!

Today I took off of work to go along on a field trip with H to a pumpkin patch/farm.  It was awesome!   H got to ride a pony, catch and hold a chicken, pet a hedgehog, rabbit, and a guinea pig.  We went for a hay ride through the woods and a corn field.  We ate lunch in a barn and even picked out a cute little pumpkin to bring home.  H did great as well.  She stayed with her class, listened to the rules, and treated all of her friends nicely.  She's come so far, I'm so proud of her and all of her growth.   

Through all of this process, I have to say again that we are surrounded by amazing friends and family who love and support us.  Everyone has accepted H and our situation with open hearts.  From the kids in her class to our parents and grandparents, we are all truely blessed!