Moving' On Up!

Luke had ATA graduation tonight. He's now a purple belt. I know that means nothing to its people, but he's over half way to being a black belt! That represents a lot of hard work. We are so proud of him. He participated in his first tournament a couple weeks ago and now that he's moving higher in his belts, we will probably enter him in a few more tournaments. Here he is with Mr O'Conner. We LOVE Mr. O'Conner!

Super Bowl(ing) ???

Our day consisted of all kinds of bowling today. :) On our way home from church, Emma piped up from the back seat and said, "Momma, I don't want anyone to help me bowl." Pretty random comment, and all of a sudden I yelled, "Oh my gosh! Micah's party!"

We were invited a couple weeks ago to a Super Bowl party at some friends house. We've been planning on what to take and needing to go to the grocery store and I'd totally forgotten our friends' son's birthday party at the bowling alley. 

What threw me was Emma saying, "Micah's party??" She didn't know Micah's party was today and that we were going bowling. Which confused me with regards to the bowling comment. ??? 

The kids had a blast at the party and all of them asked to go bowling again. Love the blurry action shots! Ha! And Emma's form was amazing!!!

After the party, we ran to the grocery store to grab supplies for the Super Bowl Party we were invited to. We made our snacks and were on our way to the party. That's when Emma's bowling comment from earlier in the day made sense. I heard Luke say, "Emma, we're not going bowling again." And she very loudly and sternly said, "We are too, Luke! We are going to the Super Bowl party!" Hahahaha! Bless her heart. She had no frame of reference for a Super Bowl party! :) LOVE that girl!

Here are some highlights from the Super Bowl party...

Luke had the quote of the night. As Beyonce came on for the halftime show..."I don't get stuff like this." Ha! Bless his heart. So proud of him. 

Some friends of ours have adopted a sweet baby boy. His name is Parke Henry. He was born with several severe heart defects and wasn't expected to live but a few hours after birth. He is on day 24! Each day is a miracle and his Momma and Daddy (and the rest of us) are thankful for every day he has. You can read more about Parke on his Momma's blog here. Please be praying for sweet Parke and his family.

The girl's have prayed for Parke every. single. night. It has blessed this Momma's heart to see the love these girls have for this sweet boy they haven't been around much at all. They got to hold Parke for the first time tonight. So precious.

And the highlight of the night...

Lance's Mercy commercial was on during the Super Bowl! You should have heard up hoopin' and hollerin'! Haha!!!
 

Success!

The revamped chore chart is AMAZING!!! I think I have stumbled upon the right system for our family! It has worked this week like a dream.

I'm still doing some tweaking and probably will for a few more days. But overall, I think I was right on the money with dollar amounts, chores, and motivation. I was right in thinking that there would be a little competition factor in wanting to earn the most money each week. And just as I'm typing that, I just had an epiphany to encourage more chores getting done. Ha! I'm going to try giving a bonus to the child who earns the most money at the end of the week. Sweet! That will motivate my oldest into doing more. :)

This is the chore chart after 5 days...

You see who isn't so fired up about the chart. He doesn't seem to grasp the idea that the 25 cents and 50 cents adds up each week. Maybe the bonus will motivate him!

Here is my FOUR year old...

 
Tonight alone she earned $1.25! She did 4 different chores. It has been such a help to have the table cleared after meals, the dishwasher unloaded and loaded, the bathroom cleaned. It is worth every penny I am paying the kids!

 

Chore Chart

We have had a chore chart (multiple variances of chore charts) for a while now. It starts out great for a couple weeks. But then the kids get tired of it, I forget to pay them, they don't like the chores they are assigned, I have to nag them to do chores, etc., etc., etc.

I don't remember where I first saw my new approach, but I've seen it a few times online lately. I'm giving the kids control of the chores they do. I used our existing magnet board (that I painstakingly spent hours gridding out!) OK, not hours, but it took a long time. :)

I made up chores and gave them corresponding dollar amounts. I printed them out on magnet sheets, cut them out and stuck them on the laundry room door. 

Here's what it looks like...

Emma has already earned 75 cents, Sara 50 cents, and Hope $1.25!! Luke was busy doing a Scout project so he didn't have the opportunity to do any chores.

I think this is going to work so much better. If the kids want to earn money, they determine how much they earn! It's that simple. So much better than nagging them to do chores only to give them a "smiley face" that means nothing to them. 

They are in charge of their own destiny! And one thing I noticed tonight. It's going to instill a little friendly competition between the kids. Sara's mouth dropped when she saw Hope earned $1.25 tonight. They are going to be trying to beat each other to do the chores so they can get the money! Win for everyone!

A Walk in the Woods

What a great day! Lance has been wanting to get over to the Buffalo National River for a while, but fall came and went and we never had the time. Today was a great January weather day with highs in the upper 50's so we made plans to drive over this morning and spend the day.  He was on a mission. His grandfather's family homesteaded in Madison county and Lance knows from him all the stories of the families that lived there 100 years ago. He remembers his grandfather telling him of a moonshine spot and he wanted to hunt to find it. (He's been watching entirely too much "Moonshiners" on Discovery Channel! Ha!)

The kids spent the night with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Leah last night. (My brother and SIL) We picked them up mid morning and headed out on our adventure.

Thanks Aunt Leah and Uncle Jeremy!

We have reached another milestone as a family. This was the best hike we've ever taken the kids on. We hiked for about 4 miles. And did some bushwacking on the side! The big kids did amazing! There was no complaining. And little Emma was great. She was exhausted on the hike back, but she made it. She was a trooper.

The only negative was knowing that it's only January and we will have cold, bad weather for another few weeks. But we are praising the Lord for the great weather today!

Daddy giving a nature lesson

Taking a snack break

Me and my girls!

Cool tree that had been hit by lightning

We found the still site!

Hope found a heart rock

Love

Love. My. Family.

 

History of our Adoption

My friend Kelly at Kelly's Korner is having a blog link up on adoptions. I figured I'd be in trouble if I didn't link up, so I'm going to try to condense our adoption story into just a few paragraphs. That is going to be EXTREMELY hard to do! :)

We are in the process of adopting a little boy in Haiti. Why Haiti? Read about how we fell in love with the country of Haiti here. Haiti went from being a place of that we were vaguely aware of to a people and country that stole part of our hearts.

Lance and I talked about adoption before we ever got married. The benefit of dating for 3 years is getting to talk through all aspects of your life together. We truly had the expectation of God adding another child to whatever biological children He was going to give us in a situation resembling the movie "The Blind Side." We had a vision of our kids having a friend when they were teens that didn't have a family and needed one. You would think after following the Lord for 32 years, I would have learned not to ever think you know how God is going to work in your life!

So fast forward 8 years and 4 kids later, our thoughts of adoption got pushed to the backburner. And if I'm going to be completely honest, Lance didn't think it was going to happen at all. Our conversation after finding out I was pregnant with number 4 went something like this...Me: So what does this mean for us adopting? Lance: Um, that's not going to happen. Me: But Lance, you're calling can't change. Lance: Oh yes it can! (Hahaha! He was only half serious.)

But on that first trip Lance took to Haiti, things changed for us. On one of the days leading up to his departure, we were talking in the kitchen while he was organizing supplies. I looked at him and said, "What if our child is in Haiti?" He looked me in the eyes and answered, "I've already thought that." Now if that isn't God at work, I don't know what is. 

We both knew then, that were were going to have 5 children. And that number 5 was in Haiti. It has been such and emotional roller coaster since then, and God has taught me so much about trusting in His timing and His calling. At the time that we felt Him calling us to adopt from Haiti, we weren't even eligible to adopt from that country because we had too many biological children. It was almost 2 years before laws were changed allowing us to pursue adoption in Haiti. And it's been over a year since we started the process of compiling our dossier. Our dossier arrived in Haiti October 30, 2012 and we are now waiting for our referral. 

There have been so many times throughout this journey that God has confirmed His calling and our response. He has revealed Himself in supernatural ways, and given us such a peace that we are following His will. Our kids tell everyone that they have a brother in Haiti. (It is a boy and he is between the ages of 4 and 7.) And that's another way that God has revealed Himself to us and our family. Our kids are so excited about the adoption and there has never been anything negative said by any of them about growing our family with another child. There will definitely be an adjustment period, but there always is when you add another member to a family. Whether that be by birth or adoption.  

The waiting is hard. I'm not going to lie. I look everyday for that email saying we have a referral. It gets really hard to hear the questions week after week from friends and family asking how things are with the adoption. There's just not a lot to report. We have had some forward movement and are cautiously expecting our referral in the next few weeks. But we rest totally in the fact that God is in control. He determined our children before the foundation of the earth. And our son will come home in HIS timing. You can read about where we are in the adoption here.

In the meantime, he is in an AMAZING place. An orphanage in Haiti called God's Littlest Angels. He is being taken care of, provided for and most importantly, LOVED on!

100

The kids are coming up on their 100th day of school. In 1st grade they do "100" projects. They have to make something that has 100 things on it. There's no guidelines. It just has to have 100 things. Luke drew a chicken and added 100 real feathers when he was in first grade. Sara drew a huge flower and decorated the petals with 3D glitter hearts.

We went wild and crazy for Hope's project this year! Kinda like her. :) She told me me she wanted to use crayons. I bought some crayons and foam board today and had no idea what we were going to do until I got home and we started talking through it.

I remembered a Pinterest project I'd seen and wanted to do. I showed it to Hope and she loved it. We hot glued 100 crayons to the top of the foam board and then melted them with a hair dryer and made art!

It was fun. She could do it herself. And it turned out so cute!