A Few More Pictures of Summer...

Hanging out with cousins is always fun.

Amidst all the summer mayhem, we've had some great family visits, too.

Summer Review

In random order, here are some of the things we've been up to lately...

4H Projects and the 4H Fair. The boys appear really interested in cake decorating, huh? They actually sat there for an hour and watched her every move. Much to their disappointment, the cake itself is a fake.

A visit from one of our favorite priests (after Uncle/Father Earl, of course), Fr. Joseph Mary.

Another 4h project. Aren't these fruit kabobs gorgeous? She did all the cutting and everything all by herself. The boys each made models, which, of course, I haven't photographed yet. They're not quite old enough to be judged yet, but each received a participation ribbon for his hard work.

Oh yes, and one minor detail, we sold our house and moved. We snapped this shot on our way out as a family for the last time. *sniff*sniff*

Construction Progress

Well, we gave up on locating the connector cable that hooks our camera to the computer. My resourceful husband made a shopping trip and found a different thing that hooks just the memory card to the USB port, so we're back in business with pictures!!! Above you'll see the front porch of our new house!! This was actually from a couple weeks ago. Now there's a roof on top! Very exciting. If you look closely, you can see that the porch is level with the frontdoor. Therefore, there will be no need to step up into the house. All the doors leading out are this way. For a little guy in a wheelchair, this will mean a whole lot more freedom and independence. We're doing some other fun things, too, like an elevator.

No Time for Blogging

3 baseball games
2 therapy appointments
4 days of Ballet Camp
1 'Kids Marathon' training session
1 meeting to choose flooring for new house
5 4H Projects and 1 project judging session
2 Piano Lessons
2 kids with minor illnesses

This better be the busiest week we have this summer. I'm ready to kick up my feet and read a good book!!

Bonding

All the kids were acting like maniacs at dinner tonight. Their dad was at work. I lost my temper. Generally, I would not consider this a good thing. But, it appears that getting in some trouble as a group has had a bonding effect. Probably not a good enough justification to repeat my 'psycho mommy' routine, however...

Independence Day Medley

Happy 4th of July!! Happy Birthday, America! What a great country we live in.

Where else can a little boy with physical disabilities play on the same baseball team as his able-bodied sister? (We have the best, most relaxed league here in our city. The coaches and philosophy are outstanding.) Unfortunately, the cord that connects our camera to the computer is MIA, and I can't post pictures... I'm sure it's packed in a box somewhere... But, here's the story. After observing our newly-Americanized child sitting attentively on the sidelines in his wheelchair, the coach came over and asked if he'd like to play, too. Outfitted in a new team shirt and hat, at the next game he was ready to go!! To say that he was excited about it could possibly be the understatement of the decade.

Also in the excitement, I forgot to bring all the equipment for the kids - batting helmets, gloves, water bottles, even Lucy's shoes were left at home. Fortunately, we only live 2 minutes away from the playing fields. Also fortunately, Grandma was at the game, too, so I didn't have to pack everyone back in the van when I realized my mistake.

The way it works is that the coaches are the same for all the teams. There is a staff of
patient, good-humored adults and college-age kids who rotate around. In one game, the coaches are the same for both teams. Everybody uses the same dugout. When your team is in the field, everybody is playing. In fact, that's the motto of the organization: "everybody plays." So, for Ignace, one coach helped him when he was in the field (especially important because he has zero experience catching a ball with a mitt. We have tried, but eye-hand coordination is a little behind and it is really tough for him. He is more than willing to practice all day long, though. :)) When he bats and 'runs' the bases, a coach helps him a little bit, although he is quite capable of pushing himself down the baseline. Quite frankly, I'm just a little nervous that he'll run somebody over, so it's good that the coach is helping.

The icing on the cake was that it was a really fun game. At the end of the last inning, it was tied 15-15 (not a lot of great fielding action happening yet). So, and I've never witnessed this before in this league, it went into extra innings. The extra innings were one out only. In the first extra inning, the other team had 2 runners on base and Lucy (miraculously) caught a fly ball to stop their momentum. She admittedly had her eyes closed ! LOL.

In the end, they lost 19-18, but I'm not sure more fun has ever been had in America's favorite pasttime.

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In other news, our new house is more than halfway framed up! It has been fun to walk through and see the rooms taking shape. We have been making one decision at a time as necessary, but I'm sure the pressure will soon be on to have a lot more detail figured out. It took me about 3 weeks to decide on brick for the outside!!! On the other hand, we picked out all the plumbing fixtures in one hour. If we can count it as a field trip every time we go over and observe the workers, I'll have all my necessary 'school days' covered!

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Finally, I'm thankful today for the freedom we have in this great country. I'm praying that it will not be taken for granted, that our government will work to preserve what our founding fathers established, and that life in all its phases will be valued. When we first began our adoption journey, I was nervous about parenting a special needs child. We certainly felt that we were being called by God to take this on, but I definitely had a nagging question in my mind, "why us?" I know that parents of biological children with special needs often feel the same way. But, I also had another thought pressing just as frequently: "why not us?" If I had a biological child with the same condition, I would accept and love that child just the same as the others. So, here we are in the thick of adjusting to this new person in our family. Is it easy all the time? No way. Would we trade away this little person who is now our son? No way. Honestly, his medical condition is the least of what we're dealing with!! For all mothers carrying life within them, I pray that they will carry their babies to term regardless of what condition may have been diagnosed prenatally.

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Well, if anyone out there is still reading this ridiculously long and boring post, I hope you have a blessed day!!! Happy Independence Day!!

10 Years

Tomorrow is the 10th Anniversary of our Wedding Day. What I wanted to post was a photographic trip down memory lane, a picture for each year of our marriage. But, since we were using old fashioned photo albums for the first few years, and since those albums are all packed up in boxes at the moment, I couldn't access what I wanted to scan. Oh well. Those old pictures are proof positive that we were 'nerds in love' anyway. We still are.

So, I've posted the above picture which is significant because it's one of the rare shots of Eustace and I together, and also because it's one of the last pictures we will have of the inside of our first house. We lived in 3 different apartments in 2 different cities for the first 5 years of our marriage. We then bought our first house, which we just officially sold last week. It was a bittersweet day - saying goodbye to a house and neighborhood we loved, but looking forward to end of the selling process and a new house which will be much better suited to our family's needs.

So, 10 years and 4 kids later, we're back to renting. This is a very nice house, and we are very comfortable here. I've learned that it doesn't really matter where we live as long as we're together.

Happy Anniversary, Eustace!!! Marrying you was the smartest thing I've ever done in my whole life. Hopefully in 6 months or so we will see the last of moving boxes and packaging tape until we're ready to buy into a retirement community (or hit the road in our RV). God bless you for putting up with me.