God's Heart:: Adoption

Here is the latest video slideshow I have done



Steve

Doesn't this Pumkin Roll look fantastic?

Well, It was!

Our friends Dominic and Tiffany Moro have spent the last several months preparing to welcome a little girl from Korea into their home. As so many of you will remember, the process of international adoption is exhausting, emotional, and expensive!

Tiffany started selling cakes as a fundraiser and I ordered one (a pumpkin roll) for our Sunday School Class just recently. MMMmmmmm......! It was such a delicious treat! Thank you, Tiffany!

They have also had a yard sale that netted, unbelievably, almost $2,000.00! God is providing for them on their step of faith!

Surprisingly, they have just received the referral photo and information of and about their little girl! This is way sooner than expected! Dominic and Tiffany are expecting that little Isabella will be joining their family in January or February of next year!

If you feel like helping them financially is something you can do, please consider contacting this precious family. No matter what, please pray for them on this, their endeavor to God's love for us in giving this sweet little baby a home to grow up in. What a blessed little girl Isabella is. And what blessings await the Moro family!

The Moro family has a website and a blog. Their main page is:
www.faithfullyadopting.com

They have the picture of their little girl on the site.

Winter Hosting

We are coordinating a local Knoxville hosting program of Ukrainian orphans from the Kharkov region. We will be posting more details over the next few days but if you may be interested in hosting this Christmas please post a comment with your contact info.

A follow up to the How-We-Do-It posts from a while back...

(I don't remember posting this picture when I took it.
If I did, then you can enjoy this unrelated to the post content photo
of the boys and their daddy again.)

At our family reunion the other day, some of us girls were talking. I don't remember how it came up but I found myself saying that in some ways six kids is easier for me than three. (I think we were talking about the Duggars) That sounds unbelievable and, surely is a matter of my own perspective so let me explain:

Before the six, there were three. Three girls who would happily sit and play Barbies, My Little Ponies, or read books and color. It was quieter. The mess wasn't a lot different, however.

Some things are different. The noise level. Boys, it turns out, make a lot of noise. Dents in the walls appeared thanks to flying space men, or cars, or even Barbies-- but always flying out of the hands of boys. ha, ha!

The noise is one of those things that becomes normal to me after a time. I don't allow excessive amounts inside (that's what the great outdoors are for) but I try to keep it real. There will be noise. There will be dents. There will be mess. Spackle is my friend.

Now, what to do about it? That is my job: I am a manager. The managing is different for me than being managed by the mess, which is what I was before. This is not to say my house is not messy, just that I had to implement a system which would work for us and keep our "situation" under control.

I often see things and tidy them up. But there are times that we just don't worry about it. Instead of the work never being done, we have clear cut lists for each child per day and everyone understands that we are a team. There is a sense of accomplishment when a daily list has been completed and there is benefit to working quickly. (Unlike a we-all-work-till-it's-done system)
I also have the peace of mind that, once a day, for a few minutes, the house will all be tidy (sans bedrooms).

This clean-up and maintenance time is my down time. It happens right after breakfast and before school so that I can come down to the computer with my coffee and relax after the morning "rush". The kids understand this and I made sure early on that they understood that I have my jobs and they have theirs but that mine happen at different times of the day. No one wants my job and that is fine with me! :-)

This is getting long so perhaps I will elaborate in a Part 2. But just wanted to say that I am, by nature, a messy, disorganized sort. Haha! Six kids has, remarkably, forced me into being a better, more organized me. (Notice that I did not label myself simply as "Organized"!) And, for the most part, a happier me. We all--one child or two children or, in my case six children--we all go to bed wiped out sometimes. Wiped out is wiped out; it doesn't really matter too much how many kids did the wiping! But I get to enjoy six times the hugs, six times the laughs, six times the funny things that come out of their mouths! It is a good life. And worth it all.

Questions? Comments?

Smart.

My silly boy is at it again. Oh, the things that come out of his mouth.... LOL!

Today the little kids were doing their morning jobs. Ivy had brought out two bathroom garbage cans to empty into the big kitchen bag. On her way back to the bathroom with one can she turned around and thought to take both cans at once, saving a trip.

"You are so smart, Ivy!" I complimented. "That is a good idea to take both cans at once!"

"I am smarter than her." Vitali reminded me.

"Oh?"

"Yes. Her don't know 1+1 is 3!" Was his boasting reply.

"But 1+1 isn't three," I countered.

"Oh, well then, 2+2 is!? "

"Ummm....no."

Silly boy!

Memory Prodigy, or not...

Look who beat Daddy at Memory. Again! We were so astounded at Vitali's sudden proficiency at the game until he started narrating his moves: "Hmmm, The giraffe has a black scratch on the back, the snail is light colored, the dog has two bumps, the ox has a polka dot, the bird..."
Yup, the Memory game that we have is wooden. We love it, the pieces are nice and never get dog-eared. It was a gift from Aunt Lynn years ago. It wasn't until these past couple of weeks that someone (Vitali) cracked the wood grain code. I guess it does require memory usage, but still...

Family picture and a couple others...

All of us!
(Believe it or not, this is the first of only three tries! haha!
Once in a lifetime experience, everyone looking in the first shot!)

Max, holding a very tiny Ivy and Vitali

Silly Vitali and Daddy

Misha and Papa