Autumn Moon Festival

Picking Pumpkins With Panache!

Letter to Rebecca


Our local FCC (Families With Children From China) organization hosted an autumn moon festival this past weekend. The last few years they have had it out at a farm in our county and it's just a beautiful, scenic area. Have I mentioned yet how much we love Kentucky? :-)

It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with other adoptive families and to have some down time to just let the kids run and play. There was a petting zoo, hay ride, pumpking picking and hay bales to play on. What more could you ask for!

One special part of the evening is where the children write notes (or have parents write notes) to their birth families in China and those notes are attached to red balloons and released. This year Emma opted to send a note to Rebecca instead of to her birth family. Brian helped her with the note & she had him write:

"Dear Rebecca -

I hope you will join our family soon.
I like my family.
We can get a swing and play together"

Speaking My Love Language

Brian & I took a class based on the book “The Five Love Languages of Children” a couple of years ago at our church. Part of the class included learning what your own love language is as well as the love language of your spouse. Basically, it helps you understand those things in life that make you feel the most loved. The categories (as I remember them) are:

 Words of Affirmation
 Quality Time
 Receiving Gifts
 Acts of Service
 Physical Touch

I was really surprised at what my primary love languages were because had I been asked to choose, I probably would have picked something else. But after taking the quiz and thinking about the results, I knew the outcome of my quiz was right. My love languages are ‘Acts of Service’ and ‘Quality Time’. Which makes a lot of sense because I absolutely love it when people do things for me and the time I most treasure is time spent with my family and with friends. And acts of service that I treasure are not necessarily the big things in life either. What some may consider inconsequential can absolutely make my day.

As an example, I came home the other night and in the foyer was a wide array of things to step over: baseball bag, cleats, dirty socks, two back packs, roller blades and seemingly more. You can see our kitchen table from the doorway and it was covered with newspaper, mail and all kinds of things that Brian had brought in from cleaning the van the night before. My heart just sank and my mood went south. I didn’t say anything though because I’m so thankful that Ryan loves playing baseball & rollerblading and I was more than thankful that Brian had cleaned out the van because it had been a mess. I ventured into the kitchen and it was a mess too, but thankfully Brian had dinner ready and waiting for us. Again, I didn’t say a fussy word at all.

We had our dinner and I ventured upstairs to change clothes only to discover that Brian had been working on the upstairs and had done some of the household chores that I severely dislike. My eyes welled up with thanksgiving. I could have kissed his feet, but he had left for church. I promise, the man couldn’t have bought me 12 dozen roses and made me any happier. A diamond ring pales in comparison to coming home to a sparkly clean bathroom and bedroom.

Emma likes to say “Thank you Jesus for friends”. Well, I was saying a big “Thank you Jesus for my wonderful husband” that night!

Big Changes for Big Mac!

Have you heard the late breaking news?

Big Mac has a new running partner! Move over Sarah, little M is stepping in!

Simpsonville Fall Festival

Miz Divine wanted to be in the beauty pageant at the fall festival in our small community. She didn't win :-( Of course I thought she was the cutest one up there but unfortunately my opinion doesn't matter. haha.

The main concern for her for the day was getting to play on the bouncy things, riding the ponies and visiting the booths. The winners of each category in the pageant were invited to ride in the parade, but Emma having the connections that she does, was invited to ride in another car anyway. To make it even better, it was her favorite - a YELLOW MUSTANG! There's just something about yellow mustangs that my baby girl loves! That beats a silly ol' princess crown any day :-)

It tickles the daylights out of us that there are so many people in our little community who love Emma. It seems like every time you turn around, someone is holding her or playing with her. I think I have mentioned before that one of the questions we were asked during the homestudy process was if our community would be accepting. The answer to that is a resounding YES. She's one loved little dumpling! Thank you friends and neighbors for being so sweet to our baby girl!

Running Ryan ...

We get such a kick out of Ryan, I swear that child wants to do everything. He plays two seasons of baseball each year and then there is basketball. He recently signed up for band at school and is now toting around a saxophone. Last year he ran in our little town's fall festival and so of course he just had to do it again this year. We teased him on Saturday and told him he had his own little "iron-man" thing going on because he had a really long baseball practice on Friday night, up early for the race on Saturday and then had a baseball game right after the race. He was one stinky-sweaty boy!

He came in fourth in his age division for the 5k and beat his time from last year.

Surely this doesn't mean we're starting a new hobby ... :-) But it would be okay I guess if he does!

Family Tree

One of the activities that Emma's class worked on last week was this family tree. There wasn't any notification sent home saying this was a project, so we weren't asked to provide family names or anything like that. You can only imagine how tickled I was that not only did Emma make a place for her two older half-brothers Jesse & Cliff, but she also included Rebecca!

Makes a mom go "ahhhh"

Overwhelmed With Household Chores

Okay friends - I need some input. How do you handle household chores in your house? I'm just overwhelmed these days with a messy house and have yet to find a system that works. Ryan & Emma both get an allowance each week and part of the deal is that there are certain chores they are supposed to do. There are a few problems with this.

1. We're gone so darn much that it's hard to ask them to do chores when we get home when really they need to just take their baths and go to bed.

2. They get their allowance regardless of whether the chores are done or not. Meaning, the amount of money or actually getting the money is not really tied to the work. Which is fine with me because I want them to be cognizant of the idea that we all need to work together and that that is just part of being a family.

3. They will do things when I ask, but surely I'm not the only person in the house who realizes the trash can is full. This one drives me CRAZIEST of all.

So - any ideas? I read something the other day about kids having a chart where cards are posted on their chores and if they complete all the chores on their sheet then they get a 'mom buck'. At the end of the week they can redeem their mom bucks at a 'chore store'.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeandgarden/2008/08/choreganizers-motivation-for-helping-around-the-house/

It sounds good in theory but the two problems I see with this is:

1. We don't need more "stuff" in our house.
2. This sounds like more work for me!

Opinions, ideas, suggestions?
Valium? (just kidding on that one).

An overwhelmed Carolin ... counting the # of remaining ball games in the season ...