Cookie Ingredients

We recently spent the weekend making cookies for our local friends, family and teachers. I have posted the ingredients for each cookie for food allergy information. The ingredients are not listed in the order of amount like regular listings.  Merry Christmas!!

Spritz Cookies:
butter, sugar, baking poweder, egg, vanilla, almond extract, flour

Peanut Butter Blossoms:
shortening, peanut butter, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, egg, milk, vanilla, flour

Ginger Snaps:
flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, ground cloves, salt, shortening, sugar, eggs, molasses, sugar

Peppermint Meringues:
egg whites, cream of tartar, salt, sugar, candy cane, red food coloring

Orange-Chocolate Rounds:
butter, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, vanilla, flour, shredded orange peel, unsweetened chocolate

Snickerdoodle Pinwheels:
sugar, cinnamon, butter, cream cheese, baking powder, egg, vanilla, flour

Coffee Crisps:
instant coffee, butter, sugar, salt, eggs, flour, powdered sugar, whipping cream

Pecan Balls:
butter, sugar, salt, vanilla, flour, pecans

We finally moved!

Mt. Tabor Park

 I am in heaven here! I love the trees and the weather for sure, but overall life is very good in our new place. The kids started school last week and it seems to be going okay. The little ones have adapted pretty well and are starting to make some friends. It is a little tougher for Lance because 10th grade is not a fun time to move. I have to say that he has had the best attitude and keeps trying every day. We really hope the light at the end of his tunnel comes soon. He misses his friends and hasn't found the "geeks" here yet, if you are to ask him about school. He does have orchestra as a class and is going to try out to play first violin on Friday. I think that is where he is going to find his friends. I included pictures from my favorite place on earth...the rose garden. I could go there every day and just sit in the flowers. One of the best parts of moving has been that we are close to Ryan's family. His mom drives over to visit and we got to go to her house for her birthday party. We get to see his cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents often also. Now all we need is some visitors from home to share our new place with and everything will be perfect (that is an invitation for you all!)

First day of elementary school

First day of 10th grade

At the rose garden

Grandma's birthday party

Our move

It is official we are moving July 6th to Portland, OR. We are all excited about the move for different reasons. Lance is looking forward to some of the new things offered at the high school we have picked out, but hates leaving all of his friends. Liam is excited about all the outdoor fun to be had, he just doesn't know he is excited yet:) And Shella May is so excited that Portland is a big bike city (plus she just cares that she is with mom and dad always). We are all sad to leave our friends,but we will stay in touch through Facebook and we will come back to MN to visit. I am excited to live by so many of our Pacific Northwest friends. To those friends and family that live in MN we would love to put a date on our calendar to see you before we leave.

Doctors and Dentists and Specialists, oh my

What a fun week last week was. On Monday we took Shella May into the dentist to have 3 baby teeth pulled (they pulled a lot of money from our wallet also). She has some strange things going on with her adult teeth, so the orthodontist is hoping pulling the baby teeth will help the new ones guide in better. So she had a dentist day, the poor girl was sore all day. Now we are off to orthodontist appointments for the next 3 Wednesdays of our life, and that is just the start of things. I know you can't see her missing teeth in this picture, but I wanted to post a pic from her salon day. I took Shella May and her cousin to a local beauty school for her cousin's birthday present. They both got updo's, make-up and their nails done.Then Liam decided to add to the fun. On Thursday he fell off the monkey bars at school during gym class. He landed smack on his back and had the wind knocked out of him. They called me to come to the school and get him. I took him to urgent care and all was good except he broke his wrist. He was in awful shape and complaining about his back, so the broken wrist was really a relief. And this time he broke his right arm, which is great since he is left handed. It does mean the end to his gymnastics season and violin for a while. He got his hard cast on today and they think he will only have to wear it for 3 weeks. He is really trying to make friends with the orthopedic doctors by our house by going frequently. He got a red cast to match his uniform shirt.

Summer flew by...so here it is in review

Lance starts school in a week and I go back to work. The littles already started school in the beginning of August, but we have still been taking weekend trips. I meant to post different things about all of our little trips, but once again didn't find the time. Therefore you get the picture menagerie which is so much more fun.

Top picture: Japanese camp, getting ready to dance for the parents. Bottom picture: Lance with one of his sensei at Japanese camp.

We rented a nice cabin up north for a weekend. The kids never left the beach.

At the rented cabin. The boys trying out the kayaks.

The kids went camping with my aunt and her family one weekend.

The boys played violin at our family friend's wedding.

A family weekend up north with all of my siblings and their families.

Family weekend with the cousins.

Family weekend on the boat.

Grandma and Grandpa brought cousin TJ with them when they came from OR. We went to a baseball game as one of the many things we did when they were here.

Birth Parents

Wow, we had some tough questions last night. This post is a little more personal, but I think it is an important part of the adoption process, so I would like to share it. Our daughter has been home for almost 2 years now, she is 8 and a half years old. Since she came home, we have tried to talk about the Philippines and life before us, but she never wanted to talk about that stuff. In the past 6 months she has slowly started bringing up memories of living in the Children's Home, she talks about favorite foods and things they used to do for fun, very superficial.

Well, something struck her yesterday to start asking more questions. I don't know if it was something she watched on tv or what got her thinking. I found out after my conversation with her that she had been asking her brothers questions about being related to people and what the wait for her to come home was like, earlier in the afternoon.

I got home from work at 9pm and she was still awake, a lot of times she is already sleeping when I get home. I kissed her good night and she told me that she missed me while I was at work. Then she asked me if she has any brothers or sisters. I answered with of course, the two in the other room. She corrected me, ones in the Philippines.

This conversation is a memory, so parts are missing I'm sure. These are the highlights or the gist of the conversation.

Me: I don't know if you had any because your birth mom was very young when she had you and she may have had other children after you were born.
SM:How old was my mom?
Me: She was only 16 or 17 years old when she had you. It is a lot of work to take care of a baby when you are that young and have no money. She didn't have anyone to help her take care of you.
SM: Why did my mom get married so young?
Me: Well, you don't have to get married to have a baby. That is a conversation for another day.
SM: Tell me, tell me. I want to know.
Me: We can talk about that tomorrow.
SM: Daddy said that I was brought to the Children's Home when I was 6 months old.
Me: Yes, your birth mom tried to take care of you for 6 months and then decided she couldn't do everything she wanted for you. She was probably afraid that she couldn't even give you food or a house or anything else you needed. She brought you to Miss Debbie so that you would have everything you need. I'm sure that was really hard for her to do.
SM: I'm proud of my mom.
Me: We are happy that she was looking out for you also. That would be very hard to do and I'm sure it made her sad also.
SM: How old is my mom now? Where is she?
Me: She would be about 25 years old and we guess she still lives in the Philippines. We can look for her when you are over 18. Until then, we can talk about her and we can talk to adults we know that looked for their birth moms. She may be hard to find because we don't know much about her except her name. We don't know anything about your birth dad, so he would be even harder to find. We can look after you are 18.
SM: What is her name?
Me: C....
SM: Okay. Don't forget we're going to talk about how babies are made tomorrow.
Me: Oh no, I won't forget.

I'm hoping she forgets to ask how babies are made today. I don't know if I am ready for that conversation after last nights. There was more to the conversation because we talked about our wait for her. She told me that the aunties took good care of her and always made sure she was safe. We shouldn't have worried so much during those 6 months. I hope the conversation went the right way. It is such a scary thing because I could mess her up with a few misplaced words. I told Ryan all about the conversation so he would know what I said. He told me about the boys' conversation with her earlier in the evening. The main message we want to give her is that we all love her and we are so happy that she is our daughter/sister.

Colorado Trip

We drove up to the top of Mt. Evans. It was a scary drive, but worth it. It was cold and hard to breath also.

Above:Liam looking over the edge of the top of Mt. Evans.
Below: Liam at the lake that was half way up the mountain. It was strange to see a lake on the way up, so we had to stop.

This is a hike we took to a really cool (both temp and fun) waterfall in a cave. It was hard to get to the actual fall. I finally gave up the climbing and just walked in the freezing cold water. I did regret the wet shoes later.

The Great Sand Dunes. Hundreds of feet of fun. It was like a huge sand box. We had so much fun at night. In the day it was way to hot to play in.

We had a week this summer that no one had school and I didn't have to work. So Ryan took the week off and we drove to Colorado. We had never been before. It was a wonderful trip with so much to see and do. We were trying to live on the cheap side, so we didn't do everything, but we had a good time. This is the second part of our trip. The other pictures are on our lap top and I'll post them later. Thanks for looking at our trip.

Gymnastics

A year ago I tried to convince Shella May that we should sign her up for gymnastics. She has a good build for being a gymnast, she is thin, flexible and strong. We were also told from the International Adoption dr. that we saw that she need to build up her core, because she was very weak in her ab area. We talked about it for a few weeks, then I finally took her to the gymnastics place the boys went to. Once she watched and saw what they were learning she was ready to sign up. She did summer session with Liam and she loved it. We have now been going for a year off and on. We can sign up for every session because it gets a little on the costly side. We took winter off and she came back to spring session full force. In fact, they just did the testing for this session and Shella May gets to move up to advanced beginners next session. Not only does she enjoy it (we go to the most wonderful gymnastics place, where they are very professional with teams, but they don't push the kids) but it helps her self esteem when she masters something new. I wouldn't go buying tickets to any future Olympics in hopes of seeing my kids, but they are having fun. They have a meet at the end of every spring session, I'll keep you updated on how they do.
The reason I posted about the gymnastics was not just to brag about my special kids, although they are great. Now when we suggest something new to Shella May she thinks about it and considers it for a bit. She doesn't just flat out refuse it because she is afraid of failure or what ever used to go through her mind. She starts track tonight, something she knows nothing about. She wanted to do a spring sport, but didn't want to do soccer with her brother. She asked what other sports there are in the spring and thought that track sounded the best. We have also been asking her what instrument she would like to play because we think the kids so be well rounded in many areas. She announced last month that she would like to learn guitar. She is growing in one of the best ways possible, confidence in herself.

Prayers for Japan

It is always so sad to hear about a tragedy, either nature and man-made, but this one hit closer to home. We lived in Misawa for the first two years of our marriage and Lance was born there. We don't know anyone that is currently stationed there, but it still feels like home. Our prayers are for all of the people in Japan during this painful time. We hope that recovery efforts go well and that their lives can go back to "normal" again soon, never forgetting all those that lost theirs.

Empty Nest Syndrome Already

Right now Lance is on a class trip to Chicago. He has been away from home before, but always to a "self-contained" location. It was hard to let him go to the "big city" even though the chaperons are wonderful and totally trustworthy. He of course had no problem leaving us, and quite frankly we want it that way. We want our children to be able to go out into the big world with self confidence and know that we will always be here for them when they return. I think it makes it worse that I start thinking ahead of when they will leave for college some day. The next 4 years are going to fly by, and I have the feeling my kids will want to stretch and go to far away schools. I guess it is good because it makes me appreciate today, but it is still hard to have one out of my reach. The biggest lesson I have learned from Lance's absence this week is that I need to teach that boy how to use the phone. When I talk to him at night to get a report of the day, all I get is me asking questions and him grunting back. If these children want to move far from Mom they need to be able to supply me with information and love through the phone. I guess if that is the only thing that I'm worried about right now they are going to be okay.

Language acquisition

I'm still working on that new 2011 picture, I just can't get it to be the correct size.

Shella May has been home now 18 months and it has been great to watch her grow in many ways, but watching her language skills grow has been very interesting. When she first came home she wouldn't talk at all. We don't know what she understood those first few months, there was a lot of sign language going on. She has been a classic case from a linguistic stand point, but I think her speed has been above average. The best part now is how she is so aware of what she still needs to learn. It may be the English teacher in me, but I find this really fun. Her vocabulary is getting better and more importantly she asks questions now. No more "yes" just to answer and please someone. The three things we are working on right now are; the pronouns "he and she", past tense irregular verbs and her favorite- sarcasm. She often makes mistakes when using he or she and her brothers take full advantage to tease her, luckily she laughs with them. She knows the rules, but when she gets going fast she slips any old pronoun in. She also knows the rules of simple past tense, but she is still learning all of the exceptions to "ed", but I run into native speakers that are still having trouble also,haha. I just gently correct her on that one. Her last area is the cutest. She is really interested in defining sarcasm. She will often ask us if something is sarcastic and gets so excited when she is correct. She has the basics down, but the more advanced cases (Ryan) still get her mixed up. Overall we are so happy with all that she has learned. She is reading at a second grade level now and actually comprehends well. I will be sad the day she perfects everything and loses her cute little accent.

I just want to share my favorite language story. For the longest time she would call toilet paper, paper toilet. I often heard her and corrected her, but it was her brothers' gentle teasing that got her to say it correctly. The first time they heard her say it they both busted up laughing and made jokes out of it. Of course she has a great sense of humor and jumped right in. They were describing what it would be like to sit on a paper toilet in full detail. I think that funny image stayed with Shella May and helped her correct that one.

Wow, she wrote!

I've decided that I want to make my blog a part of my life again. I got lost in all of the stuff that needs to be done, and haven't written regularly since we got home with Shella May. I will try to be a better blogger and bore you with the day to day happenings of my little family. I always like to read about other people's adoption stories, or just life stories for the most part. It seems like there is nothing to write about when life is going smoothly, but I would like to be an advocate for adoption and this is a great way to do it. So here goes my new commitment to blogging, again. I even updated the picture to one taken in January.

Great mini vacation

I know this is a few months old, but it was such a great trip I wanted to share it. I decided about a week before the 4th of July that I wanted to get out of town for a small town celebration. I decided that it would be fun to go to Southern MN and it turned out to be a great time. I was lucky to find a great deal on a really nice little "suite" in a town close to our destination 4th of July small town.
We drove down on a Sat. and had great weather. We stopped and had lunch at a state park since we couldn't check in until later that afternoon. (Picture: Kids looking at the river after eating lunch) After lunch we drove around the beautiful countryside (note: kids were pretty bored with this, but good sports because this trip was my birthday gift). We were in Amish country and we were looking for some Amish farms to visit. We checked into our great "suite", two bedrooms, full kitchen, living room for a great price. We decided to go find a goat farm that was advertised. They had a neat shop and goats the kids could pet. Of course I wanted to buy everything because it was all handmade. It is really rude to take pictures of the Amish, they don't believe in pictures, but they had a buggy display outside the visitor center (don't worry it didn't belong to anyone, just a display) that the kids posed in front of. After the goat store we drove around more looking for Amish farms. They have tours that you can take, but I was too cheap to pay for them. Then we saw a buggy going down the highway and I told Ryan to follow that buggy. He drove right past a farm that was selling goods. We stopped in and bought a basket, jam and cashew crunch. The kids had never been to an Amish farm, and watched the children there with interest. We had a nice chat with the woman that lived there about the weather and were on our way. Then we started just following horse poop and found another farm. The next farm we found we bought some gifts and the woman there was super nice. She asked if we had an audio tour, and we told her how we found her farm. She was so nice she drew us a map of the farms in the area. She also told us to go to a bakery just out of town that is great. The little girl that lived on that farm kept getting scolded by her mom in German for staring so much at our kids, she especially liked the way Shella May looked. We quickly drove to the bakery because it was going to close soon. We all got some great treats there and everyone was happy with our farm searching at that point.
We went back to our hotel, had some dinner and played card games. The next morning was the Fourth, so we went to town for the festivities. It was lightly raining, but it didn't spoil the fun. We ate some food, played some mini golf and got ready to watch the parade. It started really pouring rain when the parade started, but it still went on. It was Shella May's first parade and she thought it was great that people were throwing candy at her despite the rain. The parade was a lot of fun and just long enough. That night they had great fireworks in town. I couldn't believe how long the show went for such a small town. It was a long day, but we all had a great day despite the rain.
The next day we were taking off to go home. The kids (mostly Liam) had asked if we could go to a local cave. It was a little pricey for 5 people, but they had been such great sports all weekend that we decided to go before we left the area.
We got to the cave and it was a fun tour. It was a different kind of structure than the other caves we had been in. It was really long and narrow. It was Shella May's first time in a cave and she didn't like that it was cold. It was really interesting and we had a fun time. There is another cave down there and we will try to go to that one next time we go down for a visit. What a fun, inexpensive family trip we had.

Finalization!!

I finally got some pictures from our court finalization. My friend was wonderful and came to take pictures of our special day, but we both have been so busy it took a while to connect to get them. Thanks Ann!

There isn't much to say about the entire process. We sent a bunch of paperwork in and then we called for the court date. We planned it for when Grandma would be visiting from OR. We got to the court house early because we didn't know what traffic would be like. Since we were the first family to sign on, we got to see the judge first. It was so great to not have to wait all day. We went into the courtroom and met the judge. He went through all of our paperwork and asked us several questions for court record's sake. He was really a funny judge and made jokes a few times.

At the end we got to take pictures with the judge and the boys even got to sit on his bench. Shella May didn't want to go up.

So now I proudly introduce our little girl: Shella May Marie!!