Ordinary Time

God has plans for us all, if we choose to follow Him, and there are few families we've met who have been so faithful in following God's calling in their lives as this family . The "ChipIn" link above is a chance to help them buy a bank-owned house that will hold this amazing family. Now that seems like a pretty good investment to us.

Mine like to go garbage picking...riding their bikes up and down the alleys looking to see if anyone is getting rid of anything good. Our neighborhood is rather affluent, so the chances of finding something interesting are fairly high. Here is what A. and P. found and M. and B. dragged home: Everyone is very excited because they have been wanting a basketball hoop for a while. Our backyard, inexplicably, has a large cement pad at the back of it and it will be perfect for playing. (And, yes, M. asked the owners of the house where A. and P. found it before they dragged it off.) Good thing I picked up that 25 cent basketball at a rummage sale last year.

It's been raining here for the past two days, and while we need the rain, it would be nice if some children could go outside. It also doesn't help that I am in the middle of redoing schedules and chores to get ready for the new school year, because it means we're not really on any type of schedule at all. Earlier in the week, this was fine. D and TM spent a couple days playing imaginary games for hours on end, either outside or up in the 3rd floor playroom. They were so busy that I had to go check to make sure they were OK every now and then. But its hard to sustain that level of play for too many days in a row, and some boys have been at very loose ends. This is harder on TM than on D. I often call TM my Border Collie. Like a Border Collie, he is extremely bright and extremely energetic and if all that energy and intelligence is not harnessed in a productive way, well, let's just say it isn't pretty. When this happens, I often lose my patience (what little I posses...

I've been asked what I was reading while I was nursing babies and everyone else was down at the beach. I'm afraid by telling you, I will also be revealing exactly how compulsive I actually am. I tend to get interested in something and am not satisfied until I have either completely mastered it (the board game Othello, for instance) or until I've read everything I can get my hands on. Recently my obsession has been child development and here's what I've read in the past week or two: The House of Make-Believe: Play and the Developing Imagination by Dorothy and Jerome Singer Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child by Alissa Quart The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children by David Elkind and I'm currently halfway through: Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans are more Confident, Assertive, Entitled ...

I think I have mentioned before how much my family likes pie. Any kind of pie, served at any time of day will make them happy. Tonight they hit the pie jackpot. Not only did I make beef pot pies for dinner, but there was peach pie for dessert. I didn't use to make pot pie very often. It's a lot of work to prepare the meat and vegetables for the filling, make the white sauce, make the crust, and then put it all together. But then I came up with a way to short-cut at least some of it. I started keeping two freezer bags in my freezer in which I put my odds and ends leftovers. For instance, if there is one chicken leg left after dinner, I'll take the meat from the bone and put it in the freezer for meat. Or, instead of trying to convince someone to eat the last serving of green beans, I'll put the beans in the freezer bag for vegetables. Eventually, I'll have enough saved to make the filling for 3 or four pot pies. It's then easy to make the white sauce and pie crus...

Yesterday, M. decided she was tired of her hair and wanted to get it cut. She decided to donate 12 inches to Locks of Love and get a free haircut at the same time. Before Cutting the ponytail After the ponytail is cut off 12 inches of hair The new 'do from the back and from the front.

Catchy title, huh? Do you remember last summer when K. ended up in the hospital with a bacterial infection? The doctors finally settled on a recurrence of the scabies infection he had when we first met him, although the skin scratch test was negative and no one else in the family had any symptoms. I think the mystery is solved. The is a little known skin disease called acropustulosis which can come as a result of having scabies. The symptoms sound exactly like what K. has off and on. An adoptive mother, who is also a doctor, is trying to do a study on it, because though it is relatively unknown, it seems many internationally adopted children have it. The following is from Laurie Good, the doctor doing the study. If you are interested in taking her survey, please be aware that she will only leave it up for another couple of weeks. I am an adoptive parent of 2 awesome little boys from Vietnam, one of whom has had continual outbreaks from a disease called acropustulosis. I am also a medi...