The kids just got on the school bus and we are back to “real life” after a really wonderful Thanksgiving break. It is dark and cold and snowy this morning which made it even harder to drag ourselves out of bed, but the kids are really excited about the promise of a big snowfall.

So, here is a recap of our last few days. Our goal was just to have a lot of fun together as a family, and we really accomplished that! Josh even said on Saturday that it was the most perfect family day he could remember.

Thanksgiving was really nice. After the cinnamon and orange rolls, the kids and I sprawled out all over the living room floor and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. I am from... more

This year we are spending Thanksgiving at home sweet home. None of our East Coast family could come out (my Aunt just barely left!) and our in-state family all made other plans, so it will just be our family. The kids are a little disappointed that we aren’t seeing anybody, but we have a lot of fun things planned for today and the rest of the weekend and are going to make it a special few days.

The orange rolls and cinnamon rolls are in the oven…We told the kids that there would be “something good” for breakfast, and they have guessed everything... more

Today, Sept. 11, is a sad anniversary for our country, and a sad anniversary for the world. It is hard to believe that is has already been five years since the fall of the Twin Towers, and I know that today will mean a lot of different things for different people.

It is a day of remembering…a day of memorial…a day of grief…a day of reflection.

Sept. 11, 2001 was like a nightmare. I remember listening the radio and trying to force my brain to wrap around what was really happening. I wanted to believe it was a joke or a misunderstanding…a horrible accident or a nightmare.

When it finally started to sink in that this was real, and the true level of horror of the situation... more

Dear Joshua,

It is hard to believe that we have been married ten years. It is even harder to believe that we (almost) have ten kids! Not many people can say that they have a child for every year of marriage. :)

I wonder what we would have thought if someone had told us ten years ago what our family would be like now. Would we have been excited? Petrified? Would we have laughed our heads off?

Ten years ago, at age 19, there were lots of things I was still figuring out about myself and the life I wanted. But I knew that whatever life had in store for me, I wanted... more

Happy Birthday America!! I hope you are all having a great Fourth of July. We had a great cook out last night with a family from our church. We met up a near-by park and ate “milk can dinners”, played softball and watched fireworks. In case you do not live in a place where “milk can dinners” are popular, the meal is basically ham, potatoes, carrots, onions, corn on the cob and cabbage, all put into a large steel “can” with water and heated over a fire. It’s delicious! More than half of my kids actually ate cabbage, which should really tell you it was good. :) I made two cakes, both... more

The fourth of July is a holiday that my family enjoys. As the mom, I enjoy it because it is not one of those holidays that involves spending a lot of money and putting in a ton of effort, such as Halloween, Christmas, Easter, etc. The kids like it because it does involve doing something together as a family outdoors, plus they get to stay up late. There is usually water fun involved, whether it is the lake or a sprinkler and kiddie pool, and there is always lots of food. You pretty much can’t go wrong!

We started our celebrating yesterday, when we all went to our local... more

Happy Father’s Day everybody! I hope you all have a wonderful day today celebrating the fathers in your life.

Just a little history for you…not surprisingly, Father’s Day came about as a result of the Mother’s Day holiday. A woman named Sonora Louise Smart Dodd who lived in Spokane Washington, heard a sermon on Mother's Day and then decided fathers should be honored in the same way. She was raised by a single dad, who raised her and her five siblings after his wife died, and Sonora wanted a holiday to pay tribute to her own father and others.

After conceiving... more

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, which are traditionally really fun, family holidays, can be more complicated when your family is formed through adoption. Children who are adopted often find these holidays causing them to think about their birth parents, whether they are in contact with them or not.

So as always, it is an important time to make sure that conversation is open and that your children feel comfortable talking about whatever may be on their minds. Since many adopted children do not have any information about their birth fathers... more

This week is Father’s Day, and as I did for Mother’s Day, I plan on having a post each day leading up until Father’s Day, celebrating dads. I have some good resources for dads and some great articles about dads and adoption.

Personally, I know two of the greatest dads on Earth. My own Dad pretty much raised three kids on his own. He ran his own company and still found the time to drive us to our horse back riding lessons and be at our chorus concerts and any where else we needed him or wanted him to be.

He taught me to stand up for what I believe in, and fight for it when necessary. He taught me that it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks. He taught me not to... more

Happy Memorial Day! I hope many of you are enjoying this un-official kick off to summer. And I sure hope you have nicer weather than we do. As I write this, snow is falling out our windows. Yes, snow. It isn’t really sticking, and it is supposed to be back up in the 60’s and 70’s by the end of the week, but for the moment it is snowing.

We had some fun this weekend and Benjamin experienced another “first”. We went to the big Memorial Day rodeo here in town. Ben was excited by the loud music and all the people (many of which we know), but when he saw the cowboys and the horses and the bulls, his eyes went wide. He couldn’t even sit he was so excited. Finally he looked at me and said,... more