Just a few months...

...was all the time you needed to change my life in so many ways. With that short time you had, you wrapped me around your tiny little finger, and I will never let go.

With just a few months, you taught me life lessons, made me fall in love, and awakened tender, sacred feelings that I will never forget.

With just a few months, you gave me one of the hardest jobs a mom can have-- being a mother of an angel.

With just a few months, you refined me.

You broke my heart, and you healed my heart.

You led our entire family on a journey that gave a family to precious children we never would have known.

Your tiny footprints left their mark in this world.

Would that we would all accomplish so much in just a few short months.





Happy Birthday, little Jake.

Light the way home...

Gotcha...

First, Christi's sickness was just your average flu-like symptoms. She's doing better now. However she is exhausted. Not sure why?!?

The IRS is forcing me into 6-8 hours of making copies as they are requiring me to send in documentation of all of our 2010 adoption expenses before they will send us our refund. I'm not a fan of the IRS. On so many levels.

I tucked Lexi into bed tonight. Before I left the room she loudly proclaimed: "I need happy!!!" (Happy is her stuffed animal that talks to her.) "Where is happy?" I asked. "Happy is right there in front of you!" Hmmm. Remember, this is coming from a little girl who can't see. Apparently she's heard that line before. Funny thing though...Happy WAS right there in front of me:)

Tonight Jesi and Xander went to the neighbor's house to play night games. After awhile a notice a little blond head appear then disappear at the front window. I wasn't even sure I had seen it. I checked the front porch, and there was Jesi in her pathetic little cuteness. Tear stained face and sniffles. "What's wrong Jess?" "The big kids are watching a movie and I'm too little to watch!" "Why don't you play with Annie?" "Annie's sick." "Why don't you play with the other kids?" "Well, Gracie (not our Graci) used to be my friend, but now she found other friends and she doesn't want to play with me any more." Doesn't your heart just break for your kids? Life is so cruel when you're young and EVERYTHING revolves on how popular you are and how much the other kids like you and want to play with you. So dad tried to give some moral support. I suggested she go ask Gracie and her friends if she could play with them. Jesi was convinced that they would not like her games and she would not like their games. I told her that sometimes when you are trying to make friends, it is best to start out playing the games they want to play. In fact, if you try them, you make like them! I tried to give an example of this. I pointed out the unthinkable to her. At one point I didn't really like baseball! I couldn't stand to watch it on TV. I only played it minimally as a kid. When Taylor and Parker first started T-ball, I didn't know how to coach baseball at all. But I told her that as I watched them play and learned more and more about it, I came to love baseball! "In fact, Jess, we're kind of alike! At the beginning of this year, you didn't even want to play baseball, but I made you. Now you LOVE baseball. We're like twins!!!" Jess: "Well except that I'm a girl and you're a boy and we're really different." At least she stopped crying:)

Jer

Christi's quote of the day (While dying of sickness-induced pain)

"I'm pretty sure my left ring finger doesn't hurt."

Poor girl!
-Jer

Vote for Kylie!

Kylie is a young woman that goes to our church. She babysits our kids from time to time and she is fantastic. All of the kids love her. She ran for student body office at her high school this year, and asked if she could take some video of our kids to help her campaign. This is the result: (Make sure you double click on the video to watch it in it's own window.)

Needless to say, she won an SBO spot!

Jer

A day at a time...

We used to go over the whole week's schedule during family council on Sunday. That worked great, until several Sundays ago, where I started hyperventilating before we even got to Wednesday on the calendar. Now we have this nifty little system where we go over the next day's schedule as we're climbing into bed. Much better. That way, days like tomorrow (6:30 a.m. MRI for Lexi, EEG for Lexi, driving carpool, Sophi's therapy, school carnival, sixth grade party, dance pictures-- meaning full hair/makeup/costumes for girls, Jeremy's meeting, baseball-- this is just off the top of my head) isn't grouped in with the rest of the weeks events, and doesn't evoke quite as much panic.

So today I am grateful for the towel fairy. Yes folks, I have a laundry service. I put a basket of dirty towels/sheets on my porch every Monday morning, and they are returned the following day, clean and neatly folded. I usually don't even know who the fairy-of-the-week is-- they come and go without me even knowing, like true fairies. A group of wonderful angels that live in my ward just decided that I have a lot on my plate, and a towel fairy is just what I needed.

They were right! (:

PS. I went crazy today and posted a lot (even opted out of a nap to do it) so scroll on down. (:

Heaven for her...

...is having a Daddy.

Wheelchair pics, as promised!

The haircut

I like to pretend a lot. I pretend I know how to raise eight children. I pretend I know how to teach Braille. I pretend my bedroom is clean. I pretend I understand the health issues our family faces.

And I pretend I know how to cut hair.

Graci is the only child that's ever had a REAL haircut, and that was to spoil her before her surgery and Make-a-Wish celebrations. Usually Jer and the kids just have to settle for me.

The other day, I decided that Lexi's hair really needed help. We're trying to grow it out, but in the meantime, it needed some style. So I got out my scissors and, well, pretended.

I think it turned out pretty cute!

If I were rich...

One of my favorite foods in the world is dried apricots. But not the kind you're probably thinking about. Every dried apricot I've purchased at a store just doesn't do the trick. I grew up on my grandpa's farm, which had apricot trees. We dried them ourselves, and the flavor and texture is soooo much better. There is only one brand of dried apricots that come close taste-wise, and those are Archer Farms apricot fruit strips. They are my little splurge if I ever find myself at Target.

Well, Saturday evening found me there. (It may or may not have been following a complete emotional breakdown, causing Jeremy to gently suggest that I needed to go and have a night and day to myself, but I'll never tell.)

I don't shop at Target very often. Not because I don't LOVE it, but because it's more expensive than say, Walmart. Not much, but enough. Anyway... this Target happened to be a Super Target, meaning it also carried groceries. I went to pick out some snacks for myself. I chose:

(And, of course, chocolate.)

Pretty much heaven. These are all soooo yummy. (In fact, I saved a bit of everything and shared it the following day, and my kids won't stop begging me to buy more.) On my way out of the store, I was given a sample of Archer Farms hummus, with a carrot to dip. I'm not so much a hummus fan, but I really loved it. So, I've pretty much decided that Archer Farms is my new favorite brand. If I were rich, I would start shopping at Super Target, and I would always have a bag of those strawberry mango twists in my purse. And at least 50 bags in the pantry. Ahem.


And if I were rich, I would pay for THIS adoption. My sweet friend, Gretchen, is raising money for their new little one, and I can't think of a better cause. So go on over and buy something or just donate a bit, if you feel so inclined. I can promise that this family is just sooooo great and that even $5.00 would be appreciated. After all, giving a child a family is even better than dried apricots.

And that says a lot. (:

More Pics

These were on my phone, so they are other shots from some things we've already blogged about.

Jesi on the night Daddy curled her hair:Xander as "Wee Willie Winkie" for his kindergarten nursery rhyme festival:
More pics from Disneyland:

Lexi loves the New Orleans Jazz Band at Disney:On the shuttle bus back from Disney each night:Taylor in Grandma's BYU apron:)Poor Elli after her dental surgery:Taylor has an EKG:Sophi's love/hate relationship with her nursery class at church:
Sophi goes "fishing":Graci and Jesi at dance class:Xander's 6th birthday breakfast in bed:
With Al Jefferson of the Utah Jazz (he was pretty enamored with Soph!):
???:

-Jer

Pics and other random cute stuff

This weekend our church had a spring get together with food and games and activities for the kids. One thing they had was some amateur face painting. Of course Jesi was dying to have her face painted. Lexi had never had her face painted before, and she wanted to join in. I suggested a butterfly, and she was as excited as could be to have a butterfly on her face. The line was taking quite awhile, and Jesi was standing there holding Lexi's hand. The wheels suddenly turned in her head, and she hollered out to me: "Dad, can't special needs go to the front of the line?" We're not in Disneyland anymore, dear Jess!

As they were waiting, an impending thunderstorm suddenly broke. We were under a pavilion, but we were still getting some rain on us as the wind blew in. It was time to go! With several patient little girls still wanting their faces painted, a sweet mom jumped in to help. It was her first time doing this, and she let everyone know that results were not guaranteed. She painted a cat on Jesi:

Later, Jesi told me, "This was Mrs. Dunn's first time face painting, and she did a pretty good job!" :) The same mom painted Xander's face. He was intent on being Batman. She asked me for advice, and I laughed, given my absolute lack of artistic talent. When she was finished, she said he looked more like Gene Simmons from KISS than like Batman, but Xander was happy, and that's all that matters!

Yesterday, we went on a drive to look at properties and homes we wish we could afford. We invited the kids to come along, and Jesi was the only older kid that wanted to join us. She wasn't wearing shoes, and, as is her usual way, she just slipped somebody else's on. Only this time, she went for Christi's boots. As soon as I had the camera out, she went into pose mode, and, despite my repeated request for a "normal" shot, this is what I got out of her. That girl!!!

Sophi trying to put her own pants on:
Notice how they are on backwards, and she can't get them up much past her knees:)

Two peas in a pod:
Love my kids!!!

Jer