RACE DAY!!!!

Growing up in this area has made Eric and I natural race fans. He enjoys it more than I do and definitely knows more about Indy Cars than I do but I DO like it and have enjoyed going to the race the past two years (and listening to it for the 31 years prior to that.) This year was hotter than most (record breaking temperatures actually) but me and my SPF 50 sunscreen made it through the day and had a wonderful time. The kids hung out with my mom and step-dad and were happy with the t-shirts that we brought home for them. Eric is already figuring out where he wants to sit next year (I request shade and pit-action, but we'll see what he decides on). We were in the Northwest Vista this year, right as you enter turn 4. If you watched the race and saw that huge crash on the final lap - that was just a few yards down from our seats. I saw it happen - Eric was watching the finish line and hoping Dario would run out of fuel. We aren't huge Target-Chip Ganassi fans. But they do have one thing going for them - they aren't Penske. (We like Andretti Auto Sports.) Anyway, here are some pictures of the day. We tailgated with my brothers, my cousin, and some of their friends. It was HOT and so the pictures will embarrass the daylights out of them but, oh well. That's what you get when you hang out with a blogger :)


Oh my word - my husband is actually smiling. I'm pretty sure it was something somebody said. The cantaloupe WAS pretty good though!


Amanda was the main chef for the day - excellent marinated pork loin and yummy veggie packets. Eric and I snitched some of her food as well as our buffalo chicken. It was really too hot to eat much but it was soooo good.


My brothers and I. There aren't many pictures of us together over the age of about 9 years old. I'm sure my mom will be pleased to see this one - maybe I should have photo-shopped out the beer can. He's legal, just still her baby. :)


The guys playing a rousing game of corn hole. I'm pretty sure my husband was victorious - that's because he kept his shirt on. The glare off of the other 3's pale white bellies was distracting them.


This was the view from our seats. The only time they were slow enough for me to get a decent shot was during cautions and of course the stupid truck got in my shot. Grrr...


This shot is of a group of my friends from high school who have been getting together at my friend Billy's parent's house to celebrate the race for about 16 or 17 years. How can I possibly be that old and who keeps having all these kids? P.S. photo credit for this goes to my friend Corie - although actually I think it was Beth who took it since Corie is in the shot but I stole it off of her fa.ce.bo.ok page....

How We Know Summer Has Arrived

Summer always comes in with a bang at our house. The last day of school, my birthday, Charity's birthday and a little event called the Indy 500 all happen within the same week and all are noteworthy events worth celebrating. I will post race-day pictures later but here are a few from the rest of the week.


Charity doing barn "chores" when we went out to the barn to walk Michael's 4-H calf.


Michael walking his calf for the first time. Her name is Hot Fudge. Isn't she cute. I love Jersey calves. They are so pretty!


My two favorite second graders - oops - they are third graders now.


I'm really surprised Jonathan didn't take off on this thing. The keys were in it but he was mature and just sat there pretending to drive.


Picking cherries in the neighbor's tree with the neighbor's kid (6th grade), niece (2nd grade) and grandson (3rd grade) - confusing mixture in that family but so very nice to play with!


Charity invited her class over for her birthday party. The kids had a great time playing kickball, eating party food, and throwing water balloons. She has had such a great class these past two years. I can't imagine it ever being any better. It was very hard to say good-bye on Thursday. Poor babies.


The girls stayed for a sleep-over. Charity was exhausted after all the excitement and just wanted to snuggle with her BFF and watch a movie. Fine with me - nice and quiet activity.


They didn't stay quiet for long. The girls finally fell asleep around 1:00 or so (I was already out cold) and were up around 6:30. Needless to say, they were dragging the next morning. They played Beatle's Rock Band and just vegged out. I could almost bet that Charity was singing Revolution in this picture - it is her favorite!

Can I just say - I HATE LAUNDRY! I was feeling all good because I had washed and dried 7 loads of laundry yesterday and was all "caught up". Now, they aren't folded yet but at least everything was clean. I wake up this morning to find two more stinkin' loads of clothes. I don't know why I'm surprised. You would think after 18 months of having 4 kids I would just embrace the fact that we are a 2 loads/day family but I apparently love living in denial! I also decided that since the forecast for this week is high 80's with lots of humidity, I should probably get my summer clothes out of storage and put away the sweaters. WHY?!!! As if I don't have enough to do I had to start another project. My living room is a mess and everything else is falling apart because I'm too busy sorting clothes (and watching Mansfield Park while I work) to keep on top of it. Some day I will be organized, some day I will be organized, some day I will be organized....

So, as previously stated - May is a crazy month around our house. The kiddos have 3 days left of school and I have never been so thankful for a year to wind down in my whole life - although I probably said that last year too, and the year before that, and the year before that....

My next door neighbor and I were finally able to get some of the garden put in this evening after soccer practice. We decided to put one out together and I have to tell you, working in it was a lot more fun with her out there to chat with. We'll see if we can make it through the summer still feeling that way. The thing is monstrous! I'll have to post a picture or two once we get it looking pretty. There hasn't been a garden in this spot anytime in the recent past (in fact there used to be a tree standing in the middle of it) so we are dealing with sod as well as your normal weeds. I've got all kinds of tricks up my sleeve to get rid of the grass before next spring but since we moved in in January - it was a little late to get that rolling for this year. We'll just have to do it the old fashioned way - send the kids out to pull it up!!!

These are the only pictures I have taken this whole month! Bad paparazzi mom!! I'll have to remedy that this weekend. We have Charity's birthday parties on Friday/Saturday and the race on Sunday so surely I can find something to take pictures of!


Joseph and cousin Hallie as we wait to pick up Jonathan from therapy. Fun times, fun times.


Alida was the "popular" one that day since she had brought her DS. All the kids wanted to sit beside her and watch her play. I have never understood that - IT IS NOT FUN TO WATCH SOMEONE ELSE PLAY VIDEO GAMES!!!


Jonathan and his classmate getting as up close and personal as you can safely get with the walrus on their field trip. This guy (and yes, I know it's a guy - I've seen proof on previous visits) is always coming up to the window to play with the kids. They love it and it makes for some fun pictures.


This would be the "toothless wonder" in all his glory. (We also call him our resident meth-head but that's not very PC is it?) Six teeth missing out of the front of his mouth. The four middle ones on top and two lower. He'd better hope they come in soon - it is almost corn on the cob season. Plus, I'm really sick of cutting up his apples.

April

Just a quick post to catch us up on the kids. These are April pics.

Went to the local Children's Museum on a teacher-in-service day. The kids were able to work together to build the arch with minimal assistance from mom - just another reminder that they are getting older - and taller :)

Jonathan pretending to be a bump on a log.

I have no idea what our crazy girl was doing here. We were on a field trip and she was all wound up. Let's pretend they were doing a trust fall. Yeah, I bet that was it.

I mentioned in a previous post that the older kids were doing PS119 with our church. This is Michael and Joseph with our next door neighbors and good friends on the morning they showed off their "mad skills" in "big church". It was really cute. I'll have to see if I can post the video once I get it. They amaze me with how quickly they get the scripture memorized. This year the script had motions and a rhythm to it - super fun!

We all took a Sunday afternoon to tour the State Museum after church. They had an Abraham Lincoln exhibit - Michael's favorite president - and so we took the whole crew to tour the museum. This was as we were leaving. Where is Michael you ask? He is a history dork - oops I mean buff - and decided he would stay with my mom and step-dad and look at more stuff when the rest of us were ready to leave. I love that kid! He is a teacher's dream - motivated to learn, well-behaved but fun and funny as well.

So I've been putting this off...

I don't know why I've been so reluctant to put this news out there - actually I do. It's because I know we are slightly on the nutty side and by putting our news out there for everyone to read I will just be confirming it. We have decided to go back to Ukraine to get some more crazy kids to add to our family. Charity has been begging us for sisters and since we do everything our little princess asks us to - we caved. Not really - we are hoping to get her some sisters, but not because she asked us to. In fact I think the only reason we would be doing this is because God asked us to. My friend Lydia (and also our adoption guru) went to Ukraine to pick up her son at the end of last year. During that process she met a girl at his orphanage who touched her heart and wrote about her on her blog. Her post touched my heart and I even mentioned her in my Christmas letter hoping to drum up some interest and find this girl a family - never dreaming that family might be us. If you clicked on Lydia's post then you will see why I never even considered it - okay, I considered it, but only for a second. The fact that it was a sibling group of 5 (actually it is 4) when we already have 4 completely stopped me from spending much time in that field of thought. Eric, however, set up camp in that field and decided that we might be the family for these kids. He tells Lydia that if she can't find another family for them then he knows someone who might be interested. Hmmm, who could that be Mr. Eric? So, then the group of kids being hosted for Christmas comes over. Yulia is one of them and we think, great! Her host family will fall in love with her and so will everyone who meets her and she'll find a family and we will support them as they go through the process. Well, everyone who met her (host family included) DID fall in love with her but they were also all scared off by the fact that there are 4 of them. So...here we are. We are waiting to find out exactly when they will be available for adoption. Once we figure that out we will start our paperwork. I'm pretty fast at it (since I'm very impatient) and our homestudy lady is amazing so it shouldn't be much of an issue. There is a chance that it won't work out and the kids won't get registered (their paperwork was supposed to have been filed in January or something but you never know) but if everything goes as hoped then we should have some new additions to our family in a year or so - hopefully sooner - that whole impatience thing!

I thought it was supposed to be MARCH madness...

I think the hardest part about this blog thing is deciding how to come back after taking so many weeks off. Obviously life begins to get in the way of my computer time and so while there are many things going on that I would like to share - I just don't have time to devote to posting them. As bad as the celebration "cluster" is in Dec/Jan (Christmas, New Year's, anniversary, and 4 birthdays) - May is always the worst month for me. Between end of the school year events, field trips, soccer, baseball and birthdays I'm pretty much a raving lunatic for the whole month. Eric has decided that we are going to The Race again this year and he wants to take Joseph to the track for practice one day too. Throw in new wheelchair fittings and evaluations for Jonathan's medicaid waiver stuff and we've added just a couple more things to an already full calendar. For now I will content myself with putting up snippets about our life (at the risk of sounding self-absorbed) and hope that one day soon I can post more pictures and tell better stories.