Tulip Town

For many, many years I have dreamed of going to a Tulip Festival. I was so excited to find out that Mt. Vernon, WA has one. So Darrick said he would leave work early one day so we could go. We went on Friday and it took us about 30 minutes to get there. It was beautiful beyond words, enjoy the pictures!

New Uniform

The Navy is switching their daily work uniforms. There has been many different opinions on the change but in the end, it went through.

Do you like it?

Old/ New

Happy Easter

We started off our Easter with our first batch of homemade cinnamon rolls. Naomi and I made them together. They turned out really good except the two in the center of the pan were still gooey. Any ideas why?

Before church we got in some Easter pictures. We always take pictures of our family on Easter. I loved that I captured a sweet moment between Jake and Naomi.

Naomi wanted to show off her Easter dress and her silly smile.

After church we took some pictures outside even though it was chilly. Last year we were in Hawaii and now we are wearing jackets, crazy!

Then while the food was in the oven we had an egg hunt for the kids in the backyard. Every time Naomi found an egg, she had to open it, see what was inside and eat it. She did not get to many eggs because she spent most of her time eating!

We made some window art with some markers from my parents.

Then it was time for the meal and it was delicious!

We ended our meal with a jellybean prayer. As you eat each color something is read that symbolizes each color. The kids really liked it.

Then after naps we had dessert-vanilla ice cream, strawberries, and magic shell!

Our Weekend

Saturday has become Hair Day for Naomi. We wash, condition and restyle her hair. The process has become so much more enjoyable once we started using Carol's Daughter hair products. They make her hair so much easier to work with.



Sometimes it still amazes me that I have a little girl and that she is SO girly. She wants to help wash her hair now and she likes to look in a mirror while she does it.

Also on Saturday we baked cookies. Last week in the church announcements we saw our name and that we were assigned to bring cookies next week. I wanted to try something new so I made some lemon poppy seed cookies, which were delicious. I have a dutch cookbook that my friend Becky gave me, and since we have a lot of dutch people in our church, I thought I would try a dutch cookie. I decided on syrup cookies. This was the first time I ever made cookies and the dough smelled disgusting. I think it was the molasses. So I only baked one batch of those. They did not taste as bad as they smelled but they were not great. Then Darrick made some chocolate chip cookies. It is fun to watch after church and see who is eating what cookies. There were 6 syrup cookies left but all the others were gone.

Saturday night we were invited to a house warming for our friends Pastor Peter and Martha, who bought their first home. It was nice to see the people from Everett Community Church and Naomi had fun playing with her friends. The food is always interesting. The main course was BBQ goat...enough said.

Then today was the highlight of our weekend. Our dear friends John, Kelly and Max are in the area. I met John and Kelly when we traveled to Swaziland to adopt Naomi and Max. They are an air force family and have left Hawaii and are traveling to their next duty station, Germany. Thankfully Kelly has family near Seattle so when she comes to see them, we get to see them too!

We met them for lunch at Alfy's which is a family pizza place and then they came over to our house to hang out. It amazes me every time we get together how Naomi and Max seem to share a really special bond. They act like brother and sister and never seem to forget each other. We love Max so much and he will always have a special place in our hearts.

And I cannot say enough about Kelly. She has become like a sister to me. We went through so much together and no one quite understands all my feelings about adoption like Kelly. I am so thankful they are in our lives and I can't believe they are going all the way to Germany! We will have to look and see if we can hop a Space A flight to Germany! They kids had so much fun playing together and got in a lot of wrestling time!

It is still early, the kids are all in bed and Darrick has duty, so I thought I would take time to update.

We have been having some really beautiful weather. It kind of comes in spurts. For example, yesterday it was so nice and sunny that the kids and I had a picnic lunch on the deck. Now today, it has been cold and raining all day. At least we see signs of spring everywhere and we know it is on its way.

Last weekend we worked in our yard. I have always wanted a garden, ever since we got married 12 years ago. We have just never lived in a place that allowed one or had the space. But now we do. While Mom and Dad were here they helped the kids and I start a bunch of seeds in some yogurt cups. So right now they are in a sunny window growing their little sprouts. We picked out a place in the yard to start our garden. Darrick and I dug out the grass and "flipped the sod". This is something a Master Gardener here in WA told me to do. The grass will decompose and make the soil richer.

So far all of the seeds we have started have come up. We started tomatoes, morning glories, sunflowers, forget-me-nots and one other one I can't think of right now.

We were also able to attend a free show at our city library called "Birds of Prey". It fit in so nicely with what we are doing in science since we are studying birds. It was put on by a group that rehabilitates birds. We saw owls, a red-tailed hawk and a golden eagle.

This week we finished our last session at Bethany in the ADOPTS program. It is hard to believe that it is over. We really learned so much and honestly I don't know what we would had done without it. But my biggest question for them at the end was "How do we get Naomi to stop hitting, kicking and clawing us?" It is not ok with me and it makes me mad and I don't know how to make her stop. Sometimes I feel like "hey, I did not sign up for this abuse!"

But they pointed out that it has gotten less since we started the ADOPTS program which shows progress. They also told us that shows that her brain is healing. Our goal right now is to have as much space as we can between each episode. The more time you have between episodes the more healing and new patterns occur. So Darrick and I have decided to become "Yes" people. As long as her requests are reasonable we say yes. We realized that sometimes we tell her no because it is out of convenience for us, like we don't want to have to deal with the mess. This is helping her have less freak out sessions.

But we did have another bad one this week, only it was not directed at me, but Oliver. We were homeschooling and I told her that she could not have glue to play with. Well that set her off but she seemed after a while to be calming down. Next thing I know she is under the table, where Oliver likes to sleep, and I hear Oliver coughing and crying. She was completely choking him. She stopped right away when I called her name but I was livid and heartbroken for Oliver-poor dog...

I put her in a chair, in the classroom where we all were, facing the wall. I told her it was not okay to hurt Oliver. After a few minutes she says "Can I have a lollipop to calm down?"

Let me explain the lollipops. During the ADOPTS programs we have learned that sucking is a self soothing and calming technique. They advised us to buy dum dum lollipops to have on hand to help her calm down when she is having an episode. We didn't buy it at first but finally gave it a try and it does help. We were so excited that we found a 300 count bag of dum dums for $6.99!

So anyways when she asked for one, after choking Oliver, that was the last thing I wanted to give her. I felt like I was rewarding her. But I went against my instinct and with what I have been taught and it helped her.

Then today we had the most awesome day together. She has been sweet and loving and fun to be around, I just couldn't get enough of her! What a roller coaster...

I had such a great moment with Micah this week. One morning the dishes from dinner had not been done and were waiting for me in the sink after breakfast. He came up to me and said "Mom, I noticed that there are a lot of dishes in the sink and I was wondering if you want me to do them?" I was dumbstruck, literally. I told him "I don't know what to say!" He does them often but it is always me asking him to do them. This was the first time that he did them unprompted! It was a glorious day!

Salmon

Last week when we got to the boys homeschool class about salmon we were told that it had been vandalized during the night. The boys, along with 6 other students have been raising those 20,000 salmon and taking good care of them. Here is a little article on it.


http://everett.komonews.com/content/vandals-kill-thousands-fish

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100313/NEWS01/703139875

You convinced me...

Ok, OK I'm sorry. I get the message! I have now changed our blog to a by invitation only and have only invited my immediate family and their wives!!!

I am not sure how often I will be able to post but I will try to maybe every week or two weeks. I am glad you all feel connected to us through our blog.

Here is a little update on our situation:

Money has been tight since we moved here because we lost half of our pay moving from Hawaii to WA. A few months ago Darrick got a second job to help us through this rough spot. He cleans a KIA car dealership 4 nights a week from 9pm-12am. Needless to say he is exhausted.



Things have been hard with Naomi lately. We are trying to learn as much as we can from Bethany about trauma and how it affects a child. Some days are awesome and some days are bad. She has certain things that seem to trigger her, we are trying to figure them all out. When she is triggered she starts to "dis regulate" as they call it. When this happens it is out of our hands and we just have to ride the wave. They compare it to a frightened animal who just reacts. At these times she hits us, pinches us and claws us. While mom and dad were here she bit down on my finger so hard it almost broke the skin. Some days after dealing with her, homeschooling, cooking dinner and doing laundry, getting the kids to bed and Darrick off to his night job I am just too exhausted to write on our blog.

We like Washington but after 6 months now it still does not feel like home. We have no friends, which is hard for us because we love being social and having friends to hang out with. We have struggled a lot with finding a church. We like the church we are at but do not love it. There is no diversity. Naomi is the only non-white person in the church. It is very traditional CRC. But the people are awesome just not many are our age.

I love Homeschooling! But it keeps me super busy. I love the group we joined and so do the boys. I feel like we have grown so much closer as a family and that I knows my kids so well. I thought it would be hard having them with me all the time because I use to really enjoy when they went to school but it is good.

We are happy but we miss family a lot. It was great having mom and dad here and hard to see them go. We are thinking that we would like to be stationed in San Diego next. It drives me crazy that I have not met Jonas yet and I miss Elijah, Natalie and Amelie (Charlie and Maud's daughter).

So there are things in a nut shell! Love you all!!!

Knowing what is important

It is time for me to refocus. There are just some things in my life right now that are consuming too much of me. Life is slipping by faster every day and I need to simplify. At times like this I often think of the verse where God commands us to be still and know that He is God. I just don't seem to have a lot of time to be still anymore and knowing that we will be blessed with two new additions sometimes this year I have got to make some changes.

So what is important to me?

1. God and our relationship
2. My family-Darrick and the kids
3. Living an uncommon life
4. Homeschooling
5. Extended Family/Friends

If things I occupy my time with do not contribute in a positive way to something that is on my list, it has to go.

One thing that is sucking my time away is the computer...so I am ending our blog.

It is hard to believe that my first blog post was on March 18, 2005! Five years has really flown by. How much our life has changed and oh how much we have grown-spiritually and physically and emotionally.

We love those you who have followed our blog faithfully, loved us and encouraged us through comments. At times it has been hard having our life be such an open book but we have also been blessed by it. I wish I could track over the past 5 years all the people who have read our blog!

I will also be taking time off from Face Book...God, my husband, my kids and my sanity are my priorities.

But don't worry, our adventures will continue and we will follow wherever God leads us!

Thanks for being a part of our lives through our blog...