Valentine's Day 2010

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!"

If you know me then you know that Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday, I love hearts and red is my favorite color.


A wonderful mom and woman that I have met through adoption, Laura Clapp (you can check out her blog on the right), introduced me to the idea of starting family traditions. She has awesome ones, some of which I have borrowed. Others I have come up with on my own.


We started off the day with a new tradition of some small gifts. Darrick buys for the girls and I buy for the boys. We bought each of them their own card and wrote a personal message to them. The boys each got 2 candy treats from me and Naomi got flowers and a stuffed animal from Darrick. We bought a little something for each other too.


Then at night we planned a special family candle light dinner. We picked out a new recipe-chicken Parmesan with pasta and had fancy glasses, filled with peach tea and dined by candle light.

Then after our meal it was time for dessert. I made chocolate covered strawberries and Micah and Jacob made chocolate covered pretzels. They were delicious and the kids really got into eating them!

After the kids left the table I asked Darrick to slow dance with me. But we were soon interrupted by Naomi and Jacob who wanted to dance too. So we put on Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman and Darrick danced with Naomi and I danced with Jacob. Micah wanted no part of the dancing and said he would take pictures. P.S. Please excuse the laundry in the background!!!

A note about Cinderella:

While we were waiting to bring Naomi home this song came out and Darrick played it for me. We both fell in love with it and played it often as our hearts longed for our daughter. Little did we know that Naomi would be so in love with Cinderella and dress up like her every day. It has made this song that much more special for us. Naomi calls it her "Daddy and Me song".

Making Valentine Cookies

Our "new" Van

We have been getting by with just our minivan since we moved here. Now that the kids are taking some classes we definitely need two cars. We have been on the search for a while trying to decide what would be right. Should we get a small little car that Darrick could use to get back and forth to work? Should we get a car that can hold the whole family? We finally decided that it would be a good idea to have a second car that would hold 7. We were so excited to find this van conversion! It is a used 1992. Our parents have both owned vans and we always joked around about getting our own van some day.

Our new van is a real classic. It has wood paneling throughout, mood lighting, a spot for a tv and dust buster in the back, and the back bench folds down into a bed. We love it! What do you think?

Random Pictures

Here are some random pictures that did not really go with anything else!

One night I was so tired I went to bed early. When Darrick got ready to come to bed he was surprised to see that someone had already taken his spot. Somehow Oliver had climbed in bed with me and wiggled his way under the covers and rested his head on Darrick's pillow. Darrick couldn't believe it and took a picture to show me in the morning. Good thing Oliver does not shed!

The next picture is of Micah and Jacob in all their snow gear before they went tubing with the Cadets.

We can never get Micah to take a nap anymore. But one Sunday during our rest time after lunch he drifted off to sleep. When he woke up we told him that he took a nap and he didn't believe us. We were so glad we had a picture to prove it!

Lastly, here are so pictures of the kids playing in our back yard!

God answers prayers

We cannot thank you enough for all of your prayers for our sweet girl. During the last week we have seen such a change in Naomi, it can only be explained by God.

We are so thankful for Bethany. We are currently in 2 programs. One is just for our family and the other is with other families and kids. We are learning so much about trauma and to see the world through Naomi's eyes. The counselors told us this week that Naomi has sensory integration issues-the biggest clue is her always walking on her tip toes.

Through all we are learning we are able to understand Naomi's triggers and help her feel more safe and secure. And how to see a situation through her eyes. A situation that looks safe and non-threatening to us can look very different to her. She has been so much happier this week.

She was playing dress up this week and thought I would share so cute pictures of our girl!

Happy 9th Birthday Micah!

Monday we celebrated Micah's 9th birthday! We started out the day by getting him a haircut. It was SO long and hanging in his eyes. I took him to salon so they could give him a style. She kept most of the length but cut it out of his eyes. It looks fantastic!

Darrick took the day off because we had a lot of meetings on Monday so we celebrated Micah's birthday at lunch time. First he opened presents from us and my parents.

Micah was super excited and happy to get a lamp that clips onto his bed for reading!

And his favorite candy from Papa and Nana was a big hit!

Then it was time for cake and ice cream. His choice was chocolate cake, chocolate frosting and chocolate Blue Bunny ice cream!

Super Bowl Hot Wings

Since moving to WA, Darrick has not been able to find a good Hot Wings place yet. Boy, is he missing Dirty Lickins! So he decided that for Super Bowl he would try to make his own for the first time. He found a recipe on the Internet and went to town!

It was very serious business and the whole house smelled like one big hot wing!

Darrick, Jacob and Naomi ate them and said they were delicious. Darrick said they were pretty hot and he was surprised that the kids were eating them!

Seeing things in a new light

The past few days since our post, we have felt so much love and support. Your calls and emails have given us strength and so much encouragement. We know that those of you who we have heard from are our loyal supporters and you have our backs. We are so blessed to have you in our lives.

Over the weekend it was still going rough and Naomi was acting out and trying to hit Darrick too. Our Washington State Department of Social and Health Services has an amazing website where you can actually take online courses. I took the 1 hour class on Physically Aggressive Youth. Boy, did I learn a lot. I felt like I was gaining insight to what was going on.

Monday we had our family counseling and we spent a lot of time going over what happened on Friday. Then Monday night we started a 6 week parents support group at Bethany. The parents meet in one room and the kids in another. Our class was about Trauma and how it effects the brain. In case you don't know...when a person experiences Trauma it actually changes the way the brain works. It skips the thinking part of the brain and goes straight to survival mode and fight. After that when that person experiences a "Trigger" something that reminds the person of what happened, they go straight back to the survival mode and fight.

Somethings we do know is that our daughter has experienced severe trauma and neglect. During the parent class we started to put it all together. Naomi's triggers seem to be being secluded and restraining situations. For example: her bedroom at night with the door closed and seats with straps.

Light Bulb Moment! We will never know for sure but it appears that she was often put some where for long periods of time where she could not get out. A crib, cage, closet...only God knows...

Once we put two and two together, it all made sense. We very strongly believe that when you know better, you do better! I was able to talk to Naomi about feeling safe. We are now leaving her bedroom door open at sleeping times and her screaming at bedtime has completely stopped! She said she likes the door open because there are no bad guys. I asked what the bad guys use to do to her and she said, "They put me in jail". It was at that moment that my heart broke for her. God, why did this happen to her?

But the awesome thing is that God is healing her! The good thing about trauma, if there is one, is that the brain can be taught new ways of handling situations and change the patterns! Praise God!