Say what?

Some things just warrant a double posting day . . . as I was sitting here working Sophia was roaming around bored (vacation can't come soon enough for these kids). I told her she needed to find something to do.

She looked at me and said . . . "Why do you have to be such a vicious little woman?"

Say what? I just stopped, looked at her, and laughed. Sometimes that is all you can do.

I asked her what she said.

" I said you are a delicious little woman."

Okay, after more laughter, I said "So am I vicious or delicious?"

I got an eye roll and she walked off.

Hmmmm . . . I am in so much trouble with these girls!

Her Favorite Place

My sweet 1 year old Gracie has a favorite place to be. I would like to tell you it is my lap. Or a nice soft comfy chair. Or her carseat . . . now that would be really great! But no, Gracie's favorite place to be is . . . in the fridge. The girl does like to eat, and she does like to take the food out of the fridge. But it is truly her favorite place to sit. If she is around when you open the door, she backs herself in and has a seat. She has recently started going to the fridge and trying to open it herself while saying "me, me, me". When Dawson was younger, his favorite place to sit and play was the drawer under the oven. He would go in, empty it out, and sit there forever just laughing and playing with whatever he had brought with him. Brandon used to climb into his toy box and put the lid on. Sophia has never really had a favorite place to go . . . except my side . . . that is usually where you will find her. Gracie has picked the fridge . . . our little surprise always full of surpises for us!

Happy 10th Birthday Dawson!

Today is my son Dawson's 10th birthday! It was on a hot summer day in Nebraska just 10 years ago that we were blessed with this amazing boy. The picture above is Dawson with one of his favorite people Kyle, who plays in Dawson's favorite band Della Rosa. Today I am going to honor my sweet Dawson with a Top 10 List of Things about Dawson . . .

10 ) Dawson loves Legos. Dawson can build anything out of Legos. I have a Lego construction on my desk that spells the word LOVE.

09) Dawson like to play World of Warcraft with his dad, brother, and Uncle Matt. He gets very very into it.

08) Dawson is a soccer player! He is a fast runner and great player. When he is on the field, he gives it everything he's got.

07) Dawson loves him some chocolate milk! Oh yes, we are talking 4-5 glasses a day!

06) Dawson is a fan of Capt Jack Sparrow and the Pirates movies.

05) Due to number 05, Dawson has a super sweet Pirate map of the Caribbean on his wall. This mural was painted by Matt Stone last summer.

04) Dawson's favorite band is Della Rosa. He listens to them before going to bed.

03) Dawson was a paci child and was able to stick up to three paci's in his mouth at one time.

02) Dawson loves his baby sister Grace and is oh so sweet with her. Dawson loves his sister Sophia but torments her to show his love. Dawson loves his brother and plays games with him.

01) Dawson is a fun loving good natured laid back everyones friend MONKEY boy.

AND WE LOVE HIM!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAWSON!!!

Sophia and the Deck

Okay, so there is probably some sort of unwritten blogger rule that a mother of four children can not write about the same child two blogs in a row. And I know my sweet Mom would definately think it was not fair to the others. However, I think you will all see why I am breaking the rules and making the exception today.

Saturday, we went to the Boro to help Grandpa Stahly put up some decking around the new pool he is putting in. Yes, we are all very excited that Grandpa is putting a pool in at his house. The decking was previously owned and was in pieces when he bought it. Saturdays job was to put the puzzle together around the new pool base. The fun for Sophia and Dawson was the misc pieces of decking around the pool made for great climbing. Here you can see Sophia on her adventures:

Somewhere along the adventure, a wrong step was taken and our little journey ended with a crash to the ground and a chin into some 4x4 posts. Ouch! There was a lot of screaming and a lot of blood. Something to note here - Sophia had just completed quite a bit of dental work that involved her front four bottom teeth being capped. Well, those strong caps went every which way on Sophia's gums. Her poor little tongue was quite tore up from being bit. And her chin was pretty scratched up. After a hysterical mother called the dentist, we realized there was nothing to do for her for the rest of the weekend except give her Motrin and lots of TLC.

Fast forward to today, we visited the dentist. Sophia did great. Her and the dental folks usually do not get along well and most visits lately have involved sedation. Today Sophia walked in opened her mouth and let the dentist have a look. He took some xrays and found that everything was actually pretty okay. There is one of the teeth that lost its crown - it will either need to be re-capped or pulled. Mostly there was a lot of bruising, swelling, and a sad looking tongue. Luckily no roots were broken, and no permanent teeth were damaged.

Sophia is a bit different looking today, but still has her spunk about her. Her whole assesment of the situation has been summed up in this statement that she continues to tell us . . . "You know I wish that would not have happened." Me too baby, me too!
Lift up some prayers for my little adventurer that her pain will be minimal and her healing quick. Thanks!

My Sophia

When we began the adoption journey for Sophia, we had these images of bows and dresses, pinks and purples, shoes and shopping, Barbies and baby dolls . . . what we got was Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater, bugs and dirt, blue and red, Nascar and wrestling. And you know what, she is perfect just like that.

It had been us and the boys for almost 6 years when we decided to adopt a little girl from China. We knew that God was leading us to adoption and to China. And we knew our little girl was there waiting for us to bring her home forever. What we didn't know was how much she would bless us! She is such a smart, full of spunk little girl. She is an independent thinker who knows what she wants. While she has her moments of challenge, I can't imagine her any other way.

One thing I also had imagined when we were waiting for Sophia was doing her hair. Learning how to French braid it, putting it up in cool, fun hair dos, all that girlie hair stuff. Well, if you have met my Sophia or even glanced at the photos of her on the blog, you know she has beautiful long brown hair. However, she has ZERO interest in letting me do anything with it. It is a challenge to just get a brush through it in the morning. We had been talking off and on that if she didn't want to cry through the morning brushing, that she should get it cut. Occasionally she would say she wanted it like Dawson's. Today she decided was the day she wanted her hair cut off. And she is so cute . . . er . . . I mean cool (something else to note about Sophia, she does not like to hear words like cute or beautiful when talking about her, she is a cool chic and that is that).

Here are the before and after shots of my cool chic. I think you and I can agree that she is indeed beautiful and an amazing gift that God has given me!

When I grow up . . .

As some of you may be aware, any day, week or month here I am going to lose my job. It seems to be an epidemic for many families, and now it has come to ours. I am in the process of training Replacement Programmer who appearantly will do my job for a much smaller price in another country. Until Replacement is trained properly, I am somewhat being held hostage by the severance package I will receive once Replacement is trained. My departure date seems to change constantly. Currently, it is set for November.
I have started to think about what I want to be now. What do I want to be in this next phase of life? Do I want to continue to be a computer programmer? Do I want to take this chance to explore other options? I would really like to do something with people for people in this phase of my life. I really want God to direct me to my next job. And when I say direct, I mean I would really like Him to point right at the job I am to have. I am all about wanting burning bushes in my life to reveal exactly what God wants me to do. I so love it when he is obvious in our lives. When it is evident that HE is in control.
As I have begun to explore other options, I believe that God is leading me in a unique direction. I have started talking to a friend of ours who sells insurance. While at first thought, it doesn't sound like the woo-hoo life changing experiece I am after. It really is. This friend has set up his agency in a way that it will give back to our community. And while I will be selling things to people, insurance also helps them. I will also be able to share my faith with all the new people I will come into contact. I can live my faith out daily in front of those contacts I make. Currently, I sit in my house for work for 8-9 hours a day. The folks I see outside of my house are my dear friends and family. I don't really have a lot of stranger run-ins.
Anyway, as part of this exploration, this friend asked me to take an assesment that would show if I had what it takes to be a good salesperson. Yikes, this assesment was something else. The first section was about 150 words where you had to guage from 1-5 how much the word applied to you. It was one of those trick things though because they basically gave you the basic words - outgoing, cooperative, patient, etc - and then as the list went on they just used multiple synonoms of those words to see if you kept agreeing to who you were. I was to the point of not being sure who I was and was convinced that all this assesment would tell them was that I had multiple personality disorder and wasn't qualified to be anything more than a circus clown (which might be fun except for the traveling with my four clown kids in tow).
The second section was the statement section. They give you the positive of the statment, such as I work well in large groups, and then about 10-20 statements later you see the mix of the statement - such as I don't work well in small groups. Another section to prove that I am out of my mind and have no idea who I really am. Now honestly, I did not need an assesment to tell me that I am confused. I know this. This is one thing I can be positive about. Anyway, in the end, the assesment somehow came back to say that I might do well as a sales person. WOW!
I continue to pray for God's obvious direction for me of what I should be when I grow up. I know He will show me the path, I only hope that I am not standing off somewhere confused, trying to find my own way, and miss His directions. Because as the Book tells me . .. He knows what is best for me!

A Family of Crazies

These were just too funny not to share with all 10 of my readers. While sitting at lunch on Monday, Grace was cracking us up with her funny faces so much so that others tried to imitate.

With a family like this, how does she really have a chance?

Gotta love them though!

For You, Grandpa and Grandma Hornsing

Okay, so my parents are expecting a blog about them when they return to the great state of Nebraska. And because my life goal is to be sure to reach my parents high expectations, I do not want to let them down. The first thing they are expecting me to tell you about is my mothers gift to us each and every 4th of July. Every year we get the Old Navy Tshirts. All matching! And because we love Grandma, we all wear them on the 4th and allow her to take photos of how cute we are. Here we are this year in our Old Navy wear:

Let me give you a little more insight into the Marge of Homer and Marge as we affectionately call my parents. My mom is all about being fair. Even as my brother and I have grown, married, and had families - we all get the same amount of gifts. Each year, we each get pajamas, socks, and a shirt. You can bet money on it. And quite often the girls will all match up, and the boys will match up. Once in a while she mixes it up and has the spouses match. If my mom finds some cute $5 object for one of her 6 grandkids, she can not send that grandkid that object until she has a $5 object for each child. And for this I really do love her. I do tend to tease her about how she visits my brother and his family more than us . . . but really let's look at it logistically. .. an 8 hour one day drive vs. a 13 hour 2 day drive . . . 2 kids vs. 4 kids . . . so we will go with that explanation, and not that she loves my brother more. My dad is a hoot also. My dad is the Homer of all Homers. I sometimes wonder if the creators of the Simpsons didn't base that character on my daddy. My dad loves us all without limits. He always finds the good in each of us in every situation . . . and strives for us to be either a "gentleman and a scholar" or a "lady". And somehow, even through all I put him through in my teen years, he still managed to tell my friends he was proud of me and I had never been any trouble. Now, that could be due to age helping him forget all that trouble. But I like to think he truly thinks I was worth it all. Please, do not get me wrong. I love my parents dearly. They have worked hard their whole life to be sure that my brother and I were always taken care of. I have always known they loved me even when I have tested them to the limits. So Homer and Marge, I hope you have made it home safely and know that I love you both.

While my parents were here, we did a lot of hanging out at home. Saturday we went on a little Williamson County adventure. We tried to go to Loveless Cafe, but hello? Saturday, noon, Loveless means a 2 hour wait. We ended up in Leipers Fork having lunch at Pucketts Grocery and walking around there for a bit. We then went and did a bit of a Historic Franklin drive around looking at the different areas from the Battle of Franklin. It was a fun day filled with learning and memories. Sophia, Dawson, Grandma, and Grandpa went on a trail walk at one place. Sophia spent this afternoon drawing maps out of the trails they could all walk next time Grandma and Grandpa visited. Here are a few more shots of our days with the "Hornsings":

Grandma Hornsing and Sophia making us some yummy brownies.

Dawson, Grandpa, and Sophia after a long day. How sweet is that?

And look who returned to us . . . Brandon. We missed him!

Dawson and Sophia were not all that excited to have their picture taken with the General Lee. In fact, they both kept asking what was so exciting about the car. I guess I have let my kids down in the American culture dept.

Oh, and for curious minds, the Spring Hill PD did not make any more visits to my house. The boys waited until noon on the 4th to start shooting the fireworks off again. And then we went to our friends house for the evening to let off the big stuff. Dawson managed to steer clear of juvi for this holiday.

Tomorrow is back to a more normal summer life. Our count down to vacation is at 16 days tomorrow. Florida and Mickey Mouse watch our because here come the crazies!

Until another day,

Terri

The Spring Hill PD just left my house!

I was really hoping to never have the PD visit my house, never ever in fact. However, did you know that it is against Spring Hill city ordinances to shoot off fireworks except on July 4 from noon to 11pm? Well, it is. As my son and his friend Joshua just learned as they had a visit from the Spring Hill PD. They had been shooting off firecrackers and bottle rockets for about 3 hours when Mr Policeman showed up in our backyard. Said one of the neighbors phoned us in for disturbing their peace. You should have seen the boys' faces. Dawson said he was scared they were going to send him to juvi. Where did my son even hear about going to juvi? And furthermore, why didn't my "neighbor" just come ask me to stop shooting off the firecrackers as opposed to calling in the PD? I suppose 3 hours of bang-bang-bang was probably excessive but they were having some good boy fun blowing stuff up. They only started one small fire - which got about 3 feet high before I was able to put it out. These are the good times that summer memories are made of. Now, not only do they have the memories of all the things they blew up, they have the memory of being busted by the PD. And I have a good story to tell about how their eyes were huge with fear, and they feared juvi for that moment. Ah . . . good times!