Ironic

Didn't think twice about braiding her hair this morning before we took her in to be traumatized, huh. "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes." ~1 Peter 3:3

If you aren't a grandparent and just want to see the carnage, start watching around 3:20. :-)

Suffering...

...for beauty.

Born Yesterday

Apparently the boys think I was. I heard the usual shrieking coming from my bathroom the other night and steeled myself to face one of the boys' fights. Danny was in tears, "Mom! Something terrible happened!" What happened was Jacob allegedly tripped getting out of the bathtub and his toothbrush allegedly flew out of his hand (of its own accord) and miraculously stuck 11 feet up on the wall. Uh huh.

Oh yeah, Halloween...

Our little ladybug...

SpiderDan

Long Jacob Silver

The Nosu Princess

The Annual Fiasco

I figured our usual photographer is busy enough and didn't even ask this year (even though I know this person will say they loves doing it and is hugely offended etc.) but I made a command decision for said individual and asked my friend Trena to do our portraits this year.

I hate portrait time because it's impossible to get every looking at the camera and happy when you start adding this many little people into the mix. I also hate it because of the compulsive need to coordinate clothes but my refusal to shell out the money and buy all new coordinating outfits. It usually ends in command decisions like "Forget it! Wear whatever you want!" or "Let's just all wear black/white/denim." Ok, I haven't yet sunk as low as the super-matchy denim but it's coming at some point I'm sure. This year I thought I had it all figured out and then I discovered I didn't about 30 minutes before picture time so, oh well.

Now the pictures that will be on my walls and Christmas cards will have our new girlie in them but she can't make her internet debut at this time so we tried a few without her and I think this is my favorite. Can you tell who was more not into this than me? You better wait by your mailbox 'cuz this year's card looks to be the best so far!

Happy Halloween

I asked the girls if we should have a scary or happy pumpkin so happy it is! I shouldn't be surprised since Libby was astonished at the lack of rainbows in the sky the other day. We're pretty sure her world is full of nothing but rainbows, princesses, princes and flowers. Life has been a bit on the chaotic side as we finally hired a contractor to finish our abysmal backyard. Goodbye barren wasteland!

Amid the power outages and water being intermittently off and construction happening everywhere and children spilling gallons of milk on the front porch during the time the water is off we got to welcome home a little 3 year old girl! She is 3 days older than Libby and they will now be referred to as "the twins." But now as we enter life with social workers again, continue schooling at home and raising 5 children, ages: 2, 3, 3, 4 and 6 we sit on our lovely back porch and praise God, for He is good! We are abundantly blessed in that

"He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight..." ~Eph 1:5-8

Pajamarama

Dear Grandparents,
I give up. I can no longer make fun cakes and have extravagent parties for each childs' birthday. I'm a failure, I know. It's all Jacob and Maggie's fault, really, since they decided to have birthdays 7 days apart. Since they decided to share October, in my book they also decided to share a party. And for that matter, what if we just rolled out of bed and declared that a party in itself and never took off our pajamas? What if your "cake" was a pan"cake"...

Thank you for not judging me. Thanks to my neighbors for not mocking my pink leopard granny jammies I wore in our front yard until 3:00. Thanks to the real estate agent who didn't tell us people we know and work with would live across the street from us and see me outside at noon in undignified pajamas.

Love,

Missy

Today I Made it Out of Purgatory

Really the only reason I'm writing this entry is for that title. I'm in a book club with some other book geeks. We started about a year and a half ago on the Breakpoint Great Books List (a list of great books with a Christian worldview).

Everyone is forced to read good books in high school, precisely when you have zero appreciation for them. We thought it would be nice to hold each other accountable to read good books now and enjoy them instead of read them and squelch all the joy out of the process by slaving on a 20 page dissertation about "the role of verticality in the novel" or "the influence of religion in 19th-century Russian literature." I had to write one of those essays in college and believe me, joy squelcher.

One of our most recent books was Dante's The Divine Comedy. The crazy people who made the list assumed you would read all three parts in one month. Might as well have picked the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. I'm just Type A enough that it's been nagging me that I never finished it so I've continued through Inferno, Purgatory and here comes Paradise!