Eva-ism

Eva is always full of interesting things to say.  That is why the title to this post is "Eva-ism".  She always is amazing me with her curiosity and intelligence.  She asked me this question tonight.

Eva:  Mom, what are we having for dinner?

Me:  Chicken Cordon-blue.

Eva:  Chicken got the flu?

43 Today!

Pounds that is! Ivy finally has gained some weight. Her eating has slowed down significantly and she does not eat many sweets. She actually still has some candy that Mike bought her from the 2nd week of July! None of my other children would save candy that long. Anyway, I'm glad she's moving up.

Yummy

 

Compliments of Jordan...Sunday Cupcakes.  She won't cook, but she will bake.  How will she survive once she moves out?  

For some reason, nutritious food, like these vanilla cupcakes with fresh raspberry icing, never seems to last for long in our house.  Maybe it has something to do with the little girl peeking over the counter?  But more than likely it is because of the 16 year old boy that will eat 2 gallons of ice cream a week if I let him.

If I Fall....

and break my neck, you will know how.  Eva sometimes organizes everyone's shoes and puts them away, but sometimes it is useless.  These are only what is used regularly, not to mention what is in the closets.

Jack

This guy recently began taking karate classes.  Last week he graduated to the yellow belt.  He absolutely LOVES it!  We are all so proud of him.  He does not get nervous in karate class, but does before a soccer game.  It does not make sense.  But, then again, Jack never has made sense (in a good way).  I like that Jack does not fit the mold.

The Things People Say

All adoptive parents know what I'm going to say.  We've all been bombarded with questions about the children we've adopted.  Some are because of curiosity; some out of concern.  Some people are being nosy or just rude.  Shortly after coming home with Eva, a man who we saw weekly decided to tell me a couple of racist Chinese jokes, laughing the whole time.  I didn't say a word or laugh at his jokes.  I was surprised and taken aback.

Recently while out of town, I had an older gentlemen approach me with his wife to be.  I had spoken to him before about adoption.  He had adopted domestically many years ago and was curious as to why we adopted from China and not the U.S.  This time, he points to the three girls and said, "Tell her how much money you got in each of these girls."  Not wanting to embarrass the wife-to-be, although I was shocked, replied with a smile, "Priceless."

FYI

I wanted to let you know that I transferred our adoption travels from a previous website to the blog.  If you are interested in reading about our previous adoptions, go down to the Labels section of the blog and click on either "China Travel 2006" for Eva's adoption or "China Travel 2007" for Joy's adoption.  And since this is blogger, you will need to read backwards to get the posts in order.  It is amazing how quickly the years have just flown by.  The older you get, the faster they go!

Random Photos

We took a short trip to my mom's at the end of June.  I allowed my learner permitted son to drive the 2 hour 45 minute drive each way.  He did pretty good.  But, I did not allow him to drive over this mountain with its narrow roads.  Once I let him out of the car, walk the road, look over the mountain, he understood why.

As a child, I saw car's back tires go off the edge of the road, almost over the mountain!

While there, we headed to the pool and had lunch while walking around the lake.  It is beautiful there.

No, Seth is not really holding Joy by her ponytail!  She loves being tossed around by Seth.

Ivy loves her hair in this twist style (thanks Becky), and she wanted a picture.  Very lovely.

We Took a Little Trip

That is the reason for my absence of 10 days or so.  We went to Illinois to first visit Mike's family.  So, Ivy met her grandma and grandpa, aunt, uncles, and cousins for the first time.  She loved every minute of it.

Mike's Dad owns a very neat potato chip factory called "Mrs. Mike's". 

On this day, there was a big load of potatoes for the children to see and smell.  There were some freshly peeled potatoes ready for the cooker

Dan (Mike's brother) was doing the cooking that day.  He did not want me to take his picture, but I was able to sneak one anyway.  (He was probably embarrassed because he's so out of shape?)

We always love going to the factory and gorging on warm chips right out of the cooker.  Mike believes he gained a few pounds before we left there.

 I promised my father-in-law that I would not divulge any secret recipes or post pictures which are too revealing to these prized chips.  But, they are a very coveted item among our friends and family.  Ivy does not normally eat potato chips, but does like them warm.

Mike with his father.

Mike with his other brother, Matt (also works at the factory), his dad, and Seth.

We also had a fun time at the local park.  We rode the carousel, played putt-putt (first time for the girls), played around a bit.  It was great weather.

We're missing Jordan.  She could not make it, but had to work.

Seth always tries to scare his mom.

We stayed at Mike's mom's house.  Jack made good friends with her dog, Murphy.  We heard him snoring every night while sleeping on the couch.  Then he snored all day long.

After our visit with Mike's family, we headed east a short ways and visited friends.  We stayed with another family that has 5 children.  Ivy kept commenting how loud everything was.  There were some nights there were over 30 people in the house, enjoying the company of good friends.

Seth playing cards with friends.

While there, our friends were blessed with a horse, which they named Blessing.  Leanna did not know about the horse, but thought we were just going to see a horse.  Here is her face once her dad told her it was theirs.  Priceless.

Jack with Jacob, David, and Grace