Had Alyssa, her date and two friends for dinner tonight. It was their school’s Winter Formal and they ate Italian food here before they went to the dance. Don’t they all look gorgeous? The dresses in the same shade were not planned ahead of time…just happened that way!

Jeff took the younger ones down to his office for KFC and a movie to get them out of the house while these four had dinner. I was amazed at how quiet it was and how easy it was to cook without 4 more kids underfoot. I realized that could be my life someday…in about another fifteen years.

Yes, I know it’s been MONTHS since I updated this blog. I had friends try to convince me that Facebook was such a great place to hang out that I didn’t need to blog anymore. I could just send updates to my Facebook page. Guess what? Shhhh…don’t tell anyone, but I think Facebook is mostly a waste of time. Oh never mind, you can tell whoever you want because that is the opinion I had before I joined Facebook as well.

It does have its positives such as finding friends who I haven’t seen in years. I enjoy looking at their photo albums and catching up with their lives. However, I’m really not interested in mucking my way through updates that tell me you just won a swagbuck or that you had spaghetti with homemade noodles and a salad with tomatoes, croutons, cucumbers, bell peppers and ranch dressing on the side for dinner and are now off to read a good book. Being the cynic that I am, I want to reply, “Gee, don’t forget to tell us when you get up to go potty too!”, but something tells me that my “friends” list would shrink rather rapidly if I said that. With 5 kids at home and very limited time, I also don’t want to farm, nor do I want to engage in a snowball or water balloon fight so please quit telling me that I have been hit with a water balloon and have something like 24 hours to respond or I will lose. I surrender…you can win the fight. It’s OK. So, I guess I’m back.

The beauty of my blog? If you don’t like it, ya don’t have to read it and you don’t have to become my new internet “friend” either to access it. Even better, I won’t tell you everytime I win a swagbuck. Agreed? Sounds like a deal.

Got this photo tonight from someone in Texas. It came via Sprint so I am guessing it is from a cell phone? No message, nothing. Just a subject header with my son’s name on it. BTW, it took awhile, but we figured out the cast says Arlington (upside down) which is where he is currently working as a zone leader. Whose hat? Your guess is as good as mine.

No one can say that Taylor ever does things halfway. From breaking his leg in a soccer game to now breaking his wrist as a missionary, he tends to do things 100%. He was playing basketball on his preparation day and is now sporting a royal blue cast after falling hard on his wrist a few weeks ago. He broke the scaphoid bone and here is an excerpt from his letter home yesterday:

Elder H. here in Arlington… with a full solid cast (it’s a royal blue!) on my left arm and missionary signatures adorning it. Yep. Scaphoid fracture. I had a bone scan on Monday, and in the words of Dr. Milne, “Well, Elder H., leave it to you to have the freak accident fracture that doesn’t show up on x-rays. Have fun in a cast in the middle of the Texas summer!” Oy… So yeah. Been a fun week.

I saw this great pic above and am guessing that hitting his wrist this way is how he broke it.

Actually, it only cost about $5K compliments of her orthodontist, but I love this photo of Alysssa. I took it recently at her sister’s birthday dinner and it clearly conveys who she is. She just came home from Girls’ camp a few weeks ago and a leader sent me an email telling me how much she loves Alyssa and her cheerful attitude. She is such a great example not only to her siblings, but her peers as well.

“Don’t touch! It’s mine!” How many times a day do I hear that? Far too often. Usually it’s from V., our foster daughter, which is normal for a 3 year old. She thinks everything belongs to her.

The older kids also, however, seem to have an extra strong claim on ownership. Just in case there was any doubt, Micheline decided to let us all know that this water bottle belongs to her.

Here’s the lastest pics of Micheline’s hair after it was locked about 5 months. She’s been locked for 6 1/2 months now if you count from when I took out the original ones and made them smaller, and we are loving it! The only thing we hate is when people think they need to run their hands through her hair. Locked hair….women with pregnant bellies…for some reason people think they are public property, but Micheline has gotten pretty good at telling people, “Please don’t touch my hair.” I can hardly wait until it is long enough to pull up into some hairdos, but right now we are just enjoying the freedom of being “wash and wear.”

Friends of ours have finally received their referral after 39 long months of waiting. Click here to see their new daughter’s darling face. Such kissable looking cheeks!

Is Mother’s Day at your home the stuff Hallmark commercials are made of? Do your children spontaneously burst into song as they hand you gifts they have lovingly worked on for months? Mother’s Day at my home is more like a scene from Animal House or National Lampoon’s vacation.

My day started off with a bang as my two youngest came to crawl in my bed at 6 a.m. I was exhausted as Alyssa had been up until one a.m. tossing her cookies and I had been up with her, rubbing her back and making the clucking sounds that every good Mother Hen should make when you have a child who is sick. Jeff had already risen, so his entire side of our kingsized bed was vacant. Doesn’t matter. They both prefer to wedge themselves between me and my edge of the bed. I wasn’t buying it this morning. After all, this was MOTHER’S DAY! I cracked one eyelid open long enough to look at them and say, “Don’t even think about it!” They reluctantly moved over to Jeff’s side of the bed and fell back asleep.

During church, V. decided it would be far more fun to scream during the service than quietly draw or look at books. So, I spent most of the meeting out in the foyer holding a very unhappy child on my lap because I don’t reward screaming kids by allowing them to run in the halls. I went back in and sat down briefly in the back while the Primary children sang. I WILL give them credit that it was a great song about families rather than the gaggingly sweet “Mother dear I love you so, your happy smiling face,…” that they usually sing. However, Micheline, who is being tested this week for central auditory processing disorder didn’t know most of the words. She stood in the front row of kids who were singing, and periodically grinned my direction. Every once in awhile she would mouth a word or two, but then returned to her grins.

After church, my youngest 3 ran up to me each bearing a carnation and shouted “Happy Mother’s Day!” A little suspect, since the gift to the mothers for our congregation was an instrumental CD of American Hymns.

I immediately noticed women from the congregation after ours carrying long stemmed carnations and realized that my newest Mother’s Day offerings from my children were stolen goods. I told them to put them back. The kids disappeared, but when it was time to go, they had not returned. I found them instead in that congregation’s clerk’s office trying to pilfer a few more out of some five gallon buckets. Come to think of it, maybe a more accurate description of my family would be the pickpocket scenes from Oliver!

After shooing them out the door to their father, Caleb announced that he had lost his scriptures. Unfortunately, he had most likely left them in a room that was now holding a Sunday School class for adults. Jeff was already in the car with the other kids, and since we had two vehicles at church, I told him to go tell Dad not to wait for him, but to come back in and I would help him find them. Instead, he somehow misunderstood and took off with Dad, telling him that I said for them all to go home. After circling the building 3 times looking for him, I finally realized he was gone. I was unsuccessful in my search, but 10 minutes after arriving home, the missionaries called to tell me that they had found them under a chair in a room so I told Caleb he had to put his church clothes back on to go back to the building to get them. After all, I am a big believer in natural consequences. I didn’t lose the scriptures, he did, so what better natural consequence was there? Well, according to him and his mutterings, there were quite a few consequences he would have rather chosen. Off he went back to the church with Dad, but my chances for his vote for Mother of the Year were dwindling rapidly.

After a quick lunch I tried to nap, but V. decided that screaming in church was so much fun, that she might as well continue to do it at home any time anyone even looked at her. I was anxiously awaiting my call from our missionary son who is currently in Waco, Texas, so I couldn’t really rest anyway. They can only call home on Mother’s Day and Christmas, so I was looking forward to hearing his voice. He called close to 6 p.m. and it was one of the highlights of the day. He was sounding great and said he is being transferred next week to Arlington where he will continue to be a zone leader.

Caleb then decided that perhaps he should make a card. After all, Ben had made one and he had also made one from V. to me. Micheline had some gifts she had made at school that she was anxious to give me, so Caleb didn’t want to feel left out, but I don’t think his heart was in it. After all, he was still grousing about me sending him back to the church to retrieve his scriptures. He has asked me before why his birth mother in China didn’t want him, and he has been more than grumpy the past few years on Mother’s Day, so I think this day brings issues to the forefront that he would rather not deal with. After asking Jeff to sign it and wanting the rest of the family to sign it as well, Jeff told him no, and explained that it should probably just be from him since he had made it. Obviously Caleb didn’t think so and got mad and tore it up and threw it in the garbage.

Micheline gave me her gifts from school: a beautiful photo and a darling clay wallhanging of her self. She also handed me a not easily identifiable pile of a few chocolate covered pretzels. A few weeks ago, when she made the gift at her Achievement Day at church, she had quite a bag full of chocolate covered pretzels, but the temptation for her while hiding them in her room for two weeks waiting for Mother’s Day to arrive was too great and I humorously watched the pile dwindle in size each time I put clean clothes away in her top drawer.

After dinner in which V. spent the last 10 minutes under the table screaming, we started kids in the direction of bed. Problem was, Ben decided he needed to now make me a card on the computer in addition to the one he had already made, and was not going to be dissuaded. After Jeff read to Micheline, she headed for bed, only for us to hear V. –who we thought was asleep-screaming again. Upon questioning, Micheline innocently said, “I was climbing into the top bunk and just yanked her sheet off of her before I got into bed”, with a look that said, “What could I possibly have done wrong?”

Ben is always wide awake at night and his meds had not kicked in yet, so while I texted Nicole about my day, he decided to lie down next to me on the sofa and self stim by rubbing his cheeks on my legs. I hadn’t shaved them since Friday evening, and Mr. Sensory Seeker loved the feel of stubble from my shins on his face. I finally convinced him that going to bed would be in his best interest, and off he went.

It’s now 11:30 p.m. and another Mother’s Day has come and gone. Can’t say that I’m sad that it only comes around once a year, but each year I think I gain a bit more perspective. Yes, kids can be a pain. A royal pain. And yet, isn’t that what Mother’s day is about? Mothering? Today I rocked a screamer, held a child whose feelings were hurt, gave another backrubs, read to another, and yes, even got angry more than a time or two. There will be no Mother of the Year awards in this house, and I can promise you that none of my children will ever call me “My Angel Mother.”

But would I run into traffic to save one of my kids? Of course. Go back into a burning building to find one? Absolutely. They each have their quirks that can drive me crazy, but I’m glad that they are mine. Actually, they are His. They are only on loan from above, and I am thankful to a Heavenly Father who in spite of my glaring ineptness, trusts me enough to attempt to raise a few of His children. He knows them better than I do, and on days like today when I just can’t figure out why V. needs to scream so much, or why Micheline needs to torment her, or a million other why’s, I have to turn it over to Him. At a time when many of my friends are starting to have empty nests, I have a 3 year old who wrote on the walls today with crayon.

Lynn sent me a hilarious card with a sweet message, and Nicole came by with a sweet card she had made and a gift certificate for a massage. Believe me, after the day I had today, I will be scheduling it soon.

In our state high schoolers have to pass the AIMS test to graduate. They start taking it as freshmen and have 4 years to pass it. Some whine about how it is not a fair test in showing what students really know, but so far none of my first four children have had any trouble passing it.

The average score on the reading portion is around 600. Alyssa just scored 900 on it, one of only 3 students in the whole school who scored that high. Needless to say, she scored in the “exceeds expectations” range. Way to go Alyssa!