Presents Everywhere!

Wow! What a whirlwind November was! Not that December is any better, but November is always a busy month for our family. Birthdays galore!


We made it through the kids' birthdays pretty much unscathed, and it was a lot of fun (although stressful planning between work and everyone else's birthdays on top of it). We had a big family and friends get together and got both of them done at once; One great thing about them being born so close in the same month (another being I haven't had to spend a dime on new clothes for Kali). Woohoo!

They got some great gifts and everyone was so generous! Fun moves, books, new shoes and clothes (for chenda, she needed that!), and toys toys toys! My mom, uncle and Aunt made cupcakes for me that I was able to decorate, and my in-laws made some wonderful food for everyone. It was delicious! All in all a great time for everyone.


Now with Christmas coming up it's time to start thinking about presents again!

*AHH!*

Just when you think you are done Christmas sneaks up on you doesn't it? (just one of the DOWNsides of having so many birthdays right before the holidays!) By the way, Chan and I went to Toys-R-Us for their 12am "Black Friday" sale, and let me say I will NEVER do that again. Not fun. However, we were able to get this great play kitchen for Chenda for about $40 that's usually $100 and to see the look on her face will make the 2 hours of standing in the blistering cold with no coat (yah I'm the idiot who forgot my coat) worth every minute. The things we do for our children are just rediculous aren't they!?

It looks like I'm being summoned to watch the closing scene of Tinkerbell with Chenda (it's her favorite part). 'Till next time!.....

Wordless Wednesday 11/10

In honor of Baby Sister's 1st birthday coming up this weekend, here is a picture to commemorate (with more coming on her actual birthday, of course!)


Our first time making eye contact

A conversation with Chenda....

Baby sister is very sick with a high fever the last couple days. Chenda noticed that this morning when we woke up and she came to lay in bed with us for a few minutes...This short conversation cracked me up.


Chenda: *feels baby's forehead" uh-oh! Baby hop (hot)!
me: I know baby is sick so her head is hot
Chenda: ohhh. I blow on it! *blows on her head like it's a hot bowl of soup*

hahah So sweet trying to break a fever by blowing. Well, it works for food doesn't it?!?!?

Halloween and other Shenanigans!

Halloween is definitely one of my favorite times of year. I find now that I have children, it's even better! Especially this year, since Chenda is finally into it enough to do things like pick out her own costume, sit still (sort of) for face paint, and help gut the pumpkins without throwing the goop and/or eating the seeds and choking on them. This year, her costume of choice was a black and pink Kitty Cat...Which ended up driving my CRAZY by the end of the night because the pink fuzzy trim kept falling off of it! But it was still cute.


Of course, in the spirit of having 2 girls, daddy wanted to get baby sister a matching costume, and since the closest we could find was a pink and black leopard, that is what we went with.




The night before Halloween we had a family pumpkin carving session! It was a lot of fun. Chenda helped us gut them and tape on our stencils, and then Daddy and I carved them out. They actually came out really well! Halloween was spent out and about trick or treating! Chenda started out with some pretty nice face painting that was smudged into oblivion in about 10 minutes, and halfway through the evening her costume was coming apart at the seams (remind me next year to just spend the extra $10 and get the nicer costume) but she loved it, and Kali even seemed to enjoy being out in the fresh air! It was definitely a fun night and I can't wait till next year to see what their little imaginations spark them to dress up as again.

Little Kali is an official full-time walker, and she is busy busy busy! I thought the two of them would be trouble once this happened and boy was I right!! They are in to EVERYTHING! But alas, they make trouble so cutely that it's hard to be mad at them. In fact, here is a recent (short) conversation that I had with Chenda as her and baby were playing.

*Baby starts crying in other room*
Me: Chenda what are you doing?
Chenda: uhmmmmmmm....
Me: are you being nice??
Chenda: No!
.....
......well, at least she is honest right?!

Recipe Thursday!! *on saturday*

Ok, so I realise that it's not Thursday...And yes, I'm a couple days late for Recipe Thursday, but I have 2 kids, 2 dogs, a husband and a full time job so I'm sure I have your forgiveness.

OK! So, this weeks recipe is......Rum Cake!!

Ingredients:
Cake
1 Box yellow cake mix (Duncan Hines Butter yellow is the best!)
1 small box vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup dark rum
4 eggs

Glaze
1 stick butter
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup rum (the same you use for the cake)
1 cup sugar

Steps
1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2:Mix all cake ingredients together and pour into a greased (yes you want to pull out the Crisco for this) AND floured bundt ban....If you like nuts, sprinkle them into the bottom of the pan and then pour the mix over
3: Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean

4: *When the cake is done, do not turn out of the pan quite yet. Take out of the oven and make the glaze*
Mix all the glaze ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
5: Boil glaze 2-3 minutes and pour over the cake (while still in the pan..careful it's hot!)

Let the cake sit one hour at least before turning out of the pan. Then eat, and try to stop!!

Wordless Wednesday 11/3

The first wordless Wednesday of November!! How about some Halloween fun!!

Purpose.

"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:5


Some people spend their entire lives trying to figure out why God put them on this earth, and never find the answer. Or, well, in my opinion, they don't work hard enough to figure it out. God usually puts that kind of stuff right in our faces and it's up to us to pray about it and then recognize the signs. I recognized them several years back while attending a Women of Faith conference. I was a couple of years out of high school, and so naturally I didn't want to go. I thought it was going to be some boring Holy Rolling 2 day sermon that I would barely stay awake through. Pretty sure my dad said I HAD to go..To which I was not happy about, but I went. To my surprise it was a most entertaining event. About midway through the second day, they showed a video on the big screen for a child sponsorship program called World Vision.

That was it. I found my purpose.

Once the video was over I rushed to the WV booth and chose my first sponsored child. A young girl from the Philippines. The next year, I added another girl from Africa. No, no, sponsoring children through Christian programs is not my calling from God. I know for a very specific fact that my purpose in life, the REASON I was born to this Earth, is to love and help children in any way I can.

And so you might ask, "How will I know why God has put me here?"...Listen to your heart! What tugs at you when you see/hear it? If you could choose what you would do, if given the chance to do ONE thing with unlimited resources to help someone. What would it be? For me, it is adoption. Perhaps, it is appropriate then, that I was an adopted child myself.

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day after reading a friend's Blog about her journey through the process of adopting not one, but two children from Africa. It only makes sense. My God given purpose in life to do what I can to help children (most specifically my life-long desire to adopt) and being adopted myself. God must have (duh) designed my life to be so, in order for me to best use this purpose. I mean, who better to be a parent to an adopted child then someone who was herself adopted!!? Not saying that someone who wasn't adopted wouldn't make a good adoptive parent though, so don't misunderstand that. I'm just saying, for myself in my journey that is what I think.

I think the calling to help helpless and orphaned children is something that everyone needs to take an answer to. The bible says:

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

James 1:27

Take a few minutes to think about that verse and really let it resonate you. God may have not called you to adopt a child but there are other ways to help. Send a box of clothing to an orphanage over seas. Mentor a foster child. Donate money to a family in the midst of raising money to bring a child home.

I prayed the other night...I was feeling a bit guilty that I wasn't sure if I was being selfish wanting to wait until I was done having biological children before we decided on the adoption route. I asked God if I was ignoring something I shouldn't be. If I should be looking deeper into this now. After I while I felt a peace come over the guilt and I knew that it was Him telling me that now isn't the time. Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps the child that has been destined for us hasn't been concieved yet, who knows. But I do know that I am ready when the time comes, and I am listening and waiting, ready to follow the leader...and we all know who THAT is!!

And so, I will leave you with a few things to think about. One is: Find out what your purpose in life is and make the choice to participate. You have NO idea how fulfilling it is to take part in the thing you were born to do.

Second is some global stats on the orphan crisis in this world. I will admit living in my little bubble of the USA (no matter how hard things are here, we have NO true idea how privileged we are) I really had no idea the grand scale of things....
*There are between 143-210 MILLION orphans in the world today (to give you a perspective, the current US population is just over 310 million)
*Every year, 42,000 more children become orphans
*Each night 60 million orphans go to bed hungry, and
*Each year, 400,000 of them die due to malnutrition. (that's every 90 seconds)

"This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
John 15:12