Gotta LOVE those car rides

Our family's time in the car together can either be categorized as quality time or frustration time. Yesterday the girls and I were on our way to Tina's dance class and about 2 minutes away from home the "conversation" started between the girls.
Ana: Tina, is Erin in your dance class?
Ana: Is Erin's sister in your dance class too?
Tina: Ana, be quiet. I don't want to talk.
Ana: I'm just asking you a question.
Tina: Mom, tell her to be quiet!
Me: Ana, Tina doesn't care to talk right now.
Ana: Mom, I am wondering if Erin is in dance.
Tina: Ana! Really! Stop talking!!
silence...for a moment...
Ana: I can't stop talking.
Tina: UGH! Sigh.

On the way home from dance, Tina once again was still not in the mood for her little sister.
Tina: Mom, Ana keeps staring at me.
I look in my rear-view mirror. Sure enough Ana is purposely staring at Tina.
Me: Ana, please stop looking at Tina.
Tina: She is still looking at me!
I take another look in my mirror. Yep, still looking at her sister.
Me: Ana, please just look at the TV.
I look in my mirror to make sure she is doing what I say. With exaggerated big wide eyes she turns her eyes to the TV. I smile. Tina again gives a big sigh.

Yesterday was NOT categorized as "quality time" in the car with my kids. My first mistake - having them sit next to each other - DUH!

Usually, the quality time happens when I am alone with one of my kids. And I suppose I should define quality time for you. Quality time in the car is all about the conversation I am blessed to have with one of the kids. The car is great for talking with my kids because we're strapped in our seats and the only thing to do is talk with each other. It's where I get the most information out of them :o)

So the other day Ana starts the conversation by telling me...
Ana: I am brown.
Me: Who says you're brown? Or how do you know you are brown?
Ana: Well, John at my preschool is black.
Ana: He is darker then me.
Ana: So I am brown.
Me: Well, I guess that makes sense.
Me: What color am I?
Ana: Yellow.

Ana has been very talkative about her skin color lately. The other day we were listening to a kids CD of bible songs. She loves to sing along with it and I love listening to her! So we are listening and singing along and all of a sudden Ana says...
Ana: Mom, I am a child of God!!
Me: I know it! So am I!
Then came the part - "red, yellow, black, or white - we are precious in his sight - Jesus loves the little children of the world"
And Ana says: Yep, it doesn't matter what color you are! God loves us all!
Me: You know it!
Brought tears to my eyes. I hope she will always remember that song and know that Jesus loves her and that she will always, always feel comfortable in her skin. Her beautiful brown skin!

Keep, keep, keep'n busy

Ya know it's funny how disappointed I get when the blogs I follow don't update on a regular basis. I find myself wanting to leave them a comment like - Yo, when you gonna update your blog?! However, apparently I don't have the same expectation for myself. When was my last post?...November? Good gravy!
I don't even know where to start... Maybe I'll just post some pictures of what's been happening with our family :)

Boys are playing on Kindred's 4th grade traveling basketball team. We've been getting bleacher butt just about every weekend sitting at tournaments! Kyle is coaching the team and having a blast living vicariously through his sons! I'm trying to keep my pulse rate under control and to not be one of those loud parents yelling from the stands. Whew!! I am emotionally drained after every game!

Ana is thrilled that she FINALLY got to make her first snowman!

Bowling with friends on our day off from school. Since then, we have had several "snow days" - kids will be in school until July if we keep getting dumped on! Well maybe not until July, but we can probably kiss Spring Break & Easter Monday goodbye. Oh well...

Kyle and I were able to take a wonderful vacation to cool and cloudy Florida and to warm and sunny Bahamas with some friends. We spent a day at Epcot while in Orlando.

And then we took a cruise to the Bahamas. Thoroughly enjoyed our time soaking up the sun! And laughing until our stomachs hurt with friends!

Will be sure to post again in the not so distant future :)

Court Day

Yesterday we had our court hearing to finalize Ana's adoption. It was a very short, but very meaningful appearance before the Honorable Wade L. Webb! The judge came in - we all stood - he proceeded to explain that we were in court to finalize the adoption for "Anna" Elizabeth Freier - Kyle and I gave each other a glance because we knew what was coming - Ana slowly lifted her eyes toward the judge and said "No, Ana". The judge chuckled a bit and said, "Well thank you, Ana, for correcting me". We've tried to explain to her that her name is a bit confusing to people and that she will probably need to 'politely' correct people all of her life. What do ya do? :)

Afterwards we asked Ana where she wanted to go for lunch to celebrate. That's when the boys got the idea to go bowling. So they asked Ana - "Ana do you want to go bowling and have pizza"? "Doesn't that sound like fun Ana?" To which she got all excited and was begging to go bowling. She doesn't even know what bowling is! So went bowling - in our dresses and dress pants - at 11:30 am - on a Wednesday!

When we got there, our three oldest started to give the lady their shoe sizes to get their bowling shoes. Apparently the smallest shoe size they have is a 12 and Ana wears a 10 1/2, but she was determined to wear a pair of the multi-colored leather shoes just like her siblings. I don't know how she kept them on, but you would have thought they were Cinderella's glass slippers - she loved those shoes!




So can you guess who won the game??

Tina of course!! You go girl!!

Halloween

To be honest Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. But the kids sure do enjoy getting dressed up & of course the candy is appealing too. This year Matt asked if we could trick-or-treat in the neighborhood. Our church has always hosted a Harvest Party and we've always attended that and have never really bothered with the door-to-door stuff. But ya know, now that he is a mature age of 10 he thought he needed to trick-of-treat with friends in the neighborhood. So we went to the Harvest Party first and once they got their fill of candy, pop, bottles of bubbles, etc. - then we came home and scoured the neighborhood for MORE candy.
The girls and I only made it to about 6 houses. I didn't even think to give Ana some "trick-or-treating etiquette" before we set out, so our first couple of stops she would march right inside their house when they would open the door to hand out the candy. She quickly caught on to the "trick-or-treat" saying in order to get the candy. And then she also told everyone what she was - "I'm a dancing girl" - just in case they couldn't tell by the leotard, tutu, and dance shoes. One of our neighbors had a bit of a scary costume on with a ghostly face and freakishly-long fingers that reached out to hand you the candy. Tina stopped dead in her tracks the moment she saw him. Oh not Ana though - she walked right up to him, eyes wide, and said trick-or-treat - she knew there was candy involved and she was going to get it! And then she was even so nice as to reach out a grab her sister's candy too since she wasn't going to come and get it. And then that ended our door-to-door trick-or-treating.

Our two "dancing girls" - Cowboy Andy - and our gangster son, Matt

A Little of This - A Little of That

Tina turned 6 on September 16th!! Or should I say it seems as though she turned 16 on September 6th - Ugh! Tina loves Kindergarten - she is writing sentences & making art work every chance she gets. She is losing teeth & looks a bit like the jack-o-latern sitting on our front step!

Matt turned the BIG 1-0 on September 23rd. I can't believe I have a child in the double digets! Where does the time go?? Matt has been having a blast playing football with his 4th grade class. He LOVES "hanging" with his friends & playing just about anything that requires throwing/tossing/or kicking a ball.


Ana and I went to the pumpkin patch with her preschool class. Ana loved running around in the straw bail maze and I think she left with much of it in hair, boots, & hood of her coat! She had to lift each pumpkin up and look at the bottom. I watched her do this to at least 4 pumpkins until I asked her what she was doing. She told me she didn't want a pumpkin that was wet. Well good luck with that when they are all setting on the ground! Eventually, my friend just took the pumpkin & wiped it off and Ana was satisfied. Why didn't I think of that???

One Year Ago Today...

It was one year ago today - September 18th (also my beautiful neice's birthday!) - that we received these pictures of this sweet, sweet face!! It was right up there in "one of the happiest days" category!!




I remember looking into Ana's deep brown eyes and feeling just so very blessed! I was in the dentist chair when I received a call from our agency saying they had some new children available and she wanted to send me pictures over the email. Oh my gosh, I wanted to run out of that dental office right at that moment - but I didn't - I let them finish my cleaning. So as soon as I got home, I phoned our agency and told them they could start sending the pictures. I had no idea they were sending so many pictures - it took forever to receive them. Ana's pictures were the first ones we received and I phoned our agency and told them not to send me anymore - Ana is all we needed to see! I just knew that when we did finally receive a referral, that we would accept the first child we saw - and we did! She was so beautiful & so full of life - her smile made you melt - and it still does!
I thank God every day that she hasn't lost her happiness & her smile. I worried so much that we would get her home and she would become very sad & not want to be with us. But I really think she has bonded very well with all of us & that she truly feels like she belongs (and she most certainly does) in this family.
So many of you prayed for Ana for close to a year and we thank you so much for that!

First Day of Preschool

Monday was Ana's first day of preschool. She was so excited!! She has been waiting for it to be her turn to go to school - I think she has asked me pretty much every day why her brothers and sister get to go to school and she has to wait. So her day finally arrived!! I woke her a bit early as I know she doesn't like to move very fast in the morning. She woke up very happy, but still moved at the pace of a turtle. It took her 20 minutes just to eat a slice of toast, so needless to say the other slice of toast didn't get eaten as we just had to get going.
She went right in to her classroom & starting playing. Her teacher greeted her with a "good morning Anna" and Ana respectfully told her "I'm not Anna, my name is Ana." I'm afraid she is probably going to be repeating her name many times throughout her life - oh well. So we got her settled into an activity at the table and she gave me a big hug and a kiss and said "goodbye Mom, I'll see you later!" I left thinking, well that was certainly easy!
So when it was time to pick her up, she took one look at me and started to cry. I couldn't believe it! She kept saying "no Mom, I'm not ready to go yet". I told her we could come back tomorrow and that seemed to make the crying stop.
Her favorite things to do at preschool are painting (poor thing doesn't have much opportunity at home for those messy projects) & singing - she has the B-I-B-L-E down quite well already!