Summer Fun

Summer is going by way to fast! We have been keeping busy to say the least! So far the boys have had a basketball camp in Kindred, golf camp in Oxbow, swimming lessons for both boys and girls, and baseball 4 nights a week. Whew! Thank goodness the weather has cooperated and we've been able to spend some fun weekends at the lake for a reprieve from our busy week day of activities. Here are just a few pics from our summer fun!

What a blessing

Once a month our Childrens Ministry Leader invites parents to stay and participate in their children's Sunday School time. Today she dedicated the hour to celebrating God's ministry to the orphan. She invited those of us who have adopted or are foster care parents to share our testimonies. To share how God moved our hearts to adopt or provide foster care - to share how He lead us to our child(ren) - and to share our biggest blessing through the experience.

I know my story, so it wasn't difficult to share specifics about how we came to adopt and how our process went. But gosh, when she asked me to share my biggest blessing - well that is tough. We've received so many through our adoption of Ana, that I don't know where to begin! I went to bed not knowing exactly what I was going to say. I slept restlessly and at 6:30 this morning God woke me with words!

Biggest Blessing

God’s love for us is so deep. He doesn’t care who we’ve been, what we’ve done, or where we came from. The only thing he cares about is the condition of our heart. He sees our desperate need for a Father. Someone to provide for us, to guide our direction, to listen to us, to simply love and accept us. God has given me the blessing of 4 beautiful children – 3 that I birthed and 1 that I traveled across the world for – and it doesn’t matter how my children came to be mine – they are mine – they are mine to love.

MY biggest blessing – well that would be when Ana sings along to her favorite CD and realizes that song is about her! Well, it’s really about all of us – but to a 4 yr old everything is about her!

The song goes -

“Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

And Ana says in excitement – doesn’t matter what color we are, Jesus loves everybody!!

I have sung that song for years, but have never REALLY put it into context until now. I have only seen things through my white American eyes. Well, now I see things through different colors. And that is a blessing in itself.

I'm not sure anyone understood my words, because of course I cried through the whole thing! Ugh! But I felt God's presence and it was amazing to listen to everyone's story! All the stories were different in how they came to adoption, yet we all knew that God guided us to it and through it. That He chose our children for us - that He knew from the very beginning that Ana would be a part of our family - that she would be our daughter.

We are so excited about what God is doing in our church. We believe He is stirring the hearts of people - moving them to have a heart for the orphan - molding their hearts to be more like His. And shouldn't that be our goal? To be more like Him?

I fall short in so many ways. But He knows my heart. And I am ever so thankful that He chose me to be His child! And as a child of God, I want to please Him - I want to be closer to Him - and I want Him to say to me, Well Done.

Honesty is the best policy...right??

So Ana and I went out for lunch after preschool today. I noticed Ana took this HUGE bite of her grilled cheese and could barely keep it in her mouth while she TRIED to chew it. I suggested she take smaller bites. After she swallowed some of it down, she told me big bites were ok because she had a big mouth. I couldn't help but laugh and for as much as she talks, I couldn't disagree with her. So we continued to eat and as I took a bite of my salad, Ana stops eating and says to me - Mom, you have a big mouth too.

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!

Back to School

The first day of school is always bitter sweet for me. After a fun-filled summer with the kids - all day - every day - 24/7 - running here - running there...well you get the drift...I am a "smidge" ready for them to go back to school. But I also miss them while they are away.
Today, we put THREE of our children on the bus! I know...can you believe that my little Tina is in Kindergarten already? Tina is very much ready to soar her oats and enter the world of elementary school. She is my social butterfly! She boarded the bus this morning with a huge smile on her face and plopped herself next to her little friend Solvay. The boys were ready for school to start as well and to see all their friends.
Of course, I had to remind them of how much they missed me while they were away by having warm brownies waiting for them when they arrived home! Matt said he could smell them as he came up the driveway...and then he said two of my favorite words...thanks Mom! I love that boy!! The other two just scarfed down the brownies while trying to tell me about their day.

Ana wasn't as happy about the kids leaving however. This is Matt attempting to hug her goodbye. I guess I should have gotten a picture of her waiting on the front steps when the bus rounded the corner to drop them off - she was jumping up and down saying, "here come the kids" - "the kids are home" - and then she gave each of them a big hug, even Tina!

Pink Hair

I almost forgot the other mishap that took place while we were "at the farm". Since we were painting Grandpa's garage, Aunt Laurie gave the kids cans of spray paint to paint on the old summer kitchen behind the garage. Katelyn had already painted a beautiful sun, rainbow and flowers and then my kids added their names and some other graffiti. When they were finished we noticed that Ana (or possibly her sister whose name starts with a T) had sprayed one side of her hair with pink paint. We've washed it once and some of the paint has come out, but I think we're going to be a "Pink Lady" for at least a couple more washings.

Fun at the Farm

We spent most of Sunday at Grandpa Beis' Farm near Streeter, ND. This is the farmstead where Kyle's Grandpa grew up - where Kyle's Mom grew up - and where Kyle spent a lot of time when he was a boy. The kids had so much fun!! It meant a lot to both Kyle and I to see our children also making great memories with their cousin & aunts & Great-Grandpa Beis at the farm. Auntie Laurie had her horses there, so the kids were had able to ride around the yard on Doc.





All the kids had a blast driving the dune buggy around Grandpa's yard. As you can see further down, Andy had a little more fun than the others. The story goes...while the adults were painting Grandpa's garage, the kids were running wild...just kidding...some were playing with the kittens - some were driving the golf cart - and Andy was driving the dune buggy. Suddenly we hear Andy running toward us crying uncontrollably. He by-passed his Dad and headed toward me (for good reason probably). When I asked him why he was crying he hysterically said - "it was going too fast and I ran into the fence". Hmmm...that doesn't sound good. So Andy and I walked over toward the fence (he is still crying) - I couldn't see the buggy, but I could hear it running. As we got closer I noticed the barbed wire fence was broken and the dune buggy was in the deep ditch - so my crazy kid had busted through the barbed wire fence and drove the dune buggy down into the ditch!! Thank goodness the support bars on the buggy took the beating from the barbed wire and not my kid's head!!





Grandpa had to hose down the dune buggy as there was mud plastered all over it. Not to mention the tears in the tarped roof from the barbed wire. Probably not going to get invited back to the farm anytime soon I'm afraid. Or if we do, no dune buggy for the Freier kids!


And after a day full of fun...this is what happens to the Freier children...

Fun With Friends

We were able to spend some time with our friends who have also adopted - some of us from Ethiopia and some of us from other places. So fun to watch the kids run and play with each other!! We are very blessed to have friends to share adoption experiences & to just marvel at our children with!!