The law of natural (and painful) consequences

I am so mean.  I am a really mean mom.  Don't tell Gabriel I told on him, but this is so very blog worthy I can't resist.

We finally got new computers, so we are now able to Skype (with video) the father at work.  The novelty of it was getting the best of the kids, including the biggest kid who insisted on making faces and showing us the inside of his mouth and a close up of his eye (much to the delight of his children). 

While the WTs were captivated by the size of Dad's molars and pupils, Gabriel slipped out of the room to rehearse a little scene he planned to perform for the camera.  We first became aware of this intended bit of theatrics when Gabriel came into the room hopping up and down with an ice pack on his mouth.  He took the pack off long enough to inform us that he had been pretending to drink a bottle of hot sauce, but now his lips were burning and could we please help because he can't get them to stop burning.  Now, like all good parents would react in a situation like this, we burst out laughing.  The father, for his part, was reduced to tears.  Gabriel was not amused and seemed to become quite a bit more agitated by our laughter.  I told him to drink some milk.

I left the room and let the rest of the kids talk to Dad, who by this time had composed himself long enough to do some research online while on Skype.  Gabriel was dancing around the house with his mouth in a glass of milk, a good portion of it having spilled down the front of his pjs.  We didn't realize it at the time, but we read later that the milk should have some fat in it (we drink nonfat) to help cut the heat.  Consequently, the milk was not helping and Gabriel said his lips were on fire.

I tried an old remedy of my mom's, a baking soda paste.  I plastered that on Mr. Hot Lips, whose lips really were quite red.  I heard James call out from the other room that yogurt might help.  With a bit of hesitation, I spooned out some nice expensive Greek yogurt for the Spice Boy.  I left him by the bathroom sink while I attended to the WTs, who were playing with every thing around the computer they could lay their hands on while Mom was out of the room and dad was in another city.

When I checked back in with Gabriel, he looked like Santa Claus, with yogurt all over his mouth and chin.  I could not resist a little bit of Kris Kringle humor (like I said, I am a mean mom), but it did make him laugh.  Finally, it seemed that the burning was subsiding, and we could get the full story out of him.

Apparently he had spied a wooden box of four hot sauces his dad had received as a gift.  His plan was to take one of the bottles, pretend to drink it, and act like his mouth was burning.  The bottles have been around a little while, so we are guessing that even though the bottles have never been opened, some of the sauce must have leaked out.  All Gabriel did was put his mouth on the unopened bottle and gave a more convincing performance than he intended.

I should mention that this was not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Tabasco.  This was "Dave's Ultimate Insanity Hot Sauce,"  with the slogan, "The Hottest Sauce in the Universe."

When I put Micah to bed later, he asked, "What happened to Bobby?" (for those of you who don't know, Bob is Gabriel's nickname).  We had had a conversation earlier in the day about not putting things in your mouth (like, oh let's say, paper, which had been in Micah's mouth).  I decided to capitalize on the opportunity by saying, "Gabriel did something foolish and put something in his mouth he shouldn't have."  Micah: "Oh, did he have to sit in the corner?"  Mom: "No, his consequences were much worse."  Yes, sometimes a natural consequence is the best teacher.  Lesson learned.

A real update and consider us crazy...

Yikes, has it been since the beginning of February since I ratted on my kids?  Much has happened since that time that has kept us busy...I mean busier than normal...I mean, that is, OUR normal...which isn't very normal at all, is it?

For starters, we received our "Letter of Acceptance" (our first formal document from China) for our son.  We still have a number of hoops to jump through (mostly with immigration), but we are hoping for a travel date in May(ish).  But this is us, so anything can happen and usually does.

So, you may ask, is a family of eight enough for us? The answer is a resounding "no!"  There is a long backstory to this, but here are the highlights: We see a girl who needs to be a part our family.  We find out China allows for concurrent adoptions.  We ask our agency about it.  They say no can do, against policy.  I say policy is meant to be changed.  I appeal a change.  Agency bigwigs have meetings.  Agency bigwigs allow crazy family to start another adoption.  This adoption must start from the very beginning (which includes submitting an application).  This means two sets of paperwork for this adoption, and remaining paperwork for our son's adoption.  We are told we are taking a big risk as the girl is not yet adoptable.  We say no guts, no glory.  Our goal is to have all paperwork done by mid-April.  We are doing in three months what it took us nine months to do last time...when we only had three kids...before wonder twins...when we were still somewhat sane. 

Speaking of the wonder twins, what would a post be without a WT tale or two?  Lately they have been resurrecting old plays from the WT playbook.  Mama no like.  Only now they think they can rationalize their way out of trouble.  For instance, they used to dump out all the puzzles so we had mixed puzzle pieces all over the floor.  We took the puzzles away for a while until they showed interest in actually using the puzzle for what it's designed.  I caught them the other day gleefully dumping puzzles out again.  When I ask them about what they were  doing I get this, "But Mom, we're going to play with them.  We're going to use them with our dump trucks.  See?" (sure enough, their dump trucks are loaded with puzzle pieces. Really???)  Now those stinkers have me negotiating, "Oh, well, uh, don't dump anymore out, okay?"  I didn't, however, hear even an attempt at an excuse for spreading ashes all over the carpet.    I thought for sure I'd hear something abut pixie dust and trying to fly.

Micah's latest thing is to say that you are his best friend.  It sounds so wonderfully charming, and is usually followed by a hug and kiss.  You can get feeling pretty good until you hear this..."Mom, I love the tree outside.  It's my best friend.  I am going to hug and kiss it.  It's so sweet."  Our son, the tree hugger. 

Hopefully next time we will have more pictures.  We're using an old dinosaur of a computer right now that will not perform such a task. 

Happy day to you all!

Amendment to the last post and posing questions to the kids

My husband wanted to make sure that I add to my last post regarding the kids and their fondness for the "econ" rap.  It seems that second son has internalized some of the concepts from that rap.  In history we were discussing the rise of communism, to which the 10-year-old  asked, "So it's like top down, like what Hayek was saying?" Uh, yeah, that's exactly it...scary!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised he would have picked up on that.  This is the kid that always says funny and rather sophisticated things.  Here is a sampling:

(in putting a hat on the female WT) "You look smashing!"
(telling a story about eating raw garlic) "My tongue was writhing in pain for about 10 minutes!"
(talking about "The Wiggles" a kid's video series, which has grown men doing silly things) "The Wiggles should be rated PG-13 for scary images!"
(this was a conversation between the two oldest):

G: I'm not going to waste my time by being so luxurious.

D: Do you know what that means?

G: Yeah, like lazy.

Here he is with his Cookie Monster mug which gets used everyday for his tea.  He is a Hobbit at heart.  He told me today that "I have consumed at least 40 cups of tea over the course of my lifetime.  Well, actually probably more."

At the beginning of the year I asked the kids some questions and here are their answers:

"If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"D: New Zealand, to see where they filmed "The Lord of the Rings" (that's my boy)
G: Japan, to see the ancient Ninja swords.
C: China, to visit L.B. and the Great Wall
K: New Jersey, Dad go fire station work
M: Up a hill, on a street, up a hill and go "Kung Fu Fighting", it's a movie music

"What is your favorite word?"
D: nominaultramicroscopicvolcaniconiosis (where you inhale volcanic dust)
G: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (This is said as a word, which they learned from our friend Zack while on a ski trip.  When they got back from the trip, they mercilessly bombarded their mother with it)
C: chocolate (said in an oh so dreamy way...she is her mother's daughter)
K: California
M: Veggie Tales and liters and boppers (this was before he became obsessed with "belly bellies")

"If you could meet anyone who would it be?"
D: Legolas from "The Lord of the Rings"
G: Greg Farshety, the creator of "Bionicles"
C: Lucy in "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe"
K: Meet go Cars
M: Lightning the Queen (also known as Lightning McQueen from "Cars")

"What is your favorite way to pass the time?"
D: Going to the Jr. High group
G: Playing "medieval" outside
C: Watching cooking challenges on t.v.
K: California (M: No, Micah was born in California!)
M: Just go for ride, go fast

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
D: "Gang police"
G: Designer of robots, weapons, and Legos
C: Piano teacher and cook and chef
K: Climb up a ladder
M: Go up in a tree

"What is your favorite place?"
D: Church
G: Disneyland
C: Home
K: Go in the car (M: The car in the backyard? It's blue.)
M: Up in a tree, in the backyard

"What is your favorite holiday?"
D: Christmas, and my birthday is five days after
C: July 4th
G: (didn't choose one because he got sidetracked with this smart remark after his sister answered the question) You can't hit girls except on Independence Day
K: (no answer)
M: Bachan and Jichan (my parents)

"What is your favorite thing to play with?"
D: HALO Megablocks Spartans
G: My 17 Bionicles
C: My pillow pet
K: toys
M: dirt (a truer word was never spoken)

"What was the best thing about last year?"
D: Going to Jr. High group and the family reunion trip
G: All the times I had fun, or, can I say "classified?" (I want to know what he did for fun that is considered classified information!)
C: The family reunion and going to the Kelley's (M: Hopey was there, I play with her.)
K: Animals, go bed, sun come up, I woke up, I go down the hill
M: Do bubbles in the nursery, I was being quiet, Daddy didn't see it, people didn't see me (He is referring to the time he snuck a bottle of bubbles out of the nursery at church, went into another classroom and emptied the contents of the bottle on the carpet.  It took Dad, who was on twin duty, a while to get that cleaned.  And it was clean indeed afterward!)

The battle in my brain and other assorted happenings

There is a constant battle going on in my brain.  It's a battle over domination.  You see, the kids are in two distinct camps as to their listening preferences.  My older children, heavily influenced by their father, have been listening to and repeating (ad nauseum) a rap about two economists.  Yes you read that correctly.  It's called "Fight of the Century" and it's about the dueling views of economists Keynes and Hayek.  No gangsta rap here, this one's about global economists. Oh I know I should be thrilled about my children's cerebral choice, but when you have four people singing the refrain over and over and over...well, too much of a good thing is no longer good.

In the other corner we have the WT's favorite CD.  It contains top hits such as "Bananas in Pajamas," "Hokey Pokey" (which Micah calls the "Funky Monkey"), and...wait for it...the timeless wedding favorite..."The Chicken Dance."  Kara calls the CD "I'm a little teatot." By the way, what is up with "Gooy Goosy Gander?" Part of the song involves an old man not saying his prayers so someone throws him down the stairs and his back goes crack.  Wow, that's the stuff of nightmares.

So at any given moment while I'm working away in the kitchen or cleaning (which is pretty much every minute of the day, except now), I either have "more bottom up or top down" going through my head or (and I defy any of you to hear this and not have it infiltrate your brain to your extreme detriment) "Wiggerly Woo."  This is hardcore warfare.  Not even YoYo Ma seems to help, it's that bad people.

I know no one wants to hear me blab without pictures, so here we go:

The twins decided to have their own church service complete with preaching,

(Hmm, what do you think the title of that sermon should be? "I am the chief of sinners?" )

 singing, (those are hymnals that they have before them),

and of course prayer (hopefully there's a lot of repentance mixed in).

If you ask Micah to recite Ephesians 6:1 to you, he'll say "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."  Now at first glance that seems to be impressive that this 2-year-old can recite Bible verses.  Just keep in mind that that verse gets quoted to him every time we have a "talk" and he has to get "corrected."  So you connect the dots, why does he know that particular verse so well?????

This is my poor oldest son who has found a new way to contend with his frequent bloody noses.

Before I show the next set of pictures, let me just say that I used to think that putting your children on "leashes" was horrible.  I said I would never do that to my kids.  (I said a lot of things before the WTs, like "I am a sane and competent woman").  Then the WTs materialized and I invested in "harnesses."  Truth be told I really only used them once when I took the WTs to visit our friend Mike in the hospital.  I will say they did come in handy.  Since then, the only use they get is from the WTs playing with them (perhaps snubbing their noses at my attempt to restrain them).  So anyway, here is a game they enjoy playing with the harnesses.

Here's the front view.  You can see cute little paws from Micah's monkey and Kara's puppy.

What they'll do is they'll hook the end of the "leash" (or should we say implement of guidance? Sounds so much more PC) to a doorknob and then try to get away. 

Great little game.  We all enjoy it.  Self-restraint is a good thing.

Happy weekend, all! (And another shout out to my Norwegian readers!)

Non-update update and keeping humble

What is the non-update update? Nothing has moved in our journey to LB since November.  We haven't even received confirmation yet that China has received our paperwork and has logged us in.  We assume, but it sure would be nice to get a definite yes.  We know God has a plan in this, so we remain impatiently patient.

I forgot to mention last month that James and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary on Dec. 9.  For years James couldn't remember if our anniversary was the 9th or the 7th (Pearl Harbor Day).  He says that both dates are known for a Japanese invasion of some sort. 

The kids cleverly helped us celebrate our anniversary by building congratulatory Lego structures.





Their teacher asks you to ignore spelling errors



The twins get credit for helping by not helping.





Speaking of the twins (as I so often do), they wanted to relive some of the "good ole days" by getting into the kind of trouble that has become rare around here:

Those are sunflower seeds. The kids had scraped them off a big sunflower.  They were in a container that had no lid.  That there is an invitation for trouble.


When I asked the twins what happened, Micah blurted out, "It's not Micah's fault! Kara did it!"  To which Kara retorted, "Uh uh, Micah do it!"  Hmmm, fruit from the forbidden tree anyone?



The twins proudly showing that they can get their own cereal.  To their credit, they did not make a mess.



Have you ever heard the expression, "Hanging off the rafters?"  Well this is Micah hanging off the gutter.  James had lifted him up to see something, Micah grabbed on to the gutter and refused to let go.  We think we have a future rock climber here as he hung there for quite a while before we got a chair for James to stand on and get him down.

 Micah likes girls.  We are glad of that, but he is an incurable flirt. He also lets us know when there is a girl that has caught his eye.  His current crush is on a girl that appears on the kids' Latin DVD.  Micah asks often if we can watch Latin.  When we do, it certainly holds his attention.  We think Kara is watching just to see what the big deal is all about.

I was having a conversation with my friend Pam about an article we had read.  The article warned parents not to take too much pride in their kids' accomplishments.  I can see that as a possible pitfall for Pam (not that it is, she is a very humble person).  After all, she has four grown children, each very accomplished in his or her own right.  Her kids are musicians, athletes, preachers.  Me? I have three kids accomplished in their own way and...a pair of streakers.

Kara decided to show her wares one day at church.  Yep, there I was standing in the narthex chatting with someone after church, when I saw Kara come around the corner sans anything from the waist down.  Moving faster than the speed of light (or wishing I could), I scooped her up to take her to the bathroom.  On the way there, I found her underwear and pants.  She had had an accident and dropped her drawers outside the secretary's office. I guess she figured since "Aunt Carol" does everything around the church, she might as well do laundry too.

Micah must really be a night owl, because he sure seems to love "the moon."  One day my friend Jesi came to me and said, "Uh, Micah just mooned me.  He took his pants down, diaper down, and smiled like it was funny."  Now where would he get that idea?

On New Year's Day our family went to my mom and dad's house to eat some traditional Japanese food.  As I, my parents, my sister, brother-in-law, and my sister's friend sat at the table engaged in conversation, Micah entered the room, dropped his drawers and bent over.  As the room erupted in raucous laughter, I hastily escorted him out of the room to "talk" about this unacceptable behavior.  When I told him that what he had done was inappropriate, he responded, "But the girls laughed!"

Micah and Kara are both interested in certain body parts.  Kara went through a phase in which she would ask women (pointing to their chests) "What's that?" I told her that she was not to touch ladies there to which she will now ask, "You la-ley? You have la-ley? No touch la-leys?"  Micah is interested in "belly bellies."  He informed me that, "You don't put up your shirt and show your belly belly.  It's immodest.  (smiling) I like belly bellies."

We often have mysteries around here.  Some are not solved, such as, "How in the world did playdough get into my rice cooker?"  Others are solved via self-incriminating evidence.  In viewing pictures on my camera, I noticed that I had a series of pictures like these:

 After a while I found more pictures like the one above, just random shots of things.  We knew one of the twins had to be behind this, but had no evidence until we saw this picture:

Those legs could only belong to one chunky monkey...

Yes, the twins can be crazy as usual,



but we also get moments like these:

Oh yeah, back to body parts and the like, here's a closing quote from Micah:

"I burped in my pants.  Ew, that's gross.  But I liked it."







Freebie pics and something strange is going on...

Yes, yes, I know.  Miracles of miracles, two posts within the month.  And it's such a calm uneventful month.
After such a long absence of pictures, I felt compelled to add some more...

Here are some that were Christmas card contenders:

 The WTs did not mind that the leaves were wet and the air was cold.  I don't think their internal thermometers work that well at that age... It's cute photo, but somewhat incomplete.

 Here is the Froisland pinwheel shot.  We couldn't get the WTs to look straight up.  That blue thing in the picture is Gabriel's "scarf."  Now I purposely put the word scarf in quotations as the thing is really a piece of fleece that used to have some sort of shape to it.  Now it's used as a jumprope, whip, etc.  Linus has a blanket, Gabriel has his "scarf" (see, I did it again).  Sometimes the "scarf'" goes missing courtesy of one of his siblings.  I don't miss it and only feign attempts at helping him find it again.  Bad mommy, bad bad mommy.

 Should we get Micah some wine to go with that cheese????

I actually like this one, but there was too much street in the background.  Picky, picky, picky.

One of many cool aspects of homeschooling is that when the kids visit their dad at work, we get to call it a "field trip." 

 Her dad has a helmet just like this one...

More cheese!

Okay, so something strange is going on at my house.  We actually were able to take down the gate that blocks the stairs (we had a small ceremony for it).  Here is a picture of a construction worker helping to dismantle it.

Another bizarre situation we had was a huge cereal spill...that was not caused by the WTs! In fact, Mom knocked it over and the WTs rushed over to the scene.  I was about to head them off (I had visions of toddler toes squishing the cereal gleefully) when the strangest thing happened.  They started picking up the cereal and putting it back in the container (oh stop, the 10 second rule applied, besides it's the thought that counts, not the hair and dust that went with the cereal). 
The WTs are also engaging in this activity I think people call "sharing."  It's where one WT has a coveted item that the other has and actually gives it over.  It's pretty mindblowing stuff.

 So I don't know what's going on around here.  Maybe there's going to be an earthquake (they say animals act funny, maybe toddlers do too).  Or maybe aliens abducted the WTs.  Yep, that's it.  And this is what they left behind:

'nuff said.  Case closed.

Vacation photos at last!!!

 See, I told you that I would come through with our vacation pics.  I'm just glad I got them in this year!  Of course I have way more pictures than you have patience, and way more pictures than I have patience waiting for them to load onto the site.  I carefully selected and here's what I got:

Let me start by commending the wonderful TSA people at the unnamed airport from which we flew.  Since we were not getting fed on the plane (though Southwest serves some decent snacks), we each had our own lunch bags.  I froze yogurt for each one of us and included mandarins and applesauce (all in sealed individual serving size tubs).  Depending on which agent you got going through security, you either lost all three containers, kept all three containers, or kept a combination of them.   Thankfully I had packed other food so we did not completely waste away in our six hour flight (though there are parts of me I would like to "waist" away, har har).

 You'll note that James is sitting with Micah who slept almost the entire way there.  I had the job of entertaining my busy bee, Kara, who decided to finally fall asleep ten minutes before we landed.  I told James, "We're switching twins on the way home."

We landed in Tennessee which was really hot.  I mean really really really I can't believe how hot it is hot.  When we "deplaned" Gabriel asked, "Why is it so hot?" I (being very westcoast snob centric) said, "Because we're not in California anymore."  Some lady (very southeast centric) overheard and retorted, "You're in God's country now!" I resisted a response.

Our first stop was to visit a family we had met in China.  They were there to adopt their daughter, Hopey. We met in the playroom of the hotel in Guangzhou and hit it off instantly.  Kittye and Mike are adoption pros (though they would not want me to say that as they are very humble, which makes you admire them all the more).  They currently have nine kids at home (two are out of the house, one is in heaven): two biological, five from Liberia, and two from China.  They were so kind (and kind of crazy) to allow us to descend on their home.

Thankfully they have a pool, because well, did I tell you that it was hot there? I do have to be fair and say that it was unusually hot.  The Kelley's friends and family we met apologized to us for the weather.

This is Will who has the best smile ever.

 Here the WTs are playing with Isaac and John Michael (who I tried to smuggle out to take home with me...after all, they have so many kids, couldn't they spare one?) in a rice box.  Amazingly enough, it looked pretty much like this when they were done playing.  John Michael asked the best question I've heard in a long time.  He said, "Mrs. Froisland, why do you only have five kids?" I told him we were working on growing our family.  Besides, once upon a time his parents only had five kids.  There was also a time they had no kids.  To which John Michael looked very seriously at me, shook his head and said, "Nooooo."  I guess when you are the second youngest of the clan it's hard to imagine a world without kids.

 You'd think with 14 kids in the house, it'd be mass chaos.  Well, it was controlled chaos.  The Kelley's household is a well-oiled machine which made it extremely easy for us to step in and integrate.  The kids had a blast together, so we hardly saw them.  Emily (all the way to the right) had written a play that we saw our first night there.  She put together another production for us in which our kids were more than happy to participate.

 This is Hopey.  Yes, she really is this cute in real life.

Mike gave a memorable quote when, in talking about our Suburban, he said, "Well someday we'll downsize to a Suburban."  We had an amazing time with the Kelley's.  We begged them to visit us in California.  Yes, housing would be interesting, but we can pitch tents in the backyard.  Mike assured us that if they came to visit, he'd give us at least 24 hours notice.

 Our main reason for going east was for the Korver family reunion which occurs every three years.  I think there were about 100 or so present.  I love these reunions.  There are no feuds between family members, no weird Uncle Bernie who embarrasses everyone by scratching his belly in public, no black sheep, just loving families who are accepting and welcoming and wonderful and fun!

The reunion was at a very nice camp in North Carolina.  Again, I rarely saw my kids as they scattered here and there to play with "first cousins once removed."

This is Gabriel (nicknamed "Bob") with cousin Bob.  Bob gave Gabriel the "Bob" shirt at the last reunion.  We promised to take a picture of the two of them every reunion with Gabriel wearing that shirt.

Okay, no weird Uncle Bernie, but a crazy Cousin Kathy.  If you have a birthday near a reunion, watch out! You'll get a song written about you and sung to you very loudly (truth be told, it is super fun to be the "target").

 Is this a force to be reckoned with or what?

As you'll see, Kara made her way around...

 Before leaving North Carolina, we squeezed in a short visit with Jeremy, Julie (who has since had another
 baby girl) and Eden.  We've known Jeremy for a long time as he grew up in our church.  I once had a banana eating contest with him in Mexico.  He won, though shoving a whole banana in your mouth is not really fair.

 From North Carolina, we drove to Kentucky (or "Tentucky" as Micah called it).  Let me stop the narrative briefly here to comment on something.  Out of California, we are a conspicuous family.  I've never really thought that since there are many families that look like ours at home.  Not so back there.  We ate at an IHOP one day and I took Kara to the bathroom while James and the other kids got seated.  When Kara and I rejoined our family the server was at the table.  She looked at me and said, "So will this all be on one check?"  James and I looked at each other speechless.  Huh? I stammered out, "Uh, yes it will."  James quipped, "He'll (pointing to Micah) be paying."  Our guess is that she might have thought we were two separate families???

Another time we were at the petting area in the Creation Museum (another stop for us).  I again took Kara to the bathroom (bad time to pottytrain) and when I came and stood next to James, a lady laughed and said, "Now it all makes sense!"  I just kind of smiled at her and she said, "I thought how nice it was for your husband to adopt all your children (she was referring to our four biological children), but now it makes sense!"

As I said, we stopped in to the Creation Museum.  Being big fans of Answers in Genesis, we were eager to see the museum dedicated to defending creationism.  It's a very impressive place.  One big highlight for us was seeing Buddy Davis.  He is a dinosaur sculpter, writer, and singer-songwriter.  Our kids have grown up listening to his music, and Micah and Kara are now his biggest fans in our household.  While we were at the museum, I spotted him while we were eating our lunch.  Not wanting to start a riot, I whispered, "There's Buddy Davis!"  I couldn't believe people were not swarming around him.  I wondered if he was an actor portraying Buddy Davis.  Being the embarrassing mom, I made the kids go over and take a picture with him.  I was trying not to be too giddy.  I don't know if I succeeded.

 We got a lot of comments on our trip about the WTs.  Sometimes we were nice and told people that they weren't really twins, and explained that one was adopted (people then asked which one was adopted).  Other times we felt like being mean and just commented that they were not twins, but were nine months apart.  We let people go away shaking their heads at that.

After our trip to the Creation Museum, we drove to Indiana to visit another family we met in China.  In fact, we spent most of our time in China with the Faulkners (and another great family) as our kids came from the same orphanage.  They were not strangers to adoption as they had previously adopted another son from Korea.  Joe and Beth were accompanied by two of their girls (they have six kids total), Jennifer and Sarah, in China, so we got to know them as well.  We had enjoyed this family so much in China, we could not wait to meet up with them.  Plus, we were eager to hear Micah speak English as he was only speaking Chinese when we last saw him.  We were also looking forward to them seeing Kara with hair!

This is their Micah.  He wanted to make sure we didn't mix him up with our Micah, so he told me to call our Micah, "Micah, Micah."  This guy is absolutely thriving.  He's being homeschooled, so Mom is obviously doing a great job!

Here is Wesley who likes Legos as much as my kids.  He and Gabriel also did a lot of Bionicle talking.  This picture was taken at a fountain near (on?) the Purdue campus.  The kids had a blast getting blasted by the water. 

Sarah really bonded with Kara in China, so it was fun to see them back together.  I told her I would love for her to babysit, but the plane fare back and forth might be a little much for a night out.

This is Jennifer who is perhaps one of the gentlest people you've ever met.  She and Sarah are both great with kids. 

We had a super time with the Faulkners.  They were wonderfully hospitable and we had great food and great conversation.  They don't have little ones in their home, but they were extremely accomodating with the WTs.  They were always assuring me the WTs were no bother.  The visit with them was a great way to end our trip, though we were sorry to have to say goodbye.

We left really early in the morning to drive to the airport.  The kids fell asleep in the car except for Kara.  Out of the blue she started singing.  It was a song that had a definite beginning, middle and end, but not one that we recognized.  In fact, we didn't recognize any words at all.  We became convinced that she was singing a Chinese song that was stored way back in her memory.  When we first got her she didn't speak (even in Chinese), but once she did sing a little bit of a song.  I asked her to sing her "special song" again, and she did.  Of course if I ask her to sing her special song now, it comes out as "Deep and Wide" or "Jesus Loves Me" or a combination of the two.

Once we got to the airport, we had a slight issue going through security.  The Kelleys had given us two shakers of this really yummy seasoning to take home with us.  One of the shakers had already been opened, but the other was still sealed.  James forgot that he put the shakers in his backpack, which was his carryon.  Apparently, an opened container of a powdered substance is not a good thing to try to take on the plane.  Here's where I give a shout out to the TSA guy at the airport in Indiana.  He took the opened shaker and was apologetic about having to test it! We completely understood why it was needed, but he was easygoing, professional, and he explained the whole process to us.  When it was confirmed that we were really only sneaking on cajun seasoning and not bomb making substances, we were on our way.  And yes, I sat next to Micah on the way home. 

I have to comment that we met some really nice people on our trip.  When we came into Kentucky we could not find our hotel and got lost in a residential area.  James asked for directions from a man in a truck who was on the side of the road.  He offered to drive us by there even though we were quite far away.  He said he was kind of heading in that direction.  We followed him for a good ways, he slowed down in front of our hotel, then went on his way without us being able to say thanks.

When we arrived back home, James went to get our car which was parked in another location away from the airport.  That left me with the five kids and all our luggage.  After waiting for a while, I decided to move us outside which had to be done in stages.  A woman stopped me and asked if I needed any help getting to my car.  I thanked her and said that we were waiting for our ride (which ended up taking a looooooong time to come, which is a looooong story).

Before I sign off, a quick update on child #6.  We have new video and pictures of him.  He is ridiculously adorable and needs to be home!!! If you're praying types, please pray for quick movement of paperwork.  Merry Christmas to you all and I leave you with one more picture of the WTs enjoying the after effects of rain.