Someone had a birthday...

Can you guess who it is?
His Dad refers to him simply as "Action",
which suits him well.

He has one speed: fast. And one volume: loud.
Passion is his middle name.

He is...
1 part Sanjaya
2 parts Will Ferrell
And 3 parts Energizer Bunny.
Throw in a little William Wallace
And a lotta Jon Bon Jovi.
Add personality out the wazoo
and a tender heart beneath it all.
Put it all together and you've got a little Jack.

My baby (for now) is six.
Here he is, in all his shaggy Jack-ness...

in "action", of course!

I'm pretty sure this was not accidental

His favorite birthday gift was an amp for his electric guitar.
If you are thinking right now, "Are you insane?!",
the answer is "yes". But, here's the deal...
we are nurturing this rock star thing and
plan on taking the rock star gravy train as far as it will go.

Seriously, a verse I claim for him is Psalm 33:3,
"Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully,
and shout for joy."

Happy birthday, dear boy! You are loved!

am i normal?

wait, don't answer that. i know the short answer of course, but i'm looking for something more. we just finished the last of our home study visits. YEA! it was such a strange experience in some ways. the "best" was the walk-through our house.at first i decided that i shouldn't feverishly clean. my firstborn convinced me that it was more authentic to let her see the state the house is usually in. so i thought i could do it au naturale. but i couldn't.

an hour and a half before she arrived, i caved. i ended up feverishly cleaning. and it looked pretty good, if i may say so myself. i'm sure i would have had our social worker totally fooled if...
a) i didn't admit to her that i was sweating when she walked in due to the feverish cleaning
b) my dear daughter didn't blurt out as we stood in my picture perfect bedroom, "usually there are clothes thrown all over the floor and it's the messiest room in the house".

what was my point? oh yeah, am i normal?

so, throughout this process of the home study i find myself vacillating between two feelings. the first is that we are so blessed and i can't wait to have another little kollar on our team. this is a good team. we are still in love. we love our kids. we have a home that's happy, fun and full of grace and freedom.

the other feeling isn't as warm and fuzzy. it's goes something like, who are we to think we would be a good home for another child? this is a crazy house filled with crazy people (except bill, of course). by adopting aren't i just going to be "ruining" another little person? as a mom, i'm selfish, impatient and inconsistent and i don't have my kids floss.

it's not dissimilar to the dynamic that happens when i watch the supernanny. i spend half the show thinking "what's wrong with this family?!" and the other half thinking "what's that number again for the supernanny?" so i don't watch it. why be conflicted unnecessarily?


so am i normal? well, i think we all know the answer now since i purposely uploaded the above picture of myself with 5 chins...what sane person does that?

Please don't call the authorities...

My silverware drawer is overflowing these days.
Why, you ask?
I have finally determined that it is because my precious children
are all bringing home silverware from school
and it has gotten mixed in with our own.
Tax-payer silverware.
Stolen tax-payer silverware.
It's not all my fault, you know.
They are responsible for their own actions, however illegal.
I guess I have raised them and they are technically stealing.
And I haven't returned them yet, so I am technically stealing.
That's on me.
But please note that I am not sending plastic spoons with them
because I am green.
Actually, it's because I keep forgetting to buy them.
Now since I have confessed this issue to my little corner
of the blog universe,
I guess I better go fish through my silverware drawer
and pay my debt to society by returning them tomorrow.
Next order of business: pay my overdue fees at the library.

Addendum: the official count is 21 spoons and 1 fork.
Complete humiliation.

Barry Manilow on my mind...

It's not terribly uncommon for there to be a
Barry Manilow song in my head.
I'll admit it, I'm a Fanilow.

But there's a reason why there's a Barry Manilow song
in my head 24/7 right now.

"Time in New England
Took me away
To long, rocky beaches
And you, by the bay..."

Bill and I recently had the opportunity to go to Cape Cod
for a wedding he was officiating.
I have always wanted to go there and the Cape did not disappoint.
Even though it rained much of the time we were there,
it is a beautiful place.
And it has fun fringe benefits such as lobster
and New England clam chowder.
A highlight was the people we got to spend time with in the wedding party
as well as a high school friend who lives there.
I am now a big fan of destination weddings.
I hope any of you reading this who are unmarried will have one in a
really fabulous place and invite me.

An ongoing struggle was trying to get a picture of us on this little getaway.
I sort of had a problem
with figuring out the zoom on my camera. See for yourself...

He's cute alright, but not what I was going for

at least I'm in this one...somewhat
(my, what big pores you have)


I finally got enough sense to give someone else the camera!

Dear Cesar Millan,

I have a friend who has a dog that has "issues". This friend, we'll call her "Missy", went out of town with her family. While they were gone the dog, we'll call her "Ruby", went on a hunger strike. She also had diarrhea all over the bathroom floor (if only she had made it to the toliet in time!). This poor dogsitter, we'll call her "I'll never want to dogsit for you again", had to clean up the mess and called them with concerns for their poor dogs health. I think "Ruby" was nervous because they went out of town and she didn't have the mistreatment she was used to from their youngest child, we'll call him "Jack". What do you think, dear dog whisperer?

But wait, there's more...after these friends returned home and gave her the love and mistreatment she had been missing there was another incident. "Missy's" husband awoke to find excretement covering the living room floor ("Missy" is really thankful not to be an early riser in such situations). Could this be residual nervousness complicated by loose bowels or is this, as my friends husband suggests, a way for this "Ruby" to spite them for leaving?

As you can see, my friend has enough dysfunction in her family to even trickle down to her pet. Can you help or should I be writing Dr. Phil on her behalf?

Sincerely,
A concerned friend

I know she doesn't look spiteful, but don't let those puppy dog eyes deceive you.
"Missy" has the stained carpet to prove it.

Can you feel the love?

Driving home from school earlier this week in the ever-so-sexy dented mini-van, the scene went like this...

Me: I missed you guys today!

Tate: I missed you too, Mom.

Em: I didn't really miss you.

Jack: I didn't miss you because I forgot about you.

Ouch. I tell them that I want them to be honest, but not that honest!

Enthroned

Two years ago we were at the hospital while I miscarried our 10 week old baby, Baby Cali.
The pregnancy had been a surprise.
I love surprises.
I remember sitting in the hospital the next day, sad and alone.
The longing to have and know my child was almost more than I could bear.
God led me to Psalm 113.

v5Who is like the Lord our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,
v6who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?
v9He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children.
Praise the LORD.

With 3 children at home, I didn't know the pain of being truly barren.
But my empty womb was barren that day when before it
had been full. Full of the promise of new life.

The promise God gave me that day is that He sits enthroned on high.
He was enthroned when we conceived. He was enthroned when the
ultrasound revealed that the baby had died. He was enthroned as I sat in
a hospital bed alone with my longing.

And He is enthroned now as I sit with another longing.
A longing to adopt that has been 5 years in the making.
Our miscarriage was a part of this process as,
after a time of grieving our loss,
we really sought the Lord about the best way to grow our family.

Adopting a child does not "replace" the one we lost.
You replace batteries, not people.
But as we walk this journey, with longing and hope,
I want to remember that there is One who sits enthroned on high.
I'm glad I know Him.