Oma gets her first Pedicure...

2 days ago, Lilli and I got Oma (Peter's mom Emma) out of the house for her first ever Pedicure!!!! (at age 85)  We have photos to prove it!!!  I'm not sure she really "liked" it, but we did get a few smiles out of her.....

and the final results .... Oma, Lilli and I have pretty toes....just a little "girly" fun!

Cow Appreciation Day...some family fun for everyone (well almost everyone)

So a little family fun for all....well, maybe not so much for Oma, but she was a very good sport about it all.

Chick FilA--a local chicken restuarant in the South, had a fun for all kind of day.  They offered FREE FOOD today for Cow Appreciation Day.  Their whole advertising campaign is about the Cows telling you to "Eat Mor Chikn"  It is quite a cute campaign.

So today in order to show Appreciation for the cows...we dressed up like Cows and got free meals for our entire family.  Yes, I will go to any length to get free food.   =)

Here are some of the highlights from the evening...Lucas thought the whole thing was hysterical.  Isaac not so much...I think we embarassed every ounce of the vegetarian teenager out of Isaac that we possibly could...

Opa

(Peter's dad)

Tante Lilli

(Peter's sister)

she said she wore green cuz' cows in Farmville (on facebook) are green...=)

Peter

my sweet southern friend Katherine...she even has a cow patterned hat...she is so classy..

Lucas was very proud of wearing a cow tail

our friends the Sanders

(sans momma Sanders--we missed you Amy)

see Oma does have a smile on her face...She LOVED it I just know it.

there's a smile under there.....

and the vegetarian teenager is mortified.

sweet baby B. who was born the week we brought Lucas home, adopted domestically.  We LOVE this little guy...he is becoming part of our "family" here.

this is the craziness we brought to a corner of our CFA....yikes i bet they were happy when we left.

And Lucas ended the night with his FAVORITE!!! A Chocolate Shake with Whipped Cream.  Actually I think he would have been perfectly happy with just a cup of whipped cream...

Totally a fun filled evening...

and EVERYTHING FREE!!! 

now you can't beat that....

"My's" (mine)--and the ever shrinking Chinese vocabulary.

So you know how kids learn the word "mine" and use it like mad when they figure out what it means?  I mean like a toddler--everything is "mine"...

Well, Lucas has learned the useage of that word...except since we say something is "yours" why would we not say "that is "my's?" instead of "mine".  I mean really "yours"  "my's"  and "ours" right?---

Trying to correct it, but it is sort of cute right now.

Oh and he is speaking mostly all English now, but he is holding on to 2 words.

One of them sounds alomst inappropriate and sticks out like a sore thumb now because most of his verbage is English.  We were told by a Chinese woman that it probably means "this, that, those" or something like that.  But it comes out "niga'"  yep....totally inappropriate sounding in a sentence...especially in the South.  YIKES!!!  People will look at me and say, "what did he just say?"  Ummmmmmm......"it's Chinese"  REally....  the only problem is I cannot find the word anywhere when I try to translate the words I listed so it must be a dialect thing or something.

The other one is "shuo"---which means "said, or say".    Not a bad sounding word, but he is just holding onto those two words for some reason.

Oma and Opa are Here with Tante Lilli....

Oma and Opa and Tante Lilli arrived 2 nights ago.  (Peter's parents and sister)
They will be here 2 weeks.  I like it when people stay a long time because then the pressure is off to do everything in 2 days.  It's a much more relaxed pace.  And they are great to have around anyway.

When Lucas saw they had arrived the other day, he screamed and went running to the door.  When he met Opa he said "Opa likes peaches!!!"  That night we sat around the table and chatted.  Lucas made sure everyone at the table had Chinese Milk Tea which he served.  He LOVES it so we must ALL love it too.

Maybe the conversation went more like---Lucas chatted and the rest of us listened.  He aired all the "dirty laundry".  He loves to tell stories and some of the stories he tells are either tattling on Isaac or telling about things like this...


Peter and Isaac went camping and when they came home, obviously there is a lot of stuff laying around in our garage.  So Lucas found my small white folding table out there--somehow he knew it was my table ( I do use it for scrapbooking, but I haven't done that since he got here).  It was DIRTY!  I mean muddy, and ground in dirt.  He was NOT happy with daddy about that.  So he decided HE needed to clean it.  He pulled it out, set it up, got a stool,  asked for soap and a rag, got out the hose and began cleaning it.  Daddy was home at the time.  While he was cleaning it he began to scold daddy, even though daddy was in the house, and look at me stearnly and tell me that daddy should not have made mommas table dirty and HE should be cleaning it.  But all the time he was scrubbing like a mad man and asking for more soap.  He was getting more and more testy.  He wanted to go inside and tell daddy that HE should be out here cleaning this table for mommy.  But, still he asked for more soap and kept cleaning.  The table was not getting clean enough for him and he was getting more testy.  Finally, I went and got a "Magic Eraser" (I LOVE those things) and when I did he disappeared into the house and scolded daddy (not acceptable to talk to daddy that way, but there was a bit of funny in it too).  I scrubbed a small portion of the table with the Magic Eraser so he could see how well it worked and then he finished it off and it now sparkles.  The sweet part of the story was his diligence.  But, at some point we're gonna need to teach him to serve with a "cheerful" heart...lol


These are the kind of stories he was telling Oma and Opa and Lilli.  He loves people and conversation and drinking his Chinese Milk Tea.

Yesterday, we did go get peaches, but Lucas decided to eat ice cream while the others shopped.  Is it wrong to serve a child 2 ice cream cones for lunch???? ok he ate some peanuts in the car too.

more to come....
Today is Chick Fil A "Cow Apreciation Day"---free food if you dress up like a cow-----lets see if we can get Oma and Opa to dress up like a cow.  We are meeting friends there for dinner.  I'll take pictures....

a Lullaby

We still lay down with Lucas.  It's just something we do and will have to change in the next few months, but it isn't worth the battle right now and it's sort of sweet.

While Peter and Isaac were gone, I began to sing him a lullaby before he went to sleep and he just loves it and is trying to sing it now.  It is just some words I penned one day for Isaac when he was an infant to the tune of Brahm's Lullaby.  It's a little "hokey" but Lucas smiles and loves it.  First he makes me sing it with Isaac's name in it, then Lucas's name in it.

Last night I did not lay down with Lucas, but down the hall from our bedroom, I heard male voices singing.  I walked down the hall near his room and Isaac, Lucas and Peter were all laying in his darkened room singing the lullaby.

Is it wrong that I just sat outiside his room?

and smiled?

The thought of my 16 year old son, my husband and this little 7 year old who has stolen all of our hearts---just laying there singing a sweet lullaby, completely melted this momma's heart.

Lullaby
and goodnight
go to sleep my dear Isaac (Lucas)

rest your eyes
dream your dreams
let peace come to you in sun beams

Close your eyes
close em tight
Mom and Dad are in sight

Close your eyes
close em tight
Jesus Loves you tonight.

Round 2--The Foleys are here and daddy and Isaac are Home!!!!!

We had our 13 guests on Friday night...Lucas had a BLAST swimming until about 10pm and went to bed quite late.  They left at 6:30 am on Saturday and Lucas woke up...Fortunately he also went back to sleep or it could have been an ugly day.

We had a royal meltdown anyway late in the day.   More on that later.

Foleys from Wisconsin arrived early evening on Saturday and we have had fun just chatting and exploring and eating together.  Went to the Smith House Plantaion, ate at a yummy restaurant called the ......(have to check on that name--so yummy),

Then we found a cool Chinese market area that I have been wanting to check out.  I LOVE the fact that I found it for the first time with my sweet friend Betina by my side.  Whenever I go to places like this I think of her and my friend Liesel who are my favorite "foodie" friends.  I always wish they could be with me but they live so far away.   It was so cool to have her there to enjoy this new discovery.  Lucas slept in the car for a little while before he came in with Brad.  There was a lady there offering chinese dumplings as a sample.  She spoke chinese to him but he turned away from her.  She even offered a dumpling very sweetly to him and he would NOT take it or eat it.  He LOVES dumplings.  These reactions are still so surprising to me.  But, I cannot force interactions either.  We did find some great things that he LOVES at the store--one of them being chinese Milk Tea.  He was pretty excited about that.

After the market we were off to church together in the evening at PCC.  I LOVE taking people to our church.  I love worshiping with friends and learning more about how to step up my walk with the Lord.
Afterward we stopped for burgers and shakes at Steak n Shake.

By the time we got home at 10pm, Peter and Isaac were home.  Isaac greeted us outside and Lucas began high pitched screaming as soon as he saw him.  He jumped into Isaac's arms and squeezed him sooooo hard I think Isaac's neck almost broke.  Then he ran inside to see daddy and screamed so loudly I could hear him outside.  He was WOUND UP!  He saw some fireworks in our neighborhood outside and just got extatic.  He was none stop talk and chatter and dragged all of us out onto the porch to see the fireworks around us.  He literally was bouncing off the walls and herding us like sheep.  This was one excited and happy and crazy boy.

He ended the day by laying down with Isaac and they slept in his room together all night long.

Peter and I had a long discussion about the meltdown episode.  He had gone to a seminar on adoption and issues related to it this week at the C-stone Festival they were at.  He talked about the root causes of some of this stuff and how it can literally be fear or anxiety or memories or the whole ball of wax.  During this episode, Lucas did hit, kick, attempt to spit, and even bite.  I held him and spoke calmly to him but he did not like at all.  He screemed.  I say all of this because there are times when I feel inadequate.  Just being honest.  During it, he went back to his new "fall back position"  "No America, Lucas Mongolia".  He tells me he wants to go back.  I tell him he is ours forever and even in the midst of it I tell him I love him and will love him forever---he says "NO!"  I say "YES" -- I will have that battle  to the end.  I will continue to tell him I love him even if he rejects it.  I'm pretty stubborn.  When it is all done, he always comes for a hug and says "Lucas stay here, no Mongolia"-- sometimes it just takes a while.

Later he told me he doesn't like to be held "like this" and showed me how I was holding him (basically holding my arms across his body- as gently as I can unless he tries to pull away-and with my legs across his- again as gently as I can--all the time talking calmlly to him).  I told him I will not hold him like that again if he does not hit or kick me.  He cannot seem to get the connection.  I said it over and over and over and over again.  "if you don't hit or kick, I won't hold you like that"....hit and kick...then it happens---"if...then"....He just could not see it.  This is not about a language barrier.  He "understands" me.  I know that for sure.  All he could focus on was NOT being held like that.

SO, conclusion after talking to Peter---maybe this is about something bigger than the issue at hand.  Bigger than what a "typical" kid might experience.  Maybe it's not "just" disobedience, or disrespect that he is showing.  Maybe there is something in his past that it reminds him of and we need to do something different. OR maybe it is BOTH!  But, "what?"  If someone is hitting and kicking you what do you do that is effective?  We talked about therapy.  Maybe we start it sooner than later.  The problem is, he has these meltdowns maybe once a week or less.  Most of the time they can be avoided by food, rest, etc.  Could it be related to all the activity, company, missing daddy and Isaac?  maybe.  But, this one started because I said "no" to a toy in a store.  He wanted it and that was the end of it.  I pointed that out to him after it was all over too.
We are commiting to reading more about it, researching and getting to the roots.  All I can say right now is adoption is not for the faint of heart.  But, the rewards far outweigh even the toughest moments.

My heart just breaks sometimes when I think of all the layers under the surface of our boy.  We are in for the long haul and will search for answers together.

Today should be interesting with the fireworks and activities that again will go late into the night.  After tonight I think we can "settle" back into some routines--uh hum....at least for sleeping, etc.  Overall, he LOVES the people and going places and activity.  He really does.  He is very social.  He just woke up and asked when the party starts today....and I just heard him in our room scream "I LOVE YOU DADDY!!!!"

And today he is excited to say
HAPPY BIRTHDAYAMERICA!!!!! 
and see
the FIREWORKS!!!!!

Happy Fourth of July everyone.....

My boy's dream job...

So, Isaac started working at PacSun, a clothing store, a few weeks ago.  He is Thrilled!  He must have taken some of his drawings in to show his boss the last time he worked.  His boss called him a few days ago and told him that he LOVES one of his characters and would like to put it on some clothing and sell it.

This is HUGE!!!!  This is Isaac's DREAM come true.  He really has had clothing and graphic design in his mind for months if not years.  Here he is at 16 entering into some real possibilities.  Peter is going to work on the legalities of copywriting his design when they get back and then they will move forward with it.  I'm so excited for him.

He's had some reservations about his future recently.  Some of it is typical teen stuff -- I mean how many of us knew at 16 what our future desires really would be?   It's such a tough age and can be so "heavy" at times to ponder.

His music is coming along quite nicely too with his band.  Although the summer has made them all sort of scatter in different directions so rehearsals have been tough.

He also has been doing a lot of work with his bud Andy who is a professional photographer.  Andy has been asking Isaac to help him with photo shoots for weddings, etc.  He's willing to take Isaac on as a sort of apprentice.  All of it is such great experience for Isaac.

I love how God is fine tuning all these things and orchestrating some direction for him.  For years I have been praying these verses for him:
¹ With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.  2 Thess 1:11-12


I continue to pray that whatever Isaac pursues, he uses it for God's glory.  I know that he will always have opportunities wherever he is to witness to his faith because he is finding his space in the world where God needs to be seen.  

I love this young man!