handsful

This is my 8 year old daughter’s hand, holding one of her favorite things in the world…a lizard. During the majority of the year here, lizards are everywhere. In the summer, they scatter in every direction as you walk. They hide in our plants, sun-bathe on our driveway, and hang out on our black iron fencing. Living here with a fear of lizards would be hard.

Marley LOVES all animals. And, that’s putting it mildly. She’s our resident “lizard catcher” when they find their way into our home. If we see one, even my husband calls Marley to catch it…she never misses! Today, she caught one outside and made it a “play pen” in our dog Jack’s outdoor bed. She sat, talking to it, letting it walk all over her, petting it gently on the head. it was adorable. And, made me smile.

Since I documented the girl’s evening at the Chinese New Year celebration, I thought I’d better include the boys evening too! Here they are, in all their Monster Truck glory. They’re positively glowing, aren’t they? You can almost see the fog of testosterone coming off the computer screen.

Seriously, they had a blast and can’t wait to go again next year. Here are more pictures of their night!

How often do you get to sign your name in SHARPIE on a car? This was one of the cars in the demolition race.

This is a custom bike that the guys from the TV show “American Chopper” built. Cool.

A game system built into the back of one of the cars. Can it get any better for a kid?

One of their favorite trucks (can you tell Randy took the NICE camera that night?)

Taz, their other favorite!

Tonight, the girls and I attended our first Chinese New Year celebration. Our local FCC chapter (Families with Children from China) puts this on every year and we were excited to be able to go. There was a craft time, great dinner, silent auctions (I won a cute panda print for Lainey’s room!), and a wonderful program of singers, ribbon dancers, fan dancers, and the grand finale…the lion dance! The girls loved that, although Abbey was hoping for a dragon dance!

The guys weren’t able to come with us because they had prior plans. Randy surprised the boys at Christmas time with tickets to the Monster Truck Rally. So, tonight was “Guys night” and “Girls night” with the Clarks :)

I was just thinking…a year ago we were almost ready to turn in our application for adoption with our agency. Now, we’re anticipating meeting Lainey THIS year and will be able to take her to the next Chinese New Year celebration!

TWO posts in ONE day! Whew…

I had to post again because today I received my second Chinese New Year present! I participated in two CNY gift exchanges this month, in honor of the holiday. For those who need some explanation, CNY is celebrated in the month of January or February, but the dates are different each year because it’s set around the moon’s rotation. This year, it began on 2/18. Each New Year is named after an animal and 2007 is the Year of the Pig!

These wonderful presents came from Marney, from my June-July CCAI group. She sent chocolate coins for the kids (most of which are already eaten!), REAL Chinese yuan money for each of our kids (how cool!), CNY picture book, CNY activity book, and she photocopied some pages from another book that goes into even more detail on CNY and how to celebrate. Given that we’re studying China this year in our homeschool, this couldn’t have been more appropriate! She also sent 10 red envelopes (hongbao) that we can use to give all FIVE of our children money for the next 2 CNYs! I loved that. Thank you, Marney!

These fabulous gifts came from Chris from my July Fireflies group. The first thing I found was the Little Tikes pig flashlight. You know how “lol” can be over-used sometimes online? Well, not this time. I literally LOL when I turned that guy on and he oinked at me! My kids even heard me and asked what was up! Love it!! She also sent a beautiful red paper lantern (that my daughter Abbey BEGGED me for), fancy blowers to make lots of noise (to scare away the bad spirits, as they would do in China…bad spirits hate noise apparently), instructions on how to make a origami pig, and a cute origami kit complete with cut papers! I love everything, thanks so much, Chris!

I can’t wait to share these things with Lainey one day, and tell her about all the online friends, who I’ll probably never meet face-to-face, who made our wait for her so much sweeter.

Gram and her girls

This past weekend, we were blessed with a visit from Randy’s mom, Ann and his Uncle Connie. During our Christmas visit to NC, Randy and his uncle made plans to go to the Daytona 500 race. They stayed here with us and Randy and Uncle Connie drove down to Daytona on Sunday for the race. We had lots of fun during their visit, roasting marshmallows by the pool (only in Florida…), playing Sorry (I was slammed by my kids AND my mother-in-law!), going to church and the kids basketball games, and just plain hanging out. My boys really took a liking to their great uncle, following him around and sitting with him whenever they could. Uncle Connie “lovingly” called them “jibber” and “jabber”! Yep, you hit the nail on the head with that one!

Thanks for the wonderful visit!

This is what we call our “Front Room”. You’d be standing with your back to our front door if you took this picture. It’s looked like this since we moved here, more than 2 years ago. I love the windows and the view, but I’ve never been quite sure what to do about curtains. Now, see the after picture!

A friend of mine made these for me. I love it, it’s just enough to add color and height without being too “fru-fru” (not a fan of that…). It changes the whole room…though, the picture might not do it justice. Thought I’d share :)

Abbey, 3 months old

My oldest turns 11 today! I know it’s cliche’, but where DOES the time go? It wasn’t that long ago that I was a brand new mom, unsure of how this mommy-business worked. 11 years and 4 kids later…and I’m still trying to figure that one out!

Abbey is such a special girl. She loves horses, dolphins and most recently monkeys! She’s an “in charge” kind of girl, which can make her relationship with her siblings dicey at times! She has one foot in childhood and one foot in pre-teen (as evidenced by her love of stuffed animals AND her first pair of (slightly!) high heels). She loves Jesus (what more could a mom hope for?) and will be the first to nix any non-creationist ideas from books or TV! Abbey loves all her treasures (a.k.a. she’s a packrat), has a fairly massive sweet tooth (like mom, like daughter), and can’t make up her mind which she enjoys more, horse riding or basketball. She’s our first…the child that transformed us from people to parents. I’ll probably be a little sentimental today, remembering her as a baby…her word for balloon was “boo-num”…how cute is that?? Enjoy the pictures!

9 months old

Abbey, taken last night…last day as 10!