Kiddie post & plea

 So if anyone is reading at all you've caught on that I have been horrible at posting about these sweet lil lovies these past few months.  So I wanted to give some updates on them!!!  They are the whole reason I started blogging in the first place :/   Here is Sadie this summer being her crazy self...she is SO strong and can do the monkey bars all by herself.  She has some serious upper body muscles.  She is FAST and can nearly out run me.  She is constantly smiling and giggling and mothering.  She loves everything and will make it her baby to love on and take care of.  She talks to babies, grown adults, dogs, bugs, balls, dolls, etc like they are her very best friend.  Its super sweet most times, but awfully scary when she grabs adult men by the hands to play with her.  Perhaps we need to cover stranger danger again! 

 Owen is an incredible young man.  He is a wonderful leader at school and a huge help to his teacher.  He is very active and loves playing basketball, riding scooters, playing football, soccer, golf and tennis.  He is sure having fun with a backyard, we missed that when living in an apartment last year.  He loves to read and often stays up with a flashlight reading past his bedtime.  He too is a fast runner, but it's not his favorite thing to do.  He is a great listener, master negotiator, & is sensitive to others needs.  Tonight as I walked in to scratch the boys backs Owen started singing a song we had sung in church...but he never sings during praise so I didn't know he was listening...he sung it perfectly pausing just as the song is written, "My heart will si-ing...no other na-ame...Jesus...Jesus" over and over.  Oh love, there couldn't be a sweeter sound for a mama to hear, and even more so for our Father to hear!  This year he turned 7!  I don't know how we have a 7 year old!

 Emery, who we usually call Emme, is at such a fun age...most of the time.  She is particularly frustrated when everyone else has someone to pick on and she does not :(  So we are working on talking about our frustrations rather than hitting them out.  Whoops.  Her favorite things to say right now are: I gonna tewl mommy!, I no wan to, I tootie, No Sadie pfthtttt (we have a minor spitting problem), Aw we goin?, Aw da guys? and I do it!!!!!  She still loves to cuddle, is left handed and is our best sleeper!  She is TALL and skinny.  Most people mistake her for being 3 and older, and she just turned 2.5 this month!  She talks really well, still loves to sing and knows a lot of songs and she loves to pray, even for large groups of people.  Be still my heart!

 Cooper!  Coop turned 6 in November and got a bouncy house of all things.  Have you ever checked out purchasing one of those boogers instead of buying one?  No?  You should.  Google it!  We just had a few grands chip in and vwa-la, we got to keep the dang thing UNTIL IT POPS!!!  It has been endless fun and can hold up to 500 lbs so that means that occasionally we have a mom that hops in and plays monster tickler.  Fun times.  It's even more fun when you have no furniture and can inflate it in room and just leave it out during the winter.  Cooper is another blessing of a kid.  He is bursting with passion, compassion, ambition, skills (he has wonderful penmanship as well as one heck of an arm) and love.  He often comes home from school and has drawn pictures of the crucifixion and resurrection during his brain break at school.  Just like with everyone of our kids, I cannot wait to see how this guy follows God through life. 

 One thing I have hesitated to share about our Sadie is that we have "lost" her birth mom.  I haven't wanted to share it for several reasons.  First, so many people don't get open adoption and quite frankly don't need another reason to not understand it.  Second, so many people don't try and understand birth parents, and I don't want people to judge these precious precious family members.  They are our family, so please understand how intimate and personal we hold them in our hearts.  But it's been nearly 2 years since we've seen Gerlisha, and we miss her terribly.  Sadie prays for her daily.  She cries for her.  She draws pictures of her.  She is only 4, so I am not sure what memories she has or if its just because we talk about her so much and tell her stories and look at pictures.  Whatever it is, it's real and it's painful.  I know adoption is layered and bittersweet, and we have been educated and counseled on how to walk through this with our loves.  I don't know where I would be without our adoption agency and their support.  But they don't know where she is either.  So this is me asking for prayer and only prayer.  Please do not judge our choices or Gerlisha's.  My hope is that she might follow the blog and see how desperately we need her, and that's why I am finally sharing this.  I am so thankful that I ALWAYS take pictures when we see our first families because we never want to take a day for granted. 

 Emery right before turning 2

 Cooper found a worm...he is such a boy loving dirt and bugs and all things boy!

 Priceless picture of me telling Owen thank you for smiling for the pictures...he HATES taking pictures so we bribed the kids with QT if they smiled!

 The girls had pajama day at school and watched Polar Express

 Owen's holiday party at school!  We had so much fun at his party and stole the idea to MOB the Neighborhood with love and give the holiday away.  It was cheap and helped the kids focus on OTHERS during the holiday instead of giving them a bunch of silly dinky knick-knacks.

 This was the girls party at school, even though we don't do Santa they got a kick out of seeing our pastor dress up and read a story. 

 Cooper's class party.  Isn't he such a handsome stud with that too cool smile? 

 I think since we never talk about Santa she was fascinated with him.  Ha!

Emery was just excited to get herself some candy!  This girl LOVES sweets! 

Dear Receptionists,

I want to thank you for your smiles as I checked into your office this morning. You have no idea how I anticipated your reaction to me and my children. Thank you for telling me how beautiful my daughters are. What you don't know is that this week has been full of unsolicited disrespectful parenting advice from black women in random stores. Oh how we needed your warm reception of us. Thank you for telling me you love their hair and that I do a good job taking care of their curls. What you don't know is that this does just as much for my girls to be accepted by other African Americans as it does for their white mama. You could've just as easily just stared at us and talked about us when we left...but you didn't. You had the heart to talk to me about this rather taboo topic... white parents raising black children. I need you to know how you fed my soul today.

In this sinful world where young black boys are being murdered and their killers claim self defense and walk, and where black people are rude to me because they disapprove...I cannot help but constantly plead that Jesus carry us through. I live for Jesus alone. I don't have to worry about others approval...but I sure do want it for my kids. Sweet receptionists, I need you to know that your smiles, gentle hearts and encouraging words gave me great hope that we in fact are moving forward.

More hair fun!

By Thursday of this week our hair was in desperate need of some change. I am realizing now (I know, I should've caught on earlier) why protective styles are necessary. So I've been giving myself pep talks and gearing up for some different styles.

Now. I am not posting these pics to brag on what I've done. Because you will see that I'm not too talented here, BUT if I don't post these I won't remember where I came from. I also have to say that this was not easy for me. One row into Sadie's hair and I was sweating and talking myself out of cornrows, wanting to take it down.

Part of my job as their mommy is to learn, be patient with myself and enjoy taking care of their hair. So, here I am in the beginning. Most white people will think these are fabulous, but anyone with chocolate curls can see from a block away that I don't quite have this down. That's OK...we gotta start somewhere...and I just pray that they are young enough that I am not scarring them from embarrassment. I want them to love their hair and feel good about how we fix it.

I did two sections attempting cornrows and just couldn't swing it. Sadie's hair is just not long enough and her curl pattern is tighter than Emery's. So I moved to double rope flat twists...I felt safer there! It made me feel better when a brown mama from Owen's school whom we've come to know told me this day to keep doing twists on her for now until her hair grew out. Phew. It's not just me.

From start to finish this took me an hour. She did really well, but about 30 minutes in needed a stretch break. I think we'll start saving TV and movies for hair time. She was totally loving Sesame Street while I did this.

A couple days ago I shared that I finally did my first cornrow. I've been trying and practicing a while on Sadie, but could never do it. I finally decided to try a small section on Emme. Again, not great...but I did it!!! It's holding up OK after a couple of days, but more than anything it's going to be amazing how much of a difference it makes to not manipulate her hair so much. I also put some satin scarves in the girls car seats finally since we're in the car more lately! Every little thing should make a difference.

Awww!!! My sweet Emery with her flirty gappy toothed smile.

She is so much fun!

After a couple of days, they are getting fuzzy but I think we can go another day before fixing them for church Sunday!

Sadie afterwards! I also have to brag, she has been wearing undies for 10 days. Lots of accidents, but huge progress! She'll be 3 in 2 weeks so its about time!

Hair post

So we've finally gotten into a routine of doing hair Saturday at some point so that it's fixed for church on Sunday. The girls hair does not last a week, but we are getting closer to 4 days. That's a huge help not to have to do hair everyday, rather just moisturize it in the mornings and add some clips or barrettes.

Emery's hair is just gorgeous with nice curl pattern up top. She has tons of hair. At the nape of her neck it's more brittle and there is hardly ever a noticeable curl. I've been working with different products and trying to be more diligent about coconut oil and deep conditioner and her sleep cap (she hates the thing). I am praying that over the years as she gets older and naps less, the hair will be healthier. Our biggest hang-ups with her hair right now are: she's young and can't sit long and the short spots in her hair where Sadie gave her a trim months ago.

That's right. I don't think I ever blogged about it, but Sadie took kid scissors to her sisters head late May as I was cleaning our house for a showing. I was devastated. For lots of reasons. Blake finally convinced me that I was being prideful and he was right. I spend lots of time learning and practicing and taking care of the kids hair. So I take lots of pride in how it looks. And I want them to be proud of their hair too. This cut me deep. I felt like I hadn't protected Emme from this occurring. Blake reminded me that Emery would not remember this, nor be scarred by it.

So, all of this to say, it's caused some issues with sectioning her hair and putting it in protective styles. Anything but an Afro and you can see where there are chunks of short hair. At least Emme can rock an Afro, but this doesn't help the need to protect her hair and keep it growing well.

Sadie's hair is growing, slowly but surely. I feel like it's filling in better than it's gaining length. But that may just be because her curl pattern is so tight. She has gorgeous defined curls throughout. I am struggling to detangle using a 4 step process (finger detangle, wide tooth comb, fine tooth comb, then Tangle Teezer). I have to be honest; I mostly go straight to the TT. The girl just can't sit through 4 steps in the bath...she likes to swim in the bath and that doesn't work well when I am detangling! Am I the only one who goes straight to the TT brush?

I have sure enjoyed the flat twists, mostly because they don't take a ton of time to do 4 or 5 rows of them and I can't practice cornrows or braids on Sadie's head yet. The hair on her hairline is just still to short and thin. If I could start a row in the middle of her head it would look fantastic! HA! Here she is sporting a flat double rope twist along her hairline. I think it's adorable!

My sweet husband asked a nurse that he works with about a hairdresser she would recommend. Ah, I love that man. I love that he got all kinds of advice from her while they were chatting it up in the OR. I can't wait to take them in and start learning some new things.

I Like Myself...

For a while now I have been wanting to share about a book that I have come to LOVE. There was something that happened this week that reminded me to share.

Luckily, the books that I love will only take you 3 minutes to read because right now that's all the reading I do is in children's books.

My MIL bought Sadie this book, but its become a favorite for our whole family...even the boys love it.

It's called "I Like Myself" by Karen Beaumont. The book is all about how this little girl likes herself no matter what anyone else may think or say about her. She talks about how it's silly for someone to think they could know who she is just by her appearance. I have read this book to the kids 50 times and just recently did I apply it to myself.

I actually thought about how much I put into my appearance. **GULP**

I don't think I am vain, and hope none of you think that either, but it did occur to me that I spend more time running in the morning than time reading scripture. **bigger gulp**

I spend more time in the bathroom getting ready for the day than I do in prayer for myself and my family. Dear Lord, what's wrong with me? I am 30 and have been reading this to my kids for almost a year now and am just realizing that I am going to teach them to accept themselves by the way I like myself and model that for them.

You know how much I want them to love their heritage and their beautiful skin. And here I am not liking myself. What in the poo?

And then it happened. My sweet husband told me on Sunday night that it had happened. We put the kids down and then I ran to the store. When I got home at 9, the boys were still up. This is WAY past their bedtime. I asked Blake what was going on and with tears in his eyes he told me that Owen told him he couldn't go to sleep because he was thinking about something. He told Blake that he didn't want to be brown anymore. *tears*

He told Blake he wanted to be peach like him. I'm sobbing now.

We know that Owen understands nothing negative about his skin, but that he wants to be more like the man he adores. He wants to match Blake.

Blake handled it so well and told Owen how beautiful his skin is. He pulled out I Like Myself and read it to both of them and talked about how God knit our family together so perfectly and He knew we wouldn't match but that it made us more beautiful.

He told Owen about when he was little he didn't like his "spots" either. When Owen was first discovering color he found Blake's moles and called them brown spots and noted that they matched him. He told Owen of how he wished he didn't have them when he was little, but now he loves them because they make him more like the kids.

I told him the same about my freckles. I hated those suckers when I was in middle school.

As much as we think this is about being black and white, its not. I am sure one day we'll deal with those issues. But this day it was about just accepting and loving how God made us. It's about liking ourselves and not focusing on appearance.

I certainly am not saying that it's okay to "let yourself go" but I do think there is a point at which we need to look at how much energy or thought we put into our physical self over our spiritual self. I personally needed to realize that teaching my children to accept their brown skin comes in the form of modeling for them that I like myself!