Happy Birthday!

Before I start my post, I want to wish my FAVORITE (because he shares my birthday) Uncle Mark a Happy Happy Birthday!!!

I'm ONE! Can you believe it? My mom can't. She's a little sad about it really. Today mom says the bottle fairy is coming to take all my bottles. I'm getting a whole bunch of big girl sippy cups for my birthday....a couple of them even have princesses on them (that's because daddy says I'm a princess). Mom doesn't have my "stats" yet because my 1 year check-up isn't until next Wednesday. I sure hope I don't get too many shots!
I still only have 2 teeth...my bottom front. And I'm starting to wear 6-9 month clothes (mom's REALLY excited about that!).

Here are some of my favorites.....

Food: CHEESE!!! I will literally drop any other food I have for cheese. Oh, I like ANYTHING with cheese on it too.

Toy: My pacifier, sadly though mom and dad think I only need it at nap time and bed time. Although I do find pacifiers scattered in my room on occasion.

Parent: Now this may seem a little silly on my part, but I LOVE my Daddy! Whenever he comes home I get to him as fast as I can! I do however prefer my mom when I don't feel good or am tired.

Sleep: I am an awesome sleeper and prefer to just be put in my crib with my blanket and pacifier. But if someone is putting me to sleep, I want mom.

Oh, by the way...I am a HAPPY girl! I love to giggle and play and I think my big brothers and sister are the greatest people ever!

So here are my pictures from the last year...don't worry I only put one for each month.

Maija the day she was born.
December 2009 (1 month old)January 2009 (2 months old)
February 2009 (3 months)
In case you are wondering that is a fuzzy hat on her head.

March 2009 (4 months old)

April 2009 (5 months)May 2009 (6 months old)
June 2009 (7 months old)
July 2009 ( 8 months old)August (9 months)
September (10 months)
October (11 months)

And here I am, my 1 year-old pictures!! Aren't I just adorable!?!?

Thankful....

So far this week we have been Thankful for (by date)......

1st: Our Cousins! We called Stephen and Annie.

2nd: Music...we listened to MoTab....BEAUTIFUL!!!

3rd: Our MOM! They did nice things for me. KatieJo drew me a picture of a horse and Samuel opened my car door for me.

4th: Computers...we sang "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" and sent it to our Grandparents.

5th: Our Teeth! We brushed and flossed for good measure.

Inspiration

Chocolate on the Cranium's Wordful Wednesday this week is a tad bit more challenging for me. I have thought for over a week about who are the 10 people who I feel have influenced me the most. Of course the first people that popped into my head were my parents and other family members. Those are kind of a given, however Cocoa said not to use them. So the question is, besides those people who really did influence me?

There is a Science teacher that comes to mind. I took almost every class taught in High School. Mr. Borinski. I've talked about him in a previous Wordful Wednesday post (click HERE), however I LOVED his classes! He made me want to be better and he made me want to learn.

My best friend growing up was another big influence on my life. Melanie has always been there for me when I needed her, and she answered all the questions I ever had about the church and even stood strong when I chose to ridicule what she believed. She even flew from Utah to Colorado so she could be at my baptism. I only have one biological sister, but I consider Melanie a sister and I'm glad that she's been part of my life!

This one is a little bit silly, but when we had tv reception I LOVED to watch his show. Emeril is an inspiration to me because of his love for cooking. I spend a lot more time planning meals for our family than I care to admit. I try very hard to make the meals fun and exciting for my kids. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. However, Emeril made cooking a lot more fun for me!

My Great Aunt Ila...technically we aren't related, however that has NEVER stopped her from treating us like family. I love her more than I could ever show or tell her, and I have always felt unconditional love from her. How wonderful it is to have that! (I have blogged about her before as well. If you'd like to read more about her click HERE.)

Gerald Lund. Before I ever joined the Church I had read the entire Work and the Glory series. A little strange I know, but even though the characters are not real I learned a lot from these books.

Thomas S. Monson. From the day I joined the Church I have LOVED to hear him speak! He is an inspiring man, and I love the story that he retold A Christmas Dress for Ellen. He is a Wonderful Man!

Josh Groban...have you heard that boy (I say boy because he is younger than me) sing? HOLY COW! His music is wonderful and peaceful! (I'd put my husband in this spot because he has a beautiful voice, but since that's not allowed today I'll have to settle for Josh.)

Michael McLean...he writes just for me, I'm sure of it. His songs are always what I need to hear.

Elders (well they aren't Elders anymore) Wade Poulson and John Long. They are the missionaries who showed up at my door after I called them. They taught me the discussions, and we're just plain nice guys.

Sister Beck, I LOVED her talk that she gave at the General Relief Society Broadcast.

Publish Post

This is how we do it!

We're shaking things up this year in our house. In previous years we've made a Thankful Turkey see here for last year's Turkey. We will do a Thankful Turkey again this year, partially because I love doing it and partially because it is a great FHE right before Thanksgiving.This year though we're doing a "Thanksgiving Thankful Countdown". I ran across someone talking about it on their blog, and although I can't remember what blog, whoever it was got it from SugarDoodle. It's kind of like a Journal Jar with 26 slips of paper that you start on Nov. 1 and end on Thanksgiving. Each one has something they are (or should be) thankful for and an activity to go with it. For example...I am Thankful for my Family, I am Thankful for Pies (this one involves making a pie for someone....we exchanged it for brownies since it is a more kid friendly dessert...to make anyway), I am Thankful for Teachers, I am Thankful for our Car (this is my favorite because it says to go clean the car!), I am Thankful for the Scriptures, I am Thankful for my hands....etc.

I was really impressed by these because some are geared toward KatieJo and Samuel's age and some are geared toward Phillip although the others will have fun with them too...like the I am Thankful for my hands it says to do an Art project involving finger painting or drawing.

Last night KatieJo drew "I am Thankful for my Cousins" with the instructions to call one of your cousins. We killed 2 birds with one stone and called James & Aimees son Stephen (Samuel's choice) and daughter Anne (KatieJo's choice). We wish we would have had time to call more cousins, but we started a little late last night.

It's fun to see the kids get so excited about being Thankful!

Halloween 2009

Since I am not the biggest fan of Halloween it was decided that we wouldn't do a whole bunch of trick or treating and instead would let the kids get their fill at the trunk or treat. Now, typically when we do bi-ward activities only the younger couples with kids show up and even then there aren't a whole lot of people. Tonight however the gym was PACKED, which of course made the kids more hyper than normal (when sugar is involved).

I thought that we wouldn't get a ton of candy at the trunk or treat portion of the activity...I was wrong. The kids made out GOOD!

Phillip woke up this morning THRILLED that it was Halloween and couldn't WAIT for the trunk or treat. And the only reason KatieJo and Samuel did any chores today was because they were told if they didn't do them we wouldn't go. WOW they move with that kind of incentive!

Now for the pictures:This is one of 2 pictures we have of Maija in her costume. She had a cute tail and everything, but wouldn't let us put it back on. So, she wore her "Little Devil" shirt. It was cute, but not as cute as the costume!

KatieJo (the unicorn) and Samuel (Peter Pan). KatieJo's costume was too small. It was too small when we got it at a garage sale....but she HAD to HAVE it! Phillip (the Crab)...He LOVES this hat! Originally he had a completely red outfit...unfortunately we couldn't find the red pants tonight so we put his "Little Devil" shirt on under his "surf" shirt and made him a "Cool Crab". He didn't care, he was just so darn excited for the candy!My four cRaZy kids! I love Samuel's pose in this picture. He looks so...gallant!

Their HAUL!
As we were looking at all of the candy and the older kids were picking out their piece of candy for the night (yes you read that correct...they only got 1 piece. For my defense however I'll state the fact that they did have cookies and dessert at the Halloween party tonight) Maija decided she needed a sucker. She is VERY good at letting us know what she wants, and she wanted that sucker! You may not be able to competely see it in this picture, but tonight is the first time I put her hair in a little ponytail. Not all of her hair fits, but she has long hair on the sides of her head so I pulled it back and then stuck a korker bow in it. I'm a little bit excited about that....it's one of the reasons I LOVE having girls!

After the kids were in bed I was looking for a piece of candy and Phillip walked out of his room and says: "What are you doing Mommy? Eating my candy?" I had to laugh. He wasn't upset as I would have thought...it was just so matter of fact. Truthfully it wasn't just his candy as after they look at their candy we combine all of it.

Here's to another Halloween...now we'll move on to CHRISTMAS!!!! Of course we couldn't bypass Thanksgiving...but YAY Christmas!

Really?

Stuart and I are in the process of renewing our Temple Reccomends and so were supposed to have a meeting with our Bishop and the Stake President tonight. However, because of the weather the Stake President couldn't make it to town. We decided to go ahead with the meeting with the Bishop so that when the Stake President reschedules we already have part of the process complete.

I'm quite a bit upset after my interview with the Bishop. At first everything went fine. He asked the normal questions...no surprises. That is until after he was done and he looked at Maija and asked how she was fitting in. I thought it was a little strange and said that everyone loves her. He proceeded to go on and say "It must be hard." I wasn't sure what he was talking about and asked him to clarify. He then told me it must be hard to adopt and to love the kids and asked if I felt I treated them any different than Phillip. SERIOUSLY?!?!?

He asked several other questions along that line and then let me leave and went to get Stuart. I was BLOWN away. I've been having a hard time lately and one of the things I've been struggling with is feeling like I'm a bad mom. Not for anything specific necessarily, and not to just one or two of my kids but to all of them.

It took us a long time to get to be parents. We were married 3 years when we got KatieJo & Samuel and I was so grateful to finally get to be a mom. It took almost 3 more years to have Phillip and just when we were thinking about trying for another baby I started having problems again and then we found out about Maija who has been a HUGE blessing to us.

There is a reason we got our kids the way we did. Heavenly Father has such a bigger plan that we could ever have! I wanted to be a mom, and I am a mom....does it matter how they came to be part of our family?

I should have told the Bishop that of course I treat them different, each of my children is so vastly different from the next that I cannot possibly parent them all in the same way. I wouldn't be an effective parent if I disciplined Phillip by giving him extra chores or by taking his books away like I do KatieJo and Samuel. But then again it doesn't work to discipline KatieJo or Samuel to take away their favorite car or train like it does for Phillip.

I guess I don't understand why someone would ask a question like that. He doesn't know why we adopted, and truthfully he doesn't really know us that well.

It has amazed me over the past 5 years how people, including some family members feel about adoption. My family, who we assumed would not be as welcoming of adopting kids have been nothing but supportive. On the other hand the people we expected to be the most understanding and supportive have been the exact opposite.

My children are blessed and we are blessed to get to raise them. Adoption is such a wonderful option. They are so many kids in this world who need someone to love them, and there are so many moms and dads that just need kids to love them. And I'm tired of the cynics in the world who think that just because I didn't give birth to all of my children that I can't possibly love them as much as a child that comes from my body.

I love my children and I am grateful EVERYDAY for the opportunity I have to be their mom!

Peter Pan

Because Samuel's birthday was in August before school started we decided to have a birthday party after school started. Somehow I didn't get my act together sooner, so Samuel and I decided on a Halloween/birthday party. We combined a party with Samuel's friend Mattias since his birthday was right after Samuel's. It worked out really well as I did the cooking/baking and Mattias's mom Shonda did the games.

The boys had a blast! We had "Worms on a bun" a.k.a. hot dogs cut into strips to look like worms (see below) with "blood" and "diarrhea" a.k.a ketchup and mustard (disclaimer...the boys came up with the "diarrhea" as we didn't have a gross name for it) chips and apple juice mixed with sprite. Then they played a game outside where they made a "spider web" by throwing a ball of yarn around a circle. They also played "Trick or Treat" where they had to do a trick..like spelling a word or do some kind of physical task to get a piece of candy. Instead of decorating a cake we decided to let the boys decorate their own "monsters". They each got a cupcake and we let them have free artistic discretion with their frosting and "eyes" a.k.a. chocolate chips. I'm glad they all went home not too long after having the frosting! You'll see why below.

Mattias the Mummy and Phillip the Crab"Worms"YUM!
Samuel aka Peter Pan!
Look at that Frosting piled high! They all ate the frosting and then were too "sweeted" out for the cupcakes.