Are you kidding me?

Random cuteness - Jackson helping Daddy replace the cover to the air duct. Abigail smiling pretty. I can't believe she's almost five!

Taken during a recent marshmallow roast on the back porch. We grilled steaks for dinner, and Adah loved them!
Taken at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences; the kids had a blast!

The last time I wrote was January 9th? What happened? When did I enter the time warp? Weird.

Things have just been humming along here in their normal, somewhat chaotic way. Okay, not really chaotic - have you met my husband? :) We've been managing to get schooling done, which is some sort of miracle, I believe. AND the laundry, which is definitely a miracle. However, I still have my husband home from work. I mentioned the other day that I would like him to find a job that requires him to be home all day. Maybe there's some money he doesn't know about on his side of the family? Oh, I kid. ( That's Boomama's line. Have you ever read Boomama? You simply must stop by her blog, because she's hilarious. If you appreciate the South, you'll appreciate Boomama. http://www.boomama.net/)

ANYWAY, Daniel does eventually have to return to work sometime. I realize that. I am just really enjoying having him home for this amount of time. I have no doubt that it has contributed GREATLY to the success of the transition for Adah and Nathaniel. I just can't believe how well it's gone up to this point. It really is like they've always been here. We've passed the month mark, so I think we're out of the honeymoon phase, and still things are going well. They're doing normal kid naughtiness. Adah can still pout like nobody's business, and she thinks it's funny to laugh at people, so those are things we're working on. She REALLY doesn't like being corrected; she tries to laugh it off at first, and then when we have her look us in the eyes she gets that we're not happy with her behavior. All of a sudden she's not laughing anymore. She is coming out of her funks MUCH faster than at the beginning, and the girls are all now telling on each other when they're irritated with one another. Aw - sweet sibling love. It means the three homegrown girls are no longer treating her with kid gloves, so that's a good thing. The TATTLING is not a good thing, however. :) Adah also now knows to go to the pantry door, open it, and show me the sign that says, "No Whining" when she's been sulking. :) I heard her admonishing Nathaniel today saying, "No whinin' Nah-taniel." Nathaniel is actually having a harder time with eye contact than Adah. I cuddle with him after family worship to get him to relax in my arms, and he tries to roll his eyes back in his head instead of looking at me. Yeah, that's freaky. He will try to pull my fingers away from his cheeks when he's had enough. It's so interesting, because he is ALL ABOUT cuddling on my shoulder, playing with my hair, patting my back, and giving me kisses. But asking for eye contact is too personal, I guess. He is showing improvement when we cuddle, and I just whisper sweetly, "I will wear you down, son. I will love you no matter what. I will show you that you can trust me, and even more importantly, I will teach you about the Parent who will NEVER let you down." :) He laughs at me. I think he learned that from his daddy.

Well, after all of Daniel's time off, maybe Nathaniel needs to see that his daddy is not a bum and actually has a job. :) Right after next week, or maybe the week after... Nathaniel is scheduled for his hernia surgery on Monday, and we'll play it by ear as to whether Daniel returns to work next week or takes off to help with Nathaniel. We don't know what his recovery is going to look like. We're praying for the three-week recovery that they said is normal.

Oh, and did I mention we're putting the house on the market on January 25th? What? I haven't mentioned the fact that we're moving to San Antonio? Yeah, we like things to happen all at once and get ALL the stress for the WHOLE year over at one time. Again, I kid. Moving is the very LAST thing we want to do right now, but it's actually the lesser of two evils. Daniel's unit moved to a four month out/four month back deployment schedule for an indefinite period of time. That's definitely not what we signed up for when we accepted this job. Because the kids just came home, we didn't think that Daddy deploying was a good idea. We would LOVE to stay here, but nothing is opening up that is non-deployable. It seems that the people who don't deploy actually like their jobs. Huh. He applied for a bunch of jobs and it looked like one at Ft. Campbell was going to be a possibility, but he didn't get an interview. The job at Ft. Campbell would have allowed us to build on the 15 acres we have near Daniel's parents. This job at Ft. Sam Houston puts Daniel in a better position to apply for jobs at Ft. Campbell in the future. So...either we said goodbye to Daniel for four months, or we moved to San Antonio together. We opted for the latter. I'm still praying for a last minute amazing thing to happen to allow us to stay here, but I'm thinking that's probably not going to happen. :) It looks like we'll be going down to Texas the first week in April. Yep, that means we have two months to sell the house. Anybody want a lovely four bedroom home???? :) This is the suburban version of living life on the edge, people. We can HANDLE THE STRESS, really. :) Daniel is busy right now re-caulking the bathroom, and I'm helping by...what am I doing, exactly? Oh, right. I'm overseeing the kids having a snack. :)

So that's life in the Houseworth household...get pregnant, move; get pregnant, Daniel deploys for six months; get pregnant, Daniel deploys several times; get pregnant, move, have baby after evacuating from a hurricane; start adoption, move; bring kids home, move. I think we set the wrong precedent, don't you? :)

Okay, I really better go oversee the kids a little better, which means I need to get away from the computer. :) I think I just heard someone go outside. Our house is wired for an alarm system, and it used to beep when someone went out the door, which was really quite handy. Until the time that the alarm decided to beep erratically for forty-eight hours and we had to call the alarm company who said that even though they installed the alarm system they couldn't turn off the crazy beeping and I was going crazy so Daniel had to hunt down the sound and pull out the sound box from the wall because the! beeping! was driving me crazy. Did I mention that? Anyway, the door doesn't beep anymore so I have to have better ears to listen for children attempting to escape. Don't worry - the backyard is fenced. And it's really large...anyone want a house with a large backyard??

Till Next Time-

Casey

Nathaniel is pretty entertaining

I know that Nathaniel is not a pull toy. I know this because Daniel keeps telling me. :) But how could I resist having Cora make the noises over AND over in the video so that Nathaniel will laugh like this? I think I have a problem.

Formal Portrait of the Children

Casey really wanted to get the portrait posted, and since I'm sitting in front of the computer, I got handed the task. It's hard to believe the children have been home for 4 weeks already, and believe it or not, I've only been to the office twice! This picture was taken a week after they came home. After our last attempt at a family portrait failed just before I went back to Iraq in 2006 (the photographer was terrible, and Jackson had a bit of a meltdown), we weren't sure how this session would go. Thankfully, all the kids did a wonderful job. Although we would have liked Nathaniel to smile, at least he hung in there through three sets of poses.

Guest Blogger - Daniel

P.S. Casey would like to point out that Adah would have looked a lot cuter with the new 'do (see previous post).

A Hair Triumph

We've just been hanging out; how about you? We successfully finished two weeks back to school, and I'm getting better at incorporating Adah into the schoolwork by giving her whole word flashcards. She's past the phonics stage, other than learning the English pronounciations for words instead of the French. So I gave her flashcards with pictures on the front and words on the back, and she is thrilled to have her own things. She's also done a little math with Abigail and is now counting from 1-20 in English. She is going through drawing paper like we have our own mill in the backyard to make more. :)
Right now, the boys are napping, the girls are making lichen stew in their home in the woods behind the house, Daniel is fixing lattice work on the deck, and I just finished making bread, so I'm going to post these pictures and have a cup of tea. (Or a nap - whatever. :) ) )

This picture is the boys having a post-nap snack together in the kitchen. There's no reason for this picture other than the fact that my boys are adorable.

This is Cora with TWO front teeth missing!!! She lost both within the same week. "Lost" might be pushing the definition a little. More accurate might be "pulled and pulled until blood was pouring out of her mouth because she wanted the tooth fairy money." :)

Here's Adah checking out an Eloise in Paris book. Maybe she's reading the French in it? She sat there for a good long while enjoying that one.


And this picture is what the title is all about!!! Look here!!! I did Adah's hair today!! :) This is a major feat because I was a lot more confident about it before I took her to the hairdresser and saw how involved it was to create magic. :) I haven't tried cornrows; it could take awhile to get up my courage for that. But I thought it went well for the first time. I parted her hair down the middle and then divided it up into small sections, made ponytails, and then braided the ponytails. Shiloh and Cora helped by attaching the barrettes. :) We watched "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" while I did it, and Adah was very patient with me. She only said "ow" a few times, and she seemed to like the end result. When we've looked in hairstyling magazines before, she really focused in on the little girls with ringlets. Ha! That's not happening any time soon. :)

Well, I better post this so I can get a nap before anyone notices I'm not helping with the lattice work. :)
Love,
Casey

Trying Something New

I hope you can see these videos! The first video is Nathaniel showing off his vocabulary and being a cutie pie. The second video is Adah singing a song from the creche while doing the hand motions on Daniel's face. We have no idea what she's saying. When the girls tried to copy her, they ended up making up a new version, which Adah gives in the third video. Our kids are adorable. Truly.

Happy New Year!

Hello, all!
I don't have any pictures for this post, and I know that's why many of you drop by, so I'm sorry. :) I'll do better next time.

I just needed to brag on my husband for a minute, because while I was laid up yesterday with something akin to the bubonic plague, he made a hot breakfast for all the kids, got them dressed in their finery, and got them off to church on time. I was told that he wore Nathaniel in the sling during the service, and I'm really sorry no one took a picture. He then got everybody down for a nap when they got home and woke them in time to go to the fellowship dinner before evening service. And he didn't leave anyone behind! He allowed me an entire day of rest, which I really needed. I drank about 5 cups of hot tea (decaf, of course) during the day, and I actually got to drink them while they were still hot. I usually forget about my cups and leave them in the microwave while I tend to some other chore or little person. :)

We also had a breakthrough today with our ...shall we say...stubborn...girl. :) Adah, if you read this at some point in your life, I hope you'll laugh. :) I had told Adah and Abigail that they could go out front to ride their bikes after I finished folding the laundry so that I could be with them. Adah was not happy with this option since she saw that the older girls were already out front. She tried to climb the gate and was corrected for doing so. I saw that she was in a downward spiral toward a good pout. I cheerfully told her that I would be back in a few minutes and that she was welcome to join me inside while she waited. After I finished folding the laundry, I went out back to let them know that they could come out front with me. I asked Adah, "Would you like to come out front to ride your bike?" No response. I asked again and asked her to say "Yes, please." No response. Abigail said, "yes, please," and went ahead. I asked Adah again. No response. I told her I would return in a few minutes to ask again. For forty-five minutes I returned every five minutes to ask her cheerfully if she would like to come join us now. I told her I loved her but that she needed to be polite and respond to Mama (don't worry - she totally understood what I was saying because I was using a combination of Kreyol and English). She sat by herself, she pouted dramatically, then pouted even more dramatically by the door when she realized no one was paying attention. She cried a few crocodile tears until I told her, "Oh, stop." Finally, after forty-five minutes, when I returned to ask her, she said, "Yes, please." And we had ourselves a little party right there. She joined us out front for bike riding, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and snacks. I hope she soon realizes that the benefits of listening to Mama far outweigh the drawbacks of continuing to pout! She was also told this evening that she would not receive chocolate after dinner if she didn't eat her broccoli, and when she realized that we meant what we said, she pulled her plate back to her and ate the previously rejected broccoli. We're not above a little bribery, people. It's all the interest of good health, you understand (it was dark chocolate - good antioxidants :) ).

Well, my family is assembling for devotions, and I'm being a slug on the computer while my husband brushes everyone's teeth. I REALLY hate that job when he's deployed. :)

Love to all and a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Casey

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

From our house to yours - we hope you have a fantastic day! We certainly have.

Love,

Casey

This, that, and a big picture dump

Can you count how many children are helping Daddy? SIX! All SIX are here! Under one roof! It is still amazing to me what God has brought about, and we are so thankful! We trimmed our tree with everyone's help on the 15th. Adah enjoyed any ornament that had to do with Mama and Papa, and Nathaniel preferred to eat them, so he got to watch. Daniel's strange get-up was to remind him that this time last year he was in Afghanistan - not this year!

















Playing outside and finally enjoying cold weather (well, cold for us!)













Adah wanted to try on the backpack, so she put Cora's baby doll in it. Obviously, she thought it was hilarious.

Adah was introduced to dunking her cookies, and after looking skeptical, she gave it a try.
She decided she liked it very much!


Daddy reading to ALL the kids!
Introducing our daughter, Macy Gray. :) I took her hair down in anticipation of taking her to the salon later that day. On the way to the salon, we got a flat tire and then it needed to be replaced (oh, yeah - THAT was a fun day!) so her hair had to wait another day. She REALLY looked cute when she put her pink-framed sunglasses at the top of her forehead. At first, she didn't like the look, but when Papa kept telling her that she was beautiful, she decided she looked pretty good. :)

Adah loves to lounge!
Shiloh prepares for her piano recital on December 22nd. She did a FABULOUS job even though she nearly gets stomach ulcers before the event. After the recital, she sighed a deep sigh and said, "Well, THAT'S over for another year." :) She played "Little Drummer Boy" with hand-drum accompaniment from Cora and "Ding Dong Merrily on High."

And here's Shiloh's polar opposite, Cora Milene, who couldn't WAIT for the piano recital. :) She was very disappointed because their piano teacher left her second piece, "O Come All Ye Faithful" OFF the playlist for the evening! She only got to play "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." So she's decided she wants to play "O Come All Ye Faithful" for the church talent show and cookie exchange. Shiloh looked pleadingly at us NOT to ask her to play at the talent show.

And for another big event of the week - Adah's and Nathaniel's baptisms!!! We had them baptized on Sunday, the 23rd. Adah wasn't sure what was going on, although we tried to prepare her by telling her in Kreyol what was going to happen. She also saw a baptism the week before, so maybe that helped. She went up to the front trustingly, though, holding Papa's hand pretty tightly. She gasped a little when the water went over her head because she HATES cold water. Nathaniel was a total ham, kissing me loudly, saying "Boo" to the congregation, smiling at everyone. He tried to put his hand in the baptismal bowl, and then laughed when the water came down over his face. He also tried to lick the water up by slurping. It was a BLESSED day, and we were overwhelmed with thankfulness that the day had finally arrived to add our new children to the covenant community. I was glad I had tissues!

Pastor Webb with Elder Espinoza getting ready to baptize Adah.
Adah is done, and I am handing Nathaniel to Pastor Webb; he wasn't too sure about it!


Pastor Webb prepares to baptize Nathaniel

We pray after their baptisms - Lord, THANK YOU for the work You have done in our family! May they ALL never know a day without Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior!

Nathaniel and Mommy chill out after the service...notice the water and drool on my shoulder!! :)

Nathaniel LOVES kisses!!



The two "A"s in their beautiful dresses. Adah originally tried on the pink dress and really loved it, but it was too small. We were REALLY hoping she would realize it was too small so that we wouldn't have to go through the battle of taking it away and explaining to her what was going on. Thankfully, her sweetness shone through, and she decided that Abigail should have it. When Abigail put it on, she complimented her over and over: "Bel! Bel!" Pretty, pretty.

Well, we are off to enjoy the beautiful weather here and to meet our neighbors' new little girl from China! We wish you a VERY merry Christmas, and I will post pictures at the end of the week!
Love,
Casey

Um...what's happening to our food budget??

I just have a few random photos to post before I head to bed. I haven't downloaded the camera in a few days, and I need to get around to doing that tomorrow. (Maybe?) These pictures were taken before it turned cold again, and now our Haitian kiddos are freezing. Adah wants the water WARM before she washes her hands, but we're trying to convince her that waiting for five minutes for the water to heat up is not good for the budget. Somehow I think she doesn't get that. Daniel was making fun of her whining to get her to laugh, saying, "Wah wah wah - dlo fret, wah wah wah - dlo cho," and she thought it was HILARIOUS. (dlo-water, fret-cold, cho-hot) She repeated it over and over in the van on the way out to piano lessons this afternoon. And when Shiloh exited IHOP this evening and whined about being cold, Adah chimed in with, "Shi-loh, wah wah wah - fret!" Yep, she's catching on to English really well, since she understood what Shiloh was saying in English and managed to make fun of her in Kreyol with that knowledge. :)

And speaking of the budget, these kids are eating their way through it! We're being very careful not to let them overeat while still letting them know that they can have plenty of everything, and they are both champion eaters. We planned to go out for Indian food tonight, but it was CLOSED (*sigh*) so we ended up at IHOP. When we were done, everyone's plate had been cleaned. Adah and Abigail helped me with my pancakes, Jackson and Nathaniel helped Shiloh with her eggs, Nathaniel helped Daddy with half of his meal, and Cora helped Jackson out of one pancake. Everyone seemed to have enough by the end, but next time we're ordering Nathaniel his own meal. On Saturday he will have been home for two weeks, and I think he's gained weight in that two weeks. He's scrawny, so that's a good thing. We have to beef him up for his hernia surgery in January. The surgeon told us that it was not going to close on its own because it was too large, so he's going in in January.

In other totally random news, our neighbors across the street are returning with their new daughter from China in two days!!! We are so excited to see them. The reason we were out and about tonight was to get to the party store to decorate their house for the homecoming, and the girls are thrilled about the lawn sign we found announcing, "It's a Girl!" How neat that we are sharing this experience together. We have commiserated with one another about the length of the weight (21 months for the both of us), the problems with USCIS, and the problems with international adoption in general. If our government and the governments involved would listen to us, we would have the problems solved. :)

Oh, and I don't mean to make everything here sound all peaches and cream all the time. I really must learn the Kreyol words for "please stop whining!" :) Our spunky, opinionated daughter decided that she wasn't happy that we told her not to climb her sister's ladder to the top bunkbed. She decided she was so unhappy with us that she would not eat her lunch, and when lunch was over and put away, she then whined that she didn't have her lunch. Ah, Adah, you shall soon learn that you are not dealing with amateurs and we love you too much to let you get your way all the time. And besides that, haven't you heard of rule number three in the Houseworth house? :) Don't worry, anyone who thinks we're heartless since she just came home just under two weeks ago...we gave her plenty of snuggles, kisses, backrubs, and funny faces to cheer her up. She just wanted to whine. She quit whining to hear a movie I put on and then resumed whining when it was over thirty minutes later. That cracked me up.

Okay, I REALLY have to go to bed now. We have a full day tomorrow.

Love,

Casey

The Day of Drama aka A Very Sad Girl and Very Tired Parents

So we brought Nathaniel to the doctor last Wednesday to get checked out, and everything went very smoothly. The only thing he didn't care for was the band-aid he got on his finger after they pricked it to check his iron level. We brought everyone to the doctor on Thursday so that we could go to the lab afterward to get Adah's and Nathaniel's blood drawn for the gazillion tests they need to run on them.

Not a good plan.

All was going smoothly until, RIGHT after a height and weight check, the nurse tried to prick Adah's finger to check her iron. This was AFTER Daniel told her that Adah doesn't speak English, after he told her that we were having blood drawn at the lab, and after he told her that she might be pretty nervous because this is all new. Adah completely lost it. Daniel sent a nurse to get me from the waiting room where I had the other four children. He and Abigail were trying to calm her down enough to get her undressed for the actual exam. She had her hands over her face, and she was wailing. :( We had gone over with her in her Kreyol picture dictionary what would happen, and we were trying to do that again. She wasn't even opening her eyes. Poor baby. We knew she had no idea what was expected of her and why this was happening to her. We eventually got her undressed and she sat in Papa's lap still wailing. Our pediatrician, who is AWESOME, came in and completely ignored her. He started talking to the other kids, laughing with them, and then examining them one by one on the table. (He even discovered that Abigail had pinkeye! But that's a whole other story.) Then he took Jackson and Abigail outside to put birdseed in the feeder outside the window. By now Adah was curious enough to peek out from behind her hands a little to see what was going on and why the others seemed to be having such a good time. She allowed the doc to examine her, although pretty unwillingly, and she wouldn't look at him. :) Daniel and I looked at each other and thought, "If the doctor's visit was this bad, how in the world are they going to be able to draw blood from her??" She's 48 pounds. FORTY-EIGHT pounds. Cora is 48 pounds. We took deep breaths and decided that we ought to just go for it. She managed to give her sisters a smile on the way to the lab, and that made us feel even worse. She did SO well getting her chest X-ray, and we prepared for the big fight of drawing blood. We warned the lab, and they brought in a huge guy to hold her down. Poor Daniel, who HATES needles and needs Valium to have an IV put in him, held both kids on his lap as they drew blood. Nathaniel did fine, and I cuddled with him while Adah went in. I heard her scream, and then I heard quiet and I thought maybe she had knocked everyone out and run for the door. But no!! She relaxed when Daniel said, "fini, fini" after they got the needle in, and they were able to get all the 52 tubes or so of blood they needed. Okay, it wasn't 52 but it was A LOT. Daniel came out a little white and said, "We need to get food in them right away. I mean right now." So we went to Fazoli's where Adah had two bowls of spaghetti, a piece of pizza, and three breadsticks. The end. And we figure that if she still likes us after we put her through that, then we're ahead of the ballgame as far as attachment goes. :) She talked about the "piki" (shot) a lot, she wanted the bandage off as soon as possible, but then she willingly gave hugs and kisses. Phew. The other kids were a little stressed, so everyone took a rest when we got home. We're waiting a couple of months to get her vaccinations, that's for sure. The good news is that their bloodwork came back normal, except for an iron deficiency in Nathaniel. He's on iron supplement drops, and I think a better diet will help tremendously. He doesn't like vegetables, but when we've insisted that he eat them, he will. So maybe when he refused at the orphanage, they didn't bother to push the issue. I mean, who has time to do that when you have so many other children to look after? (And what am I talking about? Like we don't have so many other children to look after ourselves?? :) )

I've posted some pictures from our first week together. I think we are still in a honeymoon period (other than the doctor's visit, obviously) and things are still going extremely well. It's like they've always been here, which is so weird. Right now, Shiloh, Cora, and Adah are happily coloring Christmas printouts I got off the computer. Adah chatters away in Kreyol, the girls attempt to understand some things, they use sign language, and they keep coloring. It's a beautiful thing.

Some funnies:

Adah likes to give our dog Roscoe treats. We've been working on having her say please and thank you for things. So after she gave Roscoe a bone yesterday, she leaned over and said, "Roscoe, mesi. Mesi, Roscoe." She wanted him to say thank you, and then she laughed at her own joke. She has a great sense of humor.

Adah is very bothered by Abigail's wet hair after bathtime. After they put their nightgowns on, she drags Abigail back into the bathroom to brush her hair. Abigail goes willingly, which says a lot about how Abigail feels about Adah, because when I think of Abigail, I don't generally think of the word "willingly." :)

There is a wedding picture of Daniel and me in the hallway leading upstairs. When Adah passed it the other day, she said, "Papa and Shiloh?" Apparently I have aged - A LOT. :)

Some sweet things:

Nathaniel LOVES to have his belly kissed. He will point to his belly and say, "Mama! Mama!" until I do it over and over again. He has an ADORABLE laugh.

Nathaniel loves Jackson's sword. Thankfully, Jackson has an extra and is willing to share.

Adah is now referring to herself as Adah, and she wrote her name on her school paper yesterday "Adah Jeanvil." Now we have to work on the Jeanvil. Poor kid. Just when she got one thing down... We have not pushed the issue to change her name; we have just all called her that, and she now refers to herself that way. We pray that this will not be a loss to her in the future but that she will understand why we did so.

Adah loves to draw pictures of us, label them "Papa" and "Manman" and put them up everywhere. She loves to pick out pictures of families in magazines and label everyone with our names, including her own and Nathaniel's. It doesn't generally matter if the families are black or white...on Saturday Daniel apparently was Will Smith. That's okay with me. :)

Adah told Daniel she loved him last night for the first time. Yeah, she's a daddy's girl. And I LOVE IT.

Well, I better get going and vacuum. The social worker is coming tonight for our first post-placement visit, and we want to make a good impression. I think we should probably hide all those liquor bottles, then. What do you think? :) Just kidding, y'all. Man.

Love,

Casey