Short on Words, Long on Pictures

Grandma!! You're published on the blog! Everyone, meet G.G., my grandma. I won't mention how young she is, but let's just say she's a pretty hip grandma. She has a cooler cell phone than I do, and she's "thinking" about retiring this year from her job. She spoiled us with Dunkin Donuts coffee and eating out and a trip to the Palisades Mall when we visited.
This was Adah's hairdo for our trip to Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. I got it from a picture on snapaholics, a website for beads. I think it turned out pretty well, and she really liked it. I need colorful hairbands that STAY in her hair, though - the "ouchless" cute ones snap constantly.
All the kids with Pop, Daniel's grandfather. He and Nan live in Pennsylvania in a really nice nursing home, and it was so wonderful to be able to introduce our new children to them. They haven't been in the best of health, and we're grateful to still have them with us.

Adah and Abigail being very strange.Shiloh loves the song, "International Harvester." What a weirdo. Piano lessons really haven't helped her singing, but she enjoys herself.

The boys are hanging out with Daddy. I accidentally deleted the video where they were jumping on top of him and then trying to roll him over. He was a little sore when they were done. :)

Just hanging out here - I have to get dinner on the table before Bible study, and we're taking it easy after standardized testing. Today was the last day - yea!

We're also on our 20th showing for the house. Tomorrow's showing will be the 21st. Pray. Pray without ceasing for it to be over. :) Daniel reports to work in Virginia on April 30th, and if we haven't sold the house by then, he'll go on up and we'll stay here in the house until it sells.

Love, Casey

*Edited to Add* I should be nicer to Shiloh; her voice actually HAS improved from her piano lessons. She just sounds weird trying to do the accent in the song. :)

Quick! Quick! Before the kids get up!

I have to hurry and post this before I hear little voices: "Mommy! Mommy! Where are you??" :) Here are some random pics from the last few days. 1. Daniel and ALL the boys hanging out (technically, is Roscoe really a boy? Or an "it?") 2. Cora reading to Adah and Abigail 3. 4. 5. Look what happened two days ago! Adah lost BOTH front teeth! She knocked the first one out banging her mouth on a walking stick outside (don't worry - it was already loose) and then she wanted me to get the other one out. In the last picture, she doesn't have an abcess in her mouth; it's a marshmallow for being brave while I was pulling her tooth (and by the way - ICK! Pulling teeth is definitely NOT my job!!!!). 6. Abigail and Adah in the bathtub - can we all sing "Ebony and Ivory" one time? Could there be a more stark contrast? :) Adah was trying to impersonate "Pere Noel" and had a beard as well, but the picture didn't turn out well. 6. Nathaniel with his new backpack on. I was trying to get a picture of the backpack, but he kept turning around to say, "Cheese." You can tell he's saying it by the way his mouth is curled. Too cute. 7. Now THAT is a handsome young man. He wanted a shirt and tie to look like Daddy on Sunday, and we finally found him one at Kohl's. He had the jacket from a friend of ours as a hand-me-down, and boy was he pleased with himself this past Sunday. "I look like a man, Mommy - a big man! Wif my tie, my belt, and my shzacket. And my shoes. My tie-up shoes like Daddy." 8. And this photo makes me cry. Look at what a LOVELY young lady my big girl is. She looked SO beautiful and so graceful in this outfit that Daniel and I kept looking at each other and saying, "When did this happen?" (And for all you thrifty people - TWELVE DOLLARS that dress was - TWELVE. Down from $68. Uh-huh. I know you're jealous of my bargain hunting skills.)

Okay - quick funny story about Adah and her teeth (okay, not quick - are any of my stories quick? Please.). I told her about the tooth fairy coming (if you think the tooth fairy is an elaborate ruse meant to deceive children and give them the impression that their parents are liars, you might want to stop reading here.). She was clearly confused about all of this and wanted further details. So she proceeded to follow me all over the house asking questions. "I dough-no dis toof faireee." (She was hard enough to understand before. Now? Forget it.) "What is toof faireee? He fly in my bed?" (She's having trouble with pronouns right now.) I told her to get a baggie and put her teeth in it, the tooth fairy would come while she was sleeping, take her teeth, and put some money under her pillow. "Moneeee? What moneee? I dough-no dis moneee." (Whenever she doesn't understand something, she says "I don't know dis..." whatever it is.) I took her upstairs and motioned to her what would happen, and then she looked truly alarmed. "In my bed? In my room? No, no. I'm being scared. Toof faireee scary." The girls tried to reassure her (all of whom know who the tooth fairy is, but they're willing to play along if they get moola out of it). Then she wanted to know all about what the tooth fairy looked like. She was finally convinced to give it a try. When I went in to deliver the money, she had hung the edge of the baggie WAY out from under her pillow, and she went to sleep with her head under the covers. She told me in the morning she did that on purpose so she wouldn't have to see the scary tooth fairy. She was THRILLED with the results of the tooth fairy visit, but she also wanted her teeth back. Then she thought she'd try to take out another tooth to get the tooth fairy to come back. Then she wanted to discuss ad nauseum how the tooth fairy got in to her room, what she looked like ("She not small. She haf moneee - not small. BEEG!" gesturing with her hands how big she thought the tooth fairy was) and where her teeth might be. All in all, I came away thinking that this really was a bizarre ritual. And a little scary, too.

Love,

Casey

Oh? Is this my blog? Do I write here?

Yes, apparently I've forgotten the purpose of the blog, which is to provide my mother with updated photos of the children. :) I'm also supposed to keep y'all up-to-date with what's going on in our lives, but I can't very well do that if I only post every two weeks or so, because A LOT can happen in the Houseworth household in two weeks. Let's take a look, shall we? In between numerous house showings, homeschooling, and feeding the growing horde, my dad came to visit on February 21st, Nathaniel's 2nd birthday was the 26th, my birthday was the 1st of March, and ohbytheway, we found out we're not moving to Texas. Yeah, that happened last Monday, so it's just old news by this point. But here's the good news. We're moving to Charlottesville, Virginia!!!!! As you can see by the many exclamation points, (which I love to use but which irritate Daniel) we are very excited about this. Here's the backstory to the new location: I get a call February 6th after Daniel's interview with the folks in Charlottesville (Can I post the agency's name? I think it's okay, but Daniel's asleep, so I can't check. I won't, just to be on the safe side. Don't worry - he's not a spy or anything like that. :) ). ANYWAY, this is Daniel: "Casey, I totally bombed that interview. I mean, I can't even tell you how awful I was." Me: "What happened? You never bomb interviews. Could you not answer the questions?" Daniel: "I don't know what happened!! I had to do the interview in the car and after I got on they told me it was going to be an hour long and I looked at my phone and thought, 'I'm not gonna make it! I'm not gonna make it!'" His phone was about to die, and he was slightly panicky. He was still a little panicky AFTER the interview. He brooded about it for about three days, every once in a while looking at me dolefully and saying, "Man, I can't believe I totally bombed that interview." But since we thought we were already on our way to Texas, it didn't really matter. So, Daniel was home on February 25th because he wasn't feeling well. He took a phone call upstairs, talked for awhile, and then came downstairs laughing. Uh-huh. Totally bombed the interview, huh? They offered him the job he wanted. A BETTER job than the one in Texas, (qualitatively speaking, not monetarily speaking :) ) a GREAT location, WITH the opportunity to get an advanced degree, WITHOUT deployments except for some sweet TDYs to places like Germany. And we think we found a church home as well from talking to (interrogating, whatever) the pastor of an OPC congregation. There are only two downsides: we were looking forward to being near Daniel's sister and her family, and it's cold in Virginia. Okay, that second one is just according to Shiloh and me. Everyone else is excited about not enduring San Antonio heat. We also have an additional month here before Daniel has to report to whatever-the-agency-is on April 3oth. That gives us an extra month to sell the house and experience all the fun of house showings. :) We've had 13 showings but no offers.
Okay, so without further ado, I now give you pictures of the wild and wacky kids in the last couple of weeks. Adah has REALLY gotten into birthdays around here, having experienced four since she came home. She made Nathaniel and me presents for our birthdays, and she was talking about her birthday daily until we counted how many days there were until November 13th. She got awfully quiet, and then said, "Too long. That's too long." She doesn't really talk about it anymore. :) The girls made and decorated the birthday cake for Nathaniel, and I stayed out of it except to get the pans out of the oven. I think they did a nice job, but it was much too subdued for them. "Mommy, we need blue icing, or red icing, or both! Or something! More sparkles maybe! Can we put M&Ms on it? What about whipped cream on top of the icing?" That last one was Abigail, of course. Nathaniel seemed to enjoy everything, and I found myself alternating between total joy that he was home and wondering about his birthmom and how she remembers that day. It was an odd, disjointed feeling. I can't write too much about it as I'm still processing it and my thoughts probably wouldn't make any sense. So, on to the pictures...
The first picture is Jackson's impression of the Home Alone kid, I think. The second is my little Mommy Cora Dora snuggling with Jackson. She had a boo-boo on her nose; she hasn't gone for plastic surgery. The rest of the pictures are out of order, but you can get the idea. I love the picture of Adah and Abigail hanging out; they are becoming good friends during their alone time in the afternoon while I'm still doing lessons with Shiloh and Cora. In this picture they were discussing recipes. :) With Adah this mainly consists of turning the pages very quickly and saying, "Oooh, I like dat. Oh, I no like dat. OOOOHHH, I like dis one. Mommy, look at dis one. This one yuummmmy." Sorry my arm is in the picture of Nathaniel with his cake. I just didn't want him to incur second degree burns by sticking his face in the candles.

And that's all folks. Nathaniel was up quite a bit last night coughing, so I'm hoping for more sleep for everyone tonight. Daniel got a head start on me, so I'm going to go catch up.

Love,

Casey

p.s. Ange, we're also so sad that we won't get to be near your family and meet your three girlies! Adah still wants to pray for them, and she wanted to write them a note the other day!

p.p.s. Sorry for the red-eye, folks. I'm too tired to fix it tonight.

Edited to add: Daniel laughed when he read the post. It's not a secret where he's going to be working - the National Ground Intelligence Center - and he shook his head at my ignorance. :) He said, "People are going to think I'm working for the CIA." Which is akin to working for al-Qaida in his mind.

Hi Y'all!

This is a big THANK YOU to my Aunt Babs, who sent the girls these adorable socks for Valentine's Day. They were thrilled with them, and they promptly put them on OVER their tights (ever the fashion-forward girls) for the rest of the day.


This has been Adah's hair-do for the last two weeks. I can BARELY put it up into two puffballs, but they are adorable. She likes them because we can change ribbons or barrettes to match the outfit. She's a pro at smiling for the camera even when the camera isn't even on her face. :)



The rest of the pics are from our wonderful neighbor's Valentine's Day party. Obviously, I'm not the best photographer, and the kids were too busy playing to pose for me. These aren't the "organized" shots where we were doing Kindermusik activities, making adorable crafts, or eating chocolate cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies. The kids had a wonderful time, and I met another homeschooling mom in the neighborhood (too bad we're moving!!). Do you see the baby slings that Cora and Shiloh are wearing? Aren't they cute? My friend Kelly made me one for Nathaniel and then decided to make Abigail and Shiloh miniature versions for their birthdays. Cora borrowed Abigail's for her doll Susanna. (Or, as Cora still calls her four years later, "Zuzanna")
































So here's something strange. Apparently the word out there is that we're the parents of SIX children. Yep, I had one of "those" moments today. I was just thinking about nothing in particular when: Wait a minute! I have six children? How did THAT happen? (Okay, obviously, folks, I know HOW it happened - these were rhetorical questions to myself). Then I told myself to get a grip before the kids started noticing that I was acting weird. And then I smiled because it's just been a great day to be a mom to all these wonderful kids. Sure, Nathaniel threw a temper tantrum at lunch, Jackson spilled an entire cup of water that he was trying to prepare for his brother, Abigail and Adah continued their ongoing Chutes and Ladders feud and took it to new heights with Uno, and Shiloh got a little emotional during Latin (Latin?? How in the world does that make you emotional? I can understand math, but Latin?), but even WITH all that...it's a good day. They're all here, they're all healthy, they're all happy, and life is good. We are seriously, abundantly blessed. And apparently Cora is my favorite child today since I couldn't think of an example of evildoing for her, but wait...there's a funny story coming...
Cora had a spelling test today and after she wrote her second word, I told her that the words needed to be in cursive. So she went back to erase the other words, concentrated on getting the cursive correct and was preparing to write her third word when she looked up and said, "So, does it matter if the words are spelled correctly?" Um, yeah. It's a spelling test, sweetie. She's not naturally blonde, but she sure does act like it sometimes.

And the BEST PIECE OF NEWS FOR LAST! We got Adah's and Nathaniel's readoption paperwork in the mail the other day! They are officially Adah Resilia Houseworth and Nathaniel Erickson Houseworth, U.S. citizens. They will be issued North Carolina birth certificates, although the birth certificates will say they were born overseas (it sure is easier to have those than to try to track down Haitian birth certificates when they need them in the future!). We are DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE with the mountain of paperwork that has plagued our very lives since August of 2005. We have been encouraged to get Certificates of Citizenship for them, but since those are a whopping $420 per child, we're waiting until we have their social security cards and then we'll just get their passports. Much easier and less expensive.

Well, I'm going to prepare our schooling for tomorrow. We're pretty strict around here, what with actually expecting the kids to spell things correctly for their spelling tests, so I better stay on top of things.

Love,
Casey

Phew! Part Deux

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post! Apparently I can homeschool, hang out with the kids, keep up with laundry, make meals, and blog, but I can't do all that AND show the house to try to sell it, so something had to go. That one thing threw me all off; it's kicking my booty. The kids are grateful that making meals didn't get thrown off the list. :) Actually, I COULD blog and do all that, but I actually like having a conversation with my husband over a cup of tea in the evenings so that we can catch up. (Now that he's actually OUT AT WORK now. Bummer.)

So the previous paragraph was just to say that HEY! I've missed you. I've missed blogging and sharing our precious kiddos with you. I had big plans to post about the rollerskating birthday party we had for Abigail and Shiloh, but when I got to the rink, my camera was chastising me: "Change Batteries!" Ugh. I'm waiting on a friend to email me some pictures that she took. If I waited until then to blog, though, it might be another two weeks before I get around to it. Right now the house is REALLY quiet, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to write. Daniel has taken the girls to see "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" at our cheapo movie theater, and the boys are napping. It's weird to have the house this quiet. I love how full of life our house is, and I can't imagine that someday it might be this quiet all the time. (Well, not ALL the time - the grandkids will be hanging out and making noise!) Sometimes my ears are ringing when the kids are finally in bed at night, but having grown up with my sister Kira, I'm used to loud. HA! (You have to admit it's true, Mom.)

So...the State of the Household. Trying to sell a house right now really stinks. That's honesty for you. I know I stress the kids out right before a showing because I'm so particular about how it needs to look. And yet they put up with me anyway and pitch in wherever they can. They're earning money for vacuuming, a chore I don't usually have them do because it's still a little much for them. Shiloh likes feeling grown-up, though, so she happily volunteers. Nathaniel doesn't like the vacuum, although he's much better now because we've been vacuuming so often. Adah and Abigail do things at their level like cleaning the windows from Roscoe slime. :) We've had 7 showings in two weeks, so that's a pretty good amount. No offers yet. We've set up temporary housing in San Antonio, which turned out to be a bigger problem than we thought because of our family size. :) The relocation specialists who are supposed to be helping us said that they couldn't put us in a 3 bedroom apartment because their regulations stipulate only two children per bedroom. Has anybody ever heard this? I mean, I understand the regulations if someone is trying to cram three families and their relatives in an apartment, but a single family with small children? I thought it was weird. We found a place on our own that has no problem with our family size. Daniel has his physical on the 13th and then we'll get orders to start the whole process. We're praying we'll sell the house before we leave, but we have two months of temporary housing paid for in San Antonio if we don't.

Despite showings hanging over our heads, we've been getting our regular schooling done, and I'm enjoying re-learning (or learning as the case may be) Roman history with the two older girls. Abigail is doing really well in math, which is always surprising for one of our offspring. Adah is reading simple books and re-learning her numbers in English. It's so nice that she can already read! For some reason, that's the biggest hurdle in my mind when it comes to teaching the kids. So when I discovered that she could read, I immediately thought, "Wow! I only have two more to teach to read!" :) I LOVE to teach them to read; I just automatically assume that I can't do it proficiently enough. Ah...the guilt of a homeschooling mom. If your child can't read, you can't blame it on another teacher!

Adah Tomata ("Tuh-may-tuh"), as she is now known, is doing exceptionally well (Daniel calls her this, and then she responds with "Papa Potata!"). She is speaking so much more English these days, and she finds ingenious ways to explain things to us when we don't understand. She's curious about everything, and she's game for anything. She LOVED rollerskating, although she decided after about 2 minutes on the real skates that she wanted the little kid skates that Jackson had on. She definitely has a zest for life. Our biggest hurdle with her is dealing with her entitlement mindset. If she wants it, she feels she deserves to have it. It's hard to explain, because it's not a grabby, 2 year-old mindset where she's going around taking things. It's more sophisticated than that. It's a "you shall cater to my wants whenever I have wants and whatever those wants are." If she wants your attention, she wants it now and will sulk if she doesn't get it. If she perceives that she's been treated unfairly, then she will sulk. If she doesn't like the dress she's wearing that day, she will comment, "I like that dress" and point to one of her sister's dresses. In other words, she's just a sinner like the rest of us. :) She is getting SO much better, though, and we are heartened by the progress we've seen just in the two months she's been home. She went to bed unhappy last night over being corrected for something, and she didn't want any goodnight kisses or hugs. We told her we loved her, blew her kisses, and told her we'd be there whenever she was ready for hugs and kisses. We went back in a few minutes later and she put her arms up for hugs. YEA! That's good progress. If we had had any Moose Tracks, we would have celebrated. (SOMEbody ate the last bit we had. Oh, wait. That might have been me.)

Nathaniel is 99.99% recovered from his surgery. It's amazing how quickly those little bodies recover! He is also full of life aka VERY LOUD. I remember this age with all the kids when they would say, "Mommy?" and I would answer, "Yes, __________," and they would proceed to babble for a couple of sentences. Then two minutes later, "Mommy?" and I would answer, "Yes, _________." You get the picture. They're not great conversationalists at this age, but they really want to feel connected. :) This happens especially in the van, where I think I hear "Mommy?" an average of fifty times. That could be our fault for living 30 minutes away from everything. :) Nathaniel has been more of a challenge than Adah has been, and I joke that I prayed too hard for Adah and not enough for Nathaniel. :) We certainly thought Adah would be harder to integrate. Nathaniel is learning to trust us, and that comes with a lot of rebellion to see if we're going to respond the same way each time and whether we'll still love him. We are still working on eye contact, and we see a little improvement though we're nowhere near where we'd like to be. He wants affection on his terms, and the boundary between normal two year-old ornery behavior and pushing us away can be hard to see sometimes. We pray for guidance and wisdom, and we love on him all we can. He LOVES chasing games, being thrown up in the air, belly kisses, and tickling. He especially loves it when we tickle his feet. His laugh is addictive, and I can forget what else I'm doing if I'm trying to make him keep laughing. :)

Although this season of the blog is dedicated to the newest Houseworths, I don't want to neglect the others. In that effort, this post will also highlight Abby-dabby-doodle, who just turned 5. Abigail only wanted a mound of frosting - no cake - to celebrate her birthday. Think she has a sweet tooth? :) Abigail is a delight, from her adorable voice to her adorable face. She is also a stinker, and I say that with equal parts frustration and admiration. She is a STRONG personality, which is excellent for being matched with Adah. She and Adah have had some heated games of Chutes and Ladders! :) Both girls are very competitive and VERY persistent. They have played Chutes and Ladders for ONE WHOLE HOUR at a time. It makes my head hurt to play one game of Chutes and Ladders. Abigail is obsessed with being a big girl and doing big girl things. She will never be big, and she must face this fact. :) She is, however, doing big girl things. She rode her bike without training wheels last year at 4 - that's the earliest for our kids. She's reading REALLY well, and she has a knack for math. She helps around the house more than the others did at her age, because she watches them and learns. She's thorough in her tasks, and I appreciate her energetic personality. I look forward to seeing what 5 year-old Abigail will do this year!

Oh, and one more piece of news. Our two lovely young ladies, Shiloh and Cora, will become, Lord willing, full communicant members of the church on Sunday. Shiloh approached Daniel awhile ago and asked if she could take the Lord's Supper. Daniel made sure that her request was sincere and began studying the Lord's Supper with her on Sundays after church. He used Scripture, the catechism, and a book our pastor recommended. Then Cora approached him and asked that she be included in the study because she wanted to take the Lord's Supper as well. We thought they were too young to understand the solemnity of the Lord's Supper and to be able to examine themselves as commanded by Scripture, but they have convinced us otherwise. They were interviewed by our Session two Sundays ago, and the Session agreed to admit them providing they can get up before the congregation on Sunday, respond to the questions put before them, and give a credible profession of faith in their own words. They have both written their "testimonies" and practiced them. Would you pray with us that they (especially Shiloh) will be able to confidently stand before their brothers and sisters in Christ and proclaim their faith before many witnesses? This is a hard thing they're doing, and I am so humbled by the strength of their desire to join with the body of Christ that they are willing to speak before the church. Would my zeal be that great? Hmmm.

That's all for now. I'm going to take advantage of the quiet and read a little, rest a little, and maybe even sleep a little. :)

Love to all-
Casey

Phew!

So far little Nathaniel is making it through the week. His umbilical hernia surgery and circumcision were done on Monday, and everything was perfectly fine until the medication from the surgery wore off WAY earlier than it should have. Poor Nathaniel!! I called the doc and received "permission" to give him Motrin which did NOTHING. I called back and received permission to go ahead and dose him with his Tylenol with codeine, which did NOTHING because he was too hysterical by that point. I called back and used my angry voice, and the doctor said, "Well, it's really important that we keep him calm." Uh-huh. No kidding it's important to keep him calm. That's why I called you TWO HOURS AGO to let you know that he was starting to feel discomfort when he shouldn't be, you knucklehead. I was trying to be a responsible parent and not overdose my child but apparently I should have gone ahead with my instincts and just drugged him right away. It took two doses to settle him down, and even that didn't really settle him down...the Tylenol with codeine makes him hyper! :) Yikes. He had a thirty minute nap on the day of his surgery. At least he was finally comfortable, though! And thanks to the power of prayer - oh, yeah, I alerted the prayer warriors about this one - he slept through the night on Monday and we all had a chance to regroup. Poor Cora was stressed OUT with Nathaniel's crying...all her maternal instincts were going haywire, and she felt totally helpless. I made her go outside with Shiloh and run off some steam, so they all crashed Monday night as well. Since then, we've kept on top of the medicine cycles even if we have to wake him up at night, and he's doing fine. The saddest thing on Monday was to see a return to some of the orphanage/self-comfort behaviors that he had gotten rid of since he first came home. He does a weird thing with his fingers while he's sucking his thumb, and he hadn't done that for a really long time. He had a hard time accepting comfort, especially since it had to be in his most vulnerable position -being held cradle-style on his back. The regression made me even more angry with the doctor. Arrgh. >:(

He didn't like the removal of the bandages, and he's walking kinda bowlegged (sorry, son - too much information), but he seems to be healing well. He goes in tomorrow for one of his follow-up appointments. It's going to be awhile before he has a recognizable belly button, but it's much better than it was. At least he can wear pants now instead of overalls all the time.

So that's been our week so far. And we've been schooling and the handymen have been at the house to do the last of the touch-ups before we put the house on the market TOMORROW. Who thought this was a good idea?? :) What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? Or certifiably insane, whichever.

And to make matters worse, our eldest turned NINE today. NINE! That's one year away from TEN, and before you know it, she's going to be EIGHTEEN. *sigh* Only middle-aged people have nine year-olds. Oh, wait. We are middle-aged. At least one of us is, anyway. :) That middle-aged person took his daughter on a date tonight, and they had a wonderful time. She got all dressed up (Daddy, too!), and might I say we make (and adopt!!) beautiful children. What's even more wonderful is that she is a lovely person on the inside, growing in grace and in the love of the Lord. She is truly precious, and she has such a sweet spirit. Happy Birthday, Shiloh! We are blessed to be your parents, and we look forward to celebrating many more birthdays before you up and leave us in our old age, weeping and sobbing as you go off to make your own way in the world, never bothering to look back and notice that your parents are desolate without you. *sigh* This parenting deal is pretty hard. Next week Abigail turns five. FIVE! That's one year away from SIX, and before you know it, she's going to be EIGHTEEN. Not that I'm overreacting or anything.

Okay, before I hit my second wind tonight and stay up until 1:00, I better give you these pictures and head to bed.

Much Love,

Casey
I think Cora captured this unique camera angle on Nathaniel (this is a pre-op picture; otherwise, his eyes would be pretty glassy from all the good drugs). I often find pictures on the camera of Cora's dolls, various barnyard scenes created with blocks and figurines, and Roscoe. I curse the day I taught her to use the camera. :)


And here is the lovely photographer herself, posed quite nicely by Adah. Adah also took the picture. Yeah - she taught ADAH to use the camera. Great.
I really have no explanation for this picture. I just found him like this before dinner one night. Please don't call Social Services on me. He looks like a friendly hoodlum, doesn't he?Okay, this is for all you people who have watched Nathaniel's video more than once. Oh, come on. I know you have. So back by popular demand...Nathaniel. The backstory to this video: Daniel called me upstairs to see the latest haircut he had given Nathaniel. I walked in to see this crazy Mohawk/high-and-tight-gone-bad. I might have fainted. When I recovered, I said, "What are you thinking?" And he said, "Oh, come on. Now that's a cool haircut. It's awesome!" Then I said, "It's something all right." He said, "So should I take it down to the skin or keep it? Because it's awesome!" (He was pretty impressed with his skills.) I called for backup. "Shiloh, come up here!" Shiloh: "What did you DO to his HAIR, Daddy?" Thank you. You are my favorite child. Daniel called for backup. "Adah, Abigail, Cora, come up here!" This is the conversation that ensued, pretty much word for word. Daniel: "Okay, girls. Is this the coolest haircut ever and should I keep it this way or should I make your brother look like a poor refugee and shave it bald?" Me: "Okay, girls. Do you want your brother looking like a crazy person (no offense to crazy people, there are lots in our family) or do you want him looking somewhat normal? Tell Daddy to cut his hair!" Daniel: "Okay, vote now." Jackson: "Keep it. It's cool. I like it." Abigail: "Keep it." Adah: "Bon! Adah like it!" (might I add that she was laughing hysterically and this could have been sarcasm - I demand a recount!) Cora (wavering): "Yeah, keep it. I think he's cute." Shiloh: "Mommy! Do something! He can't go out like that!" Me: "I'm with Shiloh." Daniel: "Oh, come on. It's awesome!" And that's how Nathaniel came to look like a miniature Marine gunney sergeant. And what do you know, the first person we encounter when we get to church on Sunday is one of our elders who is a former Army guy: "Hey, cool haircut. High speed." Thanks, buddy. Daniel now refers to his haircut as his pre-op combat haircut. Poor little guy. THIS haircut AND surgery in one week. It's just too much.

And this is my lovely, NORMAL, right-thinking eldest daughter, my favorite child. who backs me up in all circumstances. :) She's wearing a crown especially made for her by Cora at the last minute as they were driving home from dinner this evening.

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