Annual Spring Ritual...Playing in the mud

How muddy can four toddlers get?

Not bad...

His pants looked worse than his face...

Okay, that's more like it, Marc!

But, Hyrum takes the cake, snotty nose and all.

Easter

We had a great Easter!




Brigham, Rebekah and I died eggs.

The Saturday before Easter we gave the children a little Easter egg hunt. They seemed to enjoy it. Sunday we enjoyed conference and family time.

and then there were four...

This little family that consisted of a dad, mom, and three children has just been expanded-whether temporarily or forever we can't be sure. (sorry I post a lot of bath pictures, it's so much easier to get them to stay in one place long enough for a picture when they're contained.) :) Last week we received a phone call asking if we would take a little boy (who used to be in our child care) as a foster care placement. I couldn't get a hold of Timothy because he was in class and the case worker needed to know within the hour. So, I said yes and an hour later I was the mother of four toddlers. Timothy came home to a surprise. "Congratulations we're going to have another child- he's already joined our family. Is that okay?" (Not that there was much he could do about it by then...but luckily he was fine with it.)
Meet Marcus: He is an almost three year-old boy who loves balls and fruit. He likes to play outside and play "with chickens". Marc (as we like to call him) has been in our child care off and on for about 2 years. So he is familiar to us and has made a fairly smooth transition into our family. Still, as you can imagine, he was pulled away from his mother and hasn't seen her for over a week and misses her and his other family members. He had a hard time going to bed and sleeping the first two nights with us, but is doing well now. Luckily his grandma sent his favorite blanket along with some of his other stuff two days after he was placed with us. He is attached to his blanket and likes to chew on the corners. As you can probably see in the picture below, the corners are black (but clean) because he chews on it so much. It has been a bit of an adjustment for all of us adding him to our family. It's also hard not knowing how long he's going to be with us. But for now he's ours and we'll love and take care of him.

Together forever

On Saturday, April 10th three beautiful children dressed all in white were brought into a beautiful room in the Portland Temple where their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends were waiting to witness the miraculous power of God bind these children to their loving adoptive parents for time and all eternity.

In the temple we caught a glimpse of eternity.

It was truly a beautiful experience.

A scary bath

We normally bathe the children on Saturday nights to prepare for church, but we had been busy the night before and so ended up bathing them on Sunday morning before church. This was Sunday, March 14th.

I had just gotten them into the tub and they were playing happily so I stepped out for just a minute to grab church clothes. Just as I was grabbing the last pair of socks and heading back into the bathroom I heard a loud crash and then all three children started screaming. I ran the last few steps into the bathroom and saw this:
Glass all over the bathroom floor. I ran to the tub and it too was filled with glass. Hyrum had gotten the glass sliding shower door out of it's track by swinging it out and it went back and slammed against the other glass door and shattered. (looks like ice, but no, it's all glass)

I was in a panic when I realized what happened and yelled for Timothy who was shaving. We grabbed the children out of the tub as fast as we could. I noticed right away that Hyrum's arm was bleeding- no spurting blood, thankfully. The children were all covered in glass. Since Hyrum was bleeding the worst I took him and put him in the sink to try to wash off all the glass and see how badly he was cut. He was bleeding all over, but in was a miracle that he wasn't hurt worse. Only about 20 minor cuts and four bigger cuts on his left arm and another on his right hand.

Since I had the sink occupied and there were still two children covered in glass. Timothy took Rebekah and held her up under the shower- which made her cry more- to wash off the glass. Then, he set her on the changing table with her towel while he did the same thing with Brigham. By that time I was done with Hyrum so I wrapped the boys up in towels and took them into their room with two boxes of band aids. We spent about 20 minutes drying off and putting band aids on. Brigham didn't have too many bad cuts, but he probably had about 500-1000 little nics all over his body. They didn't bleed, but they were red and probably itched. His knees got the worst cuts. For a few days he asked if he could sit to pray instead of kneel because his knees hurt. But, that was a week ago and he's back to kneeling.

Rebekah was the furthest away from the glass door when it broke. She only had a few cuts on her feet mostly, but a few on her legs and one on her hand.

After looking at how much glass was in the tub I realized that it truly was a miracle that we didn't end up rushing them to the emergency room or calling 911.

1. It was a miracle the children froze when the glass broke instead of scrambling trying to get out. If they had scrambled their feet and probably hands would have gotten cut badly.
2. It was a miracle that though they were covered in glass- it was even in their hair- that none of their faces had even a scratch.
3. It was a miracle I was wearing shoes or I would have gotten all cut up trying to get my babies out. (I normally wear my socks until it's time to walk out the door on Sunday mornings, but that particular morning I just had the thought when I was getting dressed, "I should put my shoes on so that I don't have to worry about it later." - prompting from the spirit.
4. It was a miracle that they weren't afraid to take a bath on Wednesday.
5. It was a miracle (if this had to happen) that it happened when Timothy was home to help me take care of three screaming, bleeding, glass-covered toddlers.
6. It was a miracle that my friend, Katrina, offered to help me clean up the tub on Tuesday because I was slightly traumatized and didn't have the will-power to do it myself.
7. It was a miracle that I had finished putting my thoughts together for my talk in church the night before, because I didn't have time to touch it Sunday morning.
8. It's a miracle we made it to church on time and the children were recovered emotionally enough to go to church.

Now, a week later, most of the little cuts have healed and the larger ones are getting there.
We now have a shower curtain instead of glass doors in our bathroom.

It could have been worse, I know the Lord was watching out for us and protecting my babies and for that I am grateful!

Hyrum's Blessing

We had Hyrum blessed in church on March 7th. He's all dressed in white for his blessing and proud that he managed to take his sock off right before the picture was taken.
He did really well during the blessing. I was worried that he would squirm quit and bit or start talking or fussing in the middle, but he did very well.

Random pictures

Brigham worked really hard one night organizing the "food" in the kitchen set.


The children use the Mr. Potato head glasses for themselves .


Hyrum is wanting to do everything like his older siblings, including washing the table while sitting on it.


Rebekah has become attached to her "silky blanket". She likes to chew on it, carry it around the house, and sleep with it.

Brigham and Rebekah gave us a stirring rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and "Old McDonald Had a Farm." (The books were their sheet music!) It was a great performance.

Hyrum's adoption

Well, Hyrum's adoption is finalized. Yesterday, February 17th was the 1 year anniversary for him moving in with us and that is the day we found out it was final! It was actually finalized on Feb. 11th, but since we didn't want to go through the hassle of finalizing in court we didn't find out which day the judge signed the document until later. We are very excited about this! We got his name legally changed as well! Now we're looking forward to getting him blessed and then getting all three sealed to us. If you're interested in being invited to the sealing please let me know, and I'll give you the date, time, and temple location. We haven't scheduled it yet, but we're planning the second week of April so as to accommodate family who need to travel.


For the children's sake, I'm sure glad these three got to stay together. They are so very attached to each other. It's so fun to watch them try to help each other.

Contact with birth family

Thanks for all the suggestions we received. We decided to make a new blog for the birth family and transfer the posts a pictures over there so that there aren't any links and they won't be able to see your comments.

Sharing with birth family

So, normally when a couple adopts a child there is a mediation agreement. Meaning some sort of contact or no-contact expected between the birth parents and the adoptive parents. Well, our case was sent to a mediation company and the mediation worker drafted a mediation agreement that we were comfortable with. That agreement was then presented to the children's birth parents. The birth parents didn't agree with it because they wanted visits with the children after the adoption was final. And visits for other extended family members as well. So, the worker told them she'd talk with us about it and get back to them. So, she did of course and recommended we didn't agree to visits (which we weren't considering anyway.) After that she tried to get a hold of them and get them to sign the agreement (with no visits), but they never responded during the time frame they were given. So, in short we don't have any obligation to them to write letters or send pictures. We really couldn't anyway because we don't have an address for them. We were supposed to get a contact address when we signed the agreement.

Anyway, the children's birth mother's mother (children's birth grandma) contacted Hyrum's case worker to send gifts to the children and birthday cards. So, I sent an anonymous letter back thanking her for those things and sent a few pictures of the children in some outfits she sent. Well, she was so grateful for these that she called the case worker again and was wanting contact with us so that she could continue to be in touch with the children. Obviously, we are under no obligation to do anything for her, but my heart goes out to this woman who has lost three of her grandchildren. So, we've been thinking and talking about different ways we could keep her updated without having to go through a lot of work. And we're thinking that giving her this blog address might be a good way for her to see how the children are doing without me having to write letters and send pictures.

We're wondering if any of you are willing to look through this site and see if you can find any identifying information on it. We don't want to give out our last name or where we live or any way of physically contacting us. I'm going to delete this post before I give her the blog address. And if you have links to our page from yours please make sure it's labeled only with first names. Thanks everyone.

Silly things kids say and do

The other day as I was buckling the children into their seats in the van Rebekah found the little ash tray thing that opens. She said, "Look, Mama, garbage." Apparently she thought it was for garbage. A bit chagrined that she discovered the ash tray I said one of my creative expletives- "stinkles!" The next things I know Brigham is sitting there singing, "Stinkle, Stinkle, little garbage, how I wonder what you are." It was funny!


Rebekah got out a cookie sheet and sat on it and said "Put me in the oven." I laughed and took a picture of her so Brigham thought he'd get some attention and do the same thing. :)



Brigham dressed up in a friend's hat, sister's and his own gloves, jacket, and Mommy's shoes.


Three kid pile up!


Somehow, Brigham's head got sat on by Rebekah.
Not sure how they got into this position.


While Daddy was showering, Rebekah went behind the curtain of our big glass door in the kitchen and took off her clothes when I discovered her there I asked her what she was doing and she said, "I taking a shower, I taking a shower like Dada." :)

When Rebekah wants to know where someone is she says, "Where you are you?"

Brigham has started to run and dance when he has to go to the bathroom. Just this week he'll start dancing and we'll get him into the bathroom and once he's over the baby gate (to keep Hyrum out) he used to be able to handle going potty by himself. But, lately he's been running laps up and down the bathroom after we get him over the gate and won't stop until he wets his pants and starts screaming. Silly boy!

Brigham has a new responsibility now that he's getting a bit older. His job is to wash the table after meals. He hasn't quite figured out how to do it without actually getting on top of it yet. :)

Christmas church outfits (a little late, I know)

Maybe, since the clothes are red, I should lie and tell you we're on top of things and these are actually Valentines outfits.

The power of powder

Brigham and Rebekah got into the pantry and decided to make "muffins" for me. They mixed the rest of my jar of baking powder and the rest of a salt canister in mixing bowls. Later (after the photos were taken) they added left over muffins, crumbled. Tasty!




Hyrum got into the pantry and got out the cocoa. He decided to taste it too.


Brigham and Rebekah got into the baby powder in the bathroom and managed to cover the bathroom with a fine layer of powder.



Rebekah had wanted to put some baby powder on her bottom, hence the almost naked girl. Brigham saw the fun she was having and decided to join in. It took me a half hour to get the powder cleaned up and there was still a layer of powder that wouldn't wash up coating every surface in the bathroom.




Rebekah climbed onto the counter and decided she needed a little more salt in her life.

(This was actually a few weeks ago, and happened over a two day span, but we've been busy so I haven't had a chance to post it yet.)

Bath Night

The children have really been enjoying baths lately, so we've decided to them three times a week instead of two. They get so excited every time we tell them it's bath night- especially Hyrum. He can say bath ("baahf")now and gets an excited look on his face when we ask him if he wants a bath. He waves his arms all around and says, "Baahf, baahf, baahf." Almost every time he goes into the bathroom he asks for a "baahf".

In the tub
Brigham
Rebekah being tickled
Hyrum engrossed in water play

Rub-a-dub-dub three kids in the tub