Happy Birthday......

...Zephan!

Yes, we have chosen a name for our littlest one!

Seeing as the case is moving along in the direction we would like, we decided to chose his name so he can go into the second year of his life both named and claimed!

Zephaniah:

Origin: Hebrew.

Meaning: "Protected Treasure of Jehovah".

Due to the dangers involved in his early life, we wanted a name that held the word, "Protected". We found this name on our trusty list and and it spoke to us. Every time I say it, it's a prayer over him. For the past. Spoken with thankfulness for God bringing him through everything so far and placing him safely in our arms. For the future. Spoken in faith for everything that is yet to come as he grows up with the spiritual consequences of this fallen world and the physical consequences of a mother enslaved to addiction.

There is healing in Christ and we're so thankful to claim that for our little guy!

That having been said, here's some first birthday pics of Zephan!

"Ooooo! Pretty!"

"Nom nom nom...."

"This. Is. Awesome."

And now for the gifts. "I thank you, Lord, for the bounty I am about to receive..."

"Yay! Something new to ram into my brothers!"

A pair of monkeys for the chunky monkey.

In case you can't read the shirt, it says, "Trouble is my business - and business is GOOD!"

A fitting garment for my most mischievous baby yet, hands down.

Happy 1st Birthday, little guy! We love you!

New Life

Lael: "Of God"

Ephraim: "Very Fruitful"

Zane: "Beloved"

Praise God with me upon the arrival of Lael Ephraim Zane! His family belongs to our beloved homeschool co-op. He was born on September 25th and weighed 9 pounds, 12 ounces.

"Thank you, Father, for this new little guy! I pray blessing upon blessing over his life and his family. I pray complete healing for his mother. I pray for rest and strength for his father. I pray for understanding, patience and joy for his siblings as they settle into life with a newborn. Bless each one with contentment and peace in Jesus name, Amen."

Mischief

So, our Connections Academy teacher had a recommendation for fine-tuning Malachi's letter writing: Spray some shaving cream on a baking sheet, spread it around into a thick layer, and have him write his letters with his finger. This would save his wrist tiring when there's a lot of practice in order to perfect his technique. Solomon could also practice his spelling words.

Not to be outdone, I came up with the idea to include Levi. By hiding drops of different food coloring in piles of the shaving cream, I imagined a fun morning working with him on his colors as he squished and mixed the piles together. I decided to get the baby a snack in his high chair and begin.

About 10 minutes later...

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I decided to let them do their thing and have some fun. Sometimes I miss being a kid. It's so cool to watch them laugh and live it up! Such a fun bunch of guys.

PS - We did end up practicing our words and letters after we got cleaned up...and since they got the mischief out of their systems (temporarily) they did an excellent job focusing on their assignments.

I Should be Doing Laundry, but...

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Hazing the Newbee

Well, K is moving to his new home early next week. I'm kind of relieved on his behalf! It's been a little slow on the blogging front lately because every time I put both babies on the floor, K ends up crying. I adore JJ, but he's, well...

a bit of a fire-cracker (notice the bib says, "I'M IN CHARGE HERE!" 'nuff said).


This last 2 weeks it's been, "All hazing the Newbee, All the time!" on the JJ chanel. And K doesn't have an aggressive (or even assertive) bone in his body. So, it's been:

"JJ! Don't trample the Newbee!!"

"JJ! Don't crash the Newbee into the wall!!" Notice the "help me please" look on K's little face...

"JJ!! Don't pull the Newbee's hair out by the root!"

"JJ!! Don't feign affection then take the Newbee's cracker!!"

......and so on and so forth.

The family sounds awesome and has been wanting to adopt. They're getting a treasure! It feels right.

Headlines

Anybody ready for some more of Jay Leno's headlines? I sure am!

So, here we have another brilliant homeschooling moment:

"....hiccup."

Apparently, Mayor Bang likes guns.

Check out this wedding invitation. Aaaaaah. Some refreshing honesty for once. I know the gifts were my favorite part of the wedding.

My grandma always says, "Bad association ruins useful habits." I think poor Spot just fell in with the wrong crowd.

"Cletus! Gra-maw's at it again!"

"Sale on Men's Shorts". So many places I could go here. I'll restrain myself.

Whaaaa?

"Last seen hanging up-side-down in our tree..."

"Beeeep, beeeeep, beeeeep".....

.....that's the sound of me backing up. Sigh.
It looks like K will be only a temporary addition to our home, after all.
I won't go into too many details, because the case is still open, but we do know that K will soon move and is being placed with his brother.
We're disappointed, but seeing as this happened only 2 days into the placement, we'll be OK. We're enjoying him while he's here.
We've also told our caseworker that we'll stick with our 4 until Micah is done with a new venture he's taking on (more on that later).
We know that God is planning our family, and we feel good about that.

As for JJ, court went great and it's (tentatively - notice I'm learning about assumptions!) looking good for us to keep him. Bio-mom is now ready to sign over rights, making him legally free. She'll perhaps be doing that on the next court date in December. We'll have our 6 months under our belt and have "current caretaker status". After that we can (hopefully) begin the adoption.

This is a crazy ride, I'll tell ya.

J.J. Updates

These next 2 days will tell us more about J.J.'s sitch. In the morning we have his lawyer coming to our house. Yay.

The last time this lawyer and I had the pleasure of one another's company we parted with equal, although sugarcoated, annoyance with one another. When we were addressing the matter of why JJ's bio mom was being given the choice of pulling her son out of foster care to adopt him out to her friend, she told me she believes, "in the parent's choice with regards to their children".

I, too, believe in the parents right to make choices, "I absolutely agree that parents have a choice - a choice not to do drugs, drink, and endanger their children. That's the choice she had. She chose badly for her son. Why do you think she's capable of choosing the best thing for him now?"

Yeah...it pretty much went downhill from there.

Well, nowadays bio-mom is "choosing" some not-so-good things again, so I guess we'll see what Mrs-fancy-pants-lawyer says now.

After what's sure to be a stimulating visit with her, we're off to JJ's pediatrician to get him assessed for what I'm sure are seizures. He's always had some questionable episodes that concerned me, but they're increasing. And his caseworker (whom we love) has given us a heads-up on the bad mojo that went on in-utero for JJ.

Real bad mojo.

So, we need to be proactive about anything out of the norm for age-appropriate development. We may eventually be under the care of a pediatric neurologist. Whatever happens, I love that kid. He's my only boy whose first word was, "Mama". That's my boy, right there!

We'll get through whatever comes.

And then after that fun-filled day, we wake up and I head off to court. The judge wants bio-mom back to discuss JJ's case plan (which has already been changed to adoption) and see how the case is looking. Remember that we don't yet have "current care-taker status" and therefor have no legal leg to stand on when it comes to JJ. He's just a foster placement until he's been with us for 6 months. that's still 2 months away. We're relying on the state's apprehension to move kids unnecessarily. Especially when he's so stinkin' bonded to us.

Did I mention that I love that kid? What a cutie, huh?

Back from Vacation...and Back to School

Aaaaah. Always good to get home from a vacation. We had a great time, and were able to bid the summertime farewell with family and fun. My childern even managed to be all better for the trip! YAY!

Here's some shots of stuff we did:

Uncle Daniel and Auntie Angela were so kind to let us stay with them in their new house in Grants Pass. Here are the cousins bundled up together, watching a movie before bed time. Baby was sleeping in his port-crib.

This is Abigale, cousin Nikki's rat. My boys adored Abigale (or, as Levi called her, "Micky Mouse").

We visited Great World Cats. These folks house and train bunches of large cats of all sorts for movies. If you've seen a movie with a big cat in it, he probably lives here. They're trained to attack the fence and growl on cue. We were sitting on this bench when the cue for attack was given. Levi freaked right out, then promptly stood up on the bench told the tiger off, "NO, NO Kitty-Cat! Scare me!" It was pretty freaky.

Spectacular.

He's sticking out his tongue!

We also visited a rehabilitation/refuge for stray and hurt wild birds and animals. I took this picture before I saw the sign. The one right behind the guys. Whoops.
Truthfully, I don't remember what exactly we're looking at here, but I like Solomon's little tushy.
Mommy and her boys.
Then, while I stayed with the little ones, Daddy and Uncle Daniel took the big boys to the Oregon Caves.

Daddy and his eldests.
Now it's time to burrow into our school year....