The Adorables Annual Pose

This Last Week

Well, it has been a fun and busy week!
The Fontes' Family, stopped overnight once again on their way home.
In fact, they had to reassign seats in their van, because they brought home another child. :)

 Playing dolls

 Resting

 Playing Ninja with Sarah

 Relaxing

Here they are packing up and getting ready to leave:  New seating arrangements were needed. :)

What a precious family....

Joe and Becca moved into a new apartment, but we are going to babysit their piano for a while. :)
Here is Truman looking at a book with Alli.  Truman is 2, and quite the talker!  I took him with me to the hospital to pick Erika up from volunteering and had the attention of the entire lunch table with his charming smile and impressions of a pirate..... "I'm a pirate!" (with one eye closed) "I have a sword at home!" LOL

It was a week full of fun visits and rest during the hot days of Texas Summer.

 Getting aquainted with Uncle Joe.

 Aunt Alli making baby Felix laugh.

 Marcus making me laugh.

And good conversation.......

Some of My Favorite People

 Charlie in all his Charlieness....

 Marcus and Will spinning the dreidel..... Can't wait to learn about this fun game. :) Hint Hint.....

Olivia just looking Olivia like.  Anna says Olivia is cute no matter what... smiling, crying..... :)
And of course the unseen Ivy, who is behind the camera! :)

Olivia Grace Minich

Our youngest grand daughter was baptized today.  Marcus picked out her gown as soon as he found out that he and Ivy were having a girl! LOL  And today, she got to wear it.  What a special time...... 
 Olivia and Papau: Pink bib worn before in case of unplanned vomiting. :)

 Ya Ya and Olivia

 Marcus

 The Adorables:  Marcus, Ivy William, Charlie and Olivia

 A little tired of pictures. :)

Now, our video camera TURNED OFF right at the time he was going to baptize her! But I love how they do this.  It was very special. :)

I'M A YA-YA for the 10TH TIME!

Isn't she just spectacular??? :)

The Lord knit you in your mother's womb.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made! We give HIM all praise and glory!

Welcome baby Olivia, beautiful grand daughter and daughter to Marcus and Ivy, sister to Will and Charlie, cherished and loved by a whole lot of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandparents and more!

The waiting for her arrival: Aunties and Cousins

She was born today at around 12:50 and is 7 lbs. 13 oz.

In honor of all my children and grand children. :)

I Just Love The Adorables

I call Marcus and Ivy, Will and Charlie, the Adorables.  Soon, little Olivia will be here to join them, and she will be just as adorable as they are.  Ivy wrote a very important post tonight and I wanted to share it.
You can read it HERE.... and I'll put in in repost here:

Sweet dreams

One thing that is very important to me as a mommy is to make sure my babies go to bed feeling very loved and very secure.  I find that night can feel lonely and I don't want my babies ever feeling alone.

So other than praying with them, cuddling and giving tons of kisses.  I have special little things that I do with them.  Every night I say to Will
"I loved you today more than I loved you yesterday.
And tomorrow I am going to love you even more than I loved you today!
Every day I love you more and more--
More than ever before!"
And now that he has it memorized he repeats it with me.  Then I always act surprised and ask, "how did you know?!"  "because I am so smart!" he says.

Charlie's language is just not there yet for something like that.  So I just tell him every night that he is a gift from God to me.  He laughs and says, "noooooo..... Will gift!"  He is just so precious; I could eat him up.

My children really are a blessings and I love each one so so so so much.
Oh how I love my daughter in law Ivy. :)  She captures motherhood so very well, and shows that mommys are so very important to their little ones.  She leads them in rituals that to some, don't seem important, but in reality..... She is having a very powerful effect on her babies. (our babies) :)

I read an article today on brain function and how children who are not snuggled, cuddled, nurtured are forever changed in the brain.  It was a NYtimes article.
The article states that the lack of nurturing and care in the early years, can have catastrophic effects on a person.
I am SOOOO GLAD that Will, Charlie and Olivia, will not have the experience of a lack of love or attention, because Marcus and Ivy fully recognize their role and responsibility as parents.
Raising emotionally healthy children is one of the most important things a person can do.... Those children, will rule the world someday.... :)

Who knows, between all those grandsons I may know who to vote for eventually! :)

I'm Thankful For

Grand Children. :)

 Katie and Lilly

 Joey and Chris and Ilse

I

 Sam and Truman

 And Will and Charlie

and: Baby Olivia.... and her mommy Ivy too. :)

Marcus and Ivy's BIG NEWS!

After 2 little boys, they just found out they are going to have a girl!  She will be our 4th grand daughter. :)  And we can't wait to meet her!   I'm sure she will be thrilled to see this! Charlie sure was! LOL

Overcoming Food Issues

Many children who come home from Eastern Europe have issues with food when they come home. They are afraid of the different food textures, tastes and smells.   In some cases it can be more than just fear or dislike of the new tastes..... it can actually be an induced eating disorder CAUSED by actual starvation within the system from where they came.

My sweet Daughter in Law Ivy, wrote about overcoming an eating disorder here.  She described our Sarah's pain exactly!  I remember Sarah waking at night crying hysterically that she was hungry, and then not being able to really eat more than one bite.

When Sarah came home, she weighed 32 lbs and was nearly 6 years old. She was in a 3T.  The first time we sat down for a meal she said, "I only eat red soup!"  (borscht)  When we went to see the movie "Martian Child", both Mike and I looked at each other and grinned when the little boy said, "I eat Lucky Charms." :)

I realized very quickly, based upon what I had been told by her other family that she was going to have feeding issues.  In fact, feeding issues were a huge deal in her previous family.  They felt that she was being rebellious by not eating.  They thought she was throwing up on purpose.  Not only was she NOT, the lack of understanding towards her reinforced the food problems she was having.

Mom became a beet expert really fast!  I learned to make red soup!
I cannot tell you the joy she had on her face when she saw that comfort food sitting before her.  She ate her bowl of soup.
Why soup though?  Because It was easy on her stomach and she was very used to liquids and very simple foods. Everything else she would claim "hurt her stomach."   I believed that it did, but I think the pain was something else.

She was suffering the pain of hunger. She had been starved for so long and gone hungry for so long that she couldn't tell the difference between  hungry and full.  So, when she ate a pea, she'd say, "I'm full."  She hated the feeling of being FULL. But she would cry because her tummy hurt, especially at night.
We were giving her lots of whole fats and familiar foods, letting her graze all day long to try and not have a setting that would cause her stress.  We found that she would eat a few bites, declare herself full and then 10 minutes later she would be able to come back and eat a little more.

It was a very slow process getting Sarah to understand and recognize the difference between full and hungry. Before we could address it, she had to fully trust us with one of  her most vulnerable of feelings.

HUNGER.

One day, after a couple of years being home, she declared that she was full after just eating a few bites.  I suggested to her, "Sarah, maybe you are not full, but your tummy just needs to rest a minute and what you are actually feeling is still hunger."  "Can you try to take 3 more bites and see if it goes away?"
She was very willing, and took those 3 more bites. This is something we could have never done 2 years before!   And, surprisingly to her, the feeling went away.  We worked on her recognizing the difference between the feeling of full and hungry for a long time.
That was the beginning of the learning process which enabled her  to eat more, try more foods and heal.
 She not only had to heal from the food issues, but from the frightful torment she went through at the hands of those who thought she was just being "rebellious". 
They cut her beautiful hair off. They hit her. They hit her because she would throw up. They punished her and made her sit for long periods of time, force feeding her....
Of course, NONE of this worked and she mourned the loss of her hair. One of the first questions she asked me when I met her was, "Are you going to hit me if I throw up?"  I was perplexed by this question and told her, of course not! Are you sick?  She said no.
To THIS DAY, Sarah has never thrown up. EVER.  (except right after surgery)

In the last 4 years, as we have served her the comfort foods she loves,  we have introduced slowly more and more foods, and today, I am very happy to say, we have a very healthy eater. She eats all of her food and has begun to ask for SECONDS!
Sarah still eats something right before bedtime and drinks whole milk regularly.  She still grazes in between meals too, and her food intake is at a healthy balanced rate. She loves all sorts of foods and will even eat cookies! :)   She is ON the charts! (not that charts are that important)  But she is ON THEM! :)

The Adorables Visited

I love it when my family visits. Today, Marcus, Ivy, Will and Charlie came over. Marcus is done with school for 5 weeks and then he has 1 more class before he gets his master's degree! Yea! I know a beautiful young bride who will LOVE having her man home! :)

The girls played restaurant with Ivy and Will, and Marcus and I took Charlie on the teeter totter.
He really likes it.  But when he is ready to get off, you have to watch him. He has no concept of height.
He will just try to get off in the air! LOL
He also discovered the dog, ran to see Papau with Will, and Marcus had fun making Charlie's hair stand on end. :)

Will had fun playing with balloons, with the kitchen on the porch and looking at the water globes.

And they BOTH had fun playing the piano.