A Leap Of Faith

I know it's been too long since my last post.  

We've been knee-deep in paperwork. 

We've got news to share.

No, I'm not pregnant and don't plan to be.

Since Molly was born in 2010, the conversation of a 4th child has been brought up more than once...

Now and then Mike would tell me adoption was something he'd love the opportunity to experience in this lifetime.  I wasn't so sure.... the whole nature vs. nurture thing is scary, but I also understood his feeling of being able to change a life of a child if the right opportunity presented itself. 

If was the key word.

The idea simmered in the back of our minds ever since.  We knew in our hearts our family wasn't complete, but also knew I wasn't big on the idea of another pregnancy.  For Petes sake, I'm on the verge of 40, have achy joints, sciatica, a teaching career I love and openly admit am not willing to sacrifice sleep. 

Backing up nearly 11 years. 

I had a picture in my mind.  A picture of what my child would look like when he/she was born. 

Lo and behold Ross was born with a red mullet.  And I thought...huh, this is what my child looks like? 

I loved him fiercely regardless, just not what I expected.

Fast forward 2 weeks ago.

I saw a picture of a 13 year-old boy living halfway across the world of whom I didn't know, yet for some reason recognized. He had been left on a street in China when he was Molly's age (5-1/2).  He was found later that day and officers worked to locate his parents.  They were unsuccessful.

He's been living in a Chinese orphanage ever since.  That was 8 years ago.

A few days after seeing his picture, I couldn't get this boy out of my head.  I eventually showed his picture to Mike and watched as he fell head over heels for this unknown child. 

There was something about him that was familiar.  Besides the fact that he has my cheekbones and Ross' teeth, he looked like ours.... but Asian.  We realized he was the one we'd been waiting for.

We've named him Mack, which means 'the son'.

We know this is unexpected, out of character, risky and downright crazy.  But that's where Faith steps in....

Please join us in this incredible journey as we bring home our son. 

Your support means the world to us.

Below is the song I can't seem to get out my head these days. 

Crazy Faith

Randoms

I apologize for the delay in recent posts.  I've added some photos to fill that void.

Hoping to get back on the frequent blog posting train soon!

Can't Fight This Feeling

Apparently spending 18 months building a house didn't get it out of his system.

We may not have our master shower completely finished, or our quarter-round in place, or our sidewalk or deck on....

But by golly, we will have a play house.

Maisie turned 8 on Tuesday.  In 10 years she'll be an adult.

The clock is ticking on their childhoods...

hammer on Mike, hammer on.

Celebrating 8

Four years ago I was in the depths of planning a Pinkalicious Party.  

Four years ago she was turning 4. 

That can only mean one thing...  She's turning 8. 

When she was born, the idea of her turning 8 seamed like forever away.  

Apparently, forever away has arrived. 

She celebrated with 3 of her best friends Friday night...

It began with cupcake decorating.

With real piping bags and tips, not Ziplock bags with the corners cut off. 

In case your not a second grader, this is huge.

All 4 of the girls have very different personalities.

Once that messed was cleared, we moved onto a very heated coloring contest.

Which was followed by a round of Chubby Bunny.

Goose was the clean-up crew.

Mike built them a tent in the living room.

Saturday morning began at 5:00 a.m. and was complete with blueberry muffins, Kool Aid lip gloss making.

An early trip to the St. Charles Park (during which time they belted out Adele's song 'When We Were Young', which I found fitting.

A game of BeanBoozled at the park left everyone nauseated.

Happy 8th Baby Girl. 

May your heart always be as big as your giggle.

Contest Videos

For those of you interested in watching the cupcake and cookie challenge video clips, I posted them below for your viewing entertainment.


https://youtu.be/6u6buBRGIPI


https://youtu.be/6u6buBRGIPI

Baked Goods and Judges

You'd think an FCS Foods Teacher would utilize her college education to instruct her students on the basic concepts regarding Function of Ingredients.  Not this one.

I could practically write a book... Everything I Needed to Teach High School FCS I Learned While Preparing for the Mississippi Valley Fair.  Who knew good ol' 4-H would be the foundation of my career knowledge?  Those Saturday afternoon meetings in the basement of an ag store of some sort... Feed and Seed?  I can't remember what the name of the building was or where it was located, but I can remember every detail of the pop machine in that basement.  Brown exterior, deep freezer-style with a lid that lifted to reveal the pop bottles.  Orange, Pepsi, Mountain Dew.  I could picture all the business farmers showing up for meetings in that basement and buying a bottle of pop on their way in Monday morning.  Man, how I envied being a business farmer on Monday mornings.  No matter how much Heather and I tried to wiggle those glass bottles out of the machine without 35 cents, they wouldn't budge. 

I made an attempt after each meeting regardless.

I can't remember college final exams or what they entailed to save my life.  However, I can remember Berdell Arp dissecting my cookies which were prepared with honey in place sugar at the Mississippi Valley Fair like nobodies business.  The disapproving look of 'Old lady dissects moist, sweet cookie and kinda likes it, but isn't sure about the texture' is embedded in my brain in place of my Foods 2 Final Exam knowledge from ISU. 

Go figure.

With that said, I decided the best way to teach my Foods students about ingredients would be pressure from judges. 

Welcome Cupcake Wars.

Foods 2 students (I have 7) were taught ingredient functions.  I currently teach this concept in Foods 1, but since I didn't teach all 7 students in Foods 1, we're reviewing.

On Monday I introduced the challenge and by Friday, the competition was hot.

The students were asked to develop a cupcake recipe (from scratch) to present to the judges Friday.  They were given a theme, which was "Holiday".  After their recipes were developed and submitted to me, they were given 3 secret ingredients.  2 of which needed to be incorporated into their cupcakes somehow. 

Secret Ingredients were: Applesauce (imagine that), Junior Mints, Skittles.

The 2 girls in my class designed and presented Christmas as their theme. They had trees, reindeer, penguins and Santa cupcakes.  Great creativity, but their cupcakes were dense and heavy.

 Team Halloween presented Frankenstein Cupcakes.  Good mint cupcakes and icing, but the icing was a bit thick and the display could have been scarier.

 Team 4th of July presented Red White and Blue Flag Cupcakes.  The judges decided the display was too simple and the flavor of the cupcakes and icing was bland.

 The judges hard at work.

 The Christmas group presenting their display.

The winner in Foods 2 was Team Halloween.  A dark Chocolate-Mint Cupcake with Peppermint Icing. 

I like a challenge, so I asked Foods 1 complete a Chocolate Chip Cookie Challenge on Friday as well.

The students had to prepare the "Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever" again, understanding function of ingredients.

This class has 20 students (my max) and we located 10 judges for this round.

The below cookies were the winners.  They included a quote as garnish.

The next team brought in ice cream, homemade chocolate sauce and milk to serve with their cookies.

 The judges sampling cookies, while the competing kitchens give each other evil eyes.

The business teacher sent a student to video the contest to be uploaded to u-tube, while the art class had a student photograph.

The groups were more nervous during their presentation than I anticipated.  They made me look good with all their cookie knowledge.

Afterwards, I seriously contemplated digging out index cards to write "What I did and what I learned" regarding the lesson.  But from the excitement from the students and my fellow teachers afterwards, I think I'll remember. 

Hopefully the kids will too...

Aldis and Corn

Molly's been craving sweet corn like nobodies business.  I've emphasized "It's a bad time of year for sweet corn.  Very, very bad", countless times as we walk through the grocery store.  The crazy thing is, we've got corn.  Canned corn, frozen corn, corn muffins, corn flakes..... none will do.

I've done the Survey Monkey on her and the results are in.  Corn isn't what she's after. She's after the cob.

Evidence about Traders Joes teaming up with Aldi's have filtered through my ears and I decided to chalk-up a quarter to make this grocery adventure happen.

Of course the place was a zoo.  11:30 on Saturday morning is a bad, bad time to shop at Aldi's.  In all 4 aisles we ended up in a traffic jam with an 87 year old Biologist from Iowa State University and his 2 hermit sons.  How do I know this?  He told me all about it in the check out line after he started a conversation by asking me if I have monkeys at home to feed the bananas in my cart to.

The girls were constantly asking me what he was saying and I just kept repeating, "Everything is normal.... shhhhhh, I'll tell you in the car".

However, had we not swung into Aldi's (no pun intended), we wouldn't have discovered the 2.49/6 pack of fresh sweet corn.

I caved.

Upon our return home, she was hungry for corn. 

Imagine that.

I prepared the corn and at that moment, she realized front teeth are necessary for the cob version of corn.

The struggle is real.