At a traditional wedding ceremony, the bride throws the bouquet and the girl who catches it is the next to be married, or so the story goes. When our oldest daughter married a couple of weeks ago, the single women lined up for a chance to catch the bouquet and a dream of being married next. Of course, all of her sisters, except Amigrace because she is only one, lined up as well. Who should jump out to clutch the bouquet from the air? Our Lyn, who will turn 14 in a couple of weeks, that’s who.

I am sure that our daughter, the bride, would not have aimed the bouquet... more

Our oldest daughter, who is also our oldest child by 22 days, has gotten married. She is the first of our eleven children to marry. She was very gracious in including not only her birth sisters in her wedding, but nearly all of her siblings by adoption as well.

She talked about just going to the justice of the peace, but I talked her into having a church wedding. She began attending our church when she came to live in our home as a foster child at the age of 13. The church has remained a part of her life ever since and I am sure that the memories of a church wedding are much... more

This is a day later than I wanted it to be, but yesterday I could not get the blogsite to work for me no matter how many times I tried to send this.

Most of the time on Mother's day I tend to gag on the sugary sweet songs that the kids in our church sing for the mothers present. Why? Well, when I hear words such as:

Mother dear I love you so, your happy smiling face Is such a joy to look at, it makes home a lovely place.

I think of all the times I've hollered at my kids or had a face that surely was not a joy to look at, and the the guilt with a capital G rears its ugly head.

Move on to verse two and the saccharine... more

I love Easter. I think I love it even more than Christmas, because Easter gives me a message of hope like no other. Had there been no Easter, the birth of Christ and Christmas would not have had much meaning.

Coming from a Communist country, Caleb has not had any experience with Easter until this year. I have struggled over the past two weeks, trying to decide if we would introduce the concept of the Easter bunny to him or not. I've never been wild about the fictional characters such as Santa... more

The beauty of adopting a child when he or she already has siblings at home, is that your new child can look to the others for reassurance in an unfamiliar and possibly frightening situation.

Today was Caleb's first trip to the dentist. We prepared him by showing him photos of people in the dentist's chair, and reading him a couple of picture books about going to the dentist. Although we already had the books listed below, they are ones that should be readily available at your public library.... more

I have already written about some of Caleb's first holidays with us. You can read about his first Chinese New Year in the United States here and his first Valentine's Day here.

Rather than focus merely on first holidays, I would like to focus on some of the other "firsts" in my children's lives. With all of my adopted children arriving at an older... more

part 1 part 2

I figured I would take advantage of the Chinese tradition of cleaning and sweeping out the bad in order to bring in the new year, so was able to get the kids to work around the house cleaning up for Sunday.

The typical tradition is to stay up until midnight on the eve of the new year and make jiaozi or Chinese dumplings. Since this wasn't something I was up to doing and preferred to have the kids in bed by that time of night, we reserved our big food celebration for Sunday night after church.

I thought... more

part 1

When I was in Haiti for Micheline's adoption I saw people eating chicken feet and it made me rather nauseous at the time. Mariot, my guide, loved them and thought it was hilarious that I couldn't bear the thought of eating them. Something about those toenails or claws or talons or whatever the correct term would be...just reminds me of witches' hands on Halloween. Mariot used to tell me that Americans just didn't know what was good.

Try having... more

Gong Xi Fa Cai!...which in spite of the literal translation of a prosperous new year, I am convinced it means watch Mom get sick while Caleb chews on chicken feet. More to follow...

Even though we have celebrated Chinese New Year since Ben joined our family from China, this year was the first for Caleb to celebrate Chinese New Year in the United States. I was afraid of disappointing him since he is used to quite the celebrations in China. Alyssa and Taylor were asking what it must be like for him to not have the big holiday like... more

part 1

One of our members is the leader for Roots and Shoots-- an ecology focused organization--for our group. For their valentines, her family passed out a snack sized ziploc bag with a peat moss pellet, a gourd seed, a Hershey's kiss, and instructions for planting the seed.

I was explaining to Caleb and Ben on the way home how we would wet the pellet, put the seed in it, etc., and they became very excited. As we were chatting, I heard a dismayed sounding "Uh-oh" from the back seat. Micheline seemed upset and when I asked her what was wrong, she said, "I don't have a seed in my bag." I asked her... more