Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you fabulous mothers out there. Enjoy your special day. Here is a quote from Humor for a Mom's Heart "Who am I? I am a cooker of oatmeal and cleaner of soap scum. A taxi driver, spider killer, purchaser of folders with pockets and prongs, pencil finder, and dental appointment maker. Loudest cheerleader and most fervent pray-er, encourager of dreams, and holder of hands. I am a tear wiper and boo-boo kisser, the tooth brushing gestapo and an example of faith. You know who I am. I AM MOTHER." I thought that was pretty cute. You know what they say "Motherhood is the toughest job you will ever enjoy." Right? I am blessed to be a mother as a result of giving birth, and also through adoption. No matter how I became my children's mother...I am their mother. It doesn't matter that my blood doesn't run through one of their bodies, I am HIS mother just the same. I have loved Ali from the moment I found out we were expecting her...and I have loved Clark from the moment God called us to adopt. Each so unique...they are so loved. I hope one day they will each know just HOW MUCH.

I also want to say a special HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to my incredible mother. She was a wonderful example of a Godly mother and woman of God....and also to my mother in law who raised her son up to be an incredible father and husband!

We decided to celebrate Mother's Day and my upcoming birthday yesterday. Ali and I began our morning by heading off to get pedicures! It was such fun to just sit there and watch her. She looked all grown up in that massage chair. She had a ton of fun getting her toes all pretty. She wanted our toes to match...so she chose the color. We also decided to have a little fun and get flowers painted on our big toes. Hers turned out just adorable...mine...well, my gal went a little crazy. (I am not sure what is supposed to be on my big toes!!) Oh well...it goes a little like this: The cost of 2 pedicures with "decorations" $59 (yikes, a little steep!!) The cost of my precious daughter telling me "Mom, thanks for taking me to do that...I had such a good time with you." PRICELESS!!! It was definitely a special Mommy morning. I loved it. We just thought that all gals need pretty toes at the beach, right? heehee...any excuse for a pedi!

After our fun morning, we attended Clark's end of the semester gymnastics showcase. It was so cute. He started out strong...then lost a little interest. He would take his turn, then turn his attention to any ledge he could catapult off of, etc. All the children received medals and a t-shirt. He was pretty proud of wearing that medal around his neck! After gym we had a late lunch at a new Mediterranean restaurant we had been wanting to try. That is one of our favorites! It was wonderful and we had a good time just being together. This morning I also got pancakes and eggs cooked by T.C. and Ali! What a treat.

If I don't get a chance to post again before we leave on Thursday, I will be posting lots of pictures from our trip when we return. We have some fun things planned for the kids. Take care.....

Mother's Day

Life zoomed in.......

It occurred to me yesterday as I was attempting to take pictures of some precious little ducks we see on our nightly walks....that I often look at our lives "zoomed in." What I mean is, I was trying to zoom in the lens on a little duck's face and realized it was zoomed in too much. I couldn't make out what the picture should be...it was blurry. All too often I do that with our daily lives. I ZOOM in on the little things...this tantrum or that whiny fit or this preteen attitude or that. But the big picture needs to be zoomed out and allowed to come into focus...where I focus on what incredible gifts God has bestowed on us. He chose us to be Ali and Clark's parents. What a gift! At the end of the day, do I choose to focus on the little things that drove me crazy...or relish in the fact that I am home with our children and got to hug them and kiss them and watch them blossom into incredible little (and not so little) people. I got to walk into Ali's room and see her Star Wars city come together...and see her floor covered in Build a Bear clothes because she decided the drawers where she kept them needed to be cleaned out (right as we needed to start school...see, I had to zoom out again!!)...and I got to see Clark fit inside a storage cubby, because he is just that little :) ...and help him tie a teddy bear around his waist with a ribbon because he wanted to carry it on his back. Those are my precious moments. No, I may not be saving a life or keeping an astronaut safe (heehee)...but what sweet moments I get to treasure! They are my two amazing treasures. How unworthy I am of this calling, but so thankful he entrusted me with these blessings.

The pictures speak for themselves. Ali dressed she and Clark up the other day as Luke Skywalker (and someone else...sorry, I don't know anything about Star Wars). They played and played on the trampoline and it was so funny. She has quite a few Star Wars Lego's sets, and the other day she covered her floor with all the sets. She takes pictures of everything...so she took those. The ducks we have been watching for weeks now. When we first spotted them they were so tiny...16 of them actually. Now, they are growing and there are 14 left. We love to stop and watch them when we walk...and of course Clark loves to feed them. We try and remember to bring bread once a week or so. He thinks the baby ducks are so cute.

Well, the vacation bug has hit us hard..............can we make it another week? We have to, right? We will leave next Thursday afternoon when T.C. gets home from work and spend the night in Lake Charles. That will put us 2 1/2 hours closer to Florida. I am also going to get to see a couple of old friends from high school...oh that was many moons ago. Anyway, since I graduated from high school in Pensacola...I still know a couple of people in the area. That will be fun. We will see how shocked they are by how much I have aged. Ha!

Star Wars and ducks

Nothing exciting.......

Well, I don't seem to post much lately...same old same old just isn't real exciting. The summer should bring a little more fun into our lives. We are READY for school to be out. Ali and I have the summer bug already. We will finish up the first week of June. Ali is excited about what her summer has in store. Her first week long camp, swimming on not one but two swim teams, music camp in Louisiana, hopefully a sewing day camp, etc. It will be full and hopefully very memorable for her. Clark will continue taking his little gymnastics class, and will have to tag along for everything on big sisters list! I am going to help out a friend since she works full time, and watch her children a couple of times a week during the summer. It just happens to be Ali's best friend and her brother...so they are SO excited about seeing so much of each other come June!

We met my parents half way between here and Lake Charles today for lunch. It is just over an a hour each way. We enjoyed seeing them. They are leaving on their vacation this coming Friday...so we wanted to give Mom her Mother's Day gift before they left. Speaking of Mother's Day...it will be my first one with Clark home...and his first to have someone to call Mama! I LOVE that. (and let me just add...he says it a lot...like a million times a day...haha)

Ali had a photo shoot with our cat, Happy the other day. We had the windows raised in front of her school desk and the cats just love the windows up. He jumped right in the window and spread out. She got some great shots of him being his typical lazy self.

I have been working on Clark's life book. What that is is a book that you make for adopted children that tells their life story...or at least everything that you know. It keeps the children from guessing about what happened to their birth parents, etc. and nothing is ever a secret. You write it in storybook form, so that you can read it to them. I am putting pictures in his. Well, I had a copy of the earliest picture we have of him...it is a terrible quality picture of a group of kids at a Christmas celebration. He is a small toddler. I pointed him out and he loved seeing it. He held the picture and looked at everyone else and looked up at me and said "Mama all gone?" He noticed I wasn't in the picture. It was so cute. I explained that he didn't live with us yet. We try to always be very open about everything. A few weeks ago T.C. was talking to him at bedtime about what it was like in the orphanage. He asked him if he got to sleep with a stuffed animal at bedtime. Clark said "oh no Papa, one toy behind door." He remembers that he had a little cubby/closet where he would put his shoes, jacket, and ONE red truck. Though he didn't get to leave the orphanage with it....he does still remember that detail.

I am reading "Bring up Boys" by Dr. James Dobson. It is so fantastic in explaining the differences in raising boys verses girls. It is great to actually read in print that we are not alone in this venture. Ha! A couple of months ago I begin to panic as these traits were coming more and more into light. But, I can breathe a little easier now knowing that boys are just different!! I mean...I knew it all along...duh, right...I just don't think I knew just how different it would be. But, with that said.......we wouldn't change a thing! He brings so much joy and laughter into our lives.

Clark will soon have a little wooden play structure to play on in our yard. I am so excited. Our neighbors are giving us an older one out of their yard. It was in the yard when they moved in...and they have no need for it. Clark will really love it. We may need to purchase new swings for it, but we sure can't complain about FREE! Woohoo! Their teenage boys are going to help get it into our yard in the next couple of weeks.

Here are a few random pictures.

being sillly, lazy cat, and early Mother's Day

Who says make-over parties are just for girls?

Ok, so we headed to Lake Charles on Friday so that Ali and her friend, Sierra, could attend Abby's 9th birthday party. (Abby is our niece) Well, have any of you heard of a Club Libby Lu party? Well, Lake Charles is fairly small...so they have a local version called Club Tabby. You can check out this website http://www.clublibbylu.com/ to see what it was like. It was cute. The girls get their hair done complimented with crazy colored hairspray, nails painted, make-up, dress up clothes, walk a runway, etc. Ali, being anti girly girl, just had blue spray in her hair and nails painted. She left the other stuff for the younger girls. It was cute watching them all strut their stuff on the runway! Well, I will admit, Clark decided that NO girl was upstaging him...yes, he jumped right up there and strutted his stuff also. You will see in the pictures that someone stuck a PINK hat on him...we are still searching for the culprit of that one. Ha! We secretly called him "Hef" during the party (as in Hefner!!) They called each girl up by name and had them walk the runway...at the end, they leaned down and asked Clark his name...and called him up there as well. Too funny! After the party, Ali and Sierra headed over to Abby's for a sleepover. They stayed up until at least midnight and were awake again by 7:00am! Needless to say, Ali and Sierra slept most of the way back home.

Clark is registered for preschool! We finally made a decision on where to send him in the fall. I fell in love with a small program at a church very close to us. They only allow like 28 children total...and that is spread between 2,3, and 4 year olds. I think he will have maybe 10 children in his class. The director was so sweet and I just felt at peace that it was the right place for him. It is actually called "Mother's Day Out", but they have very structured days with crafts, letters/numbers/etc., chapel, memorize a Bible verse every week, gymnastics once a month, story-time, etc. I think he will love it. He was able to take a tour of his room. He will attend twice a week from 9-2. They bring their lunches also.

This week Ali and Clark made stepping stones for our front patio. I wanted to get his little hands and feet in stone while they were still small. Nona and Poppy gave them the kits for Christmas. They turned out cute. Ali made the state of TX, and I put Clark's hand and footprint on his. He is so proud of it. Every time he walks by it he has to talk about it. Pretty cute.

We decided to let Ali attend her first summer camp in July. She is attending with 2 of her best friends...Ashlyn and Sierra. They are all so excited. It is a Lutheran camp located in La Grange, TX (in the hill country). Check it out http://www.lomt.com/ ! It looks like so much fun...Ali loves the outdoors. We drop her off on a Sunday, and pick her up on Friday. I think it will be a great experience, and opportunity to meet many different people.

Ali was asked to move up into the next level in swimming. She is now expected to swim a minimum of 8 hours per week. EEK! Oh and I already felt like we lived at the pool. Ha! She loves it though. She will swim 2 hours 3 evenings during the week, and 2 hours on Saturday mornings. She and Sierra also want to join the same summer swim league that they were on last year. It is our community swim league...Dickinson Gators. I suppose we will let her do that, I mean...why not swim every SINGLE day of the week...right? Ok...not really, but it feels like that. I think she will swim mostly with her normal swim team and just occasionally with the summer league...mainly she wants to participate in the weekend meets to see how she has improved from last summer....and to see her friends that swam last year.

We only have about 24 days of school left...yahoo!!! We are SOOOOO ready for summer. We leave for our little vacation in 19 days, but who is counting? Ok, we are!! Destin...here we come!

We were in the living room this afternoon and we thought we heard Clark playing in the front room. It was a strange sound so we called him...no answer. T.C. went into in there and found Happy's nose plastered to the front door and the noise continued. There was a snapping turtle at our front door. It was seeing his reflection and snapping at it. T.C. had to pick it up with a shovel and take it back to the ditch beside our neighbor's house. Interesting thing to find, to say the least.

Have a wonderful week!

birthday party

A swim meet weekend...

Well, we spent our entire weekend either at the pool or driving to/from there. Since the pool was an hour away at least 2 hours each day were spent in the car. Ali's friend, Sierra, spent the weekend with us also...as her parents were busy this weekend and couldn't get her to the meet. So...we also had giggling girls for 2 days. :)

Ali swam in 6 events between the two days...her last being a 200 meter freestyle. She was exhausted after that! She did well...all we ever ask of her is to do her best. That is all we can ask of her. We don't care if she comes in first or last, if it is her best. What I have really enjoyed seeing her learn is what being part of a team means. Learning to encourage the other team members, even though some are much stronger swimmers than she is! I love that. I love to hear her tell a friend that she did great, even though I know it stings a little that one of her friends is a super talented swimmer and comes in first a lot. They cheer each other on, help each other out, and encourage one another. That is what I hope she takes from this experience!

Our poor little Clark man got TWO bloody noses this week! As if spinning around on the trampoline and hitting one of the poles wasn't enough, he ran into another pole at the pool today and it happened again. He doesn't really look where he is going...like EVER! I was holding his hand and watched it happened, but couldn't do anything about it. I hate situations like that...where you want to protect them, but it is too late. I look over and his poor nose was pouring blood. We were so glad he didn't hit his teeth! Let's just say between the bloody noses and a few falls scraping up parts of his legs...he has had a rough few days. Hopefully we will have an accident free week. I should get used to the scrapes though...with having a boy, right?

Hope everyone has a great week....it is after 9:00pm and we have been gone all weekend. I will close this for now.

swim meet

Lizards...the new obsession!

Our children are obsessed with lizards. They catch them all the time and put them in containers to observe them. Even Clark has taken a liking to the little critters. Our bushes out front are sometimes covered in them. The other day, one unfortunate catch had to endure a ride in a plastic boat in Clark's water table. Then, that same lizard was brought inside and Ali had it climbing up Clark's shirt. He thought that was the greatest thing. (meanwhile I am thinking...oh yikes...if that thing gets loose!)

On Saturday morning, Clark gets up and goes into Ali's room. She is already awake and had her window opened enjoying the fresh morning air. I walk in and find Clark sitting beside her, both staring out of the window. It was so precious...that of course I had to get a picture. They later curled up under the covers for a minute. I love moments like this!

Saturday was our "work in the yard" day. Oh what fun...or not. We wanted to take advantage of some cool weather so that we were not melting while in the yard. We knew we would be tied up the next two weekends with a swim meet next weekend and our niece's birthday party in Louisiana the week after that. So..we planted flowers all afternoon. Ali was all ready to help out...then she quit after she claimed some pots for herself and planted her 4. Ummm, thanks a lot kiddo! She picked out some pepper plants, mint, and lemon basil for her pots. The neighborhood bunnies have already taken a munch out of some. Bummer, hope they don't eat them all up. Any suggestions on keeping bunnies out of our plants?

The pictures of Clark feeding the ducks were taken last week. While Ali swims, we have been walking around a lake in a neighborhood close to the pool. The lake has ducks that Clark enjoys feeding. They come waddling up when you stop on the sidewalk. We have enjoyed our evening walks very much. (not sure how we will feel in July when it is 100 degrees out...ha!!)

We are in the middle of writing our first "post placement report" for Ukraine. For the first 3 years after adopting you must have a social worker write a report on the child's adjustment, etc...then one has to be done every 3rd year until the child is 18. Ours has to be into our agency by June. We, however, want ours finished before we go on vacation in a month. It is fun thinking about how far our little guy has come since being home. He has been an amazing trooper! We are so blessed to have a friend here that is a licensed social worker. She has offered to do ours free of charge! Actually, we are writing it and she is reading and signing it...she might add a thing here and there if she chooses. We really just need a copy of her license to put with the report.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

feeding ducks, our yard, and lizards...

A couple of matching cuties....

Even though Ali is 11, she still thinks it is pretty cute to match her brother. But the pictures prove it.......of course they are cute!!! :) She waited a long time for them to wear these shirts. Quite a while before we even went to Ukraine, Ali had a little gift card for the Disney store. She decided to spend it on matching shirts for she and her future sibling...we just chose a neutral print in the smallest size they offered.

Ok...so here is a visual for you...as of Sunday, we are some of the newest members of Hope Lutheran Church. We were supposed to go down front during worship with the other 6 families that were joining at the same time. We do, and we thought all was going to be fine. Then it happened, Clark decided he didn't want to JUST stand down front...why not lie down where we take communion...yes, that sounded perfect to him. So he does...we try to ignore it...and then he decides lying down is a little boring...why not kick his feet all around in the air. T.C. was closest to him...so I lean over and ask him to please grab Clark...he does...but we quickly find out that moving is just not on his list of things to do right then. So he puts up a squirmy, whiny, etc. fight. We TRY to act like all is well...hoping everyone just ignores the noise coming from the small child that T.C. is holding on to. Shew, we were a little relieved when we were able to head back to our pew! Then, the church held a potluck lunch for all of the new members...that is where the pastor introduced us all by name. We would stand up from our table so that people could see who we were. Here is our introduction from our pastor..."and this is T.C. and Rachel Judd, their daughter, Ali...and son, handful Clark." Everyone got a big kick out of that while T.C. and I were just shaking our heads! He later comes over to our table and tells us that he can say that because he has a 3 year old grandson that acts the same way...Ha! At least we are not alone.

Clark for sure can be a handful these days, however, he also brings unspeakable joy to our lives. His language is coming along everyday. It was funny over the weekend he had told me something several times because I kept asking him to repeat it (I didn't understand him)...he finally looked at me and said "uh, I told you 2 times." T.C. said, "well I guess he told you." Yes, I suppose so! As of April 16th, he will have been home 8 months. I just can't believe it. The time is passing so quickly. Before I know it he will be heading off to college....haha, ok, getting a little ahead of myself.

Mickey shirts