General Conference October 2013

So as general conference came around, I realized that if we were going to even have a prayer of listening to any of the messages, I was going to have to do some major prep in advance.

 Let me try to explain how excited I was to listen to general conference: For the last 5 months neither Kerry nor I have really been able to get much out of our church attendance because we have either been at home with the boys (before they started coming to church) or we have been going with them to their classes, then simply surviving sacrament meeting at the end, praying that nobody has a major meltdown.

 It's been getting a lot better, but we've just been on our own to keep our testimonies from withering.  So I looked forward to conference as a major opportunity to be spiritually fed.  Somewhere along the mental line I latched onto the fairly unrealistic idea that if I put enough effort into having activities for the kids, they would somehow morph into not 5 and 3 year olds and instead sit and listen quietly.  Yeah, not so much.

Sunday morning, when things were going much more smoothly (and occasionally quietly)

The good news is that after having my unrealistic expectations shattered on Saturday, we made a different game plan for Sunday that ended up working out pretty well for the kids and us.  And, miracle of miracles, there were even a few moments where kids sat and listened!

Soccer!

As the schoolyear rolled around and it was apparent that Tam wasn't quite ready to start kindergarten (we'll revisit the decision in January.  Please pray that he'll be ready! :)), we decided that he still needed some sort of activity that was his own.  We signed him up for rec soccer, and made it into a family activity.  Twice a week for a month we packed everyone into the car to go see him play. 

This is what happens when everyone wants to be picked up at the same time.

 I was a bit worried that the 2 younger kids would be bummed that they didn't get to play, too, but they were fine.  They actually enjoyed hanging out on a blanket on the sidelines and playing with matchbox cars or whatever else they decided to bring to entertain themselves with.  The actual soccer experience for Tam was par for the course, but it seemed like he had fun, so hopefully he'll be excited to do something like this again.  What really motivated him was the fact that there was juice after each game.  And he enjoyed sharing his treat and drink with all of us and making sure that everyone got a sip or a little bite.  He really is such a sweet kid!

Practicing her hair skills during the game

Kate's 1st year in Preschool

I'm really playing catch-up with blog posts, because this is really news from 2 months ago, but Kate started preschool and is loving it!  She only goes 2 days a week, but that is perfect for her (and me) right now.  She was pretty excited to start school, and after a couple weeks of getting to know the other kids at school and getting used to the routine, she's done fabulously.  Kerry's work schedule makes it so that he gets to walk her across the street to school, and then the boys and I pick her up before lunch.  She likes to talk about the songs they sang, whether they went out to recess or not, what they had for snack, and about her friends at school.  

My Priesthood Session Notes Before & After Adopting 2 More Kids (by Kerry)

April 2013

Robert D. Hales - Armor of God

Ted R. Callister - Priesthood

 Story - priesthood in a boy same as in man

 Greater Trust, Greater Expectations, Greater Training

 If you want revelation, do your homework

 Entitled to revelation, duty to rescue the lost, allow to teach

 Do not get released with your leadership skills still in you

Create leaders at camp & in the ward

David L. Beck - Ministering

 Story of Shy Johnson

 Start in your home - attitude when asked to help

 Story of Gladwyn

 We are always priesthood men. Ministering is not just something we do, it's who we are.

Dieter F. Uchdorf - Titles

 4 Titles that apply to all

 Son of Heavenly Father

 Satan would have us define ourselves by our sins, not his divine nature(toddler learning to walk)

 HF rejoices in our attempts to become more like him

 Disciples of Jesus Christ

 Healers of souls - our first and most important duty

 Heirs of God

Henry B. Eyering - Gospel to all the world

Thomas S. Monson - Teach All Nations

  The challenge is to be more profitable servants

  To Ensure Success

• Search the Scriptures with diligence - Alma 17
• Plan your life with purpose
• Teach the Truth with Testimony - story of Bro. Pollard
• Serve the Lord with love

Today have I increased in knowledge, faith, love? Story of Craig Sudbery

October 2013

Repentance - think of how many good things come from things being broken. Broken soil to wheat, broken wheat to bread, broken bread to sacrament

Pres. Uchdorf

Story - You can do it now!

Worldly sorrow leads us further into

(Pretty sure I blacked out at this point, because the next thing I remembered was the closing song :) Oh well, there's always the conference Ensign to look forward to...

Parenting on Steroids

Our family life has evened out dramatically in the last month or so, but it is still ridiculously hard.   Let me tell you about my morning:

I spent the majority of the morning dealing with meltdowns or cuddling with kids who had just come out of meltdowns. 

I scrapped the applesauce making plan in favor of watching an extra long Bob the Builder show and then taking the kids to the park.

After getting home from a much needed park experience, I started making sandwiches.  Yeb came in the kitchen naked, wanting to wear a red cape instead of clothes.  I explained that a cape is worn in addition to clothes, and he ran off to find clothes.

Meanwhile, Tam and Kate were pretending to play the piano with the children's songbook on the stand.  I asked them not to play with the book because kids tend to rip the pages inadvertently, and because there were some pictures resting on the front of the piano waiting to be hung, and I didn't want them to be bumped.

About a minute later Yeb came in with some clothes for me to help him get on, and I realized he didn't have his diaper on.  When I asked him about it he said it was poopy.

After shuttling him to the bathroom I was mid-wipe when I heard a crash of breaking glass.  I knew that it was one of the pictures.  I yelled for everyone to stay exactly where they were so no one would get glass cuts, and frantically got Yeb diapered. 

I came out to find shattered glass, and I couldn't help but tear up as I cleaned up the remnants of my birthday present, and teared up even more as Kate apologized.  

I got the vacuum out to take care of any tiny glass pieces, only to realize that one of the prongs on the vacuum plug had gotten bent between yesterday afternoon and today, badly enough that it won't go into the socket.  Fortunately we have 2 vacuums, so I pulled the other one out and took care of the rest of the cleanup.

I went to find Kate to make sure she knew I wasn't mad at her, just really sad, and as I was talking to her and carrying her in to eat lunch she started crying because she was sad, too.  I realized that she was poopy, too, but decided to let it ride until after lunch.

During lunch Tam made a point of asking if I was okay and giving me hugs.  I called Kerry to cry and tell him what happened.

There are more and more instances where I feel like the challenges we're dealing with in a given situation are regular parenting challenges, but most of the time there are added layers of trauma, stress, and attachment. It pretty much feels like parenting on steroids.

Sealing Day: Glad we didn't hire a photographer

So about a month ago Kerry and I looked at each other and both realized that the boys were probably ready for us to go to the temple and have them sealed to us.  For anyone who isn't LDS, we believe that families can be together forever.  Marriages (sealings) performed in the temple will continue on after death, and any children born before that sealing or who are adopted after are sealed to their parents.  Kate was sealed to us after her adoption was finalized as a baby, and although the boys adoptions were finalized the minute we entered the US, they just weren't ready for us to take them to the temple right off.  Heck, we couldn't even take them to the park without serious advance planning, 2 parents and unavoidable meltdowns.

So we were super excited at the idea of finally having them sealed to us.  We thought out what we could to do increase our chances that everything would go smoothly that day.  We arranged with the temple for my mom to stay with the kids during the time before and after the actual sealing ceremony so that there would be an adult they would know with them, we tried to prep them as best as possible during the couple weeks leading up to it, and we planned a very relaxed get together for afterward for all the family members who were coming (at my parents' house so we could escape if needed).

The best laid plans.... let's just say that the sealing was probably one of the loudest and most exciting the Jordan River Temple has seen in a long time.  Yeb had a meltdown, poor kid.  We were planning to take pictures afterward, and got one shot of the whole group, and one shot of just the kids, and then called it a day.  On our way to the temple that morning we realized that we should have arranged to have a photographer to take pictures afterward, but with how it played out it would have been wasted money.

Here is the photographic evidence of our happy eternal family:

I'm trying to look all "happy calm mother" while dealing with a tantruming 3 year old, everyone else looks nice, and my grandpa's face tells the whole story: this family is crazy.


This is both of our families.  Notice the look of death on Yeb's face.

And here are the children who were excited to smile for pictures.

For about a week after this whole thing, I was half expecting to get a phone call notifying me that the sealing wasn't valid due to one of the members of the whole thing not actually wanting to become part of our eternal family.  Now that it's been a couple weeks, we're starting to be able to laugh about it more, and we're still really glad that we did it when we did.  Looking back there are a few things I wish we had done differently leading up to the actual day that might have upped our chances of success, but we did our best with what we knew.  And after a couple weeks of thinking about it, I really don't think that another month or 2 would have made a big difference in how the day turned out.

Even though it was more exciting that we meant for it to be, being sealed was a really good thing for our family to have happen. A lot of progress has been made overall with attachment, bonding, and adjustment, and we didn't want to put off something this important any longer than we needed to.

And now we have a VERY eventful day to remember as a family.

Becoming Friends

One of the best things in the past month or so has been seeing Kate and Yeb become friends.  Kate's only 7 months older than Yeb, but when the boys first came home they didn't connect right off.  Not surprising, between the language barrier and the huge overall adjustment for both of them.  But now they've slowly become each other's preferred playmate.  They both really enjoy pretending and are able to play independently for a sizable amount of time, and both of them kind of need downtime to play each day.  I know most kids do, but it's like they NEED that downtime, because if they don't get it we have stress.  It's kind of convenient that the two of them need playtime to unwind, and Hey!, there's another kid right here who also wants to play!