Archive for category Life’s A Sweet Fruit

A Savior is born!

Posted by KK on Sunday, 25 December, 2011

We had a very blessed & calm holiday season….my favorite! I love having six kids at Christmas! For several years we have chosen to give only four gifts to our children for Christmas – something they WANT, something they NEED, something they WEAR, something they READ – and they absolutely LOVE it! We limit what they get and make their gifts a bit more meaningful to instill in them the reason for the season and that it isn’t about getting loads of gifts. This year, however, has been a hard & stressful year and our kiddos have made a lot of sacrifices (all of which are good for them, of course) so we threw in one extra ‘big’ gift for each of them as a thank you for being so amazing! Our children as so precious to us and have hearts of gold. Our Wheaton really needed a new bike as did our JJ (a tricycle) and the twins were in need of new car seats. The other two boys got a Ripstik and a Scooter hybrid thing (still can’t figure out that crazy contraption but it’s pretty cool). We love these kiddos so much – what a blessing they are to us!

This was also JJ’s second Christmas with us (and yesterday was his 2nd birthday with us, he turned the big number “3″!). I pray that by Christmas next year justice will have been HIS and he will finally be adopted and his precious face will no longer be blurred out. Hoping. Praying. Longing for his moment. God’s timing is perfect. This we know.

My Blu Belle..

Posted by KK on Wednesday, 21 December, 2011

I love having a little girl.

Full hearts.

Posted by KK on Wednesday, 30 November, 2011

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Almost there!

Posted by KK on Wednesday, 23 November, 2011

It’s so incredibly surreal to me that we will have two new Baileys in 6 days! Yes, that’s right. On November 29th we’ll go before the judge and tell him we’d be more than happy to raise these sweet angels forever and ever and ever! Who wouldn’t??

o-matic img_2093 img_2085

Ozone Falls

Posted by KK on Wednesday, 7 September, 2011

Jason took our three big boys to Ozone Falls this past weekend. It’s one of their favorite places to go. If we all went we would have to pack so much stuff…babies (of course), diaper bags, backpack carriers, bottles….impossible. When Jason takes the big boys they wear their swim trunks & Chacos and take a water bottle, nuts and Slim Jims (not a fan of the Slim Jims but oh well). I can’t imagine being in a place where all our kids are big and we can easily load up on a whim and do these things. One day, maybe. They have so much fun with their dad in the great outdoors and are always stoked when they get to see snakes!

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I hope the twins like carrots.

Posted by KK on Monday, 5 September, 2011

Before I hear one of you utter the word “supermom” to me, allow me to explain just how much I am NOT. In fact, I will tell you who IS a supermom. My SIL, Aston, is a SUPERmom. (SIL = Sister-in-law for the newbies) I’ll tell you why in a minute…

Eleven years ago when I ad my Wheat I would have never attempted to make homemade baby food. I tried to cloth diaper him but failed. Miserably. A year later another boy popped out. Again I tried cloth diapering and barely succeeded but not enough to build my confidence back up. A couple years later, another boy popped out (you see the pattern?) and at least this time I knew I would and COULD cloth diaper this one full time and I did from the day he came home from the hospital. With my third I at least bought the book “Super Baby Food” and read a lot of it but still never attempted to pull it off. With all three of the boys we bought prepared organic baby food from health food stores and paid out the wahzoo to feed those boys. Since then all of our foster babes have been past the baby food stage when they came to us (with the exception of the 2 or 3 weeks I fed my JJ baby food at 15 1/2 months of age when he came to us because he had never been given anything except liquids in a bottle and had to learn to eat solids). I have, however, cloth diapered all our foster littles (5 have been diapered when they came to us including the twins). So of course when we brought the twins home it was only natural for me to cloth diaper them (once their tiny butts were big enough for the diapers I have). I also knew from the beginning that I would indeed have to make their baby food if I wanted to feed them organically (which of course I did). No way could we afford to feed two babies prepared organic baby food.

So here’s the cool part about my SIL…she did all of this with her FIRST child. Nothing intimidates her. At least nothing that I know of. Now after I just praised her up and down to my brother he reminded me that they, him being the youngest in our family, were the last ones to start a family so we all paved the way for them and encouraged them to do what we knew they were capable of doing. So then I asked him if this meant my older sisters were slacker moms because I didn’t have all this built up confidence to do certain things. So to keep him out of a whole heap of trouble lest he get his butt kicked by his big sisters I will go back to what I originally suggested which was that he married up (he has heard this no less than a hundred times) and his wife, Aston, is a supermom and nothing intimidates her.

So because she made all of my niece’s baby food and explained to me how easy it was I had to try. After spending the last 3 hours in my kitchen peeling, cutting, steaming, pureeing & storing organic carrots away for the twins all I am left with is being extremely pissed off that I did not do this with all my other kids. Seriously. I am mad. It. Was. So. Frea. Kin’. Easy.

I started with a 5 pound bag of organic carrots. I don’t know how much they cost because I normally buy much smaller bags but I had my mom pick up this bag for me the other day. I specifically told her not to get the big giant 5 pound bag that the crazy juicer people buy for juicing so she brought me the 5 pound bag that the crazy juicer people buy for juicing. I love this about my mom and in the end I am glad she bought me the big giant bag. I used 3 pounds and 9 ounces of carrots from it and have a few left over for my JJ to snack on. (Yes, I weighed how much I use. Yes, I own a scale. No it isn’t technically a kitchen scale. Yes, my husband owned this scale before we married 14 years ago. No, I won’t tell you why my husband owned a scale 14 years ago. Yes, it may have been for illegal usage. No, I won’t tell you more.)

I chopped off the ends and peeled the carrots. I chopped the carrots into chunks. I placed the chunks in my rice cooker (which doubles as a food steamer) and followed the cooking pamphlet that came with the rice cooker for how long to steam carrots although I think I steamed them a bit longer just until they were tender enough. I spooned the steamed carrots into my brand spankin’ new Magic Bullet* and pulsed it until it was pureed. That’s it.

*I didn’t buy the Magic Bullet for making baby food. I would have just used my old tiny little food processor. Jason bought the Magic Bullet. He came home several weeks ago with this fancy little appliance (that he paid about $50 for) and said “Hey, I though you could use that when you start making the twins’ baby food”. Whatever. That man has wanted a Magic Bullet for so long. He thinks he pulled a fast one on me but oh no. I can read right through that man. (But thanks for the Magic Bullet, honey)

A couple months ago I did buy the storage containers you see in the photos. I could have used plain old ice trays but I saw the fancier ones with the lid which hold a lot more than the average ice tray and had to have it. When everything was said and done I have approximately 42-1 ounce cubes of carrots and 10-2 ounce containers of carrots. I think that’s enough carrots to get us by for a little while. Once the trays are frozen, I will pop out the cubes and store them in Z*iploc freezer bags so they will keep longer.

That’s it. Now if the twins’ don’t like carrots, I’m screwed.

Strong and Awesome.

Posted by KK on Thursday, 1 September, 2011

Just because I love this photo!

strong-and-awesome

My middle man is 9!!

Posted by KK on Saturday, 27 August, 2011

Good grief my kids are growing up so fast! My Lake is now 9…his last year of single digits. Oh my. Can I also say how much I love it when kids get to an age where they don’t ask for a whole lot for their birthdays? Oh the simplicity of a pan of brownies and a couple of good friends over for a sleepover. If only I had all that money back that I spent on the early birthdays that they don’t even remember. It was Lake’s 1st birthday where we spent around $700 total when everything was said and done complete with a real LIVE monkey show! Oh well….at least we have a funny video of my dad and Jason’s dad wearing a grass skirt and dancing with monkeys. (We also had a TON of homemade food, plenty of beverages and many good friends from out of town who spent the night)

So my Lake got a small pocket knife from one of his buddies for his birthday. He thinks he is the biggest thing on the street now. In one picture where he is reading something and laughing…that something was a list of rules that my friend, Janice (one of the boys’ mom), wrote for him for safe knife usage. One page was legit, one was not. Here are a few examples:

  • Always cut AWAY from your body.
  • Keep your knife in a SAFE place.
  • Never leave your knife blade open when not in use.
  • Never play or joke around with your knife. It is not a toy.
  • Never throw your knife.

You all get the point…. But THEN he read these rules…

  • Never use the knife to extract a booger.
  • Never allow JJ to use your knife to cut play-doh.
  • Never perform an operation on yourself. Seek a doctor’s advice.
  • Never use your knife to fight a storm trooper. Use your Wii remote. (unless it is a REAL storm trooper)
  • Never use your knife to create a new hair-do, without permission.
  • Never allow the babies to use your knife as a teething toy.
  • Never Always NEVER use your knife to cut out pages of school books that you do not wish to complete.
  • Never use your knife to cut clothes you intent to wear.

We were all crying we were laughing so hard. It made Lake’s day for sure. I am so glad my boy has such good friends at such a young age who he’ll be able to grow up with. Happy Birthday, brother Lake!

My baby homegrown boy is 6!

Posted by KK on Tuesday, 26 July, 2011

Our River Sol is such a sweet boy & has THE most loving heart! We love you Dipper Jones!

I am spoiled.

Posted by KK on Wednesday, 13 July, 2011

I know I say that about myself a lot on here and facebook. I say it jokingly although I really do not ever go without something I think I need (i.e. My new van. It was totally needed. I really could have gotten by without it but we {I} began tossing around the idea of how wonderful my life would be with a 12 passenger van and in a matter of weeks my hubs bought me one. It’s his fault. He spoils me rotten.).

This morning, though, my 8 year old told me I was spoiled. Lake woke up early and was with me in my bedroom as I was tucking the twins in for a nap after their early morning milk. (They normally wake around 7 am now and have their warm milk and drift back off to sleep for a while) As I exited my room and shut the door Lake says to me “You’re so spoiled.” He had a grin on his face. I asked him what he meant and he went on to say that I was spoiled because I “have TWO babies…and SIX kids and you love that, right?” Of course I answered ‘yes’. Imagine if everyone in the world saw through the eyes of my 8 year old. That it is a BLESSING and a GIFT to have so many children. Is it easy? No. Never. But living for Jesus while on this earth isn’t supposed to be easy and I didn’t sign up for easy. We make a lot of sacrifices. There are a lot of things we simply just cannot do. I am cool with it, though, and know that as the twins get older it will free us up to do more.


Chew on this…


If one out of every FOUR families in the church adopted a child (note: I mentioned only families in the CHURCH {which is by no means a requirement but would be nice} and I also said only ‘a’ child meaning ONE) there would be NO MORE ORPHANS. This is an astounding fact to me that I simply cannot wrap my head around.

I would take more. My heart isn’t feeling ‘full’ like I had hoped it would after taking the twins. Maybe it’s just because they are not all officially adopted yet? Probably not. I have a feeling it isn’t ever going to feel content and it shouldn’t. I should never feel content about the fact that there are 147 million orphans in this world and I sit here mothering only six children (three of which are homegrown babes). I can’t ever see myself sitting back in my easy chair (whatever that is) and telling myself that I have done my part.


And allow me to go ahead and turn more heads…


WHO gives a CRAP about all this Casey Anthony debacle when since the time this one child lost her life nearly 2 million children have lost their lives in Africa from a measly disease called malaria that is SO easily preventable it is ridiculous. And that is only malaria….not AIDS and hunger and other tragedies. Where is justice for these who Jesus calls “the least of these” and demands we care for….NOT overlook as it seems the world has. Out of sight, out of mind, right?