A Prairie Family Fall Weekend

Weekends at our house are very hectic!  By the time we catch up on cleaning, do our weekly shopping, get homework done, work on Scout projects, do yard work, go to Sunday School and church, and spend time playing both inside and outside, the weekends just fly by!  I can’t say that they are very relaxing, but we usually have a lot of fun! 

This weekend was pretty typical of a Prairie Family weekend.  On top of our usual activities, I tried to squeak in some time to get out the kids’ fall clothes, but I only managed to do Kara’s!  Hmmmmm…….I guess I’ll have to keep working on that!

I am also trying to get a group photo of the kids to make prints for Christmas cards. I always start early because it usually takes several sittings before I get a decent shot! Usually one (or all) of the kids are sporting a goofy face, or I end up cutting off someone’s head. I made my first attempt for this year before church this morning. Some of my pictures are at the end of this slideshow–needless to say, I will have to try again!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

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Luke and Kara Try to Fix the Teeter-Totter

Luke and Kara have been big buddies lately!  They are both in school half-time, so they have time to play together while the other kids are in school.  It’s neat to see them play together–but, they are both so smart and ornery, that I often find myself wondering what they are up to!  🙂 

This weekend I saw them playing in the backyard and went to check out what they were doing.  This slideshow tells the story:

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

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A Cute Video of Kara

Today I saw Kara playing the Wii with the other kids, and she was just really getting into it! I thought fast enough to get my camera and take a video clip of her–it is really cute!  This is the link to view the video: 

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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The Prairie Family Chronicles Portaportal

I recently came across a neat way to put some of my bookmarks on the internet.  I thought this would be a neat way to share some of our favorite sites, and it will help solve a problem:  my kids are interested in beginning to use the internet, but I don’t want them just surfing on their own yet.  So, I have put some educational sites and some game links on for them. 

This portaportal will be constantly changing as I add/delete sites.  It has sections for some of my favorite adoption links and a few of the blogs that I enjoy reading.  I am still working on getting it set up just the way I would like, and, like I said, it will change pretty often.  Also, if you have any sites that you would like me to check out that you think might fit my portaportal, please let me know. 

The link for my portaportal is http://guest.portaportal.com/colbylobrien .  I also have added a link to it in the blogroll in the sidebar of this site. 

 Lois

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

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A Wonderful Video of a Patriotic Song to Start Off the Weekend

Wow, what a song!  What a message!

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Grandma’s Plastic Ears

My kids are so fortunate to have their grandparents (my parents) living in the same town as them.  In today’s society, that is such a blessing and luxury!

My mom has worn hearing aids for years, and she has always told the kids that when they put their hands on her “plastic ears,” and they whistle, they are saying, “I love you!”

This week Grandma K. needed to get new hearing aids, and she got some really nice ones!  She was a little worried, though, when the guy she was seeing said that these new aids didn’t have as much feedback as her old ones!  She told him that her grandkids would be devastated that her plastic ears didn’t say, “I love you” anymore!  He showed her a way to still get these fancy new aids to whistle for the grandkids, and she was delighted!

 Today she stopped by and showed the kids her new aids.  Kara immediately reached up to make them say, “I love you!”  She showed obvious disappointment when they didn’t whistle right away like the old ones.  So, Grandma had to show her the new technique to make them give feedback.  That pleased Kara and all of the other kids too.  Now Grandma’s plastic ears still say, “I love you,” and she can hear and understand them when they talk to her too!

 Lois

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The story of one of my favorite hymns

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Camp Fire USA: Trail to Creativity

 Tonight we had another meeting of the Christian Explorer’s Camp Fire USA Club. We are working on one of the Create and Pretend Projects in the Trail to Creativity. The kids made puppets and then we did a whole lot of pretending with the puppets–things like pretending they were stuck inside a bubble and couldn’t get out or that the puppet had just been to the circus and wanted to tell us all about what they saw.It’s interesting seeing the kids interact as a group without John and Brock for leadership. Cosette really steps in as the leader, and Luke and Kara take their cues from her.Kara has really gotten into coloring lately. She will spend a whole hour just coloring a picture–something my other kids never really got into that much. Some of her pictures are hanging on the room divider in the photo for this entry. She loves the color orange–her first preference is to color the whole page orange, but sometimes she makes patterns of orange and red alternating. She definitely does not have any problems with her attention span! 🙂

Lois

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Four Wonderful Kids Who Are Looking For Homes

11/17/07 Update:  Kyle is now also listed as being on hold!   

10/03/07 Update:  Frannie is now listed as being on hold as well!  Praise God for His great goodness!  Now Kyle is the only one waiting for his family.  I pray that even today they would find him.

10/02/07 Update:  Today I see that Isabelle is also on hold!  What a great God we have!  Frannie and Kyle are still waiting–I pray that they will also be on hold soon!

9/27/07 Update:  I just checked the Small World Adoption Site, and Joey is now listed as being On Hold!  Praise God!  The other three children are still listed as being available.

9/26/07 Update:  Love Without Boundaries has a post about Joey telling what a sweet boy he is and how they worked so hard to get his file to even be available for international adoption.  The link is http://lwbchinablog.blogspot.com/2007/09/joey.html .  Oh, how I pray that God brings him a family soon!

There are four precious kids who are listed with Small World Adoption that are still waiting for homes–in fact, their files are due to be returned to China unmatched if families aren’t found for them soon.  Their pictures and brief descriptions are found at http://www.swa.net/children.php .  Small World Adoption (SWA) is a great agency that really tries to place all of their waiting children.  They care so much about these kids that they have given each of them a $3300 grant that comes off of SWA’s agency fees.  There are two boys and two girls available.   I have seen discussions about Joey on some of my Yahoo groups.  Some families who have travelled to China to adopt other kids have met him and say that he is just a precious, precious boy.  They are burdened for him, and are praying that he finds a family soon.  I am really surprised that any of these children are still waiting–they are all so beautiful! 

 The waiting children programs really seem to be slowing down again, and that makes me so sad.  When we were in the process of finding Kara, the restrictions weren’t quite as strict as they are now, and it seemed like the kids were all snatched up within days of the new lists being posted.  Now there are more restrictions and guidelines, including not allowing families to switch agencies to adopt a child off of another agency’s list, that have made the placement of these children more difficult.  My heart just breaks as I see the files of beautiful kids returned month after month!

If I can be of any encouragement or advice to any families who may be thinking about adopting special needs children, please feel free to let me know. 

Lois

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TAGGED–Sleepy time toys!

 

One of my internet friends, Chelley, tagged me with a blogging question.  Her site is at http://chelleyau.blogspot.com/ .  Her questions for me were 

1. What did you go to bed with (as a child)?

2. What was the weird thing you used to eat?

So, Chelley, here’s my answers:

1.  I really did not have a sleepy-time toy when I was a child.  I tried once or twice, but they always ended up on the floor!  Since I didn’t have one, I posted the picture of my three youngest kids who do still sleep with their favorite stuffed friends!  Cosette sleeps with a very loved bunny, Kara sleeps with a kitty that used to be Brock’s favorite sleepy toy, and Luke sleeps with a floppy horse!

2. I don’t know if it’s weird or not, but my mom tells a story about a time when I was still sitting in the high chair.  She left just long enough to help my brother get on the school bus, and by the time she got back, I had the whole serving bowl of mashed potatoes and was digging in with both hands!  To this day, mashed potatoes are still one of my favorites!

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