Natural Falls

Yesterday we went to Natural Falls State Park. Just beautiful. The weather was cool, the park was empty, and it was just lovely.

Natural Falls is just outside a very small town near the Oklahoma/Arkansas border. Now I've seen and lived in some small towns. But you KNOW you are in a small town when there is a big dog taking a nap right in the middle of one of the main streets of town and isn't too worried about getting hit. I wish I had gotten a picture of that dog. We slowed down and went around him and he just kinda raised an eyebrow at us but was unimpressed.

We really enjoyed the falls. I'm afraid Brent and I will always remember that trip being about Amy. She is a little unsteady on her feet so I was making her hold my hand all the way down the path to the falls. She was doing great. We get to the falls and have 2 steps to go down to get to the viewing platform. She lets go of my hand runs forward to the steps, trips and bloodies up her knee and just howls and cries the whole time we are "enjoying" the falls. As soon as we get her knee cleaned up she has a different kind of accident and we've got nothing to change her into. That was fun. She wasn't in the best of moods for the rest of the visit. It's just too good of a story that she will really hate for us to retell when she gets older, oh and we have pictures too. :-)



Here's Karianne and Angie having fun:



Here's Amy not having much fun:



Here's Amy after both accidents, don't look too close at the spot next to Amy there. :-) Karianne and Angie and I climbed back up to the lookout deck to wave at Brent and Amy and Lucy.

Toad Incognito

I love my little backyard toads. I used to have cows, snakes, wildcats and wild hogs in my backyard. Now I just have toads. The girls are still unsure of them, but I enjoy seeing them. Here they are hiding, but I see them.

Fashion plates

Karianne has a strong sense of style. She dresses herself and I can't do anything about it without offending her because she puts a lot of thought into what she wears. This is what she paraded around in yesterday. Notice the one sock up over the pants? I asked her if maybe I could put that sock down to match the other one of if it was part of the plan. She said, "I like it this way."


Amy has her own sense of style as well. She is my only daughter who can do her own hair. One hair band on each side and one on top. That's how she likes it.

I think I'm in Love.

I've had the free coupon for a large one topping pizza at Papa Murphy's forever. I finally decided to cash in yesterday and treat the girls to some pizza. It's a take and bake pizza. I ordered a pepperoni pizza and watched the guy make it. Oh wow! It IS a large pizza, very big. He put a heaping bowl of cheese all over the pizza, then he went all around the edges with pepperoni overlapping each one and worked his way in laying pepperoni until I couldn't see the cheese layer at all. I've never seen so much pepperoni on a pizza before. Then topped with MORE cheese. Sorry for making you drool, but it was delicious! I will be back!

Oolagah

I took the girls to Will Rogers Birthplace farm again a few days ago. That's were the pictures of Lucy in "The Road Less Traveled" post were taken. It had been a while since I had been there, couldn't remember the hours they were open so on my way up there I tried to call 411 to get the hours. If you've called 411 it's all a recording that asks the business name, city and state. The farm is in Oolagah. I kept saying Oolagah, Oklahoma. Oooo la gah. OOooh la gah! The recording just couldn't understand the name. I was laughing so hard, and trying to say Oolagah over and over on the phone while I was driving. Just wasn't a good situation. So I finally gave up and hung up and took my chances that they were open. I used to like to play Crash Bandicoot on PS2. There's some sort of tribal mask that pops up every now and then and that is exactly what he says- oolagah! I felt like that little character as I kept saying the name over and over. One of Amy's favorit things to tell me is, "You crazy momma". They all thought I was on that car ride.

Amy

Yesterday, I showed Amy pictures of herself in China . She loved looking at them but she noticed something. She said, "momma, I look sad". Oh baby. I gave her a hug and a kiss and said, "I think you were baby."
She's happy now. God is Good!

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth



Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same



And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back



I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference




Robert Frost

All is not well in the animal kingdom

Last year a family of swallows made a nest on our porch. They hatched several eggs and left for the winter. The girls enjoyed watching the progress.
This spring, the swallows returned. They made a nest and laid some eggs. Curiously, there has been a lot of racket on our porch. Several birds are always flying around our porch, particularly at night screeching at each other. This weekend I found a broken egg on the ground straight down from the nest. Sunday, when we came home from church we found a broken egg at the end out our entryway, not really close to the nest, and another even farther away. It sure looks like someone had sabotaged the nest. For the past several days there has been lots of debris on our porch. I couldn't tell if the nest is being torn down or built up. I haven't seen the swallows in a few days, now there seems to be a family of wrens living in the same nest on the porch.

To the victor goes the spoils.

One Year ago today.

Wow. One year ago Brent and I came down an elevator in a hotel in Lanzhou, China. The doors opened, we walked out and saw our little girl who had been in our hearts and prayers for the past year. She wasn't very happy to see us. She cried, she clung to the orphanage director. We had to get back in the elevator and they thrust her in with us as the doors closed.





For all practical purposes, she was cripple. Her right foot was so turned in she had a callus on the top of her foot because that is what hit the ground when she walked. on top of all that, she didn't speak a word of English.










God has indeed been transforming this dear child in this first year that we have been blessed to have her in our family.







Just look at her now. She always has a big smile on her face and she's everybody's friend. She loves her family, is now fluent in English, walks like a pro and loves to hear stories about Jesus.







God is Good, all the time.


Happy Family day to us! Reminisce with us by clicking on Amy's adoption story on the side bar.

vs.

Karianne (2005)

and Lucy (2009)

I love to see Lucy wearing the same clothes the other girls used to wear, makes me so nostalgic. sniff.

Lucy in white

Big fan

Lucy getting a front row seat as Joe's #1 fan.

Angie was playing with toy cars and held up an ambulance and asked, "Momma is this a band aid truck?"

The Naked Chef

things to do with an old shirt

I cut up some old shirts and experimented making these little dresses for the girls. I love how they turned out. The cool thing was that the yellow dress fit all 4 of my girls. Now thats a good dress in my book. :-)