The First Sunday of Advent

Excita, quaesimus, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni: ut ab imminentibus peccatorum nostorum periculis, te mereamur protegente eripi, te liberante salvari: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Pater in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum.  Amen.

Sitr up Thy power, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come: that from the threatening dangers of our sins we may deserve to be rescued by Thy protection, and to be saved by Thy deliverance: Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.  Amen.  (Collect for the First Sunday of Advent)

The Holy Season of Advent: Preparing our Hearts for His Coming

Today we begin the season of Advent.  It is one of my favorite parts of the liturgical year.  The readings are often from the book of Isaiah, and are filled with expectation.  We know He is coming, and we have this season to prepare our hearts. 

The kids love Advent--like most kids, they love fire, so Advent candles are very exciting!  When I got out the advent wreath yesterday, there was a burst of cheering.  Throughout Advent, we light the appropriate candle(s) and we pray the collect from the liturgy, usually the one from the preceding Sunday.  Then starting on the 17th of December when the "O Antiphons" begin, we add those as well.  We conclude with the Angelus and then the kid's favorite part, when everyone gets to blow out a candle.  Until the 4th week of Advent, we have to re-light candles until everyone gets a turn.  For now, we have 4 kids and 4 candles.

Another way to celebrate Black Friday

If anyone out there braved the crowds to do some Christmas shopping and saved a lot of money, and is looking for something to do with a little of the money you saved, you can go to http://reecesrainbow.org/ and make a donation to help some of these children get home.  Little Olga

 has a family who wants to adopt her, but since they just did another adoption earlier this year they don't have the money yet to bring her home.  If they are unable to get their documents submitted, she faces being transferred to a mental hospital (yes, a mental hospital set up to warehouse adults with psychiatric problems) when she turns 4 in December.  In Eastern Europe, children with mental or physical disabilities are usually moved to these horrific places when they turn 4.  Most will die there within a year.  Reece's Rainbow is an organization who tries to bring some of these children to our attention.  They are finding more and more families every year who want to bring these children, who especially need families, home.  I didn't go shopping this morning, since sleeping was much more appealing, but I've made a donation to a family who is raising money for another adoption.

We are slowly being overrun by stuffed animals.

I'm fighting a losing battle against little fuzzy creatures!  The kids get them as gifts and they spent the money Abuelita sent them on still more stuffed animals.  For a long time I managed, by discreetly sorting them and hauling off a sack of them to donate, to limit stuffed animals to what fitted into one laundry basket.  Now there is a laundry basket in the girls room and one in the boys room, and stuffed animals are lurking all over.  Under beds, under the couch, falling out of the bookcase headboards in the boy's room, etc.  I even woke up a few days ago and found a stuffed frog wedged in my armpit!  Thomas still sleeps in our bed, and I guess Mama and Papa were not enough.  Last night we were joined not only by a very large almost three year old, but his bear named Corderoy, a small tiger, a dolphin, and another blue bear he borrowed from Fermin.  We only have a queen sized bed, so it gets a little crowded.  I don't think I played with stuffed animals much at all when I was a kid, but of course we had an assortment of them.   I remember my mom trying to devise new ways of storing them out of the way.  One time she rigged up a clothesline and we were supposed to clip the animals to it.  That lasted less than a week.  We were not tidy children, especially me, and the animals ended up all over the floor again with all our other stuff. 

My kids, who are also born mess-makers, do love to play with stuffed animals.  Each child usually has several in bed with them, and they take them on car rides.  Their favorite game with my grandpa is when they show him a tiger or iguana or something and he pretends it is attacking him.  The last time my grandparents were here they just couldn't get enough of that game.  Since I'm a mom, I love to make my kids happy, and I can't get rid of any of their favorite critters.  The problem is that the list of favorites is getting longer and longer.  I'm such a pushover that I actually have recently purchased 3 stuffed animals as gifts.  Catherine doesn't have a stuffed cat.  She has all sorts of other ones, but she looks longingly at Fermin's cat, as he pets it ostentatiously.  Thomas adores penguins and has a special penguin dance he does.  Fermin always tells me that he needs (another!) doggy.  So, I have purchased a dog, cat, and a mother and baby penguin set.  I will probably have a penguin in my armpit on Christmas night, but the kids will be thrilled.

We are sending a care package to Therese for her birthday, which is in December.  Hopefully the orphanage lets her have it, since they are not very open to contact outside the official channels.  I figured it was worth the money to try to send her something, since she has a family but we can't go get her yet.  We chose a fleece blankie and a stuffed animal to go with the birthday cake.  The options for the stuffed animals were bear, panda, rabbit, dog, or goat.  Yes, I had to stop and read that one over again--goat!  I thought that was so funny that when I go to China next year I'm going to be shopping for stuffed animals.  I have never seen a stuffed goat before, and my kid's collection is definitely lacking one.

Pregnancy vs. adoption

I read this funny post today.  I have to agree about the stress of not having a due date.  It is hard to be expecting a child when"gestation" is more like that of an elephant, and you really don't know when you will get to see your child for the first time.  Of course, when I was pregnant with Thomas, I looked like an elephant.  I outgrew 2 sizes of maternity clothes.  If the pregancy was any longer I would have been unable to fit through doorways, and would have had to shop at a tent and awning store for something to wear.  Chocolate really helps with adoption stress, so I have always gained weight while we are adopting--just not 50+ pounds like I did while pregnant!   I will let everyone know sometime next year whether a c-section (after 3 abdominal surgeries) is easier than a 20 hour trip back from China.

Finally, our homestudy is done!

Now, we wait for our agency to review it.  If it needs any revisions, the homestudy agency will have to do them and then send it back to the agency again.  When it passes inspection, we will submit the I-800A form to USCIS to get approved to bring an internationally adopted child into the U.S.  Since we are adopting under the Hague treaty, Therese will automatically become a citizen when she enters the U.S.  I know I complain a lot about the tons of extra hoops the Hague treaty adds to the process, and the fact that it adds about a month to the process at the very end--which will drive me CRAZY--but the automatic citizenship is a good thing.  So, we submit the I-800A, our homestudy, a large fee, and some other documents, and then we wait again.  Then they will send us an appointment to go get fingerprinted at our local USCIS office.  They will have the FBI run our fingerprints.  After they confirm we are not serial killers or some other types who should not get to adopt children, we will wait again for our approval.  It takes about 3 months.  I should be better at this, having ridden the international adoption rollercoaster before, but I'm not good at waiting.   For now, I'm celebrating that we have made one more step toward bringing home our little girl.

She has no idea....

Last night I was thinking about Therese.  She really has no idea how her life is going to change, that she is going to have the most important thing--a family.  She doesn't know that her photo is on our frig, tucked above our fireplace, in our wallets.  I have stared and stared at her picture, trying to get to know that little face.  We have fallen in love with her, and all her future brothers and sister talk about her all the time.  They even have arguments about who will get to play with her.  She doesn't know that we have picked her, and that she has a family who is eager to come and get her.  She was abandoned as a baby and has lived in the orphanage all her life.  As far as we know, she has only left the orphanage twice since she was brought there as a 3 month old.  Both of those were trips to the hospital, once to repair her spina bifida, and once to have her medical exam so her file could be prepared to make her available for adoption.  It must have been very scary to be 6 months old and left alone in a hospital after surgery, with no family to stay by her bed.  She has never had a birthday party.  She has never had a mommy to dress her in pretty clothes and kiss her owies, or a daddy to toss her up in the air, and no sisters and brothers to play with and fight with.  Before Christmas, she will turn 4, and if all goes as planned that will be her last birthday as an orphan.  We already have a little pink backpack to take to China for her, and I let the kids pick out small toys to put in it.  It makes it seem more real to have some stuff ready for her.  It is strange that she is so much a part of our lives, but she is going through her normal orphanage routine on the other side of the world, not knowing we are already her family in our hearts.  We just can't wait to make it official!

The Cupcake Mystery

Today I made cupcakes, and I had a helper who licked the spatula and cup that I used to put the batter in the pans.  That way they are nice and clean when they go into the sink:

Hours later, the frosted cupcakes are sitting on the kitchen island.  Mama leaves the kitchen for just a few minutes, and when she comes back, this is what she sees:

Several of the cupcakes had bites taken out of them, with little teeth marks that looked like they were made by a small mammal:

So, Mama went looking for the cuprit.  A suspect was located who had frosting on his nose.

When he was asked if he ate the cupcakes, he confessed immediately, and said, "they were good!"

He did say he was sorry.  Who could resist that face?

They don't look like they could ever do anything to cause trouble....

How many children is too many?

Lots of people have been talking about the Duggar family, especially since they are expecting their 20th child.  I haven't watched their show in a long time, but I think they are a great example of a family who is very fiscally responsible and who are truly open to life.  We could use more families like that in this world--we wouldn't have a social security crisis, for one thing!  I find it very interesting to see how people react to them.  Some people get so upset about them having so many children.  I think our culture needs to be reminded that life is a gift.  Certainly it wouldn't be prudent, or possible, for every family to have 20 children, but we can all celebrate every human life.  Every child is created in the image of God. This is an excellent posting on the topic.    


It can be a lot of work to have a large family. I only have 4 so far, and this picture perfectly portrays how I often feel. Multi-tasking is an understatement!

 I rarely take all 4 of mine out on errands by myself, since it is so much easier to beg my mom or sister to watch a couple of them.  It is faster to do my grocery shopping with just a delegation, and they get some more personal time with Mommy.  When I do take all 4 of mine out, if I had a dollar for every time someone said, "you have your hands full," I would be able to pay for several more adoptions.  Yes, it is a lot of work to have 4 kids 6 and under, but it is so much more than that.  They are 4 unique individuals, not to mention very cute (I am not biased at all!), and I am very blessed that 3 other women chose life, and that I was allowed to become the mommy to these children.  I usually try to answer in a way that emphasizes the good part--we are never bored around here!   And once they can dress and feed themselves, and you get a few out of diapers, life is sooooo much easier!  Yes, I do more laundry than I can keep up with, and yes, they do get into a lot of mischief, and yes, I do hear myself saying things I never thought I would say, like "do NOT pee on your sister," and "get your foot out of your brother's ear," but at the end of the day, especially once they are all fed, bathed, dressed, prayed, and tucked into bed, I think I have the best job ever.

What I just finished reading

Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia, by Peter Hopkirk

This book was so fascinating I had a hard time putting it down.  It is the story of several Europeans who excavated ancient cities in an area that was called Chinese Turkistan.  They were vibrant trading centers on the old Silk Road, and then were abandoned and swallowed up by the Taklamakan desert.  This part of China was so remote at that time, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that it was almost like visiting the moon today.  The conditions were brutal and dangerous but the discoveries were amazing--ancient manuscripts, silks, and art.  There were ancient Buddhist monasteries where piles of old books and writings were found preserved, including some ancient Christian ones.  Many of them were in languages that had been lost to history.  If you are interested in archaeology and exploration and the ancient civilizations along the Silk Road, you won't want to miss this book. 

We got an updated photo!

This evening I got an email with an updated picture of our little Therese!  It was so wonderful to see a photo which was taken just last Friday.  I can't put it on the blog, but anyone who wants to see it (and even people who don't, ha ha!) can see it in person or by email.  The other photos we have of her are from when her file was prepared to make her available for adoption.  That was in the summer of 2010, when she was 2.  In the picture, her head is still shaved.  I think it is shorter than a military cadet.  But, she is so cute, kind of smiling, and is standing up holding a fuzzy toy bunny.  It hurts to see her standing on her bent feet, but good to know she can stand up.  It must be an omen, because early this afternoon my sister brought a gift today for her future niece, a tiny stuffed bunny. 

You know you have been a mom for awhile.....

when you no longer get all worked up over messes!  This afternoon, Thomas had an altercation with one of the older boys.  I went to see what was the matter, as Thomas jumped up and down in frustration and rage.  I smelled a very strong and unpleasant smell, and noticed that as he jumped his shirt moved, revealing poop halfway up his back!  It has been a long time since we had one of those epic poops to deal with.  I led him to the bathroom and noticed brownish streaks all down his jeans.  Then when I peeled his clothes off, and took them to the laundry room, I found suspicious spots on the couch in the living room, the sofa pillows, the floor, etc.  I didn't even get excited.  I've been around kids long enough now not to be surprised.  I sent out a team of sniffers to locate any more contaminated areas, bathed and dressed Thomas, and cleaned up the couch and the floor.  I think I may have to throw out the sofa pillow though.

Our newest little girl

Our 5th child is a girl!  She is waiting for us in China, somewhere on the old Silk Road.  I'm not supposed to post her exact location, Chinese name, or photo until we get further along in the process.  She is a very beautiful little girl, one day younger than Catherine Rose, and has some special needs.  We plan to give her a saint name in addition to her Chinese name and our last name, so in posts I will call her by her future saint name, Therese. I saw a resemblance between her picture and a picture of Saint Therese, the Little Flower, and it seemed fitting because St. Therese wanted to be a missionary, and even though she lived as a cloistered Carmelite nun, she sent her prayers out to the whole world.  I think that giving a little girl from China her name is somehow very special.  Our little Therese is a very small girl and part of her Chinese name means orchid.  She was born with spina bifida and clubbed feet.  Her spina bifida was repaired as a baby but her feet have not been corrected, so she cannot walk much and is very delayed in her gross motor skills.  She was on the waiting child list for over a year before I saw her picture on our agency's photolisting. 

It is very hard to choose a child from the waiting child list.  There are so many, and so much to think about--whether we can handle various medical needs, what age of child, etc.  Most agencies choose a selection of children to feature on their own list, with pictures and a little profile of the child.  There are so many darling little faces, and they all need a family!   I was looking more at the boy's pictures since I have always wanted to adopt a little boy from China, but Catherine has wanted a sister so much, I decided to look at the girls on the list too.  For some reason, her face looked familiar to me, and I kept going back and looking at her information.  She has a cute little half smile in the corner of her mouth in the photo on the listing, and a completely shaved head.  Somehow those pictured eyes went right through me, but I kept looking at other children for awhile because she was older than we were thinking of, and our homestudy agency is opposed to out of birth order adoptions.  Eventually I did request her medical file and got our homestudy agency to agree, and we submitted our LOI (Letter of Intent) for her.  We got our PA (pre-approval) from China very quickly.  PA just means that her file is assigned to us and now we have 6 months to get all our documents in.  We are waiting on our homestudy now, so we can submit our immigration paperwork.  If all goes well, we will just make the deadline.

How do you know when you are ready to adopt again?

I was thinking about this recently, because earlier this year when my sister asked me if we ever planned to do another adoption, I told her that it was too much paperwork, and I just didn't know if I could do it again.  But this past summer, since the kids are getting older and I have actually ventured to leave the house with all 4 by myself, I started having a funny feeling when I counted heads to make sure I had the same number of kids I had left the house with.  I would count all 4 of them, but still felt like someone was missing.  Hmmm.  From the very beginning of our family I have felt drawn to the idea of adopting a waiting child.  I didn't bring it up to Mr. B. for quite awhile, because I thought he would think I was crazy.  I did a lot of praying about it, but the feeling didn't go away.  Eventually, we did talk about it and decided to start the adoption process again.  Since we have done 2 international adoptions and 1 domestic adoption, we have a lot of experience with the process--a lot of paperwork and a lot of waiting.  I'm pretty good at the paperwork part, even though it can be frustrating, but I'm not very good at the waiting part. 

A 2-year-old's perspective on orphans...

Last week, while Mr. B and I were getting ready for bed, Thomas was already in bed waiting for us.  (Yes, he still sleeps in our bed.  :) )  He got very serious and said, "Papa, my baby brother is in an orphanage.  He's crying.  Need to go get him."  It is all very simple to a 2-year-old!  Thomas has been insisting we have to get a baby brother.  We are actually in process for a girl who is a year older than he is, but he is very set on getting to be a big brother and talks about his baby brother all the time.  He is even planning to share his toys.  I've promised him that the next adoption will be a boy.

Why The Laundry Mountain?

Every blog needs a name that sums up your philosophy of life, who you are, and what your life is like. So, The Laundry Mountain was the obvious choice, in honor of the piles of clean clothes that go from the dryer straight to the couch in our family room. Evergrowing, it rarely gets completely removed. Sometimes we have those days where things are so hectic that the laundry mountain is more like a range of mountains, some of them with the distinct square shape that comes when you leave the clothes in the laundry basket overnight.  Yes, that is a picture of Mt. Everest, and no, my laundry mountain isn't nearly that tall, yet.  (It doesn't have any clouds around it either, even though it does attract climbers.)

Life is precious

Read the story behind the picture in this article from Lifesitenews.com

November is Orphan Awareness Month

Sometimes the many types of awareness months make me roll my eyes, but this one is very near to my heart.  I can't say it any better than this:

Reckless abandon...from No Greater Joy Mom

All Hallows Eve at our house

The kids and Mr. B were handing out candy at our door to trick or treaters, and suddenly I heard the sound of scurrying feet.  The kids who had so happily run to the front door when the doorbell rang were scattering to the far corners of the house.  Catherine came running straight to Mommy, crying and screaming, saying, "There are bad people at our door."  Apparently there were some kids out there in scary costumes.  It was hard for her 3-year-old mind to grasp the idea that the kid with "scary, big teeth" was just a normal kid in a costume.  The most amusing part of the evening was Jose and Fermin's reaction to a kid dressed as a sniper, complete with gilly suit.  They thought that was one of the scariest costumes they saw, and wanted to know what it was.  That explanation led to questions at supper about whether it was bad to be a sniper or not.   Watching Mr. B try to explain Catholic Just War doctrine to two 5-year-olds was priceless!