The Hall Family

Updates on the children

2009-10-03T15:39:00.010-04:00

Hi! Sorry that I haven't posted an update in so long! I'll try to catch you up on the children.

Benjamin turned 1 on September 30th. Wow did that year go by fast! He's doing so well. He figured out how to crawl just a couple days before his birthday and loves being able to get around now. He has 3 words - mama, dada, and no. He still enjoys nursing and snuggling, but is getting more interested in fun baby toys.

Susanna is 3. She's going in for her next MRI on October 15th. We'll know more after that about how her 4 tumors are doing. We are praying for good news. She and Miriam are enjoying doing Before Five in a Row during homeschool this year. She loves playing dress-up, playing on the playground, and snuggling.

Miriam is 5. While she is definitely still autistic, she has made wonderful progress. She's doing so much better in communicating with others, including her Sunday School teachers. She is excited to be kindergarten level this year in homeschool. She loves playing Putt Putt Saves the Zoo and Freddi Fish computer games in her free time.

Hannah is 7. She's still a super laid back fun little girl. She's working hard on learning how to read this year. She loves drawing, playing dress-up, playing with dolls, roller skating, and jumping on the trampoline.

Rebekah is 9. Through vision therapy and hard work, she is overcoming her enormous difficulty in recognizing letters and numbers. She's now a beginner reader and I'm so proud of her. We're continuing to slowly steadily push forward. She continues to have a lot of anxiety in different areas and usually needs to know exactly where I am at all times. That requires quite a bit of patience on my part. She's a very loving affectionate girl and has such a desire to please. She loves drawing, books, dolls, paper dolls, and playing with her sisters.

Naomi Ruth is 10. She's really growing up. Just yesterday I was sick with a tummy bug and she took over the running of the household for me, including making all of the meals. She's such a blessing! She's doing great in her studies with the exception of math. That is a big struggle for her and I'm trying to really help her with it this year. One thing really fun and special that we added to our homeschooling this year is that she has started working through Training Our Daughters to be Keepers at Home. It's a 7 year Christian homemaking course that is just fabulous. So far, we're working on godly character. In her free time, she loves reading historical fiction, playing the Wii, cooking, and riding her bike.

Sarah is also 10. After a year and a half of living here, she is continuing to slowly transition to life here in the United States and specifically in our family. She has done the amazing feat of doubling her weight since arrival - from 45lb to 90lb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She really enjoys math and reading. She's a beginner reader. She loves drawing, coloring, playing with paper dolls and real dolls, as well as jumping on the trampoline.

Stephen is 12. He has been transitioning wonderfully to life here and now fits right in. He is another of our beginning readers. He is on a soccer team this year and loves it. That was one of the few activities that he was able to do over at the orphanage in Liberia. He also loves riding his bike, playing the Wii, and jumping on the trampoline.

Thomas is also 12. He continues to love math far beyond any other subject, but has really taken an interest to geography and science this year. Writing continues to be his most difficult area, but that is due in large part to his Aspergers. The handwriting aspects and the spelling are both incredibly challenging for him. We will be getting a program soon that will help him in this area. He'll type things in to the best of his ability with spelling and it will figure out what he's trying to say. All of the children have been learning typing since August. Thomas loves riding his bike, jumping on the trampoline, playing the Wii, and playing with his modeling clay.

Love, Dawn

Obedience/God Answers Prayers

2009-07-25T23:50:00.004-04:00

Sixteen months ago we brought home Stephen, Sarah, and Samuel from Liberia. We'd started the adoption about 18 months before then. But God started even earlier than that it our hearts. We both felt when we got married that we would have children both biologically and by adoption. We always knew it would be sometime later. It was when I was pregnant with Susanna that we felt God calling us to adopt "now." At the time I was on bedrest with #6 with our oldest being only 8 years old. Several of our children had/have special needs. We were living in a 2 bedroom home. We didn't have the finances for it. NOW, God? But we obeyed and God opened the doors through the long adoption process. He answered our prayers! He is so good! God taught my heart what it was to feel called to bring a child/children born of another into my home and heart and love them as my own. They arrived in our home and we set about ministering to their hurting hearts and meeting their needs and loving on them. The challenges were tremendous, but so were the blessings. Finally, though, we realized that Samuel's needs were above what we were able to provide. We prayed for God to show us what to do. We consulted many people and prayed and prayed for wisdom. We wanted for our Samuel to be able to heal from his difficult past. Again, God answered our prayers. This time, He asked us to give up Samuel. Now He taught my heart what it was to love your child but be unable to meet their needs and need to give them up for adoption. Oh that's hard!!! We obeyed and God brought just the right family for Samuel. We are grieving our loss, but rejoicing at the hope that Samuel now has. We believe that God never makes mistakes and that He is always good. We had wanted to be his forever family, but God made it clear that our family was just a part of the journey Samuel was taking to his true forever family. We will forever be honored and thankful for the time we were able to have him with us and will always love and pray for him. May the Lord forever bless and protect him. The photos above were from when the children got to say goodbye to their brother last night.

Love, Dawn

Birthday, Soccer, and Fun at the Park

2009-07-04T18:34:00.006-04:00

Hannah celebrated her 7th birthday. We opened gifts at home and enjoyed cake and ice cream and THEN headed out to Chuck E. Cheese. The children were shocked and delighted that we were eating dessert before dinner. :-D

Benjamin

Miriam

Susanna

Rebekah

Naomi Ruth and Hannah playing air hockey, Susanna in the background

Stephen really enjoyed getting to go to a week of soccer camp. Although he'd never had any coaching in his life and had never played on a formal team, his personal skill level was at the 9th/10th grade level and his team skills were at the 5th/6th grade level. We're all SO proud of him!

Yesterday, we all went to a nearby park for a good chunk of the afternoon and just enjoyed relaxing and playing together. We ate a picnic lunch and then the children played on the playground.

Sarah

Susanna

Aaron, Rebekah, Thomas, and Stephen on the swings

Miriam, Naomi Ruth, Stephen, and Hannah

Naomi Ruth, Hannah, Thomas, Sarah

Thomas and Stephen

Miriam and Susanna

Lots has been going on since I last posted. I'm hoping to catch you all up with these photos. Happy 4th of July!

Love, Dawn

Summer has begun!

2009-06-22T14:39:00.004-04:00

Last night we kept our annual tradition. On the first night of Summer, the children get to play outside until it is all dark and catch fireflies. They also enjoyed eating lots of fresh mulberries from our many mulberry trees and playing freeze tag. Before we headed in, I gathered the tired happy children together and said, "I officially welcome you to summer!" They erupted into applause and wild happy cheers. :-D

Love, Dawn

P.S. - That's mulberry juice on Susanna's face in case you were wondering. ;-)

Down on the Hall Farm

2009-06-07T17:09:00.006-04:00

This is one of the many fruit bushes and fruit trees that we recently planted. We decided to go with some unusual varieties. This is a medlar tree. It, like the others, doesn't look like much right now, but they hold promise for the future. :-)

Loving on sweet Susanna

Notice her very pink cheeks. I'm concerned that she has strep throat again.

Benjamin is really growing up. He's gone from his long baby locks to a burr cut, thanks to Daddy. One thing funny that we discovered through that is that he has two totally different colors in his hair - dark brown and blonde. You can really see that in the top photo. He's also getting more teeth. He's up to 6 now!

Miriam with one of the MANY kittens born here this year

Susanna, Thomas, and Benjamin

Rebekah and Naomi Ruth

Rebekah has on her hot pink cast from fracturing her wrist while jumping off a swing. She's also holding the teddy bear that she received at the hospital. She has named him Teddy.

Getting in our garden has been slow going this spring, due to all of the sickness. Still, we're getting there bit by bit. Yesterday, we finally got the strawberries in. As you can see, the children are great helpers.

We bought 19 chicks - 18 hens and 1 rooster. They're such fun to watch!

We also bought 2 male baby goats. There names are Chewy and Louie. :-D Their job is to eat the thistle patches and all of the tall weed areas. They are happy to help! Rebekah and Hannah love taking them for walks with their collars and leashes. The goats seem to think it is a lot of fun, too. They are such social creatures!

Love, Dawn

Still sick

2009-06-05T17:47:00.002-04:00

We're still sick here. Please go to www.caringbridge.og/visit/susannahall and read there. Please pray for us. Thanks.

2009-05-24T16:40:00.003-04:00

Benjamin in his exersaucer

Miriam with Spunkles

The good news is that I am over my viral gastritis. This morning I woke up feeling GREAT! Oh that was fantastic! And just in time, too, as we now have 9 children with strep throat. Not like there's much of a difference between 7 and 9 with it, though. lol It's nutty, but the entire family is taking antibiotics right now to kill it for good this round. You might be wondering which one child is healthy - Sarah is the winner. Of course, she had it last month, so it's not like she escaped entirely.

Between taking care of sick children, Aaron and I have also been working on planting outside. We paused in planting our garden to work on planting fruit bushes. So far today we've planted goumi (also spelled gumi) bushes and honeyberry bushes. Next up are the currants, gooseberries, jostaberries, and elderberries. I'm so excited about getting these planted! :-) In a couple of years we'll be eating huge amounts of fresh berries plus making delicious jellies and pies.

Sorry that there haven't been many pictures lately. Hope you enjoy these two. :-)

Love, Dawn

Prayer Needed

2009-05-22T21:49:00.001-04:00

Please pray for our family. We've got 7 children sick with strep throat right now and I have viral gastritis. :-S

Love, Dawn

Life goes on

2009-05-15T08:11:00.006-04:00

Today is my 39th birthday. I feel like one major phase of my life has just come to an end and another has started. You see, our dog Charlie died yesterday. Aaron and I got married in August of 1994. He bought me Charlie as a birthday gift in March of 1996. My birthday wasn't until May, but Charlie was ready in March. He was a gorgeous red merle Australian Shepherd. He is now buried next to our garden. We have a large rock on his grave and Naomi Ruth plans to use a nail to carve his name into it. I am going to plant a rose bush on either side of it and then put a garden bench in front of it, facing the garden. Charlie was with us through all 10 children becoming part of our family. He loved them all, although he was not able to interact much with Benjamin, our 7 month old. I can remember him shepherding the other children when they would try crawling out of the room. He would nudge them back towards me. :-) Charlie was also with us through 6 moves. We bought him while living in Texas and moved twice still in the Dallas area. Then we moved up to the Boston area of MA and I think he really enjoyed the cooler air. Next, we moved here to Ohio and we are now in our 3rd home here. Lord willing, this is the one we're going to stay put in. So, I feel like Charlie was there for all of the big moments in our early married life. Spunkles, our puppy, is 10 weeks old. What all will occur during her life? I imagine that she will see children growing up, getting married, and leaving home. It's kind of hard to imagine that phase of my life and yet as I sit here on my birthday reflecting back and looking forward, I am pondering all of this. For now, though, I am very much in the midst of the stage of raising these children up for the Lord.

Over Easter weekend, Hannah came down with a really bad case of strep throat and tonsilitis. She saw an ENT on Tuesday and is going to need a tonsilectomy. Her tonsils are still so big that they are actually overlaping past the uvula. If this is the baseline, then if she gets an infection, her airway will be blocked. I'll get that scheduled today. Oh speaking of surgeries, Naomi Ruth is going to need to have four of her adult teeth pulled. Her mouth just doesn't have room for them. Aaron and I both had that surgery. As you can imagine, she's scared. We do not have that scheduled yet. First we'll need to schedule the consultation with the oral surgeon.

Yesterday I took Susanna to her ENT appointment at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. The appointment went great. She is healing up really well from her tonsilectomy/adnoid removal. He also felt really good about how her eating, breathing, and talking have improved. She doesn't need to go back until October or November. That will probably be when she has her next MRI of the tumors and then sees all of her doctors. Please keep her in your prayers. There was something that I thought was really funny yesterday. I had Susanna, Benjamin, Hannah, and Naomi Ruth with me. Over and over, people commented how I really had my hands full with four young children. I just smiled. Inside I was thinking, "You have NO idea!" Four was a cinch compared to my usual 10. :-D

Love, Dawn

www.caringbridge.org/visit/susannahall

Mother's Day

2009-05-11T22:51:00.005-04:00

I had a wonderful Mother's Day here. I enjoyed church in the morning. Then after lunch, I got a few hours of time out alone, which was SO nice. When I got back, we got things ready and then went for a picnic along the Scioto River. It was a gorgeous day and we all had a wonderful time. We were even able to meet up with friends there. We finished off with ice cream. Yummy!

Love, Dawn

Thomas' 12th birthday

2009-05-09T16:17:00.006-04:00

At the Chinese buffet

They played "Happy Birthday" over the speakers and brought out this tiny birthday cake for him surrounded by little pieces of cake for us. :-)

Stephen LOVES eating frog legs!!!

Rebekah and Sarah

Thomas

This is Miriam with her beloved pink pony. It pretty much goes wherever she does. It is so actively loved that it recently had a surgery to reattach its head. :-D She loves to "stim" with it by flicking it around in her wrist and watching it while using her other hand to finger its main and tail. It's part of her autism. I don't mind as it seems harmless and brings her contentment.

Thomas

Samuel

Miriam and Stephen

Samuel, Susanna, and Miriam

Hannah, Sarah, and Samuel

Stephen working on a pull-up

Naomi Ruth

Thomas, Stephen, and Aaron are currently celebrating Thomas' birthday by riding go carts. I'm sure they are having a blast! The boys have been so excited about it all week. This is our birthday gift for Thomas this year. :-) His actual birthday was on Thursday. That day we went out to his favorite Chinese restaurant and then a big playground, as you can see from the photos.

Love, Dawn

Tulips

2009-05-03T21:16:00.006-04:00

Miriam

Thomas

Stephen

Hannah

Rebekah

Naomi Ruth

Susanna

Samuel

Sarah

Every year in the spring, I love to get pictures of all of the children with the tulips. :-)

Love, Dawn

At Home and at the Pool

2009-05-01T13:15:00.005-04:00

Stephen

Susanna loving on Spunkles

This is Dad (Grandpa) holding Benjamin, who just turned 7 months old yesterday. Dad flew back down to Florida earlier this week. I forgot to download pictures from his camera from the trip to D.C. with the boys. Oops! I'll have to figure out a different way to get them now. They had a fabulous time!

I love homeschooling my children. Here, I'm working with Stephen on his reading. This year, Stephen and Rebekah have both turned into beginning readers and Sarah and Hannah are now emerging readers. What an exciting school year! In January, we made a really huge and very difficult decision for our family. We decided to put Sarah, Samuel, and Miriam into the public school for this semester. It was for a variety of reasons. Anyway, we are trying to decide what we want to do for the upcoming school year. I think we're going to leave Miriam in the half day special needs preschool and Samuel in the full day kindergarten. He's not in a special needs classroom, but is definitely a special needs student. They just work with him there and also pull him out for extra help. It is not going nearly as well for Sarah and she's having an increasingly difficult time with her attitude. She will be staying home with us and joining back in the homeschool after this semester.

Here's Rebekah. Almost 2 years ago, we had her tested at a place in the Columbus area for vision problems. We were referred there by our regular eye doctor. They recommended vision therapy for her. She was diagnosed with severe Visual Processing Disorder. I have worked with her a lot here at home and she's come a long ways since then. However, I have now decided that it is time to seek outside help. She has an appointment with them next Wednesday where they will do a quick evaluation to update her information and then come up with a plan. I really look forward to seeing how much she has improved since her last evaluation. :-)

Yesterday evening was the last night of swim lessons for this season. Naomi Ruth is staying in Level 3. Stephen is staying in Level 2. Hannah graduated to Level 2. Sarah and Rebekah are staying in Level 1. I'm really proud of the progress that all of the children made. I brought Thomas, Miriam, and Samuel along to enjoy the fun. Above you see Samuel and Miriam having a blast in the little children's pool. They're both wearing the suits that have the built in floaties. We joke that they look like superheros in those suits.

Love, Dawn

Charlie and Spunkles

2009-04-26T22:08:00.003-04:00

Our adorable new 7 week old puppy Spunkles, a mix of Australian Shepherd and Border Collie

Susanna loving on our beautiful faithful dog Charlie, 13 year old Australian Shepherd

Love, Dawn

Nature Study at the park

2009-04-24T17:46:00.006-04:00

We had an absolutely fabulous time of nature study and just enjoying God's gorgeous creation this afternoon. We went to one of the parks right along the Scioto River and spent 3 hours there. It was about 80 degrees, sunny, and just perfect for it.

Love, Dawn

2009-04-23T21:35:00.004-04:00

Last night Dad treated us to dinner out at a Chinese buffet. It was SO yummy and the children all absolutely loved it. Most were thrilled about the Chinese food. Susanna was thrilled about the jello. :-D Unfortunately, one member of the family did NOT like the Chinese food. Benjamin was up until nearly 4am very fussy and hasn't done well today, either. He didn't even make it through his occupational therapy session without a lot of fussing. However, he still managed to show off his skills and I am very pleased to say that she thinks he probably just needs a couple more sessions and he will be on target. :-D I look forward to him graduating from it!

Dad left today for Washington, D.C. with Thomas and Stephen. The boys were SO excited when they headed out at 8:05. When I talked to Dad at 3:45 he said that they were getting pretty bored. They still had an hour and a half to go. They were stopping once an hour to get out and stretch their legs. I'm sure that helped some!

Tonight I took Naomi Ruth, Sarah, Rebekah, and Hannah to swim lessons. I am so proud of how much progress each of the girls is making! They all had firsts this evening. Naomi Ruth dove down to the bottom in the deep end to retrieve rings. Hannah jumped off the diving board. Rebekah and Sarah went down the slide. Now, I do have to mention that Sarah came up thrashing and screaming HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The lifeguard dove in and came quickly to her aid and then reminded Sarah that she was wearing a life jacket. :-D

Love, Dawn

About the house

2009-04-21T09:16:00.004-04:00

Miriam has autism. It is amazing how many different areas that it affects her life. On the one hand, it is not her, just something that she has. On the other, it is hard to separate who she is from it. This is a very accurate photo of her in that it both shows how beautiful she is and also how wild she almost always looks. :-) She has many challenges ahead of her, but I will continue helping her as best as I can.

This is our sweet dog, Charlie. Aaron gave him to me as a gift in March, 1996. That was before we had any children. He's been with us through all 10 of our children and through 7 moves. He has been an absolutely wonderful dog. He's now experiencing a lot of health problems and I am afraid that it will soon be time to tell him good-bye. He will be greatly missed.

Thomas has Asperger's. Among other things that he loves doing, one of his favorites is playing with modeling clay. This is a photo of his desk. It almost always looks fairly similar to this with slight variations. He does all sorts of imaginative play with his modeling clay. The things which look somewhat like worms are the people in his stories. You'll notice the numbers, too. Thomas has had a great interest in numbers and a love of math since he was just a toddler. In fact he could count to 100 before he could answer the question, "What is your name?"

This is Naomi Ruth making pizza for the family on Friday night. We have enjoyed our Friday night pizza tradition for years. Usually, she makes the crust totally from scratch, starting with grinding the wheat. This time, she's going with a much easier version. I love coupon shopping and got a great deal at Kroger on Pillsbury pizza crusts. Naomi Ruth has always been a very hands on kind of girl and loves the feel of the dough on her hands.

This is me holding Benjamin. While he is my 10th child, he is my 7th by birth. By this time around, I am much more aware of how very fleeting this stage of childhood is. I treasure the time that I am able to spend holding him, snuggling him, nursing him, and playing little baby games with him. I sometimes find myself wondering if he will be my last. Only God can answer that question as we always leave all matters of family planning in His very capable hands.

My Dad will arrive this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to seeing him! He'll be here until Thursday and then will drive Thomas and Stephen to Washington D.C. for a fantastic experience there. My Mom will meet him there and they will return on Sunday. While there, they'll get to have dinner with my brother and his family in northern Virginia and stay that night with them. We've been doing a big American history unit study for the last month in preparation for this wonderful opportunity that my parents are blessing them with. Right now, the children are having a fun end to their study by watching, "This Is America Charlie Brown."

Love, Dawn

Art in Bloom

2009-04-19T16:52:00.003-04:00

We went to the Columbus Museum of Art this afternoon for a wonderful time. They were having a family day called "Art in Bloom." We got to experience art hands on, especially related to flowers. The children had so much fun and all came home with beautifully decorated flower pots, each one a unique piece of art by them. They have little wildflower seeds in them and should be beautiful when they bloom and a nice reminder of our time there today. On the way home, the little ones napped while the big ones excitedly talked about all that they'd seen and done at the museum. :-)

Love, Dawn

Basketball

2009-04-18T19:32:00.002-04:00

Thomas and Stephen had a wonderful time this month playing basketball through the Honda Youth Basketball League. It was the first time for both of them. Stephen is naturally athletic and loves every sport he tries and quickly increases his skill in it. Thomas has Asperger's and is not naturally athletic. He started this season scared of the ball, but showed great courage. He faced his fear head on and overcame it! This was their last game and their first win. Stephen had 3 baskets and Thomas had a couple of steals and rebounds. I'm proud of both of them!

Love, Dawn

Pirates and Swim Lessons

2009-04-15T08:37:00.004-04:00

Susanna sometimes has fun making us all laugh by pulling her covering down low across her forehead and saying "ARRRRRRRRRRGH!" like a pirate. :-D She got that from the Veggie Tale movie, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything," one of the few that we've gone as a family to the theater to see. This is a photo of her doing it last night.

Swimming lessons went well yesterday evening. Below you'll see Naomi Ruth, Hannah, Sarah, Rebekah, and Stephen. They're the ones signed up for this round of lessons. Naomi Ruth is Level 3, Stephen is Level 2, and the other 3 are Level 1. They are every Tuesday and Thursday evening this month. Our next round of swimming lessons will probably be sometime this summer.

Love, Dawn

Some funnies and more photos

2009-04-14T15:09:00.006-04:00

Yesterday as I was working on making 15 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, I got to witness the funniest incident. Samuel was freaking out about a bug on the floor. He was squealing about how it might bite him and really losing it. Susanna gave him this LOOK, walked over and got a napkin, came back and squished the bug, and threw it into the trashcan with a little "Hmmmph." Hahaha! Wonder where she got that from! ;-)

We had another funny moment at dinner. Aaron was reading from a wonderful book of church history. He finished up the section of Jonathon Edwards and was asking questions. When he asked where he lived, Samuel got all excited and threw up his hand saying "ooh, ooh, ooh!" "Yes, Samuel?" And Samuel replied, "He lived in the egg house!" The whole table erupted in laughter. :-D I have no idea where he got that answer from.

This morning we homeschooled. During Bible time, I was teaching Rebekah and Hannah the story of David and Goliath. After reading it and talking about it, I had them go get 5 beanie baby stuffed animals. Then they stood a little ways back from our door, which we pretended was Goiath, and tried to throw them at "his head." They had a blast doing it and pretty soon Naomi Ruth and Thomas had joined in and were attacking Goliath, too. :-)

This afternoon Benjamin had his 6 month appointment and he's doing just fantastic. We also got a referral for Hannah to see an ENT next month about her tonsils.

The whole house smells SO yummy right now. I've got a roast plus black beans, onions, peppers, and Texas seasonings in the crockpot. They've been cooking all day. Later this afternoon, I'll pull out the beef and shred it all up and put it back in. Then at dinner, we'll put that plus all sorts of toppings in tortillas. Yummy!

Photos:

1 & 2: Benjamin

3 & 4: Rebekah, Sarah, and Naomi Ruth

5: Stephen and Thomas - When Stephen first got here from Liberia, he was SO much smaller than Thomas. He's grown so much and is closer to being the same size. They're only 3 weeks apart in age.

6: Aaron with Benjamin and Stephen

7: Aaron with Benjamin - I love when Benjamin does those HUGE whole face grins. :-D

Love, Dawn

2009-04-12T13:06:00.004-04:00

Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday! These pictures were all taken today.

1. Hannah just lost her first tooth!

2. Susanna is feeling SO much better now. She had to go to the ER yesterday and received an IV of fluids and morphine. She was dehydrated and in severe pain. Now, she is on Tylenol with Codeine and is functioning much better.

3. Samuel showing off his Student of the Month medal from school He loves wearing it daily. He's so proud to have received it. It was awarded for trying so hard.

4. Aaron and me

5. Thomas, Sarah, and Samuel

6. Miriam and Stephen

7. Rebekah, Naomi Ruth, Susanna, and Hannah

Easter Weekend

2009-04-11T21:29:00.005-04:00

For the longest time, I've been wanting to do some long catch-up kind of post here and then resume normal blogging. That's just not going to happen. So, I'm going to just start up today and move forward. I hope you're all having a blessed Easter weekend! Today I'm sharing these photos. Below I'll tell you about each one.

1. Thomas (11), Naomi Ruth (10), Rebekah (8), and Hannah (6) enjoying Uno - I love how they've finally gotten old enough that they can play games together without needing Aaron or me to play, too.

2. Rebekah (8)

3. Stephen (10)

4. Hannah (6) holding Benjamin (6mo) This picture was taken yesterday shortly before she got diagnosed with both strep throat and severe tonsilitis. She's now on antibiotics and steroids and is slowly improving.

5. Rebekah (8) reading Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss This is SO exciting as she has dyslexia and has been struggling for years to learn to read. She's finally figured it out and is so delighted to be able to sound out words and actually read books. I am SO proud of her!

6. Susanna (3) and Hannah (6) Susanna is recovering from surgery that she had on Monday. She has her tonsils and adnoids removed, plus an endoscopy with biopsies. She'd been recovering well, but took a turn for the worse today and is at the Emergency Room with Aaron getting checked out right now.

7. Sarah (10) holding Benjamin (6mo)

8. Naomi Ruth (10)

9. Benjamin (6mo) with his Occupational Therapist He was born with Visual Maturation Delay. He initially could not see at all, but God has mercifully given him vision. He is just developing it at a slow rate. As a result, he got behind on his gross motor and fine motor skills. He's now having both Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy weekly to catch up.

10. Thomas (11) with Benjamin (6mo) I think they look a lot alike!

11. Samuel (6) and Susanna (3) Our adopted children have been here for 13 months now and Samuel has stayed within 2lb of Susanna's weight the entire time. Too funny!

12. Benjamin (6mo) He's getting SO big! He's over 17lb now. Naomi Ruth was only about a pound more when she turned a year! He's such a little snuggler. I call him Buddy Bear. :-)

13. Susanna (3) and Miriam (5) Miriam just celebrated her birthday this month. I can hardly believe she's 5! She LOVES Dora the Explorer, so that was definitely the theme this year. :-)

14. Susanna (3) looking a little grubby, but very happy

15. Miriam (5) and Samuel (6) Those two are quite the handful. Either they're best friends and therefore getting into all kinds of trouble together OR they're at each other non stop. I haven't quite figured out which one I prefer. ;-)

Love, Dawn

Back home

2009-01-03T01:03:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to send in a quick update that we made it back home and are trying to get back into our normal swing here. I'll try to post a bigger update soon. In the meantime, if you're interested in following our family's journey in eating totally raw for one month, check out my other blog at www.rawmommyto10.blogspot.com.

Love, Dawn

On our way to Texas!

2008-12-22T21:56:00.001-05:00

Relax!

2008-12-17T16:22:00.003-05:00

This afternoon I was getting super stressed as I thought about all that I still had to do before flying out Friday morning. Then, I made a really good choice. I set aside my entire to-do list and baked chocolate chip cookies with the children. I think we're all happier now! :-D The house smells fantastic, too! :-)

This morning I took Rebekah and Thomas to the Pediatric Podiatrist for the removal of their plantar warts. I'm glad we got that taken care of before the trip. They were hurting them when they walked. It really went much smoother than I had imagined. I was happy when the doctor told me that they were really worried when I came in with 10 children but how they were all very pleasantly surprised at how good the children were being in the waiting room without me! I had Benjamin with me, so it was Stephen, Sarah, Naomi Ruth, Rebekah, Hannah, Samuel, Miriam, and Susanna out there.

Today I finally gave up on the whole idea of getting up Christmas decorations. This is my first year to miss that. I'm mostly relieved, but a little bit sad. Good thing that we're going to a place that has up Christmas decorations. :-) This has definitely NOT been a normal year and I'm overwhelmed even trying to just do the most basic of the basics. I feel much better after giving myself permission to just let it go this year.

Love, Dawn

Update on Benjamin's appointment

2008-12-16T17:05:00.002-05:00

There are 3 parts to vision. I'm sure this is really simplified, by the way. Anyway, there are the eyes which take the picture, the electric signals that sends the picture to the brain, and the brain which receives the picture. What we found out today is that Benjamin's eyes are anatomically/structurally great. That's certainly a huge relief! For right now they are saying he has Visual Maturation Delay. Just like some children walk later than others or talk later than others, some children see later. He can see a tiny bit at this point. He was able to track the light. I'm very happy about that. He's scheduled to go in for another appointment on March 16th. The hope is that his vision will be great by that point and they will basically check him over and say all is fine and we'll be done with that. If that is not the case, they will need to do further testing to check if there is a problem with the electrical impulses or with the brain reception of the information. Please keep us in your prayers that this is just a delay and he will be seeing great soon. Thanks!

Love, Dawn

Opthamology

2008-12-16T08:21:00.002-05:00

Thanks for that tip, Judy!

Today is the big day with Benjamin's Opthamology appointment. I'm really nervous. Please pray that it goes well. Also, the area where the appointment is at is under a severe winter storm warning. Please also pray that I don't have any trouble on the roads. I will update with the results of the appointment when I am back home.

I got a lot done yesterday. In the morning, we picked up our co-op order. We are steadily storing food away in preparation for these very uncertain economic times. Right now we've got enough food for about 4 months for all of us, although that would be quite heavy on the bean consumption. I'd like for us to have a 6 month stock. In the afternoon, I took all the children to our mechanic to look over the van in preparation for the trip. Nothing like being with 10 young children in a tiny waiting room with 2 chairs and not much else for over an hour. WHEW!!! The mechanic told me I'm one brave mom. I told him that driving to Texas and back without having the van looked over beforehand sounded worse than that waiting room experience. Turns out that it just needs one small repair. Thank God! We'll get that done on Thursday. Yesterday evening I headed down to the library and did an exchange of books and videos. This week the children will be able to watch 2 different performances of The Nutcracker ballet. We watch it every year at Christmas time and the tradition is well loved by the children. It will be the first time for our Liberian children to see any ballet. Unless someone is napping, we usually give our children free reign with our stereo. I'm sure this year will be like past years where for weeks after watching the ballet, we'll have our Nutcracker CD cranked loud and children dancing to the music. :-)

Love, Dawn

Chuck E Cheese Photos

2008-12-14T00:00:00.002-05:00

These photos were all taken at Chuck E Cheese while there celebrating Susanna's 3rd birthday.

Getting ready

2008-12-13T15:42:00.003-05:00

Last night our church had a fund raiser for the youth group by offering babysitting there from 5-10pm. Aaron and I dropped off all of the children except Benjamin around 6:30, enjoyed a dinner date at Applebee's and then headed to WalMart for shopping. That worked well and they had a WONDERFUL time playing there. In fact, when we got back at 9:40 they were upset that they didn't get to stay until 10pm. :-D

Tomorrow is the big day, the Christmas play! They had a 2 hour dress rehearsal today. I took the opportunity to do some more shopping at WalMart after dropping off the oldest 7 for it. Miriam is in the play, but they said that the sheep didn't need to come to today's practice. Christmas presents for the children this year are aimed around the idea of providing entertainment in the van. Driving 1000 miles over 2 days in a van with 10 young children is going to be quite the adventure. Then we'll turn around less than a week later and do it again. Woooooooo-hooooooo! We've also decided that we're going to need to purchase one of those things that straps onto the top of the van that can hold luggage. It's going to take 3 large suitcases to hold clothes for the 12 of us. That can all go on top. Inside the van we'll need entertainment, food, diaper supplies, etc.

Our goal is to be totally ready for the trip by Thursday evening. Friday morning I'm flying down to Florida with Benjamin. My Grandma is 88 and is dying of cancer. I'm going down to tell her good-bye. That will be hard, but I am so glad I am able to go. A friend blessed me with the plane ticket. Thomas, Sarah, Naomi Ruth, Rebekah, and Hannah have all seen her this year while visiting my parents in Florida. She'll get to meet Benjamin this trip and I look forward to getting pictures of the two of them together. Our last trip down there as a family was when Susanna was a baby. She won't get to meet Stephen or Samuel, unfortunately. Anyway, I'll fly down Friday morning and will return Sunday afternoon. Then Monday morning we're on the road to Texas!

Samuel was shocked to discover yesterday at lunch that we all have the last name Hall. He thought that was his name because he came from Liberia. :-D We went around and all said our full names for him and by the time we got to him, he was so flustered that he couldn't remember his own name. :-D Speaking of lunch, feeding our family is quite the endeavor. I have found that generally to make sure there's enough food, it works best to make the recipe to where it says it serves 16. Between 5 normal hungry children, 3 children making up for lost time after starvation, and Thomas (11) already moving into the bottomless pit stage, they eat enormous amounts of food. Just recently I was thinking about how when Aaron and I first got married, I used to like to make recipes that served 8 and then would carefully divide them into 4 portions and freeze 3 of them so we'd have meals ready to go in our freezer. I would have had a hard time imagining at that time that 14 years later, that same amount which seemed like so much food at the time, would be half of one meal. :-D Good thing I like bulk cooking! Now I couldn't serve even one meal if I didn't. ;-)

Love, Dawn

2008-12-11T15:48:00.002-05:00

I'm glad that so many of you enjoyed the photos! :-)

This week the children have been learning about one of the sadder aspects of country living. Something has been successfully attacking our chickens and we've gone from 13 to 10 in the last few days. The one found dead this morning was named Golden Nugget and was like Thomas' baby. We'd had her since she was a gangly bigger chick and he dearly loved her. Yes, I know we're talking about a chicken, but children can bond to about any kind of animal. Anyway, he loved carrying her around in his arms, sitting at the picnic table holding her and petting her, and even bringing her into our enclosed porch to sit on the wicker couch and love on her. She adored him, too. He went out this morning to feed them and gather eggs and found her body ripped in two right inside the chicken coop. :-( He came in all shaken up and has been sad since then.

We're in the midst of a bunch of doctor appointments right now. Last week we had Naomi Ruth, Susanna, and Benjamin's well child check-ups. Miriam had hers this past Tuesday. She's now 41lb (69%) and 44 inches (90%). Everything looked good with her. One question our doctor asked me took me a little off guard, though. She asked, "How is everything going with her autism?" I told her at first that I wasn't sure how to answer that and then thought a bit more and finally said, "About how you'd expect with autism." That seemed to satisfy her. I'm not sure what she was looking for. Today I brought Thomas (87lb) and Rebekah (50lb) in for their appointments. Just out of curiosity, I had Hannah weighed, too. She and Rebekah have been the same weight or super close since they were tiny. Hannah also weighed 50lb. :-D Anyway, this was for plantar warts. I'd tried all kinds of natural remedies and over the counter stuff, too. Well, she checked them out and said that they were out of her league. We're now seeing a podiatrist next Wednesday to remove them. Lovely! At least the feet should be healed and in good shape for Christmas vacation. We are heading out on the road for Texas on Dec. 22nd.

Last night the children had another practice for their Christmas play. The big performance is this coming Sunday. Hannah has now become one of the African dancers and she's just thrilled about it. :-D This evening, I'll be dropping Sarah and Hannah off at the church to practice the African dance routine and then heading with Benjamin to a Christmas party with my Bible study group. Aaron will pick them up when it is over.

Here at home, they've been busy creating and practicing their own Christmas play. Sarah is Mary, Samuel is Joseph, and Benjamin is Baby Jesus. Thomas and Stephen are the wise men and Susanna is the wise woman. :-D Hannah is a shepherd, Miriam is an angel, Naomi Ruth is the inn keeper and Rebekah is the inn keeper's daughter. We have enough children for our own production. :-D Once they are ready for the big production, I'll take photos of them and share here.

I view life skills as a very important part of our homeschooling. This week I've been teaching Thomas (11) and Naomi Ruth (10) how to make bread from scratch. They both think its really neat and we're all enjoying the fruit of their labor! Naomi Ruth has even learned now how to grind up the wheat using our electric mill. Talk about yummy and healthy!!!

Love, Dawn

Pictures

2008-12-09T22:07:00.005-05:00

I wanted to share some family pictures today. I have posted a bunch here, but am having trouble figuring out how to make my type where I want it to be. I'll just tell you who's who from the top row, left to right, on down. Enjoy!
1. Aaron with Susanna and Miram
2. Me with Benjamin in his sling
3. Samuel at COSI, the Children's Museum we love
4. Miriam at COSI
5. Susanna at COSI

6. Susanna with her big gorgeous grin
7. Me with Benjamin in the sling in his favorite position - facing Mommy
8. Rebekah, Susanna, Naomi Ruth, Hannah, and Miriam at COSI
9. Our home
10. Benjamin
11. Susanna with her new pillow she got for her birthday
12. Sarah, Rebekah, and Thomas on the carriage ride, celebrating Naomi Ruth's birthday
13. Samuel, Stephen, Sarah, Naomi Ruth, and Susanna at our Thanksgiving dinner
14. Samuel, Thomas, and Stephen - the two oldest are playing with the balloon swords from The Spaghetti Warehouse
15. Naomi Ruth and Sarah opening birthday presents together
16. Naomi Ruth and her birthday cake (no I didn't make that, bought it at Walmart)

Recovered & Christmas Play Rehearsal

2008-12-08T07:40:00.003-05:00

I am very thankful to the Lord that we are all doing much better now and that Benjamin and Samuel both never caught the tummy bug. Benjamin does still have the cold, but it has not dropped into his chest. Please continue to pray that it does not.

Church was really good yesterday morning. I enjoyed hearing the old story of the angel coming to John the Baptist's father, telling him that he would have a son. I always find it interesting to compare that story to when the angel told Mary she would have not just a son, but the Son of God. Zacharias was a priest of God and was being told that something that he and his wife had prayed for years was going to happen. Yet, he doubted the words of the angel. Mary was a simple girl and was told that while still an unmarried virgin, she would give birth to the Son of God. She believed. I think that's a beautiful example of how we are to have the faith of a child. If God says it is so, we need to believe Him. That includes times in our lives when it appears that things are out of control, because God says He is always in control. It also includes times in our lives when we say we can't do it, because God says we can do all things through Him.

In the afternoon, I got to our library and dropped off a big bin full of Thanksgiving resources and picked up a smaller pile of Christmas ones. Many are still on reserve, so I hope to get those next week. I'm hoping we can all watch "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" this evening. That is SUCH a cute Christmas story. Try to watch it if you haven't ever done so or read the book if you have the time. :-) The children had another practice of the Christmas play last night. It was their first time doing it up at the front of the church where it will be performed. I enjoyed watching it. I had Benjamin and Miriam with me. It was Miriam's first time at a practice. The Pre-K children are all sheep and they hadn't needed to come to the practices before. She was excited as she got fitted for her sheep headband that came complete with sheep ears and lots of cotton balls to look like wool. :-D However, she told me repeatedly that she would NOT say "baaaaaaaa." Alright, alright, Miriam. Then, Ms. Vicki called all of the parents of PreK children to line up with them at the back of the church. We were about to learn what her role entailed. The next instruction was to all walk down the aisle saying "Baaaa" over and over. I laughed and decided to not push it. I didn't want to set Miriam off. We walked down the aisle with all of the rest of the children saying it and Miriam saying she wouldn't say it. :-D When we got up to the front, we parents all kneeled behind our Pre-K children. I guess Benjamin was the tiniest sheep, because he was in the sling right between me and Miriam. lol The children learned their sheep dance, which did include more of "baaaaa," but Miriam thought that was fine because now she was learning some action steps, too. I think she'll do fine this Sunday when it is performed. The sheep just needed that one rehearsal. The other children have Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday rehearsals before the play. Samuel was funny, too. During the African dance, he has the role of beating the drum. This was the first time that he brought our drum with him so that he could really do that part. It is one of two that Aaron brought home from Liberia when we adopted our children. It was handmade there. This is the smaller of the two to make it easier for Samuel. Well, having Samuel sit for that long with a drum between his knees was just too much for him. First, he kept beating the drum at all different points during the practice. Then, he got so antsy that he started playing with the drum in other ways. He missed one whole song of standing up and singing, because he'd knocked the drum on its side and was using his feet to kick it back and forth. Then, he started hopping back and forth between his seat and sitting on his drum. Finally, he moved to sitting totally on the drum and bouncing up and down. At this point, I was nursing Benjamin and had to send a friend up to the stage to tell him he couldn't do that or the drum would break. He didn't hop onto the drum again, but did start picking it up by the ropes around its top and whacking it up and down. It was just WAY too much of a temptation for the little guy! I'm just glad it survived the rehearsal! Ms. Vicki and I agreed after the practice that he would have the drum in front of him just for that one song and it would be tucked away the rest of the time. ;-)

Well, Benjamin has finished his morning nursing time and I need to wake up the other children. I am continuing to tweak the chorebusters thing. I'm hoping that the changes that I've made so far will make this week go smoothly. One big thing I did was color code which jobs are for morning, for afternoon, and for evening. That should make it visually easier for me to keep track of how everyone's doing. I also printed it off with little check boxes next to each chore so I can mark them off as completed. It's tricky to keep track of how 9 little people are doing at getting their jobs done if you don't have a system in place, let alone how I'm doing at my own to do list!

Love, Dawn

My turn to be sick

2008-12-06T10:06:00.002-05:00

Well, my body held out as long as it could, but I guess one can only hold so many children as they throw up, change so many diareah diapers, mop up so much vomit off the floor with paper towels, and wash so much contaminated laundry before catching the virus. I have been SO sick. I'm doing a little better today, but still incredibly dehydrated. My milk supply has gone way down as a result and Benjamin spent a huge amount of last night crying. That made me so sad. I ate a piece of toast and an egg for breakfast, my first food since Thursday. I'm going to see if it can stay put in my stomach. I usually wait until I feel hunger before eating again, but feel like I need to try to get nutrients in so my body can make milk for him. Until my milk started running low last night, I think that Benjamin thought we were having a dream day. I might have been sick as a dog, but his perspective was that I was spending the entire day laying in bed with him snuggling him and nursing him. He was the absolute happiest little guy! That brought me some joy in the midst of everything. He has now caught the cold that has also been going around our house and last night started coughing. Please pray that it doesn't go into his chest. He's just 9.5 weeks old! Aaron stayed home again yesterday. He was still sick himself, but in a lot better shape than me. He did the best he could managing everything and then came up for a 4 hour nap in the afternoon. Last night he was finally hungry and ate a full meal. I think that's a good sign! I'm drinking Recharge and trying to get myself hydrated again. I did decide that this is the perfect opportunity to get off of two addictive substances, since I just did a 40 hour fast. I'm getting off of caffeine and sugar. Might as well get some good out of being so sick!

Kel, you left a comment about the children eating bones. They crack them open and suck the marrow out of the bones first. Then they start chewing the rest of the bone and they look like they have a piece of taffy in their mouth or something. They chew and they chew and they chew and they chew. Finally, when they've gotten every bit out of it, they spit out something about the size of a dime. That's all that's left of the bone and I guess it's the part you aren't supposed to eat. To make myself feel a little better about the safety of it all, though, I like for them to wait until I've used the bones to make stock. After the bones have cooked in the liquid for 24 or more hours (I usually cook it 24-36 hours) they are incredibly soft and are safe for anyone to eat. At that point, they just take bites, chew them up, and swallow them.

Thomas and Stephen are going to a Tween Christmas Party up at our church today. I think they'll have a lot of fun at that. I'm really happy with our church and am so glad that we found it!

Thursday night I took Sarah to the church for a special practice for the Christmas play for the African dancers. She had a great time at that. The Christmas play, by the way, is on missionary children around the world this time. That's how African dancers fit into a Christmas play. ;-) Anyway, Benjamin was sound asleep in his car seat, so I decided to just drop her off and then I drove to Starbucks and got one of their yummy hot caramel apple ciders. I remembered those from last year and was thrilled to see they have them again this year. I drove back to the church parking lot and enjoyed getting to drink that while waiting on Sarah's practice to finish. I even had the chance to call one of my very best friends on the phone. That was such a blessing! It's incredibly hard for me to find any time at all to talk on the phone at home.

Love, Dawn

2008-12-04T17:09:00.001-05:00

I'm testing out how to post photos, something I hope to do a lot more soon. It looks like this worked. These are 5 of my sweet children. In the back row, you see Sarah (10), Hannah (6), and Stephen (11). In the front row are Samuel (6) and Miriam (4).

Love, Dawn

Round 3

2008-12-04T11:49:00.003-05:00

Alrighty, we're in Round 3 of this nasty stomach virus now. Rebekah was the one who got it first. At that point, we just thought that she'd eaten something that disagreed with her or something like that. We didn't realize it was a virus. Well then Round 2 was when Thomas, Stephen, Naomi Ruth, Hannah, and Susanna got it. Yesterday we got hit with Round 3. Miriam and Aaron got sick during the day and Susanna got hit a second time, this time starting in the middle of the night. I am so ready for us to be done with this. Please pray that nobody else catches it!

Aaron is upstairs sleeping now. I've got all of the children gathered in the family room watching Anne of Green Gables. We love this movie, but haven't watched it in a long time, probably because it's so long. Seems just right for a day like this.

Tonight there is another practice for the Christmas play. I'm hoping that I can take the healthy children up for it. If ANYONE gets new symptoms today, though, I'm not going to take anyone. Last thing I want to do is spread this to others in the church.

Miriam has speech therapy this afternoon, but I will need to cancel that. I know she's still contagious and she's feeling pretty lousy, too. She hardly touched breakfast. Usually I make the children finish their food, but I am not pushing anything at this point. If someone says their tummy doesn't feel good or they don't want anymore I tell them that's fine and snatch away their plates or bowls before they change their minds. lol

The appointment here with the man from the school district went well yesterday, although it was very long. Susanna's transition meeting should take place next week. Samuel still needs his spech evaluation and then his meeting to qualify for services should be somewhere after Susanna's and before Christmas.

Love, Dawn

Wednesday

2008-12-03T08:40:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I get really frustrated by Samuel's lack of common sense/logic within his thinking skills. Yet, Aaron and I have talked about how that is kind of like getting frustrated with a bunny because it won't bark. If he can't do something, what's the point in being frustrated about it? Anyway, here are two examples from yesterday. First, his bedroom especially reeked. As he soaks through 3 pull-ups, his pjs, and his bedding most nights, it always smells really strong in the morning, but this time it was even worse. Turns out he'd shoved the previous night's bedding under the bed instead of taking it to the laundry room. What was his answer when asked why? So it could dry under there. I explained that it would be dry and STINKY, but if he took it to the laundry room like he was supposed to, I could make it dry and CLEAN. Later in the afternoon, he saw that in the living room someone had used the foam blocks we have to create a really big intricate castle across a big section of the floor. He kicked it hard twice, destroying most of it. Stephen flew at him enraged and I had to take care of both issues. I got Samuel to apologize and for Stephen to sit down on the couch to cool down and then took Samuel to a separate room to ask him why he had done that. He had wanted to know whose it was. Ah! Next time just ask, Samuel! Life is certainly never dull around here. I picked up 2 books from the library on helping a child who is mentally retarded/brain injured. I'm hoping to find some things in there to help Samuel. Someone from the school district will be over later this afternoon to hopefully get his evaluation finished. I'm so glad that I've got the 2 teenage girls that help out once a week coming over this morning. When the man from the school district comes, I am supposed to have a quiet peaceful atmosphere in my home. That would NOT be an accurate description of what it would be like if I was involved in the evaluation and the other children were left to entertain themselves!

The trip to Sam's Club went well. I took Naomi Ruth and Benjamin with me. She has always been such a fabulous helper with the little ones since she was tiny. I can remember her at 3 years old sitting in the rocking chair with baby Hannah in her arms, gently rocking her and singing to her. :-) In the store, I carried Benjamin against my body in my Maya Wrap slings. It is one of 4 slings that I have and love. Benjamin is such a happy little guy when he is all cozy and warm right against my chest. The shopping time took a LOT longer than I had anticipated. Naomi Ruth wanted to stop and see SO many things. In addition to their regular stuff, they had a lot of Christmas shopping things available. By the time we got back out to our van, I had to explain to her that dawdling to that extent when I keep telling her to hurry up and come on is disobedience. She shared how she loves the special one-on-one time with me and liked looking at the things in the store. I told her I like those things, too, but if she wants to come with me more often instead of less often, she needs to be able to move faster. She agreed to be much quicker in the future. We did have to make one other stop, this time at Meijer's. Can you believe that Sam's Club was completely out of bagged cat food? That was a first in my shopping there over the years. I'd also wanted to buy plastic wrap and they only had containers with 3000 feet of it. I don't use THAT much plastic wrap! So, true to her word, we were able to get in an out of Meijer's quickly. Oh we also got Samuel new socks while we were there. He's had a foot growth spurt and suddenly has toes popping out of all of his socks. That's not good any time of the year, but especially when it's COLD! His feet will be much more comfy now. :-)

A friend and I are trying out a new site for chores. It's called chorebuster.net. I am pretty excited about it. I only got a few of the chores entered into it last night and will continue on that today. I'll let you know what I think of it after I give it a whirl. If any of you have ever tried it, please leave a comment giving your opinion of it. And by the way, anybody else is free to leave comments, too. It's fun to get comments. :-D

Well, I'd better hop into the day. Bye until tomorrow! Ooh an exciting update here! I just found out that Samuel stayed totally dry last night! That's the very first time since he got here! Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Samuel! :-D

Love, Dawn

Well child checkups

2008-12-02T13:27:00.003-05:00

We went to our family doctor this morning. Naomi Ruth, Susanna, and Benjamin had well child check-ups. Naomi Ruth is growing, but staying petite at 57.4 inches (10th %) and 52.5 lb (25th %). Susanna has had huge growth this last year and is now exactly 37 inches and 37lb. I thought that was pretty funny. :-D That puts her at 90th % for weight and 40th% for height. Last year she was 15% for height and 50% for weight. Benjamin is thriving on my breast milk. He's now 11lb 14.2oz (50%) and 23.75 inches(75%). Aaron and I have been concerned about his vision and our doctor agreed with us. We are going to get him seen by a Pediatric Opthamologist. Please pray that he's just delayed but will catch up fine. Thank you to those few of you who have known and have been praying for him. Other than that, they are all doing great. While there, I checked to see when everyone else was last seen. I've given up on having appointments with birthdays and just try to get each child in for a well-child checkup annually. Miriam is now the only one who hasn't been seen in 2008, so I got her scheduled for next week. Then in February, I coordinated other appointments around Benjamin's 4mo checkup. Thomas, Rebekah, and Hannah will all be seen at that same time. Our adopted children have been with us since March 11th of this year. Once they've been here a full year, we're going to switch them over to our family doctor. For now, they are seeing a pediatrician who is actually from Africa herself and therefore familiar with the medical issues associated with that area of the world.

I am looking forward to going to Sam's Club this evening. I was going to go last night, but it was snowing and the temperature dropped below freezing, so we were concerned about the roads being slippery. I like to go to Sam's Club at the beginning of each month. On today's list I have things like toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, kleenex, cat food, frozen fruit, and more. It's a great place for our family!

Yesterday the children were a funny mixture of the ones laying sprawled on the furniture because while their tummies were now fine, they had very low energy AND the ones bouncing off the walls because they hadn't gotten sick and needed to get their energy out! Today everyone is back to their usual high energy. In other words, they're all bouncing off the walls. :-D I'll see if I can get them bundled and out to the trampoline for a while to help with that before naptime rolls around.

I've been thinking about our cleaning jobs around here. I think it's time to revamp all of the chore lists. I'll post the new ones as soon as I've got them together. A lot of people ask me how I do it all. I don't!!! Our children all get chores from as soon as they can do them.

Love, Dawn

Monday

2008-12-01T09:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was really rough. I'm hoping today goes WAY better. I've got a lot of stinky laundry to get through today. Good thing Monday is my main laundry day anyway! I've taught most of the children to do their own laundry, so our system for who gets the machines is:

Monday - me

Tuesday - Thomas (he washes his and Benjamin's)

Wednesday - Stephen (he washes his and Samuel's)

Thursday - Naomi Ruth and Sarah (they wash theirs and Miriam's)

Friday - me, with Rebekah and Hannah as my helpers, I'm trying to teach them how to do it

Saturday - me

The children sort, wash, dry, fold, hang, and put away all of their laundry on their days. They also strip their beds, wash their sheets, and put on clean sheets. It's a great system. :-) The only person struggling to keep up with their part right now is me. That's just one of those aspects to having a newborn. If we suddenly add in hours of me sitting down and nursing during the day, there are things that are going to have to slide for a while.

The snow is coming down and looks just beautiful right now. It's not sticking at all, just swirling through the air. All of our children love snow, but the Liberians find it just absolutely amazing! Liberia has a tropical climate.

My plan with homeschooling had been to finish up our Thanksgiving unit study by Thanksgiving and start our Christmas unit study today. We didn't get as much done as I'd wanted to with our Thanksgiving one, though, so I've decided to extend it through this week. Thomas and Naomi Ruth are really doing a LOT of independent reading as part of this unit study. Aaron and I had talked about starting to give them an allowance and then we came up with a better idea. We give them $1 for every 100 pages they do of independent reading related to our current homeschool unit study. I went to the library and checked out a big bin of books related to Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims, and the Early Settlers. They've learned SO much through those books and are really loving them! We will definitely keep that up! We'll start our Christmas study next Monday. Our Christmas study is an ongoing one that we do each year. Each child has a Christmas notebook that they are steadily adding to. It's a lot of fun.

For Susanna's birthday, we decided to go ahead and have her open her presents, but we are waiting on the cake and ice cream part. We were able to gather everyone down to the family room last night. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to her and then she sat in her little stuffed rocking chair and opened her presents one by one. I'd taken the children to the thrift store a little over a week ago so that they could buy presents for her and they were so excited as she opened all of the presents, but especially the ones from them. :-) I like that they are learning the joy of giving!

Love, Dawn

Susanna's Birthday

2008-11-30T12:49:00.002-05:00

Today is Susanna's 3rd birthday. It's not cracking up to be quite the day we were hoping for. The alarm went off at 7am and Aaron said his throat was killing him and he felt overall yucky and needed to stay home this morning. I got up, showered, nursed Benjamin, and then went to wake up all of the children. I went through the craziness of trying to get 10 little people ready for church. As we were eating our breakfast of raw oat porridge (yummy), Hannah suddenly announced that her tummy didn't feel good. I told her to go up and lay down with Daddy. I kept getting the rest ready and we all headed off to church. Thomas, Stephen, Sarah, Naomi Ruth, Rebekah, Samuel, and Miriam all went to their Sunday School classes while Susanna and Benjamin and I went to the nursery. I nursed him during that time, hoping that he would be able to sleep through church in the sling that way. Sunday School ended and I headed out to round up everyone and get them into church. Thomas let me know that he was feeling sick to his stomach. I made a quick decision and had him lay down across some chairs in one of the Sunday School rooms that was not in use, got a trashcan positioned next to him, and told him I'd check on him in about 15 minutes. My hope, obviously, was that he would be feeling better by then. I got everyone else settled and we were happily enjoying the first Sunday of Advent. Then Stephen mentioned casually to me that he felt a little sick and while I was trying to ask if he meant his throat or tummy he suddenly convulsed and put his hand over his mouth. I slammed my hand over his hand and got both of us out into the main aisle and to the closest trashcan as fast as I possibly could. It's kind of a blur in my mind, but as soon as we hit the aisle I spotted the trashcan in the sound room in the back and made that our target. I apologized to the people working back there as he threw up again and again and again into it and took the trashbag with us when he finally finished. I got him to that room with Thomas, having them lay down with their heads towards each other and the trashcan carefully positioned for both of them and took the trashbag to the bathroom to dispose of. Then I went back and rounded up all of the rest of the children, got Thomas and Stephen, and got everyone to the van. I was thankful for some help from a sweet friend! We drove home with Stephen vomiting into his trashcan as we went and Naomi Ruth telling me she was starting to feel sick to her stomach. The day was shaping up just lovely. I decided to postpone Susanna's party to a different day. No need to have all of the children vomiting up cake and ice cream. ;-) We now have sick people upstairs and hopefully healthy people downstairs. We'll see how the rest of the day goes!

Yesterday was a MUCH better day, I'm happy to say. Aaron and I were able to go on a real date! That was a very special treat. Usually our dates are when we put the children down to bed and then spend time downstairs together either watching a movie or playing games and talking. We went to the Macaroni Grill. That was yummy! Their lunch prices are fantastic, too! Then we headed over to a bookstore, one of our very favorite hang-outs. That was SO nice! Benjamin was a sweetheart the whole time, too. While at the bookstore, I got a new spiral calendar for my purse for next year. It's a Mary Engelbreit one with cute pictures on the left hand side and a week per page on the right hand side. I already have a few things to put in there. I was starting to scribble little notes on the last page of my 2008 one. Okay, back to yesterday, we got home, and had dinner with the children. I'd put half of the turkey carcass into the crockpot and made stock from it. I made turkey, cabbage, and rice, using 8 cups of that yummy rich stock plus 4 cups of turkey. I served that and then Stephen started asking for the turkey bones. Liberians LOVE bones. The other children started asking for them, too. They've learned that when I make stock, there are always bones. :-) I went back to the kitchen and worked in the crockpot until I came back with a bowl of bones. Not only do our Liberian children like them, but now they've hooked most of our birth children on them, too. I haven't been able to get myself to even try them. Yuck! Susanna started crying out over and over, "I want a bone! I want a bone!" and couldn't understand my explanation of how that really wouldn't be good for her throat. She finally got over it when I gave her a big cup of green smoothie to enjoy instead. She loves those! Once dinner was done, we all loaded into the van and went down to a mall in Columbus. It was time to do our special activity for Naomi Ruth's birthday. Her birthday was last Sunday, but as we'd just celebrated Sarah's birthday on Saturday by going to COSI, we decided to postpone Naomi Ruth's activity until this weekend. Anyway, one of the malls has horse carriage rides available this time of year. What a treat! This is a really ritzy mall and in a very rich area of Columbus. To say that we felt out of place is an understatement. I'm sure we made quite the sight as we walked through part of the mall between the parking garage and where they were offering the carriage rides. Aaron was in front holding Susanna's hand. Thomas, Stephen, Sarah, Naomi Ruth, Rebekah, and Hannah all walked in the middle between us and then I followed up in the rear with one hand holding Miriam's hand, one hand holding Samuel's hand, and Benjamin strapped to me in his sling. :-) Once we got there, we hardly had to wait at all. We split up into 2 carriages. The children LOVED the ride. It was really special and all of the Christmas lights the mall has up were just beautiful. After the ride, we bought some yummy fresh kettle popcorn and then headed back through the mall to our van. It was a really nice day!

Love, Dawn

New Blog

2008-11-29T08:37:00.000-05:00

I have been wanting to start a new family blog for some time now. I've been using my daughter Susanna's caringbridge site (www.caringbridge.org/visit/susannahall) as our family blog, but it wasn't intended to be that.

For those who don't know me, my name's Dawn and I've been married to my best friend Aaron for 14 years. Thus far, the Lord has blessed us with 10 children. Thomas and Stephen are both 11. Sarah and Naomi Ruth are both 10. Rebekah is 8. Hannah and Samuel are both 6. Miriam is 4. Susanna is 2. Last but not least, Benjamin will turn 2 months tomorrow. :-) Stephen, Sarah, and Samuel joined our family via adoption from Liberia in March of this year. I gave birth to the other seven.

Anyway, I wanted to have a place to share what our life is like with all of our little blessings. Our last name is Hall, hence "lots of little Halls" as the blog name. ;-) Okay, enough of the introduction. I'm going to hop right in now.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My parents were able to come up from Florida to join us for it. We are very blessed in that they are able to come up and see us so often. As you can imagine, trying to take our family on big trips is quite an ordeal. We are, however, hoping to go to Texas this Christmas. That's where Aaron's family lives. It's been 5 years since we've been able to go there. Aaron is getting new tires put on the van up at Sears right now, in preparation for the trip. Back to Thanksgiving, I made a mixture of traditional Thanskgiving cooked foods plus a variety of raw foods, too. (Check out my other blog, www.rawmommyto10.blogspot.com for more info on raw foods.) We did have a big pause in our Thanksgiving preparations while I worked on saving Naomi Ruth's bunny, Silky. She'd gotten out of her cage and was in the yard wet and nearly frozen to death. I held her on my lap and used a blow dryer set on warm while massaging her for about an hour. She went from limp and lifeless to sitting up with bright eyes. We let her stay in a box in the house for about another 24 hours and then she moved back out to her hutch, looking perky and healthy. At our Thanksgiving meal, we went around and everyone was to say something that they were thankful for from this last year. Answers varied from "that you're my Mommy and Daddy" from Samuel to giving thanks for our chickens from Thomas to Aaron and I being thankful for 4 new children this year. Stephen absolutely refused to answer, though. We thought that was both rude and strange. After the meal in the kitchen, he told us that he's so thankful that we are his family now and then burst into tears. He hadn't said it at the table for fear of bursting into tears out there.

I took Sarah and Naomi Ruth shopping yesterday for some new clothes. In our family, the girls wear dresses/skirts only and theirs were getting too short. We went to the Salvation Army thrift store and practically got them a whole new wardrobe. We had a lot of fun together. Of course Benjamin was with us, too. He and I are practically inseparable. We got plenty of skirts, jumpers, and dresses for them there and then went to Kohl's to get a few slips and tights. They are all set now! Oh, I also needed to get Sarah a couple of bras. She's only just turned 10, but is already in puberty. Apparently it is not that uncommon with girls adopted internationally. On the way to the stores, I talked with both girls about their upcoming monthly cycles. I think that talk went well. I hadn't planned on having it with my girls at 10, but I don't know how soon Sarah will start. Having discovered that Sarah is in puberty, Aaron and I were talking last night about how that explains a lot. Nothing like a hormonal girl! Who knows how much of her attitude is adoption transition and how much is hormones??? It doesn't excuse it, but it does help explain it a bit better.

Half of our children have special needs. Just recently we've been doing an evaluation of Samuel through our local school district to determine where he's at cognitively and in other areas. He came home from Liberia with lead poisoning and it appears that he has permanent brain damage from it. We found out this week that he is testing well into the mentally retarded range. That really saddened us, but I can't say that it shocked us. As I mentioned above with Sarah, that explains a lot. He's been an enormous challenge since arriving and has required an unbelievable amount of patience. Just as an example, it took 5 months of me helping him everyday before he could figure out how to pull out his clothes in the morning. He needs 1 pair of socks, 1 pair of underwear, 1 t-shirt, 1 hanging shirt, and 1 pair of pants. He finally did master it, though. Our hope and prayer is that as we fill with with good nutrition and lots of love that he will improve in all areas, including cognitive function.

I'm nursing Benjamin while I type this and Susanna is standing next to us kissing him on the head and singing her favorite lullaby to him. "Hush my baby. Don't cry my darling. The lion sleeps tonight. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight." :-) She learned that song from one of our story CD's. You can see it at http://store.musicforlittlepeople.com/42553d.html.

Well Benjamin is finishing up nursing and the children are busy working on chores. I better get breakfast out on the table.

Love, Dawn