Little girls, little girls

I am having a fantastic fall break with Ariel, Cheyenne, and Felicity. They're Micah's little sisters by adoption. Their parents are out of town, enjoying some much-needed and deserved break from the littles. So I'm getting to enjoy time with them. Friday night was our Kids' Night - we have a sad lack of pictures due to our BH camera messing up, but I can tell you it was a blast. Micah and I shared a feeling of being one step ahead of disaster the whole night, but God is in the details too and everything went off without the kids noticing any hitch! I brought the girls home and we sent their family on their way.

Saturday I took them to Frog Legs, a party place with inflatables. Here are some pics:

Lissy and Cheyenne - action shot!

Ariel - the big slides looked like soo much fun!

Then we came home and made popcorn balls:

That is one serious popcorn ball!

Girls have to model everything, obviously!

Today we went to church - well-dressed and on-time, mind you! Took a picnic lunch to the park afterward and played hard on the playground. I would like to know how many calories playing tag with three elementary schoolers burns in 45 minutes. Came home and took a nap then did a 5-minute tidy of the livingroom and went back to the park by popular demand. This time we did the exercise track - a one mile loop with 8 exercise stations. I've done it twice before, but never running between all the stations! Whew. Then of course we needed another hour of playground time! I may not be able to move in the morning. haha Didn't take any pictures today - lame, I know. Too busy playing! I'm a terrible photographer.

Got pizza and watched "Diary of A Wimpy Kid" tonight - sweet, funny, sometimes sad, but really good I thought. Worth the redbox dollar in case you were wondering! We also got "Letters to Juliet" which we're saving for tomorrow. Oh the girls were so tired and on the verge of meltdowns tonight. But everyone got a bath and got in bed by 9. So they got to enjoy staying up a little later, and hopefully they'll sleep in tomorrow! I'm not holding my breath though. Setting my alarm for 6:15 again!

Yesterday's Songwriting Class

Here is the masterpiece created by the BigHouse Songwriting Class yesterday! (Tune of "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music)

Sweet candy apples and pies made of pumpkin,
hoodies, and blue jeans, and leaf piles for jumpin'
birds singing softly on windy mornings,
these are a few of our favorite fall things.

Halloween costumes, and trick-or-treating,
hiking, and camping, and turkeys for eating,
football and hayrides, leaves falling from trees,
these are a few of our favorite fall things.

When the night falls, when the wolf howls,
When I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite fall things,
and then I don't feel so bad!

We're getting our playground finished today and getting ready for Kids' Night Out on Friday! I'm keeping Micah's 3 little sisters Friday night through Tuesday while their parents are out of town. Should be a par-tay!

BigHouse Second Saturday

Getting our playground ready, respite for foster parents, games and fun for our kids!
My boys Brian and Chris

Teen girls painting canvases indoors

Our worker men

Kids playing outdoors

A New Perspective

Since today was my "day off" I packed up and moved some of my stuff to Blake's Grandmom's - my new home in Opelika. And unlike Mema's, where I lived for 6 months in GA, Grandmom actually still lives at her house, so we are going to be roommates. As I talked about in my post last week, I've been working through some mixed emotions about the move, but some things became glaringly apparent to me today when I wrote an email to a dear friend. Here is an excerpt:

"Moving is sad. Even if it's down the street it feels like saying goodbye to something. Moving is work. Too much packing and cleaning and unpacking involved. Moving is unsettling. Suddenly I have to re-prioritize all my belongings and leave behind things I might need. It makes me feel insecure. My home is where my stuff is, and not only is my stuff getting smaller and smaller, but now it's spread out too. And at Micah and Blake's I had my furniture. Now I don't even have that...

Figuring out a new routine is stressful this time instead of feeling like an adventure. I don't want to establish a new routine and then have to adjust when Grandmom gets back from her trip...

The furniture in my new room is stressing me out. There's too much of it and I'm trying to find a place in the house where I can move the stuff I don't want in there. I only have 2 drawers for my clothes.

Wow - I just reread what I've written and thought, "This is what a foster child goes through, x100". My heart is broken for them. Regardless of where I live, I still have my family and friends. I wasn't forced out of my home - I chose to come. I was HAPPY to come. I wasn't abused or neglected. I am loved and blessed beyond what I could ever deserve. And I am not a child. I am a well-adjusted, big and brave, experienced, independent adult. What do I have to complain about? I'm so sorry. I am so selfish."

So that's what's up with me today.

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." 2 Corinthians 9:8

Community, a pep-talk for myself

I love the idea of community. I love to see the body of Christ at work in the world. I love living with people, eating with people, having deep discussions with people, serving people, loving people. I think Jesus loves it too. He reminded us to relate to one another as brothers and neighbors. To be generous, forgiving, hospitable, compassionate, kind, gentle, honest, and above all, loving. This is so earnestly contested by our enemy, the devil. When we take our eyes off Jesus we are prone to becoming selfish, vengeful, easily angered, lazy, and proud.

I took a walk this evening to talk to Jesus - I started thinking about community. I passed a lot of houses, several people, but didn't know any of them, and didn't speak to any of them. How sad. Instead of thinking, "How can I serve that person?" I was thinking, "I hope they keep their dog away from me" and "Wow, that family with the four kids with backpacks are sure getting home late." I need to be so much more conscientious about sharing God's love with others. And I know this is not something I can do on my own, but only in His power, with His love.

My room at Grandmom's is ready. I don't know why I am feeling anxious about moving. Maybe because I've settled into a routine with Micah, Blake, and Anderson at their house and don't want to uproot and learn a new way of doing things, relating to people, etc. Or maybe because this step toward community (different from what I'm now experiencing) is fiercely contested in the spiritual realm. I believe that it is our responsibility to care for our grandparents' generation. Grandmom is a widow - I should be thrilled to be so privileged to help look after her! Serving widows and orphans, all in the same day! God's highest calling to us as Christians! "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27 Keeping myself from being polluted by the world's striving to be wealthy, well-known, beautiful, independent.

We have every resource and opportunity to be strong in community - houses close together, technology that keeps us in constant communication and saves us the time that used to be spent on personal chores (preparing food, washing clothes/dishes, cleaning, going places)...and yet, the easier it seems to have time to spend with one another, the more things we find to fill that space in our lives. Tonight I'm going to focus on things that help build community (writing encouraging notes to friends, spending time with my Creator) rather than the things that so easily distract me from what is important to God.

Thanks for listening. I needed that.

Open House in Pictures

The Open House was so much fun! I say it was perfect. We think about 100 people come by. Thanks to everyone who came to support BigHouse!

If you couldn't be there, here are the highlights:

The to-do list I gave my precious Wednesday volunteers. Nine guys and two girls knocked it out of the park!
Cake! So good. The ants found their way to it this morning...

Beautiful ladies! We love our faithful after-school program volunteers!

Haha - during my speech.

The big moment! (well the photo op - the big moment was with real scissors.)

Countdown to Open House

Our Open House is one week from tomorrow - we're very excited! It's another one of those things like, "I'm not sure any of us know how to do an Open House, but here goes!" Our to-do list is getting whittled away each day. The hard part is coming up with things for groups of volunteers to do, which sounds silly I guess, but there are some things that just need to be done by me or Micah. I love all of our volunteers, especially the Wednesday volunteers - I put them to WORK and they don't even get to hang out with our cool kids b/c we don't have the after-school program on Wednesdays. Today they:

Made the Clothes Closet walkable and presentable (wish you could've seen it before, but I was too embarrassed to take a picture!)

Finished cleaning the siding on the porch
Installed the surround sound system that was donated

Cleaned the bathrooms

Mopped the kitchen floor

Swiffered and vacuumed the other floors

Replaced lightbulbs
Moved a computer
Swept our blacktop outside

Organized the sports cabinet

Scraped paint splatters off of the kitchen sink!!

And I'm sure I'm overlooking a lot...

And that was just the Auburn students. We also had highschoolers start working on the landscaping project, and guys from Southern Union's heating and air program come look at our A/C units to see about replacing them. On Friday some guys from the high school football team are coming to work and I'm already trying to come up with things for them to do!

God is so good to BigHouse - He brings exactly the right people at exactly the right time, and He is SO GOOD to me!