I really don't like change, but I feel I need to move my blog to blogger. My paid xanga site is up in just a few weeks, so it's now or wait another year. The first reason that is pushing me to move is the reality that no blog publishers will turn xanga into a blog book. My chief motive for writing this blog is to chronicle the day to day life of our family for my children's memories. My husband has spent several hours trying to hunt down a publisher and for some reason they only exist for blogger, wordpress and typepad. In light of that, JD has also spent many, many hours reformatting my past blog entries to turn into a book for our family and at the rate I write, he will never be able to catch up. Switching to blogger will enable that to become automatic, therefore once he catches up the last two years, his blog reformatting hobby can retire!

The second even more important reason for moving to blogger is that I should never have linked our last name to the blog. In light of our U.S. adopted son and the mess that his adoption entailed, it was a risk that I didn't fully consider when I named the blog with our last name. I have been cautious to not say where in Virginia we live, but it makes more sense to not have his full name pop up on a google search.

So, in light of those two reasons, I have created www.ourplansmultiplied.blogspot.com. You wouldn't believe how difficult is was to find a name that wasn't already taken, but our plans have been multiplied by God and the title fits us perfectly. So, the truth is that I have many, many xanga friends that are constantly an encouragement to me and I don't want to lose you guys. I will maintain my xanga account for reading other's blogs and I'm not sure how I'll handle my current xanga blog. For now, it will just sit and I'll continue on at the new blog address. 

I couldn't put it off any longer -

I was constantly brushing Elijah's hair out of his eyes -

Look how long it was all the way around -

So, I trimmed it all the way around. It wasn't easy and it's probably not truly even, but the trauma was minimal. He contemplated crying, but didn't actually give in.

Best of all, he recovered very quickly -

And then we did his favorite thing - made cookies. I'm not kidding, my barely one year old loves to make cookies.

Here he is playing the drum on the flour tupperware and singing along.

And the good news is that we can now see his eyes.

Simple pleasures.

Yesterday morning, our new neighbor installed his new mailbox right where our phone and DSL cable lived; now our lines are dead. Of course we called the phone company and they promise to be PROMPTLY out by next Friday. So, this obviously provides a wonderful opportunity to focus on our family and our new fall plans. Be back when I have wires. God bless..

Jenny and crew.

I've been pondering the power of the media in all of our lives; it's a great influence even if you don't want it to be. Take for example Spiderman. My boys love Spiderman even though they've never seen a movie. He's plastered on cereal boxes and backpacks, as are Hannah Montana and countless other names we all know even if we wish we didn't. Other media messages are more subtle, yet also powerful. I was considering two movies that one could consider "love" stories - Titanic and Fireproof. I recently heard Titanic referred to as one of the greatest love stories of our time. That baffles me as there wasn't any love in the movie that I can recall at all; it was basic lust, pure and simple. Now, I only saw it once, so maybe there was a love story in there somewhere that I don't remember, but it definitely wasn't between the main characters of the movie! I think that movie was a huge disservice to young people everywhere that saw it and bought the lie that the main characters were "in love." If those two had married, they wouldn't have lasted two years! Contrast Titanic to Fireproof - that's a love story. The husband worked to love his wife; sometimes against every emotion that he was feeling.

Love is patient, love is kind.........does not seek it's own. I Cor. 13

On the same media contrast thought, Warner Brothers produced a recent horror movie entitled "There's Something Wrong With Esther." This movie does a huge disservice to the orphans in our world today. It portrays a modern day orphan as a psychopath in the movie. There has been a campaign to shame WB into giving proceeds from the movie to orphan charities; which is the least they should do considering the damage they are causing to the children that are most vulnerable in today's world! Thankfully, on the coat-tails of Esther, there is

The Blind Side -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg2rZ_3mgWU

It's not everyday that I cry just watching the trailer to a movie. I hope it's as good as it looks!

As for my puppy happy ending, the last puppy will be heading off to his new home tomorrow. I found excellent homes for all four of them AND I succeeded in not acquiring a 5th dog. It wasn't easy though; look where little Magnum sleeps waiting for his kids to come out and play.

On a hilarious footnote, as I was posting this blog, Tori said, "Mom, are we going to keep Magnum?" I said, "No, we are not. He is going to his new home tomorrow. His new Mommy is coming to get him." Tori asked, "Does his new Mommy look like him? I mean, is she white, with black spots?" I laughed and said, "No, Tori, his new Mommy is a person, not a dog." Her eyes got huge and she said, "How can that be, Mom?"

It's amazing how many hours go into planning a new school year. Since I'm using My Father's World, most of the work has been done for me, even the lesson plans are preprinted (for only $90!) However, there is still gathering the materials, extra books, reading and planning. In my case I spend time and anxiety on how am I going to juggle all the little people and keep the school kids on task? Also, how am I going to have the "read aloud" time that this curriculum calls for? There are no perfect years, so we'll just get up everyday and accomplish all that we can, (and work right through next summer if we have to.) So, it's almost two in the afternoon and I'm not yet dressed, BUT I found my school table which means the books are organized and put away.

I also cleaned out "the cabinet." The cabinet is where all the hands on stuff as well as the preschool stuff is stored. The little kids aren't allowed in the top part, but I give them "school" items out of there most days to occupy them during school time. The bottom part they can get in themselves, but only during school hours.

While I was finishing up, Ben started pushing Elijah around the kitchen in a box. Elijah thought it was a great time and would start whining anytime Ben stopped. When I showed Ben the pictures I took, his response was, "Good, my teeth look good and white in that picture." Our big Ben dental bills haven't been to whiten his teeth, but I'm glad he's happy.

Just when I thought we were tomatoed out, look what was dropped off at our house last night.

The good news is that we are just eating them; these little guys aren't being turned into salsa!

I always say that I love canning, however in the middle of it I always wonder why. I think the thrill comes in at the end, when it's done and I know that it will last a year. Last year, I canned about 18 jars of salsa and they only lasted six months, so this year I did 38. 38 quart jars is almost 10 gallons of salsa! I did half of it yesterday and the other half today. Today's batch has some added cheyenne pepper for a bit of kick.

The big issue yesterday was onion chopping.  By the time we finished the onions, my sister, myself, Moriah, Alyssa, James and Ben had all fled the kitchen in tears from the poignant fumes! The fumes were unbearable in spite of trying all sorts of anti-onion crying theories. In the end, this year's swim goggles seem to work the best, but it wasn't a perfect solution.

Here's Ben pre-goggles -

Here's Aunt Deb and Alyssa peeling onions with the goggles. (She will really thank me for that picture later!)

Today, JD peeled all the onions, with no goggles and no tears. Go figure. He claimed it had something to do with being teargassed in the military. Either way, it made today's salsa making much more pleasant! Ben still helped feed the onions into the food processor.

Here's today's tomatoes ready for boiling and peeling.

And today's chopped green peppers, hot peppers and onions.

Here's one days crop of salsa, minus the few jars that my sister took home. They fit perfectly in the old Amish canning cupboard that I bought at a little antique shop a few years ago.

I figured out that each quart jar ended up costing $1.65. That was getting 25 pounds of tomatoes for free and paying 40 cents a pound for the other 25 pounds. The major expense was green peppers, as I bought about $20 of them. So, next year when I grow my own green peppers, it will cost even less. Overall, although it's a lot of work; it tastes way better, is better for you and quite a bit cheaper.

When I took Elijah's official birthday pictures, Julia joined us for the event. Although it was Julia's birthday too, I wanted to redo her hair before her picture hour. She always manages to be camera worthy, however, so we have the unofficial Julia birthday pictures.

These looks are without prompting, mind you.

The good puppy news is that since I put them on Craigs list this morning, I have had tons of requests for pictures. So, hopefully, they will all be placed in good homes in just a few days. Here's my favorite, the kids named him Magnum.

I took Elijah outside yesterday for official birthday pictures. Here are a few of my favorites.

I ordered a collage with 36 pictures from our shoot for my wall. I did a similar one for Julia's first birthday two years ago; I love the digital age!

Life is flying by; I can't believe it's August already. I am actually planning on starting half of our back to school curriculum next Monday although I'm not sure that it's the best timing since we have VBS all week in the evenings. The next week doesn't look too good either, since I have three major doctor appointments that require some travel. So, I think I'll just plunge in with half the work load for the next two weeks; it seems to always go better when we start with a smaller amount of work to ease back in. I'm really excited about what we are doing this year. Gabriel and Alei are completely doing online dual enrollment high school and college. I have switched to Our Father's World for Moriah, Alyssa, James and Ben. It is a Sonlight style unit study that includes everything but grammar, phonics and math. The one that I chose this year is a geography and missions focus, it looks like I will learn a lot!

As for fun on the crazy farm, we had a chicken hatch some babies yesterday. She has sat on eggs before and they never hatched, but this time she pulled it off. What I'm not sure is where to put her and her babies. I'm up to three different chicken areas and I'm out of private chicken apartments. For those who know nothing about chickens, they don't usually get along with other chickens that are different sizes or colors! Right now her babies keep falling out of the brooder box, but I don't want to move her and them since she is still sitting on more eggs.

Last night we were blessed by a big, wonderful train table from some friends. Since Alei moved herself downstairs to Aunt Deb's old room, our new "guest room" is upstairs and pretty empty. I stuck it in there for now, but it's definitely so big that it's permanent home will be in the basement playroom. As for the basement, we made a list to get back to work on finishing the basement. Since we are obviously not closing on the permanent loan on our home this year, we need to boost the appraisal by finishing up the basement. We have already bought all the supplies; they are stacked neatly down there!

I have to say that this is the first house that we have ever had extra room or a guest room! It's been really great with Debra staying here and all our summer company, but someday this will turn into Elijah's room. Too bad that Alei chose pink paint, I'll have to repaint for my little man!

Today is swimming finals. After about eight hours of the miserable heat, it will be another swim season conquered! I'm so disappointed with myself, I haven't taken any pictures all season and never even did a post on Ben getting selected swimmer of the week. I'll have to a do a  season recap tomorrow!

Can you imagine being comfortable watching TV like this?

I was only planning on taking a picture of Tori's TV position when the hippo in Madagascar 2 started to dance, so...

Now, can you imagine being motivated to burn this much energy just because your movie had a good song?

The beauty of being young!