He should know better....

A couple of days ago, I was taking some pictures of Jasmine. Tanner comes in and peels off his shirt to show me a bruise in his armpit. I thought I could kind of, maybe see something. He asked me to take a picture of it so he could see it since he just knew for sure that there was something there. I'm sure it was a "wrestling with his older brother" injury and he wanted some proof that he really did get hurt.....I don't know, I think it's a guy thing.

Anyway, I showed him the picture on the computer and the first words out of his mouth were, "You're not going to put this on your blog are you????" Why Tanner, what a great idea! Showing your armpits on my blog is getting to be a regular occurrence!!!! Again, I'm pretty sure it's a guy thing.

There ya go Tanner!!!! Love ya kiddo!

It was bound to happen.....

"Am I in trouble??"

"I am super cute and she does have a hint of a smile on her face....."

A mess that will have to wait until later.....

I had one of the kids do some shredding for me a few weeks ago. It was a day they didn't have school and I was looking for ways to fill their day. They love to do it and actually did quite a bit that day. I had left a bag of shredded paper in the upstairs office because it wasn't quite full and I knew that we could put more in it at some later day. Every time I walked past the bag, I would think to myself, "You know it's only a matter of time before one of the little ones pulls every piece out of that bag and leaves it all over this room!!!" But that didn't stop me from bending over and putting it in a higher location. Yesterday in fact, I had a very distinct feeling that it would happen very soon.

This morning as we were getting ready to head out the door to get some last minute items for our party tonight, I could hear Isaiah upstairs laughing and having a great time....by himself. Finally I went up to get him as we were walking out the door. This is what I found! Couldn't blame him. It had sat there too long, just waiting for some little hands to fling it all over the room! Mission accomplished!!! Thanks Izzy.

Fun on a Tuesday afternoon!

Vanessa decorating her cookie.

Busy decorating!

YUM Levi!

Tanner's creation!

Oops! Missed getting Savannah's cookie....but look at that smile. Must have been good!

Vanessa's cookie!

Samantha's cookie was almost too beautiful to eat! Almost.

Ready, Set, Go!

He loves that slide!

We have a membership at Out Of This World Pizza. It's a new indoor play place. They have a couple of the big blow up slides/maze things as well as a huge tube/crawling through tunnels and slides and more tubes and slides play structure. I should have taken a picture!!! What was I thinking???? Anyway, there is a great play area for 5 and under complete with comfy couches for parents to sit on. Usually we go as a family and I sit, while holding the baby and Scott goes through the tubes, tunnels and slides with the kids.

Yesterday they were also doing cookie decorating so we made sure to add that to our schedule for the afternoon. The kids had a blast. After that Sabrina mentioned that she heard kids at school talking about "Free Taco Day" at Taco Bell. Well, of course we couldn't pass that up. So we went on through the drive-thru. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey, I heard you were having free taco day. Is that true?

Employee: Yes, it is.

Me: Well, I have 10 of us that would like a taco.

Employee: 10? Are you serious??

Me: I promise! I'm driving a 15 passenger van and it's full of kids!

Employee: Um, ok. Next window please!

Excited yells coming from the back of the bus: Wahoo, we get a free taco!!!!!

As we came to the window, the kind employee informed us that his manager told him that they could only give out a couple of tacos per car and that next time we would need to actually come inside to get them. "Oh sure, you bet! That's no problem", I told him. "But are you really sure your manager would rather have me bring my 10 bouncy, loud, rambunctious children inside? Perhaps he would just prefer to throw us the tacos through the drive-thru???"

No complaining here. I'll take free tacos however I can get 'em!!!!

How To Know When You Should Back Away From The Computer....

Isaiah was having a great time, crawling around, looking at things and singing his new favorite song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. All of a sudden I knew he was done. He wanted me to move away from the computer and play with him. Smart boy, he found the button on top of the computer and gave it a push. Off went the computer! I looked down at him and this is what I saw! He was totally just leaning against the computer, singing his song. I don't really know for sure if he knew what he was doing or if he just got lucky. Either way, it was time to go play!

The simple things in life......

The Dream Machine!

I was at Target a few days ago, wandering aimlessly. It was just Sabrina and I and we really didn't know what to do with ourselves. Usually we are herding a few other little ones around the store and we don't do any looking at anything that's not on our list. This time was different. We wandered through the kitchen aisles, looking at the cool gadgets and beautiful matching plates. We came across this little dream machine that I knew I just had to have. I don't really do much impulse shopping these days....never time for that. I'm a get in and get er' done type of gal now. But this! This was different!!!! Automatic soap dispenser!!!!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!!!

Best $14.99 I have ever spent!!!

Leaves!!!

Thomas going after the football!

Talisha peeking out of the pile!

Five exhausted kids!

Saturday Scott and a few of the kids went out and raked leaves. They were having such a great time. Scott took tons of pictures but since most of them were action shots, many of them were blurry ( thank goodness for digital!!!) These are a few of the ones that we could actually see faces!

Costumes!

Savannah, not really sure about this costume thing.

But willing to at least give me a smile!

Talisha, totally loving the costume thing!

She comes up with all her own poses!

You can tell by her face that she is loving the Elmo suit the most!!

Doing a little "Elmo dance"!

Last night the neighbor brought over a couple of costumes that she thought we might want. They are just the right size for Talisha and Savannah. They had a great time trying them on and running all over the house. In fact the first words out of Savannah's mouth this morning when I went in to get her out of bed were, "I wear ladybug!" She must have dreamed about it all night! Talisha loves both costumes but is especially fond of Elmo.

A Must Read!

My best friend Bonnie knows me all to well. We are so alike. She called me yesterday morning, asking if I had read this book. I told her I hadn't heard of it. She said she was on her way into town and said she was just finishing it and would drop it off so I could read it. I love Richard Paul Evans. He has written several books and I love them all, so I knew this one wouldn't be any different. What I didn't know was how much of an impact it would make on my life. His books always do but I forget just how strongly until I finish the latest book. This one was no exception. I highly recommend it as well as all of his other books. Took me less than 24 hours to read but will stay with me for a lifetime.

Thanks Bonnie. You knew just what I needed.

Pumpkin Time!!

Digging out the goop!

Nice hands Tanner!!!

Levi loved the feel of slimy pumpkin!

Isaiah was digging the pumpkin seeds and slime!

Final product!

Well, it was quite a night. Pumpkin slime and seeds covered everyone and everything! But we got all the pumpkins carved and all the seeds roasted!!! We love pumpkin seeds. We coat them in olive oil and sea salt and roast them slowly in the oven. Levi talked us into coating some with cinnamon and sugar with the olive oil. They weren't to bad either!

Truly a loss

We just found out that one of our children's birth fathers passed away. We are so sad that this child will never get to meet that wonderful man. Scott and I were honored to meet the birth mother of this child as well as the birth father. Pretty rare in the adoption world. We have pictures and video of our short time together at the hospital just after this child's birth and we will treasure that time always.

We knew his health was not good when we met him and wondered just how long he would be alive. We had hoped he would still be with us when our child turned 18 so they could meet. We have told this child about his birth father since he was very young. He has always known that they, together as a husband and wife chose our family for him. They wanted us to consider them as part of our family, raising their child. They hoped that we could offer their child the life they could only dream about.

People come into our lives for very specific reasons. Sometimes we never know why and other times it's crystal clear. Our lives were changed for the better having met this wonderful man. How grateful we are to have had that opportunity. To be able to tell our child, "You have the same wonderful sense of humor that your birth father had!" or "You have the same beautiful eyes he had" is a treasure we will never take for granted.

I remember something he said to us that I will never forget. "Ya'll are very white and we are very black. Are you ok with that?"

Ronnie, we both love the same sweet child. We may have been more alike than you will ever know. You will be missed.

Happy Fall Ya'll!!!!

Thomas shooting out the 40ft. pipe slide!

In the corn maze

Levi and his new best friend

Tanner and the turkeys!

Sabrina, explaining to the girls why we needed to live on a farm! Right on girl!!! My thoughts exactly!!

Duck races!!!

Enjoying the farm animals.....Talisha would rather not be that close to them....not sure if it was the size or the smell.

Yep, we even did a little bowling at the pumpkin patch!!

What a cute bunch of kids!!!!

Love the look on Savannah's face! She was ready to roll!!

Quite a morning! Ready to head out!

Anyone one that knows me well, knows that we don't "do" Halloween. There are lots of reasons why but we do love Fall and everything that comes with this wonderful season. We did some research this year to find a pumpkin patch that offered a little more than the train ride to the pumpkins and the boat ride back. We have done that for years and finally decided to try somewhere else. We all had a great time at this one! They had so many animals to see and pet, a corn maze, two different hay mazes, 3 of those crazy black pipe slides, the rubber duck races, bowling, the playground area with a teepee, hay ride oh, and even pumpkins! If we waited for Saturday, they would have even had lots of yummy food for us to buy.

We had a great time and then headed over to Winco (grocery store) to buy our pumpkins for half the price. Now we have piles of pumpkins to carve and lots of fun memories.

We need to start planning our annual Peiffer Family Fall Festival for the 31st. I'm sure we'll be posting plenty of pictures of that !!!! We always have lots of fun!

Way to go Isaiah!!!!

Wa-Hooo Isaiah!!!!

Way to go!

Look at that face! He's so proud of himself!!!!

Isaiah loves to be held. He was the baby for 18 months (that's a long time in our family!!) and really enjoyed it. He was held, cuddled and toted around for much of that time. The hard part is, he loves to be cuddled. You know how some kids just want down? They will let you hold and cuddle for a brief second and then they are squirming to get out of your arms but not Isaiah. He will just melt into your arms and stay there.

I know many of you know his story. He's a miracle to us. He was born 8 weeks early to a homeless family. He stayed in NICU for 30 days. The next 30 days he went with his birth family and they did their best to care for him in their very humble circumstances. But with no money for the special formula that he required, let alone any formula, they resorted to feeding him watered down baby cereal. They finally decided that they could no longer care for him and found an adoption agency. The agency got him into one of their special foster homes and got him into a doctor. He was borderline "failure to thrive" due to his lack of food. When we got him at 2 1/2 months old, he was barely 5 lbs. His belly was still swollen from lack of nutrition and would stay that way for several months.

Now he is 20 months old. He has not decided to start walking yet. But really due to his premature birth and rough two month start, he's about right on schedule. We get people asking us all the time if we are concerned that he isn't running around. We're not. He has the physical ability, just not the desire to go full steam ahead yet. It will come. We don't regret holding and cuddling him as long as we have. He needed it. And we will continue to hold him as long as he will let us. But as you can see in the pictures, he is standing on his own. He stands up and stays that way for a few minutes while we clap and praise him. He loves it. He gets the biggest grin on his face, loving all the attention. Then he drops to his knees and crawls as fast as lightning.

Cute girl all dolled up!

Tanner, very much wanting to be in the picture with his baby sister.

Cute Jasmine

Was waaaay to interested in her big sisters to even think about looking at the camera, but adorable anyway!

Just had to post a couple pics of our sweet baby. She's growing so fast and really starting to be awake more and taking everything in (there is a lot to take in at our house!!!) She is 11 weeks old today!

Oh, to think like a boy for a day......

I guess arm pit hair is kind of mysterious. My boys have a fascination of trying to acquire it. They had just finished their haircuts, when the next thing I know they are trying to get the hair from their heads to stick to their armpits!!!!!

It's just a guy thing, right???

Happy News!!!!

Just wanted to share a little bit of happy news......I paid 2.99 a gallon for gas today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry, maybe that wasn't what you were expecting but when you drive a 15 passenger van, that is the best news!!!! I did a little happy dance in the Costco gas line.....I hope I didn't scare the other customers. I guess they could probably guess why I was doing it though, so it's all good.

A Good Reminder

I came across this email that I had sent to Scott 2 years ago. I decided to post it on my blog.


Last night as Levi was doing his homework, he was asked to write a paragraph about a time when someone didn't respect his feelings and how it made him feel. He had just been reading about the Gettysburg Address and the Civil War.

This is what he wrote:

"One time when I was in the bathroom at school, Chaz, the person that hates me said, "Everybody hates black people." It made my heart stop beating. He really hurt my feelings and then he said to me, "Ask anybody!". I went back to class and felt like I was going to cry. When it was recess, I just stayed away from him."

I wish you could have heard Levi read this to you.....made me really stop and think about the persecution his race has experienced as well as millions of others. Not many of us will ever face what he will, simply because of the color of our skin. I have people say to us all the time, "Another baby? Wow, you know there will always be another phone call asking you to take another one. When will you stop?" We're not looking to "save" them all. But every child that becomes a part of our family will at least have the opportunity to be loved and with that, have the potential to touch countless lives. I liked what the caseworker at the adoption agency in Georgia said to us after we had signed the paperwork for Isaiah. She said, "Well, that's another one that Satan didn't get!!"

So many times we read emails about amazing stories and we wonder if they are really true.....this one is about an amazing little boy. A boy who doesn't understand what it means to be racist, but who will pick up his baby sister, that's not related by blood and give her love and kisses. A boy who laughs when someone in his class asks him if I am his step-mom because we don't "match", a boy who sees a child in need of a family and asks, "Mom, can we please adopt him???" How grateful I am for my children and their ability to teach me things daily.

That was from May 2007. There were many other times that I heard about terrible things that he would do or say to Levi. That boy is now his friend. They get to school early and read books to the younger children in the library before school starts. They are on the same football team. In fact the other day as I was waiting for him to finish up after practice, this boy walks over and says, "Here is your water bottle Levi. See you in the morning, right?" I had to reach up and shut my mouth as my jaw was hanging down. I asked Levi who that was and he told me. I started to say, "But....." and he said, "He's changed Mom, he's nice to me now." Levi has a way with people.

It's Official!

Jasmine is 9 weeks old, weighs 9lb. 2 oz. and has officially grown out of her first outfit!!!!! I remember when I first went to pick her up, I had taken this little outfit, thinking it would be perfect, only to find that it would not fit her for many weeks to come.

She is such an angel baby. She sleeps so well at night and now only gets up once to eat!!! I "wear" her most of the day in her Ergo Baby Carrier (wish I had this for every one of my babies. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this carrier!!!) She is so content when she is in there and loves riding around all day with Mommy.

Once again, Heavenly Father has blessed our family with an angel.

Grandpa & Grandma

Grandma and Jasmine

Papa, Grandma and Jasmine

Isaiah wearing Papa's hat

Tried out the timer on the camera for the first time (what a concept!!) I think most of us were looking at the camera. Isaiah was to busy trying to figure out what Scott was doing running back and forth from the camera and then over to sit by him.

We always love to have grandparents visit. This weekend, Scott's dad and wife came down from Camano Island, Washington to visit for a few days. We had not seen them in almost a year and a half, so they were amazed to see how the kids have changed and grown. They were excited to meet the newest grandbaby, Jasmine.

We had a great visit and hopefully we didn't scare them off! Sometimes 10 children in the house can get a bit noisy!!!