Welcome Eight family!

I'm a fan of blog code names. I like telling you folks whats going on, but I really don't feel comfortable telling the whole world other people's names. Because they might not want me too, and its awkward asking them. So, thats that.

Any how the Eights moved in today!Remeber the pictures of our basement from the flood? You probably won't even be able to recognize it as the same place in these photos. My mom, Joey, LG, and I went down this evening after dinner to have cake with them for Mr. Eight's birthday. Michael and Julia were already abed and Dad was (is) outside mowing the lawn.

The floor is now blue, and we're sleeping 6 kids in that one little area, you can see another bed way back in the toy nook back there.

And there's a kitchen which definitely wasn't there before...

(lighting candles)

"Sparrow" Eight. Because she's pretty, even though this is kind of a weird picture. She's not very photogenic, but she is pretty.

Cutie "Peter"!!! I'm determined to make this baby like me! He is super serious, he rarely smiles and hardly ever laughs. But I will persist in my endeavor, Peter will like me. We shall see.

Lela Grace and "Annie" feeling silly.

Happy 40th birthday Mr. Eight!!

Joseph and the Eight children (all but the baby) trying to light 40 candles. The cake practically caught fire.

Little Gretal... so cute!

this blogpost is very picturey. its because I'm feeling lazy. Sorry.

Wonderful Week

Disclaimer*** the pictures weren't taken in Africa.

But it felt a lot like it. I've blogged once before about working with the B*ntu refugees here in my city, and I can't wait to tell you all about the past week that we had with them, but for now, just some pictures.

Group Picture-- this week's theme was 'You are Special'
Me and Arb*y

What an awesome picture. Yay for water day.

Some people do art. H* does ART!!!!!:)

The big slide!!! You never get to old for these things.

Beautiful.

Painted H*ss**n. We take our art very seriously around here. :)

More later!

oh by the way

By the way, you know the flood we had? We're still working on getting everything sorted out down stairs. We decided to go ahead and paint the doors and trimwhite and get new base boards and we're painting we're floor. You know when you start one project about a million pop up, so its been pretty slow going even though mom and dad have been working their tales off.

Most families are a lot worse off than we are. I've been volunteering with my church helping out families that had maybe 10 feet of water in their homes. Many homes have been totalled. One family in our church thought that their house was fine because it had only flooded underneathe the house. They have recently discovered some serious mold issues. So we're finishing up the basement, a friend of ours is putting a little kitchenet in down there and this family is moving in with us probably for the summer, maybe longer.

I've always wanted more brothers and sisters. It looks like for the next couple of months I'm going to be the oldest of eleven children, as they have 6 kids ranging from ages 12 to 1. Honestly, I'm super excited. We're all about to experience a whole new meaning of community.
The crew will be:
Audrey-17
Joseph-13
O-12 (boy)
Lela Grace-11
SA- 8 (girl)
R-6 (boy)
L-5 (girl)
Michael-4
Julia-4
P-2 (girl)
S- 1 (boy)

Wootie Woo! We're in for some serious crazy. I operate best in crazy.

17th Birthday

Yesterday my family and I celebrated 17 years of life. I still went to my Friday babysitting family, and saw my little down syndrome friend who I've come up with a name for. On this blog I'm going to call him Sho. Its Japenese (which doesn't have anything to do with why I chose it, just a fun fact), it has the same amount of letters as his real name, and it means, "to soar/to fly". I wanted a name that had the opposite connotation of the word 'downs', because thats exactly what this little guy is. He smiles and fusses and eats and poops like any other baby. He has his big brother's wide smile and his daddy's bald head, the big blue eyes of the brother nearest his age, he's turning one next month. Sho isn't defined entirely by down syndrome.

I took this picture yesterday. Isn't it a hoot?! I laugh out loud every time I see it. Especially the half closed eye. And his mouth is kind of huge. Anyway, Sho gave me one of my very favorite presents yesterday. I went over in the morning and Sho's mom started showing me how his physical therapist said to hold him to help him sit up. Anyway, so I was practicing and Sho was watching his big brother play with a toy and he seemed pretty steady so I took my hands away. After a few seconds without support and he was still straight and sitting, I called his mom in to look. The whole family kind of trickled in as little Sho sat for the first time for about 1 minute! He did it again several times throughout the morning, getting up to almost 2 minutes once. Big boy! I was so proud of him! It was so much fun to be there for that.

Good job, little Sho!!! We're all so proud of you. Keep working hard, and thank you for making my birthday babysitting job especially exciting!

ps. I did do other things on my birthday including planting a tree, witnessing another little (baby) friend have her first taste of chocolate, eating Ethiopian food with family and 2 close friends and wrapping up the evenings with frozen yogurt and presents. Just if you're interested. :) I got a laptop on which I have composed this blogspost!

Final Exams

Studying for Final Exams have meant forgoing the following:

-A milkshake
-Archery practice with Lela Grace
-and Emperor's New Groove.
-snuggle time

...and thats just today. Summer, come quickly.

ps. how many families do you know with an archery range in their back yard? its a new addition. (new as in, this morning). Compliments of Joseph and Lela Grace who have both recently developed and interest in the sport, and thus bugged my parents sufficiently to build a target. I'm definitely the worst archer in the family, judging from the 10 minutes I took to go out and get a little taste. They whooped me.

Loving the World

"If you love everything you will percieve the divine mystery in things.

Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.

And you will come at last to love the whole world with an embracing love."

~Father Zosima from The Brothers Karamazou~

(This quote was in my church bulletin this morning. Honesty: I have no clue who Father Zosima is. But his quote made my heart sing.)

Thoughts on special needs

I've been, as you can tell, thinking a lot about special needs. Down Syndrome in particular. This thought struck me the other morning in the shower. I forgot it then, but then remembered it while studying for my finals. (Okay, I guess that was totally unnecessary information...hmm...) Anyway:

Why are the lives and stories of people with special needs so attractive and universally heart warming?

Why do so many families of people with disabilities radiate with the joy that that person brings to their life?

I think,

That when the human-ness of a person is limited

The Image of God is usually easier to see.

There is your daily dose of Audrey. Seriously, can you beleive nobody has adopted these kiddos? They're BEAUTIFUL! They're practically edible, just waiting for soembody to hug them so hard they can't breathe!

But seriously, that thought has really helped me to understand a lot of things, because, the hard parts about disability (it is called dis-ability, after all), are effects of the fall, so the brokenness isn't what we celebrate and love.

Its the life.

I just found out that I'll be getting to see a lot more of my little down syndrome buddy (who I really need to give a blog name) this summer. I was planning on keeping his older sister and three older brothers while mom took baby to therapy one morning a week. But his mom said that she worked it out for someone else to come then so that I can babysit when he is home! She is going to teach me how to do some therapy work with him! Ah! I'm SUUUPPPPEEERR excited. He and the other kids are all about the cutest children I have ever met.

So you know what this means for you?

Pictures! Hopefully I'll be able to get quite a few of this little bundle of adorableness!