The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of 2011

2011 was a year that was stressful on many levels for our family. We faced things that we never thought we would have to face, and situations that brought us to our knees pleading for help. Yet, as I sit here I can't help but feel blessed and that Heavenly Father does answer prayers and knows the needs of his children. We also had fun during 2011 thank goodness for a few bright moments to see us through some dark days.
The Good:
In January we celebrated the one year anniversary of the girls being home, we celebrated by inviting everyone within driving distance to our home for a party! It was fun and the girls had a chance to see how many people were praying for them and supporting our family through their adoption. January also brought McKenzie home from school to finish up her last semester doing her internship with CPS she loved it. That experience has made her a strong woman she knew that she was doing what her heart was calling her to do. Ryan turned 13.
In February we made a 10 day road trip to Disneyland along with my sister's family there were 17 of us and that will be a trip we will always remember we had such a good time although the 2300 miles of driving was not so much fun.
In April we took Katie and Avrie with us to Hawaii for McKenzie's graduation, that was a pretty proud moment for us to see the hard work of our daughter pay off. She graduated with a 3.8 GPA all while working over 40 hours every week. Determination is NOT something that child is missing. Not sure how we afforded two big trips back to back but I diligently saved every extra dollar and somehow it worked out. Avire turned 4.
In June Katie graduated from high school and with almost a full year of college credits to boot. We are proud of her, school is not her strong point and she has to work extra hard, but we are proud of what she accomplished. I started a new job that I love.
In July we had 3 birthdays Kelsie turned 15, Katie 18 and Jayden 12.
In August we took another 10 day road trip to Utah, Montana and Idaho. It was our last trip before we dropped Katie off to school. It was fun to see family and friends along the way and spend time bonding as a family, and attending my niece's wedding was one of the many highlights of that trip.
September Destina turned 8 and was baptized and Avrie started pre-school. The kids went back to school and fall sports started, soccer for Destina and volleyball for Kelsie. I had a birthday.
November we FINALLY received our long awaited taxes and we put a big chunk of the money into the mouths of 3 yes, 3 children. Kelsie, Ryan and Jayden are all getting braces, just as I finished paying off Katie's braces. Kelsie took drivers ed and Ryan earned enough money for his golden ticket and has been skiing or snowboarding every chance he gets.
And Christmas is always a good thing and this Christmas was especially blessed for our family. McKenzie turned 21 and became engaged to Tim, who we love, and are planning a Spring wedding. Scott had a birthday too.

The Bad:
The first thing goes back to 2008 when McKenzie went to Haiti, about 6 months after she came back she started gaining weight, and started feeling sick to her stomach and a whole list of other problems. We tried all different kinds of things and nothing was working, this went on for quite sometime she just learned to live with it. Then she went to Hawaii and during her second semester there in early 2010 she contracted MERSA not once but twice. This took a toll on her body and made all the other symptoms even worse. That summer she was able to convince her doctor that the root of her problem might be a parasite and they put her on medication for that for 2 weeks. During those 2 weeks she lost about 15 lbs, and felt better than she had in years. Once she stopped the meds all the symptoms came back and the doctors said that it probably was something else and they wanted to run tests on her. That was October 2010 and by February of this year she had undergone more tests than most people her age should have to endure. She was scoped from every angle and all the test came back negative. Finally, after much pleading the doctor agreed to put her back on parasite meds for a longer time 8 weeks and....the good news is she is finally feeling great. Not sure how she went to school, worked 40 hours a week and was sick the entire time but she did it. That was one of the stressful battles that we endured this year, we knew it was a parasite, and the doctors would not believe her until they had run all kinds of tests and left her with thousands of dollars of medical bills (which she paid off mostly by herself).

The Ugly:
This is the hard one it has been an almost year long battle, pretty sure this ranks high on my list of things that I NEVER want to go through again. I am not going to go into too many details but as a parent to watch one of your children be emotionally abused in a relationship and that child feeling trapped and unable to get out is heartbreaking. There were many sleepless nights, a lot of prayers offered and a lot of battles lost. There was self-deception and lying and to watch the once bubbly, always happy-go-lucky child change into a person that was depressed and a shadow of her former self was truly heart breaking and one of the hardest things as a parent to watch and feel helpless. I felt at times that my daughter was sitting in a burning room and I was screaming FIRE and she would look at me like I was the crazy one and say,"fire, I don't know what you are talking about, there is not fire here." All while flames were engulfing her. It was a battle that I didn't think we would win, but somehow she saw through the smoke and ran for her life. We are forging a new relationship and healing is starting to come, and there have been glimpses of my bubbly happy-go-lucky child. I am grateful for friends and family that were there for me when I needed a shoulder to cry on or just to vent, and who loved my child too.

I guess there will always be trials, and hard times but there are so many things I am grateful for, I love life. I love God. I love my family. I love those people in my life who have always stood by me and saw the good in me.
So 2012 I don't know what you have in store for the Gordongang but we are ready for a little smooth sailing and calm waters.

Christmas

Our Christmas was perfect, well most of the day. We had a fun morning opening presents there were a few surprises and I think everyone was happy with what they got. Then it was off to church.


Everyone was getting along and there was very little contention in our home, after church we had a stressful moment getting kids to cooperate with taking a picture. The three older girls have become pretty tight and although they are sharing a room they have gotten along great and love spending time with each other. Maybe it is the fact that they know this is it, the last time they will be together under one roof that makes their bond stronger. I don't know what Kelsie is going to do once May comes.


This was the first Christmas that we had to share McKenzie with her new in-laws, the balance worked out well, it is nice that they only live a couple of minutes away. She spent the morning with us then went to their house while we were at church and then came back for our Christmas brunch with our extended family and more presents. Then she had Christmas dinner with Tim's family, then came back after dinner for games.

She thought it was pretty great getting presents at 2 different houses and they were very generous to her.

These three get along great they can always find something to do to entertain themselves.

We were happy to have grandma and grandpa over for Christmas and we also had Lynn's parents too, they are just part of the extended family and we love having a huge crowd on Christmas.
I tried to take a picture of the boys together but that didn't happen they are not quite at the loving bonding stage....maybe next Christmas!

She loves her Christmas Presents

Both girls got an MP3 player and headphones and of course these cute eye covers from Santa this year, I went to tuck the girls in before I went to bed and it is apparent that Avrie loves her Christmas presents she has been going to sleep like this since Christmas day.

The Coffee Card

Back in August one of the foster parents I was working with gave me a coffee gift card for $25.00. Now, I don't drink coffee but I tucked that little card away in my work bag thinking that I might be in that coffee shop sometime and it would come in handy for, you know, hot chocolate. Then in September I started driving by this homeless man on my way to and from picking up a child, he looked like a nice fellow and just down on his luck, but there is a homeless person on every corner in our town so I usually just drive by.
In the middle of October I had a feeling that I should pull over and give this particular homeless man my coffee card, there was a coffee shop within walking distance from where this man would sit day in and day out. It just was never convenient for me to pull the car over and get out and give this man the card, it was either raining or I was running late, but I kept saying to myself that next time I would stop. Well, as it is with my job, things can change very quickly, and I got a call that I would no longer be doing that particular case that has me driving by this particular homeless man. I thought of him and how I didn't listen to that voice that told me to stop and help him and I felt ashamed.
About a month later I found myself doing a visit at a store that has this particular coffee shop inside and I thought,"Great I can now use this card to buy me a hot chocolate as I sit in the cold food court." It worked out great I could go get my hot chocolate and warm up a bit and I figured that if I bought a small one each week the money would last a couple of months.
Today as I was driving into this store's parking lot there was another homeless man that was holding a sign that said,"I need a miracle," I drove by him and felt a little pang in my heart and wished that I had some money to give this guy, but I don't carry cash with me very often. I pulled into my parking spot got out and went into "work." About half an hour later it was time for me to go get my weekly hot chocolate and there at the coffee counter was this homeless man. He was asking the coffee lady how much was on a coffee gift card that someone must have given him. She told him $5.00 and he then looked at me and said,"go ahead I am not sure what I am going to order." So I went ahead and put in my 1 small hot chocolate with whipping cream order and used my card to pay for it." While I was waiting for them to make my drink the man ordered and used his card and his total came to $4.15. He looked at me and handed me the card and said, "Here you can have this, there is not enough on here for me to get anything else." I was a little shocked and tried to decline but he insisted and I took the card. The coffee lady said she could put what was left on his card right onto mine so that I would not have to have 2 cards. I agreed and said, "Thank you" and went back to "work". As I sat there my mind was buzzing I was thinking, "What an idiot I am" here was this homeless man giving me his leftover money and I took it and I don't even drink coffee nor do I really need my weekly hot chocolate.
After stewing about this for 10 minutes or so I grabbed my card and headed out to see if this man was somewhere close by drinking his coffee, I found him sitting on a bench just outside the store and another man was handing him a sandwich I walked up to him and handed him the coffee card, and told him there was about $15.00 dollars on it. It looked a little shocked and asked if I was sure I wanted to give it to him. I handed it to him and he said, Thank you, " I said, "No, thank you, and had to turn and walk away because I was tearing up at this man's offering and my selfishness.
I won't miss my weekly hot chocolate, but I won't soon forget what this man taught me today!

Merry Christmas!

Santa and the Girls!

A couple of weeks ago we went down to Seattle for the day, our first stop was to see Santa at Nordstrom's, there was a 2 hour wait but we put our name on the list and they called us back when it was our turn so the wait only turned out to be about 15 minutes. In the mean time we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, and then it was time for the girls to meet Santa. Destina was very concerned. She told me, "Mom I have everything, I don't know what to ask him for." I helped her come up with an idea and she was happy with that but then later she said, "I don't think Santa will get me what I asked for do you?" I told her that I think he would probably try hard to get it. Avrie was a little scared of Santa and did not want to sit on his lap but she did tell him that she wanted "surprises" for Christmas. and she stood close enough to him so that we could get a good picture.




Then it was off to go ride the carousel, it was really fun to be in the "big"city and see all the people, there was a different musical group on every corner and just the hustle and bustle was fun to be a part of for the day. Avrie got on a big horse and at one point she was almost sliding off and had a scared look on her face but she recovered and enjoyed the rest of the ride.


Destina liked riding on the horse and wanted to do it again and again.


After a little shopping at my new favorite store Lulu Lemon, it was time to head home the girls were worn out but we all had a fun day.

Gordon Family Christmas Song 2011

Click here to see it on Youtube and to see Destina I am not sure why she is cut out of this one.


Today was the day of our 4th annual Christmas Caroling and this is our new song. We spent the day baking and coming up with this little ditty inspired by Avrie and her Justin singing. That is Scott in the background it was either cut him off or miss out on Avrie. The boys were far too embarrassed to be seen in this video, they did stand in the background and mumble when we did it in person.





We had a lot of goodies and the girls worked hard all day...this is our family's favorite Christmas tradition even if we make fools out of ourselves!

It is That Time of Year Again!

It is time for our 2nd annual gingerbread house contest. We worked all day preparing for the event. We baked, we shopped, and we planned, we ate, and we made a heck of a mess. There are three categories this year a younger one, a middle one and an older one, your job is to cast your vote for your favorite in all categories. We want to see a lot of votes so even if you never comment please vote or else there might only be like 2 votes. Some of the people have been planning since last year and might have taken the challenge a little too far but really this is just for fun so go ahead and vote!

In the younger division we have:

# 1

#2

#3

The middle division we have:

#4 (the campsite)

#5 (the outhouse)

#6 (tornado alley)

In the older division we have:

#7 (the cabin)

#8 (boat run aground)

#9 (the lighthouse)

Home!

Katie's home!  She has been away at school since September and we are glad to have her home.  Because of her semester schedule she will be home until April.  Kenzie, Kelsie and I left Thursday morning for the 13 hour drive to pick her up, then we turned around yesterday and drove home arriving home at 1:30 in the morning.  It was a long 1800 mile round trip in 2 days, but we are glad to have her home and spend time with her.  It will be nice to have all the kids under one roof for the next 5 months. It will be the last time that we will have them all living at home.

 

Happy 21st Birthday McKenzie

I seem to write every year that I cannot believe that McKenzie is getting so old. I guess when it is your oldest these birthday's are first's for the parents as well.  21 years ago, while we were living in Monterey, Ca McKenzie came into our lives and rocked our world.  We thought she was amazing then and we still think she is amazing today.  She is driven, she has confidence, she knows who she is and the direction she wants her life to go.  She has set a great example for her 6 younger brothers and sisters and continues to do that.

She just got her first real grown-up job yesterday, all that school finally paid off and she will be working in the field that she is passionate about.

Happy Birthday McKenzie !!!

 

 

Announcing…

As I was looking through an old journal that I had, I found an entry dated Wednesday November 16, 1994 it says:

“McKenzie is growing up so fast, she loves going to pre-school and gymnastics.  She loves to help me with grown-up things such as paying the bills.  Tonight she asked me if I would find a nice boy for her to marry?  She has been so concerned about this subject for quite sometime.  Last week she was telling me she was going to marry Scott – he finally had to convince her that he was already married, but she could find someone like him.”

She did it! McKenzie and Tim are officially engaged,  and I can’t think of another “boy” who is so much like Scott.  She really did find someone just like her dad. We are excited to have Tim be a part of our family, he is pretty brave for taking on our gang, because you just don’t marry the girl you marry her whole family.  That was a pretty strong requirement of McKenzie’s, that Tim fit in with our family and that he likes hanging out with us.  We love Tim too, he fits right in, and he is real good for McKenzie, they balance each other out pretty nicely.  It will be a little crazy around here as we plan a wedding!

 

 

Art Work

This is a great way for me to save the girls art work and have it forever instead of letting it collect in piles around my house. Now in a couple of weeks when I see this art work in one of the piles around my house I will not feel so guilty about throwing it away. When my older kids were little I saved cute things like this and other school work and at the end of the year I made a spiral bound book with all of my favorite work from that child for the school year. Now I have a box in my garage with school work that dates back at least 15 years. I am not sure when the last time one of my kids came up to me and said, Hey mom I really want to take a look at my kindergarten art and school work, can you get that box?" So I am abandoning that idea, it was awesome 15 years ago for saving their work, but now taking a picture and posting it on my blog and then at the end of the year when I turn my blog into a book it will be in there just taking up a little space on my book shelf!

Avrie's Thanksgiving Turkey!

Avrie's Fall Leaves!

Avrie's hand prints (so cute) made into turkeys!

Avrie's Christmas Trees!

Destina's Panda Bear!

Avrie singing

Avrie loves to sing and since Destina loves Justin B. Avrie gets to here it as well and this is what she was singing in the car the other day over and over. Turn the volume up because it might be hard to hear otherwise.

57 seconds is all that is needed.

Tonight was Destina's first basketball game, she just started practicing three weeks ago, and it only takes 57 seconds to see how this game went. At this age they don't keep score but Scott said the score was 32 to 10. It didn't help the other team that Destina is a head taller than everyone, but it is working to her advantage! She has a great coach and some great girls that she plays with as well.

All Ready for Christmas

Well not really, but the tree is up and the stockings are hung, some of the shopping is done but there is still a lot to do.

I know she is cute, she knows she is cute, and she lets everyone around her know as well. The kids are excited they loved counting the pictures of themselves on the tree. Avrie only found 4, she said, Mom, there are a lot more pictures of Kelsie than me." I had to explain to her that she is only 4 so only 4 pictures, but I think there might be more than 14 pictures of Kelsie so that reasoning really doesn't pan out…unless you are 4. Avrie also helped me put all the pictures on the tree and if you look close you can see that 2 of her 4 pictures are right together at Avrie eye level.

Desitna was go excited to find a Christmas dress, I foolishly saved the one she wore last year, because it was a little big, thinking that it would fit this year and no, it did not fit. I know she looks like she is 12 in this picture but she is 8, she will be 8 for 9 more months and hopefully when she is 9 she will not look 16. But we found 2 Christmas dresses that she just had to have, and they were on sale, and both of them sparkle!

She is so sweet I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she told me "I can't think of anything, I have everything." Then she said, "Ok maybe some new clothes." I have a few surprises up my sleeve for her.

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

I had great intentions of taking more Thanksgiving pictures but the morning started off busy and the day didn't end until late at night. We had a house full of friends and family, and a lot of yummy food. I was glad I took a picture of the "before" because the "after" was a little scary!

We had 17 people and a lot of food. There would have been 18 but Ryan decided to go snow boarding instead of having Thanksgiving, lucky for him there were a few scraps left for him when he came home. McKenzie made her first, all by herself, Chocolate pie that was really good, we had a far too fattening pumpkin caramel cheese cake, and apple pie for dessert. We had all of Scott's family plus a couple of extras that provided great conversation, stories that will forever be burned in my mind, and some new faces that we could torture with The Great Dalmuti. Then staying up way too late watching movies! It was a fun but tiring day and we are grateful for family that is willing to travel to be together for Thanksgiving. We missed having Katie home, but she stayed busy and didn't go hungry on this, her first Thanksgiving away from home.

Speaking of Dreaming...

I have been dreaming of a new look for my bedroom, we have lived in our house for over 6 years and we have done nothing with our bedroom, we have been busy doing other things, and painting and decorating other rooms. Finally it was time to tackle our room.

This was our room as we were in the process of cleaning it out to start working on it, so it is a little bare but you get the idea. I had throw pillows on the bed but I was so sick of them I threw them in the garbage about 2 weeks ago. It was nice to clear everything out and deep clean in the corners.

My lovely office had to be moved to our room when Scott needed more room for his work computers and when the girls came home we turned the official "office" into a room for them, it had connecting french doors that we took out right before they came home and we fixed their side of the wall but we just didn't get around to fixing our side because I wanted to redo the whole room. The time finally came to put my plan in place.

We made a trip to IKEA and picked up a new dresser, bedding and a desk, Scott painted the room and he stained our bed to match the new dresser and desk, I still need to add a few things and get a new nightstand but I love how the room came together.

My hole in the wall is gone and I have a nice new desk that hopefully I can keep cleared off. It has been a stinky 2 weeks of painting and staining, and sleeping with the fumes, maybe that is why I have been loopy lately, but it is nice to walk into a room that I love and want to spend time in other than sleeping!

Dreaming

The other night at the dinner table Destina said to me, "Mom sometimes it feels like I am dreaming and I am going to wake up and not be here but in Haiti."  I assured her that she is not dreaming that she is home, and then reminded her that it was her dish night!  As she was loading the dishwasher she broke a bowl, she looked at me and said, Sorry, please don't be mad!" I looked and it was one of my favorite soup bowls, you know the ones with the little handles on them that don't get hot, I gave her a "look" but said, I am not mad just be more careful.  Later after she finished loading the dishwasher she started putting dish washing soap into the soap spot and then she looked at me and said, "This is the wrong stuff huh"! I just looked at her and said, with a smile on my face, go get in the shower before you totally ruin the kitchen, she headed off to her bedroom and she started to cry, I had to go in and reassure her that I was not mad, but I wanted to let her know that it was ok if I am mad at her because I still love you, even if I am mad, and that I will always be your mom and you will always be my daughter and no matter what I will always love you. The tears stopped and the next thing I heard was singing in the shower.

Big Hair

I seem to do a lot of posts about hair and here is another one.  When I had Destina's hair done in August by a professional I paid close attention so that I could come home and try it.  Well, yesterday was the day to try it out on Avrie.  First I had Destina cornrow her hair into about 10 rows, she is so much better at it than I am. Avrie has pretty short hair in the back of her head that it is hard for me to get the hair past that point, but Destina had no trouble.  When I asked Destina who taught her how to braid she told me her mom taught her when she was about 3 or 4 years old, because her mom wanted Destina to braid her hair. I am so glad that she has memories of her mom in Haiti and I really try to let her talk about them when she wants and to honor her past.

Back to the hair, I bought a  crochet hook from the lady that did Destina's hair and off I went inserting the hair strands into the cornrows.  Once I got started it was really easy to do just time consuming, but it was easier than doing the box braids and took less time but more hair. The result…..

 

 

 

 

Even in the Rain

Ryan has become a pretty hard core mountain biker, he had been planning a ride with 3 of his buddies all week l0ng to go riding up the local mountain. He brought along another friend that probably isn't quite as hard core as Ryan but was willing to go along for the ride. When they headed out it was not raining, but the rain started shortly after and by the time they came home they were soaked and freezing. His friend crashed in the mud because his fingers were too cold to apply the brakes. And they say this is fun.

Missing You!

 

And sending you this…..

 

 

We all miss you Katie and we are all sending you a hug today!

One More Then I am Done

This is my last Halloween post this year I promise. Avrie had a Halloween party at preschool and they made haunted gingerbread houses and she was so happy to bring her house home and show everyone, I had to work that day so I am glad that my friend sent me this cute picture.

Next it was off the the Boo Celebration at the park inside they had carnival booths that both girls had fun visiting and then they had a "Boo walk" that was just scary enough for Avrie to be a little nervous about. Destina thought it was great to be by all the scary things, which is unusual for her she doesn't like scary things either. This year she really got the whole Halloween thing and was ready for some fun!

Avrie was even too scared to stand too close to the scary things she was really nervous about being so close to this scary grave site. She would not stand by anything else that was scary. She also decided to be a princess for Halloween instead of the bad witch, and lucky for me there was face painting again so both girls had their faces painted for the big night. They went around a neighborhood, not ours, and collected a lot of candy, it will be around until Christmas is my prediction since both of the girls aren't big candy eaters. Kelsie, Ryan and Jayden all ate their candy in the first couple of days!