life uncommon

You. You are why I have faith in Gods will, and not government bureaucracy.

And, though we are tired, I, and we, will set down our chains. Until only faith remains. And we will no longer lend our strength to that which we wish to be free from.

Smile babies. Retribution just like redemption is in Gods hands.

God is watching us.




All you unbelievers, there is a new army coming. And we are armed with faith.

Water Fun

You've got to love a hot summer day!

Birthday Fun!

My little hula hoop pro!

Is He a boy, or a fish?      

Arturo and his new fish. Our family's first fish tank, wish us luck!

Happy 5th Birthday Baby-Man!

Now that is a whole bunch of ....

Purpose.

Weekend Fun

This weekend we took the kids to a school picnic. Lots and lots of fun....





Cute babies......




















Bouncing.....










Horseback riding....












All the boys even volunteered as dunkee's in the dunking booth













Even Arturo, my brave boy.....










All this makes for some very tired babies.....



Yes, he really is asleep!

And I’ve Loved

I’ve been a Mother
to newborn crack addicts,
victims,
and survivors.
And I’ve loved.
I’ve been a Mother
to punch throwers,
back talkers,
promiscuous young girls
on flights of fancy
who have incurred
the fury
of teachers,
caseworkers,
police, and
judges.
And I’ve loved.
As the crack addicts,
victims,
survivors,
punch throwers,
back talkers,
and promiscuous young girls
grow into
loving,
upstanding—healed—
members of society
that sometimes want
to talk back
and throw a punch
or two,
I love.

Hello, my name is Channyn...

and I am a crier.  Growing up, my mother always said I was sensitive, or more accurately, too sensitive.  Regardless, I cry.  A lot.  

Sometimes I cry about myself.  More often though, I cry about almost anything, and anyone else.  Most times, my cries are a lot like an alcoholics swig from a bottle of liquor, long and hard.  I sometimes wish that I wasn't "too sensitive."  Sometimes I wonder what all the tears add up to.  Don't get me wrong, I don't hate crying, honestly I can enjoy a good hard cry.  Which, I think contributes to the answer.  Crying for me is like a long expected rain in a dry summer.  It refreshes me, it feeds me, to be better, to do better, and to be what Gandhi called, "the change that I want to see in the world."

I woke up this morning and not 45 minutes later I was in tears.  It all started much like many of our mornings start, with Arturo, slowly, sllllllowly getting ready for school.  My sweet Arturo, my boy who came to me so young, just 20 months old, and already changed for life from abuse.  My sweet Arturo who has, so slowly, grown from a frightened, angry, non-communicative baby into a sweet, loving, inspirational example of resiliency.  Mind you, now, almost five, still with so much catching up to do, he teaches me so much more than I even realize.  

So, as I said, like many mornings, Arturo was getting ready for school, but more accurately, pestering his older two brothers.  I could hear it from my room, the bickering back and forth.  "Arturo, your supposed to wear this,"  and then his, "no, I'm wearing this." Then me, frustration.  "Arturo, come here."  The lecture already formed inside my head.  As he rounded the corner into my doorway, his small expectant face peered up into mine, and my heart melted.  Still dressed in mismatched pajamas (almost 45 minutes after getting up) my boy looked at me with eyes full of expectation.  "Come give me a hug."  I say.  His body curled up into mine (no tears yet)  I began kissing his face all over.  "Mommy!!"  

"I could kiss you all day."  I could.  I was sad as he squirmed away, expecting him to run off, and the day to continue on its way.  Instead, he crawled up next to his still sleeping sister (yeah, sleeping in my bed) and began slowly, gently rubbing her back, waking her (still no tears, amazing).  Aaliyah, typically wakes up cranky, but today, instead, she woke up and gave Arturo the biggest hug.  And, as my boy, sat, hugging his little sister, and facing me he said, "Mommy, I can see myself in your eyes."  

No, baby.  I see myself through your eyes.

(Tears)

My Talented Children

Last week our boys had their first art show. Not just any art show mind you, but both boys, Jonathan and Luis had their art chosen to be included in a citywide school art show. This means, that out of hundreds of children, my babies art pieces were picked. I always knew they were talented, but now you know too.....


This is Luis (a second grader) with his ultra cool pinch pot....





...and this is Jonathan (a kindergartener),





and this is Jonathan's self portrait




Hello!!! I won't brag......

Happy Birthday to Aaliyah

My baby is officially not a baby anymore.....





Doesn't everyone deserve a pony for their birthday?





I think the adults were almost more excited than the kids....




Even my nephew got to have his first pony ride...





Happy Birthday my sweet Mima!!

Spring Cleaning

Oh, how fast the weekends go....

Yesterday we took the kids to family farm day at Lollipop Farm. It was lots of fun to see the kids with the animals. As we approached the goats and sheep, I had dreams of buying a house in the country and starting a farm. They were quickly dashed as I heard comments from Alicia and the kids including, "eew goats poop," "the goats scare me," and finally Jonathan, between sneezes, "mom, my eyes are itchy." Oh, well, at least I got pictures of the kids under a giant bull, albeit a fake one.

Today was spent cleaning, pruning, and preparing the garden beds for the season. Many hours later they looked a little something like this....
(notice the salvaged frames, Alicia found a few years back)




and this.....




Finally, Alicia put together a little, temporary compost pit.... we want to get something that we can tumble everyday, that will have to wait.

Easter

Easter was so much fun with the kids.  They loved the egg hunt.  The night before we dyed eggs.  I was nervous at first.  Picture a cupful of liquid die everywhere (I did) but once I calmed down it was so much fun that I now have visions of tie dye t-shirts for the summer.... 

I'm hoping to get a professional picture of all of the kids in their outfits, they looked so cute. After about 50 tries we were able to get a few cute pictures of everyone including my nephew Jeffery. Aren't they cute in their argyle?

Catch-up

Okay, so I haven't blogged in awhile..... so it was all of March. To say I was busy would be an understatement, in one week we had St. Patrick's day, Jonathan's birthday, and of all things, Easter. On top of that Luis created a little (big!!!) home remodeling project for us, more about that later...

Anyway, Jonathan turned six, amazing, oh, how time flies, just yesterday he came to our house and was a non-verbal, scared 2 and a 1/2 year old. The fun part, for us grown-ups was to get him a gift that would keep on giving....i.e. photos to tease about for years to come....

That's right, that is a fake brain you see atop my children's heads.....lol.

Arturo's EEG

Yesterday we took Arturo to get his EEG. For those of you who don't know, Luis, our oldest, was referred to get an EEG as a precautionary measure. When we went to get it done we all thought it was a waste of time, but it turns out that Luis is having 100's of silent seizures a day, that get worse when he sleeps. We're not sure what this means yet as we haven't seen the specialist. Because a lot of seizure disorders are hereditary we decided to get Arturo tested also.... Getting an EEG requires the person to stay up the night before so that they will fall asleep during the test. No problem for our 7 year old, but to keep a 4 year old up is torture!! Arturo handled it well, and for a little boy who doesn't like to be touched, he sure handled the procedure well too. I'll let you all know how the results turn out.

I Lied

Alicia, being the awesome mother that she is, actually did take pictures of Aaliyah and Arturo outside in the snow yesterday.  It took me almost 45mins to get them all bundled up, including the ever requested scarf.  But it was worth it, don't they look cute?

  

 

 Arturo is the cutest big    brother!  He insisted on  pulling  his sister all by   himself on the sled for   blocks!  

One Reason I Love Having Kids

Today while in the car I was lucky to be able to eavesdrop on a couple of conversations between Arturo and Aaliyah... they went a little something like this....

Convo #1

Aaliyah to Arturo: "We go boat?"  translation: Are we going to go vote?

Arturo to Aaliyah: "No, we only vote in the rain."  translation: every time we've gone to vote, in recent memory it has, indeed, rained.  

Convo#2

Aaliyah to self: "we go ride horses...no.  please?....yes"  translation:  this is Aaliyahs recap of her asking Alicia if we were going to go ride on the carousel, however Aaliyah added the please, and yes part.  My guess...she amended the conversation to her liking.

We were actually going to pick the volkswagen up from the shop...not very exciting, but they did get to go sledding afterwards, we didn't take any pictures but here is one from the other day when just Aaliyah was around.

Dress From Grandma

The other day Alicia took Aaliyah, and Arturo to the zoo, we couldn't resist having her wear the dress Grandma bought for her!!  Even Arturo thought she looked just like the leopards.  She was super cute, the picture doesn't do it justice!  Thanks Grandma...

Aren't They Cute?

Today was a great day.  We all went up to St. John Fisher and saw a series of Native American stories, two told by a Native American story teller, and three via cartoon, a show organized by friends of ours Dana and Scott. The older two said they loved it, the younger two still have very short attention spans... picture Aaliyah shouting out "POO POO" in the middle of an auditorium just so she could get Alicia to take her out of the room, ugh.  Oh well, maybe next year...(as we keep telling ourselves).  Afterwards we all went out to Great Northern Pizza Kitchen with Dana and Scott, where we were able to get some cute pics of all of them at once, a rare occasion!! Hugs, C