Whittaker Woman

He's Two and Behaving!

The value of learning to do chores is so much more important than doing them right.

I understand his battle... my mantle is above my head so if tall people come over and they see dust it is not my fault. H

Fog, Hoodies, and Sand

Sohaila has been studying the continents and oceans in school. She has been asking non-stop about the PACIFIC Ocean. Mom when can we see the pacific ocean? Are we near the pacific ocean? Did you know that the pacific ocean has so many sharks? Did you know... On and on. So I finally decided to make it stop! It was freezing, windy and they could not have been happier!

 








I am just grinning from ear to ear while I post this. What a great day! Oh and tonight my tummy is full of Mexican food! Really does it get any better? H

He's two, part twenty one!

I was in the kitchen making dinner, Carlos was with the kids, well so I thought. Then I heard a crash. By the sound of it I knew immediately what it was. Little man decided to throw a glass candle holder down the stairs. What else are glass candle holder for?

Yes it was glass so you can not see the huge glass shards that lay on the steps. However lets just say that the candle holder was 17 inches high and it was just big, and now broken.

He's two, and Behaving!

While Seanna and I were sewing the other day... Losiah was too quiet, so we went to go figure out what he was getting into. Low and behold he was actually behaving. This is how I found him...


Granted the Today show was on, which is not on his approved shows to watch but I am not going to complain. :) H

PS... Please do not look at how TERRIBLE my floors look! I guess it takes a camera to see under your TV.

He's two, part twenty!

Technically this post is not because Losiah made a conscious effort to do something bad, or misbehave. He did neither. Actually it was not his fault, but I still am gonna file it under the he's two category.
Last week we went to have lunch at church, like always Losiah gets lots of attention. He went and played with a friend who decided to make him laugh and giggle by making him do flips!
Once he got tired of that he came out to be loved on by the next willing participant. What the next person (who happens to be our favorite Buckhead employee, besides Carlos) did not know was  the that the effects from all the flipping was about to hit him.
Literally!

Yep Losiah gave us back his lunch all over our friend. Oh I was dying laughing! H

Bah, Bah!

Oh how cute is my little sheep! H

$2.25 and a Pack of Gum!

We are lucky enough to live near a Dollar Theater. That is enough said. Well except on Tuesdays this theater has discount days! So instead of the whopping $1 it cost to see a movie it was only .75 cents.
Soooo for a total of $2.25 the kids and I went to go see Kung Fu Panda. Sounds great right?
Well, as soon as I got in I realized that I did not have enough cash, did I mention that this is a cash only place. I take that back... I had enough cash for the actual tickets, but who goes to the movies and does not get popcorn. I mean why watch a movie?
But I could not leave because I had three VERY  HAPPY CAMPERS!
Everything was fine until about half way through when my little man decided he was done! He wanted to leave. Usually we have great movie experiences because all we have to do is keep the popcorn filled. And since I had two other kids who would not be ok with leaving I decided to dig and dig into the depths of my purse.  I scored! I found five pieces of gum. So what did I do? I would pinch of tiny pieces and feed it to Losiah. He fully ate them ALL, but hey at least we got through the whole moving. Just another great parenting moment! H

When will I accept the truth?

I am a mom. Some how most days I forget it. I guess it defines me so much that I don't even recognize the simple fact anymore.  It seems normal to me to be humming disney songs all day long. It seems normal to have someone want to be in the restroom with you no matter what you may be in there for. It seems normal to me to have 5 people sleeping in one bed.  I just don't think twice about these things.
Well, not today. September 2nd has been a day that I stare momhood in the face.  The alarm rang earlier than usual today. Or maybe it was just harder to get out of bed to start the day. None the less the day began. I walked one baby to the bus stop, which reminded me. Hey I am a mom.  I came home to my next baby saying her "throat hurt" translated means QUICK GRAB A BAG I AM ABOUT TO HURL! So I did 3 hours and 9 bags later she sits like this.

The bag did not make it to her once and so I am now washing the couch covers. Which reminded me that I am a mom! That should be enough reminders right?
Oh, but I have one child left, he woke up gave me the best morning hug, I fed him and not long after I smelt him. Nice and ripe. We went up stairs only to find out that I had another introduction to mommy-hood coming my way... a blow-out! So as I put his soiled PJ's in the wash with the cushions with puke, I just laughed and thought...Wow, I am a mom today! H

He's two part eighteen!

I know to some of you this may look like a shoe holder, maybe an organizer
but if you are a two year old, it looks like a ladder!  It's a broken ladder now. H

You can take the kid out of Korea...

We were introducing Losiah to what his Hispanic family members do at a birthday party.
He decided to show us how his ancestors practiced martial arts in a war. H

Summer Rain

I must say this week has been delightful. I have loved the rain we have had all week. There are leaves that are beginning to change and fall is in the air! I must say I love Georgia today!

   
What brings this kind of smile to your face? H

The Murder Scene

Warning... this is nasty! I forgot I had these on the camera till today. This was from last week.
Remember the bloody nose day. It happened twice in one day!  It's a good thing I can handle blood!

All clean! Did you notice the color shirt I decided to put on him? H

You ask, I'll answer set 16

Our Adoption Story...

It was fall of 2004, when I was watching an Oprah Winfrey Show that unveiled the inhumane stories that were taking place in South Africa. The show educated the public and myself of an epidemic where babies as young as 5 months are being raped. There is a myth being spread in Africa that if you have sex with a virgin you will then become cured from AIDS. Consequently children, infants were being robbed of their humanity.  This story broke me. My heart began to grieve for them and desire to give life to soul that had been lost.  I struggled with this for a month or so. Finally I broke down and told Carlos that I want to adopt. At this time I was thinking in our future, after our biological children were raised. Then we could adopt a child whose soul has been stripped from them and build them back to who God intended them to be. Carlos was 100% on board from day one.
        It was not but a month later Carlos and I were watching Oprah (again) and she did a special on orphanages in China.  This time Carlos was moved. He began talking about adopting a girl from China. We still were thinking that this was later in our future, not now. Shortly after these two shows Carlos had a dream that made him question why we were waiting to adopt. Why not now?  When he told me about the dream we talked about it and decided that we would look into the process. We have always wanted 4 children and we loved the idea of having our adopted child be right in the middle of our biological children. We decided to begin the process!
        Carlos and I have followed Steven Curtis Chapman and have seen his presentation on adoption, so we decided to start with his organization. We trusted in the agencies he was recommending. We started with his list and one by one the doors were closed. We didn’t know that there were so many requirements of the parents. We looked into Africa but at that time non of his agencies adopted from Africa.  We then looked into China but they had a requirement was that both parents had to be 30 and I was not 30 yet.
Those were our two countries that were on our heart, at that point we didn’t know where were going to adopt from. We only had one final agency to look into. We were feeling sad and defeated. Maybe our decision to adopt now was not right. Our final agency to look into was Holt International. We began to read their requirements and we matched perfectly with Korea. We matched their requirements and they matched ours.  Korea it was.
        We began the application and attended the first class. We were excited to learn that we would be adopting a boy. We just naturally thought we would be adopting a little girl just because we had 2 girls of our own, plus the two adoption stories on Oprah were based on girls. So it was an exciting shock to hear that Korea favors mixed gender families and that they would be place with a boy.
        The application took longer than we had expected. There were a few bumps in the process but finally things got well on our way. We were assigned to Losiah in July of 2006! Here is the post from Carlos' blog on the day we were assigned to him...

Losiah

Posted on 26 July 2006 Comments (44)
Tags: Family

So Heather and I have been waiting for our “assignment” to come from South Korea. Waiting for months to find out who will be joining our family. I am sitting in a Days Inn parking lot in Oakhurst, CA because we just got a phone call from our social worker that we have been assigned. PRAISE GOD!!! God is shining bright upon us right now. We are overjoyed.
Ragamuffins.
Meet MY SON…Baek Dae-Selok (Korean Name)
His new name will be Losiah. We are unsure as to which Korean names to incorporate. We will decide soon,

God is Good,
Los

The final months before we traveled to pick him up,  were filled with fund raisers, preparing, and lots and lots of stress!
        With the assurance God gave us about this decision, we also had  peace that he will also provide the means to pay for this child. From the beginning God knew our income and we have to believe that if he is leading us to this decision he will lead us in the financial aspect of this process too.  And he did. We had 61 cents in our savings when we entered into this decision and because of  our family and friends and a couple of grants we were able to pay for all the expenses that came our way.
We finally got the call to go pick up our boy in November. We did have a few more bits of drama before that wonderful call came. He was coming home!

I think you will be able to spend hours reading our story, if you don't have time for them all look at this post and watch these two, they are my favorite. If you have a day or two... start on Carlos' blog and go to November 2006 and enjoy. It is quite the story! 

Wow, that was a lot of info! Thanks for hanging on! I could go on and on. I would love to answer any questions you have so ask away. I also would love to hear your stories, if you are or think you are going to adopt lets make a carnival of this. If you are or thinking about adopting, tell us your story.

It's simple,
1. Write your story on your blog and link to this post in yours.
2. Come back here and enter our URL into Mr. Linky below.

I really look forward to seeing pictures and hearing your stories. H

It's Hopeless

 

Thief!

Grrr! You know we are a blogging family when one sly person yanks another's post!  I took this picture for my blog today. Mr Sneaky decided to steal it while I was taking Sohaila to school. Thief!

Losiah's  bed looks like a murder scene! Good morning! H

Watch Out For Big Sis!

You have to watch this sequence...
 
   
Losiah was getting picked up on by this sweet little girl, however Sohaila was not down with it! Look at her getting up in his business! Ha! H

He's two, part seventeen!

  
I have no personal pictures because, well I was in the shower when my little sweet boy came in and said... "here you go, mama, here you go" As I looked down he had my phone in the stream of water! What a helper, bringing me my phone. What a little helper!
The phone still works, but the people sound like they are in a tunnel. And that my friends, is why I pay $5 a month for the insurance! What a sweet little helper I have! H

Seaweed, Marshmellows and peanuts

What would you choose?

My boy loves his seaweed!

He's two, part sixteen!

What does a hammer plus a boy on the naughty carpet equal?
+  =
Crying Sisters!

He's two, part fifteen!

"Mom! Losiah just went pee on our floor!"

This is twice in one day that he has pulled off his pants and went pee on the floor! H

He's two, part fourteen!

I have been such a patient gardener. I have watched this one tomato grow with anticipation of its taste. The flavors that only a home grown tomato could produce. These past few days the color has begun to change while inside the flavors were only growing richer. I was so excited!
Until today.
When MR. Baseball boy thought he'd scored and found a new ball. He threw it like he was pitching for the Dodgers. Oh I was so mad! That little... Boy! ERR!
H

He's two, part thirteen!

It's like clockwork, very evening around 5 when I go to the kitchen to make dinner, he blesses me with a song!
 
I  just wish there was a mute button! H

You can take the kid out of Korea...

But you can't take the Korean out of him! My little man sits (get this) like he is Asian! H

He's two, part thirteen!

After things have settled down from our road trip I decided to clean out the car. All of the bags were already out, the toys were long put away, but there were enough leftovers in there to feed a army. I know you are not suppose to feed a kid when they are crying, but when you are driving through five states you do what you got to do to keep the kids alive. And WE FED THEM! Over and over again. Crackers, lollipops, chips, cookies, watermelon, juice boxes, you name it we had it. <br>Lets just say the car was covered in remains! <br>So I unbuckled the car seats and did the shake to get all the chunks out. There was quite the pile! I figured the little squirrel would be very happy! 

Little did I realize that the squirrel would be Loisah. I found him munchin away on all the leftovers!
What's the worst thing you have seen someone eat? H

True confessions

Carlos watched the kids when I went to a Beth Moore Conference this weekend. Losiah woke up on Saturday with blood all over his face and like any good blogging family we captured it on film.
Later that night we were looking at the pictures and I just had this feeling that I needed to see what actually went down while I was gone.
H- "Please tell me that you cleaned him up"
C- "Yeah I did"  ( I just knew he was telling the truth, however I still needed to keep prying.)
H- "What does that mean. How long was he with blood on his face"
C- "Well he did stay that way for a little bit. I wiped it off when I changed his diaper"
Sounds good right?
H- "And when did you change his diaper"
C- (a long pause... You could see him contemplating his answer) "Oh, 2ish"
H- "WHAT! Not only are you saying he had blood all over his face all day but you did not change his diaper till 2!"
There is nothing like true confessions of a dad. H

REAL Family

 
Don't let anyone tell you it's not real! H

You ask, I'll answer set 10

1. How did you guys choose your children's names? They're all beautiful!
Posted by: Paloma
2. What is the significance?
Posted by: Beth

Good questions!
I remember the day like it was just last week. Carlos and I were newlyweds and free as the wind. We went to the beach for the afternoon and just talked. Ok hold on... I am having a moment here peeps. Come with me for a second as I reminisce what life was like with no kids. Oh, to be able to just get out of your car and walk on the beach. NO whining because the sand is to hot, no extra bags to carry, just the sound of the waves and my mans voice. Ahhh...
 
So we are on the beach just chatting and Carlos bust out with, "when we have our kids and if we have a girl can we name her Sohaila?" "Sure" I replied and it was simple as that.
You see Carlos is not opinionated. He really never asks for anything and when he does I usually do it. :)
Sohaila was a girl he knew in college. Apparently her parents were missionaries when she was born over in middle east and they wanted to give her a native name. And Sohaila it was.
When we chose that name I was so excited, because it was so different. I knew she would never be able to walk into a gift shop and buy a mug with her name on it, but I was ok with that. It was different and I loved it.  Sohaila Teresa Whittaker. Oh we also agreed that the middle names were gonna be after our siblings. So Teresa is from one of my sisters.

 

Fast forward 17 months and our little bean was born. Seanna Jess.
Well once you name one kid Sohaila  your next one can't really be Madison, or Kate. So we began the hunt for different names. I liked a few, Laionie was one, but all I could think about was in first grade when kids pick apart your name they would just call her Lay-on-me. So that was a no go. We really did not have a huge list but a friend, James (our roommate who lives with us now)  went online and made a list of different names and Seanna was on that list. I loved it, and now is just perfect for her. 

Now for Losiah. See if we were gonna have a boy when we were pregnant with Sohaila we were gonna name him Isaiah. We both liked the name, but there were a few reasons why we did not go with that name when it came around for our second child. First reason being the fact that Isaiah is a common name. We were now in the club of "no one can pronounce my childs name or spell it right" And so Isaiah just would not work. Another factor was that I dated a guy named Isaiah and not that it mattered because Carlos did not care about that, but it did add some incentive to not use it.
So, again I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. Carlos and I had gone on a vacation with our best friends Brian and Jacinda. We were out on a date and Carlos, busts out with "lets play with the name Isaiah" HUH? "you know lets see if we can use that name but change it up a little" So we sat there that night and thought of different names that sounded like it but were a little more unique. Then Carlos says "I always wanted my son to be named Carlos" and I said "NO"! But then he said, "what if we took the LOS (which is Carlos' nickname) and combined it with Isaiah and we make LOSIAH. And walla, there you go. Losiah Eddie Whittaker.
Now you must know that we had Losiah picked out for Seanna, before we knew she was a boy or girl. But I think what I love the most is that we named our adopted baby after his daddy. I don't know there is just something special about that.

So tell me what are your kids names?

***Update: Prounications

Sohaila: So-Hay-La
Seanna: Say-anna
Losiah: Los-iah

Welcome to the south...

This kid wont stop sweating! If we are outside this is what he looks like.
 

He's two, part twelve!

I am upstairs, I hear a crash, and sprint to the kitchen to see this...
 
Mr. I-am-old-enough-to-climb-up-on-the-counter, decided that he was going to get some candy out of the candy jar. Nice! What's next? H

He's two part eleven!

Anyone need a light?

My little euro

He started off Korean, then was brought into a Mexican Californian family. We moved him to the south so he will grow up saying Ya'll. And now he is becoming my little euro!

Getting our monies worth

I was out this morning meeting this girl at the airport while she had a long layover. Carlos was home watching the kids! I got home to this...

He's two part ten!

Losiah decided he wanted to play in Seanna's makeup. Not only her makeup, but he had to choose the oil based, creamy, blush-like stuff to spread all over himself.

He's two part nine!

Sunday morning never fails!

Parenting gone wrong!

I may be treading on thin water hear after the last post on Losiah, but did I have a parenting moment go wrong today!  Our roommates have been bringing up the fact that Losiah still sucks his fingers. They don't do it in a bad way, they just joke about the money we will spend fixing his teeth later. Alyssa sucked her thumb till she was ten so she really is not talking smack. However it got my mind thinking.
He really doesn't need to do it. He is two years old. He has just clung on to this new stuffed Tigger and so I thought Hey he has a new comfort thing. Right? I mean he can stop sucking his fingers. Right?
So this afternoon when I noticed him plopping those juicy nubs into his mouth i dabbed them with a little Tapatio. (a Mexican hot sauce). I did it and he really did not fuss, so later in the evening I thought, I am going to take it up a notch and I put some Rooster sauce on them. When he saw me get it out he began to run. When I got to him, I realized that the Tapatio did work because he knew what I was doing. I quickly wiped the sauce on his fingers and boy did he let me have it. He threw a fit and landed on the floor. Normally I would have ignored the tantrum except today he gave himself a bloody nose. I mean a blood gushing-won't stop- kind of bloody nose. I got some tissue and held him down to try to stop the bleeding. Mind you, I am home alone while this is all taking place. I get him tight and just hold the tissue to his nose. He is screaming full force. Torture! I felt so bad, but when I would let go the blood would gush out. He even sprayed me like a spraypaint a few times. Nice! Finally Nurse Alyssa came walking through the door and helped. Oh he was so mad! The good news is he thinks twice before he puts his fingers in his mouth. :)
I guess I get to add that to my long list of parenting gone wrong.
Please tell me I am not the only mom who puts their kids through this. Maybe I am the only one who will admit to it. H

He's two part eight!

Oh no he did not just rip the Word of God...