Archives for December 2016

Sometimes I just need a moment.  Just that little moment of quiet and stillness.  That moment for a deep breath and a clear thought.  Winter break with 5 children does not naturally provide this.  I know all you parents out there with 6+ children are laughing at me right now.  Laugh away.

I keep telling myself what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger.  Insert killer set of Kelly Clarkson pipes.  Hence I will not let winter break kill me.  I won’t.

So I have a few things to share today.

We got our China travel packet from our agency yesterday and for the last 24 hours I have been fully immersed in more paperwork and reading and group texting my SIL & BIL who lived in China.  We have made our general plan for travel and touristing we just don’t have an exact date yet, but soon.  My blood pressure has been off the chain and I just finished eating some double stuffed oreos with milk because #emotional-eater

We still have some funds to collect so we’re trying to push some stationary sets asap plus Bible journaling classes.  Head over to my shop HERE and buy away…and please feel free to share.  All sets purchased today will be shipped out tomorrow morning.  We also will be having a book fundraiser in January which I’m super excited about.  Books are something our family really loves.  Plus I’m working on getting custom orders done and shipped.  I’m going to stop taking orders pretty soon since we’ll be leaving the country and want to make sure everything is done and shipped before we leave.

I meal planned today all the way until February 4th.  I have never done this in my entire life.  Never, but I felt like I needed to take something off my plate so I planned out each week and went ahead and made corresponding grocery lists for each week as well.  I have several of my SIL’s traditional Chinese meals in the mix and Josh Kelley picked me up a giant bag of rice from the Chinese market.  I’ve got to get some practice in before our little guy comes home.

This guy.  Well, I’m just not sure what else to say.  Geez I’m the luckiest momma in the world.

I enjoyed seeing sooooo many children in one chair over the course of a few days.  When I say they love their cousins they really love their cousins as in how can we sit closer together all the time.

I caught a pic of the mustache again.  And these two make me swoon quite a bit.  Not much really kills Josh Kelley, but Harper Kelley is definitely one of them.  Melts him like no other.

Lastly let’s talk food.  I’ve tried a few new recipes lately and one oldie but goodie.

THIS is the best steak marinade I’ve had.  LOVED it like it was my boyfriend.  And have made it 3 times now.

THIS chicken marinade is the bomb-diggity.  Crazy good you guys.  Everyone devoured it and there were sadly no leftovers.  I just cooked the chicken in a skillet and then served it over a big salad plus some fruit on the side.  The end.

 I’ve been making my own pico and it’s changed my life.  I started with THIS recipe and then just kind of winged it because I didn’t have a jalepeno and purple onion.  Any way you dice this it’s going to be delish in my opinion.  Now I keep a bowl of pico ready to go in the fridge.  Pico de Gallo for you and Pico de Gallo for you and Pico de Gallo for you.  Pico for everyone.

I made 4 different pies for Christmas and THIS one was the ultimate hit.  Gone in no time.

And I am officially an Instant Pot  owner.  Aaaaaand it’s still in the box because it makes me nervous and sweaty, but everything I hear is that it’s like making your own pico…life changing.  So I’m picking out recipes and I’m going to make my first Instant Pot recipe THIS.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  In the mean time if you have some good recipes I’d love for you to share.  Hook a New-To-Instant-Potting sister up.

Happy Thursday.

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In the midst of craziness and lostness and overwhelmedness there is always a chance of laughter.  Always.  It keeps us sane and afloat.  It’s joy.  Over the past month or so Josh Kelley has taken on a facial hair transformation.  He now has a full on mustache.  See exhibit A, B and C.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

While his new mustache growth has taken me some getting use to others are praising it…especially high school boys at Zaxby’s who say things like “Sweet stache man.”  Also since his facial hair revolution has really come into its’ own Josh’s great ideas have gone to a whole new level.  Don’t get me wrong Josh Kelley has always been quite the master mind…the dude is crazy smart.  He arranges furniture in our house like I never could have dreamed up, his jokes are off tha hizzy and he is the one who came up with our most infamous kindness advent which has lived on year after year…surprising someone with a Christmas inflatable…on their front porch.

One night while watching TV a Ferrero Rocher chocolate commercial flashed across the screen and so an amazing idea was birthed forth from the stache.   “Wouldn’t it be funny to buy those chocolates and fill them with brussels sprouts?”  Why yes, yes it would indeed.

In the Kelley family whammy gifts have been given on and off throughout the entire 21 years I’ve known the Kelley family.  Josh and I like to take the whammy to new and different levels like randomly filling Easter eggs for our annual Easter egg hunt with things like rocks, rotten strawberries and used bandaids.  There’s nothing like hearing a 6-year-old exclaim “I got a cigarette butt” while cracking open those plastic eggs.  I kid.  We’ve never used a cigarette butt, but I’m tucking that idea away for next year.

I digress.  So we purchased a Christmas box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and proceeded to surgically remove each chocolate and enjoy each one over about 2 weeks time.  We kept every last paper until it was just a few days before Christmas and time to execute our plan.

Then we bought a bag of brussels sprouts and loaded each little tinfoil wrapper with a tasty, green sprout.

This is obviously the only tutorial you will ever need again in your life so pin away friends, pin away.

The coconut chocolates had clear covers so we had to get a little creative with these, but nothing some white acrylic paint, hot glue and shaved coconut couldn’t fix.  Why yes, yes I did paint some brussel sprouts white and hot glue coconut all over them.  When we’re in, we’re all in.

We left two regular chocolates in the pack to try and bait people in.  I thought it looked pretty legit when we were done.

In the end 5 people tried our chocolates.  My brother dug into a coconut one, but noticed the bottom resembled a plant before actually eating it 🙂  One of my SILs picked up one of the two regular chocolates in the mixed, popped it in her mouth and said how good they were.  One of our nieces picked out the other legit chocolate and ate it up.  Our crew died a little knowing the full on the laughter we had just missed out on.  Then Josh’s dad late on Christmas night opened one of the coconut brussels sprouts and popped it straight into his mouth and started to chew.  His sudden death from white acrylic paint and hot glue poisoning flashed before my eyes and I immediately started yelling, “Stop chewing.  Don’t eat it.  Stop.  Stop.”  It was the funniest thing in all the lands and well, well worth all our stupid hard work.  Then there was Amon who knew about the joke, watched the joke go down with Big Daddy and then proceeded to open up a Ferrero Rocher Sprout and yell, “Awe, you guys got me.”  I die.

Moral of the whole story:  Mustaches give you better ideas.  Josh Kelley and I might have too much time on our hands OR are evil geniuses.  And Amon, well I could just squeeze him into pieces.

Happy Tuesday.

This Christmas was rather weird and wonky and heavy.  I feel like I have about zero words lately…hence my absence around these parts.  I just don’t know what all to write, but I miss this space.  I miss you guys.  I miss pecking at these keys.

So how was your Christmas?  I hope it was grand and magical and lovely.  If it didn’t feel like those things, I feel ya and we’re going to make it and survive and maybe even more because God sent this baby and He changed everything.  Like everything everything.  This is the good news.  This is the hope.

When Christmas break kicked off we enjoyed some solo dates with Kelley kids.  Last year everyone chose Josh to go out with except one kiddo.  This year I got picked twice.  My odds are getting better. Harper and I got her hair cut, shopped for her siblings at Target, ate Mexican food and desserted (it’s a real world) on Starbucks cake pops and cookies.

Solomon and I ate an appetizer’s only meal which included cheesesticks, pot stickers with slaw and mini sliders.  He got a fruity bright blue drink to wash it all down.  We shopped at TJ Maxx for his peeps and went with ice cream from Sonic for dessert because it was only 24 degrees outside.

Amon and Hudson chose Josh… Traitors! 🙂  Our littlest is well, too little to do any sort of shopping.

We spent the rest of our days leading up to Christmas doing our kindness advent, baking, watching movies, suffering through crazy cold temps, working a bajillion puzzles including a 1000 piece snow one that Josh Kelley finally abandoned because #ALLTHOSEWHITEPIECES  We ate yummy food, Christmas partied with friends, stayed up way too late and wavered between joy and sadness…resting in His peace and questioning everything.

Christmas Eve arrived and the temps spiked and our kids wore shorts and tees.  It was 64 degrees last night and 70 degrees now.  Not exactly the white Christmas we were dreaming of…break out the Bermuda shorts.  We saw every single cousin in less than 24 hours.  We opened Santa presents with our littlest’ family early in the Christmas morning hours and chatted over sausage balls and canned cinnamon rolls.  Then we ate, ate and ate some more with Josh’s family.  I broke into tears while trying to decide between fudge or buttermilk pie and filled out a giant pile of new adoption paperwork.  I emailed our caseworker and the grant supervisor who is overseeing one of our grants we received…wishing them a Merry Christmas, asking questions and not expecting a reply at all, but I left my in-laws house feeling a sense of accomplishment along with another giant stack of papers ready for the mail.

This morning after my workout I was driving home and caught the sky in my rearview mirror.  I turned around and headed to the Kroger parking lot and then just sat and watched the sky.  Things feel really messy right now on so many different levels.  My stress level can skyrocket with simple thoughts like realizing 2017 is just 5 days away which puts me and our little guy another full year apart…another full year I completely missed.  To put it simply, I feel like a mess.  A jacked up, messed up, wonky mess.

And as I sat there and watched the sky change minute-by-minute and thought about the past few days and the days ahead…when I thought about all those feelings and emotions and downfalls…When I thought about how undeserving I am of pretty much everything…I was reminded of how God sent Jesus for my wonkyness, my brokenness and just my messed-upness in general.  I’m so thankful He shared Jesus with us all, but first with a bunch of messy misfits.

“Now where would your send your splendid choir?  To a big cover hall maybe?  Or a palace perhaps?  God send his to a little hillside, outside a little town, in the middle of the night.  He sent all those angels to sing for a raggedy bunch of shepherds watching their sheep outside Bethlehem.”  -The Jesus Storybook Bible

And that feels like hope.  Big, lovely, messy, gracious hope.

Happy Monday!

I just had to drop in today and share about a new recipe I tried over the weekend.  I found this Rainbow Cake Roll recipe on Pinterest and it was soooooo pretty, but also looked doable.  I had a few nerves about it…especially rolling the cake in a dish towel…like would it permanently stick and ruin the cake…but after I finished I realized this was quite easy and freakin’ delicious.

The cake is so light and fluffy and airy and the icing is the same.  I did use an entire small container of cool whip instead of just the 1 1/2 cups…probably around 2 1/2 cups instead.

Also just think of the color possibilities.  So many options and they are all sure to be gorgeous.  At first I was a little bummed that my powered sugar had dulled the color of the cake once it was rolled, but then it chilled in the fridge for a bit and the sugar absorbed and made the most vibrant cake color.  It was so so pretty.

The Kelley’s devoured and so did friends.  Josh Kelley loved it.  And Hudson said, “It tastes just like a rainbow.  Not that I’ve tasted a rainbow before, but this is what I imagine it would taste like.”  Make this cake and thank me later.

Happy Monday.

Randomness from around these parts.

My sister-in-law Becky recently asked us over for lunch so she could teach me how to cook some traditional Chinese dishes.  She is actually from the area where our newest little boy is so she was able to show me dishes he will know and find familiar.  It was the absolute sweetest time.  I told her I wanted to cry about 1,000 because I just felt so grateful.  Everyone devoured all 4 dishes we made and Solomon is now a huge fan of tofu.

This was also just 2 days before Becky birthed this sweet little nugget.

Ms. Nia Qin made me an aunt for the 12th time.  And she looks straight up just like her big sister.

In other news, Harper’s paper snowflakes are starting to find themselves taped to our bathroom window and I simply love it.  One of my favorite seasonal things she does making our bathroom oh so magical 🙂

Amon and our littlest brought home the cutest gifts from MDO this week.  Every time I look at their little sillouhettes I smile the biggest smile.  Just the cutest thing in all the lands.

Our PTO provided food for our teachers this week.  I made up a few goodies, but wanted to share THIS ONE.  The key, in my personal opinion, is to go heavy handed on the Nutella and eat these pretty ladies hot.  I mean, come on…biscuits, nutella and cream cheese frosting…what could go wrong?!?!

SIDENOTE:  I doubled the recipe and filled a buttered 9×13 pan.  Cooked it somewhere between 15-25 minutes.  My biscuits were crazy cold so I had to keep a watchful eye.

Harper signed up to bring cupcakes for her class school party.  She requested funfetti cupcakes with rainbow chip canned frosting.  Done and done.  Bonus:  She loves to bake so I mostly sat back and just watched.  And why yes it is 31 degrees outside…rainbow dresses forever.

I actually have a date night with Harp tonight.  On our date agenda are things like getting her hair cut…she wants bangs, eeeesh…dinner, shopping for her sibling’s presents and dessert…of course dessert.

And lately the Kroger parking lot sky has been ministering to my jacked up heart.  It reminds me of God’s goodness and mercy…how underserved yet welcomed they both are…and my smallness.  Kroger parking lot skies for the the win.

Only 9ish days until Christmas.  We can do this!  Enjoy your weekend.

Happy Friday.

Life just feels so messy and rough right now.  We’ve got a lot going on in the Kelley house plus the world feels very hard and sad.  We’re working through loss and major tantrums and big decisions and questions and a sweet boy oceans away who needs heart surgeries.  This Christmas season has been speckled with sadness and joy.  I read somewhere years ago…I can’t even remember where now…that joy and grief can co-exist.  I wrote that in a card just this week to friends missing a loved one this season.  And tonight I whispered it to Harper as she cried over Aleppo in her top bunk.  Joy and grief can dance…they can take hold of one another and preform a beautiful, magnificant dance together.

I first talked to our kids about Aleppo a few weeks ago.  I was so overwhelmed by it.  I found myself just reading and sobbing and reading some more.  I felt it necessary to tell them.  Did I show them pictures that might have been too graphic?  Yep.  Did Hudson and I cry together while driving to school?  Yes we did.  Good decision?…Bad decision?…the jury is still out, but I’m starting to think maybe not my worst parenting moment.  I don’t want them to turn their eyes away from the brokenness and sadness of the world.  Instead I want them to turn towards it and then reach out their hands and cry with the world.  We need other people’s pain to become our own.  We need to feel deep compassion and empathy which moves us to action.

With the recent news of Aleppo we dove back into conversations today and more pictures which ended with lots of tears and donations being made to Preemptive Love to help provide food, water and sleeping bags.  We talked about what we could do and they compiled a list.

1.  Give.

2.  Pray.

3.  Go to Aleppo.

4.  Send toys.

5.  Remember.

I want them to take ownership in how we can love those around us.  We talked about how we couldn’t go to Aleppo right now and how toys probably aren’t the best thing to send currently, but how we could do 1, 2 and 5 regularly.  We talked about choosing gratefulness and remembering the people of Aleppo.  We talked about how fighting over pretzels (which had just happened) seemed small and silly when we think about our brothers and sisters in need.  We talked about how we can still celebrate this season, but also remember those in such dire need and how we would do what we could.

If we take the stance “We can’t do anything.  We can’t make a difference.” then we absolutely won’t.  But if we choose to know we can make a difference, then we absolutely will.  When we rally together…when we stand together…we can make a difference.  I want our kids to always know they are world changers.  Jesus calls all of us into it.

A friend was asking me some things about foster care this week.  I told her one of the reasons we are a foster family is because my mind can’t even go to the place of thinking about having my children removed from our home because of a mistake I made…no matter how big or small…or how bad or not so bad…and then placed in a stranger’s home.  I cannot fathom how I would even begin to feel because just starting to think about it makes me want to throw up.  We are foster parents because if the roles were reversed we would want someone fighting for us and loving our children madly.  We would want someone in our corner saying “You can do this.  And we’re here to help you.”  We are foster parents because we want to treat people how we would want to be treated.  This goes for Aleppo too.  And every other situation for that matter.  We are called to treat people as we want to be treated.  To love others how we want to be loved.

When we read about Aleppo in history books years from now, I don’t want to think about how our family did nothing.  I don’t want to think about how our family turned our heads the other way.  I want to know we treated the people of Aleppo how we would want to be treated if we we’re the family running for our lives and trying to protect & feed our babies.

Harper was still pretty upset about it all tonight after she went to bed.  I ended up snuggled in her top bunk under her covers next to her.  We cried together and hashed things out.  I told her how one of the main reasons I love our kindness advent is because God planted it on my heart in such a desolate moment of my life.  I was so sad…so grieved…so hopeless feeling after losing Mom and there in the grief and sadness God planted this piece of joy.  I still remember reading a photo copied devotion my friend Sandra gave me about how even when we don’t know what to do for ourselves, we can always do for others.  I told Harper how even in our most hopeless of moments God can do wondrous things.  He can bring joy in the midst of sadness. He can bring hope and peace in the midst of war and heartache.  He can make things new and beautiful even when they seem far too broken.  That’s what He does.  That’s the jaw dropping, redemptive beauty of our God.  Beauty from ashes.

We ended our bed chat/cryfest talking about how O Holy Night is one of our favorite Christmas songs because of one line “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”  God never told us not to be sad.  God never said to not take on our neighbor’s pain.  We can still be weary and downtrodden and rejoice.  We can be sad and have our breath taken away by the thrill of hope we find in Him alone.  Joy and grief can dance.  So that’s our plan for the rest of the Christmas season.  We’re remembering Aleppo…and other’s in our lives and around us who are facing hard things…we’re choosing kindness and generosity…we’re looking towards the pain…we’re feeling it…and we’re rejoicing in the hope of Jesus.

 *If you would like to donate directly to aid on the ground in Aleppo GO HERE.

*Great read about Aleppo HERE.

*Shannan always says it 10x better than I every could.

*See Beyond Despair in Aleppo is a must read.

*7 real things you can do right now about the catastrophe in Aleppo

Well who else is so glad it’s Friday?  Me too, me too!!!  We’ve got a Christmas party, a birthday party, my SIL is showing me how to make some Chinese dishes, we’re babysitting some cuties for friends and we’re decorating Josh’s parents tree with pizza for lunch…oh pizza, how I miss thee.

So a few things about our week:

When I get stressed or frazzled or feel overwhelmed or anxious I usually do one of 2 things: Bake or purge our house of things.  This means cookies and treats are given away frequently and I personally help keep the Help Center down the road stocked 🙂  This week I made cookies.  And not just any cookies but THESE cookies.  Just make them.  They are my go-to.  They are my favorite.  They are always and forever delicious.  Then share them because cookies make people feel warm and fuzzy and cared for.

Kindness has been carrying on.

December 7th:  Ornament delivery.  The past two years we’ve made our ornaments, but this year Noonday Collection had the sweetest ornaments made by artisans in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guatemala and India.  I snagged some for us to share after one of our parties.  The kids have the sweetest 4 teachers at church every Wednesday night and they chose to gift them with their ornaments.

December 8th:  Make bookmarks and leave them in books at the library.  We love love love our local library and go often…in fact weekly.  The kids really enjoy this one.

Our bookmarks are crazy easy.  I just cut up a cereal box then the kids got to town with markers, stickers, ribbon and a hole punch.  Really fun and easy.

December 9th:  Donut delivery for our school staff.  I mean, is there really anything that says “I love you” more than a hot donut?!?!?!  I think not.  We always get ours from Krispy Kreme because they are tasty and delicious and if you order 10 or more boxes ahead of time they give you 25% off.  Hola!!

PS:  Solomon has learned from Hudson’s “dead eyes”…Jesus take the wheel 🙂

Work has been crazy town in the best kind of way.  We are so close to finishing off our adoption fund. Only about 8K away which means 32K came together in just over 3 months.  Huge, massive praise for sure.  You guys are amazing and God is so good.  All order money is heading straight into our adoption fund along with stationary sets and Bible journaling classes.  Head over to MY SHOP and snag some goodies just in time for Christmas.  I’m shipping rapid fast.

And we have been pom-pom making machines around here.  The Clover Pom Pom Maker is such a fun, simple tool.  Harper, Hudson, Solomon and I will all sit around watching a show and making a million pom-poms.  They love it.  Solomon made 24 large and 24 small to give to each of his classmates.  They’ve gifted teachers and friends and each other.  Pom-poms for everyone.  Pom-poms for you and for you and for you.  I made a garland for our chalkboard.  I also bought several to give nieces for Christmas along with a fun thing of yarn.  Such a great gift.

Hope you guys have an amazing weekend.

Happy Friday.

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Things are pretty wonky around our house right now and I just don’t have a lot of words to write.  I am slammed with life and work and if you’ve placed an order I promise I’m working just as fast as I can.

We started our Kindness Advent on December 1st and have been moving right along.  This is easily one of my favorite and most intentional times of the year.  Kindness does not have to be big and grand and expensive…it can be small and simple and free, but either way it’s always intentional.  This time of year reminds me and our family that kindness comes with intentionality.

So here’s what we’ve been up to.

December 1st: Buy toys for the Christmas store at church where people in the community who are struggling this time of year can get presents for their kiddos.  We really encouraged the kids to pick things they would love to receive themselves and they did awesome.  Amon might have asked 1000 times when he got to open the Mickey Mouse tool set he picked out to no avail.

December 2nd:  Share Sonic happy hour.  My phone was dead when we went to Sonic, but Harper decorated a cute little note with a Christmas tree and we taped it and a $5 gift card to the ordering board.  Easy easy.

December 3rd:  Paint wood slices and leave them at the park and on the sidewalks.  We added this one last year and it has become a fast favorite.  2 cousins happened to be over that day so we had some extra painting help.  We all walked down the street to enjoy our local Christmas parade and left these along the way too.  The kids absolutely loved this one.

December 4th:  Buy double packs of bar soap for the prison ministry at church.  Regular every day toiletry items cost much more than they should to inmates and the prison ministry at church is trying to help out this Christmas.  When checking out at Walgreens me and the cashier had the sweetest conversation about prison and people in prison.  She has some loved ones who are incarcerated and she shared some really valuable words with me.  Truth be known I wanted to reach across that counter and bear hug her.

December 5th:  Load trinket machines up with quarters.  The kids always love this one and are totally okay walking away empty handed.  This year we had too few machines and quarters leftover so we went ahead and turned some of them, left the trinket or candy under the silvery, metal flap and loaded the machine up again.

December 6th:  Treat and warm drink for our Salvation Army bell ringer.  When the kids got in the car after school the first thing Hudson said was, “Mom I brought a dollar to put in the bucket.”  I absolutely love that the kids love doing this.  I love the intentionality of this time because it’s one of the busiest, bustling times of the year.  There’s a Starbucks in our Kroger grocery store so we slipped past our sweet bell ringer and the kids picked out yummy treats…cake pops to be exact.  We noticed he was already drinking a coffee so we opted for a $5 gift card instead of an actual drink so he could get whatever he liked when he was ready.  We gave him the goodies, dropped in our monies, wished him a Merry Christmas and he was just the sweetest.  As we walked away Hudson said, “That felt good.”

Tomorrow is ornament delivery and everyone has their recipients picked out and ornament ready to go.

If you would like to follow along daily with our advent I’m sharing about it over on Instagram.

Happy Tuesday night!