Food in America!

Annamarie, laughing because we all were egging her on to try to eat this entire bite of spaghetti - in one bite! By the way - she did it! Spaghetti is by far her favorite!

Below - David discovering the wonder of marshmallows! Yum!

David eating dessert - a chocolate graham cracker. Yum! Naomi enjoying her spaghetti!

We discovered that Naomi will eat

an entire watermelon if we let her eat

it like this. The girls discovered this

method of eating watermelon at a kids

fair. Annamarie was in the watermelon eating contest four times!

She LOVES watermelon. She loves it

so much that her Grampie bought her

a watermelon all her own. She was SO excited! She did share it with the family, though.

Naomi - going to town - trying so hard to "beat" Annamarie. She never could,

but she came very close this time! LOL!

The winner and current champion - Annamarie Grace Crawford!

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Anyone who has adopted internationally knows that one of the biggest issues is food! Well - I can now say that this is definitely true for us. David is no problem - being a baby. Not to say that he will eat anything at all, but his diet is varied and healthy. The girls on the other hand - Naomi would be happy if she could eat only popcorn and fruit snacks. Annamarie could survive on watermelon and bananas (she loves popcorn, too). Then - I find myself trying to decide if popcorn can be classified as a vegetable. Can it??? What about fruit snacks? Are they fruit? Does ice cream count as the calcium that they are both lacking in their blood tests?

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Anyway - we have discovered a few things that they will eat with no problem. Spaghetti (only with Grammie's famous sauce, however), most fruit, pizza, chicken (no breading at all - and no chicken nuggets). Malto Meal - Naomi likes hers with applesauce and David likes his with peanut butter. Speaking of peanut butter - Naomi had a major breakthrough yesterday and asked for a peanut butter sandwich. Now...if you have raised children, you know how you count on the easy, quick things at lunch. PB and J, grilled cheese, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, etc. Well...these girls will not eat any of those things! So - I was very excited when she ate that sandwich.

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The main thing the girls miss, I think, is fish. I hate fish. My motto is "nothing from the sea!" So - I rarely cook it. This is where Grampie and Grammie come in, however. They will make seafood and share it with the girls. The biggest hit were the Salmon Patties that Grampie makes better than the Iron Chef! At least I've been told - I think Salmon is for cats!

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Everything is going very well. The kids seem more well adjusted every day and we feel attachment is going well. We are learning what works with each of them and what doesn't. It's a little crazy since it's summer. This has been a good thing because we have lots of time and the kids are all home from school. The hard part about it is that there isn't much of a schedule, and I think the kids (esp. Annamarie) need that structure. I am looking forward to September.

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Rick is doing better. If you don't know, he has had some health problems - heart problems to be specific. He was diagnosed with Myocarditis. The same thing happened to him a year ago and the doctors say it is very rare and that it is like getting struck with lightning to get it twice. So - they are continuing to do tests and trying to find out why this has happened. Rick still doesn't feel back to normal (this happened three weeks ago), so please keep him in your prayers. He is very tired and this is not good when you have just adopted three children! We covet your prayers!