Baby Samuel

All 8 Bishop kids together at last. (The kids meeting their brother for the first time in the hospital.)
And this photo below is my favorite of the little guy. 4 days old.
1 day old.
I think he looks like my little brother Sam did when he was a baby.
Coming home from the hospital.

Samuel is doing great. He is such a good baby. He's caused us no worries or problems. Our only challenge now is getting use to round the clock feedings. The other kids all seem to be taking to him well. We worried about Charity being jealous since she's been so spoiled, but she has nothing but love for her baby brother.
We are so grateful he made it here safely and we just adore him.

Becca's Birthday and Baptism

Becca had her birthday about a month ago now. She and I had a great date together to celebrate. She turned 8! As a result it was time to be baptized. Over Labor Day Weekend she had her special day. Here she is with her Daddy. Yesterday she said to me, "Mom, I know what makes me happy now." I said "Oh yeah, what?" She says, "Spending time with Dad." To which I reply, "That makes me happy too."
She loved her baptism! She was so excited that she kept getting fits of the giggles. It's funny because I remember being the same exact way when I had my baptism.
Becca is such a sweetheart. She wants to be good so badly that when she slips up, she can be crushed. She loves her family, and she loves Jesus and Heavenly Father. We are so proud of her.

My labor, delivery and something else, really gross, personal, and exciting

This is for those people out there that actually enjoy reading a birth story.
I'm gonna try and make this brief without too many details.

At 30 weeks into my pregnancy I was having high blood pressure. I spent one evening in Labor and Delivery that week while they tested me, the baby and monitored things. It got a little better at 31 weeks and stayed ok until week 35 when it went up again.
From 35 weeks to 37 weeks it was high, but not really dangerously, and it wasn't preeclampsia. (No protein in urine, organ damage, etc...) It was just Gestational Hypertension/High Blood Pressure. At 36 weeks, I spent a couple of days in Labor and Delivery for more monitoring of me and baby. Again, not an emergency situation, just watching things closely. They told me that at 37 weeks, if it was still this way, they would take the baby.
I hit 37 weeks this Wednesday. I went in to see the Doc and my blood pressures were pretty high. 160's/110's. They sent me down to labor and delivery to DELIVER! Woohoooo! I was feeling like real crud and was so anxious to get the little guy out of me!
They started me that night with pitocin. Unfortunately he kept flipping all over the place. He seemed to prefer being breech (feet first.) The doctors were telling me they would try and turn him, but if it wasn't successful, a C-section would be necessary. They tried to turn him, and no success. The turning procedure is NO FUN! They tried to turn him again a few hours later and it worked. Phew! But he fought to keep flipping around. They put a strap on me to try and hold him there and broke my water hoping that would make it much harder for him to move. Pitocin was still going strong in efforts to keep the little guy pushed down with the contractions too. I had an epidural thank goodness for those flipping sessions, the water breaking and all this pitocin I was getting. But unfortunately I spent almost 24 hours with very very little progress in the labor. This was another concern because once your water is broken, you must deliver within 24 hours or you have to have a C section. Finally I was dilated to 6. When I hit 6 cm, it seemed like about 15 minutes or so and I was suddenly dilated to a 10. Time to push! We were so glad I wouldn't need a C section! The doctors and nurses came in. I pushed for only about 10 minutes. He was out. He looked awesome! Steve and I were THRILLED! Immediately we were thanking God for this beautiful baby who we are still to this day wondering how I managed to conceive. He was not planned for and the fact that I got pregnant with him seemed like a miracle, or not possible. God definitely wanted this kid here. But having said that, I will say that I am determined to not go through another pregnancy again!!! About 30 minutes after delivery, I happily went to the operating room for a tubal ligation. Permanent sterilization. The procedure was no big deal. Quick and easy for the doctors. I was awake, with my epidural. Here's the parts I hated:
The room was FREEZING! Like see-your-breath freezing. I was shaking and shivering the entire time.
There were 2 or 3 doctors there. One doctor along with one resident and possibly a med student. I think this because the main doctor was giving a real play by play of the entire procedure. "You pull the tube out of her a lot more, an inch or so more...", "cut her like this..." , etc... It was totally totally grossing me out!
I could feel so much of what they were doing. I could feel the knife cutting me, I could feel the tubes being pulled up out of my belly and so on. It didn't hurt at all, I could just feel it and that totally totally grossed me out too.
Here's the part I loved:
When it was over I was inwardly jumping for joy that my childbirthing years were over!
So now Samuel is here safe and sound! We are beyond thrilled. This baby makes us intensely happy!
That's about it folks.

My husband is a super hero. Really.

I always knew I married a very good man. I have always really been impressed with him. But over the last few months I have truly been blown away by this guy. He has so much pressure on him. He's got a needy, high maintenance wife. I hate to say it, but it's true. And he's got 7 very active children that have lots of needs themselves. He has to provide for all of us financially, which is no easy task. He protects us. He has a demanding career that he has to keep up with. He serves in our church. He helps me with all the household stuff when I need him to.
On Sunday I was watching this man spend hours and hours with his 7 children just trying to get some good one on one time with them. He was reading to them, teaching them, holding them, playing with them, and just hanging out with them. It really isn't uncommon for him to spend much of his free time this way. He stayed up late last night so that he could go to each of their rooms at bedtime and talk with them and pray with them and so forth. That was after he took me out on a great date for my birthday. And as I was thinking about all this, the memory flashed in my mind of Steve a couple of years ago when we were discussing whether or not to adopt or have any more children. He was afraid he might not be a good dad if he had more children. And the memory of that conversation made me laugh because seriously this guy is rockin the Dad of 7 kids thing. I would even venture to say he's a better Dad now than he was when we only had 5. He is the most unselfish person I know. He takes very little time for himself and he has never ever acted or seemed resentful of that. Yet at the same time, he is ever mindful of me and my needs; which sometimes are to get time for myself.
I am madly in love with him. I love him more than I ever have in the nearly 14 years since we've met. I am in awe of him. I wonder how he does it. And the only explanation I can come up with is he's a super hero. I am so very grateful to be his wife. I don't know how in the world I managed to get this guy, but boy am I glad I did!

A fantastic FFD

We all had such a wonderful time at this Family Fun Day activity. We started out with a service project. We took the kids to purchase toys for homeless children, then took them to a homeless shelter for donation. The kids were all so cute about it. Then we went to Temple Square and went through the visitors center where we walked through a display about the Church's humanitarian work. Really cool. We also went through a really neat family presentation. Finally a walk through the grounds. Awesome day.

Charity Turns 2

These are a couple of photos the kids took of Charity on her birthday. Oh, my goodness I love this girl! She is so much fun. She's got us all wrapped around her pinky finger. And speaking of fingers, she is still keeping a few of them busy much of the time. Doing this...
Classic Charity. Two fingers in the mouth, and one in the nose with the other hand. Yummy.

Challenges

The first 9 weeks of Andy and Hana being here were awesome. Better than we ever imagined. Then suddenly something happened with Andy. It wasn't all the time, but he started to have these terrible, miserable, nightmarish, scary tantrums. The first time it happened, I was so scared. But after talking to some people that have experienced this kind of thing, and looking in to the situation further, we came to realize that his behavior wasn't just fairly typical, but basically to be expected. Here's how it was explained to us in the briefest way I can explain:
Andy has lived a very traumatic life. He was born into deplorable poverty. He was loved by his family and he loved them back. But just at the age where he can begin to comprehend life and remember things, he witnesses the illness and death of both of his parents. At a young age, he loses the people he is attached to and who cared for him. In comes his teenage brother who previously hadn't even lived with the family, to care for him. This brother isn't necessarily mature or affectionate like a biological primary caregiver would be. He can't handle the pressure. What else could you expect from a teenage boy? It's a situation many adults would not be able to really handle. Andy attaches to him and trusts him. Then one day this brother tells him he will be taking him to the zoo, and instead of the zoo, he leaves him at an orphanage. He loses the next person he loves and has attached to and depended on. At this orphanage he lives for a few years where nobody there truly loves him as a biological caregiver would normally do. Then Steve and I come along and take him home to join our family. He likes it here. He enjoys his comforts. But soon, he starts to love and attach to us. Which at that moment, this child who has lost everyone he has ever attached to and loved, gets terrified. Will he lose these people too? In fear that he will, he pushes us away and tries to emotionally protect himself by not attaching to us as well.
When a child goes through something very traumatic, they can sometimes be stuck at that level of emotional maturity they were at when the trauma hit. For instance, if at the age of 4 a child witnesses the death of their parents, they can emotionally stay at the age of 4 despite their physical growth, until they can fully heal from that experience in a proper manner. This seems true for Andy.
Not to mention he has probably not had consistent and proper discipline at all in his life. We went through tantrum phases with all of our children. But they had years with us to learn gradually how to live as a family and what is proper and good, and what isn't. Andy has all that to learn now at the age of 9.
He has had 6 very unpleasant episodes in the last few weeks. But Steve and I have come to understand this child so much better and have been able to learn to handle and work with him. Andy has gotten better. He still has a lot to learn though. It's been a growing experience for all of us. We've grown closer to him and our love and determination to dedicate ourselves to helping him learn and grow and live a happy, successful life has increased tremendously. And the last several days we've seen a significant change in him that has been so encouraging and touching to see. He's had some bad days, but on his good days, he has more than made up for the bad stuff. He's a total sweetheart. I don't want to sound arrogant here, but I know he loves us. He is showing us he loves us. It's very sweet. When we go places, he wants to hold my hand. He wants to sit by me or Steve at church or other places we go. He loves just being near us, talking with us, being held and told he is loved and wanted. He wants to please us. He feels loved and he is letting himself open up to being loved and loving people back. It's a beautiful thing to see. I'm sure the challenges are not over with this boy, but I am sure he will be fine. I am sure he is very special and he has much he is destined to do in his life. We love him so very much!

Below is a little something Andy made for me for my birthday. I treasure it. I think it's meant to say "Happy home" not "Happy bome" :)

School Starts

Hallelujah! I seriously had doubts whether or not I was gonna survive this Summer. But I somehow did. Here the kids are on their first day back at school. They started nearly a week ago and it has been wonderful. Call me a bad mom for saying so, but I'm just being honest here.
For some reason the caption on Celeste's photo isn't showing up. She started the 7th grade this year.




Everyone has been asking me how the Ethiopians are doing at school. And they are doing great! They seem to like it just fine. They have lots of catching up to do. But they are smart kids and I think eventually they will get there.

Hello. My name is Amanda and I'm a...couponer

Never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth, but they sure have.
A few years back I tried the couponing thing. I was terrible at it. And I was noticing I was spending more money than saving because I was buying a bunch of junk I would have never bought just because it was a good deal. It took a lot of time too. I eventually came to the conclusion that couponing just wasn't for me.
Groceries have gotten much more expensive the last couple of years. And to add to that, in the last two years our family has grown by 3 more people with a 4th person soon to arrive. Plus, we just funded a very very expensive adoption. So I was feeling the pressure to save our family some real money.
Someone I knew was teaching classes on couponing and I took it.
It's been a few months since I started couponing and there's definitely a learning curve, but I have my own system down and I am actually enjoying it. I get this rush when I rack up this large grocery bill, then hand the cashier my stack of coupons and watch the price drop significantly. I'm not an extreme couponer and I don't save insane amounts of money. But lately, it's been about $100 off of each shopping trip. Which for us, $100 a week of savings is a big deal. So yeah. I'm a couponer.

Forever Family

On Tuesday August 2nd, our family went to the Temple. Andy and Hana were sealed to us for all eternity. All of our children were there in the Temple with us. It was an incredible experience. We all felt so happy. To me it was as happy as my wedding day. My Grandfather was the sealer and he did a wonderful job. We had family and friends there too. The children all really liked the beauty and peace there. Andy and Hana have talked about it several times since, and have said they really liked it. I don't know what else to say about it here because it was just so special for us that words cannot describe it.

That day was also Hana's birthday. She turned 6 years old. She went on a date with me that day and after the temple we celebrated with lots of family too. She is such a great addition to our family. We all love her so much. Anyone that has met her knows what a delightful child she is. She's so affectionate and accepting. She's smart and energetic and funny. My favorite thing she does now is the way she will act out stories she wants to tell because she doesn't know enough words to communicate an entire story in words so she'll act it out. It's adorable. It was so fun watching her enjoy her special day too. She's been asking me since if she can have another birthday and if she can go to the Temple on another birthday. What a cutie.