Stylish skirts for a housebound holiday
Sparkling skirts, especially with elastic waists, are perfect for all occasions
weren’t challenges, by then I was a stay-at-home mum, while Mike worked as a landscaper. We had to get a 15-passenger van, too! The siblings were aged between seven and 15 and there was never a quiet moment, but we wouldn’t have had it any other way.
We’d fallen in love with the kids and started the adoption process almost straight away. They deserved a good home, and despite three of the children having behavioural problems, we worked through it as a family.
Our grown-up sons had initially been wary of us adopting, but our daughter, Micah, gave up pursuing an acting career so she could help us raise the children.
For her, the most important thing was giving these kids a mum and dad, and a sister too – to be with a family that loved them. It was an amazing sacrifice for her to make, and I loved her so much for it.
Micah was the most fantastic big sister to them all, and Mike and I couldn’t have done it without her help.
It was coming up to Christmas 2018 when we got the court date through for the adoption to be finalised. On 3 December – just three weeks before Christmas – we all went down to the courthouse and legally became a family. It was so emotional. Our friends and family were there and we all cried happy tears!
The kids were thrilled. Dawson, then 15, Kyndal, 11, Lacey, 10, Layna, 10, Addiley, nine, Arria, nine and Nixson, eight, were officially our kids! Korgen and Haizlee welcomed them permanently into the fold, too. We had adopted nine children!
‘It felt like you were our mum as soon as we met you,’ they said. The kids told me that, before us, they’d worried about where their next meal was coming from, and what would happen to them.
Now they didn’t have to worry about anything like that again. Getting a mum and dad was the best Christmas present any of them could have asked for that year…
I hung nine Christmas stockings over the fireplace – something I never thought I’d be doing – and put all the presents under the tree. When Mike and I went to bed that night, we felt so incredibly blessed.
Things that we’d taken for granted – like unwrapping Christmas presents, they’d never really done before. In previous years they’d been given paper bags with small gifts. To see their faces when they got up the next morning, was just priceless. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. We may have gone a little overboard…!
We did the same last year too. We’re lucky that the kids get on amazingly well. Of course, there are squabbles and fall-outs like in any family, and it’s a bit of a squeeze, but we wouldn’t change it for the world.
To wake up on Christmas morning as mum of 13 in total, was magical. The excitement was overwhelming – we opened presents together, and sat down to an enormous dinner with all the trimmings. Everyone mucked in and helped!
Now, at 55, my kids know that they’ve found their forever home, and it’s amazing to see how well they’re all doing. They’re not just a statistic – they’re part of a loving family and have a bright future ahead of them. They are all blossoming, too, now they have a stable home life.
And this Christmas is going to be the best yet. We’re hoping to have all the family at our home in Arkansas, USA, for a big festive dinner including my in-laws, aged 92 and 88!
We enjoy every day that we have as a family. Yes, its madly busy, and I never have a moment to sit down, but that’s the way we want it. We’re living proof that Christmas miracles do happen.
‘Getting a mum and dad was the best gift they could ask for’