What a time it was! We rejoice that Abigail and John are both finalized! I hope you have not been "biting at the bit" waiting for my update and lots of pictures. Here are the events as played out beginning the night before we left:
5/21/08 Wednesday Night
10 pm Daniel was extremely uncomfortable with the hand, foot, mouth virus. He started with blisters on his lips and couldn't fall asleep. He finally did fall asleep at 10pm.
12 am Daniel (and Mommy) awoke miserable
12:45 am Daniel (and Mommy) awoke again, miserable
3 am Daniel (and Mommy) up again, sweet boy, just miserable
John came in to announce he had to pee
4 am Our alarm goes off for us to get ready for our flight. Mommy up, Daddy and Daniel sleeping through alarm.
4:50 am Daniel doesn't want to wake up, but does and seeming better, downs some water! Yea God! We are out the door to the airport.
6:10 am Board flight
6:30 am Flight Attendant announces that there is a problem with the engine indicator light for the left engine and that we will have a 20 minute delay.
6:50 am All is well and we pull out onto the tarmac.
7:00 am Flight Attendant announces we have a problem with the right engine indicator light (hey, didn't we just go through something like this for the other engine?!)
7:50 am After sitting on the tarmac with high hopes of taking off shortly, we pull back into our gate and change planes. We were gracious and I even thanked our Captain for the nice short nap. He was surprised that we would have such a good attitude.
8:00 am Board and get all six of us settled (again!)
We arrived at our destination a few hours later than we expected...
11 am (somewhere east of our residence) We arrived, rented our mini-van, changed the children out of their "pjs" (really just comfortable sweat/sleeping/travel gear).
12 pm Drive through Hardees for a burger, fries and soda. Yum! Everyone's doing great now that we are sugared and fattened up!
1 pm Run around a very wet, muddy park before changing into court attire.
2 pm Show up for court hearing
2:30 pm Court hearing time comes and goes
4 pm We get in to see the judge!
4:10 pm All is final and we walk out of court room, snap a few pictures with all those who helped to make the day possible. Woo-hoo!
5 pm We grab some yummy ice cream at the Crayola restaurant and let the children each pick an item from the adjacent store in celebration.
6 pm Return the rental car, change back into travel gear.
6:30 pm We are at the airport and ready to grab some dinner before we catch our 8 pm flight.
What, what's this I see? OH, we are DELAYED! Hmmmm? We get to entertain the children with pizza and sodas for FOUR hours in this tiny airport. Oh well, OK!
10:30 pm We take off
2 am We land
3 am We are home
3:30 am We are sleeping
8 am We wake up, unpack
8:10 am We realize we left our camera in a bathroom at the mall
8:11 am We smile at each other
Just another day in the life! But this day was complete with a happy ending...never to be seen on film!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Please Pray!
In the words of Mark Lowry:
"Jesus came to give us life. But not just life. Life more abundant.
And since life is a constant series of mountains and valleys,
life more abundant just means that the mountains are even higher
and the valleys even lower."
"Jesus came to give us life. But not just life. Life more abundant.
And since life is a constant series of mountains and valleys,
life more abundant just means that the mountains are even higher
and the valleys even lower."
My valleys are not low, but they are challenging! Things always seem to pile up this way. I am used to spinning plates and my Lord knows it. Daniel spent all of yesterday, last night and this morning with a high temperature and a hurting stomach. I took him to the Doctor this morning thinking that perhaps he had Strep. The Strep test was negative, but he has sores on this throat. My sweet boy has Hand-Foot-Mouth Virus for the 2nd time in his little life! The last time he had it was awful, complete with the tiny blisters between his toes, on his ears, his throat and sweet little hands. He was only 22 months and couldn't understand why I had to pin him down to put medicine in his mouth. At 3.5 he is doing a much better job this time. He is taking his Tylenol, Motrin, Benedryl, Maalox and Prevacid like such a good boy. We are alternating the Tylenol and Motrin which resulted in getting his temperature down to 99.8 from 103.5. Please pray for us! Please pray that the other children do not get it. Please pray that Daniel will be healed quickly. As I stated in my last post, we are headed on a plane on Thursday at 6am to finalize Abi and Johns adoptions. We have to go! I know that many of you are faithful prayer warriors. Thank you in advance for standing in the gap for our family!
Monday, May 19, 2008
WE REJOICE!
We received news today that we will are scheduled to finalized Abi and Johns adoptions on the 22nd. That is only a few days from now and we are required to fly in order to get to the state where their adoptions will take place. We rejoice! I have spent the afternoon getting things organized to have a celebration in our home on Sunday from noon to four. If you are reading this and are family or friend who did not get the email invite, please know you are invited!
Abi is overjoyed and John, being only 4 is just confused about what we are doing on Thursday. I told him we are going shopping for a new outfit for him and he became excitedly hopeful that we were getting a "costume" like Superman. Well, we are a homeschool family with "dress up and go out in public in costumes" tendencies. Okay, not me, but John definitely!
Please rejoice with us, pray for us and thank the Lord with us that He is repaying what the locusts have stolen. Yea God!
Abi is overjoyed and John, being only 4 is just confused about what we are doing on Thursday. I told him we are going shopping for a new outfit for him and he became excitedly hopeful that we were getting a "costume" like Superman. Well, we are a homeschool family with "dress up and go out in public in costumes" tendencies. Okay, not me, but John definitely!
Please rejoice with us, pray for us and thank the Lord with us that He is repaying what the locusts have stolen. Yea God!
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:4-5
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:4-5
Sunday, May 18, 2008
School is over?
Last week is over and a new week begins. I have neglected my blog and have not felt anything creative to write about. I go through each day accomplishing the tasks before me and always wishing I had the inclination and energy for more. Our homeschool co-op is completed for the year. We will not be sitting at the dining room table pouring over our classical learning books. We will now officially have time for pleasure reading, handwriting practice and most importantly new scripture memorization. Oh yes, and we get to finish our Math for the year. Our co-op does not include Math.
It is raining, the girls are with my parents, the boys are napping and I do not want to face the pile of paperwork that has built up this week. I want to nap, read other peoples blogs, read a good book, each chocolate, check my phone to see if I have missed calls, take up a new language, reorganize the house, anything but sort and file all the paper!
It is raining, the girls are with my parents, the boys are napping and I do not want to face the pile of paperwork that has built up this week. I want to nap, read other peoples blogs, read a good book, each chocolate, check my phone to see if I have missed calls, take up a new language, reorganize the house, anything but sort and file all the paper!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Ladies Retreat, Donna Partow, Mothers Day, Homeschooling
I have been out of town on a Ladies Retreat with my church. My Mom and Sister went as well and we had a nice time. Peter was with the kids and gained a new appreciation of me. My favorite quote was a text that he sent, "I am amazed at how long it takes to unload the dishwasher when all the other things of life take a second here and a minute there. I sure appreciate you!" Isn't that so nice?! They all faired well. Events of the two days for Peter and the kids included: one doctors appointment, a trip to Costco, marigolds being planted around the garden and a Daddy Daughter luau for Girl Scouts. I even came home to an orderly house. Yea Babe!
My retreat was led by a woman named Donna Partow. She wrote a book called This Isn't the Life I Signed Up For. I have not read it, but many women from my church had and enjoyed it, which led to our hiring her to speak. Our theme was Hope. Hope for the past, present and future. Donna talks about not being a Porcupine: A creature with a lot of good points, but no one wants to be around! Isn't that great? She also mentioned being a real jar of clay for Christ. In biblical times if a jar was cracked they would put wax over the jar so that it seemed perfect. Donna encouraged us to not pour wax over our cracks, but rather to let the cracks (painful things) in our life show so that Christs light can shine through. That is being real. My Mom, sister and I were able to help with the design and decoration of the prayer tent. This is something that our church does at the retreat every year. We set up one of the hotel rooms (emptied out) with a white tent, flowing sheer material, flowers, an altar and prayer request cards. It is a place to go and be at peace before the Lord. We were blessed to be a part of that. We filled it with hundreds of daisies (this was the retreat theme flower) and babies breath. The room and altar over-looked the ocean. It was amazing. I was also able to be a part of the worship team this year. I haven't done that in a few years and was so blessed to get to know the other ladies and help in that way.
Mother's Day was yesterday. It was such a nice day for us. We went to church in the morning. our Pastor had asked me to say a few words about my Mom in front of the congregation. It was so neat to be able to talk about her and the wonderful woman she is. She really loves the Lord, is a prayer warrior and serves with hr hands. You are great Mom! My husband and kids showed me that I was great by planting marigold around the garden for me and purchasing me a Roomba. I used the Roomba (robotic vacuum) all day today. I am so grateful for it and my husbands kindness to me in getting me exactly what I wanted. I think it will definitely save me some time. I put it downstairs today and let it run. I sat down with the kids and colored (insert huge Mom smile here because I actually just sat and enjoyed simple time with them). I went downstairs to see how the Roomba was doing and found that the entire floor was spotless! Yea!!!
We are heading into our final week of school as of today. Our co-op was actually canceled due to our wonderful east coast storm. It is still hovering overhead. The wind was so amazing that it tore the top off of our hot tub. We also had some siding slapping against the house (makes for a nice night sleep), chairs in the neighbors yard and trash cans rolling around between houses. From the sound of the wind I thought we would have lost something or had more damage, but all was fine and/or recovered.
My retreat was led by a woman named Donna Partow. She wrote a book called This Isn't the Life I Signed Up For. I have not read it, but many women from my church had and enjoyed it, which led to our hiring her to speak. Our theme was Hope. Hope for the past, present and future. Donna talks about not being a Porcupine: A creature with a lot of good points, but no one wants to be around! Isn't that great? She also mentioned being a real jar of clay for Christ. In biblical times if a jar was cracked they would put wax over the jar so that it seemed perfect. Donna encouraged us to not pour wax over our cracks, but rather to let the cracks (painful things) in our life show so that Christs light can shine through. That is being real. My Mom, sister and I were able to help with the design and decoration of the prayer tent. This is something that our church does at the retreat every year. We set up one of the hotel rooms (emptied out) with a white tent, flowing sheer material, flowers, an altar and prayer request cards. It is a place to go and be at peace before the Lord. We were blessed to be a part of that. We filled it with hundreds of daisies (this was the retreat theme flower) and babies breath. The room and altar over-looked the ocean. It was amazing. I was also able to be a part of the worship team this year. I haven't done that in a few years and was so blessed to get to know the other ladies and help in that way.
Mother's Day was yesterday. It was such a nice day for us. We went to church in the morning. our Pastor had asked me to say a few words about my Mom in front of the congregation. It was so neat to be able to talk about her and the wonderful woman she is. She really loves the Lord, is a prayer warrior and serves with hr hands. You are great Mom! My husband and kids showed me that I was great by planting marigold around the garden for me and purchasing me a Roomba. I used the Roomba (robotic vacuum) all day today. I am so grateful for it and my husbands kindness to me in getting me exactly what I wanted. I think it will definitely save me some time. I put it downstairs today and let it run. I sat down with the kids and colored (insert huge Mom smile here because I actually just sat and enjoyed simple time with them). I went downstairs to see how the Roomba was doing and found that the entire floor was spotless! Yea!!!
We are heading into our final week of school as of today. Our co-op was actually canceled due to our wonderful east coast storm. It is still hovering overhead. The wind was so amazing that it tore the top off of our hot tub. We also had some siding slapping against the house (makes for a nice night sleep), chairs in the neighbors yard and trash cans rolling around between houses. From the sound of the wind I thought we would have lost something or had more damage, but all was fine and/or recovered.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Expelled
Peter and I went to see Ben Steins Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed on Monday evening. We had the theater to ourselves and although we liked the freedom, we were disappointed that the theater wasn't packed. Now, of course we did go to the 4:20 showing on a Monday afternoon...I know, I know, that explains a lot!
We really liked the film. You already know from my blog that we are Christians. We love the Lord and we know that Jesus came to die for our sins, was buried and resurrected three days later. We believe He is seated with the Father in heaven and that the Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit are one. We believe in the hypostatic union (that Jesus is both fully God and fully man and is in no way inferior to God).
All that being said, we loved this movie! We were watching it from a Christian perspective, but Mr. Stein is Jewish and he doesn't focus on religion, nor does he argue his points with the scientists whom he interviews. He asks plain and simple questions and gets some extremely interesting answers. Go see the movie!!! If you are a Christian, go see the movie. If you are Jewish, go see the movie. If you are Agnostic, go see the movie. If you are a Humanist, go see the movie. If you are Muslim, go see the movie. If you are Hindu, go see the movie. Ok, stopping here. I do not mean to leave out a particular group of people, I just don't want to get dull. Besides, this is not a politically correct blog. So, basically, if you are alive, breathing, have a few bucks for a movie (face it, you can forgo the popcorn no matter how great it smells) and are AT ALL curious why scientists are choosing to totally ignore intelligent design as an option for how we began (except for aliens placing their seed here of course), then GO SEE THIS MOVIE! Now I do warn you, it's a documentary. However, Ben Stein is creative, makes you think, makes interesting correlations between the Berlin wall and lack of ID in science and really put himself on the line to bring this movie to the public.
Ben Stein interviewed on Fox:
We really liked the film. You already know from my blog that we are Christians. We love the Lord and we know that Jesus came to die for our sins, was buried and resurrected three days later. We believe He is seated with the Father in heaven and that the Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit are one. We believe in the hypostatic union (that Jesus is both fully God and fully man and is in no way inferior to God).
All that being said, we loved this movie! We were watching it from a Christian perspective, but Mr. Stein is Jewish and he doesn't focus on religion, nor does he argue his points with the scientists whom he interviews. He asks plain and simple questions and gets some extremely interesting answers. Go see the movie!!! If you are a Christian, go see the movie. If you are Jewish, go see the movie. If you are Agnostic, go see the movie. If you are a Humanist, go see the movie. If you are Muslim, go see the movie. If you are Hindu, go see the movie. Ok, stopping here. I do not mean to leave out a particular group of people, I just don't want to get dull. Besides, this is not a politically correct blog. So, basically, if you are alive, breathing, have a few bucks for a movie (face it, you can forgo the popcorn no matter how great it smells) and are AT ALL curious why scientists are choosing to totally ignore intelligent design as an option for how we began (except for aliens placing their seed here of course), then GO SEE THIS MOVIE! Now I do warn you, it's a documentary. However, Ben Stein is creative, makes you think, makes interesting correlations between the Berlin wall and lack of ID in science and really put himself on the line to bring this movie to the public.
Ben Stein interviewed on Fox:
Friday, May 2, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
What a Week!
Hello All,
I can't believe I haven't written since my disappointment with ClustrMap. Thanks to 60 Toes and PetersonClan for the SiteMeter advice. I will try to update my site with that today.
Do things always happen at your home when your husband leaves!? My husband was no more than 20 minutes out the door for a trip when our septic alarm started whining. I knew exactly what to do as it had sounded about six months ago. At that time the nice gentlemen from the county had to remove the pump from the front yard, while they complained about the huge grass that the previous owners planted right next to it, only to discover that someone in our house had been flushing baby wipes! We had six months of strict "do-not-flush-baby-wipes" or "anything else of a non-septic nature" rules and then the dreaded alarm sounded once again. I must say that the men from the county were here within 30 minutes of my call. In the meantime I am going through the house constantly reminding all those who are here to not flush the toilet. After hearing three separate flushes..."No, you may not use the bathroom as I had already told you to not flush and you did, so now, this time you have to hold it, as I do not want poop all over the inside of my house. To keep your mind off of it do some push ups." I know I sound like a rough Mom! Well, who wants poop all over the house? I also know that if it were me having to go that badly, push-ups wouldn't do anything to help keep my mind off of it. For some reason it bought me 10 more minutes not having the kids in the bathroom. After three hours we found out that the pump had a broken pipe due to the basket getting clogged from something resembling the inevitable baby-wipes. After much thought I concluded that it was not baby wipes, rather those wonderful, "save you from time consuming scrubbing," flushable toilet cleaners. I think I am at fault. Those things weren't on the "do not flush" list. So, am I really at fault? I think not. I think I will just add them to the "anything else of a non-septic nature" rules and go back to on-my-knees scrubbing. You know, the kind that really gets the toilet clean!
So all of that wonderful adventure was plopped right into the middle of everything else we did this week: helped to open Papa and Granmommy's pool, had our water tested for our updated foster care home study (we have to do this every year and every year it's an adventure in itself for some reason), Church and final membership class, homeschooling ("and this is how you pull a septic pump children"), Ladies Retreat worship practice (I leave in 7 days and get to help with worship) and all the normal daily life kind of stuff.
I am excited about my upcoming retreat. I will relay a funny story from last year. During our session times I keep my phone off and check messages in between should Peter need me.
I was excited to get messages from Peter until I heard them!
Message one:
"Hey Babe, just wondering where you keep the cleaners. All I can find is the Windex and I'm not sure if that will do it."
Message two:
"Hey, no worries. I got all the poop cleaned up."
So, if you are me you are wondering:
1) Where was the poop? otherwise read: Oh no, on a carpet, where?
2)Did you find the right cleaners? otherwise read: Did you use Windex on the carpet?
3)What in the world happen? otherwise read: A little more info please.
I know there was a lot of poop talk in this post. I hope I didn't scare you off! When you have four children it tends to be a topic of conversation in the home. Also, my present week as well as my upcoming week have me a little focused on the next adventure that may be right around the corner!
On a nicer note:
Last year, upon my return from the Ladies Retreat, I was surprised to find that my wonderful husband and children had planted four beautiful hydrangea bushes across the front of our house in honor of me for Mother's Day. They are great! I love you five. XO
I can't believe I haven't written since my disappointment with ClustrMap. Thanks to 60 Toes and PetersonClan for the SiteMeter advice. I will try to update my site with that today.
Do things always happen at your home when your husband leaves!? My husband was no more than 20 minutes out the door for a trip when our septic alarm started whining. I knew exactly what to do as it had sounded about six months ago. At that time the nice gentlemen from the county had to remove the pump from the front yard, while they complained about the huge grass that the previous owners planted right next to it, only to discover that someone in our house had been flushing baby wipes! We had six months of strict "do-not-flush-baby-wipes" or "anything else of a non-septic nature" rules and then the dreaded alarm sounded once again. I must say that the men from the county were here within 30 minutes of my call. In the meantime I am going through the house constantly reminding all those who are here to not flush the toilet. After hearing three separate flushes..."No, you may not use the bathroom as I had already told you to not flush and you did, so now, this time you have to hold it, as I do not want poop all over the inside of my house. To keep your mind off of it do some push ups." I know I sound like a rough Mom! Well, who wants poop all over the house? I also know that if it were me having to go that badly, push-ups wouldn't do anything to help keep my mind off of it. For some reason it bought me 10 more minutes not having the kids in the bathroom. After three hours we found out that the pump had a broken pipe due to the basket getting clogged from something resembling the inevitable baby-wipes. After much thought I concluded that it was not baby wipes, rather those wonderful, "save you from time consuming scrubbing," flushable toilet cleaners. I think I am at fault. Those things weren't on the "do not flush" list. So, am I really at fault? I think not. I think I will just add them to the "anything else of a non-septic nature" rules and go back to on-my-knees scrubbing. You know, the kind that really gets the toilet clean!
So all of that wonderful adventure was plopped right into the middle of everything else we did this week: helped to open Papa and Granmommy's pool, had our water tested for our updated foster care home study (we have to do this every year and every year it's an adventure in itself for some reason), Church and final membership class, homeschooling ("and this is how you pull a septic pump children"), Ladies Retreat worship practice (I leave in 7 days and get to help with worship) and all the normal daily life kind of stuff.
I am excited about my upcoming retreat. I will relay a funny story from last year. During our session times I keep my phone off and check messages in between should Peter need me.
I was excited to get messages from Peter until I heard them!
Message one:
"Hey Babe, just wondering where you keep the cleaners. All I can find is the Windex and I'm not sure if that will do it."
Message two:
"Hey, no worries. I got all the poop cleaned up."
So, if you are me you are wondering:
1) Where was the poop? otherwise read: Oh no, on a carpet, where?
2)Did you find the right cleaners? otherwise read: Did you use Windex on the carpet?
3)What in the world happen? otherwise read: A little more info please.
I know there was a lot of poop talk in this post. I hope I didn't scare you off! When you have four children it tends to be a topic of conversation in the home. Also, my present week as well as my upcoming week have me a little focused on the next adventure that may be right around the corner!
On a nicer note:
Last year, upon my return from the Ladies Retreat, I was surprised to find that my wonderful husband and children had planted four beautiful hydrangea bushes across the front of our house in honor of me for Mother's Day. They are great! I love you five. XO
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