Saturday, December 22, 2007

Sadly I share our Levi has died but...

Early this am our dear Levi died. Paul stayed downstairs all nite with him and at 4 am Sat. Levi passed.... It has been a sad day here . Each child has dealt with their grief in their own ways... Lily thru humor, Josiah thru nonsense ways, Mya thru deep, heartfelt aching tears for her Levi. Most of the older ones in private and lots of tears..... Paul and I as well. When our vet called yesterday to check up on Levi... I shared that our kiddos have seen so much death in their pasts... some of it not very positive and we now have a chance to walk thru this valley with them and share a more positive experience about death.... Then tonight I was on frua... one of my adoption chat and support groups.... This was in one of the threads ....

http://www.ksbj.org/eblogs/morningShow/?p=113 . Please go to it and you will see how I know that the Lord loves us and he understands even our pain in the death of a loved one or a pet. Thank you Jesus for caring about us.... All of us have watched and listened many times tonight and it has helped to be reminded of the Lord's love and understanding.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

from our daughters blog

My parents have a plaque on their mantle that says...
"All because two people fell in love"Today marks my parents 31st wedding anniversary...Wow! My Mom called me this morning and told me that one of their dogs, Levi, was at the vets office and was very sick. My Mom and Dad had originally had plans to spend the day together and drive up to Pennsylvania. We'll, being who they are (for those of you who don't know them, their love for animals is only beaten by their love for children) they canceled their plans to make sure Levi was taken care of. I started to get sad for them because their special day was "ruined". But then I thought about their 31 years together...31 years of caring for animals and children and anything else that ever needed care and love...and changed my mind about their day being ruined. No, they are doing just what they love to do, and doing it together. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!p.s. Levi is really sick with an auto-immune disease, but doing better after a blood transfusion. If he continues to improve he gets to go home tomorrow

My dear husband and one of our "grand" children

Paul is swinging with Ava.... He is the love of my life and we
celebrated 31 yrs. on Dec. 19..... Almost all of the pictures
that have Paul or I in them has a child or 2 or 20 in them :)

Not many of us alone.... I thank the Lord for giving me a man
who loves the Lord and children and animals... as much as
I do. Here is a cut a paste from one of our daughters blog...
thanks Jenn for the sweet words.... It also shares about an ache
our family is walking thru right now. One of our "puppies" actually
almost 8 yrs is very ill. He was very swollen around his neck and
head Wed. am just as Paul and I were leaving for our anniversary
celebration... We took him to the vet thinking it was an infection
and has turned out to be very serious... an autoimmune
disease that is killing him. He had no platelets or red blod cells
when we got to the vet. You would not have known how ill he was.
We left him and our vet said short of a miracle Levi would die. Well,
they have given him a blood transfusion and steroids and othere meds.
He was doing so well last nite we were able to bring him home. However
he is dying ... this only bought him some time. He is home and comfortable
but can die anytime... already his tissues in his mouth are getting white
again and so it may be sooner than later. He has no energy but is still
as sweet as ever.... Needless to say the children have been a mess
and very sad about our Levi. Even our older grown children have an
ache for him.... We had taken his mother in while she was pregnant to help at our vets and the mom had 13 puppies instead of the 7 shown on the xray.... We kept 2 puppies - Levi and Willie. So if you care about animals please pray for our Levi and for our family as we go thru a loss of one of our "family".

Uncle Joseph and Ava

Joseph is sharing the experience with Ava.... She loved being out
and it was a gorgeous day for being outdoors...

Christmas Tree Outing

Some of the kids and grandma and grandpa out searching
for our trees... We cut 2 for our home and one for the grandparents.
No snow on the ground yet... We have a tree that is huge and is in our
sunroom. Then we have another by our dining table. We are off from
our homeschool till after the new year. We are enjoying getting
ready for Christmas... The kids get so excited .

Our USCIS approval day visit to Pitt., PA

This was outside the Pittsburgh office of the USCIS we have to use.... on the day we got our approval for the next 5 children. Our dossiers have been in Ukraine for a couple of weeks now and we are waiting for news about them. Ukraine just had new elections for a prime minister and the person that won is more friendly with the West ... hopefully this will help with adoptions in Ukraine. At least that is what we are hearing...