Saturday, April 30, 2011

Peanut Butter B-day Celebration







Isaac celebrated his 14th b-day last week and Keith turned 23 today. Isaac choose peanut butter fudge for his dessert and Keith had peanut butter pies ( frozen). We grilled tonite and I made mac and cheese for Keith. For Issac he picked periogies and grilled chicken for his dinner last week....Happy Birthday to 2 of my favorite guys....

Friday, April 29, 2011

Adoption Update





We heard this am that we have a May 31 - 2nd Embassy Exit Interview. We are glad for that date because the word earlier from the embassy was this :

We wish to inform you that we have received your open date appointment request.  Unfortunately, we cannot give you an interview date at the moment, however, we will check our adoption schedule and respond to your request at our earliest convenience.

Of course we were upset with their response and decided to contact our Senator's office. We heard just this am thru our Sen. office that they gave us May 31. We know of another family who has been in the process along side of us since Oct. and they had their request placed at the beginning of April and got a middle of May appt... So this seems in the timeframe we were expecting....

Now if we can only hear from Kofi that he has gotten all of the kid's passports like he has promised since Feb......We have Stella's and should have the other two but no word today as was expected...Please pray for the passports to be done and picked up....

These pictures are from the family who was there last week visiting their son for the first visit. It is always great to get updated pics of your children :)

Thursday, April 28, 2011

My Montage 4/28/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

Andrew is walking now! 6 and a half yrs.- home from Bulgaria Christmas Eve.2010 . From bedridden in a fetal position to upright and choosing to walk now...Praise God !

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

A Surprise Easter blessing



One of the things we did as a family was to release these balloons with a message and a way to contact us. We let them go Easter afternoon and hope we hear from someone. The week before Easter I gave a challenge to the kids to do something to encourage someone else outside of our family. Lily, Tia and Rachel met this challenge with a great idea. They made these baskets themselves, bought candy with their own money and even made cookies. They wrote a message to our neighbors and placed them in the baskets and then they gave them out Saturday afternoon to several of our neighbors. We got a surprise on our doorstep while we were out to church Easter morning...one of our not so friendly neighbors left us some flowers and a nice homemade Easter card. For over a year we have been loving them at each holiday with something and  a message to encourge them. We were rewarded with a positive surprise this Easter.

Now let me give some history with this story...In  May 2008 just weeks before we were to travel to Ukraine for the adoption of 5 children there was a knock at our front door. I answered it and there stood 2 cps workers from social services. Apparently our neighbor had called back in March to have us checked out because we were adopting these 5 , went to a church, and we were building an addition. They were not there to check on any abuse or neglect issues...I immediately let them in. Fortunately the kids were all doing school and their rooms were clean...and we had just completed our homestudy update and because the Lord was showing us something...They were so impressed with our family and actually apoligized to us for this...but they had to investigate this claim . Paul had come home to be a part of this discussion with them. Honestly they were very satisfied with our home , children and family. They even shared some information that allowed us to sort of figure out who did this....and after we shared why this family might have had an issue to burn with us...they told us to report them if we felt like we needed to...Very odd but it gave us such a peace to see in such a real way how the Lord provided for our family.

After they left we talked as a family about what a great opportunity we had to see the Lord at work in our lives. Also we said that this is why you live your life like an open book...My letting them in right away, sharing openly our homestudy, recent police clearances, and letters of support from even the school board and all of our medical professionals proved we had nothing to hide...We were encouraged to live our lives hiding nothing....and if we are doing something wrong or immoral than let us be taken to court because our hearts really are for the best for our children. So these social workers were very impressed with the children and how they were and our home. Honestly it turned into a big blessing.

Now we had some bitter feelings towards this family and it was hard to be positive when we saw any of them...but the Lord worked thru our feelings and finally we were able to allow His love into our hearts and we began to pray for them, and send things we made for them to encourage them...and finally after over a year the Lord blessed us with a gift from them left on our doorstep....Thank you Jesus .

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Mady, Ava and some aunts and an uncle....




These were taken Easter... Aunt Naty and Rachel love to take care of Mady and she loves them. Ben brought his bike out getting it ready to ride...He actually got his license and registered it this week...I am not a fan of the motorcycle...I even had our orthopedic surgeon talk with Ben and the Trauma surgeon at his hospital wrote an email to Ben for me...I also made him google accidents involoving motorcycles pictures- which he got mad at me for but these were all requirements before he could do this... I am still against it but that is another issue. Ben was so happy to find out that his motorcycle insurance is only 25 a month and when he said that I said, " That is because your medical insurance for any accident you have on your bike will cost you lots not to mention medically." Prayers please for my son who is now riding his motorcycle.

Mady, Mady, and Mady






Do you see that typical hand raise that Mady does now? It is on my post about eggs. She does this all the time and we encourage it by our smiles and laughter. She is 10 months now and so much fun.....She also is very small. Tiny even...she still wears some 6 months clothing but she is strong and fiesty...just like her sister, Ava :)

Monday, April 25, 2011

Meet our Veggie Bunny....but he is all gone now



I saw this on AOL cooking and printed it out. Easy, easy to make and was lots of fun and tasty too. This was our meal for Saturday dinner...We decided this was so easy that for every holiday we can make something from that holiday like this for our veggie tray. It is made from freezer dough..you let it thaw out and shape it and bake it. After it cools you decorate. This was a huge hit here .

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Eggs you want one? Here you go.....






We colored 10 doz. eggs this year...all hard boiled and most already eaten :) Everyone here loves eggs and we have eaten lots of eggs thru the weekend. Even Mady loved her eggs and wanted to share....

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Just heard from Kofi....

We were able to get a call thru to Kofi finally. Carla with our agency had tried but could not reach him either. He told us Annabel's birth mom had come to visit her and put her to bed on the top bunk. She is usally on the bottom one. When she fell she hurt her shoulder. Kofi took her to the hospital and she is better today...There just happens to be another family with Kofi who is on their first trip. The husband is a chiropractor- amazing that he is there and is looking at our little , Annabel. Thank you Lord for your provision and please heal her shoulder. Thank you all for praying.

Please pray for Annabel

To say that my heart is aching tonite is not enough to truly express my feelings right now. We went to church tonite and when we came home Joseph said he saw a message on Kofi's fb wall about an Annabel...

  • some African children experience difficulties learning to sleep on bed. Annabel fell down from her bed last night. she is badly hurt and need your prayers.
This is how we heard about our daughter getting hurt...No phone call, no fb message to me or even email to our agency or us...We have heard nothing tonite and I am sick worrying about her and wondering what is going on...So I am asking for your prayers tonite for our little Annabel. I don't even know what is wrong with her....Pray for her to be ok and for us to get some communication from Kofi about her soon.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Tulip time here




Buckeye Easter Egg makers and eaters







This afternoon the girls made buckeyes but they made them into the shape of eggs...yummy! Of course we had lots of tasters too.

Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil- it has no point

Billy Graham is now in his 90's with Parkinson's disease. In January 2000, leaders in  Charlotte , North Carolina , invited  their favorite son, Billy Graham, to a luncheon in his honor.
Billy initially hesitated to accept the invitation because he struggles with Parkinson's disease. But the Charlotte leaders said , 'We don't expect a major address.  Just come and let us honor you.'
So he agreed.
After wonderful things were said about him, Dr. Graham stepped to  the rostrum, looked at the crowd, and said, "I'm reminded today of Albert Einstein, the great physicist who this month has been honored by Time magazine as the Man of the Century. Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a train when the conductor came down  the aisle, punching the tickets of every passenger.
When he came to Einstein, Einstein reached in his vest pocket. He couldn't find his ticket, so he reached in his trouser pockets. It wasn't there. He looked in his briefcase but couldn't find it. Then he looked in the seat beside him. He still couldn't find it.
"The conductor said, 'Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know who you are. I'm sure you bought a ticket. Don't worry about it.'
Einstein nodded appreciatively. The conductor continued down the aisle punching tickets. As he was ready to move to the next car, he turned  around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket.
The conductor rushed back and said, 'Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don't worry, I know who you are; no problem. You don't need a ticket.  I'm sure you bought one.'
Einstein looked at him and  said, 'Young man, I too, know who I am. What I don't know is where I'm going.''
 
Having said that, Billy Graham continued, "See the suit I'm wearing? It's a brand new suit. My children, and my grandchildren are telling me I've gotten a little slovenly in my old age.
 I used to be a bit more fastidious. So I went out and bought a new suit for this luncheon and one more occasion. You know what that occasion is?
 
This is the suit in which I'll be buried. But when you hear I'm dead, I don't want  you to immediately remember the suit I'm wearing .  I want you to remember this:  I not only know who I am. I also know where I'm going."
May your troubles be less, your blessings more, and may nothing but happiness, come through your door. "Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil - it has no point."
 
Amen & Peace, My Friends
=

A friend sent me this in am email. I love the simplicity and the truth shared by Billy Graham

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Shrinky Dink Girls....



Shrinky dink art is at least 20 some yrs old. My first group of girls who are now in their 30's and mid 20's did shrinky dink art and loved it. We are doing special crafts all week and this was one that we did today...Any other oldies out there remember the first shrinky dinks ?

Monday, April 18, 2011

They finally got outside :)





The older girls took Mya, Luke and Andrew for a walk down the road. Thankfully I had bought this double stroller at the summer consingment sale in NC...It is great and because they are so small even though they are both  9. It was great to have and they loved sitting side by side. They bribed me with these lovely " flowers"- weeds to let them hang outside for a bit. We always have lots of b-ball going on and I told them to stay out of the play.

Surgery update-





Luke and Mya are doing very well now...Only on the naproxen for pain and inflammation. Actually they want to play and were wrestling until I heard them :) They are the cutiest 2 pals and of course Ava had to join in. They wanted to share their "war surgery" story...

So glad we got these 2 surgeries done before we travel to Ghana. Hoping to hear any day that the last 2 passports are done and that we got our appt. date at the embassy. We are waiting also on an appliance to finish being made for Anna . So she can have her jaw surgery. Since it is getting close to our vacation and Ghana and summer camp...We are going to wait now until after mid July for her jaw surgery.