Ezra enjoying his b-day donut... since his daddy had to leave early on Sat. am we had b-day donuts and his had a candle. Jeremiah is a pastor and had to leave Sat. to be home for his church on Sunday... Jenn and the kids stayed with us to go to Katie's wedding on Sunday and Paul drove her home today.

Ava, Ella and Mya coloring...

Rainy day activities on Friday

I love this shot of Naty and Rachel ... notice the arm around Naty.

The guys had a flag football game planned for Friday

afternoon... it did not matter if it was raining.

11 weeks home

Today marks 11 weeks home with our new kiddos. We have started our homeschool and it is busy but getting better each day.... The kids are getting into a routine and our school is running smoothly. Each one of the new children are doing well with school. They seem to have been good students at their internet. They all love doing school and that is a very good thing... because I do not have to convince them that learning is fun....

One of the reasons I love to teach them is that I keep learning myself.

God's Provision Always

We get asked all the time," How do you do it?".... my answer is God always provides when He calls you to something His provision is there ALWAYS. I have 3 stories that have happened... 2 of them tonight and one about 2 yrs ago that shows this.

The first one happened when I was grocery shopping at Sam's Club 2 yrs ago... When I went to pay, my dear husband had taken the check book out and it was not in my purse. I checked for other forms of payment... and guess what the credit card that they accepted was also with my dear husband.... So now I am thinking I will just have to walk out without the food. It was close to the time they were closing so going home and coming back was not an option.... A man behind me stepped up and offered to pay for my bill. It was around $200.00... so not a casual offer. I was stunned... He gave the cashier his credit card.... I asked him a few questions and of course thanked him. I asked what do you do? He said he was a pastor :) I had some of the kids with me and he remarked," I was watching your family and you have a precious family." I then shared even more of our story to him and others who had gathered around.... We mailed him a check later with pics.

Tonight I had rented 2 movies... one for the little kids and one for the older ones. When Paul came home he had done the same.... and he had rented the same one for the little ones... When Mary Kate went to pick them up at Redbox ( we reserved online) the Mermaid movie would not dispense so we did not get charged for it....

Finally tonight I was shopping again at Sam's Club. I needed garlic salt. We looked all over for it where we usually get it. I cook with this daily so it was needed. Naty even moved the boxes on the shelf looking for it... We did not even see the price signs where it would have been on the shelf... So I thought I will have to stop at a Martins and buy some. We walked down 2 more aisle and sitting on a can of saurkraut was just one container of garlic salt... only one and not in the spice aisle....Right on the corner as if someone had placed it there... Of course I am jumping up and down and talking more loudly now with the kids... "Look God provided the garlic salt for us." No doubt in our hearts that He did just that. :)

These are minor things but how wonderfully amazing is our Lord who cares even about the little things in our lives.... This happens all the time.

More medical news to share

Today we went back with all five of the new children to have their tb tests read... I knew the results... the boys were negative and the girls are positive... Not a big surpise... other than Caleb who had on his medical a tb reading that was 25 mm duration which is very high positive. He had no sign of even the test being done... Tells you how accurate the tb test was in Ukraine in April. That is why as adoptive parents I recommend we take all the medicals we get on these children with 10 lbs of salt.....

Now for some really neat news about the tb tests. When we went on Tuesday for the test to the health dept. the nurse in charge said that our health dept. in Berleley Co. had been choosen in the state of WV to begin using the Quantiferon Gold tb blood test... this is a great test that can differentiate between BCG vaccine reaction and exposure to the disease... what it means than if you have a positive ppd you would have had to do 9 months of INH therapy ( sometimes it has side effects). We have done this route with Leah who had a 20 mm duration and she did not have any side effects ptl.... Now the Quantiferon test was not approved for children under 17 yrs... the cdc had not approved it yet- mostly due to lack of data (not enough children has it been done on). I offered all of my kiddos to be test subjects to up their data :)

Well when we went back today the nurse said that it had just gotten approved for children 2yrs and over.... YEAH! and our 3 with the positive ppd will be WV first children to have it.... paid for by the health dept...

People question so many times how or why Paul and Ido what we do.... mostly in a positive way as well as just wondereing how.... the answer is the Lord always provides for what He calls us to... We just have to be obedient to His will and not our own...