Sometimes obedience makes us look completely insane. In the past 2 years I have walked in faith quite frequently... We have pressed in with prayer for some hard things. We prayed for a long time. 20 months to be exact. Almost every evening we breathed the same prayer. Sometimes wearily, some times rejoicing, always praying..

God has answered. finally. his timing was right. In so many ways. We forget that so often it is about the journey not the end result. This journey has brought healing to my kids. We have had some really deep discussions, some huge healing moments. Adoption is celebrated in our home.

I  made the choice to walk away from our church. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But it was time without a doubt.

 Romans 12:1-2  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.


This song is so true. So very true. God has been so good to us. The blessing that comes from obedience is enough to knock your socks off. We don't understand why God called us to walk this part of our journey, but we see His goodness in our obedience.

We are now in a time of healing and recovering. A time of discerning where God is leading. We live in a time when  standing/speaking up for what one believes is not popular.


God has brought some amazing people into my life during this journey. Friends that are like rocks in a stormy sea.




We also saw an answer to an unbloggable, criminal case. It is just simply mind boggling, we can not wait to see what God does in this situation. The reality of our connections to mental illness, murders, drug addicts and homelessness is sobering. The never ending question of what do you do with this?

I have done more hard things and seen more answers to some mighty big prayers in this past month then in the last several years combined. I am weary, but rejoicing. amaze and shocked at how much God has given us. I look at my little family and I am in awe..

Family Christmas....

Christmas part 2

My favorite part of Christmas is giving the kids their gifts.. 

This year we had done a name exchange and I helped each kiddoe buy their sibling a gift. The anticipation was almost unbearable for them. The delight of receiving the perfect gift AND the fun of giving gift doubled the fun for all of us. 

Lego horses (Ebay) and ripsticks (amazon deal) were fun gifts that both boys received. 

Fayth was very happy with Polly Pockets. I found several ziploc bags full of Polly Pockets for $40 on ebay!! 

This was 2 of the smaller bags full, this is maybe 1/4 of what was in her box. This was my favorite deal of all!! 

Lee was very happy with his Lego knight. 

Ripstick and Phillies Sweatshirt... 

She had one thing she wanted, Lego Friends Advent..  I searched and searched for a good deal. 

I could not find it on sale ANYWHERE! 

So finally I bought it at full price... it was worth it. 

Miss Nesiah.. she loved all her new clothes and her mani-pedi kit!

We had so much fun with doing the name exchange, I hope to do the same thing next year. The kids all really enjoyed giving as much as receiving.

We spend some of Christmas day with the in laws.. hanging out with out of town cousins etc...

Encouragement...

Once a week we gather with coffee and our bibles..

Inspiration and encouragement right here in my own living room. 

While my kids babysit the toddlers...

This has been  a huge answer to prayer for me. This gift of Godly friends who have much wisdom and encouragement, who work with my crazy life. 

Chickies

We love our eggs.. but our chickens were not laying enough. So we added 12 lil barred rock chickies to the farm.

I was not going to buy a heat lamp. So we had the chickies in a box in the bathroom. 

The kids had a total blast playing with these little guys! 

but they got big FAST and messy and stinky and annoying.

so we moved them to the basement where Elizabeth faithfully cared for them...

Then they got to stinky and big for the basement and I was concerned about chicken allergies. I finally broke down and bought a heatlamp.  Now the chickes are almost 2 months old and live in the barn. Where they can make  all the mess they want. Matia feeds them daily... 

Christmas Blessings...

Life has been very busy. In addition to all the stress we have been dealing with. Blogging is just not at the top of my list of things to do. I apologize!

Christmas was chaotic.. Two days before Christmas some pretty mind boggling, unbloggable things happened. Just so totally unexpected. My mind was totally and completely consumed by the new events in our lives. So totally unbelievable. Some day I shall write a book about the ways God has worked in our lives.

But that same day, two days before Christmas, friends of our brought gifts and pjs for the kids.


The kids were very delighted by the blessings. 

Sisters..

Gluten Free Pizza from our friends.. 

Freezer meals from friends and their family...

On Christmas eve, my dear friend who understand how my brain works when I am on overload, brought us dinner and a gift she had helped the kids order. 

Every year this friend of mine helps my kids get a Christmas gift for me. This is the highlight of their Christmas. The gifts they buy for me. This year it was a beautiful charm bracelet and each kiddo got to chose a charm. This is probably one of the most precious gifts I have ever received! She also handmade the above plague for me. I am blessed by her friendship. 

The kids were so absolutely delighted with the stromboli and wings that she brought for dinner. 

They were thoroughly enjoyed by all!! 

I had planned a special family day for the Christmas Eve Day, but things went a lil crazy and we never got started until late afternoon.

This year instead of stockings we did a scavenger hunt. I made coupons and purchased several small gifts for the kids. 

Nail polish for the girls..

Matching pj pants for everyone.. 

We ended the scavenger hunt in the living room, where I had a Christmas movie ready and a surprise package from my sister..


I had no idea what was in the package.. much to our delight there were sodas, popcorn, hot chocolate and tea in the package. perfect for our movie!! 

                                
We enjoyed the movie then painted nails and played games! It was a fun and relaxing family night...

Ice Skating Adventures..

So we tried ice skating... 

We have a friend who's mom has a pond in the backyard. It is perfect because I can sit inside and watch the kids outside.

We arrived at their house around 4, no one was home. So we didn't trust getting on the pond even tho we had permission.

After some discussion and a quick phone call, we asked friends of friends if we could skate on their creek. They had not checked it since the rain, so no it wasn't safe yet. 

The kids were just so disappointed..

So we stopped at a farm a couple miles from our house, random people that usually have tons of kids on their pond. I gathered my courage and asked the farmer for permission. They gave permission and their boys joined our kids on the ice!

I had 5 kids settled on the ice..Lee refused to wear his new skates. David didn't have skates and wanted Elizabeth's skates. Elizabeth happily skated in her borrowed skates. Meanwhile Fayth crawled around on the ice in her new skates and refused to get on her feet.

We had prepared warm clothes for everyone, but Miss Nesiah was not happy that she had to sit out in the cold (wrapped in warm blanket). Less then ten minutes after getting the big kids on the ice, Nesiah started wailing. She does not cry often. But when she does, we listen.

So I drug the wheelchair and the screaming toddler across the field back to the van. Where much to the delight of 2 boys in the parking lot, I tackled getting two wailing kiddoes into the van!!


The 4 big kids were able to enjoy another 15 minutes on the ice while I calmed the littles in the van and warmed them up!


Tomorrow we shall try again.. without Abi. 

Tis The Season To Give

Christmastime...
We started off strong, with big ideas of what we wanted to do for the Holidays. We did a couple projects and had lots of fun. But somewhere in the last 2 weeks, I got to busy and had to many unbloggables to deal with and we lost our Holiday spirit. Christmas did not look like  I wanted it too. 

But we did a couple fun projects. 

We found this pinterest project that I thought would be simple, quick and fun. 

Pinterest and I do NOT MIX!!
We used modge podge and epsom salt to coat pint jars. The goal was to make them look like snow. Yea, we were highly unsuccessful. 

We did print these cute tags off pinterest that turned out nice. We laminated them, cut them out, punched holes then attached them to the pint jars.

The kids did 90% of this project and truly enjoyed it!

I made a homemade hot cocoa mix that we poured into the jars along with small marshmallows. 

The kids had a lot of fun making these and handing them out to bus drivers, teachers, therapists, and neighbors. 

We also fixed a surpise package to send to our far away cousins. The kids had so much fun, buying and wrapping up these gifts. We shipped it off with orders to be opened on Christmas Day! 

The kids had been begging to go Christmas Caroling. They really wanted to do that this year. I missed the homeschool group event.
One day in the middle of all our medical appointments, our sweet bus drivers did us a huge favor. So we decided to bake Christmas cookies especially for them. 

We had extra cookies, so the kiddoes asked if they could deliver some to our friends. A light bulb moment.. I had them take the cookies and sing for our neighbors! They had so much fun!!

Food Prep

We canned some of the  50 lbs of carrots/celery/potato mix to be used in chicken noodle soup.




In years past (prior to a having so many kiddoes) I would cook chicken and add it to my mix. I simply did not think I could manage all of that at this time. 

However, I had a large turkey in my freezer! I cooked that turkey, served some for dinner and bagged the rest for the freezer! 

Now when I want chicken noodle soup, I just dump a can of my veggie mix, a bag of my frozen turkey and some broth into my crockpot! Simple, delicious meal in minutes! We add rice or rice past in the last hour before serving it! 

50 lb of Carrots!

What do you do with with 50 lbs of carrots and a case of celery?

First we diced and and sliced a bunch of each along with some potatoes. 

It is amazing how fast we can work when everyone helps. 

We ended up with approx 20 quarts of canned veggies which are perfect for soups and casseroles. 

Then we sliced and diced some more and made fermented carrots. They were actually really yummy!! 

It takes an alot of creativity to figure out how to best use free bulk items. But oh the blessings! It makes my life so much easier to have canned/frozen prepped items! 

Life...

Just when I thought we were at the end, the craziness increased. Just in time for Christmas! I have had some pretty amazing moments in the past week. For the moment they are still unbloggable.

But in the meantime.. until I find time to post the 200 some pictures I took for Christmas..

A story from my 10 yr olds.

Setting the scene.. Several weeks ago I found a set of really good walkie talkies on an online yardsale for only $6. My boys love these things, especially when they are on one of their adventures. Certain little fingers like to push buttons and mess things up..


So today the boys left the walkie talkies where little fingers could push buttons. It was switched to a different channel. Suddenly to my boys absolute shock, they were listening in on a conversation.

I explained how it all works and that they must NEVER, EVER speak to someone they don't know.

Later:

Son #1 Mom, what if we could use these walkie talkies and listen to Japan. We could find out all the war secrets and tell the army. We would be hero's!


Son #2 What are the Japans?

Me: I think maybe the Japanese would come after you if you listened in on their conversations and shared their war secrets.

Son#1 We would be rich! We could be millionaires. I would buy a house and a car. Mom I would even be rich enough to give you an allowance.

Me: Gee thanks! That is so thoughtful of you

Son #2 What are the Japans?

Son #1 They would never expect a 10 yr old boy to figure out all their secrets. I would listen quietly on my walkie talkies..

Me: (eyes rolling)  explained to #2 what Japan and Japanese is...


The conversation continued for some time.. This is only one of many such conversations my children have. I hope someday they will be able to use this active imagination for some God given purpose!