He is adopted!

Some day I will blog our story. This story has God's fingerprints all over it. All over it. It was a long hard journey, but Moses is now adopted.



I got the phone call and 24 hours later I had an emergency kinship license and a 6 lb baby boy...

He was such a tiny peanut. 

We were so blessed that God gave us yet another April adoption date. It is almost to crazy to be true! 

We were blessed by everyone that came out to support us! 

I dare to believe in incredible things.

April.. it has long been a month of pain and answered prayers. Beauty from the ashes. Redemption. Spring. New life from the dead ground. Green grass. New growth.

I love spring. It feels like spring inside and out...

God has answered some pretty big prayers. I got my April miracle, even tho everyone said it was impossible. (they did everything they could to help make it happen! I am blessed with an amazing team of caseworkers/adoption workers)

My friend says today: "I am never quite sure if the things you do are stupid or just really truly a faith walk." Two hours later she comes back and says.. Well, it appears God has answered your prayers again. ;)

I dare to believe in incredible things, because you are the God of the impossible.   

Two years of praying. Two long years of worry, sleepness nights, tears. Sitting with my kids, praying together, fervently begging God to protect. He has answered. 

                        You hear me when I call.... whom shall I fear? You crush the enemy... 

The God of the angel armies is forever by my side... he is a friend of mine... 

It seemed that we heard this song EVERY single week for almost 16 months as we made a weekly drive to visits. It always encouraged me to keep praying...

Check back soon for the official update on this answered unbloggable prayer!

Ironic... Ten years ago I stood at the side of a wonderful man. I pledge my life to him, through sickness and health, until death do us part. We were blissfully happy. We took our honeymoon to Hawaii. We also planned a trip to Hawaii for our tenth wedding anniversary. 

                      

Through good times and bad times, they shared them together.. 

they cherished each moment... but now he is traveling ahead in the distance. but he made me this promise I hold in my heart. 

He said I will leave you a message on the far side of Jordan, I will draw you an arrow down in the sand. 

I will point to the place I will be waiting and we will go see Jesus hand in hand... 

They sang this song at his funeral. I always cry. every single time. I listen to it.

It is now my tenth wedding anniversary...

Hawaii is not even in my wildest dreams.. reality check: I dreamed of going to this excellent training for connected parenting this weekend. Even that won't happen!!  Instead I will be  babysitting for friends! 

I look around me. I see the 6 beautiful children God has given me. I am blessed by some pretty incredible friends. I am living a life, that I could not even have begun to imagine. I love this story written by God. The broken beautiful.. some days I lose sight of the good things God has done. Some days are hard. Some days the tears fall.

some days... I get tons of hugs. My son writes in his language arts " being loved and cared for means... being adopted into a loving family that cares for you". I get to watch the excitement of a little boy experience so many firsts. I get to watch the big boys grow in confidence, into Godly men. I get to watch my beautiful daughters, heal, grow, nurture, love and just enjoy life.

This is my current favorite song...

I know that I don't bring alot to the table..
Hold me together when I fall apart.
Your love will never change.. you can take broken things and make them beautiful..
You say that you will turn my weeping into dancing.... 

                                       

Easter..

Today I am thankful for a Jesus who died for my sins. I am thankful for Easter.

We had an amazing service last evening at church. Today we will our own little celebration here at home. We were unable to travel to out of town family and are choosing to celebrate here at home.


We have lots of eggs to dye and good food to eat. We hope to visit Grandma E this afternoon.

But most importantly, we want to focus on what Jesus did for us. We don't want the Easter bunny crashing the celebration of our Savior.

Have a Blessed Easter! 

Budget Challenge

I am motivated by life challenges. So we are doing several  "do without" challenges.

 Last summer we started a with not eating out. at all. for a month. It turned into not eating out hardly ever. The same thing with buying coffee. It takes thinking ahead but truly saves so much money. For ex. I will prep a meal before we leave the house or I will make a coffee to go as I am leaving. Both these steps help us to save money.

So I decided to get serious about these challenges, trying to a do a different challenge each month.

The month of Feb. we hung all our laundry out to dry and switched to cloth diapers. I finally caved at the end of the month and allowed a friend to bless us with a wonderful dryer. (I am still using cloth diapers, much to the shock of those around me) ;)
I was so thankful for the dryer that I totally quit hanging out laundry! lol So not sure that one was really helpful long term!


I skipped the challenge in March...

For April, my challenge was to use up all the meat in the freezer and  go a month without using burger.

I have 3 freezers. Currently 1 is empty, a second is only half full and the third is almost full. (mostly fruits and veggies)  It is time to turn our steer into beef. But I wanted to fatten him up a bit more. So we decided to do a, clean out the freezer challenge. It has proven to be quite the challenge to cook gluten free with  the meat from the bottom of the freezer and no burger.

My friend ended up blessing us with a large of amount of meat, chicken, grillers, canned meat etc.. my children were thankful that this challenge did not last more then a week. They love their meat!


When I first started the challenge in Feb. I was sharing with a friend that while we were doing well and God was abundantly blessing us, I felt like this  challenge was important for my finances. So when my explorer needed replaced (some insurance money), my large van needed a good bit of work, my dryer died, my printer crashed, my hard drive died, and my kids burned up 2 tanks of oil in March,  we were ahead of the game because we had saved up.

There are days when I look around me in awe. Several people have told me recently that I am not getting "what I deserve" from several financial resources. That I really should be fighting for more. But I rest in that God directs every aspect of my life. My obedience in tithing and in never fighting over money, has brought back ten fold blessings.

My children and I pray over our finances. I explain how and why we can afford things. I make sure they pray AND acknowledge the answered prayers. You can't teach this in Sunday school. This is the real deal. Real life where God hears and answers.

Have you ever done a "do without challenge"?

Life

We so enjoyed recharging on our staycation.

We are getting deep into schoolbooks, trying to hurry through our books. This year was one of the best homeschooling years ever. I love the curriculum we are using. It is thorough and easy to for the kids to do on their own. It teaches lots of basic fundamental skills etc.. However, it does not flow easily with our "go with the flow" schedule and I am struggling with how to wrap up the year.

Someone washed my camera in the bathroom sink.. I think that possibly with the help of a bowl full of rice, it may work again.

We are so wishing for warm weather. We are itching to get outside. I did rake up sticks and weeds in the yard tonight. I spring cleaned my basement and am thinking of starting upstairs. But I need sunshine for motivation!

We purchased a baby goat named Daisy. She is the cutest little thing and loves to run and play with the kids.

Life is slowing down. We had no appointments this week, altho I did have to take the mini van to get a tire fix. I also had to get a new drivers license. But other then that we have been home, doing school, babysitting, hanging out.

My son wants to go hiking on the Appalachian trail. So he is currently "training".  I am proud of his willingness to work hard.


Sometimes homeschooling is extremely frustrating and I feel like certain children of mine will never ever catch up. I think I shall ship them all off to private school. But then I talk to my friends who have kids in private school and I decide that I would rather have my own problems.

April is coming up.. It is always a bittersweet month. We are currently praying for another April miracle.

I am sooo dreaming of summer already. We will not do fulltime babysitting but will keep enough hours to cover what we need. We will be doing summer school for Nesiah and summer camp for the others.. Now if I can just coordinate all their schedules I may have some free time.


But first before summer, all 6 of my kids have medical or dental appointments. I like to get all the major appointments for everyone, out of the way before summer. July and August should be completely free of scheduled medical appointments.

These are the ramblings of my mind. No major drama this week, no major appointments, no major anything. My life feels downright normal!

"Staycation 2015"

I did not carry my camera everywhere on this vacation. The pictures I did get were few and far between. The extra space in my bag was traded in for breathing meds etc.  I was determined to make the most of this vacation and focus on the kids...

Day #1 we were home in the morning, watching movies, hanging out, and finished up packing (for our then canceled vacation)
We took Nesiah to our friend's, intending for her to stay for the week. 

We had Chinese for dinner and watched a Mandie movie.

Day #2 of vacation we made the decision to NOT go to Williamsburg. Read my previous posts for our reasons..
We ended up at a friend's for lunch and snowmobile rides. 

Day #3 We decided to make the most of this "staycation". We visited The Turkey Hill Experience. The kids absolutely love that place and are already begging to go back! We also stopped to pick up Lady and all of Nesiah's stuff, as she was coming home on the bus. (Nesiah goes to school so she is often on a different schedule from our homeschool schedule)

Day #4,  Day 3 had been rather exhausting for the sick one and for momma, who was running on fumes. So day 4 was an easy day. We went to the library, where everyone got a stack of books and  some movies. We had a fun day watching movies. (Normally I only allow movies on rainy days or when I need a break, never, ever all day movies. So this was a huge treat!)

Each evening one kid would chose what they wanted to make for dinner from the special food we had purchased the week before! We had some fun treats that are normally not on our gluten free, sugar free menu! 

Day #5 We watched movies in the am. After lunch we packed up and headed out to Sight and Sound to see Moses! We have been trying to get over there for almost a year, so this was fun and highly anticipated day! 

Day #6 We headed out to our favorite little creative reuse shop. Lancaster Creative Reuse! We had fun making crafts and using our imaginations! We stopped by Chik Fil A for ice cream treats on the way home! 

Day #7 we had planned to clean our house, do some laundry then go to Herr's Pototae Factory, but I sorta messed that one up. So we were unable to go. Instead I let the kids choose what they wanted to do after our cleaning was done... The boys chose to set up their tent in the yard and "pretend" camp, while the girls painted nails and watched movies.

Day #8 our last day of vacation! We did our normal Saturday morning, pancakes and Adventures in Odyssey. I had made arrangements for my friend to watch the 2 little ones in the evening, so we could go out for dinner and Saturday night church! This is one of our favorite Saturday night traditions.

We had sandwiches and ice cream at Udder Choice, then off to church! It was such a good message following the week I had. The perfect way to end a #makinglemonade staycation.

In the end the kids all agreed that this was a great vacation and that they all had a great time! 

Sovereignty of God

The kids were not happy when our much anticipated vacation to Colonial Williamsburg had to be canceled. Saturday was a long, hard day for me. I was exhausted, worried about the asthmatic one and sad for my big kids. I hate when I can not keep promises to my kids.

Saturday the big kids did really well. I had been up the majority of the night before, they played quietly while I napped. Once I was rested, we went to drop off Nesiah and Lady. I picked up chinese and a movie. We have been saving for this vacation and had not had chinese in several months so this was a huge treat.

Saturday night was awful, not only was I dealing with a sick kid, but the reality that I was going to break my kids hearts. They were going to need to give up yet another  fun event.


Sunday morning I informed them that we could not go that day and possibly not at all. I was texting the lady in charge of the retreat, trying to work out details to postpone our trip.

My kids were angry and rightly so. I gave them space to deal with their emotions. We had a long chat about answered prayers and hard things in life.

See this is the thing, God has answered so many prayers for us. My friends all joke that if they want something, they will simply ask us to pray for it for them. My kids wanted to know exactly why God would not answer this prayer for healing. Did God not know that they wanted to have fun? Did God not want them to have fun?

 We believe that God gives us the desires of our hearts. BUT ONLY IF THEY ALIGN WITH HIS PLAN FOR US. We believe that God is sovereign, which means that sometimes He will not give us what we want, because it is not His best for us.

We talked about dealing with accepting hard things, accepting when we don't get things we want. We hashed out why God would not give them what they/we wanted.

We talked about feeling upset and angry but not focusing on the negative.


(Several weeks ago I was at an adoption training. The trainer shared something that stuck with me. So many biological parents were not taught/given the tools to handle crisis or hard things. They do not have the ability to manage life's curve balls. We have coping skills, learned from life experiences in a healthy family. So many biological parents do not have that and when life comes at them with hard things they self medicate or self destruct)

So I decided this was a teaching moment. A time to teach and model how to handle big disappointments in life.

We also believe that when God says "no" then we need to make the best out of what we have. "Life is hard, deal with it" is one of my mantras.

So as we were discussing and venting, my friend texted me. They invited us over for lunch and snowmobile rides. The attitude in our house changed pretty quickly with that invitation. We were thankful for friends and the kids angry attitudes softened.


Sunday night was not great. I decided that it was now time to salvage this vacation.

My friend is also one who always helps me sort out life and see the light when I am drowning. She and I had a good discussion on how to salvage our vacation, how to make it fun and how to regroup.

At this point the kids were open to alternatives because really Saturday and Sunday had been fun, despite the disappointments.

So we decided to do a staycation. The only problem was, we still had the health issues to contend with. So we are taking each day as it comes. So far it has been quite fun. We made a list of things we would like to see and do, using the money put aside for the Williamsburg vacation.

The Hard Things in Life..

We have had a hard year. The kids have done great with the roller coaster ride of foster care. They have learned much compassion and made many sacrifices.  They love deeply and care to much.

I decided to take them on a vacation as a reward. Family vacations are a wonderful bonding time for us. We love to travel and hang out together away from the stress of every day life.

We did some research on vacations.We wanted to celebrate some pretty big deal answers to prayers, while making fun memories.

We used to go camping, but no longer can due to unbloggable illnesses.

We have to have handicapped accessible, large family accessible, single parent friendly and allergen free vacation spots. Yes, I always ask "does the room/house have new paint, new carpeting, is it smoke free and is it pet free? Does it have room for 7 people? Is it handicapped accessible? Is there room to park a 15 passenger van with a side lift? Is it a safe area for a single mom and young kids"

We found the perfect spot. A large family, homeschool retreat in Williamsburg Va. It met all my criteria. Bonus, it was educational!!

I spend hours, making arrangements for Nesiah to stay at respite, for someone to care for our animals, for someone to dog sit, for transportation for Nesiah from respite to school, and for all foster care permissions to travel. Not to mention preparing food for the week, packing all the kids and all the meds, everything but the kitchen sink!

We made costumes for the boys. The kids counted down the days.. We were soo excited. I went to great lengths to make sure that the week prior to going was to be stressfree, so I could be calm and relaxed in prepping that final packing/prep work.

First someone reacted to cat hair brought in on our little kiddoe that we babysit. We had a rough two days. Then that same someone contracted pink eye. We visited the pediatrician on Wed.

We also had 3 caseworker visits, our monthly visits, and 3 days of snow and ice.

My birthday happened too along with the biggest snow storm of the year.

Friday I called the specialist and the pediatrician the illnesses were worse.. they continued to worsen over the weekend. There was little sleeping, lots of nebulizer treatments and lots of worrying. There was even a late night, on really icy roads, trip to the ER.

so Saturday morning we made the decision to postpone our vacation. The much anticipated vacation. The kids were heartbroken, but were fervently praying that we could still leave the next day. We packed everything into the van, dropped Nesiah off with a friend and made sure everything was ready to leave first thing the next morning.

Saturday night was awful. Really awful.
Sunday morning, we decided that it still wasn't wise to travel. The kids were angry. We unpacked the van.

Monday morning I announced a change of plans... We were going to do a "staycation" instead of going to Williamsburg.



More to come...

Yearly Specialist Appointments

Tomorrow is our big day of medical appointments for Nesiah. She has numerous diagnoses due to her brain injury.She has an extensive team of specialist that follow her case. She currently is doing well and on maintenance with the majority of the Dr's.

She has a local GI and Neurologist that she sees every 6 months. GI is in charge of her Gtube and her weight.Her appointments are very routine, we go in we see the Dr. He askes if I have any concerns, I say no. He does a physical exam and we leave!

 Neurology is in charge of her seizure meds and seizure activity. In the past 2 years there has been less and less seizure activity showing her EEG. Her Neurologist is very detailed. I love him. He has helped me get various medical referrals that she needs. He is very much on top of things.


However, we have an hour's drive to see Nesiah's Orthopedic Dr and her Ophthalmologist. We only see them once a year and we try to do both on one day. It is generally a very long day. Ophthmalogy does this testing that requires her to have painful eye drops then wait 45 minutes before doing the eye exam. She has cortical vision impairment so generally there is not much involved in this appointment. It is one of those appointments you keep just to make sure that nothing new is happening.


The big deal appointment this year is the Orthopedist. I love this team and their efficiency. We generally go in, do an xray then go over the results with the Dr. (love him), get his recommendation then leave.

 Because Nesiah does not walk, her hips and the surrounding muscles do not work the way God designed them to work. For the past 2 years her hip has slowly been pulled out of it's socket. She will need a major and very painful surgery to correct this. I pray hard every year that we could go one more year without surgery. I can not imagine dealing with a 60 lb non mobile, non verbal child in a body cast for 6 weeks.
So far she has not shown any indication of pain in her hip. We would not know about the hip dislocation if we did not do the xrays. I keep in communication with the school nurse and therapists who don't believe she is in pain. So I am hoping that means we can wait another year for surgery!

We actually enjoy going to this children's hospital. In the past I have taken all the kids along, no one complained. The staff referred to them as Nesiah's entourage!

God's Provision Part 2

I love George Mueller.  My dear friend suggested approximately 7 years ago, that I learn as much as possible about George Mueller. She shared some of his life story. It was so inspiring and totally changed my life.

You will need to read part 1 of God's provision to understand this God Story.

                                      

So my explorer was totaled. Gone. I needed a new vehicle. Something that could fit all of us and was pretty easy on my gas budget!

The very same day that I prayed for a buyer for my explorer I also asked God what He had for me as far as a new vehicle.

Now the kids and I had prayed and decided that we would like a Honda Odysses with leather seats and a dvd player. A blue one.

But God gently guided us in another direction. That morning as I prayed I felt that God was leading us to a Dodge Caravan with a tan cloth interior. No frills. No extras. But exactly what we need.

So after the explorer deal and finding out that insurance was being used by God as the tool to bless us, I balanced out my vehicle savings. (thank you Dave Ramsey!) I figured out how much we could afford to put into a new vehicle. I set a number in my mind...

I felt stressed and anxious about car shopping. Seriously how do you do that with 6 kids?!

A friend suggested the website, Cargurus.com. I kept checking that website plus autotrader.com. I called about several vans, but there was nothing in red with cloth seats, low mileage in my price range. This did not surprise me. I searched for 6 months before God provided my 15 passenger van. I expected to keep searching. But it was all weighing very heavily on my mind.

Then one day I did my usual search with a prayer and up popped an '09 Dodge Grand Caravan. Low miles, red, cloth seats, almost the right price. (the online price had dropped that day)

I send the link off to my Ohio mechanic friend for approval. He approved. I prayed and waited.

Meanwhile in less then 2 days my insurance check arrived...

I had to run to the children's hospital with Nesiah for some medical appointments. We drove right past the car lot. (which was 35 mins from my house) IT was rainy and icey. I was running late. I had spend 5 hours in Dr's offices. So I just stopped and took a quick look at the van. I liked what I saw.

I had an insane week. Adoption trainings, medical appointments, taxes, babysitting, bible study and just regular life with my crew.

But Wed morning I asked a friend to babysit so David and I could go car shopping. My plan was to go look at it, test drive it and put  a down payment on it, until I could work out the details on bring it back home.

I had exactly 2 hours before I had to be back to do kindergarten pick up for my babysitting kiddoe.

We arrived at the car lot at 9 am. The guy was really nice. We drove the van. We checked it out. I kept praying. I felt like things were moving a little fast, but I had peace.

We sat down to negotiate. I was running out of time. I knew I wanted the van. I had made financial arrangements. But this salesman kept doing all this long spiel about their business and I really just wanted to get down to business!

we negotiated until I got the price I wanted, which was significantly less then the price post on the van. It was my exact number. I was at peace.

They offered to bring the van to my house. Yes, they offered free delivery!! I was so happy. I ended up purchasing the van and they brought it out to my house 3 hours later. Free delivery and I was atleast a 35 minute drive for them!

                                    

I love how God answers. He knew what he had for me. He knew what He wanted to give me. I knew that being in His will and following the desires He places in my heart would bring perfect peace to my life.


We love our new van. It is so roomy compared to the explorer!!  I am still in shock over how God provided all of this for us! Jehovah Jireh God is my Provider!

God's Provision

This is going to be part 1 of a several part story of God's provision. I am going to be writing as it happens but waiting to publish until things are revealed a little more..

I own 2 vehicles, one is a handicapped accessible vehicle that holds all of us including Nesiah's wheelchair. The second vehicle, is one that I purchased pre kids. It held all of us but not the wheelchair.

We are planning a vacation in several weeks, so I called the garage to have them do a full service and check the tires and brakes before we travel. Now you must know, I am doing all this prep weeks and weeks ahead of time for a reason.

I had the garage come to pick up the explorer. They did a pre roadtrip check and called me.. unfortunately it needed almost $2000 in repairs. I was so upset.

I called my mechanic friend. I called my prayer warriors.. what to do?!

I decided to get the mechanic to fix the basics, then I would  sell it.

The problem was.. we are going on vacation in a couple weeks. I really wanted to take the explorer/smaller vehicle, instead of the van.

So I prayed and prayed, asking God to send the perfect buyer, making this as painless as possible.

The next day I got a call from the mechanic. This is one the few trustworthy mechanics in lancaster county. He was so upset, so apologetic...

His employee/son had been testing the explorer after changing the brakes and rotors. He lost control and crashed my explorer. Apparently he rolled it THREE times.
He was not hurt. He had a couple scrapes and bruises. However, my explorer was totaled. Completely totaled.

In 38 years this has never happened to my mechanic, in all his years my insurance agent has never heard of a garage wrecking a client's vehicle. I just quietly shake my head and say.. you never know how God will answer my prayers. I also breath a prayer for the young man who was driving my explorer. This has been quite traumatic for him.

Random Life Moments..

Life has finally slowed down.. I am trying to catch up on regular life. Finding a new normal with so much less stress... 

I am a big fan of Thieves Oil. It has helped us stay healthy for over 6 weeks! It is however, extremely expensive. So I endeavored to make my own.  I was quite happy with the final product! It has a bit more of a lemony smell to it. I use thieves to clean, on the bottom of kiddoes feet, diffusing in the air and in bath water. 

Fayth and I had the pleasure of taking a friend to pick up her newborn foster baby.. Fayth liked the carseat video they made us watch! 

Our latest favorite food is cornbread waffles.. 

We usually eat chili with these waffles. The kids LOVE love that. But this egg, ham and cheese waffle was our favorite! 

Lots of fun things happening.. We turned the guest bedroom into a Thomas bedroom, much to the delight of a certain someone. Curtains off a facebook  yardsale and border from Amazon. We can't paint due to allergies so this was the perfect compromise, bonus it was very easy!
Can you believe that when we moved here 4 years ago we had no idea we would someday need a bedroom that does not have carpeting?! God knew! 

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...