Love this baby.

Ok seriously, this baby is far too cute, and far too sweet.  We are all so blessed to have him.  Each of my children were such miracles, such blessings, and such a joy (despite the fact that I somehow landed three of the worst sleepers ever, but who's keeping track of that?).  But there is something to be said for the feeling you have when you have received something that was so long awaited for. My verse that describes this is  Proverbs 13:6 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.   My heart was sick each month that I realized that God was not going to cure my barren womb.  My hope was lost in a way.  And although only true hope, true joy, and true happiness comes from the Lord, He is using this sweet baby to bring a tree of life (hope and joy) again to this Momma.  Ethan was born to us January 29th, but was grown in our hearts for years prior to his birth.  He is everything we could have hoped for.  And everything we don't deserve.  Jake and I are not "deserving" parents.  Our walk is not always very strong, we bicker and argue, we are sometimes very immature and ungrateful.  YET the Lord saw fit to bless us again.  This, THIS my friends is what blows us away.   We have had our challenges, of that be sure.  Ethan came with some minor but chronic health issues, he is terrible teether and sleeper, the debt we owe for the adoption is not a fun thing to think about, or pay off either.  Our fairly "easy" life prior to Ethan has been blown to bits.  We can't go anywhere without frantically yelling for one another to grab a bottle, or diaper, bib, or pacifier while trying to get out the door without forgetting one of Ethan's "essentials"  :-)    We don't sit quietly in church anymore with our two older children by our side, we now bounce a baby, feed a baby, or walk to the back to sway him in our arms.   Date nights are harder now as far few people sign up to watch the two kids PLUS the cranky teething drooling non-sleeping baby  ;-)   
But I would not trade a THING, and we know exactly what the Lord was up to.  Ease, comfort, security, normalcy, these are words that I am convinced are not in our Lords vocabulary.  He loves to shake things up!  And I for one am glad that he does.  We love our family and Ethan has grown us all so much closer.

Every child is a gift, no matter when they are born or to whom they are born to.  Embrace what God calls a blessing and jump on board to see why!

Sweetness update.

Our new little sweet one is doing great.  We are all, children included, still in awe that God gave us this precious little gift.  Adoption is so inspiring because God takes what would be disastrous, what would be impossible, and makes it not only possible, but beautiful and redeemed.  Ethan is a gift, of that we are all aware.

As some of you know, Ethan had a little rough start.  Nothing major, but he did have sleep problems (possibly due to the very strong muscles relaxers the birth mom was on), chronic ear infections, stomach problems, and a pretty intense milk protein allergy.  

He still doesn't sleep great, but he is doing soooo much better.  He is not as restless and no longer wakes  3 minutes (on the dot!) after laying him down.  He even sleeps in his crib now!  He doesn't need to be rocked all the time anymore and is happy just laying down for bed and being patted on his back until he falls asleep. We don't let him "cry it out" but that's just our personal family decision.

As far as eating goes, he was doing "ok" on his very expensive hypoallergenic baby formula, but as of yesterday is now on a homemade raw goats milk formula.  He seems to be doing amazing on that!  I pray these results continue.  He is also teething and drooling buckets while eating his fist and fingers every chance he gets.  It's adorable.

We just love him soooooo much!  There are times however that I do look at all the diapers and formula and sleepless nights and strollers and schedules and think "I had it soooo easy before him", but just as quickly as that thought comes, God speaks to me the love that has been brought into our house because of him.  He has even brought "peace".  I know that only Christ can bring peace, but in this case he used a tiny little adopted infant to bring it to us.  Who wants to fight around a baby?  It's really true.  God has spoken volumes through this little one.  My husband for instance always knew it was his job to lead the family.  He loved teaching our older two.  But as our children become more independent, he/we sometimes got too busy with other things.   It became easy to think "they are doing fine".   The baby is a loud reminder that this "children in training" thing isn't ending anytime soon.  He has sparked a fire in both my husband and I to remain diligent in training our children in the way they should go.  And lovingly sharing our hearts with them while they are still young because they grow OH SO FAST!

It saddens me sometimes when I hear people talk of how much work children are (which they are!!!) and why they aren't having anymore because they like their independence (which I can sooo relate!), but what they are failing to realize is how much these hard little ones force us to rely upon God for our strength, for our sleep, for our daily bread!  They remind us this life is not about us.  They teach us to number our days because as you watch a little one grow you realize how fast it flies!  These little ones ground us to our homes, the exact thing feminists say is wrong and evil, is what God works together for our good!   Being home gives me time to love my husband and children, to provide healthy meals from home instead of fast food being eaten in the car on our way to another "thing".  Being home gives me time to be in the word, even if I am holding a tired infant in the other arm.

OK enough for now :-)   Blessing to all of you and I will update again soon.  Hopefully next time I will report what a GREAT SLEEPER Ethan is ;-)

Ethan. Sweetness.

We are still struggling with Sweet Ethan's sleep (sometimes he wakes every hour throughout the night), but we are NOT struggling with one thing........ OUR LOVE FOR THIS LITTLE SWEETHEART!  Seriously, we are so in love.  Even in my sleep deprived, non-showered, crazy hair, messy house......life.......we can both say for sure we are totally open for however many adoptions the Lord wants to bring us.  He will choose.  Honestly I would be heartbroken if he was our last, but God knows what he wants for each family.  However at this time we have decided to move forward with some sort of adoption (whether it be domestic infant like Ethan, or Foster to adopt, or international adoption) Next February.  Right after Ethan's one year birthday.  We are very excited.  The Lord has done marvelous works in our house lately, especially in our marriage and parenting, and I am thrilled at what I see.  God is so good.  Until I have a few more minutes to talk (blog) about some cool stuff going on and swirling in my mind, I leave you with a picture Ethan's favorite place to be.

I'm back!

WOW, that was a crazy roller coaster of a time.  These last 9 weeks have been trying!  But I am back now, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  I have learned so much lately, all the sleeplessness, worry about the baby, and breakdowns have all been worth it.

I should say first off, thank you to any of you who prayed for me or Ethan, or both of us.  Ethan is doing soooooo much better, and the off flow of that is I AM DOING better too :-)

It turned out that not only was he having digestive issues, but also continual ear infections.    We first found out about his ear infections by chance at the doctors office several weeks ago.  We had no clue!  We had not even suspected ear infections for his pain, since he showed so many signs that it was his tummy.  And although his tummy did (and sometimes still does) hurt, I am certain his double ear infection hurt far worse.   We did ten days of antibiotics.  I assumed it went away but when we took him back he still had fluid behind both ears and one ear was still very infected.  So now we are on a much stronger antibiotic which really really seems to be helping.  Bless his little heart!

He is letting his precious beautiful little personality come out now, and finally feels well enough to flash us a smile from time to time.  He is just wonderful.  He is also letting me sleep a bit more at night, which is helping me face our days with much more gusto!

I really slipped into a depression there for a little while.  I guess it was a mix between my hormones being off ( I had to go off my bio-identical hormone therapy while breastfeeding), not coping with stress well, lack of sleep, and sadly......lack of prayer and being in the Word.

The baby stopped breastfeeding several weeks ago (he just wouldn't do it anymore, he would scream when I put him to the breast, he just far preferred the bottle since my milk was decreasing), so I went back on my bio-identical hormone therapy.  Also, I am making it a point to comfort myself with prayer, and the bible, rather than TV or sugar.  Speaking of sugar, I am taking the 30 day no sugar challenge!  We are super excited (it's always funny when your super excited the first couple of days! ha!)
So  that is pretty much the things going on in this house.  We are learning to adjust, and just dwell in the moment of loving one another.  I leave you with this precious picture to show how much better sweet little one is getting......

Newborn Daze.

I've been in a fog.  A wonderful, exciting, sweet, sleepless, slightly stressful, newborn fog.  I tell you, that as much as I had tried to prepare for the changes that were coming, I don't think I could have prepared for the reality of what a newborn brings to a home.  "But you have two children already?"  You ask.  Yes, but my youngest is almost 8 and I think 7 years is just about the cut off for remembering what it was like when he was a newborn :-)
Soooooo we have adjusted.  We are barely coming out of the "holding baby 24/7, up all night, messy house, hot dogs for dinner, cereal for breakfast" fog.  Every phase of the life of a child is special, and when they are brand spanking new is no exception.  It's magical,  It's wonderful, it's a blessing!   But it's work, and it takes adjusting to.  Hence, the reason I have only posted 3 times in the almost 5 weeks since he's been born.

So, to update, I can say that Ethan is amazing.  He's hard work, but he's just about the cutest thing to happen to us since my last was born.  We just love snuggling him.  We have sort of hibernated since he has come.  We haven't been out much (except to go to church), and I really miss my friends.  But I am keenly aware that there are seasons in life, and this is my season to be home, missing out on a few fun things, to savor the briefness of this newborn time.  Plus I look like a mix between Medusa and the Wicked Witch of the West.  So I partially believe I am doing society a favor by staying indoors.  lol

Ethan is now finally growing out of newborn diapers, and into his cloth diapers (my first time cloth diapering! yay for me).  He is also starting to sleep better at night.  He still has a bad night here and there (such as last night), but for the most part it only wakes at 10pm, 1am, 4am and 7am.  If your thinking that doesn't seem so great, you should compare that to the nights that he was up every hour, for an hour.  That was tough stuff.

As far as Breastfeeding goes, well....it goes.  I am trying to breastfeed as often as possible.  It's a very long story but as of right now I am trying to increase my milk supply back to what it once was (I was producing a lot at the very beginning) which seems to be working.  The only problem is, and it's a big problem is now Ethan HATES to breastfeed.  He just loves the bottle.  Darn that evil bottle!  When I put him to the breast he just squirms and cries, then drinks a few seconds, then squirms and cries, then drinks a few second, and so on.  I know I have at least an ounce to offer because I get engorged and when I pump (which is not very often), I can sometimes get an ounce, or more.  More or less.  Soooo we are trying.  I am drinking a fabulous tea for feeding mothers, I am trying to stay hydrated, and I am taking several Fenugreek tablets a day.  So that's what's going on with that.

What else needs updating???

Oh yes, the Birth Mother.  Sandy is doing well.  She was discharged a few weeks after the birth of Ethan, and then ended up back in the hospital for a few days two weeks ago.  I talked to her yesterday, and she seems to be doing good, emotionally and physically.

Prayer requests (if you feel led )  
~For Ethan's Cold, breathing, and breastfeeding issues
~For My husband and I to continue to listen to God on whether or not to do Domestic adoption like we did with Ethan, or Foster/Adopt, or international.  We are pretty certain we will adopt again as soon as we are allowed (when Ethan turns 1 they let you start paperwork again).  We just don't know which adoption to do.  We need guidance from God on that..
~For my hormones to stabilize and continued health and nutrition in order to stay on top of my thyroid dysfunction and hormone imbalance

whoops baby is crying, gotta  run.  no time for spell or grammar checks.  forgive me  :-)

Ethan.

So sorry to keep you all in suspense.  I have had such a glorious last 10 days!  But I am awfully tired, and very very busy with my little bundle of joy.  I seem to have very little time to get on the internet at all these days.  But I wouldn't miss these precious newborn days for anything!  They grow way too fast!  Anyhow, I can't wait to write a nice big blog post very very soon, but as it is, I am sneaking one here secretly as my husband watches the baby so I can nap *shhhhhhhh*

He's so sweet  :-)

But he'd be none too happy if he found out he watched the baby so that I could hope on the blog.... hahahaha

The short version is Ethan is precious, sweet, and perfect.  He is doing AMAZINGLY!  And so is Sandy.  I love him to pieces, and could not love him more, were he born of my own body.  I just can't get over him!  He's amazing.  *sigh*

I have been able to bond with him so much and I can honestly say, I have not left him for one moment since he was born!  Amazing the miracles that God has worked to make that happen.  Our Father is soooo good and hears all our prayers!

May he bless all of you in your day.  Now I'm off to go nap ;-)

Welcome home Ethan.

I cannot wait to post all sorts of wonderful, beautiful, miraculous, details.  But as of right now, I am running on about 4 hours total since Sunday......sooooo......it will have to wait.  Until then, here are some pictures of our precious new son!   Ethan was born Sunday at 7:33pm and weighed 6lbs 6oz.  19 1/4 in. long.

The 29th.

Sweet Birth mom is still in the hospital.  Probably will be for some time after she gives birth.  The OB Doctors have decided definitively NOT to induce, irregardless of her medical state or medications, until her 39th week.  We know that she will likely not go into labor on her own due to muscle relaxers.  SOOOOO Sunday the 29th should be the BIG day.   :-)  Please pray for little Ethan to be healthy and strong, and be able to be released from the hospital as soon as possible.

This is a quick update, but it's all the info I can spare to write.  Thank you all for following this journey with us.  We are loving what God is doing in us through adoption.  He is so good to us.

What drives us?

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on the "decision" of adoption. For the past few weeks I have been battling (again) the fears of what may or may not come of all of this. I think to myself..

What if it all falls apart? What if we get matched and the mom changes her mind? What if they call us with a child with severe special needs? Will we walk in faith enough to choose to say YES to that situation? What if...............

But as with all things in my life over the past few months I have been choosing to not set my fears in front of me. What I mean by that is that they may float around in my head, but Christ will not let them settle in my heart. Still there are times where the mind goes a mile and minute, the heart starts to race, then..........

"Let it go Beloved, it was never your decision to begin with. It was mine. Give your burden to me"

Such sweet comforts our God whispers, does He not? And so again I let it go. Yet with all this thinking, heartache, money, worry, time, and waiting, I can't help but ask "What is driving us to do this?"

I know we have been asked on more than one occasion "Oh your adopting? Well that will be nice to have a baby in the house again. Three is really a nice number of children"

I can tell you right now definitively that "having a baby in the house" or having "three" children as opposed to our two, is NOT, I repeat NOT motivation enough for Jake and I to adopt. Don't get me wrong, adoption is precious, but Jake and I would have given up a long time ago if our motivation was as simple as that. No, lately as I wait, I know more than ever what drives us.

HIM.

He is the creator of all things, lover of all things, and protector of the helpless. What is more helpless than humans? What human is more helpless than a child?

It is His love that works itself in our hearts through His spirit to move us ever closer in this direction. I recently had the amazing privilege of hearing Katie Davis founder of Amazima ministries speak at a local church. She said something in a video they played before she came out to speak that has really stuck with me.  She said that sometimes people tell her how lucky she is to know Gods plan for her life at such a young age. She said something along the lines of "Well I'm not "lucky". God's plan for everyone is in the Bible. It says in the Bible to love your neighbor as yourself. Well myself doesn't like to starve, so therefore I shouldn't want others to starve".   Katie does more than help the starving people of Uganda. At 21 years of age she has also adopted 14 precious little girls that she is raising by herself.

I feel like that about adoption. My flesh wants to turn away from this whole process sometimes. I want to run back to our easy life of two independent older children. But my Spirit cries louder than my flesh. It cries out to nurture and care for those who have no family. Katie makes such an excellent point. If I am to love my neighbor as myself, well anyone who knows me knows that I hate to be lonely. Do I ever want any child to be without a family when I could be their family?

This is what drives us. When we are in the Word and in prayer, we know His will for our lives is to always live sacrificially. Something I know I have not lived. But I pray Christ will forgive me and help mold me into a person who lives for His glory and lives for my neighbor. Every time I want to give in to fear and quit on this whole process, the Spirit urges on softly...
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." I want to care for the Orphan because He does.
  I was once an Orphan as well.   Yes, I had a Mother and Father, but I was as lost as an orphan could be. Then He came. Adopted me as his child, and my life has never been the same. I love how it is put in John 14:18 as Jesus is speaking to His Disciples "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

Praise God he has come for us!  Let us then press forward and come for those who are also in need.

Update....again.

I think you will be getting a lot of these in the next few weeks and months. As most of you know we just shifted from a very slow international adoption process to a very quick domestic adoption process. We JUST today found out that our current international agency that we have been working with, has agreed to convert our home study from international to domestic. This is huge. We were hopeful in the beginning that they would convert it, but the more we talked to the agency, the more it looked like they would not do it for us. This was told to us by four separate individuals who worked in the agency. My husband looked at me and said "babe, if they won't do it, then we cannot afford to do another homestudy and we will just have to take it as a sign from God that we are to wait longer to adopt and stick with international." Which would mean dropping from South Korea (as we know regardless of which adoption we do, is not a good idea at the moment due to the countries threats of closing the program) and waiting until we qualify for China special needs. My heart sunk. After waiting years just to get to a point to be so close, it hurt to think of having to wait longer. I prayed. Then I finally go a hold of the director of our agency (who happens to sincerely dis-like us :-), and she told me today that she would convert our homestudy........... FOR FREE........ THIS WEEK. It was a MIRACLE. I could say a lot more, but I don't want to put down the agency. Let's just say it was clearly the work of God. Sooooooo the plan is, get the 5% loan we have agreed to get, turn in our money and paperwork to the domestic agency Friday, put together our profile in two weeks, and probably adopt shortly thereafter. I can't believe how fast this is all going. I wouldn't be so excited for the quickness of it all had the lady not told me to prepare to get a child very quickly due to our openness on race and other issues. I was prepared to wait long, and was fine with that. But it is true. So we wait and see. I am picking up my nephews infant carseat that he has outgrown tomorrow, along with some miscellaneous baby things. I have to say, having a 10 and 7 year old sure makes you look around and realize that you have almost nothing for a baby. This should be fun collecting little pieces here and there from friends and family. P.S. if anyone has any good ideas on fund raising to pay off adoption loans, pleas let me know! :-)

updates, updates, updates.

I find it odd and sort of funny that I am in a stage in life that things are changing so much that I am constantly having to update friends and family on the craziness that we call "our life". But I love it anyhow. Apparently God must think I don't like things to be predictable (or he knows I do and likes to throw me for a loop....one of the two ;-) Tonight I will focus the update on the adoption. Later, when I get back from Northern California, I will update the rest of our crazy life and then would love to go back to some topical blogging, The adoption is moving forward, but in a new direction. We received our finalized copy of our Home Study in the mail today ~yay~ and have thus far completed everything needed to move forward in this process. However there is one thing standing in our way. That one thing happens to be very very large. Yup, it's the country of Korea itself. We believe completely that they are shutting down the international adoption program. And rightfully so. They are not a third world county, and have reached the point where they can sustain their own adoptions domestically. They have been talking about this for a few years I guess, but we only knew about it a month after we signed on to adopt from there. Our agency did not tell us anything about it. At all. Not a word. You get my drift. We would soon find out however how truly serious this was. Phone calls to the agency brought no news, they said only "Korea has been threatening this for years, it's not really anything to be concerned about." I believed them.....at first. Now we are getting email updates weekly, about what other families (who are much farther along in the process) are going through. Huge delays (some delays are always to be expected in the adoption process but these were massive), and threats to shut down the whole program. There is much much more to it than that, some of which we are not privileged to discuss, but after much consideration we have decided it is not in anyone's best interest to invest 2 more years, thousands of dollars, and our hearts, to a program that will more than likely shut down right before we are able to actually finalize an adoption from there. We then looked into other countries that our agency offers, and for one reason or another we are not able to do the few they have to offer (several countries are going Hague at the moment and others are having in country turmoil and therefore are temporarily suspended). So we started calling around to other agencies who offered different countries to see if we could switch over to them. I called 6 agencies and every one of them told me that although our home study was just completed, is fully accredited, and legal for use, they would not take our home study as it is their policy to do "their own home studies". As I was calling around and hearing this heartbreaking news, knowing we could not afford to pay for another homestudy only 2 months after paying for the recent one, my heart sank. Then I remembered seeing this adoption agency as I drove down the freeway to see my doctor. I thought for a moment and remembered the name listed on the building. I googled them, gave them a call and asked, without expecting a "yes", if they would take my home study. They asked if it was accredited, I said yes, and they said YES! I told them how wonderful that was and how happy I was to hear that. I then asked "What country programs do you offer for adoptions?". She said "Oh, we don't do international, only domestic." My heart sunk. We had never even considered domestic adoption, and I wasn't sure I was ready to consider it now. I got to talking to the kind lady though and we ended up talking for an hour. I let her know the situation with Korea, our situation with not qualifying for several countries due to age, or travel time or several other reasons. She asked me to come by a week later to come talk about the domestic adoption process and see if I really understood it. I agreed, talked it over with my husband, and went to the meeting a few days ago. We had TONS of questions and they answered them all honestly and openly. We discovered a lot of things we thought wrongly about domestic adoption. For one, we believed that domestic adoption in America was for the rich. Why we thought this, I have no idea. It will end up costing around 10-15 thousand dollars LESS than our Korean adoption would have cost. Secondly, knowing adoption is about so much more than money, we wanted to ask if there was really even a need for us. We had always heard that there was like a 7 year wait list for a baby in America. We assumed that there were all these people who could not have children and only wanted a baby, and wanted one .....well.....primarily white. And since my husband and I were open to children up to 5 and were completely comfortable with children of all the beautiful skin shades of this world, we thought the obvious, and only choice was to do international adoption. The lady informed me that although there are a lot of people wanting to adopt in America, most of them want a healthy, Caucasian newborn, born to a mother with a good medical history. She informed us that there were very few couples who crossed their desks open to children of all races, and of backgrounds with some unknowns. We filled out a questionnaire that asked questions about the baby you would like to adopt. Questions like "what race are you open to?", "would you be willing to adopt a child that is the result of rape?", "do you want a boy or a girl?" . When we answered that we were open to a child of any race, either a boy or girl, and that we were not all that concerned about a child's mothers background, the lady almost teared up. I could not believe her reaction. My thoughts were "How many people are seriously not open to these things??". She answered my unspoken thought the next moment. She said that these were the kind of questionnaires they frame in their office. Jake and I looked at each other thinking "your kidding, right?" We are no hero. We are not even good most of the time. We are selfish, lazy sinners being transformed daily by the power of God and relying on HIS grace to get through each day without falling back into old patterns of sin. BUT, we know the value of a child. That value is not changed by circumstance, color, gender, or abilities. Sooo we told her we were interested and talked about how to start. Here's the crazy part. After we talked about which things to do to get this thing rolling she then said "Normally I ask my clients to get in this paperwork as soon as possible. The sooner your paper work gets on file and your profile gets put out there, the sooner you get matched. BUT since you guys are open to so many variables I would say to hold onto your paperwork until you are absolutely ready to bring home a baby." She said we could be matched within days of posting a profile. W O W. So here we are. Doing a domestic adoption. I never would have thought. Now having said all that, our hopes for helping the least of these are not ending with this adoption. There are so many children in countries sitting in orphanages waiting, that we could not leave it at this. Even though all plans made by man are subject to change, our goal is to adopt a precious baby domestically in America now. Then by the time that child is around 1, my husband and I will BOTH be 30 and will have been married 10 years (two setbacks that work against us with several countries). We hope to then continue our heart for adoption internationally. We should then qualify for several more countries. There's your update. Who would have thought I was going to write a book tonight? sheesh! Other updates to follow soon. Until then, we are off to Northern California for our second vacation in almost 10 years of marriage! We are excited and ready for this break :-)

Child Training Bible!

SO I posted a month back about my friend Mindy's idea for a Bible that is primarily used for child training. She thought it up, researched the scriptures, made everything needed to make it work, and then showed some of her very blessed friends how to make one as well. We are all reaping the amazing benefits of training our children with scripture! This is not a parenting book, this is not a fad, this is not a new idea. This is scripture and scripture alone. I love it!! I am reaping such a great harvest of scriptural knowledge and of PEACE in my home through training my children with the Word of God. Please check out her site. She has put so much hard work into this. Her passion if for kids and moms alike to know the Word of God and to apply it to their lives, and their parenting. May you be blessed!

The site is www.childtrainingbible.com

Kids.

I found these pictures on my camera today and all I can say is...... sometimes we are a very silly family :P



(those are socks my Grandma got me for Christmas and my kids just think they are too hilarious)

The Child Training Bible.

Coming soon to a home near you.....











UPDATE: My sweet friend Mindy who came up with this idea has created a blog JUST FOR the Child Training Bible! What's great is that anyone can make one! Check it out here!

The idea for this Child Training Bible cam from my dear friend Mindy. There are several woman in my group of friends who desired to train our children with scripture, not with every passing wind of doctrine or the newest parenting book.

And although the book "Don't Make ME Count to Three!" by Ginger Plowman, played a role in the inspiration of this, this bible is a guide to scripture and nothing else. I can't wait to post more on this soon. Until then, it's late and I must go to bed :)

Are we really Pro-life?

I know I haven't posted in a while, but that is due to a fantastic thing happening to me.......no longer addicted to the Internet, yay! No but seriously, my drive for Internet has decreased so dramatically in the past month that really all I want to do is hop on and check my email, and then hop right off again. It's been great, and my kids are really appreciating the all the fantastic cooking that has come from less time on the computer :) Since the first few weeks of our move transition were so stressful, I am taking time to do more things that bring me joy, i.e., taking my kids to the park, doing a bible study (Kay Arthur: Lord I Want to Know You has been great so far. It's right where I am at in my walk), cooking good healthy meals, and reading lots and lots of great Christian fiction :)

Sooooo, now that you know why I have been blogging ridiculously little lately, let's dive straight in to a controversial subject.

On to the topic at hand.

Are we pro-life? In asking that question I am going to present to you a scenario.

Imagine an Abortion clinic. It has a 6ft chain link fence around it, so that Christian protesters have to stand far enough away from the clients coming in to get their abortion.

A young woman pulls up in a beat up old car that spits and sputters and squeals until it comes it a jerky stop at the clinic. She slowly, sadly, but determinedly gets out, and begins to walk to the door when she hears a woman yell from the fence,
Protester: "Don't kill your baby! Please, God loves children, and He will provide for you, just trust Him!"

Young unwed teen: "Are you a Christian, lady?"

Protester:"Yes ma'am I am. Please choose life, God will work out all the details. He loves children and He loves you"

Young unwed teen: "Do you have a husband? A house? A car that works? Does your husband have a job?"

Protester: "Yes I do, actually."

Young unwed teen: "How many children do you have?"

Protester: "One boy and one girl......why do you ask?"

Young unwed mother: "Is that all you plan to have"

Protester: " OH yes, we decided our family was complete and my husband got a vasectomy 4 years ago. Again, why do you ask??"

Young unwed teen: "So your telling ME, a non believer, with no husband, no money, and no house, I should trust in "God" to provide for me when it comes to children, and to welcome that unwanted child into my life with open arms because God loves children. And YOU a Christian who trusts in the God I do not know, who has a husband, and money and a home, and a car that works, wont even DARE let the chance of conception happen because your so scared of having more."

Protester: "............choose life.............please....."

Young unwed teen: (as she turns to walk back to the abortion clinic she says over her shoulder) "yeah right......Hypocrite. IF you can't even trust him to take care of you and more children, why should I?"


She rings the bell and an Abortion nurse opens it for her. As the nurse is letting her in, she gets a glimpse of a different young lady among the protesters, and mumbles to herself "didn't I see that young woman in here a few weeks ago to pick up her birth control pills?"




So I ask you again, are you REALLY pro-life?

Let's be clear and make no confusion about my heart on this. I am not saying at all that if you use birth control of any kind, you are pro-abortion. I know many different families with many different views on children, and I know how much each one of them loves the Lord. I try and support all my friends in their personal decision that are between them, their husbands, and God.

But I cannot get away from the hypocrisy of it all when it comes to the pro-life movement in general.

Some of the women I knew, who I KNOW are pro-life, were so horrified when they found out my husband and I were getting a reversal and decided to let God bless us with more children. As many as He wanted actually. They were absolutely disgusted. How can I translate that with their STAUNCH pro-life stance? I just can't.

I volunteered as a counselor/client advocate at a crisis pregnancy resource center and all the while, my hope was that I could encourage, love on, and bring hope in the name of Christ to some of these hurting women. Not all women who came in wanted abortions, some just wanted a free pregnancy test. But some, whom I will never forget, where hurting, and scared, and desperately wanted to keep the baby, but didn't know how to make it work. They reminded me so much of myself at nineteen, pregnant, unmarried and scared to death , when I too had to walk in to a crisis pregnancy center because I couldn't even afford the ten dollar test. I remember the feelings of fear, hurt, and joy that you experience all at the same time when you find out your are expecting a VERY unplanned ill-timed pregnancy.

So I would comfort these women, and tell them about resources in the area who can help them with food, housing, and medical care. Then I would take them to the back room and give them maternity clothes so they could finally get out of their size 5 jeans that are being held together by a rubber band. I wanted so badly for them to know the love and peace of God. The peace that I had found. That is, in every area BUT children. My husband had a vasectomy when our second was only 2 weeks old. We loved the freedom that came with unprotected sex with no complications of having to deal with another pregnancy.

As I look back now I am filled with shame over my hypocrisy. Had any one of those women looked at me and asked "Do you trust God to take care of you if you get pregnant?". I would not have been able to answer.

Thank God that he has shown me the folly of my thinking in that area.

Some people reading this may think my judgments are harsh upon women unwilling to bear any more children for God. But the opposite is true. I RELATE! I remember the decision to get that vasectomy. I remember being sick my whole pregnancy, I remember my husband and I fighting so much, we walked the edge of divorce on more occasions than I could count. I remember feeling like, "I cannot do this again!"

But it was earthly, temporary and drenched in fear, not faith. It would not stay that way for long. Soon God would grow me and teach me to trust in Him. Soon my barren womb would cry out for life, only to be told every month, NO. My husband would also come under the same conviction and reverse what we had done.
I sit here now, 2 years after that reversal with no child to hold, no baby for my womb to nourish and grow, as it begs me each month to do. I grieve as all the women before me have grieved over infertility. Only mine was self inflicted. Fertility was a gift that I took for granted. Something I once had, but we broke.

BUT AT LEAST now I can say honestly to any woman who asks, I am pro-life. I will welcome any child God chooses to give me. And if you choose not to raise your child, I will gladly welcome that child into my home also.


In closing I say with love, don't just be pro-life in your politics.....be pro-life in your homes.

Parenting advice worth passing along…

Parenting advice worth passing along…

You can follow the link above to read a short but very profound point on Parenting. My favorite quote from the post was "As I near this final chapter of having kids in the home, I realize more and more that the overall goal in parenting is to emphasize heart inhabitation (a Spirit-led life) more than behavior modification. It’s not about raising “good kids,” but rather “godly kids.”

So true! I am glad I am learning this now while my kids are still fairly young. It is so hard to practice because it does take a lot of effort, and consistency, and love and patience, and on and on and on it goes. Which is hard on the "weak" flesh that we walk in, isn't it? But the fruits of the labor is great indeed! I am still learning so much, and changing so much. I have far to go, but I am on my way :)
p.s. Beyond this article, there are a lot of great resources that help encourage parents to teach to the heart of their children, not just modify behavior. Some of those resources are books like "Shepherding your child's heart", "Don't make me count to three!" and the complete audio series by Steve and Teri Maxwell "Encouragement for the homeschooling family" (which by the way is being offered as a "giveaway" at Miscellaneous Musings of a 5x mom so hop on over there and enter!!)

Baby girl is 9.

How truly sad and wonderful it is to watch your little ones grow. I cannot believe my little firstborn is 9 now. I guess every mother thinks that with each passing year, but still it's a struggle. I love her so much and couldn't be more proud of the little lady she is becoming. So sweet, and careful of others, and yet her best attribute is her unyielding faith and devotion to the God who made her. Here are some pictures of her on her birthday receiving her very own sewing machine. Her NaNa got it for her. She has been using mine when she does her sewing lessons and it was wayyyy too heavy for her. Now she has this precious machine that is green (her favorite color) and has Hello Kitty on it (which is her Auntie Jamie's favorite figure).




And here are some pictures of her Birthday party we had a few days later at the bowling alley. We don't do birthdays up too big in this family, but the bowling alley party was actually a lot of fun. The kids were great.






And below is Ireland's cake that she got to decorate herself! She is so smart :)

Bathing suits.

The answer is NO, I am not in the mood to tackle the great debate of bathing suits and modesty just yet. However I would like to quickly and briefly show you all, before my day gets too hectic, that modest bathing suits DOES NOT have to equal "water proof potato sacks".
Check out these totally cute modest bathing suits that may not be completely conventional, but definitely do the job of covering up the ta-ta's while helping you still look feminine and fashionable.

Playing Survivorman.

I have to admit something.......I LOVE the show Survivorman. I have watched on Netflix every episode of all three seasons that he made. My husband and I are glued to the TV when this rugged Canadian drops himself in the middle of nowhere and video tapes himself surviving for 7 days. He builds fires and shelters,using all sorts of methods, catches anything from frogs, to snakes, and birds to eat. It's fascinating. Honestly. To top it off, the show is clean ;)
I am thinking my kids liked the show too because lately that's all they seem to be playing. They get out their "camping/survival kits" that their NaNa got them, and just imagine away. These pictures were taken this morning, during one of the many hours they have spent lately playing "Survivorman". They are too cute. In one of these pictures they have made an animal trap by tying yarn to a hammer and a toy car and pretending the small animal tries the grab the car and in so doing, pulls the hammer down on itself. Gross, I know. Also in the background is their "shelter" they have set up with a blanket and some books stretched between the couch and ottoman.

Oh and the cool survivor kits my mom got them included a REAL, compass, multi-tool, metal water bottle, and collapsible fork, spoon, and knife. Now THOSE are toys!

Our new chore system.

I am going to post some pictures on a very simple chore system we are using right now. I just came up with it one day because I realized I had everything I needed to make them. I love not spending extra money, it makes me seriously giddy to recycle things in my house and give them new uses. First I have to say that there was nothing wrong with our old chore system (we did chore packs=cards or "post it notes" with chores written or drawn on them, then shoved inside a clear badge that attaches to the child). It worked great, but I was sensing it was time to change things up a bit. My kids are military kids, and you have to keep them on their toes sometimes :)

Anyhow, where was I?

Oh yes! The new chore system. Soo first I went to Microsoft Word and found clip art of some chores I wanted the kids to do. You would not believe all the clip art you can find on that thing!
For instance..
A picture of a Cat= do litter box
A picture of a lady washing dishes= wash some dishes
A picture of a dishwasher= empty dishwasher (or whatever things you know how to)
A picture of a toy= put away all the toys on your bedroom floor
A picture of a hanger= hang up or fold all you clothes in your bedroom
A picture of a child brushing his teeth= well, you get the picture (pun intended)

Anyhow, as you can see I just put them on a Word Document, then printed them all out (I made doubles because I have two children and they each need their own pictures for their chore list).

Then I took my laminator (they sell these at Sams club for a very decent price and we love ours) and laminated the page with the clip art then cut them into small squares.

After that I took a roll of magnet tape (the thick kind) that we had laying around and cut smaller squares and attached it to the back side of the laminated clip art picture. I was able to attach it easily because the magnet tape roll had an adhesive side on it.

After that I took these LARGE white magnets that I had attached to the side of my refrigerator. I had bought these in the winter at Walmart because they claimed you could just simply put them up on some of the vents in your house that are not being used as much, and it would keep the cold draft form seeping in. They were not the right size for our vents AND they did not stay on. So we had these random huge rectangle magnets on our fridge for 4 months. Finally they have a use.

OK I did it again.....rabbit trail........

Sooooo I wrote in permanent marker a child's name on each one, then divided them in half and wrote "morning" on one side and "evening" on the other. Because once a day is not enough to have kids helping around the house. I'm just sayin....

Then all you do is put the magnet chart and clip arts low enough to be eye level with children and VIOLA! you have a chart. I simply walk over to the fridge in the morning, after I turn my coffee machine on, and put some "chores" onto their "charts". They magnetize perfectly and the children simply take them off the chart when they are done. We love it. It works for us. The pictures are so easy and I can change the chores daily if I feel like it. I like that freedom. For instance if the child fusses at doing his chores I simply let him know that I will add another chore if he whines, and then of course follow through if he/she doesn't stop immediately. Having that option of adding chores if necessary is not used often, but when it is used, it is highly effective and VERY handy :)

The last picture is the finished product with ALL the chores on the list. I did this only to show you all the clip art I made. I usually though only have about five for the morning and five for the evening, give or take.