Blessed...

Today I am a bit overwhelmed as I consider my blessings.

I am sitting here, after reading my Bible, in peace and quiet. All the kids are sleeping, the air conditioning is on high, all the lights are off this early afternoon, and I am rested.

Last night, both girls kept me up for a while with their coughing. M has a pretty nasty ear infection and H has some bug. I rotated back and forth between girls and at 3:33 am had to awaken S and send him to the kitchen for Motrin. Both girls woke up excited and full of life,this morning, PTL. Even though I woke up tired, I was literally awakened by at least a dozen M kisses... so sweet!

H went off to school today laughing and shouting "I go bus".

S called me at 10:30 to inform me of his intention to come home for lunch.

S came home and took the other 3 kiddos on a date for lunch. He gave me strict instructions... REST. So, I napped for 1 whole, uninterrupted hour. When he came back and dropped the kids off, M said, "bye bye Mommy, I go with daddy." Can you stand it???? Oh, and S also brought me a venti iced americano from Starbucks! A very attractive thing to do... he speaks my love language!

When H came home from school she looked at me and said, "yay, Mommy, I uv U." I asked her about her day and she said, "I go school, I play, I draw and I nuggle." I asked her who she snuggles and she said, "daddy".

I laid down with both girls for a nap (and got another 30 minutes of rest in). They "nuggled" with me and kissed each other for about 15 minutes before falling asleep. They had their eyes closed almost the entire time they were kissing. They went back and forth saying, "I love you" to each other and to me. What an amazing thing parenthood is.

My parents are purchasing a motorhome... and guess who gets to live in it for the next 10 months???? It is so far and above everything we hoped and prayed for. You think my parents are a little supportive??? Just a bit. My husband will be jobless in the near future, with 4 kids. We are moving overseas to a developing nation and my parents are enabling this. Pretty awesome, huh?

I cannot express my amazement at my family... my entire family, not just my parents. Do you know what my brothers and their wives said to me when I told them we were adopting 2 boys, and then again when I told them we were adopting H??? They said, "that's awesome," both times. Do you know that my parents get choked up when they see H working so diligently to succeed, and when M sings the "I Love You" song, and when they read what C says and when JR takes care of his sisters? I am so blessed to have the most amazing family. My dad dared my husband and I to make another child as cute as M... or take another child as amazing as the our new 3! Not once have my parents said they think we are out of our minds. (That, of course, may very well be b/c they have known I was out of my mind since day 1, so this is just par for the course).

Last night S set up a ginormous "hurdle" for C to jump over. He showed him videos of Olympic hurdling and he showed C how to hurdle. Then he assisted the rest of the kids hurdling over M's bike with a 3 foot handle, and a stool. Yes, our house became a track for a while, and it was a blast. S is going to start taking C running. He is such an amazing dad... the thrives on being a father.

Anyway, enough rambling and back to laundry. Just wanted to publicly thank my God, my Lord and Savior, for these undeserved blessings... and thank my family for their unselfish, beyond loyal, support... and thank my husband for rocking my world!!!

Now I will overwhelm you w/ pics of my blessings!

H is such a lover of life... even in a carseat!

M and her big bro.

S enabling H to race too!

C in a tree!

C's favorite place to be!

M w/ a medicine ball!

Happy C... as usual!

JR and M racing!

My Kiddos!!!!

The Fam!

H watching the goings on!

JR and the medicine ball

Just ONE more...

Or maybe 4 more!

For the past week I have been dreaming of a faceless baby, sometimes he/she is growing in my belly, sometimes I pick him/her up off of a very low white bed. Always, though, he/she is tiny, helpless and in my dream when I put him/her to my chest I feel peace. I can't really remember the color of the baby's skin in my dream. But, I can see him/her eyes and mouth... but no recollection of color... how very bizarre, isn't it? I have had 5 dreams now about this baby.

NO I am not pregnant... tired enough to be though! I am pretty sure I have told S about 50 times in the past week that someone is missing from our family.

So, to make matters even more bizarre...

Here's last night's conversation w/ C:

C: Mama, I have to tell you something but I no want you to laugh at me

Me: What, baby?

C: (Quietly) Well, I thinking about something that my heart tell my mind and my heart tell me that I need to tell you. It something very important.

Me: What is it baby?

C: My heart is telling me I glad you adopt me and my heart it tell me that there is another children that need us to adopt him because he have no mama or daddy. He have no parents.
But I not know if he a boy or a girl.

Me: C you want us to adopt another child?

C: Yeah, I tink so. I tink a baby who have no mommy or daddy need us to be his family.

Me: C, I absolutely adore you. You bless my heart and I love you so much. I am so glad you are my son!

JR: Me too, Mama!

Me: You too, JR!

M: Me too Mommy!

Me: You too, M!

H: Mmm t!

Me: You too, H!

Me to S: So, can you believe that? What do you think?

S: We need lots more kids!

So, I guess it's unanimous. We'll be adopting again. Not sure when, or who. But our friend, Brandi, reminded me to keep careful notes... perhaps our baby is growing in someone's belly right now, or perhaps he/she has just been born! Who knows? Well, God does!

I hear over and over again how "lucky" my children are to have been adopted by us. On the contrary, we are the ones who are truly blessed. I mean c'mon... look at what my son just said.

How about you... wanna adopt????? It'll rock your world. It truly is an amazing picture of Christ and our relationship with our Father through HIM! Thank you Jesus! How blessed we are! No, it's not as romantic as some may think, or make it out to be. Yes there are some difficult bumps along the way. But what an incredible journey!

Here's a great video that puts the adoption need into perspective.

In Surgery...

Isaac just went into surgery now.
E-man is also in surgery and has been for about 2 hours now.
Please check blogs for updates.

If you are reading this...

Stop everything and pray!!!!!

Please be in prayer today for Emmanuel and Isaac!

Both of these kiddos are good friends from Liberia and are both having hardcore surgeries today!

E-man for his heart, I for his spinal TB.

E-Man

Isaac!

• Please pray for their bodies to be strong
  
• Pray for their lungs to be strong
  
• Pray for wisdom and skill for the doctors
  
• Pray for the mommies' hearts!
  
• Please pray, pray, pray!
  

We're on our way up to Children's in LA for I and Jocelyn!

Thanks for your prayers!

Ummm, what just happened...

Yeah, so we don't really know where or how or when H decided she could walk on her own, but man is she persistent. She doesn't even have her walker yet!

She must have done this about 12 times.

Yay, H-girl, YAY!

So, sorry for the choppiness of the video, but it all happened so fast that I only had time to grab S's phone!

Tick, tick, tick, tick...

We feel like we are heading up hill in the front of the roller coaster, hearing the tick, tick, tick, tick, knowing we are about to embark on the thrill of our lives. We truly are hanging on and enjoying the ride (yes, we know there will be ups and downs too!) We cannot stop declaring our amazement towards our God.

It really has been 2 weeks since my last post and I am not sure if any of you are still out there.

I have a very good reason for not posting. I just don't know where to begin! So much has happened that to post it is overwhelming...and once I fill you in, I may have to come back and post on each thing individually.

But for now, hold on, here's the latest!

God has been doing some amazing things in moving us along, reminding us that it is His work that He will accomplish.

We listed our house for sale with a realtor and two days later, he called and backed out of the sale due to the plummeting economy. He offered the option to us of
"letting our house go to the bank"...not an option! So, we prayed and asked the Lord to use our house for His glory and ministry since it was not His plan for us to sell. Two days later, we had a garage sale... we didn't sell much, but we rented our house! Yep! We had not even listed it as a rental or taken any steps toward that direction.

Long story shorter. Our house will be rented by the pastor of a sister church to ours... incredibly solid family! (We have already become friends!!!) Our neighborhood is his target for a new church plant. Our community park is a meeting place for Ethiopian Msm. children from our neighborhood and the one across the freeway and we have connected with them... they walk over the freeway bridge every afternoon! What a ministry! Our hearts had been grieving a bit to consider leaving this neighborhood, but now we are rejoicing in God's sovereignty and goodness!

We move out in about 3 weeks...YIKES. We'll be moving into a motorhome, living on the beach down here until S is out of the Navy and then we'll head out to raise support and partner w/ churches!

We don't yet have a motorhome but we are confident the Lord will provide! We are praying for a free motorhome to use... crazy, huh? We are STOKED!

We have already reserved a spot at a motor home park.

We are hoping to be "on the field" by mid spring to summer 09!

You may, or may not, have read this post a while ago with our list of requests for the Lord. One of them was that H, our sweet little girlie who has Cerebral Palsy, would walk prior our departure. Well, the Lord has answered. H has walker on the way. It should arrive in less than a month AND she has been walking in PT each week with a walker, chasing after a soccer ball, and kicking it! She is a miracle and a rich, rich blessing.

She has also been lovingly kicked out of the special ed program in California State schools as she has tested into a regular ed. classroom...they say her cognitive development is near on target!

The rest of the kiddos are doing very, very well. Our oldest is literally trying to give up his bed to go to our new home and tell people about Jesus, help them farm and
"make the people like H to walk". He is most excited about having a goat, a cow and a horse (????)

We had a great visit with S's parents who just left last week.

Oh, and M turned 2! YAY!

Here are some of our prayer requests:

1. PRAISE THE LORD WITH US!

2. A motorhome, at no cost to us, a way to raise money advertising using our motorhome... we're praying for an opportunity to "wrap" our motorhome and use it as a roving billboard... but only w/ a company we would LOVE to endorse (like CFA... you know what I'm talking about, Brandi... can you just see it?!)  We'd even wrap our minivan too, and keep it in tow behind us... how rad, a crazy, would that be???

3. S's separation orders to come in so we can schedule our move, ASAP!!!

4. We have had some GREAT time in the word together as individuals, as a couple, and as a family. Pray for continued commitment to the word and meaningful family worship time! (Tonight as I put M to bed she was SINGING "we wanna see, we wanna see, we wanna see Jesus high" and H and I had some GREAT prayer time and she SAID, clear as daylight, "I love you Jesus!")

5. Pray for diligence, rest, and TIME MANAGEMENT!

Thanks for all your support and encouragement in this journey:

Hope you enjoy this video!!!