almost 6 months since a post....

 

I find it hard to believe it was June the last time I wrote a post, and put pictures on this blog. YET, I know the last 6 months have been more busy than I could ever have imagined, with more ups and downs than I would have dreamed, and life has yet to find a "new" normal for our family.

I have always loved blogging, and sharing joys, dreams, fears, discouraging times, and meeting new friends along the way. I have gone back and read all the comments since the first of this year, and it has brought me great joy to know that we are NOT alone on this journey.

Adoption is SOOOO not for the faint of heart. It is exhilerating, it is exhausting. It is joyous, it is sad and filled with hours of grieving.

It is painful, yet it is like giving birth (or so I 've been told :)  )because you do forget all the pain when the hours of labor are behind you.

It is bone-wearying, soul trying, and mind stretching.

It is days of peaks and valleys, hours of training, training, training; it is minutes of praying, Help me thru this moment!

This past year is like nothing I/we have ever been through before.

To say there haven't been times when I wanted to just throw my hands up and say, I GIVE, I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE would not be an understatement.

It has been a hard year.

It has been trying.

It has been filled with moments of defeat, yet hours of great WINS.

I have spent more hours on the road to or in Dr's offices ( and don't even go there with the $$$ for gas this year) and the year is NOT over yet.

I have spent more time looking at symptoms, analyzing behaviors, asking questions and researching chromosome deficiencies and talking to genetics specialists than I EVER thought I would be doing.

There have been days when we were sure we were tearing apart our family, instead of building a new one.

There have been times of deep grief over the family that was.

There have been days of deep pain over the family we are trying to become.

It has been hard.

no 2 ways about, just plain HARD!!!

and it hurts.

BOY, does it hurt.

The sleepless nights worrying about children's issues, worrying about siblings not loving one another the way we had hoped, worrying about why I/ we don't feel the way we THINK we should be feeling by this time into this new family.

The days of trying to stop 3 little dynamos with LOUD mouths from destroying the house,(and my sanity) yet trying to school 3 who don't have any issues, and trying to figure out how to school our oldest daughter so that some day, she can GET IT!!!!

Do we regret the past year?

I don't think so.

Do we wonder what would have happened if we hadn't gone this route?

I think we do sometimes.

Yet, I hate to say it, but those are the times when my selfish, what about me attitude really comes to the front, and I want to say, WHAT ABOUT ME.

Yet, it's not about me, or Chuck, or the 5 who were home first.

It is about 2 new girls, who are still trying mighty hard to find their way in a world that still leaves them quaking in their shoes.

It's about 2 sweethearts who, until 11 months ago, did not have a forever mommy and daddy, sisters and brothers.

Its about trying our hardest to blend all our lives together, and to give honor and glory to our Father, who orchestrated it all from the beginning.

The tears can come easily some days, but there are days when the laughter, giggles and simple joys win out over the night's tears.

We still have lots of diagnoses to ponder, lots of issues to work through, lots of PAIN ahead, as we continue to forge this thing called FAMILY.

Please keep us in prayer. Please continue to check in, leave encouragements, and keep loving us from afar.

We don't mean to be distant, we are just busy about our Father's work-even on the days when I think I have done everything wrong-and there are alot of those kinds of days around here-I am a very fleshly creature, I have discovered, and don't like to have so many unknowns, so many what ifs, so many unanswered questions still hanging.

And for those of you who knew we were buying a farm, the deal is off-yes, another MAJOR disappointment-and another MAJOR unknown as we ponder what next!!!

What is next for us Lord?

We are really trying to listen-even when our flesh gets in the way!!!

Blessings and love

Chris for all 9 of us:)
A few pictures from the last few weeks-
I'm not going to try to recreate the whole 6 months, blogger is way too slow for me!!

enjoying some fall fun in the leaves

a homeschool fieldtrip, and daddy got to go along too:)

the joy of cows in the barn, fresh milk in the fridge, and making butter and cottage cheese

another field trip-and a chance to hold a skunk

good byes are hard, and our beloved Speech Pathologist had worked with Isaiah for 1 1/2 years-but her schedule did not allow for 4 kids in Hillsboro on Thursday morning anymore-sigh!!!

yes, that's FOUR dogs-2still very much all puppy!!!!

fun on the gator this fall-all 7 fit!!!!

our first Christmas for this year-and 9 cousins gathered together at Grandma and Grandpa's house:)
I think we are stretching them a bit!!!

Rosalyn just discovered a BABY in her box-and she LOVES her

we might have a way to make these 2 best friends yet-they both LOVE dolls, and Grandma sewed some awesome clothes for the new dolly-who is named Jessa

after Christmas at Thanksgiving, some of us hit the woods with my Dad to bring in some wood for him-and it was a COLD day

mama duck hatched 4 ducklings, and did we enjoy watching them grow over the summer

I w as thankful to find pictures of the fireworks I missed as Isaac screamed through the whole show-the ONLY thing he is scared of, besides a car wash:)

 a family picture at the park after the girls' readoption in September

 Double the trouble, but 2x the amount of sweetness and cuteness!!!

2 little boys playing cars

gathering at the waters for baptisms this fall

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Today is Thankful Thursday, another blog meme that I need to partake in, as it is just so what my heavy heart needs-more praise and thanksgiving.

"Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee,

All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me."

1. Yesterday, we took Kendell to the dentist for THREE fillings-and my prayer for the last 3 weeks has been for her to have NO fear, no pain, no panic-and as I walked away from her in the dentist chair, praying, I had a sweet peace about the entire ordeal, as did she, as she never in the 3 weeks uttered one fear, one word of WHY?? and when I snuck back to peak at them about 20 minutes into the procedure, I could tell ALL was fine-and I had tears of thanks in my eyes at our Heavenly Father's unfailing provision, faithfulness and compassion on us, an unfaithful, forgetful, needy family.

2. I am so thankful that His love for us is not contingent upon our reciprocating that love, nor our time spent reading His Word, or our time worshipping. God just loves us, and as born-again believers, He desires for us to spend our days in communion with Him, and how disappointed He must be when we so easily are pulled away from our good intentions by the cares of this world.

3. I am thankful for the ability to communicate with other moms via the internet-even though it can become a time-waster if I am not diligent, it is a very wonderful way to communicate, to hold each other up, to bestow blessings of encouragement for those who need it, and to connect with others who GET IT about the daily issues we homeschooling moms face.

4. I am so thankful for the yahoo groups of adoptive moms that I am a part of. No one understands the ups and downs of mothering and loving adopted children like another adoptive mom, and my world would be much heavier without all the love and support we share there.

5. I am so thankful for warm weather-we seem to have a real problem this year coming to grips with the fact that it is no longer winter-we had such a long, cold, grueling, snowy winter for 6 long months, that I am continually blessed on our travels to see gardens and fields becoming lush with this year's new crops-seriously, I feel like my brain is stuck in February, and I have not really transitioned to June yet-

6. I am so thankful that God hears our prayers, He answers them in His timing, and according to His will. If we did not have the ability to connect with God, if we could not seek His face, and fall before Him inploring, interceeding for our/or others' causes, how could we possibly face the days' events? I KNOW God hears my prayers, I KNOW He loves me, and I KNOW I am a child of God. Those 3 things alone should be enough to help me overcome any and all obstacles the world and Satan have thrown at us.

Wow, nothing like a good dose of thanksgiving to give your morning a jumpstart, your heart and spirit a lift, and put a smile on your face.

Praying thanksgiving and praise follow me and my family throughout the day! Oh, the Power of Praise!

In Him

Chris

STRESS

I thought I would leave all the stress behind when we got our son home from Taiwan-wrong!! I have come to the conclusion that life is just not life without a lot of stress going on in it! I have stressed myself out over a blog redo-I am sure I have spent over 24 hours looking at scrapbook kits, trying to find just the right something, only to have my family totally change my thinking and decide it needs to have a farm feel to it-ok, back to the drawing board. Poor Sarah is probably pulling her hair out with me as I am not an easy customer-I always thought I was easy to please, but it seems this has turned into a bit of a difficulty for us-


then, there is always the too much to do scenario-farm, kids, garden, house, yard, homeschool, laundry, meals, friends??, family???, who has time to clean an office, much less file paperwork away, and keep up with the email groups, and actually mail letters and notes to friends I haven't seen for ages-UGH!!


I did spend a delightful time in the garden today-both my 9 yr olds learned to run the tiller today, and boy do they think they are smart. Of course, I had a 3 1/2 yr old who thought he should be out there too, but he settled for a 1/2 hour ride on the lawn mower while I tried to knock down some of the grass in our 5 acres of lawn-double UGH!!


I need to load a few photos to get caught up from the last few weeks, then maybe we can start fresh with some sunshiney, bright pictures of Spring in Wisconsin!!


I also can't believe the stress over having a blog that I just don't take the time to write in as much as I planned-for some reason, I envisioned wonderful posts, filled with family updates, homeschool updates, etc-and all I end up with is -where do I fit this in???


Something has to give, somewhere-and yes, I am praying about it

I am not sure I ever mentioned this, but my 2 oldest LOVE to read, and I loved reading to them when we first got them home-they spend hours a week reading anything and everything. The first few times we tried reading with Tyler, yikes, disaster-he would not, could not, sit still. I though, OH NO, this one is never going to like books.

Well, how very wrong I was-the first trip to the library, Kendell and I brought home a bunch of board books, and he proceeded to pile them in BaBa's chair, climb up into it, and "read" his books-and guess what, after 2 months, he LOVES being read to, and loves to get his own books and "read" in bed like big brother and sis do before nap time!

God is SOOO GOOD!

Blessings

Chris

Ready to go public

I can't believe the time I have spent getting this site ready to go public. I have certainly learned a whole lot about computers in the last week, and have enjoyed perusing others' blogs as I have gathered info and ideas along the way. It pays to have a journalism background, as I have been chronicalling and recording in my brain the things I have liked and did not like over the last few months of blog-reading.
If only I could recall the details of my day as well-sigh!!

I have been blessed by the many blogs I have been reading, and would like to share many of the favorites with everyone.

I am also eager to begin some serious journaling about our life, so over the next few days, I will hopefully be adding quite a bit to this site.

For now, it is time to get on with the show, and enjoy the fruits of my labors.
Enjoy