It is hard for us to fathom that we could be so lucky to have 9 children. We've been so richly blessed by all of our kids. We thought Briella was our caboose! God has led us to another precious child. She needs the love and laughter of a family. She's been waiting her whole life for just that. She's 11 years old, and will turn 12 in January. Wish she could know now that she has a big family & extended family waiting to love her. But, she likely knows nothing about us yet. We are only 2 months into the process. Almost finished with our homestudy. We cannot post her picture yet, but can share that with you directly. We are starting our first fundraiser.. it's called Just Love Coffee, an on-line coffee shop set up exclusively to help adoptive families raise the funds needed to bring their child home. I have heard great reviews from other families about the product, and the coffees are from all around the world. (Guatemalan coffee is SO GOOD!) This might be a great gift for that hard-to-buy-for person for Christmas! Pls help spread the word about our fundraiser. We ask for your prayers for our adoption process and for Ying.. waiting for us in Inner Mongolia.
One More Heart for This Home...
Ben, the Artist...
One piece of art was chosen from every school in our county to be on display at our local hospital. The reception was a lot of fun!
We had SUCH fun on our summer vacation!
We started our vacation by attending Brent's boot camp graduation...
Then on to Tampa for a week of fun with Mike's family...
Catching Up !
July 13, 2010
Where does the time go? Well, I must admit, having 8 kids and a home business is keeping me quite busy! Let's see... in the past 6 months... well, so much has happened. Briella joined our family 1 year ago today! Brianna has graduated from highschool & will be starting college. Brent finished middle school. Brinley & Bayla finished kindergarten (same class). Mike stopped working 3 jobs, and is only working 1. We got through the spring birthdays (5 of our kids have a b-day within a 38 day period)! Lidia, Ben & Briella played spring baseball & softball. Lidia & Briella spent a week with my good friend Gabriela and her family, attending a week-long basketball camp. Ben, Briella, Brinley & Bayla are attending deaf camp for several weeks of the summer, with Lidia & Brent going as helpers. The whole family is attending sign language and deaf culture classes at church. Brianna performed in her final school play (she performed for 6 years in theater), and won Best Actress for her graduating class. Ben was reunited with his childhood friend (a true miracle). And right now, Brent is at Mayport Naval Base in Florida for his 2 week boot camp training for the Sea Cadets. Tired yet? Really though, our big family is having a lot of fun living life & praising God for our blessings. Here are some pics from the last few months...
7 months ago, Brent joined the U.S. Naval Sea Cadets. This is an awesome program for teens ages 13-17. The time has finally come for his 2 week boot camp. I drove him to Mayport Naval Station, near Jacksonville Florida to drop him off. It was a long and VERY hot day for him, as it took 4 hours for him to get processed and he was at attention most of that time in a very hot hanger with the other cadets. There are 100 new cadets there. They had their inspections, including their sea-bags, their paperwork (every i is dotted and T crossed), all got their hair buzzed off. Brent's was already just done by me the day before...the shortest #1 setting on the buzzer, but they got it even closer. This is an extremely structured boot camp, and I know he will learn a LOT about discipline and following orders, as well as all the cool things he will do on base. There are several ships in port and they will have special trainings. Their day starts at 5:15 with physical training on the beach. Brent was pretty excited about this, and we're really proud of him!
Brianna Faith has graduated high school, and here are pics of our little girl looking so grown up (and beautiful)!
Ben with his best friend from China, Wu-Ye, also known as "Eddie". They grew up together in the orphanage. We never ever thought they would see each other again, but God had it all planned out. Eddie was adopted by a wonderful family, that lives just 40 minutes from us. Now they see each other every week! What a miracle.
Brianna's last school play ~ High School Musical ~ We loved it!
Brent & Ben enjoying the July 4th fireworks...
Lidia & Briella's softball team won the championship!
Our trip to Disney !!
We've been wanting to take the kids to Disney World for years now... but every time we thought about it, we kept saying we needed to wait because we need to go as a complete family. We adopted in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009... so every year we were waiting for another precious child, and didn't want to leave anyone out.
Soooo... we finally went!!!!!
What luck... Zoe, Lidia's foster-sister in Guatemala, was visiting Disney the same time we were!! They live in Texas, so this was a real treat for them to see each other :)
Here's a sweet tooth-less grin!!
Briella, Brinley & Bayla have grown very close as sisters... this is an early morning picture, waiting for the school bus to come.
