Happy 9th Birthday Eamon !!!

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Playing In The Rain

We had just gotten back from the Commissary that's grocery store for you non military people. It had been raining all morning so Hadyn just scooped Grace out of the car and they ran and jumped in every puddle in the driveway. We unloaded all the groceries and they were still out there having a great time. It was such great joy to just sit by the window and watch them.

Family Day April 2, 2008

WOW!! I can't believe it's been an entire year since we were in China and held Grace for the first time. It seems like the months have flown by,but it also seems like I can't remember a time that Grace wasn't with us. She has grown and changed so much since that day. She is such a joy and we are so thankful God has given us this precious child. We celebrated the day by all going out for Chinese food, which we all love and then Grace opened a few gifts. At the restaurant Grace sat between the boys and sampled all of their food. It is great to just sit and watch the boys love and care for their sister. She always gets us all laughing. She loved all the spicy food and when we would say chinese food she would associate this with China and she would say Sophie, China. She thinks the only place to travel by plane is to China. One of her friends who is 2 flew to the States and I was telling Grace we wouldn't see her at church, because she had flown on an airplane to the States. When we got to church on Sunday she looked for her friend and said her name and then said, she flew on an airplane to China. I just smiled and thought it's OK if she thinks everyone goes to China. I can't believe in a few months we will be traveling again to China and this time with Grace to bring her sister home. The journey of adoption and knowing God has had these babies chosen to be in our family since the beginning of time and that He would have us travel across the world to bring them home is just so amazing.

Rylan's Piano Performance

Rylan got to play at a real German castle as a finalist in a recent piano fest. Please hit pause on the other music about half way down on the right so both don't play at the same time.

Making Pies at Mrs M's

Mrs M is so great. We had a break in the coop schedule on Tuesday and she invited my boys up to learn to make yummy homemade pies. Rylan and Curran had a great time and actually brought home the apple, and bannana cream pies they made. They were delicious!!!

Easter Eggs

Rylan and Curran said they would help Gracie decorate eggs, but from this picture I think they had a good time making their own. We got all different color dyes to decorate
the eggs, but we all enjoy getting q- tips and putting the dye/ food coloring on them and then decorating our eggs. We had always done this growing up and you can really make some cool designs. Just look at the neat design Gracie made. The trick with her was getting it on the egg and not on her sweater.

Easter 2008

Gracie learns new words!!

Gracie is always happy and she likes to tell you what she thinks. Today I came down to fix breakfast and Hadyn and Eamon were doing their reading. Grace got her phone and started pushing the numbers and repeating what it said. I can hear her and the phone one,one two,two she says all the numbers in order until she gets to nine then I hear her pushing it over and over again and instead of her saying nine she is saying mine,mine,mine. This is very funny and pretty accurate. Gracie has also discovered the word "no" and she knows if she says it we will all stop and look at her and someone will tell her to please say no thankyou or please don't. She has all 4 brothers and mommy correcting her. (poor thing)

She has also started saying another lovely phrase "go away" If she is playing and she doesn't want you to play with her she will look at you sweetly and say go away. She isn't mad when she says this and is amazed that these words provoke such a reaction from us. We tell her this is not a nice thing to say and she must be kind with her words. We have also told her she will be disciplined if she says this. That night when we went up to put her to bed after rocking, cuddling, reading books, singing ,prayers and everything else that goes on at bedtime, we say goodnight. She usually goes right to sleep. We are downstairs and can hear her talking. We both go up stairs quietly and stand in the hall to listen. She is saying go away, go away, go away in different voices with funny reflections. We crack up! We hope she is just getting it all out before tomorrow. She is really an easy child and does try to please us. When she does something she knows is wrong she will tell us I'm sorry and it is sooo sweet. She also tells us I love you so much, always !! This age is so great and we are enjoying all the fun new vocabulary words Gracie is learning both the good and the not so good.

Painting

Most mornings our schedule is the same, everyone is up around 7am and cheerfully comes down stairs after chores for breakfast. Well we aren't all always cheery, but we do get up. The boys eat and I teach Bible then the boys start math and reading. Grace goes from puzzles to books to coloring then she usually spends time with her glue stick and glues different size sequins on paper and uses stickers. She has gone through some stickers!!! Then she likes to paint and I try to convince her that we could do something else,but today I was feeling extra crazy, so I let her paint. I have to stand there the entire time or she may paint the entire kitchen. I remember our two oldest boys when we lived in Arizona. It was hot and they wanted to paint, so I sent them outside and they stripped down to their underware and painted each other.They were having a great time, but then that got old, so they decided it would be more fun to paint the house and they did, until I came out and stopped all the fun. I know that Grace is probably standing there with her paintbrush looking around at all the things that would be fun to paint, so I always stay close when she paints. She had a super time mixing all the colors and we have a big string around her room so we can hang up all of her masterpieces. She has done more artwork than all the boys combined at this age, I think this is a girl thing.

Gracie painting

Our last piece of paper work is finished!!!

I know the picture looks blurry, but that was the state we were in at 2am. Whooooo!!! We just finished our last document for our dossier to China. Our homestudy is completed and on it's way to get authenticated. Last time we did this process it took over 9 months. This time it will be 6 weeks start to finish. We pray there are no glitches at the end. We spent a lot of late nights up drinking cappachinos to stay awake and finish the paperchase. We are so anxious to travel and bring our daughter home. We are all going this time so the trip will sure be different than the last. Since Sophie is from Guangdong we will stay in the same place for the entire 2 weeks. The boys are so excited to be traveling with us and Gracie just keeps repeating Sopie China, Sopie China. I don't think she has any idea what is about to happen. She really thinks having a sister is a great idea, but when we get to China and start holding and loving Sophie she may change her mind.

John Piper on adoption

Polish Pottery

A bunch of great ladies from church planned a fabulous trip to Poland to shop. I so wanted to go, but I still haven't left Gracie for longer than a date night. This was a long 2 days of being away and we have done a ton of attachment work to get to where we are now. I sadly decided I should stay home and was sad to miss out on all the great fellowship. I gave Mrs.M 80 Euro to get me a big soup crock and what ever else she saw. She came over Sunday night with a huge box full of Polish pottery. Yeah!!!! I am so excited at all the stuff she was able to get. She picked out the cutest tea sets for Gracie and Sophie. Grace couldn't wait to have tea with daddy. When I tucked Grace into bed that night she said Mrs M tea set, so I know she really likes it.



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Trippstadt Hiking

Saturday was warm and sunny, so we went on our favorite hike to Trippstadt. It is a really beautiful walk with little wooden bridges which crisscross over a stream. The boys like it because they can climb up the cliffs and hang from all kinds of trees. Grace fell asleep in the car on the way there, so she rode in the backpack for the fist hour. She loves the pack, but I got her out so she could run around some. She loves hiking and just being outside. We took some pictures and then she was walking on a flat part of the trail next to the stream and she just slid right in and was soaked up to her waist. She was shocked how this could of happened to her,she didn't cry but was definitely stressed, because of the freezing cold water. We stripped her down to her onsie and barefeet and then I had to carry her the rest of the way. I definitly got a work out, this girl is solid and not at all petite. She loved it and I ended up sticking her feet in the sleeves of her jacket on the way back, because it was starting to get cold. We stopped by the BX on base to buy her some pants, because we all wanted to go to our favorite pizza place for dinner and the boys insisted that Grace needed some bottoms. The BX has no clothes nothing but a pair of shorts so we bought them. This girl does not get cold. I think after being in so many layers in China for so long she is happiest when she is naked. She has started stripping down at night whenever I put her in footed pajamas. It is getting to be spring, so I just packed them all away, maybe Sophie will like pajamas with feet. Anyway, it was a great day and I'm glad Grace doesn't fall apart, even when things don't go as planned.

Hiking

A Snow Day!!

Well it wasn't actually a snow day. We schooled in the morning and were to leave for coop classes at 1pm. We got the call around noon no coop. My kids all say what are we going to do-- like we have to plan something, we just couldn't catch up on school and stay home. We call the M's and they come over. Mrs.M rarely passes up an offer on happy cappies at our house. The kids played Wii and Play station and probably killed several thousand brain cells in the process,but they had fun. The picture is how we spent the afternoon. We are kind of a sad bunch, one child has been sick for two weeks,one had a bad fall which resulted in a huge bruise and another just had his eyes dilated and can't see.

SOPHIE JOY

We Found Our New Daughter!! Feb. 22, 2008

Friday was jut like every other day in the life of a homeschool mom. We have a friend of my sons come over every Friday to work on school and then we all go to the pool to meet some other families, when everyones work is completed. It is a big motivator to get all the weeks work done or no swimming. Before lunch I checked e-mail and saw a post sayng Heritage Adoption Agency had a new shared list of waiting children. I went to the site and wow lots of young babies with minimal special needs. There was one little girl, 8 months old and only 3 lbs at birth with a cleft lip and palate. I sent Heritage an e-mail and filled out the application. I called Mike at work and told him about the baby and he faxed in all the information to Heritage. We aren't thinking we are sending info. in for our new daughter. Then I'm off to the pool to hang out with my friends. Mike and the boys had a men's conference with church at 6:30 ,so Mike flew in the house from work, grabbed our two oldest boys and headed for the mens retreat. I had run to the store to grab food for dinner and went by the dairy for fresh milk, then back home. I had checked e-mail a couple times, but no news on the baby. Then about 7pm I received an e-mail with pictures of 3 babies, one being our little 8 month old cutie. I couldn't believe it, was this our daughter?? I called Mike and said," I think we found our daughter, can you come home?" What do you think he said??? He made the announcement that I was in labor and headed for home. It was love at first sight. We researched her special need and reviewed it with a doctor. There were some unknowns and her blood work looked like she had anemia. We prayed and asked for wisdom, but we both knew this was already our daughter. We e-mailed the agency and we sent in our letter of intent. We received P.A. the next day. Now it's hurry and finish the paperwork.
We are praising God for His abundant blessings!!! Please pray with us that we will be able to bring Sophie Joy home quickly.

Our trip to Garmish Feb 2008

The winter here in Germany has been very mild and NO snow. You can't go through a winter and not see snow ,so we packed up and headed for Garmish for a few days. It is so beautiful there and very relaxing. I am always tempted to take some school books with us,but this time it didn't even cross my mind. We were out in the snow everyday and then back to the hotel to relax in the giant hottub. You could swim laps in this thing. The boys even got crazy and got out of the hot tub to roll in the snow. We wore Gracie out . The second night she fell asleep in the middle of eating her burger, she still had it in her hand and just put her head on the table and was out. Nobody wanted to leave on the last day, it is always so great to get away.

Sledding in Garmish

Christmas 2007

We all had such a wonderful Christmas. I am so amazed as we look back over the year at all God has blessed us with. Grace was still in China at this time last year and we all spent Christmas without her here. I remember looking at her picture and wondering how she spent the day. Was she with other people who even celebrated our Saviors birth. Now she is here and even though she doesn't quite understand what this holiday is about yet, she knows it is about Jesus. When Hadyn was her age he woke up Christmas morning and asked when we were going to the airport. The airport?? Why would we be going to the airport. Hadyn said, "to pick up Jesus, so he can open his presents and have cake." We all laughed really hard and he still had this confused look on his face. The boys are getting older, so they didn't get up as early this year,but were still really excited to come down and open gifts. Before Christmas Rylan kept ordering gifts for Curran and couldn't stop, then he couldn't wait, so he gave him a few of the gifts early. I told him this was against tradition, but he didn't care!! They really enjoyed buying gifts for each other.
We had the B's here for dinner and played with all the new toys.

Christmas 2007

Christmas Picture 2007

We all went up to the Landstuhl Castle near our house to take Christmas pictures. It was really cold and windy, but we managed to get a couple decent pictures without looking like we are all totally cold. There is never a good day to try to dress everyone for a picture and find a time that we don't have something going on. Curran had set up this time to take another families picture, so I had the boys grab their matching coats. As we're trying to leave the house on time Hadyn informs me that his coat is missing?? We didn't have time to search for it, so he is wearing mine in the picture. It is definitly a little big. Anyway, mission accomplished Christmas pictures 2007 finished.

Gracie turns "2"

We all had such a great time celebrating Grace's 2nd birthday. I cant believe how much she has grown and changed since she has been our daughter. What a huge blessing she is to all of us. It blows me away to think that before the beginning of time God had this special little girl from across the world chosen for us. She is full of joy. Some of her favorite things to do at 2 are put on everyones shoes including her pink high heels with the pink butterflies on them. She likes to dance around on the tile with these and make lots of loud noises. She loves to be chased by her brothers and tickled and would also love to tell them what to do if I would let her. She loves books her favorites are Big Red Barn,A Fish Out Of Water and Go Dog Go. She also loves Dora DVDs and asks to watch one everyday. She doesn't need help knowing where to find them and opening up the case and asking each brother if she can watch one until she finds somebody who will say yes. She loves to sing hymns and knows quite a few now. I'm amazed how she can memorize all the words, she also likes the Jamie Soles songs. She still loves to eat raw veggies but also loves burgers and pizza. Mike and I take her on a pizza date every Thursday night.

She has gone from not wanting us to hold her and give her love to giving us all hugs and kisses and telling me "Mommy I love you so much" several times a day and she runs out to meet Mike as he comes home from work. All the bonding work has made us all closer to her. We are so grateful for the opportunity God has given us to raise and love His precious children.

Happy Birthday Grace!!

TRIMMING THE TREE

Every year it is our tradition to decorate the tree the day after Thanksgiving. The boys all look forward to getting all the ornaments out and I'm always amazed how many we have. Because of the weight of all the ornaments we have to tie the tree with a rope to the wall and we never manage to fit all the ornaments on . Gracie had a great time looking at all the ornaments and she loved hanging them on the tree. We can't believe that at this time last year we only had a picture of Grace and it was so hard knowing that she wouldn't be with us for Christmas. Now it is strange to think about her not being here with us. She brings great joy to all of us. She loves to sing. Right now her favorite songs are Amazing Grace, Holy,Holy,Holy and Jesus loves me. She usually enjoys singing these after she is in her crib for the night and the volume is always loud. The boys are telling stories of what they remember about each Chtristmas,this is fairly amazing since we have moved 9 times in the past 12 years. Ahh to be young with a great memory. This is all our favorite season. As we celebrate the birth of our glourious Savior we are amazed at his goodness and mercy to us. We are all so undeserving!!!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Every year for Thanksgiving our church meets and celebrates the goodness of God and how He graciously cares for His people. We always have an abundance of great food and the kids bring games to play together. After a scrumptious meal the dancing begins, yes dancing at a church function. Our boys all danced and Grace loved to be swung around by her daddy. It is a blast and even the youngest ones get involved. This lasts for several hours and then the children begin dropping like flies. Around the room are many strollers filled with sleeping little ones. The fellowship is sweet and after all stuffing ourselves, in a non glutinous way of course, we load up the vans and head for home.

Kids night at our house !!

Curran and Rylan had some friends over for a night of Xbox Halo entertainment on the big screen. It's fun to watch kids interact at this age. I have to laugh and wonder were we actually that goofy. They really are great kids and it is a joy to have a bunch of young adults come over who are so polite and respectful. The best part is when the dads showed up and were totally killed in every game of Halo. There were definitely some competitive spirits in the room and it wasn't the kids. It is rough getting old.

Veteran's Day 2007

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The Burg Eltz Castle