February Recap

In February...

I hosted my first Thirty-One party and made my first Thirty-One purchase.  I love my new purses and tote.  I splurged because I knew I had an extra check coming.  Yes, I am a purse girl.

I went on a service field trip with Savannah, possibly the last one as field trips are few and far between in high school.  sniff, sniff

We celebrated Valentine's day with chocolate, flowers, and pajamas for me along with our family tradition of cupcakes.  Andy and I usually buy the kids those $1 heart shaped boxes of chocolates.  This year we both bought them on separate shopping trips, so the kids were doubly blessed.

I managed the social calendar of Julia which included two birthday parties, a playdate, and lots of practice for a talent show.  She follows the tradition of her siblings and brings children we love into our lives.  

I was so blessed on Sunday to celebrate Savannah's return from the middle school Believe conference.  We worshipped in our youth building which is way cool and then took Savannah out for ice cream that evening to get the details of the trip.  Cool things included her statement that this year Believe was 100X better than last year.  That deserves a big WOW!!!  She felt God's presence in the first gathering, and much to her dad's delight, she only saw the relentless flirt from school once :)  I call this particular boy the equal opportunity flirt as it seems he flirts with everyone and will probably pursue the first one to bite.  Believe me, he sounds harmless and fun.

Sunday brought further blessings when we visited another church campus to watch one of Julia's bffs get baptized.  Lucy was baptized by her big sister, Haley.  We have known Lucy her whole life as she arrived the year her mom taught Zach's second grade class.  Haley was a fourth grader then, and she has grown into a beautiful 18 year old.  In fact, Julia also helped decorate for Haley's surprise birthday party this month and hung out with Lucy and a bunch of high school seniors for the night.

Last but not least, I spent Sunday afternoon celebrating the mutual blessing of an orphan finding a home and a great family welcoming a new child.  My friend Iva, who has longed to adopt for as long as I have known her (longer than she has been married or had children) will leave in a couple of weeks to bring Piper home, and if God is willing, I will meet her at the airport.  

February has been good.

About Us

We are just an ordinary family who happened to take an extraordinary journey. Twice. Where did it start? Ironically enough, it may have started with M*A*S*H. You know, the TV show. I remember the finale when medical team said goodbye to each other and to Korea. One of the characters missed his daughter's birthday, so they placed a beautiful Asian girl of about three years old on his lap and celebrated her birthday. I never forgot it. I just wanted to scoop up that little girl. Maybe it started even earlier than that.  One of my two favorite childhood dolls was a Fisher Price doll called "My Friend Jenny."  She was Asian, and I thought she was beautiful.

Fast forward a few years, and the articles started appearing all over the place about the orphan problem in China. My heart stirred. An impossible dream formed. I was the one who started marriage firmly believing, insisting even, that I would not have more than two children. Oh how God must have laughed. I fell in love with my firstborn and with motherhood itself. I had a great mom who taught me how to be a mother, and I may have trained my whole life for that for role.

So the articles started appearing, but you had to be 35 to adopt from China, and with seven years to go to that milestone, it seemed a long way off. You could only adopt a special needs child if you already had children, and I was busy raising two children already. Even so the dream did not die, and just a few years later when I was still shy of 35, the requirements changed. You only had to be 30, and you could have up to four children in your home. We were convinced that God was calling our family to this.

Thus began the grueling process of paperwork. The hope and anticipation, the fear of raising a bi-racial family, and our most amazing journey with God to this day began. Into our lives a little girl who wore every emotion on her sleeve came, and even before we met her, we knew we would take this journey again. She was not destined to be the only adopted person in our entire family including our extended family, and she would not be the only one of a different race. Three years later we landed in China again and met a little boy ready for adventure. An older child with a special need took us on quite a ride.

We all fell in love with another group of people and a culture, and from time to time, we dream about returning to China to live (or at least Andy and I do).

This story has heroes, but I am not one of them. The real heroes are Zach and Savannah. They have never complained about the sacrifices they have made for these additional siblings, and they have sacrificed. We could have been more comfortable. They could have had more of us to themselves. However, I would not be surprised if both of them adopt when they are grown.

That is our story, and it continues to be told on this blog as I chronicle our sometimes funny, mostly crazy, absolutely imperfect and rarely boring lives.

Friendship

So I'm reading this book.

I read the reviews on Amazon and had some reservations, mostly because the word "mystic" appeared numerous times.  I just had a problem with that word, so instead of buying the book that many say should be read again and again, I waited my turn in the local library list to get my hands on it.  My definition of the word mystic does not apply to this book.  It is simply a call to be grateful and through gratitude to draw closer to God.  Because of the book I started following the author's blog.


She posted this today.

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/02/4-ways-to-be-a-better-friend/

It convicted me because I realize that I really need to be more intentional with my friendships.  I preach this to Savannah all the time because she does not like to make calls, and she gets left out of things she would like to do with her friends, and I realize that she and I are a lot alike.  Therefore, I too, must be more intentional and plan the girl's night out instead of saying it needs to be done.  I am grateful that I will be seeing friends this weekend, and Savannah will too.

A Night Out with Wyatt

Our week ended roughly.  Andy worked until 11:30p.m. Friday night and then worked again all day Saturday.  He was supposed to be off on Friday.  I ran kids around until 8:00p.m. on Friday night and was tired to say the least.  However, we really needed to make good on a promise to Wyatt, so Andy and I fought through concert traffic on Saturday night for a visit to the Science Center.  Wyatt's life is different from that of his siblings because my inability to be involved at his school combined with no directory due to privacy issues = few invitations extended or received to be with friends.  Julia spent the last two weekends celebrating birthdays and enjoying playdates with her friends while our very social Wyatt spends his weekends at home.  We phoned a friend but had no success in reaching his parents to extend our invitation.  Even without our success, Wyatt wanted to go, so Andy and I took him for just over an hour to explore all things science.  

Naturally, his desire was to explore the rocks and minerals.  He insisted on a visit to the gift shop so that he could buy one more rock- just what he needed.

Yep, those are rocks.

This is what we call making an investment.  Sometimes we do this with all four at once, and sometimes we do it one at a time.  We love this charming and funny little guy.

Flashback Friday

I love this idea that I've seen on other blogs.  I don't know how consistent I will be, but I hope to get through all the kids in the next several weeks.

This week: Zach attack!!  (Actually, he was still Zachary then.)

Yes, his eyes are still that gorgeous, and the date on the picture is incorrect.

I don't know what is up with the scanner.  I cleaned the glass, but I still get all those white spots.  

and they danced

Wyatt's school holds a "Someone Special" dance every year.  The kids must attend with an adult, so the school recommends that dads attend with daughters and moms with sons.  Of course aunts, uncles or grandparents can attend if Mom or Dad is unavailable.  I learned about the dance on Wednesday and already had a Thirty One home party scheduled.  Andy gladly took Wyatt to the dance and left the house full of women to discuss purses, totes, and girlie things like that.

We were already starting the party when the boys left, so Savannah snapped these pictures.  Wyatt had a great time!  He loves to dance and socialize, so it all worked out just fine.

Savannah's latest - I'm lovin' it!