Safe Families!

Now I do not get out much and so the Lord has to bring people to me at the grocery store. Seriously, this is getting comical!
Here I am at walmart , stocking up as usual and I notice a beautiful blond lady holding a dark infant. Because of how my family looks I am always interested when families look like mine. I strike up a conversation and my passion for children is ignited when we start talking about the organization she works with. It is called Safe Families, based in Chicago.Such an amazing ministry! Through my years in teaching parenting classes and fostering I have noticed it seemed the State workers were completely overwhelmed with their load and even the ability to turn some things around.This is the organization that is the solution. Christians and churches come along side families who are not in the system yet, but, they soon could be. They are facing job loss, homelessness or drug or alcohol rehab or a few of these at the same time. Basically, they are at the end of their rope! Who better to step in with hope for them than believers who can say, "We are going to help you ".
I could cry just writing this. It is precious to see moms like you and me say, hey , I can take one more kid in my home for a while. Many of these children are under the age of 5. I was able to meet some of these little ones last week and they are darling.
Please pray for this organization! For these families, who are looking for hope. Especially with the winter coming, and with the economic crisis so many people are out of work, no money and no place to live. The homeless shelters are filling up.
Please pray for wisdom for the staff of this organization! Amazing believers who selflessly give their life, basically to make things right for others.

I have so much to be thankful this season!

Our house is sold!

We just moved from Texas to Illinois. Our house in Texas had been on the market for a few months. We had updated the house more than I thought we would need to before we left. Then while we were gone our realtor had a few more suggestions. Now of course all of these "suggestions" cost us even more money. We felt we needed to make these changes,especially, when my very well known realtor called and told me this was the worst season she had seen in 30 years for our area!
We prayed and we had people from all over praying for us and this house. I tell ya, prayer works! God is faithful, all the time!!!

Observations!

While we have loved living here , there are some interesting things we have noticed;

We have loved the summer!This has probably been one of our best summers as a family ! What is great about the weather here is when the kids do not have school in the summer, they can actually go outside and play. Where in Texas if you are out past 10:00a.m it is not gonna feel good. It is actually beautiful here with many ponds and lakes and even the beach 15 minutes away.
Now, we realize the weather is about to get ugly. However, we homeschool and I will try to only leave my house when it is necessary.

We have loved the amount of touristy things to do here.Many things are even free ! My personal favorite has been the Forest preserves, we like to take the kids and the dog and walk/hike around, these places are beautiful ! We have tried to partake in all the outdoor activities, so we will head to the city more when the weather gets a bit colder. It is already in the 40's here.

We love the people. Now here is the thing, I really think we pride ourselves on being friendly in Texas. I have to tell you the people here are sooo nice and helpful.The weird thing is they think I have an accent, I do not know what they are talking about!I am however very aware that I say ya'll a lot.

We found a church already, which has been such a blessing !

The weird things we have noticed are , you have to drive a long way to get a sonic beverage ( which is on my list of favorite things) and there is not a Hobby lobby on ever corner. Chick-fil-A is sadly a day trip, my kids are having withdrawal. Speaking of restaurants there is mostly chain in the village where we live. We have however , found a scary hole in the wall place that makes a mean Mexican chicken. Matt and I mostly eat veggies and protein so we love this place.

They love their siding here. You have to hunt out brick homes here, it is really strange!

Random grocery store chains here, my favorite is Dominick's(owned by Safeway) and this mom and pop shop in Wisconsin that carries the best stuff and has great prices.

Do you know what a Kringle is? It is an amazing pastry that is made in Wisconsin. I have bought one of these for my family and it was gone 5 min. after we got home.Sadly, because of my lack of willpower with baked goods these will need to be a rare occasion treat.

No roaches here, but spiders of all shape and sizes are very common,eeewww!

Overall, we love it here and if the Lord allows us to stay here a while we will be excited to do that!

Still waiting for our baby girl !

For those of you who have asked and wondered we still desire to adopt more children. We were done with all the paperwork before we moved and just needed to actually have the homestudy "updated". Here we are in a new state with new laws and new requirements. We have just had 2 homestudy visits here and more paperwork to finish and we are almost in the "waiting " stage. Which means our agency will submit our scrapbook to the birthmom they feel we are a good match with and she will say yes or no to us. We then proceed according to her wishes. Sometimes, the birthmom wants to meet you and sometimes she does not. We are very open to what she wants , yet we are cautious still , depending on her situation.
It is our deepest desire to get to be at the our baby's birth.However , we are trusting the Lord with all the details.
Our crib is up and we just bought a new baby girl car seat(because we had to have it inspected by the police). We have found they are more particular about some things here and not so uptight about others.

We feel ready in our home and in our hearts. We will see what the Lord does.

We will post when we know something. Thank you for praying for us through our journey!

Really Busy !

Wow ! I sorta forgot I had a blog ! It is kinda like my words with friends games on my IPhone. People can always tell when I am busy because I do not play for days !

Needless to say, we love it here ! The weather is amazing ! 65 today! We spend every weekend going to do something new around here. We have been to forest preserves, Wisconsin fair, raspberry picking , zoo, jelly belly warehouse , water parks and the Beach and legoland is our favorite, so far.

The kids love being outside ! We have a pond and walking trail in our back yard that is lovely ! Matt and I and the 2 little guys try to walk it every night. The kids have many kids their age and they play outside everyday and often times go to the park which is around the corner.

Our transition could not have been better. Here is a fun story: The kids and I arrived on a Saturday, the next day I went to the dollar store to buy misc junk to get the house ready for our stuff to arrive the next day. I noticed a blond lady and her blond husband and 2 of her blond kids and 2 other kids that looked Guatemalan . I know this because I spent a summer in Guatemala and I love those precious people. I had to ask about the kids. We started talking and found out they homeschool and are hoping to adopt another and her husband works for the company my husbands company was once a part of. An instant friendship has been formed. We get together every week and take all of our kids on "field trips" .
As you can imagine we are a sight. 2 moms, 9 kids and she is pregnant and most of our kids do not look like either one of us. It is really fun to see the looks ! The kids are best friends , she has older and younger kids. This friendship can only be described as a precious gift from the Lord.

I felt so blessed in Texas to be surrounded with amazing , godly , selfless friends. I prayed the Lord would just give me one friend ! He answered my prayer the first day I got here. He is so good !

Traveling to Chicago !

We are finally here and I have to share about our trip . This is our pond in the back of our house.

First of all , thank you to all our precious friends who blessed us the week we were leaving, it was a really crazy time being home alone( without Matt) and with all the kids, and also with the movers. We made it through the week even though it seemed like such a looong week !

My sweet friend, Tiffany took my crazy crew to the airport, so here we were curbside , checked all our luggage and then I proceded through to security with 5 kids, 4 carry on bags, one carseat and one stroller. Security was fun! But the really fun part was yet to come. We were there in plenty of time to eat, go to the bathroom and get ready to board.
Matt had strategically reserved our 6 seats all in a row. I get to the gate to find we will be taking another plane and we no longer have those seating assignments. Finally, I find someone to help me and she gets our seats 2 sets of 3 in a row. It is boarding time we load and get everyone settled, Quinton has never flown before and is very nervous about the whole thing. My three big kids are 2 seats ahead of me and I am in the middle of the little ones. We wait in the plane for an hour ! Then I hear the news, I was afraid of , we all need to get off the plane.
I am really thinking I must be on a punked show for people who are not famous. Do I laugh ? Do I cry?
We all exit the plane, same amount of stuff except no stroller. We all potty again and eat again, because it is almost dinner time. Finally, another hour later we board the plane.

I was so happy to see Matt and he had ordered Chicago style pizza and ribs for the family.
We just chilled our first weekend here !

I will try to be a better blogger than I have been since we are are so far away !

We are hoping to finally get the house on the market . We are so excited at what the Lord could be doing . It is bitter sweet to leave. We love our church, we love our family and friends. We are very comfortable in our situation. I think I should break into a stanza of " friends are friends forever" !

It does make me thankful for all the Lord has blessed us with. While my house is not a mansion, it is my home . It is filled with precious memories that will forever be etched in my heart . I rocked most of my babies to sleep in this home. It is the home where God blessed us with so many precious foster kids. We have a play structure in the back yard , we called it a park for Quinton when he first came to our house, Matt and his Dad built this together for the kids . My kids love to run in the circle of the downstairs and chase each other. They have all done it and they still do. We have had many a talent show and dance off in the family room. I have been able to teach our kids in the dining room for the last few years and I have loved our time at home. I am sad to leave , but again it is just a house , where moth and and rust could come in and destroy at any time. I am hopeful that the Lord is not finished with Matt and I yet ! We believe He has opened this door for us and so we await to see our next , colder adventure !

My heart is full and I do feel so blessed !!

House fixin stuff !

Today, like everyday the last few weeks we have been getting our house ready. You know touching up things to make them look new, taking out the old unlovely things and replacing them with new shiny ones. I was thinking how selling your house is like our relationship with the Lord. We sometimes wait until something "big" happens in our lives before we give Him any notice or spend any time on our relationship with Him, or mend the relationships in our lives that need fixin.

"If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life , is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4

We are moving to Illinois !

Matt got a promotion and we are moving to Illinois at the end of June ! Like any decision we make we prayed about it and discussed at length why this was a good idea and a good time to do this. On so many levels this is a good idea and great timing !

While we are really sad to leave so many precious friends and all of our family ( yeah, both sides)we do believe this is from the Lord and we have made it a habit, that if the Lord puts a door in front of us we walk through it and see what He has for us. Apparently , he wants us to move !

Matt and I started discussing how if the Lord opened a door for us to go to Africa as missionaries, we would say cool when do we leave. By the same token, who are we to say no to this opportunity?

We are going, we do not have any details worked out , yet. We only know when we are going and where he will be working. Everything else is up in the air. It is times like this that I realize my self proclaimed laid back personality , is actually really a bit impatient and kinda controlling. I want the details, yesterday ! It has been a great exercise in faith, for me. I have the feeling, this might be just the beginning of a new season of hopefully deeper faith and trust in the Lord.

The kids are excited about the snow ! That is probably because they think the winter there will be like our last Texas winter . I hate to break it to everyone, but there will be a little bit more snow than we are used to . I got to live in Ohio for several years as a kid and I have great memories of the snow !

We have been busy updating and decluttering the house to get it ready to go on the market.

We are trying to make good use of our time while we are still here. It is really important for me that the kids get to have some great quality time with friends and family before we leave.

It is also times like this that I am so happy about the sovereignty of God ! We do not have the ability to "mess up" God's plan for our lives !

" I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Job 42;2

Trip to San Antonio !

The following posts will be about our little family trip to San Antonio.

Here are some pics of us with my Aunt Grace and my mom.

Safari in Texas

Here are some pics from our safari and petting zoo trip !

Fun activity to do with the kids !

Remember the Alamo !

We studied the Alamo in History and we thought it would be cool to take the kids . Matt and I had not been to see it either. Crazy to live in a State your whole life and not see one of the most famous landmarks.

Anyway, the whole visit lasted around an hour and then we ran over to the River Center Mall and Matt took the big kids to see the Alamo movie at the IMAX. They all thought it was very cool !

We had a great visit seeing My parents and my Aunt Grace and Uncle AG. Thanks to my Aunt Grace and my parents , Matt and I were able to go on a date and go to dinner and the Spurs game ! So fun !!!

We also were able to go through this drive through safari. The kids had a blast, feeding the animals and getting to go to a petting zoo.

Overall , it was a quick trip , but so much fun and a much needed break for all of us !

Life Lessons from the ice

Patrick has been playing hockey for several years. We have all come to really enjoy watching the sport. We play house league and we have had a great experience . We have been blessed to have a couple of coaches through the years that have even been Christians. This season was a great one ! Our coach ( who is a Christian) is great with the kids and Patrick has really grown as a player this season.

Anyway, we head into the championship and we win our first game and lose our second. The kids are sad, but handle the loss really well. They played really hard to a team that was really good. We found out 2 hours after our game, they were a little bit too good. In our level for the championship games you were not allowed to play any of the travel players , apparently the team we lost to had been playing their players throughout the championship. They had to forfeit and so our kids who thought they were done for the season had one more game to play for the championship. This was totally out of the movie "Facing the Giants". Our kids played for the championship and they won it. We were able to share with Patrick the value in being honest and following the rules. God wants us to be people of integrity. The kind of person who does the right thing, even if they think no one is looking.

A great lesson for our kids and probably a really crummy lesson for the poor kids who's coaches decided it was a good idea to cheat and they had to forfeit the championship.

Heading in a new direction !

As many of you know we have had such an interesting journey with fostering. So many precious kids !

We have grown and the Lord has changed us in so many ways. We are so thankful for his awesome blessings ! All 5 of them ! We have said from the beginning we wanted to Glorify God in this and we wanted to be open to however many kids He had for us. We have loved our journey so far and yet we feel we are in a different place with our 5 today.
So we decided to look into other adoption avenues. We looked at international adoption through Edna Gladney (Ethiopia) or Dillon (Korea). We have people we know who have kids from these programs and at least the people we know had great experiences. As we were about to send in the paperwork to one of these programs we were able to share about our foster journey at our church with a panel of friends who have all adopted children through various routes. One of our friends had been through a local agency that needs families to adopt African American or bi-racial babies.It is the whole birth-mom chooses you thing. We were interested and decided to call. We found out there are a few babies being born in the next few months and the agency does not have families for these babies. We are in ! We are having our homestudy transferred over to the new , christian agency and we could not be more excited. Knowing we could have a newborn in a few months is amazing. This agency takes the birth mom in shares the Lord with her , loves her and counsels her and then supports her in her decision. We have heard there have been so many miraculous stories of God working in the lives of these ladies. We are so excited to get to be a part of a place like this.

Please pray for us as we embark on this new adventure. We are getting paperwork finished and our scrapbook looking cute ! It is times like this that I am so thankful that we believe in a sovereign God ! Please join us in praying for the precious birth mom . Please pray for the health of the baby and mom now and during delivery.

We are so excited to see what our Lord will do !

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS !

I wanted to share about the goodness of the Lord in our journey to foster.

First of all, if you do not think you are having any more kids , you get rid of everything related to babies. We started the foster process when our youngest was 5 yrs old. ALL the baby stuff was long gone!

So, I started talking to my friends and I shared about what we felt the Lord had called us to do in fostering to adopt some kids. We had friends bring us carloads, yes , one time it was a suburban in fact , filled with items we would need ;swing, bassinet, crib, toys clothes, you name it.

I will never forget one night before our agency wanted to come out and inspect our home we were rushing to get the children's room all set up. We still needed a mattress for our crib. Very few people knew this fact. My kids and I walked out to go to church that night and sitting against my garage was a brand new with tags baby mattress. No note , just the mattress. I started to cry and my kids were worried about me and I got to share with them the beauty of the body of Christ. I told them we had a need and God placed our need on someones heart and they listened and obeyed. They spent their time and money to bless our family because God loves these children. By this time we were all crying and I know none of us will ever forget that day. A beautiful lesson on giving !

One day we received a call telling us that we would have a little girl arrive at our house in 2 hours. It was Yeah ! and Yikes all at once. I had no car seat for her ! I sent an email to my sweet friends asking if anyone had a car seat we could borrow .Within the hour one of my sweet friends arrived with a new precious pink car seat. We still use this seat today, with a blue cover, it works great !

We were also blessed by several friends with a pampers and Pj shower. My boys were given 30 pairs of pj's thankfully all sizes and I did not need to buy diapers for months. Such an amazing blessing !

There have been so many friends and family members that have blessed us with things we needed at just the right time.

There are so many orphans and children who need a home and a family. God does promise that He will supply all our needs according to His riches and Glory.

If you have considered fostering or even adoption. Know that God is faithful and He will provide for everything !

Also, if you are not a member of a Church, it is so helpful to have people who love and support you like a family.

I know we are truly blessed to have the support we do and I appreciate that so many of the people in our life have really been a huge part of our journey , with their prayers and support ! We know it would not have been this easy without these amazing people in our life.

If some of you are reading this, We love you and we cannot express how thankful we are and how much we love you!!!

Buckey and Bup !

John Matthews new words are Buckey for Blankie and Bup for cup !

I love this stage, when they are learning to talk. I love when they repeat everything you say to them.

Adopted for life

In case you are interested in adopting or you know someone who is , there is a great book out there called ," Adopted for life " by Russell D Moore. Matt and I picked this book up the week it came out and I could not put it down. It was so exciting to read a book that discussed everything I felt inside.

This man and his wife struggled with infertility issues and they adopted internationally. He is a very intellectual man and yet he allows the reader to see into his daddy's heart.

He covers a variety of issues that face the person who is considering adoption.

He also paints a beautiful picture of our adoption as our Father has chosen us and how he lovingly brings us into His family.

He discusses how adoption is the gospel ! Of course , I am a fan of adoption. I truly get the picture of what has happened in my home and what GOD has done in my life. It humbles me greatly !!

He also covers the role of the church and this got me thinking. Thinking about all the famous people who have gone to other countries to adopt kids. I was thinking about the guy who started the campaign to send computers to third world countries. TOMS shoes , so cool ! Are any of these people believers? WHAT ARE WE DOING ? I can tell you what some of my friends are doing; I have friends who support a local crisis pregnancy center, I have friends who serves at a homeless shelter regularly, I know believers who are trying to get licensed to be foster to adopt parents, I have friends who have now adopted their second biracial baby. We (people who know Jesus ) need to take His word to heart when He says true religion is to care for the orphans and the widows.

I also believe with the Haiti crisis, there will be many opportunities for believers to show their faith to the world . There were 380,000 orphans in Haiti , there is no telling when the dust settles how many more there will be.

I do see God moving in the hearts of His people and they are moving to action and it is amazing! I love hearing stories of people opening their hearts and checkbooks to the people of Haiti.

Anyway, pick up this book for yourself, or for anyone you know who is interested in adopting. It is good stuff !!

Snow Fun !

It was so fun to have a couple of crazy snow days here ! The kids had a great time playing and having snowball fights. It actually snowed on Ethan's birthday and that was a special day for him !


For a few days it did not seem like we lived in Texas. Now the snow has melted and we have a mud pit in our back yard and that seems more like it .

3 BIRTHDAYS IN 4 WEEKS !

If it seems like all I blog about is birthdays, your right ! I have this span from January to February where more than half of my kids birthdays land.

Ethan just turned 7 years old ! I cannot believe it ! He is such a precious sensitive kid. He is so passionate for the Lord , I cannot imagine what God has for him one day. He is one of the most creative kids I have. He is a builder and artist and an inventor. He love to serve others and is very patient with his siblings, especially the younger ones !

We are so blessed to have him as a son ! We love you Ethan !

Where did my little girl go ?

Grace just turned 12 years old ! Wow ! She has grown up so fast! I cannot believe she is 12 and almost a teenager.

Because I know she reads this , I wanted to tell her how blessed we are to have her as our daughter.

Grace Elizabeth,

I could never have realized 12 years ago that I would have a child like you ! Your heart is amazing ! I love your passion for God's children and especially Africa. I love your passion for serving your family. You are an amazing blessing! One day you will be an outstanding mama. I am excited to see where the Lord takes you in this life.

Your devotion to our Lord is amazing. You spend most of your free time seeking Him and getting to know Him better. I am so proud of your knowledge of the Bible, I pray you will always have that fervor for His word. I pray that you will always want to obey Him and serve Him. I pray He will always be first in your life.

I love you precious girl, I would not make it through most days without having you with me !

All my love,

Mom

QUINTON JAMES TURNS 3

My sweet boy Quinton is 3 years old this month.
One of my reasons for this blog is to remember what the Lord has done in my family.

These are a few of Quinton's favorite things:
His favorite phrase is ,Whatcha makin mom ?He is serious about his food !

He loves Elmo and especially the Elmo from Poppy and Grammy ( this furry monster toy can sing and dance)

He loves Hockey and wears his helmet all the time !

He loves to be held and cuddle.

He loves pie ! We had so many party's over Christmas and many of them contained Grammys Pies and so for his birthday he did not want cake , he wanted pie ! A new tradition?

He loves to play outside !

He is sleeping in the big boys room and he get so giggly at night because he is so excited to be a big boy !

We have preschool time every morning with the little ones and we sing songs and he loves the song, The Lord is my Shepard. While the rest of us are singing one part of the song, he interjects , THE LORD IS ! My future Worship leader.

He is good at anything he tries.

Overall, we are completely humbled that the Lord has chosen us to raise such a precious, sweet, loving little guy !

Happy Birthday Quinton !

HAITI

Such horrific devastation ! We have tried to use this disaster as a teachable moment in our family . We are not in control of anything ! Our life is but a mist! There are people who have it bad , real bad ! We are not those people .We cannot complain about anything ! We are richly blessed ! And today, we have no disaster facing us .

We continue to pray for the people of Haiti ! We pray for the hearts of the people that have lost everything. You cannot turn on the news without your heart breaking. Their faces say it all.
We pray for those people that God will be real in their lives and that they will come to know Him.

There are many places to donate money at this time . If you are a Christian the best donation would have the gospel attached ! Know who you are giving to and how they allot the donations .

Happy New Year !

OUR WHITE CHRISTMAS !

I hope you all had a joyous Christmas and a great New Years !We had a great time visiting with Family and friends over the holidays.

I love Christmas time ! Everything is prettier when it is sprinkled with Christmas. We took our holiday decorations down last week ! I am always a bit sad when we box everything up and put it away until the next year . I usually use this opportunity to reorganize or redo a particular room or area. See, I am a knick knack girl ! No, I do not have collections of precious moments or miniature ceramic dogs . But, I do have stuff ! Too much stuff ! I am such a bargain shopper that usually if I find something that I like I buy it and then find a place for it. I am clearly out of places for things.

Needless to say, we (as a family ) have been on a radical cleaning spree these past 2 weeks ! Yea ! I have 7 black trash bags full of stuff to donate and I am just getting started. I have found that having all these people under one roof, encourages the habit of decluttering ! It is a do or be buried , kinda thing ! We have very limited attic space and so last week I cleaned out our attic. It is a great feeling and while it is not fun to do these kinda "projects" on our vacation, it is hopefully teaching all of us ( and by us , I mean me ) to acquire less stuff.

We as a family are trying to focus this year on the little details. In our relationships with one another, in our "jobs" at our house and mostly to be faithful children of the Lord ! I have been reading a great devotional by Elisabeth Elliot called "Keep a Quiet Heart" on this day she talked about Luke 16:10-12. The verses about "He who is faithful in a little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous in much. "

I do desire to be faithful in all my "roles" this year !