She Did It!

You may remember that Samantha had a 30 hour project due on the civil war.  She decided to do her report on famous women who served during that time and what role they played.  She made a civil war era dress to wear during her report.  You might also remember that she didn't know how to sew.

I was a little worried about this.

Now that seems silly.

Didn't she do a great job?

She sewed every piece by hand.  It wasn't easy, but it is authentic:)

Here she is presenting her report to the parents and students at the classical academy she attends one day per week.

She did a great job on her presentation and we are so proud of her. 

It wasn't an easy project but she stuck with it and persevered.  So so proud of you Samantha!

On The Mend

The chiropractor is doing a great job "fixing me".  However, I am really sore from all the deep muscle massaging.

I can now bend over without extreme pain.  Still taking it easy for a while.  I definitely do not want to go back to feeling the way I did last week:(

Garrett pitched a great game tonight and our boys won 3-2.

Now, I'm off to watch American Idol.  I really should go to bed because we have an early day of co-op classes tomorrow....but I just can't.  I need my Idol fix.

Anyone else out there really like the new panel.  I'm really enjoying Jennifer and love Stephen Tyler.  Who would have guessed he'd be such a softy?

My favorites are Scotty and Hailey.  Do you have a favorite????????

Out of Commission:(

I hurt my back.

I have been told to stay off my feet for two weeks.

I am in pain.

Maybe God was trying to tell me to slow down?

No working in the snack bar. NO cleaning the house. No baseball games.

You would think the idea of lying around would be appealing to me.

After the first two days I was climbing the walls.

I am on day 4. Two weeks....really?

I go back to the chiropractor tomorrow morning.

I'm feeling better, but definitely not 100%. Not even 50%. Maybe 25%.

Well, here are some pics of Garrett's trot around the bases after his awesome home run.

The home run he hit when he had a bad case of the stomach flu.

He also stole home during that game.  He should play with the flu more often:)

Not a good month for our family.

Samantha came down with the stomach flu yesterday which means every. single. person. who lives in this house has had it.

Here's praying the cycle does not start all over again.

On the plus side...I'll have lots of time to read blogs over the next week.

It will be nice to catch up with all my peeps:)

Are You Wearing Shoes Today?

No shoes for me and the kids today. Levi isn't really thrilled about the prospect. He LIKES having shoes to wear. He understands what it is like not to have them. He has asked if he can just wear flip flops. Ha.

I think he is missing the point:)

Will You Adopt Again?

I get asked this question all the time.  I'm never quite sure what to say. 

To be honest my heart does not feel like we are done.  We have room for more bed's in our house.  We have room in our hearts for more children.

Even our children who were so opposed to our first adoption now say it would be fine to add more.  These are the same children that are most protective of Levi and Amelia today.  There hearts have changed:)

However, my husband and I are not in agreement over this topic right now.

It pains me to write that.  I would prefer that you all think I have the perfect marriage and my husband and I agree on everything all the time.

Not.

To be honest, he was very reluctant during our first adoption.  I had always wanted to adopt, one of his family members had a bad experience with adoption so he was a little gun shy on the topic.

He is a wonderful father to Levi and Amelia, and to our other children, and it is apparent how much he loves them all.  People say to us all the time that surely Levi was hand picked by God for our family.  He and Dave have a great relationship, we could not ask for a sweeter, kinder, or more loving son.  And Amelia, well...what can I say.  The girl melts the hearts of all who meet her, especially the male members of this household.

I was pretty much ready to adopt again 6 months after we came home.  However, I was nervous to say something to Dave.

When I finally did he said he really needed time.  Felt our plates were pretty full right now.  He isn't ready to have that talk, nor might he ever be.

But why do I have this nagging feeling that our children are out there waiting for us to come?

So, I pray.

I know God is aware that I am married to this man.  A man I need to be in agreement with if we are to move forward.  Either I need his heart to change, or mine.  I do feel God telling me to wait.  Give him time.  Don't over power him.

I have a wonderful husband.  If I went to him and said I HAVE to adopt again, our children are out there, what is wrong with you, are you a man of God or what?  He would say we could adopt again.  He would want me to be happy.  I don't want that though.  I want him to hear the word of God in his ears.  I want him to KNOW it like I do.  I do not want to be out of agreement with my husband.

Would he love those kids even if I twisted his arm?

Absolutely.  He is a great guy.

Right now we have a lot going on.  Our first child is going off to college in August, our second will follow him in a year.  The financial burden of our last adoption was very hard on our family.  Add to that the college costs that are coming our way, I know the world would say we would be crazy to think of spending all that money on another child.

However, I also know that if God's will is that we add to our family, if that is why he has given me this burning all consuming desire, he will take care of the details.

I don't care much about what the world would say about us adding to our already large, by most standards, family. I don't care what my siblings, parents or friends would say. There are two people I do care about. God and my husband.

That's it.


We need to give up control and rely on Him.  I grew closer to God during our first adoption process than I had in my entire previous 20 year walk with Him.  When you truly give up your will and give control to God it is terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time.  He does things I wouldn't have even imagined.  I know he will take care of our family again if we chose to go forward.  We just need to trust in Him.

My heart has been stolen by the older orphans.  The one's no one wants.  All those little boys, so sweet like our Levi, sitting in orphanages just praying for a forever family. All the little girls wondering if they will ever have a family of their own?  Those who are sick and made to feel like they are not important.  Those are the children I want to reach out to and share the love of Jesus.

I can do that even if we don't end up adopting again.  And maybe God does have another plan.  I do know for certain one thing though.  Dave and I need to pray.  Pray that we are walking in His will.  Pray for consensus in our marriage.  I pray every day that God would make our family into the family he wants it to be, that we would be a shining star unto his kingdom.  I will continue to pray that prayer no matter what happens.

My friend Stacy has 5 adopted children.  She started an advocacy blog for China's waiting children.  Oh my goodness how I have fallen in love with some of those kids.  Thankfully, most have already found their families.  She sent me a sweet email last week that she was ready to help us find our child when we were ready:) Don't click on the link unless you are ready to fall in love:)

My heart tells me we will adopt again.  I know my husband is our protector.  He is in charge of making sure he can feed and clothe us all.  That is his job as the head of this family. Those are the things he worries about.  Most husbands worry about.

I see these children and my maternal instincts kick in.  I want to save them all.  When we married I told Dave I wanted a dozen children.

Well....at least he can't say I didn't warn him:)

4 Sick Kids Today

It started yesterday with Garrett not feeling good.  Spending lots of time in the bathroom.

Of course he had a baseball game that he REALLY wanted to play in.  I loaded him up on Imodium and sent him anyway.  He didn't have a fever.  Just tummy problems.

We were down 7-6 in the last inning and Garrett came up to bat and hit a towering home run that I think still might not have landed.  We won 8-7.

He just might request that Imodium before every game after that:)

Paige woke up throwing up.  Amelia has a high fever and has been sleeping most of the day.  Garrett still feels yucky and Tyler says he doesn't feel very good.

Oh, the life of a big family.  Why do they all have to get sick at once?

So, we did church at home this morning.  We watched Ken Hamm's Dinosaur video from Answers In Genesis.  It is awesome.  Even my husband the physicist said it was good.  Really exposes the lies our world has fed to us all with facts, both scientific and otherwise.  I highly recommend it.

I'm off to do more laundry.  Why can't they make it to bathroom when they are little????

My Brain Cells Are Dying

Life has been crazy busy what with baseball season starting, running the snack bar, trying to get school done so we can finish in June and just all the other stuff life throws at all of us.

I hate paying bills.  Hate is probably not a strong enough word for how much I dislike it. 

I don't keep a check book anymore. 

I pay everything online and keep a folder where I check off what I paid that month.

We have pretty much the same bills each month so it is pretty easy.

Unless I am interrupted several times during the process.

Which I am thinking happened this month.

Two days ago Levi went upstairs to wash his hands and then came down to tell me no water was coming out of the faucet.

What?  Well, that can't be.

I quickly looked in my bill book to see if I had remembered to pay the water.

Yep, it was checked off.

I got online to check and see if their was an outage or something and found that my bill was delinquent and they had charged me a $600.00 fee.

What?

I called all ready to raise holy heck and then decided I better check my bank account to make sure the transaction had cleared.

You guessed it.  Nope.

It seems somewhere between checking off that the bill had been paid and going online to pay it I had been interrupted and not ACTUALLY paid the bill.

I guess it doesn't count if you write it down in your bill book and deduct the amount.   I mean, that should count for something right?

Oh boy.

Anyway, I called.  Do you know what the lady on the other end of the line said to me?

Are you the Julie XXXXX from baseball with the nice family.

Gulp.  Yep, that would be me.

Well, it seems that the nice people at the water company take pity on us harried mom's.  They took off all the late charges and the deposit and just let me pay my bill over the phone.  It seems in 10 years I had never not paid them.  I guess I haven't always been so scatter brained:)

The water was turned back on within the hour and now I only have the humiliation of my neighbors seeing my water being turned off.

I had been meaning to talk with them because our yard is dying.  We have hired someone to come and take all the grass out and put in new sod.  He's doing it in two weeks.  Our front yard looks like a repo right now.

I'm sure the neighbors have been wondering.

Imagine the gossip now that the water has been turned off?

Well, at least I have given them something to talk about:)