Signs of Spring

80 degree temperatures one day and winter coats the next.

Pastel TOMS on stark white legs.

Soccer games in the sunshine.

The urge to clean out every closet.

And sand and repaint half our furniture.

And replant our garden.

Green fields with wheat and alfalfa sprouting.

Photo by Farmer Jon

Can only mean one thing....

Spring is springing!

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The Fast {the first 3 days}

To catch you up to speed if you're just reading this, for Lent I'm fasting from anything sweet, refined,  packaged, or from a drive-thru/restaurant. I'm eating whole, real foods only. The purpose of this is to break the hold food has had on me for years and to turn to my Savior, not food, for help.

Day 1

11:22 AM- I realized after a just few hours of this fast how much LESS I was thinking about food.  I've just eaten real, whole foods and felt pretty good. Making out an approved foods list was huge and helped out big time.

2:47 PM. Scratch everything I just said. I have this daily 2-3 PM fall-over-tired issue that usually is quickly solved by the largest size of Diet Coke available at Sonic. So today when good ol' 2:47 snuck up on the clock, the first thought I had was, "What do I do now?" and guess what? I prayed. A short little, Lord, my patience is gone, I'm tired and could really go for a Diet Coke right now. Please give me your grace to pull out of this funk. Then I had a snack - a homemade protein bar and glass of skim milk and perked up a bit. I didn't feel automatically better, but I realized something. I've been buying this lie that food will make me feel better right away. That's not the purpose of food, y'all. Yes, in one respect food is enjoyable, but I'm still just as tired and cranky as I was previous to that soda and bag of chips, so I don't know why I let myself think food will fix me.

Day 2

Thoughts for today:

 - WOW, food is embedded in everything I do. When we had to run to Sam's Club, I looked longingly at the people holding their ginormous sodas in the parking lot. Today I started to fully grasp my emotional ties to food. I realized I have a bad habit of rewarding myself with food or using food as my companion when we're out running errands.

- When I eat whole foods, I enjoy them so much more. Let's face it, an apple is never going to stack up to a brownie in sweetness. But when fruit is the sweetest thing I've had all day, I really savor it and think of how good it tastes AND it's good for my body. Instead of what I'd normally do which was wolf down something sweet before I could think about it and then feel horribly guilty.

- Eating good food is 1000 times easier when you're doing it for reasons that aren't weight loss and have nothing to do with your physical body. It has been so freeing to not think about my weight when I eat healthy, but instead to think about breaking the hold food has on me to bring me closer to my God. I don't know about you, but when I'm a few days into a diet I always start weighing myself. Then, if the scale isn't kind, I mope and sulk, usually with food to soothe me.

Day 3

What a day. To be honest, I didn't even think about the foods I wasn't eating today. My little fast seemed so insignificant compared to the things I saw others dealing with today. Let me back up. Isaiah 58 addresses fasting and what God expects of us as His people. It's a long passage, but sososo good.

3 Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.


5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?


6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?


8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.


13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.


Whew. Okay. So what does that have to do with me and french fries? This passage reminds me fasting is about so much more than abstaining from something. God expects our actions to speak, not just our sacrifices. Today several opportunities to serve those around me just fell in my lap. By the time the day was over, I made two friends' dinner and spent some time praying with a friend on Hospice. I didn't start out my day planning for all of that to happen, but opportunities presented themselves. I am so thankful for them because I realized that fasting is about much, much more than just a brief sacrifice. It's about communing with the Living God, opening our hands, and saying, "Here am I, Lord. Your will be done."

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When Daddy Is Gone...

Target hotdogs and Icees are a perfectly acceptable dinner.

Ellie might pee in the middle of a store.

Little boys make LOTS of extra mischief. Most of which involves the hose.

A pile of toys forms for Daddy to fix.

Mommy gets to drag a kicking, screaming little girl through the church pariking lot because she doesn't want to leave while threatening the boys through gritted teeth if they don't startwalkingtothecarNOW!

Dinner with my inlaws feels like a gift from on high.

Clothes never quite make it from the laundry basket to the dresser.

Ellie can be caught crying out, "Grandma! Hold you!" when told to go to bed.

The two hours of child-free Women's Bible Study rank up there with the second coming.

Jon has been at a conference in Michigan for six days and is coming home today. I've learned one thing about myself in the last week: I would make a miserable single mom! I will proudly admit in this house we rely on Daddy and I can't do it all myself.

Look at her. Who could believe she pees in stores and throws fits in the church parking lot??

A pajama-clad Matchbox car race.

He chooses out his own PJ's, okay. Don't judge!

I love my little monkeys, but there is a reason God gives a Daddy to us Mommas!

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Casting Down Our Idols

Today I am laying my idol on the altar and I'm walking away from it.

The thing that pulls me from God and offers me false comfort in His place no longer grips me. I am letting it go, no longer coddling and nursing this sin along.

I can think of many things I could stand to give up for these 40 days, but my love affair with food was a glaring spot on my heart. I understand that not everyone has this relationship with food and many people can enjoy food in a more spiritually healthy way, so I'm not saying that enjoying food is inherently sinful. Yet, I felt deeply convicted about the emotional ties I have formed with food and knew it was time to deal with it. To reveal my ugly to the One who already sees it all and ask Him to take it from me.

Today is about surrender.

What's interesting is that I don't surrender this with trepidation or out of sacrifice. I know that nothing I could do would earn His love or make me lose his love, so I am certainly not trying to do penance. Rather, I am looking deeply into my own soul, which so longs for my Savior, and seeing this barricade between He and I.

Today I joyfully hand it over to God.

The past week or so I've felt so much self-doubt and questioned whether or not I could really do this. Deep down, my sinful self really likes this one. I like losing myself in a dessert at the end of a long day or indulging in a frappucino late in the afternoon. It's such an easy, excusable sin. After all, I'm trying to love my husband, raise these kids well, homeschool, run our house and work in orphan care ministry, can't a girl have a donut every now and then?! Yes, maybe someday I will reach that point, but where I stand today is in a place of needing to completely walk away from foods that pose an emotional temptation. Anything that tempts me to turn my back to God in favor of a quick and easy pick-me-up must go.

So I'll stop wondering whether or not I can do this. The whole reason I'm committing to this fast is because I know I can't do this. But Jesus can and He wants closeness with me as much as I want closeness to Him. And that is better than dessert any day.

What's on your altar today?

"Even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”


Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
- Joel 2:12-13

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Let's Talk Curriculum

Curriculum almost stopped me from homeschooling. To say the options are overwhelming is an understatement at best.

My friend Esty likens the homeschool curriculum options to drinking from a firehose.

I don't read homeschool blogs. I've tried. They. Scare. Me. (No offense if you write one!)

My reality just does not involve being able to design Montessori-style activities for Ellie to do while I do super duper creative crafts and projects with the boys and I still run our household.

Nope.

So I'm sticking with what I know, which is reading. In my former life (i.e. before all these kids took over!) I was a teacher and then a Reading Specialist. I worked with struggling readers in a public Jr. High and it was a wonderful and rewarding job.

That being my background, here are my truths about school and learning in the early years -

- instilling a love of learning and reading is our most important academic goal for now. Whatever curriculum we choose for kindergarten needs to be full of real, living books that my kids can love. This is one thing we adore about Sonlight. Even in the preschool curriculum, the books are fantastic. Seriously, my boys insist on walking in a straight line behind me and quacking in public after reading Make Way for Ducklings.

- phonics is secondary to that. Cade learned his letter sounds in preschool, so we aren't having to teach those, but we will need to select some kind of phonics program. I plan to keep our phonics work a brief part of our day where we do a quick and fun practice of skills. I do not want phonics to be our primary focus. Because phonemes bore me, so I bet they bore my kids too. I love Zoo Phonics for teaching sounds (I plan to use that with Amby next fall.)

- worksheets make me want to poke my eyes out. I know, I know, they're kind of a necessary evil. But as much as possible, I want to use other avenues for practicing skills. A huge part of our reason for keeping the kids home is to truly explore learning. I like to think of using worksheets as brief practice opportunities to supplement learning.

- I need something grab and go. Yes, I know I just gave my schpiel on worksheets, which somewhat contradicts this. I just like the idea of having my hand held with highly structured lesson plans. Even though I was a teacher..

Now for all my questions -

Classical conversations. What the what? A friend of mine showed me her materials from being involved in it in another city and it was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. Yet, I was intrigued by it, too. Please, someone explain this to me. Why do I need to get my 5 year old to memorize facts about the Byzantine Empire? I like the name Classical Conversations. We like classical books, and conversations are always good. Help a mama out, this one isn't making sense to me!

What curriculum do you use and why? Our top picks for kinder right now are -
Sonlight (so expensive though!)
My Father's World
Winter Promise.

I've heard Abeka phonics is good, but it sounds like there are no great works of literature involved there and that's a deal breaker.

What about math? We are considering -
Math U See
Saxon
Singapore

Okay, ready, set, SHARE!

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my little god {a lenten fast}

I can write confidently about some things: the unswerving love of my Savior, the miracle of adoption, the ridiculous everyday of mothering young children, and the deep love and gratitude I have for my Farmer.

Today I'm not writing about any of those things.

This is one of the hardest things I've written. It involves exposing my ugly, weak, sinful parts. Yet, I know that for this chapter I'm beginning, I have to open myself up and share honestly with others.

Here I go.

I have this little god. It comforts me when I'm sad. It relieves my stress. I celebrate with it. I cry with it. I feel good and forget whatever is going on when I turn to it. At the end of a long day, I curl up with it and all is right once again. Until tomorrow, when I'll need to go rushing back to it.

No, I'm not a drug addict (although that description sort of made me sound like one....)

Food is my little god. Not just any food. I prefer my food sweet or artificial or fried or processed or all of the above.

Please don't be confused; this isn't a post about weight loss.

I am a Christian. I love Jesus. I want to live my life for Him. Yet, when things get difficult, I turn to food. Before I pray or open my bible or ask a godly friend for their wisdom, I search out the nearest foodstuff to soothe my sorrows away.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Lent begins one week from today. If there ever is a time to look at our lives and ask, What can I remove to make more space for God? What needs to get smaller so HE can be bigger in my life? Lent would be that time. I think everyone has something in their life that threatens the role of the true, living God by providing quick and easy enjoyment or even just distraction. Think about it - in this world of right now, what things are robbing you of true communion with your Creator? What's your little god?

Is it food?
Screens? (the internet, TV, the phone)
A relationship?
Exercise and fitness? (in our culture this could easily become an idol)
Material things?

I've spent the past six weeks or so mulling this over. Wondering what this looks like for me. Trying to justify not really changing anything. Then knowing that if I want to truly walk with Him, change isn't optional. So with much kicking and screaming, I have chosen to fast during the season of Lent. To make less of food and more of God. Here are the parameters I will follow (which have been determined based on the ways I struggle the most with food):

1. No sweets or refined carbohydrates (because our bodies immediately convert them to sugar anyway.)
2. Nothing from a package. (i.e. whole foods only, most of which don't come from a package in my pantry.)
3. No restaurants or drive-thrus.
4. One day a week, fasting until dinner. This is actually a practice I've begun with a few friends of mine and it has been truly eye-opening and revealed so much in my heart.
5. Practice showing true gratitude to God for food by using it for it's intended purpose.

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. - Ps. 145:15

That's it. 40 days. Real food to nourish my body cooked in my home by me. I plan to blog through this journey as a form of accountability and to document this experience. I also hope to take the money saved from not eating out and give it away.

When I told my little sister about this, her first question was, "Is this a diet in disguise??" a fair question, with my history of dieting. I will be having my husband hide the scale in an undisclosed location to avoid the temptation to weigh myself. I will not let myself shift the focus of this fast from my soul to my physical body.

Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal - John 6:27

Food less, God more.

This lent, what can you let go to have more Jesus?

If you're a foodie like me, two great reads on the topic that provided inspiration are Made to Crave and 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.

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Date Night

Two of the teenagers from church surprised us by offering to babysit for free so we could go out for Valentine's Day. It meant so much to us. One more reason for Jon to love volunteering with the high school kids!

We went out on a pre-Valentine's Day picnic on the lake.

It was perfect. No cards or flowers (I'm weird and don't like receiving flowers.)

Just me and my beloved and the sunset.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. - 1 John 4:7

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Last Minute Valentines {Cheap & Quick!}

1. Take a picture (or use an existing one)

2. Upload to Picnik (their site is closing in April so all of the premium effects are free!)

3. Design something cute.

4. Order 4 x 6 prints.

We just ordered 50 valentines for $6.50!

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C4C & The Cupcake Crew

A couple of weekends ago something really special happened. Our entire (female, anyway) Sixty Feet U.S. team was in one place.

 All together. All of us. And our cupcakes too.

I think God planned for me to work with a ministry whose primary fundraiser is cupcakes. Some things are just meant to be.

This is Laura, who I like to think of as Atlanta-Me. If I was a tad classier and lived in the South, we'd be twins. Laura and I have a creepy amount of stuff in common from our kids' ages to our family histories. Laura graciously hosted me at her house the night before the retreat and then drove me around showing me all that Atlanta has to offer. Love this lady!

You can only imagine the late nights and laughter that ensued.

I spent a lot of time doing this -

Waking up to the view of Lake Lanier wasn't too shabby, either.

I've shared before what a life changing experience Created for Care was for me last year. This year it was refreshing and amazing in new ways. Being at the retreat as a mom on the other side of adoption made the whole experience very different from last year. In a good way.

For starters, this year I was speaking on a blogger panel and then sharing on behalf of Sixty Feet during a breakout session.

The blogger panel with Gwen (not pictured), Suzanne, Missy, Kristi and Lovelyn was a lot of fun. Someone told me I look asleep in all of the pictures of the panel. Really, I was trying to forget that there were people out there and that I was on a stage!

My down time was mosly spent chowing down on cupcakes working at the Sixty Feet table.



Love this magnet. It's the newest addition to my Mommy Mobile.

I got to hug some necks of dear friends, a couple for the first time! I love how in adoption you find these kindred spirits and grow close to them before ever meeting them!

Here are the FIRST TWO PEOPLE I EVER E-MAILED ABOUT ADOPTION, Lauren and Amy. Yes, almost three years ago as I was dipping my toes into the waters of adoption I wrote these two gals and they were so enouraging. Amy has a son named Cade, how awesome is that? And Lauren brought her first sweetie home from Ethiopia a year ago and is starting adoption #2!

Leigh and I sat together last year (and she is a HOOT.) We were both waiting for our referrals at the time. In the course of the last year, she brought home her 4 year old cutie pie Angesom and I brought home my own little 4 year old "A"!

Courtney was one of my roomies at C4C last year (2 of our other roomies are in Africa right now, 1 has moved there, the other is adopting!)

And this cute buncha Mommas. Angie (whose kid has the cutest little boy hair evah), Erica (our adoption-travel-agent extraordinaire!), Emily, Rachel, Moi and Lovelyn.

Of course, there was plenty of time for ridiculousness. I don't know what I'm doing in any of these pictures a friend took, but I remember laughing my toosh off at whatever it was. Apparently I do a lot of weird stuff in front of cameras and my friends enjoy photographing it because I ended up tagged in the following photos...  

I am not praying here. I think I was entertaining people at this point in time.  

Once again, not praying, just getting a backrub from Shelly. I'm not sure why I look like I'm praying in all of these.

And to round out this photographic tribute to my weirdness, we've got this one.

Wow. That was a lot of pictures. Created for Care and my Cupcake Crew never disappoint!

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On Schooling.

Ambrose needs some formal preschooling and isn't ready to attend preschool, so we're doing Sonlight's pre-K curriculum. Next year, he'll either have another year of homeschool preschool or he will attend preschool.

As for Cade, he is beginning kindergarten next year. I always inwardly scoffed at friends who got all uptight about where they were sending their kids to school. As a former teacher, I feel like the much greater indicators of their long term academic success are things like parental involvement and parents reading with them daily, unless there are special needs involved.

Then it came time for us to start making decisions about where to send Cade and I was suddenly one of those uptight moms.

I like the idea of public school because I WANT my kids to be exposed to children of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds. Where we live, I think they would only really get that in a public school.

I also don't want to cushion them from anything we don't approve of, I want to teach them how to face those things head on.

I contacted some really great public schools in our area, but the problem is, Arizona has cut education funding so many times that class sizes are HUGE. As in, over 30 kids in Kindergarten. Some kids would do okay in that environment, but I know my little rambunctious-social butterfly would not get much learning done! The other thing is, in our state pretty much only the three R's are covered in K-3 grades. No Science or Social Studies. Unfortunately, little boys tend to gravitate toward Science and I was a little disappointed that he might miss that.

We started looking at private schools. The classes are smaller and I feel like the learning is a little more well-rounded. I just wasn't sure I could justify spending the equivalent of a semester of state college per year per kid on private schooling.

Then it kind of dawned on me. I used to do this for a living, and I was sort of good at it. I enjoy teaching kids, and probably the hardest part of it was just not always having the freedom to cover the content I felt was most important.

But, homeschool, really? I can barely handle staying home for a full day and not going out! And I don't even own any ankle length skirts, nor do my children own rainbow suspenders! (Just keeeding.) Jon and I went back and forth and back and forth and talked and prayed and did all the hand wringing I made fun of my friends for doing.

Yet, the more we thought about it, the more I realized that especially with Cade's personality it might be best. Cade is very social, almost to his detriment. Here's what I mean. Shortly after starting preschool, he became very conscious of what he was wearing and would only wear something that was "cool." One morning he actually cried because his hair didn't look like another boy's spiked hair in his class. We went through a stage where he refused to wear his winter coat because a kid told him it made him look fat. And he attended a really nice Christian preschool!

Then about a month ago Cade started expressing interest in learning to read and asked if I could teach him. We started working on it during Ellie's naptime and there was nothing quite like the first time he read a sentence himself. I am so thankful I got to be the person to experience that.

I keep coming back to these ideas -

I want to keep my kids little. I want them to stay little and innocent for as long as possible. I don't want them to know who all the teeny bopper Disney stars are by the time they're 7. I don't want their success to be measured by what other kids are doing. I don't want their learning to be shaped by a state test. I want my boys to get to be boys and not have to sit still in a desk all day. I don't want to rush my children out the door everyday. I want my kids to get to explore the concepts that interest them the most. I want to choose great books to read with them. I want to spend extra time on things they struggle with. I want them to enjoy learning. I want to talk to them about the Gospel all day long while they learn.

You see where this is going, don't you?

We pulled Cade out of preschool and have been doing homeschool pre-K with him. We are involved in a co-op for Science once a week. He is having a blast so far. I have gone out of my way to make sure to do extra-fun things so he doesn't feel like he's missing out. We have decided that, at least for next year, we will homeschool the boys.

Another day I'll write a post with all of my questions and thoughts on curriculum.......

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If You're The Praying Type...

Remember my friend Sara I had y'all pray for in December? They were appearing before an appeals court after receiving a negative ruling to adopt their daughter. They have been parenting her for close to a year, and have moved to Africa for the last 11 months to officially become her parents. Well, tomorrow they get their ruling. Tonight US time. Sara is physically sick and without her husband, so let's lift her up in prayer.

I hope to have good news to share on their behalf tomorrow!

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Annoyances.

The time has come to air some grievances here. No, these aren't life-altering problems. They're just minor irritations.

1. Going to the dentist. I hate going to the dentist. It seems like such a waste of time and babysitting hours. No matter how much I try to tell myself to close my eyes and pretend that I'm in a day spa, the drilling sounds bring me back to reality. Furthermore, what's with the plaque pick-ax they use? There's nothing more awkward than having your plaque flying in the air while your hygenist tries to make small talk and you try to answer with that hose thingy in your mouth.

2. Frequent flyer programs. In the past year, we've gone to Uganda twice and I've traveled to Atlanta once. A friend suggested I claim  my miles on a frequent flyer program to (hopefully, someday) get to fly free. Let it be known that the primary goal of any frequent flyer program is to use any possible technicality to try and make it impossible for you to claim those miles. I'm sorry, ma'am, you booked that ticket on a Tuesday with someone who has red hair, which makes those miles ineligible.

3. People who stare. I understand that having an adopted child with different colored skin causes us to look a little different. I'm cool with that. I am also happy to answer people's questions and try to be gracious when those questions are ignorant. But what I can't deal with are stares. Today, Ellie and Ambrose and I walked out of the library and a man walking toward us literally stopped and stood there and stared us down. When we passed him, HE TURNED AROUND and continued his standstill staring.

4. Pee. Ellie has been potty training since we came home with Amby. Yes, she decided when he'd been home a week that she was done with diapers. Now she does pretty well, but still has some accidents. Amby also needs reminding, so pee has become a very large part of my life. I frequent public restrooms and hiss, "Don't touch, don't touch, that's dirty!" Also, at least three times a week there is a set of pee pee sheets in the house. Or pee pee car seat cover, which is even more fun. Yay, pee! I actually bought this stuff at Bed, Bath, and Beyond called Urine Eliminator that supposedly kills urine yuckiness.

5. Getting nervous and saying something completely stupid that you can't take back and/or didn't mean. Case and point: I was picking Cade up from preschool the other day and chatting with some of the moms there (they are the spandex-clad very cute variety that make me feel like a loser in my beat up TOMS and adoption shirt.) Anyway, we were talking about little girls and earrings and I mentioned that Ellie keeps asking for them. Then I said, "And I totally judge people who pierce their babies' ears, how barbaric is that to inflict unnecessary pain on them before they can choose?!" to which one of the moms responded, "Well, we tried to pierce our daughter's ears at 3 months and then 6 months but they were too small so we had to wait until she was 9 months." Fabulous. She pierced her baby's ears THRICE and I just admitted that I judge people who pierce their babies' ears. Please, no hate mail if you pierce your babies' ears at birth. It's okay, really. I didn't breastfeed, so there.

6. Tax season. Bleh. From the stupid tax commercials with people proudly waving refund checks to my Facebook friends alllll talking about being done with taxes. Meanwhile, my manila envelope from the accountant sits unopened on our mail pile. I cringe everytime I walk by it.

So, friends, what's annoying you today?

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5 Years

5 years ago today I was handed a pink, warm, teeny tiny babe and ushered into the world of motherhood.

Isn't he just perfect?

Today my firstborn is 5. That squealing little bundle is now my running, jumping, mischief-causing boy. My Cade is compassionate (he always comes home from school telling me of a new situation we need to pray about. Usually it involves a classmate's injury.) He is friendly and kind and patient with his younger siblings. Cade is also my little comedian and has kept us laughing since he could talk. Truly, our family is blessed by having our sweet Cade in it.

I love you, my big-eared, gappy-toothed, heart-of-gold Cade.

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A Little Something I've Been Wanting to Share...

My friend Jena made a video of our journey to Ambrose! We love it. Ambrose would watch it on repeat all day if I let him.

Enjoy!

(Turn up your volume 'cause the song is awesome!)

Oh, and watch till the VERY END. It's the best part.

Please feel free to share on FB or your blog. We are so thankful to God for all He has done for our family.



An Orphan Becomes a Son from Jennifer Penner on Vimeo.

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