An Extra Day!

 After our visit with Danielle and Ryan in Santa Barbara, we headed to Palm Springs for a week of sunshine.  And were very blessed when Danielle, Ryan and Harrison decided to come with us for a couple of days!  Yeah!!!

 The first day we headed out to Phoenix.  We drove by the General Patton Museum, but it was closed, so we just looked at lots of tanks.

 Then we went to a spring training game!

 And guess who was playing?  Ryan's favorite team, the San Francisco Giants!  Go Giants!  It was beautiful and sunny!  We sat in the grass in right field and just took it all in.

 David and Caleb loved being right next to the bull pen and watching the guys warm-up.

 For me----Well I can actually tell you I have absolutely no idea what happened at the game.  I had this wonderful ball of sleepiness and was in my own little love world.

 My beautiful daughter and our handsome grandson!

 I think he was liking this pool thing!  What a ham!

 Caleb loves spending time with all the big guys in the family.  He really misses them when they are not around.

 Everyone took some time floating in the lazy river.  Caleb more like raced around it.

 Just chilling. 

 Just learning to swim with Dad!

 Awe---I love it when they take that wet diaper off!

 Our sweet Harrison is getting chunky!  Gotta love baby rolls.

 Grandpa and Harrison loves.

 Just chillin' with my Grandpa!

Baby, Zoo, Vacation...Yeah

A few weeks ago we headed out on a 10 day vacation!  And if that was not great enough, I got to add in holding our little guy again!  At 5 months old he was getting a lot more interactive and Hannah and Caleb really enjoyed that part!

Ryan was such a trooper heading out to the zoo with us after a graveyard shift.  Notice the sunshine--oh glorious sunshine after a Pacific Northwest winter.  Harrison was really enjoying the zoo experience, snoozing on Grandpa's chest!

Hannah loves big sister time.  She really misses both of her big sisters a lot.  She asks me often when we are going to Hawaii---not because she want to see the beach  and sand, but for Erinn.

We were enjoying the close up of all animals enjoying the sun.  The one little guy played dead like this for a few minutes.  The kids thought it was great.

I have never had such a good view of Gorillas.  I was loving this one.

He was so majestic.

This guy just scowled at us, like he wanted us to quit bothering him!

So much fun!

This guy was so close and so ugly in a beautiful way.  Do you ever stop and think of how amazing creation is and how varied?  And that God chose to make such different looking creatures.  Beautiful!

Danielle and Ryan enjoying the day.

Caleb enjoying being an uncle.  Harrison was so content for a long time looking at the animals with Caleb.

Hannah and her PINK flamingos.  Danielle jokingly asked her which was her favorite---and without hesitation, she turned around and showed her!  She also got to push Harrison in the stroller.  Her dream come true!

When Grief Looks Like Anger

I have been pondering this statement that the Lord gave me for the last few days.

When grief looks like anger......

How does one wade through the ugliness and harshness of raw anger?

How do we find the pain locked deep inside?

How do we uncover trauma and fear and pain that has laid buried for years?

How do we seek out reasons when communication is hindered?

Is it disability or adoption or age?

Will we ever reach a point of total healing?

How can I better help to draw out the hidden?

Should it be drawn out?

Or is it better to wait till they are ready and it surfaces?

Do you point out to them the fears they may be unaware of ?

Or will it only add to the confusion of the mix?

Parenting treasures from hard places is HARD!

 Sometimes we are stretched way beyond what we know...

But we have been blessed with family and friends to help fill in the gaps.

 Sometimes we cry with our kids in their pain because we are lost too....

But tears can bring great healing and bonding when we are drowning in sorrow.

 Sometimes we all make mistakes and wish we were able to undo them....

But in our house we do RE-DO's and second chances and I'm sorry really well. 

So rather than wallow in shame, we do grace.

And we seek to have our eyes opened to the reality of what is occurring in our family!

We see hope!

We see growth!

We see healing!

We see promised futures!

We see treasures sent by God to bless our family!

To teach us about redemption!

To teach us about compassion!

To teach us about forgiveness!

We see a picture of Christ working in our lives!

We can be ugly, yet He forgives us!

We can be unlovable, yet His love never fails!

We can be full of pain and bitterness, yet His tender mercies never end!     

Praise God He is not finished with any of us yet, but we are being transformed daily into His glorious image!

This and That

We have had a wonderfully peaceful week around here!

That was sure nice.

Part of my week entailed getting some pictures ready to go up on a new frame a David's office.

Oh did I have fun going through some photos from a couple of summers ago.

We  all miss the life Drew brings to our house!

 I think Drew feels it his personal responsibility to toughen up his little brother!

Then again what big brother doesn't!

 But they he is so very gentle with Hannah.

I have watched this phenomenon over and over with the males in our extended family!

The tough side helping boys to become men and the protective side with the young ladies, treasuring them.

It is wonderful to see.

Can you tell we are in Drew withdrawals?

I guess it is mostly because we just realized that when we head to Seattle for the Refresh Conference, Drew will be in town to run a indoor track meet.  We are very excited that these two activities crossed.

So looking forward to some long quality time with my family this weekend and some special friends.

David and I will also have a long period of time to talk about some future plans with schooling and testing and such for the kids.

We are in the process of having Hannah tested again at the Child Development Center.  Being that we homeschool, I felt it was the best way to document her developmental delays in case there was ever a question about how she is doing in school.

It is always good to have quality time with David to discuss the kids progress and any ideas he may have that I have not seen.

So after our productive week, it looks like we may be moving into a sweet weekend.

Processing

I have spent a large part of the last week processing how God has been working in our lives.

We had a path we thought we were being called to follow, both of us were in agreement on where we were heading, and it felt as if God was opening one door after another.

Then there was the BIG PAUSE and the WAIT.

Lots of prayers for wisdom would continue to sail to the Lord.

Then the ANSWER.

It was not what we thought, not the path we planned.

But very obviously GOD'S PERFECT PLAN!

The processing for me came in the form of finding HOW God used me in this situation.

It was not what I thought at all, but a totally different direction, with a totally different outcome than we originally thought.

But stepping back and seeing God's perfect hand was faith affirming, and the knowledge that He knew what was best for all involved  confirmed His all encompassing love.

I was not used how I thought, but in a whole new avenue.

I don't need to always know the best way, He will lead me in that if I just choose to walk in faith.

God is ALWAYS good!

Back Upright!

I was looking through pictures for Erinn today and ran across this one from the summer of 2011!  What fun to see older pictures again!

Right after New Years I was sick with what I thought was Hannah's cold , but after 3 days of non-stop coughing and no other symptoms it turned NASTY!

Sadly we had company over to watch the bowl game on Thursday night, by Friday morning I could barely move the pain in my body and head was so bad. 

I went off to the doctor hoping they could do something---turned out to be not much! 

Ride out the flu bug.  They did give me some cough meds that thankfully helped a lot.

Kids were a big help on Friday.

Saturday was Hannah's turn.  Yuck.

High fevers and cough and feeling awful!

Caleb got something, but not the same, though he tried to make me think it was and got a day of movies too!

Funny thing that my husband, with the depressed immune system never got sick!

He is the only one who got a flu shot, so maybe they do work.

Anyways, we are thankful to be feeling much closer to normal, and had a regular day of school---yeah!

Happy 2013

 What a gloriously beautiful morning to welcome in 2013!  David sadly is nursing his Achilles tendon again, so it was off on a hike again instead of a morning run for him and Caleb.  The kids enjoyed 'popping' all the ice holes!

 We were the first ones up this morning so we got some tracking prints.---Deer!

 We were thinking rabbit?

 David was thinking these were quail.

 Caleb really liked this tree, thought it looked like something from Africa.  He climbed up the hill just so I could get a picture of him with it.

 David and Hannah with Mt. McLaughlin behind them.

 What a beautiful daughter I have!  And a good sport---two 5 mile hikes in a week for a 9 year old!

 It really was a glorious morning!  David decided to leave the nice path you see here and.....

 ....side hill it!  Doesn't look too bad, but looks can be deceiving.  It was very soggy mud with ice and water running down in all that moss.  As you can see it did not stop him too much!  There is our cell tower we are headed to---half way there!

 Me and Hannah enjoyed going at our own pace, slip sliding away!  Almost can see the mountain in the background.

 David and Caleb waiting for us!

 Love the look of the mountain floating in the clouds as they kept creeping in.

 There is our car!  Kind of looks like a Matchbox car!

 David contemplating 2013 before he led us in prayer for our new year and all the Lord may have in store for us! 

Life with God is a wild ride, especially when you seek to really hear His voice and let the voices of the world fade away.

That is my prayer for 2013---Less of me and MORE OF HIM!

 Good morning Medford 2013!

Can't believe we are so blessed to parent these two treasures!  Hannah will officially enter the double digits this year and Caleb will become a teenager!  Lord continue to give us wisdom to be the best parents we can be to these treasures!

Sickness

We have been fighting colds around here, but I think yesterdays hike sent little Hannah over the edge, sadly.

She spent most of the morning and afternoon in bed, but I am happy to say she doing lots better tonight!

My youngest treasures have not been sick much, there is some questions running around out there as to whether kids who have suffered some kind of early trauma are sick as often as other kids.  Their early trauma usually puts them on high alert much of the time, hence their bodies are like hyper-vigilant, and possibly this keeps them from getting as sick as other kids.  I am not sure of this, but I do know mine are not sick very often at all.

This was probably the one of the sickest I had seen Hannah with a high fever and sweats.

All this got me to thinking how differently all my kids have been when they are sick.

Danielle my wonderful first-born who introduced me to motherhood----when she was sick everyone knew it because she was a moaner!!  Kind of like she wanted everyone to suffer with her--LOL!  Lets just say we were always very excited when she got well!!----Love ya Danielle :)

Erinn my middle child peace-maker---when she was sick just give her a good book, something soothing for her throat and some quiet and she was happy and would come and let you know if she needed anything else.  We did not so much rejoice when she got better, because she was so quiet when she was sick.

Drew my rough and tumble boy who never stopped---he spent his first 10 months sick and in someones arms, after that when he got sick it was about the same.  He was my snuggler when he was sick, not so much at any other time, because he was so busy all the time.  I almost enjoyed him getting sick, just for the snuggle time!

Caleb my curious kid who is always fidgeting---the few times he has been sick he is up and down and back and forth, as though he would get more sick sitting still.  Kleenex are torn apart and blankets are everywhere!  I just pray we can keep him caged enough he doesn't get everyone else sick with his constant motion and sniffling!

Now my little Hannah the baby of the family---she never complains, I am serious, we are working hard on her verbalizing her needs, so when she says she is not feeling well it is a BIG thing.  Today she stayed all day in her room and I never heard a peep.  I had to keep checking, just because I was worried and she was so quiet.  When the fever went away, I had to go tell her it was OK to come out an join the family. 

So there you got it.  Five kids and  5 very different outcomes to sickness.  I just thought it was interesting and that I should put it down before I forgot the uniqueness of the situation.

Now don't ask me about David--Let's leave it by saying Danielle got it from somewhere!

Hiking Time

 We were blessed with a quiet morning at home with nothing planned, so we decided to drive up the hill to get in the snow and have a fun morning hike together, even Liberty got in the action. 

We got in a five mile nice walk and got to watch the valley warm up as the sun broke through the early morning fog.

The first half I enjoyed a delightful prayer time over the Russian adoption situation, each of our family members, and our upcoming year.  One of the blessings of not hiking up hill very well, was everyone was way ahead of me so I got lots of quiet time!

Hannah had a hard time recognizing the sign we painted this summer on our I heart Medford project.

The second half of the hike we were all together trying to figure out what had been running through the snow before us--rabbits, squirrels, deer, raccoons, and many other unknowns.

Then Caleb and Liberty ran the last two miles back to the car.  I think all of David's reminiscing of the time spent training up there with Danielle and Drew for the Footlocker Regional Races might have been inspiring.  Actually he is trying to get himself into a habit of running 3-4 days a week, which is kind of hard right now with Dad nursing an injury.

Thankful for the moments to make memories, I know this all passes so quickly.

Oh, and we heard that Harrison rolled over for the first time today! 

Life is an amazing journey.