What do these two things have in common? Nothing really, except they may be the new names of our not one, but two, mini-vans....bring it on...I know you want to make fun of us. Yes, we gave in to the convenience and affordability of hauling a family of 7 and a family of 7's stuff without having to wonder how we were going to switch vehicles in some parking lot somewhere in order to do life :-) One is red and one is silver, so the girls are trying to decide between Silver Belle, Hi-Ho Silver, Red Baron, and Red Riding Hood....Brad is voting for Red Baron since he will be driving the red mini-van.
Anyone interested in a 1999 Chrysler 300M?
So I told a friend at work that we don't have a "hot date" car anymore...that is what we tell the girls we are doing when Brad and I go out and leave them with a sitter. She said we will have to hire a babysitter with a great car and then ask to borrow it for the night out...I like her thinking! HOWEVER, one of our college student workers was walking by at the time and he said if a babysitter had a "hot date" car we were probably paying her (or, I will add him just to be politically correct) too much...so back to reality with me...I now have two mini-vans! and no hope for a "hot date" car. Life is FULL!
We have been working hard to help all the girls understand and work on being a team. We realized a few weeks back that we were probably at the end of the "honeymoon" stage of the adoption when everyone is pretty happy and getting along relatively well. Now the work begins to cultivate a cohesion...and work to be incredibly intentional to give each girl their own one on one time as well. HAHA...I just misspelled intentional as intensional and had to laugh at that irony. Kudos to everyone who has adopted! I had no idea how hard this could be...I am so thankful that God has given us so many assurances along the way to help me right now when this is pretty tough.
Thanksgiving time has been great this year...the biggest thing hit me the other day when I got a little email that JCS will be doing free vision screenings soon. I flashed back to the Christmas season we got a letter saying Kassi had failed that free screening which led us to all the eye patching and appointments in Grand Rapids to see a specialist and then, eventually, her eye surgery to correct the problems with the muscles in her eyes. I haven't thought about that much lately because everything has been great with her eyes, but that little email set off a huge wave of thankfulness in me... and now I have been counting more blessings ever since. A new house this year, a need for different vehicles because our family has grown with the pending adoption and, even though there are a lot of growing pains and hard things....we are so blessed!
I have an hour alone with Karly now and she wants me to help her do some Christmas decorating, so I gotta go. Blessings!
