Don't know where to begin

I have really waited too long to even try to blog...but, I have to start back somewhere and let you know what has been happening with us...so here goes.

Our adoption of Savannah and Danielle was finalized on March 15th...YAHOO!  We had a big party and enjoyed a fun Spring Break trip together a couple weeks later.  All the girls are doing very well with the transitions...considering the major changes and challenges of an adoption.  We have been told that a year together makes a huge difference and I am seeing things getting better as we are approaching a year (May 29th) since we all first met.  I feel as though the finalization of the adoption has helped to give Savannah a little more peace and security with us.

Danielle made the decision to ask Jesus into her heart following one of her AWANA'S meetings at the end of April.  She came home and told Brad she wanted to pray to accept Christ.  Brad and I talked with her for a while about what it meant just to make sure she had a good understanding about what she was about to do.  We prayed with her and then were able to celebrate her decision with all her sisters.  She has been so aware of her decision since then, she often talks about Jesus being with her.  I enjoy the sweet spirit and trust  she has toward her new faith.

McKenna just turned 10 years old and she has really grown up so much this year...it is hard to believe she is getting so big and growing into a young lady.  She has such a sweet and considerate personality...and she is so goofy....I just eat her up.

Kassi has still been having eye appointments just to make sure her eyes are straight and she doesn't start to develop the same problem she had before that caused the lazy eye.  So far, things have been going very well.  Yesterday, Brad took her to Grand Rapids for another appointment and while they were at the appointment they met someone from the hospital's PR or Marketing Department and they may want to use Kassi's story as a testimonial for the Ophthomologist.  It is so funny to me how our experiences...even our traumatic ones...or maybe I should say especially our traumatic ones can often give us great rewards once we are on the other side.  Kassi is excited about the possibility to be asked to share her story about her eye surgery.  How cool is that!

More on that subject...I was driving home from work one day after just studying a chapter in Crazy Love by Francis Chan and I was struck by the fact that I often want to save my children from things that hurt them or could potentially cause them pain.  In reality, we all have our own spiritual journey and the things that hurt us a little bit or a lot can be huge benchmarks or turning points in our faith when we learn to rely on God. So there is a balance to consider when raising children.. in how much to allow them to struggle through experiences so they can come out the other side with a stronger faith and a definite experience with Christ.

Karly had an appointment in Grand Rapids today as well.  She has had a spot on her side since she was about 3 months and we have had to watch it because if anything rubs that spot she gets an immediate almost allergic reaction to it....it is kind-of weird, but that one spot on her body has too many Mast cells...usually they are much more dispersed in normal skin and they work very well to create scabs and protect people from cuts...stings...stuff like that...but Karly has too many in a tiny little area and they freak out when they are disturbed.  Anyway, we finally decided we need to see if we can have this spot removed since it is not going away on its own and it is getting bigger as she grows.  We were told our insurance may not cover the surgery because they may consider it a birthmark and just a cosmetic surgery...so we were concerned about that and how much we would have to pay out of pocket...BUT, we had a huge praise today when the doctor that will do the surgery took a look at it and agreed with us that it was a medical issue and not just a cosmetic issue...so our insurance will cover it.  We would have gone through with it anyway, but I can't help but think how loved we are that God has this detail covered for us.

We are very proud of Savannah...she is doing well in school, excelling at learning how to play the flute, learning how to be a good friend even when it is hard (middle school can be really tough these days) and a good big sister even when little sisters can be annoying...and she is thinking about these things in terms of her faith.  She started attending a Bible Study...Experiencing God for teens, and it is a treasure for me to see her reading and studying her Bible to be ready for the meetings.  She also just got a perm...I had to laugh as I thought I had my first perm as a 7th grader...then, Brad told me he had a perm in 7th grade....HAHA!  People always say things come back around...it is so true...when you are old enough to see those things come back around...you are really old, right!? :-)  (I like my life)...After she got a perm, I kind-of wanted one again...haha!  How do you think she would like it if I got one just like hers....that is a thought that will make me laugh for a while.

What have Brad and I been up to?  The usual...trying to keep our heads above water...no, really, my thoughts have taken me to the point of considering these two alternatives to our busy life...I can either be trying to keep my head above water or I can be focused on Christ and walking on the water....right?

Battling to Surrender

I have been thinking about the Serenity Prayer a lot lately, so I wanted to read it again today and I think it is worth posting.  

God grant me the serenity 

to accept the things I cannot change; 

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

(That is the end of the part I always remember...but, the part I forget is so wonderful for me right now!)

Living one day at a time; 

Enjoying one moment at a time; 

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; (LOVE THAT LINE)

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it; (WOW...that's hard) 

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will; 

That I may be reasonably happy in this life 

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.  (It's not all about me being happy, is it?!)

Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

I have always been a control freak...I like handling situations, solving problems, and even being prepared in advance for the situations so that I can maneuver them gracefully...I guess that is the right way to say that...anyway, somehow I have always thought I managed whatever life handed me pretty well.  I think I came to think too highly of my "skills" and to think somehow I was the one controlling my outcomes.  This journey of adoption has challenged me on so many levels of my own pride...it is incredibly humbling for a control freak to realize she can do absolutely nothing to fix a problem but rest in Christ, pray and wait on Him for answers.  Even though it feels like little or nothing sometimes, I am starting to see His answers to prayers for the things I cannot fix.  

We passed the "honeymoon" stage with the girls several months back...I would say it was around Thanksgiving time and we started into the "protest" period.  I am grateful for the enjoyable moments we have (and I thank God that we have a lot of them) because we definitely have some really tough days, hard questions to field, and raw emotions and  feelings to try to address.  How do you convince a child who feels lost that she is at home?  How can you convey that when you say forever, you really mean it?  How can you teach her to see her true value in Christ apart from the decisions that have been made that have disappointed her and broken her heart? AND, somehow prove to her that you love her, you are not her enemy, and you want the best for her if she will embrace the life you are offering her.  I understand why the Bible often refers to Christians as being adopted...I think we walk this same path of protest, doubt and insecurity.

So, Brad just asked me if I was going to offer any answers to these questions?  Two: trust and surrender.  If you are walking in God's will, won't He "have your back"? I had a hard, but good conversation with Savannah this weekend about the love/value issues and the question of forever. (I think the "protest" time is grueling, but it is about facing the truth and finding freedom and strength in that pursuit). On Sunday...she was a part of a Sunday School skit and was given only one line to read, "God's love endures forever."  She was struck by it so much as to mention it to me....I was incredibly grateful for it and told her if she will ask Him for what she needs, I believe He wants to give it to her.  I pray she will seek Him for the answers and peace she needs right now.

Thank you for lifting us up in your prayers.  May God bless you as well and fill you with peace, satisfaction, and contentment that He is working out His will in you.

Toenails and Tozer

BREAKTHROUGH...That was my word for my Sunday School class this past week.  We are occasionally asked for one word for the rest of the class to pray for us and that was my word.  Obviously, God and I knew what I meant by that request as it pertained to relationships and bonding within our home and tonight it happened.  I am so amazed by His love for us and I want to make sure to give Him the glory for these answers to prayer. I said I was going to read some of Tozer's book and Savannah thought I was saying something about toes...I guess you had to be there. Needless to say there was a lot of laughter and I ended up doing a bunch of pedicures instead of reading Tozer.  We needed the laughter and God knew it!  Toenails and Tozer will have a special relationship in my mind now that we had such fun and a really great conversation tonight.

In other news...McKenna was selected 1st alternate for her school's spelling bee.  At the time, she was devastated that she did not make the cut to ensure her spot in the bee...OK, that makes me wonder why it is called a bee...that seems strange and something to be googled.  I am sure that will make sense later.  She was feeling guilty that she was hoping someone else would drop out or be sick that day.  However, once she received the list of words she needed to study to be ready for the spelling bee, she is now praying that everyone will be in good health and she will not be called upon to spell.  We have been studying all the words, writing them out three times each, and looking them up to see what they all mean and how to pronounce each one...they are incredibly difficult.  I have this secret (well, not so secret now, right?) wish that someone will miss out....not that they will be sick, though...maybe that they will be on a trip to Disney World or something that day and Kenna will have to spell and somehow all this work we are doing will pay off and the 1st alternate will take the whole bee!

Enjoy 2013!  God has great plans for you...get ready for His breakthroughs in your life!

Silver Belle and Red Baron

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!

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It was ONE OF THOSE DAYS!  Isn't it funny when people say that and we can totally identify!? Yesterday started off with Vannah and Kenna's room flooded because their humidifier (a large one) had leaked all through the night....then, Kenna was dancing to some music in her room while getting ready for school and threw something out in her neck with all those crazy dance moves.  I was checking my gym bag to make sure it was packed so I could work out at lunch and I realized a tupperware with blueberries in it had leaked and stained one of my favorite sweatshirts (which I often borrow from Brad...yikes, I'm in trouble).  Brad had to stay home with Kenna who was having trouble moving her arm and her neck, so I had to take Karly to school and I was late for work.  At work we are trying to learn a whole new CRM system, so that has been ooodles of fun...it is definitely hard to teach an OLD DOG (me) new tricks. BUT, I have gone from completely frustrated with it to being able to laugh about it, so that is much better.  I can't say it is better for my co-workers because I am laughing about everything by 3pm and many think I have completely lost it!   Later in the day, Grandma was to pick up Vannah at our house and the other girls at school to take them to dance lessons.  She picked up Vannah and they packed the dance bags...got to the interstate and realized the dance bags were still at our house, so had to turn back to pick them up.  Then, they went to the school to pick up the other girls...they found Danielle, but  Kassi had forgotten it was dance day and jumped on the bus.  Grandma tried to call Brad, but he was in the dentist's chair...haha!  Grandma and Vannah thought to check at the office and they called the bus driver to say they will pick Kassi up at the HS where the bus stops to transfer students. Meanwhile, Kassi realizes she is on the bus and she shouldn't be there and has a good cry.  Danielle tells me she lost her gloves somewhere...(that was not surprising) that is about the fifth pair she has been through since the weather has been turning colder.  A DAY IN THE LIFE, RIGHT?! CRAZY! These types of days can drive the control freak in me completely bonkers!  Finally, we all made it safely home and were dying laughing about it over pizza.

"So, how do you feel about fizz?"

"LOVE IT, It's like my favorite thing in the whole world!" This one-sided conversation by my middlest had to be the highlight of my weekend.  We had about 12 girls in our house for the Fashionista Birthday Party/Sleepover for Savannah and all the "little" girls were "butlers" (that's what they wanted to be called) for the "models" that came for the fashion show.  Kassi loves to be a part of everything and even though she was warned several times to leave the older girls alone...I found her countless times trying her best to join them. The part about the fizz happened to be my favorite of her attempts to be one of the big girls.  Maybe you had to be there, but she was sitting by all the drinks and one of the 12 year olds came over to get some pop...this is when Kassi decides to strike up a conversation with her....only, the 12 year old didn't have an answer to that question, so Kassi just kept going with the response.  You gotta love 7 year olds!  I don't think I will ever be able to pour a glass of pop without thinking...so, how do you feel about fizz?....LOVE IT!

Savannah had a great birthday!  I had to do the mom thing at about 2am and tell the girls they should at least try to get a little sleep...I remember those days, though...trying to see if I could stay up all night....getting tons of snacks and drinking as much pop as I could.  Now that I count my calories, the thought of what I consumed then is a bit terrifying.  It is at this point I could sing a dirge for my lost metabolism :-)  Here are a couple pics from the birthday party.

As you can see, even Kooper ended up wearing a BOA...poor Koop!

My First Rainbow

Karly interrupted our Adult Bible Study on Sunday night to inform all of us that there was a huge rainbow in the sky and that it was the first real one she had ever seen.  It was one of those awesome moments that you could never plan that perfectly and sweetly because our Bible Study was studying God's Sovereignty in our lives.  Not that I would ever encourage her to interrupt, but that was a super special moment.

We have had a fun couple of weeks...I am pretty exhausted, but I am starting to think this is the way life will be for, say, the next 14 years...ha! no big deal!  I just returned home from Walmart and it is 10:35pm...my shopping adventures usually begin after 8pm for the convenience and sanity of having no children along :-)

We celebrated Brad's 40th Birthday weekend with a family party/treasure hunt on Friday.  Savannah and McKenna had planned a timed treasure hunt with coded messaged for Brad to crack.  It was fun to watch him figuring out the messages and then running through the house to find the gifts with a trail of squealing daughters on his tail.  I think it took him about 10 minutes to find 6 gifts...I guess that is pretty fast for the old man :-)  On Saturday, we meet up with a bunch of friends for a game of Whirlyball and dinner at Mongolian BBQ...I loved the mongol/viking-esque foil hat they made for him at M BBQ and I especially enjoyed that the guys at the grill belted out "You are My Sunshine" to celebrate his Bday...so much fun!

I have been super busy at work...so much application processing that my eyes are bugging out by the end of the day and I cannot carry on an intelligible conversation...it will be amazing if this blog is understandable to anyone but myself...ha! I have also been enjoying my responsibilities leading the Cubbies for our church's AWANA program. Last week I was teaching on the topic of creation and specifically, God creating light and so I took a flashlight and let the kids take turns saying, "let there be light!" when they said it, I would shine the light on the palm of their hand and we would all act so surprised that they could do that...then I would let them "throw" the light to someone else and it would land on a friend.  I have no idea why that is so much fun, but if you are a cubbie leader or know someone who is, this is such a fun little activity for 3 and 4 years olds (and 36 year olds as well).

Savannah's birthday is this Friday...we finally settled on a Fashionista Bday party for her and, of course, it has to include duct tape...we are still very into that stuff.  SO, the girls are going to put an outfit together for the runway, but one of their accessories has to be made of duct tape....Savannah's rules :-)

I am loving this time in my life....it is definitely tough sometimes and I am learning some things about myself as our transitions stretch me and make me examine my priorities and my expectations.  I feel like I have had higher highs than ever before....but, also lower lows...especially during those moments I don't feel like I am capable of being a mom to these 5 daughters or a good wife,  or I don't feel like I am holding it all together very well, or I don't feel like I have the time to do it all as well as I want to...BUT, I am learning I don't have to be the one who holds it all together...there is no way I could possibly do that!

Danielle is a very artistic child and her drawings are terrific for her age.  One time someone told me they were concerned about Danielle because she was drawing a lot of her flower pictures with rain and sunshine...they thought the rain was an indication that she was a sad child.  BUT, one day while she was drawing the picture, she told me that she never could decide if she should draw the flower in rain or in sun because it really needed both to be happy.  See how incredible God is!  He takes something like that to reassure you that He is working and you do not have to worry....she wanted her flower in the rain because her flower was actually happy in the rain!  I am thankful that GOD makes beautiful things from sunshine and rain!