Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 23rd wedding anniversary! I cannot even believe I can even write that (since I'm only 20 something myself - haha)

I have the best husband in the world - no really, I do. He is not perfect, because I am not married to Jesus, but he is perfect for me. I was crazy stupid to get married at 19, we hardly even knew each other, but God had a plan. He had a plan for us and our kids and I would not change any of it! We have both grown and changed over the years, yet part of us remains as we were on our wedding day. There is no one else in the world that I would rather share my life with.

We had a nice evening just the two of us at the Cheesecake Factory restaurant. That is a really nice place - who knew? I didn't even know it was a restaurant until just recently, we thought they just sold Cheesecake. We shared a big salad and then both ordered pasta entres. We had plenty of both left over for lunch tomorrow. Of course, we both ordered Cheesecake, Dan had the Tiramisu Cheesecake and I had White Chocolate Caramel Macadamia Cheesecake - both were decadent and sweet and neither of us could finish to the last bite - it was sooooo delicious, but we were soooo stuffed!

I love my husband more and more all the time.

1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Heavy Day

Today was a heavy day for sure. Sometimes life goes by with nary a breeze and then all of a sudden there is a whirlwind gusting through. Today was one of those days.

First of all little Stellan was in for surgery on his tiny little heart - my morning was less than productive as I sat refreshing the screen every now and again to check for updates and in between praying that God would guide the hands of the surgeon and staff. Stellan came through surgery just great - praise God, but may need some more fixing up in time. Check out MckMama's blog for all the details and to join in praying for this precious little baby.

Next up, one of my co-workers lost their beloved dog today. I know, I know, maybe to some it's just a dog, but to her it was like one of her children. My heart is heavy praying for comfort for a dear friend in mourning.

Another dear friend of mine received less then happy news from the doctor today, but she is a trooper and will continue to move forward with all her might to Glorify God as long as there is breath in her lungs!

And - a little less serious - our favorite character was eliminated on the Biggest Loser! Wahhhh.

The burdens of life can be heavy sometimes, so we reach out in prayer to help lift the burden, lighten the load just a little if we can. But there is only one who can carry it:

Psalm 68:19
Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Selah

HK Heaven

OK, Darya is in Hello Kitty heaven now that her room is all put together with her new bedding. She has even made her bed every morning this week! Yea!! She was really happy to get the bedding. I was just a little concerned that she might be disappointed that she did not get toys, but she really wanted the bedding. She hadn't specifically asked for it, but I knew she would love it and she did!

We had Darya's party on Friday, but her actual birthday was on Saturday. Dad was at work Saturday, the boys had spent the night at Grandma's so that they wouldn't be around for the girls sleepover, so it was just her and I for most of the day. It was a good day. We put her room together, we watched some TV, tickled each other until we almost peed!

Here she is in the HK room. Everything is HK: blankets, sheets, pillows, curtains, canopy, stuffed Kitty, pictures - even her Build-a-bear is wearing her HK outfit! I should have thought about it and had her change from her school clothes to her HK clothes too! She absolutely LOVES the canopy; she says she feels like a princess! - you are sweetheart, you are!

Matthew 7:11
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Easter Sunday

I wanted to write a post about Easter, about how God Loves us so much that He gave His only son that we might be forgiven; about the Grace that fills my imperfect life; About the Truth of who He is, but several of my bloggy buddies have said it so beautifully I will just direct you on to them:

Mckmama

Pat Layton

Pink

Godly Woman

Have a Grace Filled, Blessed Easter Sunday!

Girls Girls Girls

Today is Darya's birthday! She is 11 - already. I can hardly believe it, we first saw her pictures when she was only 7, brought her home at 9 and now she is already 11 - time flies!

We had the party at home. She invited the girls from her class - not everyone from her class came, but her little group of best friends all came. Beth also joined us - she has known Darya since she first came home. Beth is the Goddaughter of my Bestie - Terry.

We had a jumping castle - the big one. You'll see in the pictures that it had a slide down one side. I figure we will outgrow the jumping castles all too soon so this may be my last chance to get one so we splurged on the big one.

The theme of the party was Hello Kitty - Darya's favorite. Terry even made a beautiful Hello Kitty cake and some dangerously sweet but absolutely adorable cake pops! Of course all her best friends know that she loves Hello Kitty so most of her gifts we HK too. Our gift to her - (which she hasn't opened yet - shhh don't tell her) is all new bedding, curtains and a canopy - which she has been dying to have - all HK themed of course. We'll give that to her later this morning and then we can work on setting it all up. I'll try to post pictures when we get it all done.

We had a Hula Hoop contest! Darya was not very good at it - much to her dismay, but a couple of the girls were real experts!

Of course being my crafty self I couldn't let the party go by without some type of project. I cut these cute paper purses out on my Circut and the girls decorated them up however they liked. We also made HK notepads, but I almost forgot about that project and didn't get any pictures.

I will tell you - after raising two boys - that GIRLS ARE WIERD! Crazy wierd! There is giggling and silliness beyond belief. I promise you, I was never crazy like that when I was 11! (Right Mom?)

Well, OK, Terry and I had some girly silliness of our own - but I'll leave that post for her blog..... Pink

I know she's exhausted after all those cake pops, but give her a day or two and I'm sure there will be some - less than dignified pictures coming! And if she only posts mine and not hers, come on back and I will show you the rest of the story!!

Laundry

OK, so this is my new blog. If you are just joining, I used to have another blog - )well I guess I still have that one too) where I recorded our adoption journey. I could have just changed my old blog, but since I was paying an annual fee for hosting, I thought it was best to just move to a free blog site.

So, what will I write here? I don't really know, but I will try to let the Lord direct my thoughts and share snapshots of our famliy life.

Today the topic is Laundry. With three kids, you can imagine that laundry is a never-ending chore. It is also a chore that the kids DO NOT like any more than I do. But, still, it must be done. We try to get some control of the laundry situation on Saturdays, it does not get all the way done, but hopefully they will have clean clothes on Monday morning for school.

One of my biggest challenges with the kids is getting them to put the clothes away after they are finished. All too often the clothes end up hiding in the back of the closet - never having met a hanger, or stuffed into the drawers in no particular order. When it comes near the end of the week the kids are telling me that they can't find anything to wear. My biggest problem with this situation is the lies that try to cover the laziness. "Did you put your clothes away correctly, on hangers or folded in your drawer?" I ask. The answer is always 'yes'. I ask again, just to give them a second chance to redeem themself - "If I go to your room right now will I find everything put away correctly?" It is only when I head for the stairs that they finally fess up, or run past me to get there first.

I have struggled with this dilemma for a long time. Sometimes I get angry with them, punish them for lying, make them put everything away properly, take away some privleged video games or something. Sometimes I just don't have the energy to fight it and just pretend I forgot to double check the closets/drawers. Sometimes I confiscate any clothes that were not put away - this only works for my daughter though, and only sometimes - boys just don't care that much.

Today is a new day!

Today I need a new strategy. It took me a little while to figure it out, but I am hopeful that this one will work - at least for a little while.

I took every bit of clothing from their rooms, clean or dirty and piled it all in the upstairs gameroom. It was a huge mountain! When we were all home in the afternoon I told them that they would now wash, dry, fold, hang and put away every bit of it. First they were to bring it downstairs, then sort it into laundry piles, take turns loading the washer, and dryer. Then I helped sort out any clothes that do not fit, too worn, refused to wear, whatever. I watched diligently as they folded, using this opportunity to re-teach 'Folding 101.' Then, as each load finished they put things away, neatly, beautifully.

I told them that since they all three had been lazy about taking care of their clothes that they would all three go through this exercise this time. Next time, however, they have a chance to either keep their clothes put away (and not go through this again) or start all over and wash, dry and put away ALL of their own clothes again. I'll let you know how it goes next week.

God does this to us sometimes, doesn't he? When we have been hiding things away (our sin maybe) in places that it shouldn't be' things that need to be brought into the livingroom of our lives - not in public, but shared with those who love us. He gently prunes away those things that aren't fitting, or that we refuse to let go of on our own. Then, he helps us to get it all put back together, neatly, beautifully.

How is your laundry?

Test - New Blog

OK, so I have created a new blog, and spent some creative time making a custom headder on scrapblog and finding a background on Cutest Blog on the Block. Now I just need to find something to write about!