Jaxson's Favorite Video

I have been too busy to blog this week so I thought I would share Jaxson's favorite video with you. Go down to the bottom of the page and turn the music off, push play, then imagine Jaxson doing this dance everywhere.

Thankful Thursday

Do you know who this is in the pictures below?

How cool is it that on Thankful Thursday I finally got to meet my precious bloggy friend Linny that started Thankful Thursday? So as you can guess I am so thankful that I got to meet her precious family this morning.

They are on vacation and were driving right through our area so they spent the night at my friend Rett's house. We were hoping to have dinner with them last night but due to RV trouble they got in very late so we got to hang out with them for a little while this morning while they were packing up.

It was so much fun to have all our kids playing together. Let me tell you that her kids are just PRECIOUS and oh so cute.

This picture below is Liberty. I tell you she is just the cutest thing and so very sweet.

Look at this beautiful face. I have to tell you that I have always thought little Elijah was just beautiful but oh my goodness in person him and Elizabeth made me want to jump on a plane to Africa today.

Now Isaiah looks just like Jaxson but a little older. I could not believe how much they look alike and he was the ball throwing king let me tell you. Doesn't he have the best smile ever?

OK, one last picture. This was Elijah eating a big strawberry and Isaiah putting his arm around him.

It was so exciting to get to meet this family after having followed their life the last year on their blog. We have cried for them, celebrated for them, prayed and fasted for them but we finally got to hug them.

DW and Linny, if you read this thank you for taking the time to stop and meet us!

PS The other kids are precious too but I didn't get good pictures of all of them.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for several things.

I am thankful that we have reached a new stage in parenting. I have longed for the day that my kids would start having friends over to play. When I was a kid I always had friends over and I actually can't remember many weekends or evenings that I didn't have a friend over or I was at a friends house. I have always wanted to be the type of family that our kids friends want to come over to our house to play. This week a little boy from Amaya's class came over and ask me if he could play with my daughter. Tonight she is having one of her friends come home on the bus with her. Writing this makes me want to spend time with my childhood friend Stacy. Oh it brings back memories watching my children grow up.

I am thankful that my computer is just on the other side of the wall from the bathtub. I can hear the funny things the kids sing about in the bath like my 4 year old singing "I love butt cheeks, I love butt cheeks."

I am thankful that we hit a HUGE breakthrough with Jaxson this last couple of weeks. Adopting a child that has lived in an orphanage for a long time comes with certain challenges. Jaxson always had a very hard time when he was sick and we didn't see any of this the last time he was sick, praise God.

I am thankful for all the parents in the world that see parenting as a blessing and not a curse!

What are you thankful for today?

Fall

I LOVE fall! It is looking like fall outside so I decided my blog needed a new look. I love everything about fall, the changing leaves, the cool air in the morning, needing my electric blanket on at night, cuddling with my hubby to get warm, hot apple cider, pumpkins and so much more.

The best part about fall is that fall is when I married my amazing husband!

My Very First Memorial Box Monday

I told you Thursday that I got a very precious gift in the mail last week. My precious bloggy friend Linny had a giveaway for a Memorial Box on her blog. If you don't know what Memorial Box Monday is please click here. When Linny first posted about her giveaway months ago I was not interested because I didn't think it was something that I would keep up with. One day Linny wrote a post and it hit me that this is something God wanted me to do. I decided to sign up for her giveaway and believe it or not I won.

Linny gave 10 of them away and I think I was number 4 (I can't even remember). Linny let people choose the box they wanted in the order she picked the names. When it was my turn she sent me a picture of the boxes to pick from but she told me she felt like one of them would fit me perfect even though she didn't really know me. When I looked at the pictures that was the only one that fit me perfect.

Linny doesn't know this but this memorial box (pictured below) reminds me so much of the time I was closest to God in my life. Right before I met Chris I didn't think I would ever meet Mr. Right. I finally gave up looking for the perfect guy and made God my perfect guy. I spent hours and hours with God everyday and even woke up in middle of the night to spend time with God. This box (an antique sewing drawer) represents so much of who I was, what I liked and a very special friend God gave me during that time. Thank you so much my sweet friend Linny (by the way God willing I will get to meet my precious bloggy friend next week).

I wrote my friend Rett this morning and told her about something that happened this weekend and she told me that is what I needed to use for my first Memorial Box Monday.

This last week I have been feeling so blah and just felt like I have not been giving God all that I could be. I honestly have been feeling weak and like I am being attacked by the evil one. The good thing is I have grown enough in the last year that I can recognize this now.

Anyway this weekend something happened. I ask Rett if she thought I was crazy and she told me I wasn't but God either sent me an angel or God sent someone to be a messenger to me.

We had our HUGE yard sale this weekend and for a short time I was working it by myself and my mom had taken the kids for a few hours. During that time if one person would stop then several others would stop at the same time.

During that time I was alone a man stopped by and was looking around not just at the stuff in the yard sale but at everything around. While he was here not one other person came until he was leaving. Anyway he stopped and started talking to me and ask me if I grew up around here because he said he did. I told him I did and told him my parents name and he didn't know who they were (we live in a town of 1500 people and EVERYONE in this town knows my mom and dad). Then he started talking to me about what he does for a living and then he looked me in the eye and said "you know it is sad to me that young people don't know how to be content in life". He said that the only way to be content in life is to have God. He said that material things do not bring people to contentment and that it was sad that young people work away their lives in jobs they hate just to think they will enjoy life when they are old. He said that is so foolish though because when your old you don't feel like enjoying all that God has given us. He said if people would just realize that true joy is found in God and not material things then people would be so much happier. Then he said goodbye and left.

It's funny because Chris and I are not at all what you would consider material people. We do not live in a fancy house, we only buy ourselves clothes when we REALLY need them, we rarely take vacations, In almost 11 years of marriage the only new furniture we have bought is a mattress and a rocking chair for when I was nursing, we just aren't what you would consider people who find enjoyment out of material things. God has been teaching us though this last year that we do have wayyyyyy more than so many people and God is teaching us to live a more simple life.

Rett told me I need to find a little angel or a yard sale sign to remind me of the messenger God sent to our yard sale so I will be working on that. Thank you so much Linny for the box and Rett for thinking of a symbol for me.

Thankful Thursday

Well, today is Thankful Thursday but I'm going to be like my bloggy friend Linny and make you wait. Linny loves to make her readers wait on everything and well I thought I would try doing the same.

I actually got a very precious gift this week and that is what I want to do my Thankful Thursday on and I haven't been able to get a good picture yet so you'll just have to wait.

I am also having a week like my friend Rett and I am just feeling blah. I love reading blogs and this week I haven't even wanted to do that. I am very, very busy getting ready for our BIG, GIGANTIC yard sale so maybe after this weekend I will get over being blah.

What We Have Been Doing

Last spring when we got our tax check we took a small portion of it and ask God to help us multiply it. We have been hit very, very hard by the economy. Chris is a auto technician and he only gets paid when people bring their cars in to get worked on. Chris doesn't get paid by the hour he gets paid by the job. If no works comes in that means no pay.

Anyway we prayed about ways that we could multiply this little bit of money that we set aside just for this purpose. Guess what? God is multiplying this money and providing for our needs.

One of the totally crazy ways we have found to doing this is by going to foreclosure auctions and buying huge lots of peoples stuff and re-selling it. This is a very messy, dirty job and well as you can see in the picture quite overwhelming at times. Each time we do this we both have a moment of thinking we are completely insane.

The picture below is about half of what we had to begin with a week ago and we have been working very hard to dig through it, trash a lot of it and the fun part sell a lot of it.

One agreement I had with Chris when we started doing this is that I got to give to my favorite charities or I could help other adoptive families out with a portion of what we make each time. The other day I looked at our huge hillbilly mess and God reminded me that he never said it would be easy but how much fun it is when we get to use part of the money to give to him.

So if you drive by our house and wonder why it's starting to look like hillbilly heaven you now know why. Also if you live near us we are having a HUGE sale this weekend so drop by and help us clear some of this out.

Thankful Thursday

OK, I am making this quick because I need to get to bed but I need to make time to be thankful.

I am so thankful for good doctors. This week Paige got very sick and of course it happened when the Dr. did not have time to see her. As the nurse was telling me to take her to a clinic our wonderful Dr. said "get her in here, I will just be late to my meeting." If we would have taken her anywhere else they would have done a couple thousand dollars worth of tests and would have admitted her to the hospital.

Our wonderful Dr. knows that Paige gets very, very sick every time she gets a cold and because he knows us, listens to us, and is just a very caring doctor he gave Paige some good medicine and a day to get better before jumping into all the tests and a stay at the hospital.

So, I am very thankful for our Dr. who put my precious, very sick daughter above anything else he needed to do that day. I am so thankful for doctors and other health care professionals that go beyond the call of duty and are not in their line of work just for the money.

Amaya Lost Her First Tooth

Amaya finally lost her tooth and she even let her momma wiggle it out for her. Her pappy was even here to see her lose it and I think he was pretty excited.
Isn't she cute?