Walking Out Faith

God's "Little" Reminders  I love old photos. my memory is so bad, not like "alzheimer's bad", but like "mommy with too much on the brain" bad. it helps me see all of the chapters of my life where God has shown his faithfulness, displayed himself to me in BIG and small ways. it also helps me remeber that my babies are small....regardless of how 'big' i treat them. and i need to have more grace on them because they're are kids, they haven't been around the metaphorical block very long. slightly sobering. it also helps me remeber how much fun we have as a family when i intentionally let go of 'stressing out' and 'fixing things' and 'being tired'. here are a few of my favorites. it was hard to stop adding THE PHOTOS....i love these crazies with all my heart!! (bbbuuuut, i don't know how to link them from the 'google plus' post...so i'll just pick new ones) #childofthe80s just kidding i figured...

what's normal anyway, right?    our post-adoption update: summary: things are great. they are challenging. they are busy. they are chaotic. they are messy, but they are great. let me develop that a little more.  so, it's taken me almost 15 years to iron my hubby's (at first i wrote hubbies and had to laugh) work clothes. yep, that a one and a five. when we first got married i was intent on not falling under the classification of "modern 50s woman". house hold chores would be split, no ironing, no "solo" maker of the meals, not barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. all household responsibilities would be split 50/50 and if it were possible for him to bare children, well...that would have been on the list too.  well, after almost 15 years you know what i've realized. things flow better for our large family when i take on the household responsibilities. dishes, cooking, cleaning, laundry. our house has more peace, our relationships with our kiddo...

Hi Friends and Family! We are so close to leaving for our life changing adventure. God is good and will continue to remain good whatever comes.....HOWEVER, we are praying for smooth sailing for our 14 hour flight, traveling with our entire crew! Feelings up to this point? It's hard to put into words. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's funny looking back and seeing time at work. that entry above was from prior to our leave to China. but the effects of time hold true for all things...time will continue regardless of whether or not we take advantage of it and "make the most out of every opportunity". So here is sit looking backwards and reflecting on our amazing journey through adoption. And our new title as a 'blended' family. I wasn't sure how things would shake out to be honest. Would he be okay with us, would our bio kiddos be okay with him, would we be f...

My heart has been struggling with the desire to do something more for those in need. More...But what does that mean exactly? What does that look like for me and my family? I love that quote from someone that says, "Just do something". But what something are we as a family best suited for? I was so encouraged by these two guys who quit their jobs and created a company based on a need, socks for the homeless. They found that the one item that is almost always in need in shelters and among the homeless are socks. Socks. So they quit their jobs and started making socks, really good quality socks. And they donate thousands of socks to shelters! Just two guys and some socks. And then a friend of mine started collecting gently used coats and winter gear to deliver to shelters. So here's my thought. What if I started collecting gloves runners use and just throw on the side of the course during their race?? I mean if their going to go in the trash, why not recycle them and giv...

So I had these grand plans for homeschooling today. Plans for hands learning about the brain and skeletal system. Grand plans, I tell you!! A life size human body with anatomically correct proportions and sections where the kids could write about the important features of each system/body part. I don't know which one of us was more excited. But the kids started whining and coloring on each others poster board and ....well, that idea went out the window. So back to our regularly scheduled homeschool day. ok, we actually started it! As an aside, I LOVE SCIENCE. and I love learning all over again. My husband and I joke that we could both go to school forever and never have a real job again. Lifelong students, sounds fabulous, I know. But it's a pipe dream. And really, all you ever need to know you learned in kindergarten. Right? Be kind, take turns, treat others with respect, pay attention, etc. The rest comes with time, it's a process. You learn as you live and you "go...

Sometimes my mind is so flooded with thoughts I'm not exactly sure where to begin. Sometimes, I feel so bogged down by responsibilities that I'm almost paralyzed into indecision and inaction.  So, I will take a momentary lapse from life and try to clear my thoughts through writing them down. Lucky you! We are in our 6th week of homeschooling and I feel like, yes we've made progress and are on a roll,..... somedays, and somedays it's simply a struggle to keep my bigs from constantly fighting with each other. Then you throw in my unrealistic image of the "Mrs. Brady" ideal of what a mom and wife should look like and do, the pressure to exercise because the benefits really do help manage life,  and I feel like I'm chasing my metaphorical tail.  Belly aches, incessant complaining, scrapes and bruises from bike rides and the constant barrage of "he said, she said" or "he did it, she did it" has almost broke me to the end of myself. Whi...

October Hiccups So here we are in October. Our baby #4 is in China and we are waiting. It feels strangely similar to the waiting game of being pregnant ; where the anticipation of something great and the unknown of all things new are mixed together in a bag of life.  So to date, we have submitted all of our paperwork (except pictures and course work) to our agency and are waiting for them to process it and then send it all off to the Chinese Consulate to be processed...Our agency is giving us a timeframe of 6 to 8 weeks and then the time the Consulate takes to process is roughly the same...unfortunately, that puts this Mama's due date somewhere in February. What a great birthday present that would be for me, to bring home our baby somewhere near my birthday! Of course, we'd love to bring him home sooner but God holds time in his hands. So we will patiently wait.  School has started and we are currently in our 5th, 5th week of homeschooling our big kids this year. This...