The One That Started It All!

In 1998, we were given a special gift! At that time, I was a Sunday School Superintendent, Darrell taught Sunday School. We both were in charge of the youth group leaders, Jr. Choir directors, VBS director, plus many other committes in the small church we attended. One if the families offered us their time share for a week only having to pay the $39 reservations fee...what a gift!

At the time, we had our 2 girls, Michaela and Jessica. We could pick from several vacation spots and chose the hills of Tennessee! The exciting addition was that we were able to visit with dear friends of ours who were living right out side of Memphis which was on the other side of the state. We had not seen these friends in about 8 years...we knew them from our Army days in Germany. Scott had worked with Darrell and Carla and I were expecting out first babies at the same time...it was an exciting time for both of our young families exploring parts of Europe together!

Fast forward those 8 years and we were on our way to Memphis--home to Bealle Street, the mighty Mississippi River life and Elvis! It was an fun filled weekend and we were able to remember the past and share what was going on in our lives. 

Their son, Kevin, was a Boy Scout at the time and it was Memorial Day weekend! One of the events he participated in with his troop was putting flags on the head stones to our nations soldiers--an incredible honor! The girls were in invited to help and were given a patch to commemorate their work.

One patch...thoughts raced through my mind as to what to do with it. Do we put it on a jacket? Place it in an album? Many ideas raced through my head but the one that stuck was to make the  girls a quilt and put it on and get them a souvenir patch at places we would take them...I was quilting at the time but sooo glad we purchased a blanket from the Disney store and had it monogrammed with their names...9 Children later I am really excited we chose this option!

So over the years we have added lots of patches and had sweet times with our children sharing memories and hunting for patches! I have a system now for remembering who gets what patch and have sewed on hundreds of patches for my children as well as some of our foster kids and exchange students that have shared our home.

It was that one patch that started a family tradition that we hope will be a monument of sweet memories the children had of spending time together, traveling and doing special activities together as a family!

Thanks Scott, Carla and Kevin for including us in your life and giving us the start to a family tradition. God Bless You!

Happy Birthday Brandon

Today we celebrated our little man's birthday ...but realizing he isn't so little any more. Brandon hit double digits today!

We went shopping for some para cord together this morning. He loved morning outing together...he was dancing in the isles while we shopped!

Tonight we had a wonderful treat to have our whole family together to celebrate his birthday ...Brandon picked breakfast night ...yum! We had eggs, berries, sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon, grapes, cantaloupe and sour dough toast. We followed it by cheesecake...mmmm.

We also had a hat contest (thank you Winslows for the idea)....Brandon judged the contest and gave out prizes.  He had so much fun! We laughed a lot...a good thing!

Summer Fun

We have been working diligently in our basement turning a large unused area into a larger home school room. We are still in the middle of our summer months so we are taking breaks to have fun too! In cleaning out the books in our rooms, the kids located the older girls body crayons. They went to town drawing on each other and themselves.

In fact, Michael wrote the word BIG on his arm to show how big his muscle is only to realize it was backwards...we laughed a lot but them realized if we turned his arm upside down it was spelled correctly! Love their creations and funny antics!

Date Night

In the past year, Darrell and I have been able to take a date night almost every Thursday. This is the first time in 25 years that we have been able to do some thing like this...

We have gone on walks, hiking, lots of shopping especially in the winter months here in NH, we've been joined by Darrell's sister and her husband, his younger sister and his mom, our older daughters, and we have gone horseback riding. All this usually includes some kind of yummy food which has been as simple as a salad or out to some of our favorites to include Texas Road House, Olive Garden or an authentic German restaurant.

All that to say that tonight, was our first ever driving lesson for me to learn to drive our van with our new horse trailer! We bought it this past winter and are super excited because it holds 3 of our horses but even better--it has a large tack room in it as well as a chuck wagon on it! Since we sold the pop up, we have loaded all of the camping equipment into the tack room shelves or chuck wagon and have plenty of room for chairs, tents and dining canopy!

We started by driving around town, headed to the local high school to practice backing up with some limited success. We then hauled it to dinner...a little Mexican place we love. We then went over to Walmart to grab a few things and then out for an ice cream cone. It was a different kind of night but fun because my hubby and I were together!

Legos ....finally organized!

The Lego monster at our home has been uncontrollable for a long time. We have tried many different ideas but think we finally hit on one that is organized and easy to use. I think the monster has finally been tamed!

When my boys built before the would say don't you just love it! I would say tell me about it. There is a reason....I am a color person and it looked like a big blob to me because it was made of so many crazy colored bricks...not to say I couldn't appreciate their work but under the new system they are loving it and I can actually 'see' their creations. Our son, Michael, said, "mom the colors are so beautiful!" I agree!

After a few days of building the kids are all saying it so easy to find exactly what they are looking for and are we are not having dumped bins all over the room---that was what happened in the past as they searched for the right piece in the deep bins. I am loving it! We even have a bin designated for their creations that are in progress so it can also be tucked away for later.

We have a separate color in each bin!

This stores individual legos and the top one is assessories and people.

This is playmobil in the top two bins --they love to play with it along with Legos.  The bottom bin is Lincoln logs.

The whole set up next to each other.

The table is for building but must be cleared when they are finished.

A picture of the red bin...my favorite color!

Summer Hours on Friday

Darrell has a gift given to him every Friday afternoon by from his employer...he is let go early at 1:00. This is a bonus to spend extra family time together working on projects, running errands or playing. Today was a much needed play day and we chose the pool! Dad's favorite thing is jumping in with the kids...they love it too!! Dad is a big kid too when it comes to the pool...what a wonderful afternoon!

See the splash above? That is the daddy splash!

Perspective

Sometimes people often ask questions out do curiosity about our family not realizing it sometimes feels like an interrogation.... 

That very thing happens often to me and even happened today at church....one of the moms asked questions about our family....why did you grow your family through foster care? Why adopt? Why so many? How do you keep everyone 'safe'? As the questions tumbled out of her mouth I knew there must be a reason for all of this....and there was....a family member in her life had a baby and they were faced with the decision whether to step in for a baby or not....she was trying to figure out why we would do what we do when they had decided to turn away from someone in their own family. But these are the times that make me think about the Lords leading in our family and the word that comes to mind is PERSPECTIVE.

It is all about perspective and God is usually involved in stretching us and changing our perspective as he leads us through trials, introduces us to new people who challenge us with living more for him and more dying to self. Dying to self has been a theme in studies lately that keeps resurfacing and it has challenged me in how I think about the calling on our lives to do what we do each day and look at it through His eyes.

Why foster care and why so many was answered to this is where The Lord has lead us! As for the number, I remember as a new bride telling my mother in law that anyone with 4  kids must be crazy....insert foot to mouth as I often spoke then before thinking as my husband is the oldest of 4 kids....yes I said 4!  When we started this journey we never envisioned 4,5 or even 6 kids. now we find ourselves with 9 and tell The Lord that He is now in charge of the how many will eventually join our family. When we let Him take over our lives amazing things happen and our perspective changes! Six kids seems pretty easy and the addition of more doesn't seem so crazy any more!

As foster parents we are often told that the kids we have are so lucky to be with us but perspective has changed this....we feel so lucky to have hem in our lives because they have changed us more than we have changed them. We have given them safety, security,love...a home. In return, we have received security and safety in knowing The Lord will provide for us no matter what, grateful for the things provided, the friendships and support that have been forged, and the love of children who remember what it was like before in their lives before coming here.  Everyone's perspective has changed and while we walked this road together the greatest and most amazing thing happened....God knit our hearts together to form a beautiful family.

What perspective is The Lord changing in your life? What area are you being challenged in ....let God do his marvelous work in you and see what things change in your life!