The baby is in the hospital

Please pray for Baby J, our new little guy, who is just 5 weeks old. He was admitted to Children's Hospital on Thursday night with RSV. His breathing is pretty bad and they have him on a lot of oxygen. He was not doing very well at one point and the doctor was afraid she was going to have to send him to another hospital so he could be admitted into the PICU (pediatric ICU), as the one at this hospital is full. However, yesterday (Saturday) the doctor said she thinks he is out of the danger zone now. They were able to slightly reduce the amount of oxygen he was on and he handled it well. Today, (Sunday) they will try to reduce it again and see how he does. If he tolerates this change, I may be able to give him a bottle tonight. I have felt pretty bad for him because they won't let me feed him. They are afraid that he will aspirate the formula because the oxygen he is on is pressurized. This means it is forced into his nose (and he has been on the max amount of force). If he were to try to eat at the same time this oxygen is being forced into him, it could cause him to choke and the milk to go down the wrong tubes and wind up in his lungs. He is definitely hungry and was crying to be feed the other night and it was so hard for me to hear his cry and watch him root for a bottle and know that I couldn't give him one.

It's been a very rough week with very little sleep at our house. Last weekend, two of my children came down with the stomach flu. Those same two also got a head cold, which Gracie also picked up. Grace has been a hot mess. She's been really whiny and clingy and has not been sleeping or eating well. She's got a double ear infection and has an antibiotic for that, but we have to force her to take it and hope she doesn't throw it up when we force her. She has reflux and she has an extremely sensitive gag reflex. So those three were all sick on Christmas Day. One of the stomach flu kids is better now, but a fourth child and Daddy picked up the head cold. Most likely everyone with the cold has RSV and Baby J picked it up from them. I tried to keep people away from him, but we do all live in the same house. RSV usually manifests as just a cold in bigger people, but in a infant who was a preemie, like Baby J was, it can be very serious, even deadly. I'm thankful for modern medicine, as this is something that you would have lost your baby to 100 years ago. So we've had 5 sick children and one sick parent, and Luke and I have been the only ones not to get it. Please pray that I do not get it because I need to be at the hospital with the baby and I should not be there if I have RSV as well. Baby J started to go downhill on Wednesday evening, so I took him and Grace to the pediatrician on Thursday. That where I learned of her ear infections and that he had RSV. At the time, his oxygen level was at 99, so they sent us home with instructions to take him straight to the ER at Children's if he spiked a temp or if his breathing worsened. When I got home from the doctor, Baby J went on a two hour visit with his mother and by the time he came back he was already going downhill. She had been pretty concerned for him. By 10 that night, he was scaring me so I decided to make the 45 minute trek to Children's. They admitted him right away and his oxygen level dropped to 86 not long after we were here (95 to 100 is normal, under 90 is very bad). It dropped to 78 at one point, even while he was on oxygen, but thankfully it didn't stay that low for long.

I've tried to be at the hospital as much as I can, but with five other children at home, four of whom are sick, it's been difficult. Thus far, I have been with my kids during the day and have spent all night the last three nights at the hospital. Baby's J's mom was supposed to be here in the daytime, so I thought this arrangement would work out well so that he was not here alone. She was here Friday but sadly, she did not show up on Saturday. Thankfully, we are in a long weekend so John will be off on Monday. I have not been able to take anyone up on the offers of help with my kids because my kids aren't well yet and I don't want to get any of our friends sick, but a wonderful friend brought my family dinner on Friday night and that was so helpful. Dinner was the last thing I wanted to worry about and knowing that dinner was coming for my family allowed me to leave and get back up here as soon as John got home from work. I'm hoping Baby J's mom comes to spend the day with him today, but I don't know what will happen there. I am going to stay home tonight with my family. My kids make a lot of sacrifices for foster care and I don't want to take our New Year's Eve traditions away from them as well. So I will be home to celebrate with them tonight and probably back here in the daytime tomorrow, depending on what baby's mom decides to do. Baby J will probably be in the hospital a few more days. RSV is a virus, so there really aren't any meds they give for it. It has to just run its' course. They help him be able to breathe and they have him on an IV so his body is getting everything it needs, but other than that you just have to wait it out. It usually lasts 7 to 10 days and we are on day 5.

If you have been waiting for your Christmas card from me, it's still coming. It's just not top priority at the moment.

To learn more about RSV, go here and here.

Welcome to forever!

It's done!!! She's all ours!!!!!! Today we adopted Grace and made her a forever part of our family. We are so excited and still in awe of what the Lord has done. Thank you to everyone who has been on this journey with us praying and supporting us. Tonight we will go out to dinner to celebrate!

Being sworn in

The big brothers and sister anxiously look on

John is promising to take care of Grace and provide for all her needs.

The judge signs the paper of who was in attendance for Gracie's adoption day

She wanted to know if Grace would let her hold her.

Grace went up and finalized her own adoption in the computer with a little help of course.

First Official Family Pic with Judge Amy

Opening a gift from the judge

 

 

 

 

Buttons from our adoption worker

December '17

Merry Christmas!

Well, here it is the middle of December already. I cannot believe that we are so close to Christmas. It's been warmer here than usual. The ground isn't frozen yet and we haven't had any real snow. While this may be nice to some, it has meant that John worked Saturdays longer than he usually does at this time of year. Thankfully they have been finished with the harvest for a little while, but there is some field work they have been doing that they would not be able to do if the ground was already frozen. The plus side is that getting this work done now should make things better for future growing seasons. But that's not what you really want to hear about, is it? You want to know what's up with the baby. :)

We have not yet adopted our foster daughter, however, we will in just a few days! We waited about 5 weeks before we heard from the adoption worker, but once she did contact us, she worked quickly. All the paperwork has been completed and now we are just waiting on a court hearing to make it all official.  That date is this coming Thursday, December 21! So in just four more days, she will be all ours. We cannot wait and we have decided this is the best Christmas present ever!! We will be naming her Grace. Once every thing is official, I can share photos with you. Gracie turned 10 months old yesterday. She's putting everything in her mouth and getting into any trouble she can find. Our Christmas tree has a baby gate around it once again this year and I couldn't be more happy about that.


We got to celebrate Thanksgiving with John's sister and her family. They live in the Denver area and were able to come spend a couple days with us. It was nice to be with them, but the time flew by way too fast and I think we all felt like we needed several more days with each other. We all took the kids to see The Star. It was a cute movie and we enjoyed it.

The kids have been enjoying being a part of Trail Life USA and American Heritage Girls. John has been helping out with the boys troop. Hannah will be receiving her first couple of badges on Monday, so she is looking forward to that. We are still attending the church in Omaha that I mentioned last time. We found out that we know a couple of the homeschooling families that attend there. We have really been enjoying the series on the book of Luke that the pastor recently started. His messages have been really good. The kids and I have been attending on Wednesday nights. John has not been home in time to go with us. It's been wonderful as it has been a mid-week oasis for me. I let the older two go to the youth group service, while Micah and Hannah attending Royal Rangers and Missionettes classes (now called MPact). Gracie goes to the nursery and does well there. This leaves mama to have some time to just focus on the Lord and not have to worry about anyone else. The midweek service for adults is just a worship and prayer service and they let the Holy Spirit guide it. I really love it. It's just what I need in the middle of crazy weeks.

The kids homeschool choir had their Christmas concert last night and Micah and Nathanael have a piano recital tomorrow. I will get footage up when I can.

We celebrated John's birthday ten days ago. He's not really thrilled about getting older, but I told him that it's a lot better than the alternative. We are playing our 12 Days of Christmas game again with the children's stockings. They love this game and look forward to it every year. Other than that and decorating, we haven't done a lot of Christmasy things this year. I just don't have the energy. Why is that, you ask? Oh, it may have something to do with the newborn baby boy that is now living with us. Yup, you read that right. On December 1st, we took placement of a 6 day old baby boy. I had decided that my hands were full and that I wasn't going to take anyone else right now. But the Lord began preparing me for this placement about a week or so before I got the call. So I knew that if they called, we were to say yes. Yes, I know it sounds crazy that we took an infant when we already had a 9 month old. It's not something I had planned to do, but with the way it all happened, I just knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was of the Lord. So I am just trusting Him to equip me with what I need to do what he's asking me to do each day with these 6 children that have been entrusted into my care. This little boy's situation is very different from Grace's and we do not anticipate that he will be with us longer than a few months, if he's with us that long. The baby is now three weeks old and he's doing well for the most part. He has thrush and this is the first time I have ever dealt with that, but it's getting better. He decided a few nights ago that he isn't going to sleep unless I hold him, so the nights have been rough. But for the most part, having two babies hasn't been as hard as I anticipated...at least not so far. He's still in the newborn sleep all day phase, so we have been able to keep our normal routine and get our schoolwork done. We will see what happens when he starts to be awake a little more. The hardest part so far has been adjusting back to sleeping only in little spurts. It gets harder to do that the older I get, but God is getting me through.

Ha ha...cue the baby...he's crying now, so I better run and get him before he wakes Grace up. Please keep this little one and his situation in your prayers. The next post from me will be an adoption day post!!!!

November Update

I'm sorry that I am so far behind with the blog. Life has been busy! What everyone really would like to know is what's going on with our foster situation, so I'll update on that first. This post isn't going to have any photos. I'll have to get some up another day. For now, I just wanted to get an update posted.

Our baby girl is still living with us. She will be 9 months old on Wednesday. She has 7 teeth and is crawling now. She's had a lot of reflux issues and requires a specialty formula, but other than that is doing very well. She brings us so much joy and we all love her so much! We do believe that we will be adopting her very soon. TPR (termination of parental rights) was official as of October 9th. This means that the baby's parents are no longer her parents legally and she is now free for adoption. They actually both chose to sign their rights away, and as such neither of her parents appealed the termination. Our caseworker turned all of her paperwork over to the adoption department and we were assigned an adoption caseworker. Our previous caseworker had told me that the new caseworker would be in touch shortly and that we'd probably be all finished up in time to be a part of National Adoption Day on 11/18. She misspoke. With the drug epidemic we have going on in the Midwest, there are a lot of kids getting adopted right now and there are only two adoption workers for our area. They are getting really backed up with adoptions and it's taking longer to have an adoption finalized. We've been waiting a month already and our adoption worker still has not contacted us. Someone else told me they waited 5 weeks before they were contacted. So there is no way we will be done in time for the 18th or for Thanksgiving at this point. We will just hope for Christmas now. I have no idea where we are on her list, as she has not responded to my email asking about a time-frame. So we are back to waiting again. There's lots of that with foster care. 

Our summer went by quickly. I did not want to take a new placement before our planned family vacation, so instead we did a lot of respite care for other foster families who needed a break or were taking vacations that they couldn't bring their foster kids on. We also did a lot of schoolwork as we got behind when the baby came to live with us. We also had a very difficult preschooler here as well and it was just hard to homeschool. So my kids worked most of the summer so that we could catch up. We did get to take a little family getaway over the 4th of July time-frame. We went to Kansas City for a couple days and we were allowed to take the baby with us. We enjoyed out time down there. We went to Union Station, Science City, Legoland, and The Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Building. The Legoland in KC is not like the amusement park in CA and FL, but more like a children's museum style place. We also got to eat lunch at a place called Fritz's, where our lunch was delivered to us by a little train on an overhead track. It was fun and the kids loved it.

Nathanael turned 11 at the end of August. He had been dealing with warts that kept coming back after being frozen, so at the end of July he had minor surgery on his hand to have five warts removed. The surgery and recovery wound up being more painful than the doctor had led us to believe it would be. But Nathanael survived and so far the warts have not returned, so at least it was worth it.

In September, we were able to go back to our favorite beach in North Carolina (the Outer Banks) and spend a week with our dear friends. We were allowed to take the baby on this trip too. We used to go to the beach with these friends every year before we moved, but haven't gone since 2013. It was wonderful to get to spend time with them and also to be at the beach again. We were supposed to go from there down to my parents' house in Tampa, but Hurricane Irma caused us to have to change that plan. Instead, we went up to Maryland and spent a little time with my sister and her family. We had a good time with them and even made it into DC to Georgetown Cupcakes (best cupcakes in the world!!) and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. From there we headed down to the Tampa area and spent a couple days with my parents. At this point, John had to fly back home and get back to work. We had planned it this way, but had to do some date switching due to the hurricane. He had to come back and prepare for the harvest. The kids and I had planned to stay on vacation for another 13 days without him. Our time with my parents was shorter than originally planned, since we couldn't go down there when we checked out of the beach house. (The hurricane came through the day we had planned to drive to their house.) But we were thankful we were even able to go at all in light of what could have happened. The kids had a blast in my parents' pool and spent hours and hours on end in the water. We were also able to see my brother and his wife and one of my aunts and uncles. My brother and I also got to sing special music at his church before I had to leave. From FL, we headed over to Mississippi to see John's side of the family, with a one night stop along the way in Pensacola. I needed one last hurrah at the beach! We had a good time in Mississippi too and stayed with my in laws while we were there. The kids enjoyed making music with grandma and hiking and fishing with grandpa. We got to spend some time with John's brother and his family and got to meet our one year old niece that we had not yet met.We also got to celebrate Uncle James and Grandpa's birthdays while we were there. Their birthdays are one day apart. After that, we drove back home with one overnight stop in Missouri. The kids did great with all our driving. The baby was a rockstar and I'm so glad that so many of our loved ones were able to meet her, since we hope she will be a permanent member of the family soon.

Since arriving back home, we've been busy with school and John's been busy with the harvest. This is a time of year that is very hard on all of us as John is gone a lot and we don't get to see him much and I have to do everything by myself. Although we do not like to be cold, we will welcome the winter because it means more time with daddy again. School is going well so far, so we are glad for a good start. I started a homeschool science co-op that meets twice a month about 10 minutes away and that's been going well. The kids love going to co-op and the other moms have thanked me for bringing something like this to our area. Because we are more rural, homeschoolers usually have to drive 30-45 minutes to be in a co-op. It's so nice to have something local. I am teaching middle school science in the co-op, so pray for me! Science isn't one of my strong areas, but my boys love it, so here I am. I started the whole thing for them. The Lord worked it out so that we have 22 elementary kids, 3 middle schoolers, and 6 high schoolers. I was surprised at the turnout for our very first year. We have a retired Christian veterinarian teaching our high schoolers biology. He has a fancy microscope and he knows his stuff, so it's been such a blessing to have him volunteer his time for our kids. 

We have left the church that we have been attending for three years. It was a hard decision but we can no longer just put aside some of the stuff that has been bothering us about the church for quite awhile. A lot of prayer went into this decision and John had several talks with leadership before we realized that nothing is going to be changing. I'm not going to get into any details about it, but three other families left when we left for very similar reasons. It's been hard on all of us and hard on the church body as well, since it's a small church where everyone knows everyone else. We have been attending an Assemblies of God church in Omaha but don't know if we will stay there long term or not. The church is great, but it is 45 minutes away which makes it hard to get connected and be involved. On the flip side, we can't find anything like it any closer and it is actually a very diverse church, which is very hard to find here. There are not a lot of Pentecostal churches around here (our former church wasn't), and there are none closer than 30 minutes away. We tried the one that was 30 minutes away, but there was no one our age there, so that's not going to work. We are still seeking the Lord's leading as to where He wants us to be.

The kids have taken an interest in scouting this year. Hannah has joined the American Heritage Girls and the boys are probably going to join Trail Life. These programs are Christian scouting programs similar to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, but are focused on Godly character as well as serving others. Hannah has just completed the requirements for her first badge.


We have not taken another foster placement yet. I feel that I have about all I can handle at the moment and don't feel that I can add another child who needs a lot of attention to our day and still do a good job homeschooling. I am not sure when we will take another placement, but probably not before spring. Of course, God may have completely different plans, so we will see what happens. 

So that's what we have been up to. I will post when we have an adoption date.

June Piano Recital '17

Things have been going well here. The baby is doing well and we are all enjoying having her here. She is a really content and happy little girl and is easy to take places as well. John was dealing with yet another very wet spring and was delayed in planting his field again, but he was finally able to get it done last week. So we are thanking God for that. He is growing soybeans this year. The kids have been enjoying the 90 degree temps we had last week (and will have again this week). We've been playing in the water a lot and just enjoying feeling the sun on our skin. Winter lasts so long here that it's so nice when it finally gets hot!

The boys had another piano recital today. Here are the videos from that.

Nathanael playing an original composition he calls "Sailor's Waltz."



Micah playing My Counrty 'Tis of Thee.



And the boys playing a song called "Balloon Pop Polka." This song is written for two pianos and eight hands, so they played it with two brothers that we are friends with.








That's about all I have to share for now. We don't have a whole lot going on at the moment.

No Greater Joy

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."  ~ 3 John 1:4

Luke and Nathanael were baptized this past Sunday at our church. My heart was so full of joy to see my children take this step of obedience to Christ. It was a really special time and we are thankful that John's grandparents and one of his aunts were able to join us for it.

Our pastor with John and the boys

We celebrated at home with one of their favorite dinners and then spent some family time together. I plan to make each boy a special wooden sign that has their names and a verse and their baptism date on it. (Something like this only I will make it for a lot cheaper than $60: http://rusticchristiansigns.com/product/rustic-customized-baptism-sign-3/)

Here is the video:


I'm praying these boys will always walk in the truth and reject what is false and that they will be full of the Holy Spirit and love God with all their hearts.

A homegoing and a concert

It's been a busy week in our home. Our recently turned three year old was returned to her parents on Thursday. We are not worried about her safety, as we have a good relationship with her parents, so I really think this was best for everyone involved. We are very happy that she is now back with her parents, and our home has been so much more peaceful there last couple days.

On Friday night, our homeschool choir presented their annual spring concert. The kids are all involved in choir and I assist the director during rehearsals and concerts. We really love being a part of it, and our director does a fantastic job with the kids. All four of my kids are in the elementary choir, but Luke will move up to the teen choir next year (say what??!!?!?). I cannot believe he will be 13 next year. Crazy. I digress. I recorded the songs that the elementary choir sang, so that I could share them with you here and so their grandparents could see. Their great grandparents (John's grandparents that he works for) were able to attend the concert, and Grandpa took us all out for ice cream afterwards. There is a place here that has dairy free ice cream and some of the special flavors are gluten free as well. It's one of those places where you get your own soft serve and then pick whatever toppings you want and then you pay by how much your cup weighs (like Sweet Frog for my VA friends). We haven't been there since Grandpa took us out for ice cream after last year's concert, so it was a special for us.Our director asked if any of the kids wanted to perform any special musical numbers during the concert, and all three of my boys signed up. She wanted a couple of the kids to play before the concert started as a prelude and both Nathanael and Micah were put in the prelude. I was not able to record them, because the piano was not up that loud and I don't think people realized there was a prelude happening, so they continued to talk really loudly. You would not have been able to hear the boys playing. So I will have to record their songs at home and post them later. Luke played guitar during the middle portion of the concert, but it was the same song that he did at church recently. I posted that two blog posts ago, so I am not going to post it again. Here are the other songs they did.

Luke and Nathanael sing harmony and are both in the top row. Luke is top left and is hard to see from the angle I was filming at, but he has a bright coral shirt on that may help you spot him. Nathanael is also in the top row and is the 5th person if you count from the left side.Micah and Hannah sing melody. Micah is right in the middle of the choir in  a deep blue dress shirt and Hannah is in front of him in a light gold dress. Yes, that is my son who keeps playing with his hands and not looking at the choir director. *sigh*

Come to the Music


Let It Shine
(Luke has moved to the upper right of the screen for this one.)


The Journey
(Micah has a solo in this one!)


Disney Sing A Long
(I help choreograph this one and yes that is me on the right helping lead the motions. The kids struggled a little with this one as it was a lot for some of them to remember the words and the motions at the same time. Also, if you look in the aisle you can get a sneak peek at my sweet little three month old chillin' in her carseat on the floor. You can't really make out her face, so I think it's ok that I posted this video.)


May the Road Rise Up
(This song was performed jointly with our teen choir.)


We hoped you enjoyed our songs!

7 weeks

Hey everyone! We're still alive. It's been pretty crazy here for the last 7 weeks since the baby joined us. She's dealing with reflux and was not sleeping well, but we have finally figured out a good formula and medication combination for her and she has just started sleeping at night without being held. Previously, she was not able to sleep unless held upright (so she wasn't gagging). This meant I had to hold her and try to sleep on the couch while sitting. But now that she is doing better, I've been very excited to actually lay down in my bed a couple nights this past week. There have been a lot of twists and turns in the baby's case, so we don't really know what will happen with her right now. There is a possibility that we could be adopting her, but we won't know for a couple more months.  The two year old we have has been very difficult these last two months and that coming at a time when I was sleep deprived made it even harder to handle. I have seriously wanted to throw in the towel with her several times. But things are going well in her case and hopefully she will be going home within the next 6 weeks or so. It's been all I can do to just to take basic care of everyone and  keep up with all the appointments that having these two girls has added to my calendar. They are both on separate visitation schedules. I have court dates and social worker appointments and team meetings that I have to be a part of for each child. Plus, we also need to get our schoolwork and music practice done. There was just too much going on at once, and I needed to take something off my plate. After much prayer, I sadly decided that it was time to once again lay down Zumba. It was the only thing that I could lay down. I'm not involved in much else and I can't let go of homeschooling or foster parenting and I will not take the kids out of music lessons or choir (which only adds up to two hours a week out of the house anyhow). So that only left Zumba. I put in my two weeks notice and stopped teaching at the Y the end of March. I was sad to do that, but honestly there is so much going on right now that I haven't even had the chance to miss it yet.

The kids are doing well. The two year old is trying their patience too, but they do like her so that helps. They have been very patient with her. They are all absolutely smitten with our baby and love holding her and feeding her. At the end of March, Nathanael and Micah were involved in a piano festival. They have been involved in it every year since we moved here. You earn points based upon the ratings you receive for your performance. They have both always gotten the highest number of points possible. After you earn a certain number of points, you get a trophy. So this year, both my pianists finally had enough points to earn trophies and they were quite excited! The trophies are on order and they will receive them at our next recital.

The boys were involved in some special music at church this morning. I will share the videos from that below. Hannah really has no desire to take part in musical performances, so that is why you don't see her when I share videos like this. She has stage fright and isn't really a singer. But that's fine; not everyone is meant to be a musician. I'm still trying to figure out what her "thing" will be. I wish I could share the video of my two year old. The preschool and toddler classes at church were going to sing Jesus Loves Me this morning. All the kids went up there and stood around the mic, including our two year old. They were just getting started singing when she grabbed the mic and started singing nonsense words at the top of her lungs with a huge smile on her face. Everyone in the congregation was dying laughing and clapped for her when she was done. Her teacher went up on stage and sat down and held our little one on her lap and had the kids start over and sing the song. I thought she handled it really well. John and I weren't sure if we should run up there and grab her or what. It was embarrassing and hilarious at the same time. I was able to text the video to her mom at least, but I am not allowed to post it online. But it kind of showcases some of what we are having to deal with on a daily basis-- she does whatever she wants to do no matter what you say and everything has to be all about her 100% of the time. We're trying to get through to her heart, but it's hard work when she is having visits three times a week and her parents only reinforce her in her attitude and actions (and she knows they will and has even communicated that to me). We'd appreciate your prayers, not just for her, but for us, and for the baby as well.

So that's where we are right now. Here are the videos of the boys.

Baby is here

Our new little one is now here with us, bringing our current number of children to six. She's doing well so far. The kids can't get over how tiny she is. They haven't had much experience with a baby so small, but they are all in love already. I am too. We will see what they think of her if she starts crying loudly at 2am. It sure was fun pulling out Hannah's old newborn clothing. It's funny how everything can change in a minute. All my plans need to be reevaluated now in light of having an infant now. Hopefully there is sleep at some point in our future, lol. But I'm so excited to be able to love on this little one for however long she is here. I can't really share her personal info, but her life has had a rough and sad start. I'm thankful for the chance to share Jesus' love with her. We've been praying for a baby of our own for quite some time now, but that hasn't happened. I'm happy to help care for this one while we wait. If you don't hear from me for awhile after this, you will now know why! 

Talent Show

As I mentioned in the last post, our family participated in a church talent show on Saturday night. This was a part of fundraising event for the youth missions trip this coming summer. We signed up to do several different things. Nathanael and Micah both played piano solos and Luke played "God of Wonders" on guitar. However, John decided to add us all in on God on Wonders, so it wound up turning into a family song. I did a solo and John and I also did a duet. I have "God of Wonders" and the duet on video and I wanted to share that with you here. The duet is called "Make a Way" and it is originally by a band called I Am They. While various people were performing different acts, a spaghetti dinner was served. After the meal and the talent portion was over, we had a time of corporate worship. John and I were also asked to help with this, so we did. I do not have that on video to share, but we really enjoyed worshiping with everyone last night. Many of John's family members were in town for a family event, so they came to the talent show. John's mother, his grandparents, and two of his aunts were all there with us, so that was special. His mom was able to join us for "God Of Wonders", as you will see. A very special thank you and shout out to Sarah W. who watched my girls so that I could rehearse and sing without having to keep being mommy off to the side.

Micah was a little distraught because he was supposed to sing with Grandma on"God of Wonders" and his mic was not working properly. So when you see him looking around and trying to talk to me during the song, he was trying to get me to fix his mic and he didn't understand that I couldn't do anything about it at that point. So we will teach him about continuing on even when you experience technical difficulties, as it happen to everyone at some point.

Here is the video. Enjoy!

February Update

Hello everyone! I wanted to give a quick update since we have had a lot going on around here.


We had a really nice trip to MS to see John's family for Christmas. We both thought it was one of the best times we have had there. All of John's siblings were there and we also had an opportunity to meet a new little niece that we had not yet met. We did a family photo shoot and took some photos of the entire family that will be cherished for years to come. On the way home, we were able to stop in Branson, MO to take the kids to see Moses at the Sight and Sound Theater. This was a gift from a family member and was such a blessing to my family.

When we got back it was nice to finally have a winter where we didn't have commitments every Saturday. We had this idea in our heads that winter weekends would be down time for our family. But the first winter we were here, John wound up taking welding classes every Saturday and the week after his classes stopped, he had to start working Saturdays again for spring planting. Then last year, we wound up taking foster care classes every Saturday, and the week those stopped, you guessed it, it was time to get ready for planting again. So we were quite excited to have our Saturdays with John this winter. Upon our return from the nice warm south (I wore a t shirt and capris on Christmas!!), we were asked to again provide respite care for three little ones we watched twice last year. Respite care is like foster care babysitting. So we were watching another foster family's foster children. These three little ones are 4 months, 1, and 2, so they gave me many flashbacks to the days when my boys were all under three. They are great kids and we love having them here. We watched them for a long weekend in November, then for a week in December, and then for four days in January. The night before they came, we got a call about a two year old. We were at our max with the three siblings, so we were not able to take the two year old in right away. However, they did not have another family for her so as soon as the three siblings left, I picked up the two year old from the emergency shelter where she was staying. So we have had a two year old foster daughter with us for the last five weeks now. She is a smart little cookie, and is very articulate for a two year old. She will be three right before Luke and I celebrate our birthdays. As with every placement, we don't really know how long she will be with us. But we are thankful that things are going well and we have been able to have a good relationship with her parents and the social workers. That always makes things so much less stressful.

But now we are about to take things to a new level. On Friday, I got a call about a newborn who needed a home. She is still in the hospital for one more day, but when she is discharged on Monday, we will bring her home to live with us too. (No, I don't know how long she will be with us.) She will be 5 days old when we bring her home. Have you noticed the Lord keeps bringing us girls? This baby will be our 7th foster daughter. (We did have two boys just for a night, but that was temporary for an emergency situation.) I think it's because He knows that I have all of Hannah's old clothes and much of her girlie baby stuff but I gave all the boys' old clothes away. So I am totally set to accept a little girl at the drop of a hat, but I'd have to go shopping if I take boys in. (We don't always get a lot of warning and we never know if they will have any clothes until they are already at our house. So there is often not time to do much preparation for whoever is coming and we have never been told anyone's sizes in advance.) Anyhow, we are very excited to care for a newborn. I was able to go to the hospital on Saturday evening and spend several hours bonding with her. I am looking forward to spending a few more hours with her on Sunday afternoon. I wish I could share a photo with you, but I can't. She is such a precious little girl. I spent a good amount of time just praying over her and singing worship songs while holding her. I want to make the most of every opportunity that I get to speak truth and life into each child's heart because they often leave just as suddenly as they came. I never know how much time I will have with them. So if things were to change and for some reason I didn't wind up taking her home on Monday, at least I will know that I sang God's truth over her and prayed for her on Saturday and Sunday. This will be our first time to have two different placements at once, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. It's always interesting to experience different situations so we can see what does and doesn't work for our family and it also opens our eyes to the many different ways God can use us as a foster family.

Our family sang in our church's talent show tonight. I am uploading a video of two of the songs we did. So stay tuned for another post tomorrow with that video!