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!!!!