My little man is 8!

I can't believe that my sweet little man Hamilton is eight! His birthday was last Saturday, the day after the last day of VBS. Whew, we had a great but long week. Hamilton is busy, and a little quirky, and loves to climb. Anything. He is forever at the top of some tree giving me grey hair that I then have to deal with. He's been asking to try rock climbing forever it seems, and so for his birthday that what we did :) The littlest kids stayed with Grandmama and the four oldest, plus the parental units headed to the nearest rock climbing place. Which happens to be about an hour away. Which is a shame, since we all loved it. I thought he might hesitate at first, just till he got used to it, but he jumped in, never looked back and climbed to the top first thing. We spent about 3 hrs climbing, then our arms aching and tired, hands sore, so we headed to find some lunch. We found a matinee of the new Madagascar 3 movie. I highly recommend it, those penguins are funny! Then, Hamilton wanted to know if we could go climb some more, and since the passes were good for the day, we said, sure! We climbed for another 2 hours till they closed. We were so tired. Yesterday, I was sore, but today my arms are so so so sore! It's a shame it's so far, it's not practical to join as members to make it more affordable. They have a gym as well, so if it were closer to home, Michael could go there for his workouts but, it will have to be a once a while treat. No doubt that Hamilton had a great birthday and I am so glad. He is such a special guy.

Vacation Bible School

I can't believe it's already time for VBS! I can't believe this is Olivia's last year. She is growing up so fast. You know that scene in Cheaper by the Dozen, where the dad says, "and then you blink", it is so true. I am enjoying seeing the young woman she is growing into, but part of me still wishes she was about....oh maybe 6. Time seems to go faster and faster the older I get. And speaking of growing up, Miss Vivian was so proud to be big enough to go to VBS last night. Last year, she had only been home a few months. This year she's a big girl! It seems like she's grown about 2.5 yrs in one. The big boys all had a great time too. Gideon gets to hang out with Daddy and have a lot of one on one time, so it's a win-win this week! Here's my crazy clan last night on the way to VBS :)

God told us to do something, and we just did it.

Wow. I love this video Eliana's story
It moves me. It is especially moving to me because it is the same city in China where we adopted Vivian. The same hotel. The same awesome guide. David rocked! The same van we drove around in. The same places. It is burned in my mind. So to see it again is emotional and wonderful. This family is amazing. Not because they are so kind to adopt an orphan, particularly an older child. They are amazing because they seek God, and when they heard him whispering to their hearts, they listened. They obeyed. And it wasn't a small thing God was asking of them. Having another child is a huge thing. Adoption even more huge. Adoption of a teenager, disrupting birth order, humongous. Adding to the fact that it needed to be done in 3 months....well most of us would just say I can't do that. I often wonder how often we ignore what God is asking of us. We pretend that thought in our mind isn't from God, but must just be some crazy idea of our own. Then we feel justified in ignoring it. Or how often do we just choose to say no. That is too hard. That isn't part of my plan. We give in to the what ifs. We are so afraid of giving up our illusion of control. We think we know exactly what we want  out of life. We act like this life is the main show, but in reality it is just a little bit of time for us to serve God, before an eternity in glory. When we say life is short, it is, but it isn't our only chance for pleasure, or fun. It's the opposite, it's our chance to serve God, to be his hands and feet, before we get to heaven, and that's where our reward is.  I love how the Dad shares at the end of the video. About how God uses moments, sometimes hard things, to change us, to make us what He wants us to be. And how often we want to skip those moments. How very much we all miss when we do that. I mean, when you really think about it, don't you want to be where God wants you?  That nothing we could ever plan, dream, hope for, will ever be as good as God's plan for our lives. Even if it doesn't look like what we think it should. Oh to have His eyes for a second. That we could truly see. I pray that I will have the wisdom to hear Him, and the courage to obey.

Where to start?

I've been wondering where to start. What our first post should be about. Then I decided, that maybe I should just write. So this post might be all over the place, but I will try to tell you a little about us, and why we started this blog. We are a family of 8, soon to be 9. We love God. We try to put Him first, and to honor Him, and bring Him glory in all that we do. We fail regularly. We try again. My handsome husband and I have been married fifteen years, and while life is sometimes hard, sometimes very hard, we love each other. We are best friends, and believe marriage has no back doors :) We have 2 daughters, 4 sons, at home. One daughter waiting in China, which will be our second adoption. God has been so good to us. We feel so grateful, that He would share His heart for orphans with us. That He opened our eyes. Adoption has changed our lives. Not just in the obvious ways, but in deeper, more profound ways than I could have ever imagined. It has helped me understand just a little bit of the love that God had for me, when I didn't even know Him. Anyway, we hope to post about our adoption journey, and about some of the everyday chaos that happens around here. Maybe some about being a big family. We hope maybe we can entertain someone. Educate, motivate, inspire? We love our life. We are blessed and very much so.