OK so I fibbed.

I obviously did not get the post done about Eric's party so since tomorrow is his birthday I will wrap it into one. 

 I will leave you with some pics of our sweet girl.  She absolutely LOVES to color.  And she does not discriminate about what she colors on.  If it holds still, it is game to color on, in her mind.  That includes dolls, floor, table, walls, you name it.   Boy when I take the colors away, oh my, does the drama flow.  It's just one of the things that makes Josie who she is! 

 Babies rank right up there but still can't beat coloring. 

You may notice she has a little bit of hair that goes past her eye brows.  It has grown a lot lately and she wakes up every day with some crazy bed head that sticks up in every direction.  I need to get a picture as she will soon have beautiful long hair and the spike bed head will be a past memory.  She is defiantly losing her baby look and turning into a beautiful little girl. 

That's how we roll!

I promise I did not fall off the face of the earth.  My computer was making a funny noise so we had it worked on before the warranty was up.  I will post later about Eric's birthday party, but for a now I will leave you with some pictures.  Eric came up this morning with his Santa toe socks matched up "perfectly" with his shorts.  Oh well, not a fight I'm going down in the morning.  That's just how he rolls.  Obviously he was pretty proud of himself. 

Orphans

I heard today that there are an estimated 147 million orphans in this world!  147 MILLION!!!  How can that be?  No child deserves to be living their life in an institution without parents to read them bedtime stories.  When we went to meet Josie we got a very slim glimpse of the orphans we left behind.  Has a family found them?  When will it be their turn?  I pray for them often.  Their faces are etched in my mind.   

Why are there so many orphans when God commands his people to take care of them?

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless: maintain the right of the poor and oppressed” Psalm 82:3

"You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more." Psalm 10:17

 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.  If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry" Exodus 22:22

I do not hear in any of those verses, “Now, if you feel like it, and when your home is big enough, and when you have enough money, THEN you should take care of the orphans.".  NO, God commands that we as his people take care of the needy.  So many people think that they are not "called" to help an orphan but I disagree.  We as God's people are all commanded to help them.  There are so many different ways to help. For starters we can all pray for these precious waiting soles.  There are organizations that help fund adoptions such as Reece's Rainbow that can be contributed to or used to help fund an adoption.  And of course there are the 147 million children that need someone to step up and give them a home where someone tucks them in and kisses then good night.  If the over 2 billion Christians would all do just a little or maybe a lot then there would no longer be orphans. 

These are some of the faces that are forever etched in my mind.  Thankfully one of these precious angels is no longer an orphan and I am blessed to get to be her Mommy.  Our baby girl is sitting in the chair on the left end of the table.

This room was full of precious babies just moments before but the doors remain closed during most of our visit so we were unable to take a picture with the other children. 

 

We did not get to take his picture but there is a precious baby boy that stole our hearts in one of those buggies.  We went over to "talk" to the babies and he sat strait up and gave us the biggest toothless grin that you could ever imagine.  It was all we could do to not scoop him up and stash him in our suitcase. 

Thankfully our daughter spent the beginning of her life in a "good" orphanage.  There are so many children that are not so lucky.  They go to sleep every night in a cold metal crib and spend almost all their day lying on their backs in that same cold crib.  They don't ever get a warm embrace or feel a caring touch.  The little food they get comes in form of a bottle propped in their crib.  They lie in their own urine until someone gets around to changing them.  They too are "fearfully and wonderfully made" by God but yet are treated like inconveniences. 

I so often wonder "Have they gotten their turn"? 

Josie loves music

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for all 3 of our boys.  Tyler is now in the 3rd grade.  Eric is in Kindergarten and Wesley is in Preschool.  Wesley was very excited to be going back to "school", but Tyler and Eric, not so much.  Despite the "non excitement" Tyler got up sometime in the 5:00 hour but stayed in bed until 6 when he got up and ready and was ready to leave by 6:20.  Mind you we don't have to leave till 7:45.  Eric was close to the same.  He came up at 6:20 frantic because his alarm clock didn't go off.  (It was set for 6:45).  When I dropped Tyler off I asked him if he wanted me to walk in with him since this is the first day in a new school.  He told me not to worry because we would just ask someone if he got lost.  I think I had a harder time than he did with the new "big school". Tyler came home most impressed with the lunch situation.  They get to serve themselves now in the "big school".  He said it was like a buffet.  It sure impressed him. 

I walked Eric in and checked out his room and found his spot at a table before taking him to the gym where they all gather.  I then waked with him to his classroom and just peeked in from the hall.  Well as soon as he walked in the room I could see there was trouble.  Another child had sat in the spot with Eric's nametag.  I was very proud of how he handled this situation.  He stood and waited for quite a while for the teacher.  The teacher was swamped with kids crying and parents wanting to talk to her so she didn't notice.  Then the other child started doing Eric's dot to dot paper that was on the table.  I could see Eric gettin upset and starting to losing his patience so I went in to help him out.  When I asked the other child what his name was we found out he was also an Eric only spelled with a K.  I helped that little boy find his chair and Eric said "thanks Mom" and I left.  Eric came home and said he really needed a nap but the teacher said "no naps for Kindergarteners".  I'm sure if I would have tried to put him down for a nap he would have argued all afternoon. 

Wesley had fun of course but couldn't remember any details like who he played with, what was for snack or if they learned any letters.  I think he is more of a "good times" kind of guy.  Details just didn't mean much today. 

                                 Peeking in on Eric during his name tag situation.  :)

6 months ago

At this time 6 months ago today, I was on the last bit of our 24 hour trip to bring our daughter home!  Chad and our boys met Josie and I at the airport and it truly is a day I will never forget.  Josie has changed so much in the past 6 months.  She went from being a quiet shy tiny girl to being not shy at all, and very vocal about what she wants.  She does her very best to keep up with her 3 big brothers.  She tries to say almost anything and has at least 65 words in her vocabulary that she says on her own.  The latest being "snack".  She uses this one when she wants some sort of junk food.  I think her favorites are M&M's.  She also says "please" a lot now.  She can now climb up on chairs and does so all the time.  She went from cruising around furniture to flat out running.  When we were bringing her home our family had no idea what life with 4 kids would be like. While it is definitely busy and we are always on the go, none of us would change it for anything in the world.  Josie was truly meant to be part of our family.  Her personality just fits our family and I am honored and blessed to get to be her Mommy. 

                            Josie is 22 months today and has been home 6 months today! 

                                                              Snuggle that baby!!

 

               6 months ago.  Touch down on American Soil.  She became a US citizen!!!!

                                           We are on our way home baby girl!!

 Right after the Embassy appointment where we got the final paperwork to take our daughter HOME!

Getting to know Daddy in Russia

Tree Damage

We had a big storm blow thru town last night.  There was a lot of down trees and limbs, along with some structural damage around town.  We lost about 1/2 of our big tree in our back yard.  The rest of the tree will have to be taken down as well.  I really hate to have this happen since we love that tree for all the shade it provides but we are so very lucky it landed the way it did.  If it landed any other way it could of easily been right in the house so even though it is a mess, we consider ourselves blessed.  The only other damage we received is that some hay stacks blew over.   

Of course the boys thought the new jungle gym that appeared over night was pretty cool.  Luckily we have a great crew working at the business and they showed up today armed with a chain saw ready to work.  They got a bunch hauled off today and will be back tomorrow to haul the rest off.  The boys took some of the branches and made themselves a teepee.