Our Baby Turns One

"Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him." Psalm 127:3

Today our baby turns ONE.  Gracen is our surprise gift from God and he has been such a blessing.  He is an easy baby.  He sleeps well and is happy much of the time.  He adores his siblings, especially Payton who makes him laugh by walking into a room.  He loves to give his mommy big slobbery kisses, which makes me smile.  He delights in his daddy's love.  We cannot imagine life without him.  So today we celebrate a gift, a blessing and a surprise from our Heavenly Father. 

Happy Birthday Gracen!!

Why We are Homeschooling.

We love our public school.  The kids have excelled there both academically and socially.  They have experienced a joy for learning through plants and animals and have been blessed with wonderful teachers who have cared deeply for each of them.  We love dropping them off at the big yellow bus as watching as three children climb aboard smiling happily heading for a school they love.  They come home excited as they talk about the animals and plants they have cared for that day. Now don't get me wrong, we have had an occasional disagreement with a teacher or struggled with another child in each of their classes but for the most part our experience has been very positive.  Our choice of a small rural school for Bentley and each child who has come after has been a good one.   So, why would we take all of this away from them??

Honestly...here's the deal.  The discussion of home school has come up before but we never really entertained it.  As our family grew, so did our responsibility.  I started following and enjoying reading some large family blogs for tips on organization and just plain getting from here to there in one piece and efficiently.  Most of these families home schooled but I didn't even look at the home school portion of their blogs.  Until one day something caught my eye.  One of the ladies spoke of having your children's hearts and that their relationship with you as their parent was practice for their relationship with their Heavenly Father.  Now this concerned me.  I only have about four hours with our children after they come home from school.  Four hours of homework, chores, supper, riding lessons, sports activities, church, free play time, getting ready for bed and whatever else happens in our evenings.  Four hours if I am lucky. 

We know from experience that time spent with your children right along side of you works.  Payton made the choice for us when at age one and a half he refused to attend daycare.  I was teaching at the time and tearfully endured an entire school year of him crying his way through each and every day.  I cried the entire 30 mile drive to work and rushed home to rescue him at the end of the day (him and I both still in tears).  That year I made the choice not to return to teaching.  The next years Payton grew up at the shop right alongside of all of us.  To this day I still have his heart (most of the time).  He wants to be obedient to us and to Christ.

Now, as thoughts of home school entered my mind, I dove into these blogs and into scripture and I became anxious.  What calmed my heart in that moment was the fact that I knew that Monte would have to be on the same page and there is no way that he would be.  He is typically my voice of reason.  Well...I was wrong.  I brought up my crazy thoughts fully expecting him to shoot down the idea.  Instead he said "well that has always seemed interesting to me."  He was open and wanted to explore the idea of homeschooling for our family.  We talked and prayed went through pros and cons and decided we would once again follow where God appeared to be leading (it seemed to be working for us lately so why not).

In our hearts we knew it was true.  We needed to be more intentional about what we are teaching our children.  "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."  Deuteronomy 11:19  When our days on earth are over we want to know that we have done everything we could have possibly done to ensure that our children know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior and that they are living for him.  We long for them to join us in Heaven some day.   For us, and with this many children, that is just not possible in the midst of the busyness of life and in the four hours a day that we are with them (if we are lucky).  Our wisdom and our children's wisdom needs to come from God and from his word.  This is one thing that public school cannot offer and lets face it even if they did they couldn't possibly do it correctly, meeting the spiritual needs of each family.  No, it is our responsibility not theirs.

The responses have varied... From "You must have a lot of patience,"  "I could never be home with my children 24/7," "I am worried that you will get burned out" to "I am jealous...maybe someday I will join you" (this one made me smile dear friend :), "I will bring you a sonic coke"  (this one made me smile too:), "Homeschooling is very trendy right now," "If anyone can do this you can," "You need to do what is right for these kids and if God is telling you to...do it."   I know that all of these were given in love and believe me none of them are things we haven't thought about ourselves.   We have treasured the good (and bad) comments and you all have been heard and your thoughts contemplated dear friends. 
*We know that there is a steep three year learning curve to homeschooling. 
*We know that my education degree will not necessarily be helpful to homeschooling.
*We know that we do NOT have lots of patience.
*We know that there will be days when we are super burned out and would love to see our precious children climb onto that big yellow school bus.
*We know that God will mold us and teach us patience (along with many other things I am sure).
*We know that our children will benefit from learning at home both spiritually and academically.
*We know that God has placed this on our hearts for a reason.

God has been gracious enough to allow me the opportunity to be at home with my children and I look forward to learning alongside of them.  I do not posses any special gifts or abilities and don't believe that I am any more equipped than any of you.  We are just making what we believe to be the right choice for our family right now.  One day our children may rejoin public school, alongside yours, but for now we are bringing our children home.

***We do NOT believe that this choice is or should be for everyone. There are many public school families, that we greatly admire, who do a wonderful job of meeting their child's spiritual needs. We have many friends who teach in the public school and bring Christ to their students and families in very creative ways. We love you all and would never want to offend any of you by our choice.

ADOPTION DAY

I woke up this morning to a pile of dishes with dried on cake and ice cream.  A sleepy toddler runs screaming through the house with a head of wild curly morning hair and a purple balloon streaming behind her.   A baby cries as the pain of teething (four teeth at once) as the exhaustion from yesterday overtakes him.  As they eat pancakes, three school children count down the days until their public school journey ends and their days of learning at home begin.  Then they fuss and fight as Monte tries to get them out the door to school.  Vaeh drops a toy on Gracen's head because he gets a passy and she doesn't and at the moment she really wants one.  It all feels normal.  Nothing has changed.  We were a family and we still are.  The only thing is that we now have an Adoption Decree that says "that the said minor children be, and they are hereby adopted by the Petitioners...as their children and their adoption by them is hereby adjudged and decreed...and the said adoptive parents are entitled to all the rights and subject to all the liabilities of that relation."

Adoption day began with a big reminder from God that we are not done leaning on Him and trusting that He will take care of us.  On the entrance ramp to the interstate the Yukon lost power and lights on the dash started flashing.  My mind raced..."any day but today Lord PLEASE."  You see we have a small problem.  Our family cannot pile into just any vehicle and go on our way...we have become to big for that.  Some family was ahead of us and some behind but the vehicle combinations wouldn't work.  I called the lawyer frantic and said "we are trying to get there but the Yukon won't run."  "We can't make court!"  He said that he would try to get the judge to push a couple of his other cases in front of ours which would buy us a little time.  After that the judge would just have to sign the paperwork without us.  All this work for the judge just to sign and us to get the paperwork in the mail seemed heart breaking.  We had all waited for our day in court for 21 long months.  Before I knew it Monte was on the phone with his dear friend who has a repair shop and also rents out 15 passenger vans!!  We drove limped the Yukon to his shop and he met us there (they weren't open yet but he was luckily on his way through town).  He tossed us some keys and we moved carseats, strollers, coolers, diaperbags, oh yeah and kids in record time.  I have no idea how fast that big van was going, I didn't really care at the time,  but we made it to court only five minutes late!!  WE MADE IT!!

This sign made me chuckle after our stressful morning!  Maybe they wouldn't even let us in after all!!

They did let us into the courtroom, disruptive children and all.  The judge was very kind...he gave the kids adoption day bears and took pictures with us.

Next we were off to the Zoo with grandpas and grandmas, aunts and uncles and a very special cousin...

As we looked at the zebras (in the background) we take a moment to REMEMBER and to LOVE.  Conner and Vaeh's mama loves zebras and when we see them we think of her with smiles.

We ended the day with a small family party...balloons, bubbles, cake, homeade ice cream and our own in house entertainment!!

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THANK YOU to all of our friends and family who have encouraged and helped us along the way.  To our families...words cannot express our thankfullness for how you have learned to love these two little blessings right along with us.  We love you all!!

**No one wins here today...a mama lost her babies and two children grieve the loss of their mother. We remember that they have one family that could care for them but two families that love them.  Someday when they are older they need not choose one family over the other,  with each they will have a unique and special bond.

Please God don't send us to Africa

As adoption day draws very near we reflect on the journey...

When I was a child I actually prayed to God PLEASE DON'T send me to Africa.  I will do anything but don't send me to some far off place.  Missionaries often shared in our church of their calling to go abroad and I was terrified that God would call on me.  God knew my heart and he did call me eventually not to go to Africa but somewhere just as scary.

Monte and I had struggled through infertility issues twice in the past and we desperately desired more children.  God said NO...not until you go to "Africa."  Not until you step out of your comfort zone and do something for Me.  God knew our hearts for children.  Something you might not know about Monte is that he is as much or even more of a sucker for cute babies than I am.   God gently and quietly led us to the world of foster care (not too much of a far cry from Africa).  God knew we would do anything for the larger family that we desired and we did.  We didn't do it because we were feeling God's leading or because we wanted to do GREAT and HONORABLE things.  We did it because we were selfish and WE wanted more.  Believe it or not God used our selfishness and He turned it into BLESSINGS. 

Along the journey "to Africa"  God taught us to be obedient and to trust in him.  It wasn't always easy but we learned that Gods Peace surrounded us when we stopped trying to control what really wasn't in our control.  We learned that In reality none of the children in our home, biological, foster or adopted, are ours. They are God's and He will care for them and because we are His He will care for us.

In "Africa" God taught us hard lessons about forgiveness and Grace.  We cannot truly love the children in our care without loving and forgiving the family from which they came. Even as they become a part of our family they will always be a part of their birth families. The more we embrace that, the more we embrace them. 

We found out that "Africa" wasn't so bad after all.  We still don't always understand the language or the culture and it is still scary but we have grown to love Africa.   Our eyes have been opened to a world of poverty and broken hurting families that make our hearts ache.  A world that we would rather forget.  But out of that broken and hurting world God gave us two beautiful blessings.  I am sure we will visit "Africa" often.  We will be out of our comfort zone many times in the days ahead as we deal with the hurt and brokenness that only God can heal.

When dear friends or family tell us that we are just such wonderful people for caring for these children look closely and you may see a smirk on our faces because WE REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO GO TO AFRICA.  But we are glad we did!

That's all for now...the natives are getting restless.

^"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jermiah 29:11