God is Faithful!

Happy New Year!
We had a wonderful Christmas in MN. Hectic but fun! We had good driving weather considering the storm we drove in last year! We had just a bit of black ice to deal with on the way there. Todd and I thought a lot about Lauran over Christmas. She was abandoned on Christmas Eve of last year! It is also really hard having her picture and waiting so long to travel! With a special needs adoption we are basically selecting a child before our paperwork has been looked at in China. That means we are waiting for them to review our paperwork and officially “approve us”. That process adds about 3 months to the wait to travel. Needless to say, it is a difficult wait!

In the meantime we are praying about whether or not to bring the ‘entire’ family. The biggest consideration in taking everyone is financial. The economy has caused a lot of cuts at Todd’s work and some of the money we were hoping to use for the adoption will not be there.The other is the logistics of traveling with 3 kids one way and 4 kids on the way back. Trusting that God knows what is best, we are praying that he will point us in the right direction! Please pray that he will guide us.

Over the past year I have had more than a few times where I have felt completely frustrated, overwhelmed, disappointed, and anxious. It was a hard year on our family on many levels. I will be honest in saying I am glad it is behind us! As I started thinking more about it ending this week and what is ahead in 2009 I began to see Gods faithfulness over the year. In a year where I know I wasn’t all that faithful myself, he continued to walk us through life and bless us in many ways.

Our kids are healthy!
Megan continues to blossom socially!
Nathan and Ryan are great big brothers and students.
Todd made it to Belgium and back safely!
We had a family vacation in CA
Todd Graduated and we are still married :)!
We were given a beautiful child to adopt.
Todd will be appointed to our county board…which will provide a little extra income that is much needed for the adoption.
We had a great trip to MN for Christmas!

May God get all the Glory for blessing us and watching over us!

The verse below was up on my blog today for the daily verse! I thought it summed up what I am trying to say!

“This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:16, 18-19)
He is truly faithful!

So I enter 2009 praising God for making a way for us in 2008 and for giving us a new year to look forward to. I wish everyone a Happy and Blessed New Year!



Todd bought a Happy New Year cake for the kids! Megan had to sport her retro Barbie glasses from her cousin Katie and her new retro vest from Aunt Keri ! Both were big hits for Christmas. She usually wears them as she pushes around her new shopping cart...and then announces she is going to Macy's.

BIG SURPRISE!

We were so surprised to get a call with a referral to consider. We accepted the referral with a BIG YES! She has a genetic condition called Thalassemia or Mediterranean anemia. Check out http://www.nohandsbutours.com if you want to know more. Look under the heading special needs and then look for the disorder Thalassemeia on the side. By going over the very little medical info that was sent in the referral it seems as if she has it to a mild to moderate degree...but there are also many variations to the disorder that she could have which we do not know. We are hoping to get more information. Hoping being the operative word.

Her Chinese name is Jin Yutian (soon will be Lauran) and she was born June 24th, 2006. She is 14 months younger than Megan. I will be using my blog to keep everyone posted on the progress of the adoption and when we will be traveling! We are Guessing the end of April...using the timeline our agency gave us for paperwork we now are waiting for....Pre-approval letter, letter of approval, Travel approval, etc..

All of us here are obviously very excited and feeling very thankful this Thanksgiving! We do ask all of you to pray for us. There are many unknowns with adoption and even more with special needs. She will be almost 3 when we get her and I am sure that will be hard on her. She was abandoned at 18 months and her referral noted her difficulty with strangers. So if you feel at all led to pray for us we would really appreciate it!! Specifically pray that God will help prepare her for the transition and for our kids and us to be prepared! Please also pray for her medical condition and her health!
Thanks so much!! Now for the pictures of our little cutie pie!!

Highlights of the Summer

I found some cute pictures today of some things we've done over the last few months. I had forgotten I had put some pictures on our other computer. My pictures are so disorganized it is not even funny! Anyways I thought I would post some of them.

September

Ryan's 9th Birthday party ~ roller skating!

Megan loved to skate, although the skates weighed more than her! I couldn't get Nathan to hold still for a picture!

In July we also tried camping this summer...in a TENT!! It went well other than Megan having bad reactions to mosquitoes...and getting a bite near her eye!

Ryan preferred the sand, swimming, diving...action stuff...over fishing.

Megan's first time fishing...she actually sat still for a little bit.

In August Todd, Nathan and Todd's Dad all went Charter fishing! Nice catch of salmon and trout :)

Grandpa and Nathan

Halloween

Just in case you can't figure it out...Nathan is an alien, Ryan is from Pirates of the Caribbean, and Megan is a princess. Megan did not like Nathans costume and was not happy about taking a picture with him.

Getting Pumpkins

One of my favorite activities with the kids is apple and pumpkin picking. Unfortunately it seemed like when ever we had time this fall we had bad weather. So I ended up just taking Nathan and Megan one day up to a nearby farm just to get already picked pumkins. Not as fun as picking them ourselves! Todd was at school and Ryan was at a friends house...which made it not as fun too:) But Megan and Nate had fun together and loved playing in the hay!

wind blown hair :)

A Fall Day in Cedarburg

Cedarburg is a cute town about 20 minutes away. It has beautiful scenery, cute gift shops and several ice cream and candy shops that the kids like to visit( Todd & I too)! We went there on a warm fall day to walk around! It was really pretty!! I wish every fall day was like this one! Unfortunately the leaves fall, it gets cold, and eventually the snow comes :( Oh well....something to look forward to every year I guess!

Brotherly Love!

Megan's Photo shoot :)

I have never had professional pictures taken of Megan(on my To Do list). So ocassionally I attempt to take some descent pictures of her outdoors. So these pictures are the results of that attempt. I thought they turned out cute. Some funny ones too :) These were done in August I believe!

Cooperating.....


Cooperating......


Still Cooperating.......



"hey...you watch out with that camera....I got sticks !!! "

I did not ask for that pose by the way...

The End!

Highlights of our California Vacation in April

Sorry I am so behind with blogging! I am not sure where all the time goes. I hope there are some of you out there who still check in! Please leave a comment and say Hi if you visit! Just click on the word comment at the end of each post to leave a message! If you do not have a Google account it does not show your name so please make sure you sign your message:)

We went to California at the end of April and had a great trip! Todd had a conference so he worked a couple days while we hung out in the hotel pool. The people who hosted the conference also kindly arranged some free sightseeing for us too. We went on a private tour of Warner Brothers Studios, went to Disneyland and experienced Rodeo Drive and dinner in Beverly Hills.

The kids did amazingly well flying! Only one melt down in the airport at the very end, not bad considering how many things can go wrong when you travel, let alone with 3 kids!

So the next several posts are of our trip...hopefully I will stay a bit more up to date in the next months!!

Santa Monica

overlooking the beach
Santa Monica Pier....Notice the HUGE ferris wheel!! Looks harmless, right? How bad can a ferris wheel really be, especially one with such a beautiful view! Didn't notice until I saw this picture that the ferris wheel is actually taller than the roller coaster.

Ok...let me explain the next 2 pictures. First of all, I will start by saying between Todd and I , I am the more daring one with rides and Ryan takes after me and Nathan takes after Todd. I love roller coasters and am usually not afraid of heights. So I willingly offered to go on the giant ferris wheel at the Santa Monica pier with Ryan....who was so desperately wanting to ride it! Let me just say I renamed it afterwards: "The Wheel of Terror" It literally makes you feel like you are dangling over the ocean. Not to mention there were 50mph winds at the top...and they stopped us at the top twice! UUHHG! It was so scary....I could not let go of the side....as you will notice in the picture below.
Yes, that is me gripping the side while I attempt to get a picture for Todd..who is on the ground!
Ryan and I dangling over the ocean! We sat at the top for a while before I managed to open my eyes and quick snap a picture!

Newport Beach

We spent one day in the Newport Beach area. I think it was called Balboa point(may have that wrong ). Any ways it was a beautiful beach and we had great weather that day! Big waves though for us northerners :) I always feel so insignificant at the ocean and it also reminds me how BIG God is!

Underneath the pier.

Megan wanted nothing to do with the water, but loved the sand!

3 little blessings!

The water was COLD!