A LITTLE MORE ON THE NEW ADVENTURE...

THIS IS HOW OUR HOPIE FEELS ABOUT CANDY AND A NEW BROTHER OR SISTER:):)

PRETTY EXCITED!!!

So the big boys are away for one more day... (Get on home big boys, we miss you all!!!)  I took the littles out to our favorite Mexican restaurant in our little town... CHEAP is all I can say... The 5 of us ate for $13...

After eating really good all week, exceptionally good for me... we rewarded ourselves with a meal out... kind of sick huh?  Back at the healthy eating tomorrow though:):)  We don't eat out often so it was a big treat!

ANYWAYS... this is why I mentioned eating out... Jojo and Hope were sitting across from Anna and I... We were talking about the new little person we hope the Lord will add to our family.  We were talking about boys or girls, ages of the child... I asked Hope if she wanted it to be a big brother/sister or a little brother/sister?

She didn't really care... actually she wasn't super engaged in the conversation...

Then I said, "Hey Hope, whatever brother or sister we get... He/she will have pretty dark skin like you!"

You would have thought it was CHRISTMAS!!!

She got the BIGGEST grin on her face... She leaned over and gave Jojo the biggest hug... She jumped up out of the booth and came around to my side and gave me a HUGE hug...

I asked, "What was that  hug was for?"
She said," I am so happy that you said that mommy!"

I almost fell over... Besides the fact that we all would LOVE another child... and many other reasons... one reason to add to the family would be so that Hope can have another sibling that sort of looks a little more like her.  But I sort of thought that might come into play more for her down the road...  I would never have thought she would have that kind of reaction now.

But she seemed over the top thrilled about it now... and we are thrilled with her:)

I will share more about our decision to adopt again in the days ahead, but I wanted to share that sweet Hope story with you... We can not wait to see the little one the Lord picks out for us... He continues to do more than we can ask or imagine in our family... We are so thankful!

YES HE IS...

Beating the heat at the BLUE HOLE:)

The kids and I made the trek (about an hour) out to the Blue Hole today... It is a natural spring area where the water is around 60 degrees... With the temps around 105 today... IT WAS GLORIOUS! 

Lots of sunscreen... time with friends... fried pickles... A HUGE beach umbrella... lunch on the rocky beach and watermelon made for a great day.  

I got a phone call and text from G today from Joplin... They are working REALLY hard... Louis fell and hurt his wrist... the urgent care doc will have someone else read the film tomorrow to make sure it isn't broken.  (He apparently couldn't tell if what he saw was a new break... something from the past or what???)  We shall see... He said that there is a heat advisory up there and that they are going to be up at 5:30 am to adjust working hours from 7-2 to get out of the hottest part of the day!  

I keep praying for the Lord's protection over them as they are serving in Joplin...

JUST A FEW DAYS INTO SUMMER...

JUST A FEW DAYS INTO SUMMER...

AND...

WE MISS THE NORTHERN SUMMERS...

NEED WE SAY MORE:):)

(WON'T BE BELOW 103 FOR THE NEXT 4 DAYS... OKLAHOMA SUMMERS... GOTTA LOVE EM"!!!)   REALLY THOUGH... JUST THANKFUL TO BE ALIVE TO ENJOY EACH DAY...

SUMMER IS IN FULL BLOOM!!!

 WITH TEMPS NEAR 100...

 AND THE BIG BOYS GONE...

(NOTICE THE 2 THUMBS UP:)

 GREG AND I DECIDED TO TAKE THE 4 LITTLES TO THE SPLASH PAD LAST SATURDAY...
(Hopie, don't drink the water!!:)

 THE KIDS HAD A BALL...

 BEATING THIS CRAZY OKLAHOMA HEAT!

(OF COURSE LEVI WAS HAPPIER TO JUST RUN AROUND VERSUS REALLY GETTING IN THE WATER:)

THE BOYS WILL BE BACK IN TOWN...

 LOU, LAST OCTOBER WORKING IN FRONT OF THE OLD JOPLIN HIGH SCHOOL...

 CALEB WORKING IN JOPLIN

GREG AND JO SPORTING THEIR I LOVE JOPLIN T'S... YOU CAN SEE THE OLD HOSPITAL BEHIND THEM... TO MY KNOWLEDGE THEY STILL HAVEN'T TAKEN IT DOWN...

Our older 2 boys are back up in Joplin tonight for the next week with our youth group.  Greg will join them after church tomorrow.  This will be their 5th time serving in Joplin in the last year.  The pictures above were taken last fall when the littles and I joined them for a couple of days!  

I love that our youth lady (Woohoo Tracy!!) puts a strong emphasis on serving.  I think that their themed shirts for this trip hit the nail on the head "More of God... Less of ME!  I love it, especially since teens seem to be a little self focused... I love that she is teaching them to take their eyes off of themselves and to see the needs of others...

It will be interesting to see what kind of work that they get to do this go around...  I know that there is still MUCH work to be done... The devastation from that tornado in May of 2011 still astounds me...

Praying here on the homefront that the Lord works mightily in the kids hearts as they work mightily for HIM!!!

I will hopefully update in the next couple of days on this next journey our family is taking on the road of adoption:)

THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES... :)

Just wanted to share....  :)

GREAT NEWS:)

This afternoon Levi enjoyed some delicious strawberries after his test at the Hospital... 

And there was cause for GREAT celebration:):)

His results from his sweat test at the hospital this morning were all normal.  

We are praising God for these GREAT results...

As most of you know Levi's biological father passed away from Cystic Fibrosis 4 years ago... We knew that there really shouldn't have been a way that he would be positive for CF because his biological mom tested negative as a carrier... But strangely, I had read in some info from my OBGYN when I was pregnant with him that there can be false negatives...

So given his sickness and nasty cough for the past 6 weeks... the Dr. thought it best to test and just be absolutely sure. We were totally game because the thought had crossed Greg's and my mind repeatably over the last month during the rough nights that Levi has had.

Our donor mom was so sweet to call yesterday morning and share some more info on her testing with us... It helped set my mind at ease:)  

We are so thankful for your prayers... It means so much to us... We are praising God for this great news for our little guy!

Prayers please...

Love this precious little guy... and all his crazy facial expressions:)

Isn't he Yummy?

Hi friends, we had a really exciting meeting this past Friday morning in our house...The whole crew was involved:)   I will share more on that soon I hope...

Right now, I want to ask for your prayers for our sweet little man Levi... He has had a bad cough for an unbelievably long time... Literally after 3 Doctor visits and one trip to the ER he is finally on an antibiotic and had some breathing treatments and he is so much better and happier... (I am not a big antibiotic user... but when needed... BRING IT ON!!!)  So we are so very thankful that he is much more like his normal happy self as of late...

All that being said, he will be having a pretty serious medical test done tomorrow and we would love your prayers for him... We are praying that everything will turn out fine and that God's will, will be done in his sweet precious life...

After losing Samuel, we can't help but look at things differently... and I have to be completely honest is saying that I have had a fair amount of fear over this in the past months.  I know that fear is not from the Father so I am continually handing that over to Him whenever I have had these fearful thoughts pop into my head... but it is hard at times...just being real...

Thanks so much for joining us in prayer for our little miracle man Levi!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO MY HOUSTON:)

 Rocky Mountain National Park May 2012

 When we were out west a month ago, this is how my honey and Hopie walked for miles upon miles... Hand in Hand:)  They were a team... And with Greg's encouragement, that little girl hiked like a little trooper:) I was amazed:)

I remember back when Greg and I met in college, I think every single person on campus knew him as Houston... me included... When we started dating 2 1/2 years later and he wanted me to call him Greg, it seemed soooooo strange... He was Houston to me:)  (Funny, my sister-in-love Janie still calls him Houston:)... I love it!

We are so thankful this Father's Day that God chose to make us a family and that He choose to put Greg at the helm of this crazy vessel:)

 I am so blessed to have him as my husband and father to our kiddos:)  We have come a long way from the days of our premarital marriage counseling when I wanted 4+ kids and he thought:) he wanted 2:)  And... we still have a long way to go:) God has an amazing way of refining, growing and changing us... Not an easy process... but it sure if much nicer to walk this beautiful, yet challenging journey together...

  
Happy Father's Day Houston:)

I love this girl!

I saw these pics that Louis had taken of sweet Baby girl a couple of weeks ago... 

and my heart swelled with joy...

and thankfulness that the Lord choose us to be her parents...

How did we get such a special gift??? 

He is so good to us...

Back from a busy 2 day conference...Lots on my mind... lots to share in the coming days...

Relay....

Some of the luminary bags...

All the relay walkers from our church... Cancer survivors in the purple shirts in the middle...

My survivor and our baby:)

The released butterflies right before the walk began and later Hopie got to hold one:)

Our Luminary bags in memory of Greg's grandpa and in honor of my hubby...

The relay for Life was great... up until about 12:00 when the lightning rolled in and they had to shut down the event.  I was amazed at how quickly we got our churches area taken down... Everyone really pitched in and it was so nice to see:)  The boys and G rushed to take down the pop up camper... ( So our very first night in the pop up wasn't exactly a success, although I did have Levi down...  But Hope was so jazzed she was literally rocking it from the other side while I was putting Levi down and she was still awake when we had to take it down  at midnight... that little pumpkin doesn't want to miss a thing. )  

It was a great night before the storm came in.  The Survivor dinner was really delicious.  I can't believe Greg has been cancer free for 20 years.  When he was diagnosed just 3 months after we started dating I never could have imagined the journey the Lord would take us on as a family.  I continually praise God that He saw fit to heal Greg and allow us to have a family!  Back then we didn't know if that would be the case...

Life is such a gift... and something we are not guaranteed will last long here on earth.  At the relay they do a great job of honoring those who have passed, have fought the disease or are still fighting the disease.  I think my favorite part is the survivor lap... Seeing all those courageous people bravely making the first lap of the night... I love it!  

She is almost 1/2 my age:)

Meet my sweet friend Katie...
She is almost 1/2 my age...

We share a bond most friends would never want to share... our children are sharing Heaven with the God of the Universe...(Sharing Heaven with the God of the Universe is AWESOME!  We only wish we could have had more time with our babies before they got to meet their Savior... that is the hard part as mommies!)

I will never forget getting a phone call last August while I was on the road to meet a friend in Kansas... This couple from our church had a college age daughter, this young daughter's best friend was in labor with a baby girl, Emily, that would be born still... She was only 21 years old...

My heart was immediately broken for her...
How would she handle this at 21??? How did I handle it at 37?  She was about to meet her baby girl face to face for the first time... but nothing about it would be as she planned...  It would be a beautiful but gut wrenching and traumatic time....

They gave me her phone number and I called her the night before Emily's funeral service... She was expecting my call... When I told her who I was, through tears, her first words were, "How do you do this?"  We cried together and a friendship started to form...

I met Katie face to face at the funeral for Emily the next day...


God has been so sweet to allow my friend Katie and I to get to know one another.  (Isn't she precious??) Although, I wish we would have met under different circumstances.  I am so thankful that the Lord gives us people to walk this journey with us... especially people who understand it first hand.

 She only lives about 5 minutes away... so tonight we went for a run/visit:)  Even though, I could almost be her mom... my time with her is so special to me.  We share the most intimate of heart wounds... the death of a child... and no matter what age you are, when you are a mom with one of your children in Heaven... there are things you deal with or think on a daily basis that not many would get... So to be able to share those thoughts and feelings with someone and not have them judge you or think you might have just lost your mind is a gift.

She is beautiful, inside and out... funny... honest...she doesn't mince words... so open and supportive of me, our family and our life! I love her!  My whole family does!