Sweet Jojo

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jojo and Greg from our time at the seminary...  Our sweet lil' toe head! 

Our steady Eddy, hard working, good natured, sometimes wild, kayak loving,  harmony singing, hilarious, smart Elijah Thomas! 

We can not believe that this young man is 12!  The days can be long... but the years fly by!  He is an absolute Joy to raise!  He is my helper, my go to... I know that he will willingly help with almost anything... and do it with a joyful heart!  He is the calm before the storm of the 4 littles... 

I always say that between 12 and 14 are the game changing years... and I know we are on the cusp of that with Jojo... 2 years down the road he is going to look totally different... 

But for now we treasure every single moment of life with Jojo as a part of it! THANKFUL, THANKFUL, THANKFUL is what I feel!  We prayed for a child and God answered with Jojo!  I am so thankful that God saw fit to give us this precious child and I pray that he continues to draw him closer to himself every day! May he be a mighty warrior for our Jesus! 

And just like that...

And just like that,  this little guy turned 17... 

Still as mischievous and funny as this day more than 15 years ago...

And just like that, he has the ladies... The lady cousins that is, fawning over him!!

In all seriousness, it is a joy to watch him and his cousins enjoy life together... They have such a special bond... They have grown up together... Cousins make great friends!

And just like that, he has grown into such a helpful and loving brother...

He is a HUGE help in our home and to so many others...

He is an extremely hard worker... dedicated... loyal... willing to do hard things...  He is very generous and  lovingly reaches out to even those that others may have a hard time reaching out to... 

I have loved watching him on missions trips to Uganda... It has been one of the biggest blessings of my life to serve alongside he and Louis...

The Lord knows exactly what and who we need... And He broke the mold when He made our Caleb for our family!  

Happy 17th Birthday Caleb... So very proud of the wonderful Christian young man you are growing into!  You are a gift each and every single day!

Happy 7th to our Hopie girl!

Here is our  Hopie girl turning 7 just a couple of weeks ago... 

Life has been busy and I am just getting to posting about it now:)
She loved being Queen for the day and picking all of her meals:)  Pizza and soda is a favorite in this house, as well as ice cream for breakfast:)

Welcoming Hope into our family came clear out of the blue one Friday morning...

"What are you doing this afternoon?"  our agency asked Greg.  "Could you make a trip to OKC to pick up a 10 month old baby girl?"  

I will never ever forget getting a phone call from Greg to fill me in on the call he had just received.

We didn't expect to have to tuck her in bed every night for 7 months wondering if she would get to stay...  

Our hearts were tender...

 We had just 14 months before left a hospital with out our newborn son Samuel who was stillborn... and just 4 months before we had to plan the funeral and bury the baby boy we had been planning on adopting... 

Our hearts were more than tender... 

And there she came... our hope!

She came quietly at first... 

She came sillier as time went on...

She came with her own degree of sass, spunk, and naughtiness at times... 

But we loved her anyways:)  

We had been longing for a little child to hold in our aching arms... 

We had been longing to show her our full devoted love...

We had been longing to make her our own!

The agency director, Hope and I signing saying she was now home forever...  We were overjoyed!

Hope and Anna on the day of her finalization:)  Anna was beaming! She finally had a sister!

Happy Birthday Hope Jubilee Marie Hintz!
We are so thankful for this special girl!!  We celebrate her precious life!

Birthdays...

Our sweet Jojo (Elijah Thomas) turned 10 last week... 

With the cousins, Jojo and Levi we celebrated 3 birthdays within 5 days... 

Lots of "kings for the day" and lots of birthday meals... 

Jojo picked biscuits and gravy, cheese dip for lunch, and pizza and soda for dinner.  Not the healthiest of choices, but for one day we splurged:)

I will never forget the day 9lb 6oz Jojo entered the world after a quick 4 hour natural birth... It was perfect... And so was he!! 

He is our steady eddy, usually pretty calm  and is so so generous and sweet... He has blown us away on more than one occassion where he has emptied his piggy bank to give to someone "who needs it more". 

He is an absolute joy to have as a son!  I am so thankful for his precious life!

This sweet miracle baby turned four... 

Seems impossible!

I will never forget his first cry after suffering the silent stillbirth of Samuel and being on bed rest for 10 weeks, 7 of which were in the hospital.  

He was 3 weeks early but perfectly healthy and whole and I was totally in awe of God's miraculous work through embryo adoption to bring Levi Ryan to our family!  

There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about his amazing biological family who so graciously have shared him with us!  

We celebrate his life, and all the kids lives everyday, but on this day he wanted to celebrate with hot dogs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... We settled on just breakfast:). 

What a funny kid.  He is literally the happiest, most enthusiastic kid I know and we love watching him experience new things... His excitement is awesome, hysterical, and downright precious! 

We feel so blessed to have the priviledge to raise these two boys!!!