God is gracious...

 God is so gracious to give me sloppy covered faces to focus on when the days are hard...

He was so faithful to carry us through honoring and remembering the precious life of Samuel... I will update soon with some pictures of how we celebrated his precious life...

Things are in full swing...

Sunday is Orphan Sunday...

Tomorrow we will be baking at least 25 loaves of bread  for our first ever BREAD FOR LIFE table on Sunday at church... The youth are helping to bake some on Saturday as well and another sweet friend will be helping to bake too:)

On Sunday we will take donations, people will go home with bread:)  Every bit of the money will come with us to Uganda in January and be hand delivered to orphans who need it most...

It is going to be a crazy weekend with a tournament for the older 2 boys, Hope, Levi and myself.  While Greg does a wedding and works with our sweet friend Katie to get Jo and Anna to their games...

It just seems to be non stop... I know you all can probably relate to that... I am sort of a homebody so this takes some getting used to... 

Hope to update real soon with pics from Samuel's birthday and an update on the whole adoption process... I never did fill you all in on that:)

4 years since I held you...

I honestly can not fathom that 4 full years have passed since that one day I got to hold Samuel outside of my womb and in my arms.

I would go back to that day in a second.  I would experience the crass nurse who just peeked her head in the door and said curtly, "the ultra sound showed no cardiac activity in the baby... your doctor is on his way...", the unrecognizable groanings of my grieving heart, the labor pains, the point of knowing it was time to push him out but stopping and saying, "No, I just can't do it!"  (I was soooooo afraid to actually see his lifeless body before me)  

But I would do it all again in an instant to get to hold my sweet Samuel again.  The second he was out... All the nurses were crying, the midwife, and the doctor... you could hear the sniffles all over the room... But they weren't coming from me at all.  In that moment, I was purely overcome with the preciousness of the creation before me.  It was almost unfathomable that he could be so perfectly created, but not be alive... I was totally enamored with every little or big 9 lb. 2 oz :) bit of him.  He was downright beautiful. All I wanted to do was scoop him right up into my arms... put his skin right next to mind and breath him in... every single bit of him...  My son... the baby I carried for 40 weeks and 1 day... I finally was meeting him face to face... Even though I knew his soul was already with the Lord there was something about holding that little one and finally being able to drink in every little detail that I had wondered about for 40 weeks. 

What I wouldn't do to be able to have the time with him again... but truly, it would ALL  be for my sake... I would NEVER wish him back to earth for his sake...  How could I?  

Today, 4 years later... I am grateful... SO VERY GRATEFUL...  

That the Lord chose me to be his mommy... What a precious gift he was and still is to us...

That  I got the chance to see him and hold him...

That I have pictures to help me remember the tiniest of details...

For the incredible ways that God has used Samuel to touch others hearts...

For all the people that the Lord has brought into my life that I probably would never have known had Samuel not been a part of my life...

For all the Lord has taught me through losing a child...

For the richness that is a part of my life because of him...

For the incredible ways the Lord has changed me...

For the incredible faithfulness of the Father to carry us through the unthinkable... and for the perspective that it gives us for the future...

For the appreciation and wonder it gives me for all of my kids and family...

For how he has used and continues to use my deep pain and loneliness to touch my heart for others that are hurting...

For how clear he makes it everyday that this is not my home...

I will say one of the things that I am most grateful for has been how deeply and differently I think about my Heavenly home... 

I can't really fully describe the longing I have for Heaven...

There are moments that I totally ache for it...

While I am so very happy to be here fully living and experiencing life with my precious earthly family... I can not wait for Heaven... I can't not wait to meet my Savior face to face... and I can not wait for the joyful reunion it will be when I set my eyes on my son again... No more goodbyes...EVER!!!  

While we never know the number of days we have left here on earth... it could be a few days, a few months, a few years, or many... 

but I rejoice today that I am a full 4 years closer to Heaven... 4 years closer to seeing my Samuel again... scooping him up in my arms... and 4 years closer to my eternal home...

I recently found this song... it is beautiful and expresses what my heart is feeling 4 years after having to let go of my son and all of the earthly dreams I had for my precious Samuel Mark...

Missing you...

I often wonder about the exact moment he met his Savior face to face... I think about the Lord softly calling his name as he was ushered from this life in my womb right into the gates of Heaven...

Was he feeling any pain?
If it truly was a cord accident... Did he sort of just fall asleep... and open up his eyes to meet his Savior?

It bothers me that I was sound asleep and no idea what was going on...
mmmm... It is hard not to think about the details of that day October 29th 2008 early in the day when I first realized something was wrong and later that day when my worst fears were confirmed...

So Here I am 4 years since the day he went to Heaven...

I love him more and more with each passing day...
I miss him just as much as I did back then...
My heart swells with thankfulness for the gift of his precious life...
I am so thankful for the healing the Father has done in my heart...
In the same breath I am thankful for those that understand that even though he has been gone for 4 years and my heart is still healing or maybe learning how to better cope.. I still have bad days... I still ache for him... I still think about him sooooo often... and that is completely normal...

I love you so much Samuel, my life is forever changed because of the time that I had with you.  You are one of the greatest gifts of my life.  Even though you never breathed a breath of air on this earth you mattered.  Every single minute of your life had value.  God created you for a purpose!  God knit you together perfectly and your life brings Him glory!  I rejoice in that.   When I think of the thing that I desire most for my kids it would obviously be that I could spend eternity with them.  I am so thankful that you are in the presence of our Heavenly Father and that you are safe.... much safer than you would be here with us:)  And I am so thankful for the Hope that I can have to see you again...

Missing you so deeply today... Longing and aching for our whole family to be together again... So thankful that even though life seems long and hard at times... in the scope of eternity, life here on earth is just a little blip:) Can not wait for you to show me around when I arrive in God's perfect timing...

PONDERING...

Levi pondering... this great change in the weather:)

Love this cool crisp weather we are having... refreshing...

FINALLY:)

mmmm.... pure yumminess!

Every time I look into the eyes of these 2 little sweeties I see the faithfulness of our God on display in my life...  They are such a gift to me...

(By the way, this is totally a typical Hope shot... always spicing things up a bit:) Speaking of spicing things up... that little girl ate a whole jalapeno pepper with dinner tonight... CRAZY!  She loves Tabasco with Mexican food... She cracks me up!

  Today Anna and Jo went on a field trip with our coop... The boys were doing their online class and I had some sweet time to just enjoy hanging out with the 2 little ones.  SO.MUCH.FUN!!!
The turd Levi shared in the bath tub... NOT.SO.MUCH.FUN!!!  :)  Gotta love it!

The kids were having some fun with Levi's hair... Can you tell?

I tell you, he has to have some of the softest, squishiest skin ever... it is so yummy!  

Yesterday at our home school coop, I had a new gal walk up and tell me how much he looks like me...SMILE!  It gave me another chance to share the beautiful, precious story of how his life came to be!  

Levi, our precious snowflake baby! 

Our beans and rice challenge...:)

I am convicted...

How many times have I let veggies in my frig go bad before we use them up?
How many times have I walked into my overflowing pantry and thought, there is nothing good to eat in here?
How many times have  I thought I really don't want to eat those same left overs AGAIN...
How many times have I heard these words uttered from my own children's lips, "I don't like the taste of that."

Far too many... and my heart can't take our self absorption and ungratefulness for the OVER ABUNDANCE that we have...

Really, where in the world can you literally eat for days, maybe even weeks or months just off of the food in your pantry??  It is actually sickening to me...

In all honestly, my kids are great eaters and rarely picky... they eat what is put in front of them... I am not a special order cook... but even with being great eaters there can be such ungratefulness for all that the Lord has put before us...We are blessed with variety of food like you wouldn't believe... yet we are still ungrateful or discontent with what we have to eat... So so sad!!

So we as a family decided to come up with the beans and rice Challenge.... Thanks to Linny at www.aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com we were made aware of World Hunger Day last week... We totally stole their family idea to eat beans and rice with or hands for lunch that day.

We had some amazing discussion about how different other people have to live.  We talked about how many people only get 2 meals a day to eat, sometimes not even that... We also talked about how those 2 meals are likely a variation of the other in many cases... i.e.  corn meal mush in the morning... corn meal cakes for dinner.  We discussed how there are kids in Honduras that are literally picking through the garbage at the dump and are finding food that had been thrown away to eat... i.e. half eaten banana (days old) piece of chicken (days old) 1/2 rotten veggies (days old) all possibly thrown right in the trash next to a dirty diaper.... and that might be all they have to eat that day.

We in America have such a warped sense of reality at times...

So we decided we will eat beans and rice for lunch till almost Thanksgiving.

We are praying it:

Simplifies life...
Gets our focus more where it ought to be...
 Makes us so much more grateful for all we have to eat...
Makes us so much more grateful for all the blessings we have...
 Takes our eyes off of ourselves and puts them on others...
Makes our hearts more sensitive and tender for the great needs of others...

and in the MEAN TIME raises some extra money (the money we saved on what we would have spent eating different stuff for lunch, and whatever else we each individually in our family, feel led to give at the end of our challenge) to take and deliver to orphans we meet and care for in Uganda in January!

Really, I know this is nothing... no big deal... eating beans and rice alone for lunch for a month or so... Nothing...

But we are praying that God uses this little thing and teaches us BIG THINGS in the process...
Want to join us?? :):)

Ahhh.... Fall

 Caleb, right near the top of the tree with the bed he had made to rest in... OH MY!!!:)  Boys!

See that little dark spot about 4 feet from the top of the tree, that sort of looks like a nest?  That would be where Caleb build his bed:)

Fall... oh... Bitter sweet fall...

I am so glad fall has arrived in full swing... We had gorgeous weather today and will tomorrow for the tailgating party at church:)

The kids have had a ball climbing the trees this week.  We normally don't take a fall break like everyone else... but they did work so hard during the rest of the week that we did take Friday off... 

It was NICE!  

Greg and the boys started the say by taking our 75 year old widowed neighbor out golfing... Literally the course costs $10.  I guess it is quite the course... something crazy always happens:)  But they had a blast with our sweet neighbor.  She is such a gift.  She could be grumpy and annoyed with all the noise that comes from our direction... but she isn't.  She loves the kids and we are so blessed by that:)

I have so much to share... But right now Days 4 and 5 of my Sunday School class homework is calling my name:)