Janurary snowmen and random Feburary

Each of the kids made their own snowman...with a little help.

Reagan thought it was so funny when she found the cat taking a nap in the baby doll crib.

I think someone is a little confused about how to wear bike helmets. 

Been making lots of tents.

Payton lost her first tooth. I actually got to pull it out for her!

Caedmon playing "dress up." 

 Sledding down our front yard.

And what sledding experience would be complete without someone crying?

On the pot talking to her fresh out of the bath Barbies, "Stop looking at me going poop guys."

Adoption update - ish

Many of you have been asking for an update on our adoptions. Even though I've wanted to do an update post for a while now,  I've been busy with our recent school changes and getting caught up on some things that had been neglected.  I was also waiting on some other news.
News on our kids is about the same. A few weeks ago we received updated pictures of them. They are looking more and more healthy thanks to our agencies awesome foster care. With each set of update pictures I long more and more for them to be home and to be their momma. They are beautiful!

The agency has all the paperwork we could possibly give them at this point and now we wait for things to process. We are hoping and praying that we will be able to travel late winter/early spring to get our kiddos!

Many of you have also asked how the Love Don't Cost Nada benefit concert went. It was great and we are blown away at how God is providing for these adoptions! A very special THANK YOU to Webfiling, everyone involved, and those of you who came or donated to help us raise money through The Fatherless Foundation! Drum roll please! Over $10,000 was raised!!!!! This does not include the many donations that were just handed to us in the weeks leading up to and following the benefit! We feel truly blessed and humbled by how God is bringing His plan about! Money and support is coming from people and places we least expected and that is what is so cool! There will still be some money needed for our flights, the trip, and other adoption needs, but we trust that God will bring everything to completion!

Something that many people have said to us when they find out we are adopting are things like how kind of us, or nice of us, or that we are either saints or insane. My response to this is that we are not naturally kind or nice. We are definitely not saints. And I ask God everyday if we really are insane and pray that we aren't. I remember a message this last summer at church when the pastor speaking said that following God will look like craziness to the world around us. Following God makes us look insane because sometimes God asks us to do things that we could never accomplish on our own strength. We're simply trying to do what we believe God wants us to do and we trust that He will continue to show up. He's adopted us into HIS family and God clearly calls His children to care for the orphaned as He has cared for us. I often tell people that if anything good comes out of this journey it will be because of how good God is. Our home is made up of five giant sinners. Apart from God we are just five giant sinners adopting two more giant sinners. To the person who doesn't know Jesus, those odds don't look promising. But God can take the worst of sinners and use them for His glory and I pray that He does that with our family.

Many people also say how excited we must be. I response to this is a big fat YES! We are SO excited, BUT we are also scared. A few days after we received the first picture of our African son, Caedmon and I were laying in bed talking one night. He was upset about something and I was trying to get him to let it out. Finally he said that he didn't think he wanted us adopting anymore. He was feeling scared of the unknown and worried that we wouldn't have enough love for five kids. I told him about how when he was two and I was pregnant with Payton, I was uncertain that I could ever love our second child as much as I loved our first. But God just gave us more love to give. And then when Reagan was born God gave even more love to pour out. Mom is tired a lot and wishes she had four arms instead of two, but love for all my babies has never been in short supply. I told Caedmon that I have prayed a lot that God would supply more love like that again for my new babies. Babies I didn't get to carry in my womb but, my heart. I trust He will supply more love that will be needed.
I also reassured Caedmon that it's okay to be scared, but that it's what we do with it that matters. We could stop the process because of fear of the what ifs or because we are scared of how hard things may or may not be, but we would miss out on what God wants. It is okay, no needed, to cry out to God and say we are scared and that we desperately need Him to calm our anxious hearts and give us courage. It's not okay to stop walking with Him and disobey Him because we are scared. Caedmon seemed satisfied with this encouragement and I thanked God for the words to give him confidence, security, and excitement again.

a hard decision

Last week we decided to put Caedmon back into public school. This decision has been a long time coming and was a very hard decision to make.

As much as I so badly wanted homeschooling to work out great for Caedmon, it just wasn't working for both of us. We first started homeschooling him because he needed some one on one attention with his reading and math. His reading has improved greatly and he now has a very good foundation in math. When we started he wasn't even able to do small math in his head because of what I believe to be a rotten foundation. Now he can do small math in his head without having to count lines or dots which is what they were having him do at school. Hopefully his solid foundation will allow him to excel in math at school now. Even though he has improved on these subjects, he will have some other subjects to improve on, such as handwriting and sentence construction. These are not our reasons for sending him back to public though and I definitely don't regret trying homeschooling out with him.

If you have young children you will know that life as a mom is crazy. Great but crazy! As Christ following moms we are called to be the heart of our homes. This looks different in every christian family, but one thing is for sure. We are to teach our children to love and obey God and give Him glory with everything we do. I'm sure some would argue with me about this, but no where in the Bible does it say that as parents we have to be the ones teaching academics to our children. Going through this, yes I do care how my son learns math, but in comparison, I'm far more concerned about his heart. In the past year of homeschooling there has been a giant change in the heart of our family. Changes that were not for the better. Now remember, as mom I'm the heart of the family and so when I see a problem with the heart of our family then I am called to address it and make changes accordingly. For a long time I thought the heart issues were the exact reason we needed to continue homeschooling. But the longer we've gone, the more I see things clearer. 

In general when Caedmon was in public school he was a happier boy. He may have been struggling academically in some areas but his heart was more joyful. This seems backwards to me, but when he was in public school he talked a lot more about God. He was always telling me stories about talking to other kids about God during recess or he was telling me about something at school that didn't line up with the Bible. He was being in the world, but not of it.  He was able to see the contrast between living for God and not. Even at that young age. We talked a lot more about God with him then because there was more questions about the sin and the lost. In the end we just want our kids to love Jesus. How academics are taught is not what God is concerned about. He's concerned about our hearts. Caedmon's heart was in better condition when we was in public school.

Caedmon is not the only one who has gained a heart condition from our year of homeschooling. Although I LOVE the idea of homeschooling and really wish it would have worked for Caedmon and I, it just didn't. I am to be a wife and mom that loves Jesus, teaches my children to love Jesus, and keeps some kind of peace and order to our home. As a homeschooling mom, I wasn't doing much of that. Teaching my kids turned into obsessing about their academic abilities, rather then teaching them to know and love God. Teaching my kids turned into daily fits and tears over math but no sorrow about our sin or joy in God's forgiveness. I've always struggled with anger, but my anger had become more and more evident while homeschooling Caedmon. I wasn't being a good wife and mom. I was starting the day in dread and ending it in guilt. I was definitely not teaching my children to love God or love learning. 

So am I a failure? Man I sure felt like one while homeschooling Caedmon and even more so when we started discussing the possibility of him going back to public. I thought a lot about what people would think of me. Was I weak? Did I really care about my kids? Was this not working because I was stupid? After talking to lots of wise people who know us well, I discovered that these were all lies. The truth is, I didn't fail. To continue doing something that isn't working just to save face is a failure. Strength is being able to admit that something in your life isn't working right and being able to humbly change it in order for it to work well. 

Since making this decision I've been so much more peaceful and loving in how I deal with my kids. I know that this decision will not make everything perfect but it will help me be better equiped to be a good MOM. The other night I was reading to the girls in the evening and I realized that I was actually enjoying it. I couldn't remember the last time I enjoyed reading to my kids. I couldn't remember the last time I actually wanted to take my time putting them to bed. 

In this decision we also had to realize just how much I'm going to be needed once our African kiddos are home. This new change will allow me to give them lots of attention needed for effective attachment during the day, and hopefully make me more available to Caedmon in the afternoon after school.

I look forward to the feelings of actually missing Caedmon and looking forward to him coming home. I loved greeting him at the door and talking with him about his day. Unfortunately, those times had more quality in them then a full day with him.

So Mr. Caedmon starts up public school again on the 22nd! He is very excited now. As of Tuesday he was hiding under his bed crying about it because he is very much like his momma and doesn't handle change well. Within two days, the night when he told him our final decision, he was excited and joyful and asking if he got to pick out a new lunch box. Last night I took him shopping and actually enjoyed it. :)

Payton is having a great time with homeschooling. The plan is to finish kindergarten with her at home and at the end of the year decide what we will do for 1st grade. She is excited about learning and has really great friends in her Friday K1 class with our homeschooling group. Each kiddos is different so we'll see what happens.

If you've made it this far through my long winded explanation then you must be really bored...or your actually care. Thanks!

Caedmon's birthday

July 19th Caedmon turned 8. We had a Hulk inspired party for him.

Breakfast in bed.

His Hulk cake.

Water balloon launching!

School starts and a fun outing!

Now that the first few weeks of home schooling are over and we are finally starting to work through the shock of this giant change I feel like I can post these pictures without a grudge. It has been a huge adjustment for all of us. One with lots of tears from Caedmon and Mom the first few days. As the days have gone by we've all started to see some of the benefits of this big change. There have been many very hard days, but also great ones. I'm learning that God might have been nudging us in this direction for reasons far more important then academics. I believe He's daily refining me to love my children in a more purposeful, grace giving way and it's slowly but surely causing me to become more specific with my schedule. For Caedmon, I believe that God wants him to learn to submit better to his parents and be joyful even when that is hard. This could have been learned while he was going to public school, we just have an all day opportunity now...which is wonderful and exhausting! :)

This was the first Monday of Classical Conversaitons for Caedmon. The girls go to Grandma's house every Monday morning.  Notice all the hugs from Caedmon to his sister? These guys are surprisingly getting along way better. All the time together is forcing them to become friends...which Momma loves! We have our fair share of fights around here but considering how much they are together now, I'm pleasantly surprised at how much they have been playing great together!

They are getting so big!

A benefit to home schooling is that we get lots more freedom as a family. We have way more time to go visit people, take fun outings, learn math and spelling while grocery shopping, do school in the tree house, learn home economics while cleaning together or baking muffins, and most of all incorporate God into everything we learn. Just to name a few. It's still been a difficult change and I've sacrificed a ton of "free" time, but these good things outweigh the not so good things by far!
Here are some pictures of one of our outings with Caitlin, Ki, and Ella. A trip to downtown on Cyride for a visit to the pet shop, Great Plains pizza, and the Library. It was a good day!
I hope we are all close to get an adult picture of this someday!

I hadn't been on a Cyride in years! It was actually really nice to just sit there are not think about driving.

Payton didn't like the smell in the pizza place and had a hard time focusing on eating. 

I was wishing I was napping right about then too. 

Lots of fun misc pictures!

Funny girls.

Typical Saturday morning. All the kids in our bed.

Potty training...the first few days. She's a pro now and the potty seat is back in the bathroom and not in front of the tv! YAY!

More playing outside!

Princess Roxy

Someone got into Momma's lip gloss.

Pigtales!

Reagan had a day with fevers a few weeks back and the other kids were "taking care" of her. 

A day trip to the Science Center with Grandma.

 Sorry these are so random. That's what happens when you don't upload pictures for a few months!