we had an AWESOME time in gulf shores last week. the weather was AMAZING, and we spent most of our time just hanging around on the beach. swimming, fishing (okay, i was not in on any of the fishing), beach volleyball (which i was most definitely in on!!), watching the kids play, and just plain lying around.
the lying around was thanks to the 2 babysitters we brought along with us :)
dave and i decided we are spoiled forever by those 2 babysitters- it's gonna be really hard to ever vacation without them after this!!
and with 10 kids in our house and 18 kids total in our group we put them to good use :)
the ladies :)
the babies :)
for some reason tekoa would entertain herself for hours doing this-
in other news-
we are FINALLY going to start up the adoption process again. birth mom moved for the second time- this time to arizona, and she tells us she will be staying put for awhile. so now we settle up with the lawyer in LA, and then start from scratch with another in AZ.
i am finally beginning to understand why people have such big celebrations when adoption is finalized!! you better believe we will have one too!!!
birth mom sounded really depressed last night. please pray that i can have the right words to show her Jesus' love. she is always on my mind and in my prayers. i actually feel a strong love for her and i want to somehow show her that. i pray her redemption is a part of this crazy plan....
also, while we're on this subject-
the church that hosted the adoption and orphan care event that dave and i attended right before we found out about neiko has asked us back to come and share our adoption story.
it is this sunday, november 6th.
i am soooo not good at formal speaking and my husband does not stand before crowds so we need a few more of your prayers for this.
please pray that God will use our testimony to open hearts and homes to more of His children who need them.
and then here at home-
i am LOVING having dave around again!
work on the house has pretty much stopped and we are readjusting to family life. it is WONDERFUL.
so great to feel like a team again and to have someone to share the stories from my day with. and so nice also to have someone to share my workload with for awhile.
oh sure, we are going to need things like mirrors, handles on our drawers, and our own shower eventually- and it would be nice to not have a big pile of trim on our living room, but more than anything we both needed a BREAK.
time to rest and to focus for awhile on our marriage and our children.
and finally, a few of those bloopers i'm sure you all have been missing....
neiko has discovered the joy of pulling diapers out of the garbage and opening them. never had a kid do THAT before....
he LOVES having dave around and has finally started calling him daddy :) :) :)
completely melts my heart. i think more than anything else in this life.
wren is as independent as ever. today at lunch she told me, "here's my carrot, mom, just so ya know."
and wren is dave's biggest fan. but don't call him DAVE.
"he's not dave, he's daddy!"
tekoa finally got kicked out of the bunk bed. shaeya just couldn't take the head banging any longer. so we switched tekoa and wren's beds, and wren is now in the bunk bed. the only reason why we didn't start out that way was because i didn't want to have to change the full size bedding every time wren wet the bed. but it turns out that tekoa still wets the bed just as much as wren, so....
one morning before we left on our vacation i walked out into the main room to find neiko sitting on the kitchen counter top. he had pulled out the chair by the computer, climbed over the keyboard and up onto the counter. he had stopped by the fish tank to play in it for awhile, then moved on the the fruit bowl. and took a bite out of each apple in the bowl.
we were running a bit late (big surprise) so i cleaned up the mess and then handed each kid an apple on our way out the door.
wren was still eating her apple when we got to the gym. i put her in one arm and neiko in the other (getting harder to do! they are growing!!) and we made our way inside. right as we stepped into the foyer wren choked on a piece of her apple and then puked EVERYWHERE. me, her, and the carpeted foyer.
fun morning.
saturday was another fun morning. neiko pulled a pile of used toilet paper out of the toilet and carried it around the house. and after we got that cleaned up he went downstairs and found the wax ring from the toilet we used to have down there during construction. apparently that orange waxy stuff tastes good.....
sorry for the long post! nothing like catching everything up at once :)
please don't forget to pray for sunday!!!!!!
praying already. So excited. I was just saying that I was going to call you tomorrow, I still will, just to touch base with you. The story of what God has done in your family is amazing and I'm excited for everyone to here it from you.
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