Pressing on...

It has been a whirlwind a of a year.  A year and two days ago, we welcomed our first foster care placement into our home.  We had been licensed for a couple months and were surprised we did not receive a phone call right away.  Our agency called and said they had a two yo girl and a 10 yo boy.  We had gone into all of this saying we would like to stay with our birth order.  God's plans are always so much higher than ours.  We said, "yes" and ended up picking them up at our agency a few days later. What an adventure.  We obviously only had experience with girls, but God had equipped us!   What an incredible 10 yo boy he was.  All these kiddos have baggage.  Their hurt runs deep...even at 2.  Everything we knew about parenting had been put on the back burner.  Fast forward a year and our sweet foster son is now with his daddy and his little sister is still with us.  The way that God had orchestrated all of the events was a true testament to His character.  We were simply to obey.  We are so thankful for electronics as they have enabled to keep in touch with him through texting and video chatting.  What a blessing it is for him to be able to see his little sister grow up.  We miss him like crazy, but know that he is right where he is supposed to be!

A few weeks before our 10yo left, we brought a 5 yo little guy into our home.  He came from another foster family who was having a difficult time with him.  He was their first placement and they also had a houseful of girls.  By the grace of God, He has shown us how to parent him.  His fits/meltdowns have become almost non-exixtent.  He also has so much hurt and confusion deep down in his little heart.  It has been 5 months since he has been here and each day seems to bring new information from his past.  Unbelievable.  Just too much to handle.  There are days when I say..."oh Terry...can we do this?"  I love my husband.  He affirms my failures and fears and very adamantly says, "Who else is going to do this.  We were called to do it. Look at how far he has come!"  He is right.  We are running a marathon, not a sprint.  He needs love and consistency.

In between both of these placements, we had a 3 mo old girl.  Babies are easy. :-)  I would never say that to a first time mommy...but they are.  She was absolutely precious and is now back with her mommy where she belongs.  Baby girl has the most precious momma who would do anything for her.  It has been so comforting to see our foster kiddos to go back into great places.  I know of other stories where it is not so.

And last, but not least, we are pursuing a medically fragile toddler.  We found her on our state's adoption exchange page and fell in love with her sweet picture.  After several weeks, we were finally able to meet with her current foster parents.  They are madly in love with her.  Several times they mentioned how difficult this is going to be for them.  Both of them are in their 60s and know they need to find the right adoptive parents for her.  Terry and I have been so prayerful through all of this and have felt an incredible peace.  There have been many shocked faces when we share with others what we are doing.  And also some comments of concern.  Our hearts are bursting for this sweet baby girl.  The beauty of her situation is that her future is truly unknown.  They are not sure how she is going to grow up.  At this time, there are many physical and mental delays.  She is termed "severely medically fragile".  God has been making it very clear to us that we are to continue following Him in obedience.  The agency has chosen us a family they are considering, but have a concern of our large family.  Things like this allow us to become somewhat discouraged, but it is quickly replaced with understanding the sovereignty of God.  God is the one who is leading...if He chooses to stop this now, then we will have peace.  Our children are very excited about the prospect!

Another blessing in the mail.  It seems very insensitive to rejoice over this, but it certainly seems that this would be the best decision.  We received a letter in the mail for our foster daughter's birth mom's termination hearing.  It has been a long year of visits and repercussions after those visits.  It was so difficult to parent our daughter after visit days.  She would become very sad and then very angry.  I can't even fathom what goes on in her little mind.  She needs to be done...she needs to start all over and be able to move on.

Reposting "Reality Check"

Come on, church!

But By Grace...: Reality Check

Good-bye Facebook

I had contemplated getting off of Facebook for quite awhile.  The excuses just kept coming....it is a great way to communicate, it is nice to see what family is up to that is out-of-state, it is refreshing to get updates from the pages I "like", etc.  I did not realize how addicted I had been to it.  I would sit down to the computer and my fingers would just begin to type "Face.." in the webpage bar.  It's freeing being off.  My children had suffered.  So many times they would begin to tell me things and I would only half-listen.  Once I joined Facebook, my blog-posting completely disappeared.  I love going through previous posts and looking at our journey.  So...here we go again!  Thankfully this is not nearly as time-sucking as FB.  I can post my thoughts and be done with it.  :-)

One thing I miss about FB is sharing with friends and family what God is doing in our lives.  I am just in awe of who God is and His plans for us.  One of the biggest things Terry and I are learning is what it means to obey God.  There are things that He is asking us to do that are very difficult to fathom.  The verses that He keeps bringing to my mind are Isaiah 55:8-9

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, 
neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts."

We had a meeting this past week.  Without getting into too many details, it was amazing.  Terry and I had been praying about this situation for months.  The time finally came to discuss a big decision for us.  Wow...there is no other place I would rather be, than entrusting every aspect of our life to the Creator of the Universe.  I am so excited to see where and how God leads us.

Spring is in the air!

I have to admit, it has been a sad winter.  I love snow...  Today there is a light dusting on the ground and two days ago it was 64.  Typical Michigan weather I guess.  So I have been inspired to continue blogging about our day to day activities.  I have been visiting so many neat blogs and have learned so much over the past few weeks.  Most of my reading has been about food.

A couple months ago, God laid it on my heart to pick up a book called Made to Crave.  I am only half way through it but wow, is it ever convicting.  All my life I have struggled with what to eat and dieting.  I have tried just about every fad diet out there.  I am realizing that food is an addiction, as well as, a spiritual battle for me.  And I would guess, for many others as well.  In my journey to be wise in what I put in my mouth, I came across a website The Weston A. Price Foundation.  During my battle with all the fad diets, I always struggled with the question, "If God made wheat to make bread and cows to produce milk, why is it that those are considered unhealthy for us?" So many nutritionists and doctors claim to keep low calorie and low fat diets.  Reading about whole foods and fats, I have discovered, this all just makes sense!   I have been reading a lot of the ideals in Heavenly Homemakers too.  Sooo...over the past few weeks I have revamped our eating lifestyle.  I am slowing getting rid of all of our processed foods and switching over to butter, whole milk, heavy cream, homemade bread with all wheat flour, lots of fruits and veggies, and lots and lots of Kefir smoothies.  I have lost weight and have NEVER felt better.  I do not crave any of the junk I used.  And best of all, I do not feel deprived!  If something sounds good, I make it, FROM SCRATCH, using real, whole foods.  Last night we had Italian Cream Cheese Chicken.  I took a pic and sent it to my sisters.  Well, here is the picture....

My sister said, "That looks like 100,000 calories."  You need to add two blocks of cream cheese and and 2 cups of heavy cream to the two sticks of butter and chicken.  I had a generous portion served over brown rice.  It was so good.  It is going to be difficult getting over the "high fat" label that goes along with all of these foods, but it still makes sense.  For years people have been eating all of these animal fat diets, and not until over the past 50 years have heart attacks and obesity been out of control.  A book I am reading Eat Fat Lose Fat, has great evidence to suggest that since the introduction of margarine, other polysaturated oils (vegetable and canola), and other "low fat" and "low calorie" foods, Americans health has deteriorated.  I have been reading labels everywhere and have clung to the rule, if you don't know the ingredient, your body doesn't know what to do with it either.  So begins our journey of our healthy eating lifestyle.

Recap 2011 coming soon...

I have been looking back through my blog and have really been enjoying all of my old photos and memories.  Wow, I really can't believe how quickly the years are cruising by.  I posted a picture of Ava at three months, and here she is 2 and a half years?! Over the next few days, I am going to go through photos and post what our last year looked like.  We had a wonderful 2011!

As I type, we finally had a significant snowfall and the girls are outside sledding.  I love snow.  It is so pretty in Michigan throughout all the seasons.  This winter has been rather sad.  I am so happy that the outdoors has finally turned white!

So much to do today, so a quick post to ecncourage me to step it up a bit to continue on with our memories!

No Campfire smores!

Ok, no, I do not really have the time to be posting anything on here. And why, oh why, am I posting this? I am not really sure...when I figure that out, I will let you know.

Anyway, I have this yummy new cookbook that I got from Pampered Chef. I LOVE to make things for different functions. To be inspired, I usually get all my Pamp Chef cookbooks out and page through them. I was originally searching for a side dish to make for an event tomorrow. Instead, I came across this fabulous little dessert! I am not suppose to post this recipe on here, but if you would like to know what I did, I will gladly e-mail you!

I guess I will update about our life in another post :-) But I just had too much fun with this one....

I could really tell you how Pamp. Chef products can really save you time...but I won't ;-)

Wetting the kitchen shears before cutting marshmallows is key to no stickiness!

Please do not mind my dirty stovetop

Yes, I need to work on my neatness...but I was only making these for my family, and my neighbor Lisa, if she would get home ;-)

I will say, the base is not just graham cracker...it is a buttery, sugar yumminess...is that a word? Ha, my spell check did not catch it so I guess so!

Sunday, Sunday

Yes it has been awhile..7 months to be exact. Wow...really? So much to blog about, so much has happened since August. During that time, we sold our home, moved in with my parents, bought a new home, celebrated birthdays of a 34, 7, 3, and 9 year old, added a new pet to our family and started a new business. So much has happened, so much has changed...I can't help but join my older friends and relatives who claimed this time would go fast. Life disappearing before our eyes. God has taught me so much and continues to teach me. The underlying lesson has been "trust and obey". We have had to trust God with so many things lately...which is right where He wants us. I would honestly want it no other way. Trying to manipulate my way just plain doesn't work. God is so faithful...God is so good.

We were recently asked by our 9 -year-old, "Mommy, how do we really know God exists?" How do you teach a child to cling to the faith they had when they were younger.... I do not want our children to have a blind faith, but a child-like faith. When they are confronted with tough choices in the future, my prayer is that they whole-heartedly cry out to God for guidance because they fully trust Him with their lives. Her little life has not experienced all that Terry and I have and we can no doubt say, "God exists, my sweet girl...we know He does." Sure, I could get into how the Bible is, the way it was written, so incredibly accurate and precise even after many, many years. No other historical documents were written with the specific details as this book was. She will understand this over time...but now, I pray that Terry and I would be living examples to her as to why God exists. This, most of time, is certainly not true of us. We sin...hopefully we are transparent and acknowledge our weaknesses to them.

I am hoping to continue the updates with my blog. Now that I have tried to limit my time on facebook, maybe I will have a little more time to spend on here? It is just fun to go back and look at the events and pictures of the happenings throughout these months. Tomorrow Ava will be 10 months...she has been crawling and cruising for while and two weeks ago she took her first couple steps. She loves to stand and make sure everyone is watching her. She starts clapping and laughing as she tries to steady herself...so cute!!

Isabelle's fifth and Ava is Three months

I have heard from so many people that wondered what happened to the summer.  We have seriously been gone just about every day.  I could not believe that it was Friday yesterday because the week just flew by.  We hit the beach a lot!  Why would we waste the day inside when before we know it, winter will be here again!  I love Michigan summers and this summer is no exception.

August 7th we celebrated "Bitti Bell's" fifth birthday.  She was so excited to have the day all to herself.  I can already see her taking on the role as a middle child.  Not intentionally of course, but that is what happens in a house with four other siblings.  So I tried to make the whole week special for her.  I kept asking her what kinds of things she wanted to do on her special day..and she loved being able to make the decisions.  We started the day off at the park with a friend from preschool.  Then we headed to the John Ball Zoo which happened to be dollar day.  Yes, I did know that going in and No, we will NEVER do that again.  There were people everywhere.  I was thankful that my sis took my two-year-old for me...she tends to be pretty busy.  Then it was on to Grandma Storr's for the fiesta.  Her favorite thing to eat is cheesy chips (tortilla chips with shredded cheese on top).  So for dinner we had Mexican...I couldn't just feed everyone cheesy chips!  Isabelle is one of my picky eaters (Lillian is the worst).  So you better believe I am going to do everything I can to make sure Ava is a much better eater.  

(You may click on any photo to make it larger)

I am back, you probably did not know I was gone:-)  I was typing away last night and was interrupted by my 8 year old crying because of a pain in her mouth.  Her poor little cheek was swollen out about an inch!  I was trying to find out more about Hand Foot and Mouth disease because it is going around....yikes.  We headed to urgent care at 9 pm last night.  She does not have that, she has an abscessed tooth!  She has one cavity there with a filling and it looks like that is the tooth that is affected. She is miserable.  She is great about brushing her teeth...Ter and I both have really soft teeth.  Poor girl!  I am thinking the dentist did not fill her tooth correctly.  So off to the dentist we go first thing Monday morning!  

Onto Ava Grace....

What you are doing now:

-Trying very hard to roll over.

-You hate being in your car seat! It is somewhat bearable with Emma sitting behind you making goofy faces.

-You still love to be on your tummy.  That is how you sleep at night now!

-You are becoming leery of faces you do not recognize.  You begin to talk to them and get scared and put out your lower lip out and start to cry.

-You love your daddy and love to listen to his voice through the phone.  

-You are sleeping all right...mostly 7 hours at night and sometimes more.  One night you gave me 9!  

-You are in 3-6 month clothing now but can still get into most of your 0-3 month outfits.  

-It looks like your eyes are turning brown and your hair is turning red.

-You still do not take a bottle very well!  We are working on this!  

-I love to snuggle with you!  You love your mommy :-)  

Had to put one of her smiling..we did not have any straight-on shots of her smiling.

Oh!  And you found your toes!

My next post will probably be after school starts...ugh.  I am dreading it.  I love having my girls home.....