Lego City blog

Noah is crazy about legos these days. Just about every word out of his mouth is talking about legos. He has wanted a blog for awhile, so today I suggested that he start a Lego blog. He is always creating things, making books, making up stories. I typed all his words out for him today, but I will let him do more himself once he learns. He did all the creations, and photography himself, and I typed what he said word for word. He just came to me and asked if his blog had any followers yet...so, I figured I had better advertise...so, go on over, and become a follower of Lego City. www.noahdslegocity.blogspot.com

So excited about our new house!

I have held off talking about what is going on with us b/c I didn't want to jinx things, but our closing date is set for 11 days from now, so I feel like everything is going to work out o.k. We are buying a house! We are so excited. This has been a crazy year for us, and the least thing we thought we would be able to do was buy a house, but here we are. We have been looking online for awhile, but finally Clay just applied for a pre-approval loan, and set the ball rolling. We looked in the area where we live now, but prices of houses are higher. We found this one about 15 mins from where he works in a quiet small town, and are really excited about our move. We have moved every year of Rachel's life, so we are glad to say we are staying put for awhile. The Lord has blessed us with so much this year, and I feel like this is just the icing on the cake.

Let me tell you what I love about this house.....I have a REAL LAUNDRY room! It is no longer spilling out into my kitchen. Kitchen duties and laundry duties are the 2 most daunting tasks, and the location of the washer/dryer has just made that into a never ending pain in my behind. Not only that, but the laundry room is located in the hall across from the bedrooms and bathrooms! What a brilliant idea!

This is the view from the living room. That window is right by the sink, so I can have my eye on all the little ones running around. There is so much open space, (our current living room is about the size of a closet, it makes me crazy) and so much natural light in the house...I think that will help with my disposition throughout the day! :)
No dangerous deck steps. Everytime Z goes outside, I see flashes of him tumbling down. Here, I can open the door, and he can safely walk out.

Love this large kitchen. I love the beauty of it. It makes me happy to look at this photo, even when I know it will never be clean when we live there, I can dream right now, of finally being able to have my act together. :)

A flat, level backyard. Now, I will miss our overgrown hedge that makes our backyard private right now. But I will NOT miss the muddy swamp our backyard usually is. Here, there is actual grass, much safer for little ones to run around.

One bedroom is already painted a color I like.

My glorious tub. I have longingly missed our tub from our old house. I never thought I would have a tub like that again, b/c they are only in homes we can't afford, or are too small for our family. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to this after a long day.

I have a place to hang our Christmas stockings again!! I missed having a mantel so much last year.

I truly feel like the Lord has helped us with this house. We found this house, and were able to get if for a great price, the perfect house came along at just the right time. It came on the market on a Thursday, we looked at it on Sunday, and had our offer in and accepted by that Tuesday. And another offer came in right after that. I am so thankful, and grateful, and can't wait to get moved in!

One of the best gifts ever!!

I just have to share my special Mother's Day present with you. This makes them going to school all worth it just to get a gift like this! I love all the kids' teachers, but Rachel's teacher is just awesome. They made the cute cookbook for Christmas, and now they have made this awesome Mother's Day book.

I loved just the wrapping paper!

This says my favorite food is soup, and we like to snuggle together

This one makes me laugh....b/c I am sure I look like a crazy person jumping on that trampoline with them....I am glad she enjoys it!

Her favorite spaghetti? Is truly just boiled noodles with a can of Spaghetti sauce poured over it :)

I smell like lemons...that really makes me laugh! I have no idea where that came from!

I love that she knocked 10 years off my age! I just hope her teacher doesn't thinks that I started having kids when I was 14 yrs old! lol

I can't begin to say how special this book is to me. I absolutely LOVE it!!

Look who's 6 months old....

www.blessingsforthegoodlife.blogspot.com

This boy is already 6 months old!!

And sweetheart at that!! Bye bye to the cranky, grouchy little boy. He is a cutie and a sweetie these days! He has full bodied laughs at his silly siblings, tons of smiles, and is usually happy as long as someone is in the room with him. He has these cutest little fat rolls, and is always smothered by momma's kisses. I THINK everything has settled down now, and the aunt is no longer fighting DHS's decision for us to adopt him, so hopefully, we will have a smooth ride until we get to adopt. We are still waiting on Zachariah's dad's appeal to be over, and looks like that won't be over until the Fall.....so it still may be next year before we get to finalize their adoptions. That is o.k....as long as they are mine!

Oh I know I have already said how cute he is....but he is so stinking cute! It has been awesome to have the stress lifted away, and to just get to love and enjoy by babies. I can't believe he is already 6 months. He will be a year old before we know it. Next month starts off all our babies birthdays, and it will go like this....

Leah will turn 8 in June,

Zachariah will turn 2 in July

Noah will turn 9 in July

We will have been married 11 years in August

Rachel will turn 7 in September

AND...

Christian will be 1 in October.

When you look at it like that, I want to tell time to SLOW DOWN! My babies are all growing up too fast on me!

Lately, I have been looking at the boys and thinking about how much their bio parents are missing out on. That is a blessing for me, b/c I get to have that joy, but it makes me sad that their mom can't even know the joy that I get from her babies. I think about how lucky I felt when I got Zachariah, and how I have always treasured and adored him....and I didn't even know that taking him, would bless me twice! Because of him, now I have Christian too! What a double blessing they are to our family. And then I wonder...."could their mom be pregnant again?" Did you know they have an older sibling somewhere out there that is 3...so by looking at her history, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if she was...she was pregnant with Christian when Zachariah was this age. I was talking with the caseworker yesterday, and he said, "yep, we could just fill your house up with her babies"....and I was thinking...I think you have already done that! :)

He is sitting up pretty well now unassisted.

This look is so funny!

He is starting to think about crawling...he pushes himself way up now, and kicks his legs, and is able to scoot a little...it will not be long I know until he is on the move! He has too many people to keep up with around here!

how our foster care journey began

I would love to just copy and past my blog post about how our foster care journey began, but for some reason, blogger won't let me paste anything. I had some quiet time today, and was thinking about how this journey all began for us. Click here to read our journey. It is on my private blog, and if you would like to read it, please send me a message or e-mail, and I will send you an invite to my blog.

Here is one more where I announced "we are expecting".....and now, 6 foster kids later and 2 adoptions coming up, I really enjoyed getting to read these posts, and I hope you do too.

If anyone ever wants to ask me questions about fostering and adoption, please ask me!

Fine Arts Night at school

Thursday night was Fine Arts night at the kid's school. This was their time to show off what they have been doing in Art and Music. They have had a Literacy night and Math and Science night, but this one was my favorite. It was a good distraction, as that afternoon, our foster daughter M left to live with her grandma. We'd known she wouldn't be here long, but it was a surprise, b/c we thought it would be around a month longer before she left, so we were all really sad to see her go. I will talk about that more later on my other blog. Luckily, our parents had planned on coming up for the program, and they were the perfect distraction for everyone.

Rachel couldn't find which one was hers b/c her name was on the back, so I just had her pose with the artwork from her class.

Leah posing with her Starry Night
Each class also had a group art project...there was some really cool stuff, and they had it for the parents to bid on to raise money for the school. What a neat idea! This was Leah's class. They had to do words of things they loved....Leah chose Spongebob...oh good grief girl!

This was Rachel's class...their fingerprints are razorbacks!

This is from Noah's class...and I want to get me one of these boards to hang by the door

Noah with his fish

I thought his scuba man was a cute touch

Then the kids all performed songs outside from Disney Movies. Rachel's class sang "Just can't wait to be King", Noah's class sang "Supercalafragalisticespealadocious" (o.k..I did not check to see if I spelled that right...I just guessed at it!) and "Let's Go Fly a Kite". They all made kites....his had Star Wars characters drawn on it.

Leah's class sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Follow the Yellow Brick Road". Their class skipped away at the end of the song

And here we are! It was so great to have our family with us!