Summer, Summer....Wherefore Art Thou?

Anybody know where our summer went??? Time has flown by and it's now time to start the "back to school" shopping. But wait! We didn't go to the beach nearly as much as we hoped to and we didn't go hiking at all!

We did go swimming......a lot. And we did have several lazy days. But this summer was so very different than last summer.

This summer seems to have been filled with sorting and packing! We celebrated 4 birthdays in between the packing! In fact, cute Jasmine Belle turned 2 last Sunday! She was our last birthday for the year. Do you remember how tiny she was when she first came home?? She's a little spitfire now!!! But more about her later.....when I get to her birthday post.

Speaking of that.....my computer is not being kind and won't let me load pictures on my blog. So I haven't wanted to post anything since I don't have pictures to go with it. Sigh.

We have so much news to catch you up on but I just haven't had the time.......

Let's see if I can do a short and condensed version.

Back in April, our home was on the market. We were looking forward to selling our home and moving back to Arizona. Scott's job was such that he was able to work remote from.....anywhere! Towards the end of that month something changed and on a Thursday I felt prompted to tell Scott that we needed to take our home off the market. It wasn't the right time for us to move.

The following day, through a series of miraculous events, we found ourselves doing respite care for 3 very special little boys. We ended up keeping 2 of them for a month as we searched for new adoptive families for them. It was an amazing month, full of learning and prayer. We have done respite care in the past but this was the first time we were asked to help locate new permanent families for the children to go to.

The amazing thing is after the month was up and we were adjusting back to life as knew it, we felt prompted that now the time was right to sell our home. We had every intention of going back to Arizona to be around family, enjoy the beautiful weather and find a much larger home but then life as we knew it changed again!

This time Scott's job was the reason. There were many changes going on at his job and it was not a good time to be leaving the area. His boss told him that he could still go but it might be career limiting if he did. Considering how blessed we are to have a job, we spent many hours on our knees to know if it was still a good idea. But of course, no sooner had we put our home back on the market, we received a full price offer and had 30 days to be out.

So now we knew we were moving, we just didn't know where. We started searching the area to find something that would fit our needs. We came across a beautiful brand new home on an acre in a small town and I knew immediately that was "home". It was a bank owned home and the bank took their own sweet time to respond to our offer. Finally after two weeks of waiting, we got the good news! But now we were down to the wire on getting the process started and only had a few weeks before we had to get out of our current home. Thankfully the new owner has allowed us to stay two weeks, rent free in our home while we wait to sign papers on our new home. Again, what a blessing.

We are planning on moving this Friday. The kids are excited to go. Of course they are nervous to start new schools and make new friends but I'm not worried about any of them. They make friends easy!!

We are going to miss our friends here. We have been back from Arizona for 7 years. When we moved back we only had 6 kiddos!!! We have made amazing friends here. Our kids have wonderful memories from living here. We have lots of happy times and even a few hard times tucked away in our hearts that have helped each of us grow in to the people we are today. We wouldn't trade any of it!! The good news, we are only moving 30 minutes away. We will stay in touch.

I hope to have my computer figured out soon so I can post pictures......stay tuned!!!

A New Teenager In The House!!

Levi turned 13 last week!!!! My laptop is acting up and won't let me upload any pics.....but I will figure it out and get them on here!!!

He is such a joy to have in our family!! Levi makes us laugh all the time. Oh, don't get me wrong....he is acting every part the teenager but for the most part keeps us laughing!! :)

He has passed me on height and weight and can probably finally beat me at arm wrestling, but I'm not going to let him try anytime soon!!

He walked into the kitchen the other day and it hit me that this kid is really growing up!! It's hard for me to accept that fact. For some reason I just always picture him as 10!

He will be an 8th grader when school starts and is looking forward to football starting next week!

He's still Jasmine's favorite and he makes the best chocolate chip cookies (or just about anything else, for that matter)!

We love you Levi!!! Happy Birthday!!!!

Thomas Has A Birthday!!!

Cute boys, waiting for the party to start!

The birthday present he had hoped for!!

In our home, some of the best birthday gifts are when your brother gives you his Nerf gun that you love! Thanks Tanner!!

"My new bike!!!!"

Happy Birthday Thomas!!!! We love you!!

Thomas turned 9 on Sunday!!! Hard to believe that's possible!! Seems like only yesterday he was the tiny little preemie in the NICU, covered in wires, fighting to live!

You have come a long way Tommy Tom and we are so blessed to have you in our family!!! We love you!!!!

Thought You Should Know......

After much discussion and thought, Vanessa has decided to give birth to "only brown boys" and will adopt a little white girl so that she doesn't have to "do" hair.

This is a constant topic of conversation whenever we are doing her hair. "Mama, I don't want to worry about doing hair when I'm a Mom. If I just have boys, then that's easy.....but I want to have girls too. But doing brown girls hair is sooooo hard and it takes sooooo long."

I'm looking forward to her only "giving birth to brown boys"!!!! That I gotta see!

Ahhh, Summer!

First day of summer vacation and the kids were just sure it was time to do Iron Chef again! Thankfully Nana is here and she helped clean up the kitchen when they were through.....what a mess!

But I have to be honest, these kids can cook!!! Vanessa was the only one that I got a picture of.....the boys inhaled too fast, there was no evidence left!


Happy Summer!!!!

Heaven Help Us!

"Isaiah, what are you doing???"

Long pause...........

"Um, getting dressed."

Actually, he was headed to some gum that I tossed up on my top shelf in my closet for safe keeping! He spotted it and made his way up the shelves on the side and across the top to the gum.

Now to find a new spot to hide the gum! Ha ha....

She Did It!!!!

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

The Senior members of the choir performed The National Anthem as well as Seasons Of Love. Sam is in the front row, first on the left.

Full house

The whole kaboodle of us with our Graduate!!

Samantha with her proud parents and little monkey brother!

Samantha with Nana and Papa!

She did it!!!!

Always need balloons for a celebration!

And of course, a cake!

Saturday was a perfect day for graduation! The sky was blue and there was not a cloud to be seen! We debated on finding a babysitter for the youngest 2 but ultimately decided to take the whole family. It just didn't feel right to leave anyone home. We did ok for a few minutes and then Scott ended up out in the hall, while the youngest two ran wild. Sabrina texted him to let him know when it was getting close to Samantha's turn.

We took a couple of pictures afterwards and then we took everyone home for a bbq and swimming.

It was a perfect day! It was so nice to have Scott's parents here to share the day with us. Family always makes everything better!

Congratulations Samantha, we are so proud of you!!!!!