So much out of my hands

These days I feel like I am constantly waiting. Waiting for news from Liberia, waiting to see if and when we will become a family of 10, waiting for someone to buy our house, waiting to start our life in Texas. I can admit that I am a very impatient person. My personality consists of highs and lows. I can go from believing anything is possible to nothing is possible in about 5 minutes time. I wish this was something I could change, as I suppose life would be easier if I knew how to stay even tempered all the time. I have prayed for God to change me and he hasn't. I am consistently a huge dreamer who falls hard :) Randy would agree and thankfully after 15 years together he knows and predicts it. I am a person who will work 100% at something I feel like I have some control over. If I am asked to do something I will have it done immediately, I definitely do procrastinate much. However with all the stuff I am waiting on I can do nothing. When someone asks me to write a letter or call a senator I do it right away. However when the senator doesn't respond or the letter falls on deaf ears nothing changes. God is teaching me how to pray in all of this. Not so much rote prayers or it would be nice prayers, but bold prayers. The type you want to fall on your knees and tell God what He already knows...........I can't control life, and I don't want life to control me! And life here goes on :)

We are moving.....again!

I haven't been blogging much because I have been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.........because yes folks its true..we are moving again. We moved from Texas to Illinois about 19 months ago. Really we have not enjoyed living up here. We have no family around and we just haven't really settled. So Randy has the opportunity to work remotely so we have made the decision to move back to Texas. My sister and her husband live there so we will be near family. So bring on the warmth and the sweet tea! Really now is the hardest part for me. Our house is on the market and the market is awful and I am completely impatient. I am trusting that God has a plan in all of this, but as with the adoption of Keith...sometimes his timing is a LOT longer then my timing. We have had the house on the market for about 10 days now and we still haven't had 1 showing! We had a broker tour but still nothing... I am a person of highs and lows, I wish I wasn't but I can't help but be me. So if we hear good news I am super excited, but then if we have no showings I am in tears.....crazy I know but its me. Once I have a plan in my mind I want to get moving on it already. I will be so happy to leave the snow blower behind! So here's to prayers of selling the house and bringing Keith home before school ends...........miracles happen right?

Loss catches you off guard

About 5 years ago I lost my mom to ovarian cancer. She was only 59. Growing up I was her baby, the youngest of 5. I can admit that I was spoiled a bit. I loved being with her when I was little. I had a lot of food allergies so she always kept me close, just in case. She was my biggest cheerleader and somehow when I talked to her she could make me believe that anything was possible. She taught me how to be a mom, she drove me to finish my education, she supported me even when I came home at 19 pregnant. She had the biggest smile at my wedding and was the most amazing grandmother to my kids. Some days, like today, for no apparent reason my mind floods with memories and the tears start falling. I miss her. This feeling I try to remember when my adopted kids have a rough day. When memories flood their minds when the loss is overwhelming....when you miss your mom. When you just want to feel bad for the moments lost, for the times that won't happen, for the memories that start to fade. Its then that we need families that are here to pick us up, to give us a hug, to believe in us, to let us cry. That to me is what adoption is about. As an adult losing a parent was devastating and I was so grateful for my husband, dad, brother and sisters to hold me up. These kids that lose everything need the same thing too. Not to replace something unreplacable but to love them anyway, hold them up and let them cry.

Some products make me think....

I just saw a product for sale that promised to make my toddler love reading....

Here is some advice from a mom of 7 who love to read and with a degree in education....ready.... if you want your kids to read and love reading..READ TO THEM and take them to the library. Get excited about going as much as when you are taking them to any fun activity. Talk it up as much as we talk up sports. Also my way is very frugal :)

While I am on the subject, the best way to teach your children self control and imagination is not through the latest team or class or toy....let them be bored! Kids who are bored will learn how to entertain themselves by using their imagination. Let them have plenty of free time without you dictating what they will do or where they will go. I would love to buy a small farm just to give my kids more of an opportunity to learn on their own and discover life through being "bored"

I will step off my soapbox now......

2009 Coming to a close.......

I would post this tomorrow, but in our house tomorrow is a busy day. Since Randy and I had no real New Years traditions and having 7 kids impedes the whole go out till after midnight thing, we came up with a family tradition a few years ago that has quickly become one of the most family fun days in our house. We made New Years Eve a huge day of playing games and eating snack foods! We pull out the Wii and all the board games and we play games all day long as a family. One year we did a whole family whole house game of hide and seek. We make all sorts of food, chicken wings, chocolate covered strawberries and oreos, mozzarella sticks.....that type of stuff and we just let the kids snack all day. No kid has ever made it up till midnight, maybe this year!

Anyway that's why I will post my thoughts on this year today. It has been a harder year for me. This is our first full year here in IL, I was hoping it would grow on me, but it hasn't. I miss our friends in Texas and we aren't close to family so its lonely up here. I have made some friends, but their just isn't the same camaraderie I had before. I did learn that what I thought I missed about winter....I don't! We did have a great vacation this summer bringing all the kids back "home" to visit family. Its the first trip with all 9 of us to visit where Randy and I grew up. I was really hoping Keith would be home in 2009, now I hope its 2010, but I have seen God work miracles in getting us a homestudy in a state that frowns on having more then 6 children! We were approved for up to 9, and Keith will only make us 8! Hmmmm will 2010 bring us someone else????? We finally found a church home here and Alex and I have started working in the Sunday School, so hopefully we will get to know our church family. I am grateful that the kids are all healthy and happy! The greatest thing that happened this year was the birth of my nephew Dominic, he is perfect and adorable and I couldn't be happier for my sister. I am looking forward to a new year and a new decade.....eeks I will be 41 the next time a new decade comes along! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Keith

Today Keith turns 12. Another birthday we will miss, but this year he does have a mom who is praying for him. It is sad that we can't be together. I wonder if he knows its his birthday. I pray he is home before he turns 13. I wondered today what to do. We don't know at this point if and when he will come home. We do know that in our hearts he is our son and that bureaucracy is keeping us from sharing these days with him. Yet I know God knows full well about the situation and Keith was God's child long before we knew him. If God's timing was to have him here today then he would be here today, I am fully confident in that. So tonight we will celebrate Keith, no he is not here, but he is in Liberia and he was born for such a time as this and that in itself is plenty to celebrate. Thank you Jesus for Keith and for bringing him into our hearts!

Crazy Christmas season.........

I have neglected my blog, but with good reason. December has proven to be a crazy month! I spent the first week in Texas with my sister visiting her and my newest nephew. He is adorable and awesome and perfect and I miss them all! Then I returned to the shopping, wrapping, decorating, baking that occurs in this large family and we do Christmas BIG here. Then just to mix it up we had some painters come and paint the whole first floor of our house. Ahh the things you will do when a painter is deeply discounted! So we undecorated, waited for the paint to dry, while corralling 4 kids under 6 in one small room and then redecorated. Anyway here we are 1 week before Christmas and the shopping is done, the wrapping is almost done and the Christmas meal is purchased but not made yet. I can finally relax with a cup of coffee and reflect. I think a part of me has purposely kept completely busy to keep my mind off the disappointment that Keith is going to spend yet another Christmas many miles from us. I have 8 ornaments for the kids to hang up special this year, I purchased them with the hope 8 kids would be happily hanging them up. Instead Hannah will have the honor of hanging up Keiths. But I continue to hold fast to God and His plan and perfect timing. I have no idea what 2010 will hold for our family. I pray its a year of homecoming! However if it is not my prayer is that God will continue to work through us to serve other children. I thought I would feel done with Keith's adoption, yet each time I hear about a hard to place, baby, child or teen my heart aches. I don't know how many will ever grace our doorstep but I have learned that God has not closed my heart to the possibility of more. As the bible says, my tent will be stretched wide!! I know who God made me to be and through the hard times and the good God made me a mom forever........