Ryan

Ryan’s changed a bit over the years.  Yesterday I needed a picture of him when he was very little and I got to flipping through all our old pics.  Check out how much he’s grown!

Then. His referral picture:

And his original visa picture.  Note the seriously furrowed brow.

And now, age 5…

With a few stops in between!

Adoption day

And once we got home

After we’d been home 6 months (He can still wear the swim trunks he has on in the third picture!!)

At 2, wearing the outfit he had on the day we got him!

At 3, having a nap with his new brother

At 4

 

 

What a joy to have this child as part of our lives.  Hard to believe, but it’s already time for kindergarten!!

irritating squirrels!

Remember this picture:

from this post?

Well, Monday I was out looking at my peach tree.  There were probably close to 15 or 20 gorgeous peaches approaching tennis ball size.  My mouth watered just thinking about how delicious they would be!  Yesterday I was out in the garden and the d!*n squirrels around here have sheared off every branch that had a peach on it.  EVERY branch!  ALL of my peaches are gone and my poor little tree looks very sad.   We’ve managed to save most of the blueberries from the birds, but they got the cherries and now the peaches are gone.  Not the happiest day.

The apples, however, are abundant.  And ripe!  I have red Gravensteins ready to pick and make into pies and sauce, and our big tree will be ready to go in another 2 weeks or so.  Another bumper crop.  :)  Anyone want some apples?  There are more than I can deal with!  I canned 50 quarts of applesauce last summer (which we haven’t come close to finishing!) and have more apples this year than last.  You’re welcome to them!  Just let me know.

roll call time

Okay, everybody…c’mon out!  I know you’re there and read this blog, but who are you??  There are people who read this all over the US and the world!  (Blows my mind…but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

I’d love to know who you are!  Some of you I recognize, but many of you I don’t.  Leave a brief comment telling me where you hail from and what brings you here.  We’d love to know more about you!   :)

Thanks!  Can’t wait to ‘meet’ y’all!!

being real…again

I have several recurring dreams.  I’d love to have them all come true, especially the one about…oh wait—not sharing that one here.  ;)  They’re all great dreams, but one of them involves a winning lottery ticket.  And right now, it’s the dream that would be nice to have come true.  

We’re in the ‘life is expensive’ phase around here.  Oral surgery.  Old cars.  Two girls in college.  Old appliances.  One girl in private school.  Old house.  Two kindergartners this fall (although they’ll be homeschooled, not in private school, it still costs money.)  Braces.  Driver’s ed…for the 4th child.  Weddings and graduations.   Solutions for Logan’s hearing issues, which more than likely won’t be covered by insurance and could run several thousand dollars.  Most of the time it’s okay, but right now we seem to be doing the  ‘more month than money’ thing.

We’ve have used a budget for over 20 years and been pretty faithful to it.  Our major investments in life so far have been twofold:  education for the big guys, and the adoption of the little guys.  I have no regrets about any of it and know for sure that every penny we’ve spent over the years has been well invested!   Through it all, God has faithfully provided everything we’ve needed and then some—my checkbook says that what we’ve done is totally impossible and yet every bill is always paid on time.  God’s blessing, for which we are eternally grateful and humbly in awe…

So why the grumble?  Well…some very large unanticipated expenses with those aforementioned old cars have me stressed out.  Totally stressed out.  We went on our annual vacation this year (camping, which we love!) and the Suburban needed nearly $1,000 worth of work before we could come back.  Talk about a shocker to the bottom line!  And what’s worse:  they didn’t really fix the problem.  They sort of fixed it, but the ‘fix’ caused a new problem in a related system that will cost another $400 or so to fix.  Ugh.  Then on Saturday my mechanic (aka Jim) was working to fix the brakes on the car the girls use.  It’s a 1994 Honda Accord with 217,000 miles.  Awesome car!  Anyway, it needed the front rotors changed.  So, after many hours of work, Jim got the spindle nut and the steering knuckle off, but the rotor and the hub won’t separate from the bearing housing.  (NOT Honda’s finest engineering design!!  It definitely had my engineer using some choice words yesterday.)   Then, because we use this car every day, he decided last night to put it back together and work on it in a couple of weeks when we’re down one driver—Emily leaves on Sunday for WSU—so that being without the car isn’t as big a deal.  Sounds good…except that as he tried to put everything back together, the CV joint came apart!  So now I have a dead vehicle in the garage with another $200 or so in expenses to fix it.  And one exceptionally grumpy, frustrated husband!  And a checkbook that says, simply, “NOT possible!”

In all of this, my poor husband gets very frustrated.  Expenses pile up quicker than the income, it seems.  He works hard to provide, and every need here is always met.  But still he struggles.  And today, looking at the rest of the month, I’m finding my faith being stretched.  It’s not a bad thing, but it’s sure not fun.  While the winning lottery ticket sounds heavenly, I am fairly certain that it’s not the solution God will provide.  After all, if we have the winning ticket, we don’t continue to lean on Him.  We don’t have to trust that He is faithful.  We don’t get the opportunity to practice Hebrews 13:5  “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’’   And we don’t have stories to share with our children about God’s provision every day, in every season of life.

So today I put this out here.  It’s not a complaint; instead, it’s an opportunity to publicly remind myself that my God is faithful.  My God cares.  And my God provides.  Those are good things!  My only job is to trust.  Waiting on His provision can be hard, but with friends to keep me accountable and not grumbling, it will be fun to see what happens next.     

And in case anyone thinks life is all gloomy and terrible around here, it’s not.  We’ve had some exceptional weeks with Logan!  He’s making good strides with speech therapy.  He’s working hard on his impulse control.  He loved vacation last month, VBS last week, and had a blast at the Mariners game yesterday afternoon with Ryan, his big sister Hailey, her boyfriend Alec, and Alec’s siblings.  What a treat!  Everyone is healthy.  There’s plenty of food to eat and clothing to wear.  The girls start new adventures in school over the next few weeks!  So do the boys.  Jim has a job that he (mostly) enjoys.  I am blessed beyond measure to stay home and take care of this crew.  That’s just a short list of the blessings of the day.   Blessings like that make the faith-stretching days easier.  :)  And today, that’s a good thing…

odds-n-ends

Interesting day.  I’m tired, having been up last night way past my bedtime then up early this morning.  As a result, I’m finding it hard to get motivated to accomplish anything.  Add the grey skies to the mix and I am headed toward a blue funk.   Why?  Well, how about the countdown:

• 2 sleeps until Tori goes to camp for a week
• 5 sleeps until Emily’s 18th birthday
• 9 sleeps until Emily leaves for college
• 17 sleeps until high school fall sports practice starts, Ryan and Logan start kindergarten, and Em starts her first year at WSU
• 26 sleeps until Tori starts her junior year of high school
• 42 sleeps until Tori turns 16
• 44 sleeps until Hailey leaves for her second year at UW. 

(Sorry.  Old habits die hard.  My guys all have counted days by counting ‘sleeps’ when they are young, and since Ryan and Logan still count sleeps that tends to be how I think of things these days.)

Then there’s Brent.  Torn patellar tendon in his left knee but the doctor did NOT authorize a visit to the orthopedic surgeon.  Instead, he recommended that Brent be on ‘med boards’ which is basically completely restricted activity for 6 months.  After his med boards are up, he’ll have another visit with the dr. to determine if his knee is healing (no physical therapy or activity allowed during the 6 months).  If not, then they’ll consider a medical discharge.  Consider it.  Apparently, surgery is not something the US Marine Corps is willing to invest in to repair Brent’s 40% tear.  Frustrating for us; agony for Brent.  He is SO ready to move forward with something.  He’s been in medical rehab since mid-May and it’s killing him.

And my nephew Nicholas.  Told in April 2010 that his leukemia had relapsed days before his final follow up after his March 2009 bone marrow transplant, the doctors chose a wait and watch approach initially.  Wednesday Nick was admitted to the hospital to get his Hickman placed, and while he was sedated for the procedure, they did a bone marrow test.  Guess what?  He’s one sick puppy again.  The leukemia cells have exploded, and the treatment protocol they had originally intended to use had to be modified.  Now Nick will get a medication that has caused him to have significant problems with blood clots in the past. Plus blood thinner (that he can’t be on during transplant) and other meds in his ‘chemo cocktail,’ all in preparation for a second bone marrow transplant.  It’s tentatively scheduled for early September, but no definite date yet.  Too many variables in the equation.  And we won’t even TALK about the odds of success for a second bone marrow transplant.  :(  I remind myself often that God has numbered Nicholas’s days, and that He is in charge.  And that He is the God of miracles!

Tonight Jim and the girls are having a ‘daddy/daughter date night’ in lieu of the Dad/kids camping trip they usually take.  There was simply no way to fit that on the calendar this year.  Some summers are like that.  I’m glad that they get to spend some time together and look forward to later tonight when they are all off having fun and my dynamic duo is in bed for the night.  Ahhh…peace!  Quiet!  Solitude!  (and ironing. and all the other stuff I didn’t do during the day.

You know what?  I am glad that yesterday I got to spend a couple of hours snuggling a newborn.  It’s one of my very favorite things to do and something that I would gladly do any time, any day.   Maybe I should just borrow her tonight?  She and I can cuddle up and watch movies…hang the chores!  :)

more vacation pics

On Tuesday night of vacation, there is a cribbage tournament.  Many of the teams dress up in costume (mostly the teens, but some of the adults too).  This is the first year Ryan and Logan have been able to come—it lasts WAY past their bedtime!—and they got into the spirit of the tourney in their ‘gangsta’ outfits.

Their caps are made from glow sticks, which had everyone quite envious.  The boys LOVED wearing them back to the trailer about 10:30 at night—they’re cool in the dark!

Oh, and Ryan teamed up with sis Victoria to play this year too.  Not bad for 5 years old.  Maybe next year they’ll win the whole thing.

I don’t think so

This year we had to put netting over our blueberries—the birds have been relentlessly eating my berries!  This afternoon Logan came running in the house shouting “Come, Momma!!  Come!”  So I went outside and saw a bird stuck inside the ‘cage’ we built for the berries.  Somehow the bird had figured out how to get in, but not how to get out.

Ryan watched the bird for a few minutes, then said “This bird must be on his lunch break. Mom, do birds have jobs?”

Hmmmm…guess the focus here has been on jobs and work for a while.  Amazing the things they absorb and apply!

vacation pictures

Our annual trip to Blue Lake.  This is the 17th consecutive summer we’ve been out there.  Total headcount this year:  48 (I think!).  People in our ‘family’?  11.  Yep—2 adults; 7 teens; 2 preschoolers.  That’s WITHOUT Brent and Kayla!   Tends to make things a bit cozy in the trailer.  Good thing there were tents…4 of them, to be exact.

 

Tubing with Daddy is always a highlight…

…good thing he’s there too, otherwise Logan might fall out!

Think they’re happy to be back on a jet ski this summer??

        floating with Mom’s friend Mrs. Huffman…

Hanging out with family and friends, swimming, jetskiing, tubing, and floating—it’s a tough life but they LOVE it!

 

We had a blast and can’t wait for next summer at Blue lake!

funny boy

For nearly 5 years, Ryan has had a horrible time sleeping.  Many (most) nights he cries out in the middle of the night—a plaintive wail of “Mama!  Mama!!”  More recently he’s been sleeping through the night, and at this point we’re up to 6 or 7 consecutive good nights before we have a bad one.  Then the pattern starts over.  It’s a far cry from where we’ve been, and I am very happy with our nights.

One of the things we’ve tried to teach him is that he doesn’t need to sit on his bed and cry until I come, that he can instead come into our room and wake me.  Well, he finally got the message.  Early Monday morning—like 3:25—he came to my side of the bed and said “Mama I need you.”  No tears, no frustration, just words.  Ahhhh…progress.

As I snuggled with him in his bed, I asked him how it was to come to me and wake me up rather than yelling at me until I responded.  He snuggled closer, and with a HUGE smile in his voice he said:

“It was GREAT!  Just like you said, I didn’t have to be sad and cry.  And even better?  You got here a whole lot faster!”

Goofy boy! 

we're back!

We're home...but I wish I was still on vacation. :(

I have pictures to share but am overwhelmed with things that must be done--yesterday, if possible. So, pictures will have to wait. Maybe by the time I catch my breath and get to them, I'll even be able to look back fondly at the vacation instead if desperately wishing to still be there.