When is the right time?

I've been a busy lady the past 12 years or so.

DH and I successfully raised a child from 13 to adulthood. It was so successful that she is our full fledged daughter, by the way, completely bonded to each other as parents and child. That was pretty special.

We went from a teen to adopting a newborn. At the time I really did think that was so much work, but you know what they say, "Hindsight is 20/20". She was a piece of cake. She's a bit more work now, but only because she can move now.

Then the twins came, after a false start of a couple of other adoptions. Talk about stress! They were foster/adopt which meant letting our hearts be open had some drawbacks, just in case it didn't work out. But it did and we got to be their forever family. One of the twins has some special needs though that I pegged as early as under a year old. Hmm, well we were certainly busy then too.

Then God called us to actually use the embryos we had made years earlier and we were happy that one of them finally worked and we had our son.

Whew, in between all of these additions, DH worked an insane amount of hours, we visited family that live 2 states away, homeschooled all of them, bought a house in the country, moved to the city, moved to an island and back again to the Northwest. And now I'm looking to the horizon.

Just beyond this current stress of actually selling the house in HI and actually buying and moving into the house in the NW what will I do?

I find myself drawn to ministry (go figure with a preacher for a dad). I am so trying to figure out a role for myself that won't step on my faith's toes about women being in subjection. I have passion people. I want people, that only have a vague idea of what Christianity is about, to meet me and to say, "Oh wow, her and the Supreme Being are close!" Right now my current circle of people consists of people that go to the same worship house on a weekly basis. And until now I've been satisfied ministering to the people that come to that building. I've taught bible classes, led singing for women, taught children, counseled, listened, loved. But when is the right time for me to move to the next phase? How do I really increase my circle? I'm struggling with this. Do you have any ideas? I'm not as busy as I have been in the past, but I do realize I'm still extremely busy...

Well if this is the time to do the next thing, what will it be and how do I accomplish it? anyone? anyone?

Prayers requested and coveted.

Praises to the Creator of the Universe!

God is so incredilby awesome! Can I get an, "Amen!"?

The Lord God Almighty brought a new life into this world on Tuesday. She was born to an awesome Christ following family that has been hoping for her to join them for so many years. I've been so blessed to be there to hold her when she was still nakkie, from the womb, nakkie. Straight from the Creator! Wow, I love this family and am so happy that they have another child on this earth to raise and love. (Big sister was pretty excited too) I can't wait to see this new little one grow up in God.

Won't you join me in saying it?
"God is soooo incredibly awesome, AMEN!"

Little Man, very proud of the church building he just built

Twin A and friend S so cute and cuddly in the morning

Little Man playing with the Marble Craziness

I promise I didn't drop off the face of the planet....

I am trying to stay focused on not stressing out about our houses and the lack of movement on the one in Hawaii. Apparantly I think that if I don't tell ya'll anything about the rest of our lives than that part isn't happening either.

We are still enjoying being back in WA. It is as if we have put on an old pair of jeans and remembered that they were a perfect fit and that they still are! First who doesn't love a place that just feels right? And second I love feeling like me, but better.

My anxiety about the house selling is there, but I'm still trying to keep it at arms length.

I'll post some pictures in a sec of some of the craziness the kids have been up to....

In a land far, far away

...there lived a beautiful princess.

She stayed with friends while her parents had some work to accomplish. She played with her friend, a true friend that she hadn't seen in along time, all day long. And she stayed up too late and didn't get enough rest. And, as any good princess would do, she had a melt down. She cried for her parents, but they were too far to come and rescue her. The princess wants to be happy. She wants to be sweet.

If she could only figure out how....

How do you stay happy when the people who are usually there to help you stay calm are gone? How do you stay sweet when everything about your life is very topsy-turvy?

She is still in a land far, far away from me and I need you all to pray for her. You see there are people that look at Twin B and think, she's an average girl with average emotions and yet they are wrong. She is special, that girl. God made her that way and in her heart she wants to fit the idea of what a good girl is, but her emotions, well they win far more often than she wishes. And our dear friends are watching her and frankly, I'm not sure they ever really knew that Bekah was special in this way. She can really hold it together for about 24 hours. Putting on her best face. Staying sweet when she wants to melt down. But we are on day 4 now and she is tired.

So please pray for her.
Pray for our friends as they care for her.
Pray for me as I sit on the other side of the ocean, praying.

My kids are soooo sweet...

We are still waiting for my minivan to arrive from Hawaii. While we are waiting, DH is taking the shuttle from Bothell to Redmond. I've been dropping him off at the shuttle site and picking him up again at the end of the day. Today though bibliomom and I decided that we are going to take the 4 oldest to a play this evening. If we are going to a play then we need DH to pick up 2 youngest kids and he needs a car to do that. So he took bibliomom's car to work today. Knowing that I didn't have to get up and get ready to take him to the shuttle today (and bibliomom's daughter doesn't go to school today) we told the kids last night, "tomorrow when you wake up, be really quiet, get yourselves breakfast, don't wake up the moms" Well my kids really try, but they apparantly couldn't contain themsleves past about 7:30.....oh well they are sweet and they meant well, but.....well they are just so sweet for even trying....

Busy Weekend and Settling In

Friday we had so many fun friends come to visit us over at bibliomom's house where we are camping out for several weeks. We have to wait for the houses to settle and for our belongings to arrive from Hawaii. We ended Friday evening with dinner with some awesome friends. Saturday the husbands watched the all 6 kids while bibliomom and I headed out to the yarn store. I leaned to knit! Woah, that was fun so I got some yarn and got to knitting myself a new scarf (of course). We headed over to the Annual Chili Cook-Off for our old church where we were able to see lots of friends. Sunday felt so good....worship, class and lunch with friends at Red Robin. Monday we got over to the library. The kids were so happy to see the library. I'll have to write later and tell you about our huge grocery shopping trip we did last night...whew...shopping for 10 people is a lot of work!