Crabs in my Closet- Thank you Jesus!

There are hermit crabs in my closet and a bike in my bedroom hiding under a blanket. I'm sewing a nose on a green pig, it must be Christmas Eve. I am so thankful for children at Christmas. My children. Just look at them. Each one of them was a miracle at birth, who beat the odds and made it into this world when they shouldn't have. So many past Christmases in which we struggled with our barrenness and losses. It doesn't seem to matter how much you love Jesus it hurts to celebrate the birth of a child when grieving your own loss. Christmas songs, church services, they all hurt. I have a friend who is grieving the loss of a child this Christmas and it brings back all my own grief and loss. 10 years with no children of our own here on earth. For those of you who are in the midst of loss, I know and I am so sorry.
 While I still grieve my 5 children in Heaven, and my heart yearns for our child in China who is spending his last Christmas in an orphanage, I am so grateful that I can share the joy of Christmas with these my precious children that God has given me.

Merry Christmas

The Making of a Christmas Card

Here's our Christmas Card. 

We had a lot of fun making it. Any concept that doesn't involve 6 people looking at the camera and smiling at the same time is a good thing.  We've had a lot of questions about it so I thought I'd show you how we did it. I like to come up with the ideas and Brent is a genius at making it happen.  The fun part was staging it. I put a table in a corner and put a red drape behind it. Then we all did our best pantomime impressions by ourselves with a table and a wall and Brent made computer magic with the shots. Here's some of the shots that went in to making the picture. 

 

Merry Christmas from us!

Nightly Ritual

before and after

$9 thrift store desk.

dry brushed with one of my favorite colors.

ready for action.

Christmas fun at the park.

 Caricatures

Santa

Hold Still!

Carriage Ride

Ho Ho Ho!

Face painting

Pretty 

Daddy kissing Santa Claus!

Lunch with Lucy

Fun with Hair

And the winner is...

Kindle Fire Giveaway tonight!

Our CHIPIN somehow ended early. So we had to start another one for today as the drawing will be 7pm tonight. So if you've been checking the blog for a winner, it will be tonight and we've actually raised 30% of the $5000 goal, it just isn't showing up since we had to restart the CHIPIN. If you donated, don't worry, we got your donation and your name is in the hat. thank you so much for helping us bring home this precious boy.

Happy Birthday Karianne

A little late posting this, Thanksgiving and all...
 Karianne had her 7th Birthday last week. She made her own cake at it was adorable. Fun was had by all, All the girls got to eat a marshmallow snowman.

Kindle Fire Giveaway!!!!!!!!!!!

Our next round of big adoption fees are due at the beginning of December. We've decided to do a giveaway to help raise the fees and  in thanks for everyone that is supporting us and helping us bring home Jack out of an orphanage and into his forever family. Soon there will be one less orphan in the world. We are giving away a new Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire will be released on November 15th. Not only does it hold books like the Kindle, you can watch movies, read magazines and newspapers, play games and more.
   We have a CHIPIN on our blog. For every $10 donation to our adoption fund you will get one chance for the Kindle Fire. Every $10 donation and sharing the giveaway on any social media will get 2 chances (just let me know where you shared it). If you donate $25, then you will get 5 chances in the giveaway. The CHIPIN will end on December 1st and we will announce who gets the Kindle Fire in plenty of time for Christmas.

You can read more about the Kindle fire here

Thank you so much for your caring hearts.

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress

Fun times with Lovely Ladies and Super Ladies

The Beautiful

The Silly

The "I-think-I-look-better-when-I-don't-smile"

aka Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

The "I-wanna-be-an-elephant-no wait-supergirl"

The Haul



Pumpkins

We went to 2 group homes tonight. The first was an elementary age group home. We loaded up the van with pumkins and brought them all their very own pumpkin to carve. Ok, really, they cleaned out the pumpkins and drew a face, we carved. They had very definate ideas on what they wanted their pumpkins to look like and they were very pleased with the results.

We also went to an teen girl group home and suprised one of the girls with a birthday cake. She is turning 18 next week. A cool thing for other kids, for her, it meant she would no longer be a minor so she would be forced out of a group home and into a homeless shelter. She has no family here. Two days ago, her house manager told us she had family in another state that wanted her but they couldn't raise the money to get her to them. We were able to put the word out and get donations for her to get a plane ticket to go back to her family and NOT the homeless shelter. Many happy tears and an awesome birthday celebration. Thank you so much to those who helped her out!

Fall has fallen finally!

We took a day trip to Sedona yesterday after church. We were pleasantly suprised to see the fall colors all over the gorgeous Oak Creek Canyon trail that we like to hike. Nice and cool and oh so pretty. Then we came back home to our high 90's weather in Phoenix. Gotta love Arizona.