Another Week...No News

This waiting is really starting to get hard. Knowing, that our case is stalled in Liberia! :(

There really is no timeline to what or when adoptions cases will be started up again. The hardest part is understanding what God's plan is for us! We find ourselves questioning the "What If" game. This week it was such a blessing to talk to 2 Mom's who are/have adopted internationally! Thank you so much you 2! Your words of encouragement, advice and love are amazing! :)

The prayers are felt!

Psalm 25:5
Guide me in Your truth and faithfulness and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You [You only and altogether] do I wait [expectantly] all the day long.

Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.

It is hard to believe the kids have there last week of school next week! I am so excited to have them home, and VBS around the corner, and baseball games!

Happy 60th Birthday to My Mom!

It was fun to take my Mom out for her birthday! We went and met Julie at 26th Grille for lunch, and took Mom to get her first pedicure! To bad we are watching our calories, we didn't even celebrate with cake! :(

Hopefully my sisters and I can get together to give mom her present soon!

My mom is an amazing lady!

Mom: Thank you for raising us all in a christian home, I appreciate all you do for my family, you have so many wonderful gifts you share, you go out and spend your days with those Grandpa's and Grandma's who need help, those struggling with cancer, you are always there for your grandchildren, you have become a Yankee fan even though you would rather sit at a lake with your toes in the sand, when the grand kids are sick you have words of advice, or you come over to to help them feel better and most of all you are always there to listen to me, when Mark and I miscarried our first baby you held our hand the whole time, you rejoiced with us with the birth of our 4 children, and now as we wait to see what God has planned for our family, you have a listening ear.

Thanks Mom, I Love You!

Our family is so happy for a family in our church! Congratulation's Tim & Kristi!

Check out the little blessing they're family has been praying for! God does hear our prayers! :)

http://bringinghomeblue.blogspot.com/

Psalm 69:30
I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving

A great prayer....

A dear friend had this on her Caring Bridge site, and it fits so perfectly with so many of us! Maybe we are having a down day, adopting, waiting for a phone call, sick baby, family, too many other issues, where do I stop.

In the midst of a whole lot of uncertainty, set your mind on the one certainty in life: God loves you and He is in control.

Dear Lord, thank You that in the midst of uncertain times, fearful times, and heart-aching times, You are the One I can be certain of. Thank You for being a Sure Thing, for now and always. Let my mind be filled with You, and then I will know Your peace which is supernatural. Lord, I pray that You will strengthen me in this trial, and during it, I ask that You will cause my heart and my mind to continue to turn to You. Lord, don't let this hard time cause me to be bitter or despairing. Instead, let me come out of it on the other side with a stronger trust in You. In Jesus' name, Amen.

This weekend went way too fast! Saturday am, we went to Emmetsburg to watch Beau's Show Choir! They received a 1! Yeah! They did a great job.
Saturday night we went to see where my little sister will be moving! Wow, what a great place, did I mention, she could watch all her nieces and nephews and still have an open bedroom! The house is huge! Great grove, place for animals, and a beautiful scenery! I am so excited for her. Although, us sisters are going to have to get handy with a paint brush!

Have a fantastic week!

Praying for Caleb....Families that are adopting....Praising God for our Family.....Families who are/have met their children through adoption.. God is good!

Those Brown Eyes

God has been so evident in our walk with our adoption!

We have not received any word on our I171's, what a bummer!
But we did get 2 pictures of a brown eyed boy! I am not going to put his full picture up
until the paper work finished and he is officially part of our family! :)
I thought I would just put part of his best features on the side here! The process is moving in Liberia, questions were answered, we keep inching forward! We are all getting excited!!
Tomorrow marks November 1 already! It is National Adoption month! I have been listening to some awesome cd's I bought from Focus on the Family! Wow, inspirational! We are not all called to adopt, I have had this twinge in my heart since high school, and now I look at Marcus' big brown eyes to think, this is all in God's hands is just amazing!
Please continue to pray for our journey! We are going to apply for Katelyn's Fund grant to help cover some of the expense of traveling over and back, so we need to get that done this weekend!

I ask another prayer request: a special little boy named Caleb is having seizures this am, please pray for Caleb and his family, you can follow along on their journey:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/calebsybesma

Have a terrific fall weekend! The weather is going to be perfect!
God Bless You all!!

The Waiting Game

At our home, we (the boys) tend to get a bit excited waiting for certain Indy Car Races, Chicago Bear/Cincinnati Bengal Football game, and when the Yankees are doing well, baseball game. The topic at the dinner table tonight was who was racing next year with IRL, and what a line up of stuff to watch Sunday afternoon. It is so nice to be able to visualize when it is going to happen. With this adoption process, we tend to be so careful of visualizing anything quite yet. The bedroom upstairs is collecting some dust, (OK, a lot of dust) a bag of boy clothes from my sister sits in the doorway. The Liberian government is still putting their stuff together to officially start the adoption process again, so many of us are waiting to move ahead.

We will plan our Family vacation after Christmas, that M will not be traveling with us to the Florida beaches. But just maybe, it will be a Christmas of surprises. :)

Friday Night was the 1st Varsity Football Game for our High School, I felt so bad for B1, standing on his crutches the whole evening while his buddies suited up.. The good news is only 4 more weeks left on them! :)

B2 is having some bumps and bruises from JH football. We are so excited to see him play!

B3 is excited to start band :), he is going to try his luck at trumpet. B1 has his beginner one. I can't wait to hear that thing again! :(

B4 started dance yesterday, oh was she so excited to see her little friends. Although us Dance Mom's have developed such a great friendship! They are the best ladies to sit and talk, encourage and laugh with!

This past weekend we attended a wedding in Sioux Falls, and hit Life Light! My dear friend was camping and somehow found a gentleman to drive B1 in the golf cart to our spot in the grass! Micheal W Smith was great!

Sunday we decided (after the Indy Race) to head back to SFalls to hear Natalie Grant and Casting Crowns! Wow, Casting Crowns was awesome!! It is so evident how God was so present, with all those people praising God together, praying and singing songs!

We pulled into the Holiday Inn Express at 12:30am. DH was up at 7am, we all slept till 9:00am. Went to Perkins! Perfect day!:)

Tuesday morning I thought B1 had an appointment with his surgeon at 9am, of course in SFalls again, to our surprise, maybe we surprised the receptionist more, his appointment is tomorrow Thursday! So a trip to SFalls, considered a quick trip up and back! Ugh!

We want to Congratulate a couple in Katelyn's Fund who received a phone call Monday am, with the addition of a precious little boy! We are so thrilled for them!!

Children are a blessing from the Lord!

We are still waiting for our I700 to come in the mail! :)

Have a great week!

Finally Friday!

Today we started out heading out of the house around 6:30am, to my amazement there is a lot of people out and about already!
The 3 younger ones stayed at Aunt P and Uncle M, so we could head to SFalls by 7:30am.
Son #1, had a scope, and they ended up doing repair on the bone. Took about 3 chuncks of bone out and made 12 small holes in the bone to promote healing and growing. The sad part is no football, crutches for 6 weeks and this machine on during the nights for 6 weeks! I feel so bad for him. Well I better get the machine up and running!
Thanks for your prayers!

Monday's

Her we are, Monday...many blessings this past week,
* Friends from church traveled many hours and are about to meet their son for the 1st time today! First Grandchild for both set of grandparents! Wow!!

*Pastor Mark and Family had safe travels from their Sabbatical and are home!

*Friends/Relatives have received Birth Certificates from Ethiopia on their twins!

*Wonderful rain

God is so good!

Talked to our SW, as well as emailing lots of questions. Our documents are in the mail to Liberia. The agency uses DHL to send, I know I have seen the truck, but have no idea what exactly how it works. Obviously it is dependable and will get where it is suppose to. It is very expensive, a bit over $100.00 to send those documents.

These are some pictures of our house over the weekend!

Our niece babysitting, or is it having fun flying over the couch? Time to move furniture!

While the boys are at work, they found a new "pet" running through town!