update

Please pray? My dads Dr says his left lung has collapsed. They will have to insert a tube and re-inflate it. I am sorry to say, I am home with 6 kids and feeling a little more than out of the loop. I will try to stay updated here as I can though. Please pray for him, and also for my mom to have peace. Tank you my friends.~

My dad

My dad went in for a surgery yesterday. He had the top portion of his lung removed because of a cancerous mass they found there. It was a long surgery, and they said a very painful recovery process. We have been praying for quick healing and easy recovery and that the cancer would be gone. Well, the Drs report after surgery was this is a contained mass as it seems so far(they will do microscopic tests on the lymph nodes to see if there was any more anywhere else),and they feel confident they removed it all. He also was amazed it was caught at this early of a stage. (praise God!) He says the surgery was good, effective, and dad was off the breathing machine in record time.(another thank you God!) Poor dad was in a LOT of pain right after surgery. They have to make sure the patient is awake, breathing and all before they begin giving large doses of meds. So, this was hard-- to know he was in such pain. But , thank God, he was quickly able to be given a few different things. He had a rough night of pain. By this morning though, they were able to get a handle on the pain for him. He was requesting coffee by 6, and starting to get comfortable, and at one point said he felt the pain was at a "0" when it had been "off the charts". I was so concerned about the "getting him up" part. I knew how hard it was for him earlier to just BREATHE without excruciating pain. Well, the nurse had two guys to help him up, but Dad just said, you want me in the chair, ok, and GOT UP himself!! Praise God! She said she has never ever seen a patient do that! He was requesting his favorite drink, (Pepsi), and chatting and even making jokes. When I last saw him, he was tired, but seemed remarkably alert and somewhat stable as far as pain goes. He will be out of ICU tomorrow(YIPPEE), and Mom has been staying in a nearby hotel that was very comfortable. (and close to Sonic for her "happy hr Dr Pepper!") I am so excited that things are going so well. God is taking such good care of them both. Mom is amazingly calm. My brother was remarkably clear headed, my sister was her usual organized, helpful self, and Dad is showing humor and strength, and amazing courage. This was a hard surgery to agree to.(in case you wondered, for some reason, I was the emotional basket case who felt rather useless. lol) It looks like he may be out in 4-7 days(if this continues, maybe closer to the 4!) Please keep them in your prayers? Thank you to all those who have been praying already! I will keep you posted on his recovery and results of tests.

YAY!

OK! I have the plan for the wall storage. Thank you to Alicia and Edna. The neat thing is, alot of it we already have! I just need to paint it all to match and attach it to walls. I am doing black semi gloss for the shelves and table. The chairs will be red satin. Then I got red plastic dishpans at Walmart for 2.00 each. I think it will look really cool. I will post a bunch of pics as soon as I can. I can see it in my head though and it looks REALLY cool and also very neat. lol The boys new beds have black metal -- I think it will all look good together. And it will all be pretty cheap.(YAY!!)

Favorite Websites for families

We have some favorite websites, that I thought some may not know about. Here is the BEST doll site for girls of all colors. http://www.sleepysoft.com/ It can be really hard to find a baby doll for little ones with skin color other than white. It can be very frustrating at the lack of choices available. I think it is really important when you have little children to show them an array of babies-- even if you have not adopted. But esp let them have one special baby that looks like them.I have seen it work wonders for Moriah. Hers is the "Bailey" hispanic dolly. It was her best Christmas present ever, and her special lovey. They have a WIDE variety of types of babies too, soft lovey styles for tiny ones, and then all the way up to collectibles, with affordable play ones in the middle. They have Asian babies that are SO beautiful. Take a look, you will love this family- run website!
http://www.visionforum.com/ is a great one. We ordered most of our Christmas stuff there. They have "Beautiful Girlhood" and "Boyhood adventure" plus "Grandpas classic toys" It is awesome. Helps give the boys REAL active things to do. We ordered the zipline for Elijah this year, and Isaiah got a rubberband gun. You will loove this one too if you are looking for stuff to keep your active boys entertained without video games. lol Or to remind your girls God made them feminine and that it's awesome! ALL the girly stuff made my girls swoon and squeal.
http://www.lillianvernon.com/ All around great stuff at great prices.
http://www.lakeside.com/ another like that.
http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/ GREAT homeschool curriculum. We have loved the Spanish, the Math, the Science. . . we are REALLY liking the service and the prices. :-) With a big family and more on the way, you have to think of those prices and be smart.
http://www.sonlight.com/ best book lists and REAL books ever! I love them. The kids are soaking them up. We just use the history books, and the readers and read alouds, and that gets expensive, but it is worth it to surround us with great literature. I have three avid readers and my 5 yo is working through his phonics and GETTING IT!! I think he will be reading this year too. So reading good books and getting them excited about it is worth that once a year price.
http://www.mfwbooks.com/ I love the two Language books here. Primary language lessons and Intermediate Language lessons. Riley is still in the Primary one. It lasts three years. He is in the final part of that one.
http://www.hwtears.com/ the most wonderful handwriting program for all types of learners!! Awesome. It took the frustration and tears (of me AND my kids lol) away. It is easy to teach, easy to learn and WORKS.(oh, and affordable!)
http://www.artisticpursuits.com/ art we love. 42.00 for the book but it will last us a while. We do art once a week.
http://www.orientaltrading.com/ they have an active kids catalogue with toys and stuff, then also a hobbies one w ith scrapbooking stuff. Few people know they sell other stuff than the usual party supplies or VBS type activities and crafts. They sell furniture, teaching supplies, art supplies at the BEST prices. Check them out with a cup of coffee in hand, you could be there a while. oh, they have metal buckets that we use for color coding bathroom supplies. Each kid has their own bucket/color and we fill them occasionally with travel sz deoderant, toothpaste, body spray, toothbrush, comb and hair gel. It keeps everyones stuff separated and organized. one of our favorite purchases has been our giant pocket calendar. Ok -- you all have a great day

Boy's room mission

Well, the boys' bed is together. I will spare you all the before pics, because I was actually too ashamed to take them. Those boys can mess up a room so darned fast. But I see the reason is we need better STORAGE! I need to get homes for things. So I am in the process of planning a storage system. My mission impossible: easy, cheap, effective storage shelving along the entire north wall of their room. hmmm. . .. I better think this out some more. Right this moment there are Bionicles, Legos, Rescue Heroes, clothes, towels. . . etc etc all over the floor. So my mission better get figured out fast before my nerves are frayed. I thrive on order. And feel at peace when things are simplified and orderly.(or can be that way within 20 minutes or less!) Any ideas on affordable storage solutions are way appreciated!!!

My baby boy

My baby boy!! My sweet Isaiah is 5 now! I can hardly believe it. It seems like only yesterday he was a screaming little newborn who hated to be held. He would look at me with his little grumpy old man face and wail. Sort of glad he was #4 because he made me feel very inadequate at times. lol If he would have been my first I would have just assumed I was an awful mommy. As it was though, I just trudged on, knowing the attachment parenting process WOULD eventually work. Sure enough, my little fella by 3 mos was acting like a regular newborn. We have still faced challenges. At 1 he would climb out of his crib and climb in with his newborn baby sister!! I would wake up in the morning and find them both curled up like puppies in one crib.(very agile bo, he climbed WITH his lambie into her crib) At 2 he would be in "time out", and crawl out a window and go out to ride his trike. By crawling out a window I mean climbing up to get to it, then unlocking the child safety latches then pushing ot the screen THEN getting out and climbing down the side of the house! At 3 he hit the "terrible twos", wanting to do everything himself, and testing out every boundary known to mom. It was exhausting. Then also he had seizures start up that year. Very rough for all! By age 4, we started the emotions roller-coaster. This whole year has been filled with trying to learn appropriate emotions, facial exressions and empathy. I am so excited to say, HE IS GETTING IT!!!!!!! Woohooo. In fact, he almost made me cry last night when we were shopping for gifts, he picked out gifts for his brothers. WOW!(I will have to get a little something for the girls-- his benevolence didn't make it that far. lol) Anyway, I am so thrilled we have gotten to 5 showing real growth, and maturity, but most of all, I love the little guy more than ever. Here is the biggest news. . . he gives me kisses and hugs all the time and LOVES me too!!! I am so honored to be his mama. It has been a hard road to walk at times, esp when compared to "easier kids", but it has still been one of the best things I have ever done.

Woohoo!

My New bed came!! I will post pics as soon as I can/ I took them but I just am so swamped thatgetting them ON is tricky. My big guys helped me(doing man sized work) and earned a few dollars each. It looks amazing, and more fabulously, I woke up not as sore! Yay! God is so good this deal was just too good to be a regular overstock deal. Wow!

praise God!

One of the things we need to get squared away before home study is the beds. We need to get beds for the new girls but we have also needed a new one for us and for the boys. After MUCH shopping, we decided to get a twin on top-full on bottom bed. The one we liked the most had a futon possibility for the bottom as well. It was 299. The one I found for us was a king sz metal bed at overstock. It was a steal I thought at 259. Then it went down to 229. I put it in the cart and waited a month. Then Saturday I went to check out there. It was marked down to 184!!! With shipping it was 187! Not only that I got it ordered the 27th, it will be delivered the 29th! AWESOME! Then we found out the bed for the boys has been clearanced to 159! AND if we get the floor model they will take 20% off that price! WOW! God is taking care of money situations all right. I am so excited about these beds. I can't wait to get them. I will have to post pictures when I get them set up. pooh, who needs a fairy Godmother. lol It was so nice of Him to encourage me like that.

feeling down

I really don't feel like writing today. I am discouraged. I know, this is probably part of the "process" of adoption. Feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed. I figure it needs to be seen and I need to deal with it-- and since I do that by writing. . . here it is.
The news is, there IS no news. I have a giant stack of homestudy paperwork to fill out, and 10 hrs of a training video with online tests to do, and $$$$ to pull together. A fairy Godmother with a magic wand would be handy about now. We are trucking through our spanish, but still feeling, um, not so bilingual. I have no updates about the girls, no pictures.
My sweet hubby though, who has every right to say this idea is nutso, simply says, "you were created for this Babe! No backing down." Not that I necessarily WANT to back down, but I am getting a little weary. The laundry piles, the messy bedrooms, the unmade beds, and the unfinished schoolwork, leaves a mamma feeling like her day was futile. I have the truth though. I KNOW my kids learned new things, we enjoyed the weird warm weather outside, we danced our tutus off, we baked, we giggled, we did haircuts and polished nails and grew crystals. We learned our first bible verse in Spanish and our first Hymn(Esta Aqui, Esta Aqui, aleluja mi Senor Esta Aqui-- E said is sounded like, I sing off key, I sing off key. . .lolol) We read awesome books and had playtime with our circle of friends. We ministered to loved ones at the hospital and hugged and prayed with strangers. So even though to the world's eyes, we may not have accomplished alot, in God's eyes we made so much progress. I suppose I just need to renew my mind and continue to get HIS perspective on this mountain that stands in the way. The confusion, the money, the worry. . . he is so much bigger than those things. So. I will have a brownie and coffee with the kids. A hot bath, and keep praying for HIS will to be done, HIS kingdom to come, and give my burden over to Him.

Thanks so much for the questions ladies! I have sz 6-12 mos(which I have to say are so sweet! )Then I have sz 2T-3T,(these first sizes are by age and are the Circo brand from Target) then our other sizes are M 10 1/2-4, and L 4 -10( these are SHOES szs and in the Faded Glory Wal mart Brand.)

sweet socks!

I am crocheting pretty lace on plain bobby socks! I am hoping to sell these sweet socks to raise some of the money for bringing Joana and Guadelupe home. I am making them from Targets Circo brand. Right now I have sz 2T-3T and 4T-5T on hand ready to mail. If you are interested-- email me-- hezra_at_home@yahoo.com I will post more pics later of the pastel colored ones with white lace. I can make these super fast! So orders won't take long.(even for ones I DON'T have on hand!) O and I are experimenting with ribbon bows for them as well, or matching hairbow/sock combos. We are selling them for 5.00 a pr with all money going into our adoption account! So please email me if you want some of these for your little darlings!

Our layout!Planned by O. Good job!

Sweet girl so carefully plans and lays out the squares for her new sister's blanket. She is um, meticulous and artistic.(maybe a tad perfectionistic?)

Squares all DONE!!

This is step two: iron and cut the fabrics. With a rotary cutter, mat and template these TONS of squares don't take nearly as long as they could. And they are much straighter!! :-) We decided for our twin sz quilts we want to use flat twin sheets for the backing, so we knew we needed 8 squares across and 12 squares down. 96 squares!!! (don't worry it goes faster than it sounds. We cut 4 squares to 6 squares at a time depending on the thickness of our fabric) We needed at least 12 of each fabric.(8 fabrics)

the first quilt for the new girls!

We started the quilt!(the first one anyway) O helped me choose fabrics. Then I ironed and ct 8 inch squares.(I HATE that part!!) Step three was letting O help me lay them out. SHE chose our layout and we think she did very well. She is amazingly artistic and wanted colors to go together. I was a bit surprised how that turned out so much better than MY idea of constrasting colors. This has a rainbow like effect of colors. After arranging them, we used index cards to write what each row was, then we stacked all the squares from that row and put them in gallon sz ziplock bags. So now we are ready to sew!!

needing peace

I need prayer. Last Saturday, some very dear friends of ours were violently murdered by the girls boyfriend. The young woman was 28 and leaves behind two small children, the other lady was her mother 56 and leaves behind two grown daughters and 6 grandkids. The boyfriend is in jail awaiting trial. The children are safe(they were not home when it happened.) Tonight is family night. I know I need to go, but everything in me wants to stay home and hide and pretend this did not happen. Not only that but I got a rare day lasat Saturday. I spent time at my mom's alone soaking up time with her and , laughing so hard we nearly cried. A really good time. But while I was there, our friends were dying together. It breaks my heart to pieces for the two sisters left behind and all the small kids involved. Please pray for them? And while you are praying, please pray for me? I need peace that only comes from God. I need to keep my mind focused on good, pure and holy thoughts, and not be led to sad, depressing, and scared ones. In the meantime, I am seeing this as a wake up call, to enjoy time with family. Mothers,children, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters, fathers and friends. Soak up that time. I have a new plaque hanging over my kitchen window that s ays, today is the day for making memories. Indeed.

I see I am way behind on blogging. We mailed off our application before Christmas and received our acceptance letter from our agency the day after Christmas. Then we went through the busy-ness of holidays. We really enjoyed having family at our house. It was amazing. I don't know why I did not come to this conclusion sooner. We have a huge table, big house, and LOTS of places for kids to play. The grown ups got to have a lot of good time together, while the kids watched movies and played(the highlight of our night was when the three little girls played dress up. lol BY themselves One very cute fat fairy, one with a dance outfit on backwards and a third with her dance suit inside out AND backwards!) So we may have to host more parties. I didn't worry about my kids making messes or breaking things. :-)
Since Christmas we have been trying to get school in the groove again.(not easy after a 4 week vacation) Also, I have been creative. I have been crocheting up a storm. I made two sweet sweaters/hat/bootie sets for friends who just had twin girls. I will try to get pictures up soon. I am hoping to sell some of those online. Also I am toying with the idea of an online boutique, "Sweet Stuff Shop" for baby's and little girl's cutsie stuff. I have crocheted lace trim onto some little girls bobby socks. They are turning out quite cute. I am going to use any sales for our adoption fund.
We were approved for the two specific girls, Joana (12) and Guadalupe (7) . It is so exciting! We received our packet in the mail from our homestudy local agency this week. We begin the update of our homestudy soon. There is so much to do. And the weird thing about it-- I want to start their quilts! lol I will get the hubby working on my pictures and crafts/or website this weekend. ahhh. . . must sleep. Tomorrow comes early.

Feeling really down today. It has taken me forever to fill out this application.Almost a month! Now I see why though. This week, my husbands new trial position was made permanent. AND his raise was made even larger! This would have totally changed our financial sheet, so I am glad we had not done that one yet. This is a big time blessing. HUGE. So amazing to see God work miracles. This type of thing does not usually happen at that place!
The verse that keeps coming to my mind is : "why so down cast oh my soul. Put your hope in God." There is just so much. . . my father has had a report of a spot on one lung they want to biopsy. My mom thinks she is having heart issues again. So, I know I am feeling challenged in those things. Then the marriage front. It seems every time an adoption or new baby has come our way, the marriage gets so attacked. It is disheartening and lonely. Even when I KNOW I am not wrestling with flesh and blood. Then the homefront. YIKES! the math is lie this. .. 5 kids+1 (organizationally challenged husband)+ 1 creative and perfectionistic mom+2 big dogs= one really cluttered (but creative) home. I feel I ought to be an organizational makeover "before". So, the idea of having a homestudy soon is um, daunting. lol
OH!! Speaking of homestudy. . . we originally thought we had to have a Hague accredited agency. So we contacted the people who had done our two previous homestudies. They are NOT yet Hague accredited because they are still new as an agency, and don't have the budget for it yet. There are no other options in MY area! I was discouraged of course. Then I talked to our Ms Maria, and she said they don't have to be, as long as they followthe guidlines of the Hague standards. YAY!! This means, in short, that we can have our homestudy, and postplacement visits by the same people!(MEANING only an updated homestudy--cheaper!!!!) We won't have to have a whole NEW one start to finish, just updated information! WAY easier for everyone and did I mention cheaper? lol
I am praying for these girls so much. Every time, I am moved to tears and can't even imagine the meeting of them!!
ok, so my house may be a mess, my marriage may be not what I want it to be, and things may be a little crazy and chaotic. . . but I know this! God has enlarged my heart and my home and HE will bring these things about.

I have a crazy tradition(ok weird thought process), every time I find out about a possible new baby(or kid!). I make a quilt. I was looking for bedding at Ross, Target, and Walmart. AND overstock. Yet couldn't find anything that seemed right(or priced right for FOUR girls!!) I finally looked at fabric and thought. . . hmmmm. I could MAKE them blankets for less and they would be more special. So I found the sheets that were just right and fabric and I will post pictures as I get them. For some reason making a blanket for each kid, is my favorite thing. It means home, snuggles and MOM. Curl up with a good book and just BE at home. My challenge is I don't know the girls' favorite colors or anything. I feel though if God is leading me on in bigger things, He can lead in this too. I just FELT the colors would be great.
I went looking for beds. We have 5 kids now, and adding two more. . . well, I am trying to figure out all the configurations of rooms and beds. I thought, bunk beds for boys? Two more twin beds for girls, get rid of the queen our little girls sleep in. . .etc. So I went to look at the furniture store. They are going out of business. Today was their last day. Everything is rock bottom prices. I saw the sweetest twin headboards and the prettiest daybed ever. All in prices I considered great. But God (ok AND Dan) said no. I will wait and see. I bought copy paper and am ready to fill out the application!!