Christmas Letter

2009 has been a busy year!
BUSY is not our style… but we like what’s been keeping us busy:

Tori- She turned four in June and in the Fall officially started preschool.
Siah- He turned two in October and never stops unless he is asleep.
Adoption- We are officially licensed through the California foster/adoption system and just waiting for a placement. We’ve requested a boy or girl younger than Josiah. However, if you ask Tori- it depends on how the day is going with her very loud and active little brother. She’s known to say, “I’ve had enough BOY time today,” and follow-up that statement with, “I’d like a baby sister, NOT another baby brother.”
Infrastructure- To prepare for our 3rd child, we bought a minivan (something we never thought we would do!) We are also in the process of adding another bedroom and bathroom to our home (adoption rules). Jeff has done almost all the work himself. It’s been a very tedious process but he has done an amazing job.
Fun - We vacationed with friends and family at Hume Lake, San Diego, Bass Lake, and Yosemite. On September 4, 2009 we celebrated our 10 year anniversary and enjoyed some time away from the kiddos in beautiful Santa Barbara.

Hope you enjoyed the Yosemite photo this year. We (oh, let’s be honest here… it was Bethany’s plan, not Jeff’s ) wanted to take our family Christmas card photo in front of our newly painted yellow home but as time went quickly by I decided to eliminate some of the unnecessary things on my to-do list. I realized that I needed to refocus and truly enjoy this Christmas season. Dropping the picture idea was only one of the many things dropped from my list. I’ve realized that when I get too busy I lose sight of what is really important… the gifts do not make Christmas, the food only adds unnecessary pounds, the traditions are fun, but what is this really all about? It’s about a baby born over 2000 years ago who came to change this world. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart & with all your soul & with all your strength & with all your mind; and love others as yourself.” Luke 10:27

This question has been on our minds a lot lately… “Do we love others as ourselves?” Sure, our friends and family, but what about those “others” we don’t know. What about those in difficult situations that we don’t understand or relate too. We live in such a wealthy nation that it’s hard to fathom that life is not like this for a majority of those living in this world. When faced with the reality… we get overwhelmed and honestly just want the problem to go away. However, if we turn off the TV, turn the page, or simply stop listening… the problem doesn’t go away. Lately Jeff and I have been asking ourselves, “What more can we do?” We’re trying to refocus our priorities and instead spend minimally and give generously but more importantly share with others what it means to, “love God and love others as yourself.” We hope that our lives are a testament to the love God has shown us. Our prayer is that when you interact with us you see Jesus as He intended to be known. That we inspire you not to “be religious” or to “go to church” but to instead seek or deepen your personal relationship with Jesus. Hopefully our lives prompt you to ask, “Why do you do what you do?” “What inspires you to love others?” In reply we want to truly answer, “Jesus!”

Happy Birthday Jesus! Our blogsite: cofferclan.blogspot.com

Love the Coffer Family

Tori's Excited

I was so pleased today that when Tori said she was excited about Christmas there was no mention of presents. I asked her why she was excited and she said because, "Grandpa, Grandma, and Auntie Shelley are coming and we're all going to Mimi & Papa's". I was actually expecting an answer like... PRESENTS! Thankfully that wasn't what was on her mind.

I have plenty of updates to write but not enough time. Thankfully, our cards have been mailed so expect yours soon. If you don't get one... I'll post it here on Christmas Eve. However, I think most of the people that read this blog get our Christmas cards.

We're off to get hot cocoa, view Christmas lights and try to spot the Christmas train. Should be a fun evening.

Home Group Gone Wild

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Feast with our Home Group and as the night wore on the kids all took off their shirts and started dancing around and shouting. It was soooooo funny and very LOUD. Look at TJ's diaper sag- CLASSIC!

A new tradition

Tori and I started a new tradition on the Friday after Thanksgiving... no it's not Black Friday shopping! Instead, we went to coffee/hot cocoa and read a book together. Then we got our toes painted. She chose a snowman and I got a snowflake. Then we bought ingredients for a tasty project. As we were leaving the grocery store there was a beautiful rainbow and Tori said, "God is really amazing!" I love spending time with my girl.Here we are making a Fruity Pebbles Christmas Train. It's like a rice krispy treat but with fruity pebbles and shaped into a train.

It was pretty fun to create.

Our Little Helper

This little guy is really helpful. He wants to help whenever he's allow so we try to find safe ways for him to get involved. Notice the safety glasses. Here he is picking up the wood I cut, loading it into the wheelbarrow and then we'd take it over to the wood pile and he'd unload it while I continued cutting the wood. Tonight Jeff was chopping wood and Siah wanted to be helpful so Jeff loaded the wood into his dump truck and he'd drive it over to the house and unload it.

He was so proud to be helpful.

Dinosaurs

Tori has been really into dinosaurs lately. It's pretty cute. Here she is naming all the dinosaurs she can remember.

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family. It was a BEAUTIFUL day so we ate outside.

Traditional shoot the persimmons. Siah taking note.

So much to be thankful for!

Welcome to the family

Today is the day! We welcome Seth Indie McLelan permanently into our family. It's a very happy day. It's been a long emotional road but God has been in control and giving peace throughout the entire journey. I'm so excited for my brother's family.

Last Christmas


This summer

See more pictures of my adorable nephew and his forever family. Slideshow.

Thanksgiving Poem

May your stuffing be tasty,
May your turkey be plump.
May your potatoes n' gravy have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious.
May you pies take the prize.
May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off your thighs!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

No, I didn't write this... but I sure thought it was clever.

What are you Thankful for?

This is what Tori is thankful for...

what about you?

Halloween 2009

This is the 3rd year we've celebrated with friends from Mission Springs. This is the group of munchkins this year- we miss you guys that weren't there. We use to be a fairly small group but we keep having more kids. :) Imagine this group showing up at your house for candy all at once.

This year the weather was perfect and it was still light out since the time change hadn't happened yet. We first met up for pizza and then went trick-or-treating. So nice! Our little firefighter.

Bunny Princess and Pumpkin Selva. I have pictures of these two together since they were baby trick-or-treaters. They held hands the whole night and went everywhere together. We've spent every Halloween with them since Tori was born. We even helped decorate Selva's mommy's tummy when she was pregnant with Selva. She was a jack-o-lantern!

I joked that I was going as Exhausted Mommy and had Cranky Pants as my tag-along but thankfully he improved his attitude before the evening began. I was thinking about sewing cranks and gears all over his pants but that sounded like a lot of work. Instead he was a fireman as I'd originally planned. This great costume is actually a rain coat that he'll be able to grow into.

Tori came up with her Bunny Princess costume on her own. I thought it was very cute... and really easy.

Beach Day with Mimi & Papa

We're having chilly nights but beautiful 70+ days- so last weekend I took the kids to the beach and met up with Mimi & Papa. It started off foggy right at the coastline but cleared to just offshore shortly after we set up. It was really cool looking- almost dream like and then the dolphin started playing in the surf and stayed the whole time we were there. It was a great day!

Caramel Apples

"Big as your face" caramel apples. Easy to make, very messy & extremely tasty. The vote was... they're healthy too!

No, they didn't finish them.

Tired

I haven't posted anything lately cause I'm TIRED! Jeff has been working his 2nd job (building our addition) almost non-stop. He's made a lot of progress and the inspector was pleased with his work so that is wonderful.

For me that means I've been the "on" parent 24/7. All day, every day, from sun-up to sun-down. Of course he helps but it's not like usual. I'm very grateful that this is not normal.

For some reason (because Daddy is not around) the kids are more cranky than usual and seriously testing my patience. To top it off I hurt my back a couple weeks ago and it's not getting better. Thankfully I got some x-rays done and now have a treatment plan but it all adds up to me being TIRED. Please keep me in your prayers if you think about it.

10 years in review

I finally finished our 10 year anniversary album.
Here's a link if you'd like to view it.

http://www.cmphotocenter.com/sbpreview/StorybookPreview.aspx?StorybookID=408195&CustomerID=243080

Pumpkin Patch Fun

We had a fabulous time celebrating Siah & Kylie's two year old birthdays at the pumpkin patch. Pony rides, hay jumping, train rides, pumpkin sitting, endless pictures= fun had by all. Such good buddies!

(If you like to see the pictures in a larger format... click on the collage. I made this using StoryBook Creator from Creative Memories. Always finding something new and cool to do with that software.)

Our Lil Pumpkin Turned Two

Here's Siah 2 years ago weighing in at a very healthy 9.5 lbs. Such a cute and fun little guy!

First birthday at Gizdich Ranch.Second birthday at Arata Pumpkin Farm. LOVE this look! Think Blue Steel- Zoolander. This little guys is so much fun! All Boy- tons of energy, very loud, ADORABLE! It's amazing how quickly 2 years pass. We love you Siah!

Yosemite Camping

This past weekend we headed up to Yosemite with our homies (home group). We had over 30 peeps join us. Half being kids. We had 4 campsites together and spent the evenings around the campfire and then spread out during the days to do whatever each family felt like doing. Everyone had a wonderful time. There's something special about being outdoors in the dirt, sun, and rain surrounded by beautiful mountains and fabulous friends that makes it worth the effort of packing everything (but the kitchen sink) from our perfectly good home, driving 5 hours, and then setting it all up again in a little nylon tent for a weekend. Look at the smiles on these faces. The kids loved being together. The first night we didn't get much sleep because Tori was too excited and wanted to be with her friends. She actually told me around 3am that the night was, "taking to long." Siah was awake all night because we bundled him up too much and he was melting. Poor guy, we didn't want him to freeze.

At the campsites the kids rode bikes and played endless games. Tori packed the bunny ears and told me, "my friends will laugh and laugh when I put them on." Funny girl!

Campfire time is always a favorite for me. Smores and fun conversation while staring into the fire. Here's the Slagg family enjoying "banana slugs". You're gonna want to know how to do this- Slice the bananas down the middle with the skins still on. Smash chocolate peanut butter cups inside. Wrap them in tinfoil and roast. Enjoy with a spoon. Thanks Schwartz family for introducing this yummy camping treat.

The bedtime routine. Books read by headlamps. They love camping and fall asleep pretty easily in the tent. Yes, that is a pack-n-play inside the tent.

Our crew after most of the kids were in bed.

One of the days we hiked down to the river and enjoyed some quality rock throwing.

Then we visited the horses and rode the bus (Tori's favorite).

Here's most of our group. (2 families were hiking)

This boy knows how to get dirty. I've found overalls are the best for camping. I'm not joking when I say he was actually swimming in dirt. It looked like the breast stroke. I wish I was quick enough with the camera but you'll just have to imagine. I was able to capture this picture though. He was thoroughly enjoying his ice cream cone and cheese. I referred to him as my "candy coated bear treat." (Apparently the bears where sniffing around our campsite early one morning. However, I was blissfully unaware. It would have been so embarrassing to pee myself.)

Happy little camper. Here's a smile that keeps creeping into our pictures lately.

I like this picture of the family. Hopefully it shows what kind of family we are cause this is the one I sent to the adoption agency. The scarf on my head was because it was day 3 of no shower (ewwww). That's nothing if you compare it to the time we spent adventuring in New Zealand. Our clothes could walk by themselves by the time we were done.

We wore him out!

This was our second trip and won't be our last. Beautiful place with beautiful friends. Love it!

Jeff- the amazing Daddy

I just have to say it... Jeff is an amazing Daddy.

Here's the most recent example. After returning home from Yosemite (pictures to follow soon) he set up our tent in the backyard to dry (it rained on us the last night). Tori loved camping so much that she decided she wanted to sleep in the tent all by herself tonight. I was not OK with the idea. She's only 4! But Jeff thought it was a great idea because she's usually fearful and this was a very big step for her. I suggested letting her fall asleep out there and then bringing her inside so that I could sleep. Because knowing me I would be up all night thinking of all the things that could go wrong. So... for my benefit he snuck outside after she was asleep and set up a sleeping mat on the patio outside her tent. He didn't want to go into the tent because he wanted her to feel independent and brave. Thanks to Jeff- I'm not going to worry all night about her safety and she's having an adventure.

Update- she woke up at 3pm a bit nervous and started walking towards the house when she saw her Daddy He immediately picked her up and carried her to the comfort and safety of her own room. Tonight she'd like to fall asleep out there but be carried in when we go to bed.

Walk For Life

This is our miracle girl Tori (with her little brother peeking behind her). Look at her cute little face and just think... we were advised to consider aborting her on 3 different occasions. How heartbreaking to think that so many people are being given advice that is 100% wrong and therefore making decisions that rob them of a precious life that God had planned for them. We are so thankful that we put our trust in God during our trials and didn't listen to the counselor's destructive advice. We have our precious little girl because we stood up to them. This is the first year I've done Walk For Life which is a fundraiser for the Pregnancy Resource Center of Santa Cruz but it certainly won't be the last. We've been supporting the PRC for several years now because we feel their mission is a very important. http://www.santacruzprc.org/

Here's the story of why we got involved- When I was 18 weeks pregnant I took a blood test (AFP) that indicated a possibility of us having a Down Syndrome baby. We were encouraged to have a level 2 ultrasound appointment through Stanford's Genetic Counseling Clinic. (All covered by the state of California.) When I was making the ultrasound appointment I was very clear that we would not consider terminating the pregnancy but that we would like to do the ultrasound to find out more about our baby's development. During the ultrasound they discovered that there was an additional problem. Our baby's left kidney was deformed (they probably said fetus come to think of it though.)

After the ultrasound we meet with a doctor (not a kidney specialist) and the same counselor that I was very clear with regarding our view of abortion. They told us that because there were now 2 potential problems that we should again consider the option of abortion. Note- neither of these problems were known to be life threatening but they did not mention that. We were again very clear that abortion was not an option for us.

We continued to have appointments at Stanford (paid for by the state of California) throughout the entire pregnancy to follow her kidney development. During another appointment we were again encouraged to reconsider abortion. Finally we meet with the pediatric urology surgeon who clarified what was happening with her kidney and relieved our worries. He explained that what she had was not life threatening and could be fixed after birth with a couple of surgeries. And as I hope you'll all agree- a Down Syndrome child is NO reason to ever consider ending a life. In fact our dear friends had this same test (AFP) and were given a negative result for Down's when in fact their precious little girl does have Down Syndrome. So the test was wrong in detecting Down's when it actually existed and wrong in predicting it when it did not.

After 2 surgeries Tori has kidneys with almost full functioning capacity and should not have any additional problems. Praise the Lord!

On another note- as she was developing and even recently I did struggle with the following verse:

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:13-14

I have to be honest, I was asking the following question, "God, did you knit her together wrong?" I remember bringing this up at one of my bible study groups and crying. I of course know God does all things well but what happened with her? This question didn't cause me to doubt God but it made me wonder how God would work all things for his glory in this situation. I just recently was made aware while I was getting ready for Walk For Life of part of God's plan. God told me, "I didn't make her wrong! I made her this way for several reasons. One being that your experience you got involved with the PRC. Another reason was it got your hearts ready for adoption. You now understand a real need exists for children and parents in desperate situations to have access to a loving home." I'm sure there will be additional reasons as well. See, God does work all things out for good.

Romans 8: 28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Through being involved with the PRC I've been asked to be a mentor mom for one of the teens. When I got together with her the first time I was overwhelmed by her situation. She is such a strong girl to not have given into the pressure to abort. All the women (on her side of the family and her boyfriends) have had multiple abortions. But she refused- even when they were trying to convince her it would be best. Through the support of PRC she made the decision to not only have her little girl but she also decided to follow Christ. I am so proud of her! It's not easy for her and I feel it's so important to continue supporting and encouraging her. The PRC counselors have been doing a wonderful job of that.

If you'd still like to support Walk For Life you can go to this link and sponsor me or click on link up top to make a donation directly to the PRC.

http://www.walkforlifesantacruz.com/life/sponsor.php

Fun with Grandma

Grandma stayed with Siah and Tori while we enjoyed our anniversary in Santa Barbara. She bought Siah an early birthday gift. It was perfect for him- POWER TOOLS. Just like Daddy.

While we were gone Tori and Grandma did tons of crafts. She packed a separate suitcase just to bring them all out. They baked, glued, cut, painted, and colored all sorts of projects. They both loved the special time together.

She was super grandma doing more with the kids in one day than I attempt in a week. Parks, out to eat, railroad, .99 cent store... she's probably still trying to recover. They can be exhausting.

Thanks again Grandma- we really appreciate you!

They even made a bird feeder.