Puddle Jumping

When Jeff gets home from work we often take the dog and kids for a walk in the forest behind our house. This is a favorite puddle- Victory!

I don't mind a little mud when I see how happy it makes them.

Happy Love Day

We started a tradition last year and Tori looks forward to it all year. It's a special date night with her Daddy on Valentine's Day AKA- Happy Love Day. It's a great way for her to feel extra special and for them to have time together. This year they went to Burger King, ice cream, & the dollar store... her choices. This year I took Siah out on a date too. We went to dinner- he's not much of a conversationalist, but he was excited about the chips and lemonade. We then went to pick out a new truck. He finally settled on an small dump truck to match the big one he plays with outside. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture with my date because he wouldn't stay still long enough. He was so excited to play trucks. Hopefully this will continue to be a tradition through out the years.

News

So everytime the phone rings or I get a new e-mail my first thought is... this could be life changing news. Usually it's a sales call or junk e-mail though. The waiting is so hard... it's kind of like taking a pregnancy test and really hoping for it to be positive and then getting inconclusive results.

However, today we finally got a call regarding the twins and after hearing all that their care would involve we've decided that we can't take them on. Please pray that there is a family willing and able to bring these kids into their heart and home. We know that it would be way too overwhelming for our family at this time. The little girl has some mental and physical issues that are still unknown but potentially very serious.

In other news- our homestudy has been submitted for a 4 month old little boy that will be entering the foster system soon... we'll update when we know more.

Nothing new on the Haitians but the fact that they are still in the news often I personally think is a good thing. Hopefully their desperate situation will not get ignored and the world will put pressure on them to find a solution for the kids.

Twins?

So... we've been asked by our adoption agency if we'd consider adopting twins! A boy and a girl age one (don't know the exact months). They are caucasian. The girl may have some medical issues or at least did in the past. We told our agency to submit our homestudy. We're approaching this as an open door and any door God opens, we'll walk through it until we know it's closed. The next step is to wait and see if their social worker thinks our family is a good match. If so, I don't exactly know the next step but they'd probably be placed with us within a month. We'll update when we know more.

In additon, we are attending a training for the Haitian refugee foster program on Saturday. We're kind of thinking that if we go in that direction that we'd ask for two children as well. A girl and a boy around 1 year. We really want to have our adopted kids look similar since Tori and Siah are carbon copies.

Please pray for us. It's a bit mind=blowing and overwhelming to think about but we're willing to go where God leads and we know He will provide all we need. If these kids aren't for us, please pray that they get placed in a wonderful and loving home.

Family Fun

We had a lot of fun riding dirt bikes with our friends. The kids loved it. Tori took a while to warm up to the idea but she finally hoped on the quad. Oh no, now Jeff wants one... OK, I kind of do too.






These pictures are for the few people (our parents) that don't check Facebook.

New Church & Haitian Orphans

Wow! When people ask what's been going on in our lives I can't stop talking. God is doing some BIG stuff. First of all we are helping to start a new church called Collide. We're having our first meeting this Saturday, Jan. 30th at 6:30pm at the Scotts Valley Community Center. Anyone and everyone is welcome to check it out. This new church wants to focus on what it means to operate as "the body of Christ" and to authentically worship the Lord. We won't have a lot of programs and we want to keep it very simple and fluid. We desire to see God move in His Power. I'll write more about this soon. It's been a year long journey and a really neat story.

In addition, we just got back from a meeting on how we can long-term foster (as in forever care for) a Haitian orphan. IF all goes as this agency thinks it will we could even have a child within 30 days. I say IF because there are still a lot of details to be determined by the US Gov, Haiti, and the UN. However, this agency is contracted by the US Government to place refugees and has been told to be prepared. Since we are already fost/adopt licensed the process can be sped up although we will have to go through some additional training and paperwork. I'll update again once I have more info but to say we are excited would be an understatement.

The way God has been leading us in this direction has been amazing. We started this adoption process back in August 2008. Our hearts have always been with the Haitian people after spending 3 months in the Dominican Republic and working with the Haitian villagers. It's the first time we saw extreme poverty and it changed our lives. When the earthquake happened and we saw the hurting and orphaned Haitian children our hearts were broken. I immediately called our adoption agency and it seemed impossible that any orphans would ever be adoptable but after talking with a friend she told me about this agency that works with refugees available for long-term foster care. The child will not be adoptable for their own safety in case a relative is located and because the humanitarian agencies are against letting the children be taken but they are not against fostering. We're really excited to see where God leads and how the details are worked out. When we started this adoption process many months ago God laid it on my heart that something would happen and that there would be many orphans. Of course I hoped this wasn't true and I kind of thought that must mean in the US since we were pursuing local adoption but now I'm thinking that He was getting us ready for this exact purpose. We shall see. Please be praying for our child. Whoever and wherever he or she might be. We are excited to welcome them into our family.

Fancy Helper

They're so cute when they get along! Lately they've taken to dancing for us...