Other Really Big News

We have started the process of adopting a boy from China!!!! We are all very excited. Having always wanted to adopt from China but never fitting the requirements ( and not God's timing ) we are now able to bring home a son. I saw his picture on a waiting child website and knew he was ours. But that is just the middle of the story. WE ARE SUPER EXCITED....... God IS SO GOOD!!! After bringing home Anna and all the challenges that came with that, we felt like we were done. We could do no more, we were so overwhelmed. I wish that I could say we knew what we were doing with her a year ago, but that would be a lie. We had no experience with all the needs that Anna had, and nothing to do but call out in prayer some days minute by minute, and God heard and would give us ideas or thoughts that we knew weren't ours; only God, and we would try it and have results. Someone would come along and make a comment about her and have you tried this or that sometimes we could say yes and it helps or no but we would give it a try. Other people would just comment and not very nicely......but hey we just kept moving forward..... Anyhow back to our boy..... Last spring in the midst of building the strawberry farm, figuring out Anna and regular life with 10 kids and 6 grandkids, our Phoebe started the GREAT CAMPAIGN ....."Mom we need a boy" over and over and over...finally I would just say we can't we have our hands full. She knew how hard it was and yet she wanted a boy. So I told her to start paying for God to change our hearts. So Phoebe started praying for that very thing. And after about a month I started to feel like it was a possibility....and then I knew that we should pursue the dream of bringing home a boy. More later....

A Little Catching Up.......Announcing our new business .....Summer Breeze Strawberries

In 2014 I was pretty absent from this blog, I had some really time consuming things going on and today I will start sharing what they were. We started a new business that just really took every second of every day between the building it and then working at it everyday for 4 months. I am going to share the website link and we are also on facebook. We put in a 15,000 plant hydroponic strawberry farm. It was a lot of work and between that and Anna and the rest of the family well....this blog was very neglected. We had a fairly successful year.....considering we had no idea what we were doing......and ended in the middle of October, our plan had been to go till the end of October but we had a very hard frost Columbus Day weekend and that was the end of strawberries for the season. Not going to lie it was good to be done I needed a break. We have our plants ordered for the 2015 growing season and I am looking forward to the planting which won't be until May. We should be open for u-pick again after the first of July until end of October (weather permitting). You can check us out at summerbreezestrawberrries.com.

One Year Home

On October 16 we celebrated Anna's gotcha day. I can't believe how quick the year went. The first 4 months were not quick they were extremely long and hard. But after I changed my attitude thing s began to change all the way around. Now Anna is not talking any where near where I wanted her to be or thought she would be but progress has been made. She is much more vocal and is asserting lots of independence and self motivation and I am very happy about that. She continues to grow and develop and that is all we can hope for.

Anna an her First ice cream cone

Anna had her first cone....although she loved it she wasn't quite sure what to do with it. After shoving her face into the icecream she just used her finger to scoop if up and eat it.

Its Friday Already?

Wow the days fly by. We aren't doing anything special or exciting yet but we will be if the weather ever changes.....ugh enough already with winter. I am going to post some recent pictures of Anna she has changed so in the 5 months since coming home. Grown 3 inches taller put on 5 pounds and she smiles now.

So what can I even say.....

It has been over 2 months since last posting. Our life has been turned upside down and back again since bringing Anna home. And lest you think it's because of her coming home some days that was the least of what was going on. I will do a quick re-cap of events...... Nov 2 Alex falls and breaks his leg we go to emergency room, comes home and we make appointments to see Dr. First Dr we see.....yikes wouldn't let him touch our son....get a new referral ...see another Dr. really happy with this Dr...he has time to do the surgery that afternoon, November 5 so we go over to the hospital to get ready for surgery. Sounds like a plan except I have Anna with me and now we have been at the drs office for 3 hours not to mention the hour it took for us to get there....she is done, whining ,crying, hungry, you name it, she has only been home for 13 days, she has no idea what is going on.....I call Dan to come meet me at the hospital and get Anna. He got her a yogurt parfait at Mcdonalds on the way home, which has started her deep love affair with parfait and her father. I stay with Alex and take care of him. We now are driving an hour each way every week for re-checks and Alexs' leg is healing fine. He is missing 2 weeks of college, sleeping on the couch and developing a relationship of sorts with Anna. December Dan goes to see the same surgeon because he has a piece of metal protruding through his ankle, he is scheduled for surgery Dec 19 December first week...stomach flu....will leave it at that Dec 16 Elaina has pneumonia..... Dec 19 Dan has surgery Wait lets just pull off Christmas and make it happy and wonderful....we got through it that's all I am saying December 26 Dans surgery is totally infected and he goes on 2 weeks of bed rest and numerous Dr apointments. December 27 Alex wakes up with acute appendicitis has emergency surgery We also have 5 birthdays in December!! Happy New Year So as you can see the reason I haven't posted is because it has been one thing after another, trying to get Anna to settle and trust us is difficult, but we are trying. One thing we did do is get Anna started in school part time, she needed the exposure and I admit to needing the break. There is only so much I can do. She gets speech, occupational ,physical and play therapy. It is working really well. I never thought that I would send a child to school so quickly upon coming home but hey nothing has gone according to plan. We are going beyond survival mode into building and establishing a solid relationship. It has taken twists and turns and there have been many difficult days. Days where I just ask God to help me to give me strength and patience. We are coming out of it and God has been gracious to us.