A Very Blessed Thanksgiving....

We celebrated our family Thanksgiving a little early. Our son Aaron was home from California so we had our family in on November 13. we had 22 people sit down for a dinner with all the trimmings. It was wonderful although it took me several days to recover, I was exhausted. We are completely blessed. God is so good to us!!!!!

Also as you can see by the last picture our son Aaron is now engaged!!! He asked Casey to marry him while home and a wedding in September 2011 is being planned. Very exciting. Her grandparents own a golf course that they both haved worked on, so last Saturday they went for a walk together and when they got to the 18th hole, Aaron got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.....AWWW how romantic :)

We had him ask the blessing for the meal on Saturday and then he held up Casey's hand and told everyone the good news.

God has truly blessed us as a family. We were so thrilled to have all 9 of our kids with their husbands/boyfriend/girlfriend sit at our tables along with grandparents and a close family friend to share in our joy. This week we will have dinner with Dan's family and 5 of our kids.

November is here....

I will show you all my grandson Owen who is 8 months. He is super cute. He is also a very good baby. He is a smiley guy and the spit up phase is finally starting to get better. I know that having had 9 I would be used to it but ummm yeah...not my thing. When we hold him and it's starting to you know come out we all get grossed out and give him back to Sara. She can't believe how we act, but can I just say when it's your kids you have to clean it up, but for anyone elses' it's optional.

So it's November. Is anyone else as excited as me? I love Thanksgiving. This year we are having all our kids in on the 13th. Aaron is flying home from California that weekend and so we will have all 9 of our kids, 2 son-in-laws and 3 grandchildren, my in-laws and hopefully my Dad. talk about a full house. I can't wait, have been planning a menu, and decorations for the 3 little girls to make. He is coming home the 11th to the 14th, it was so much cheaper to fly home that time then at Thanksgiving. We are just happy to see him , then at Christmas he will be home for 2 weeks.

Also it is OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD time I will be running the relay center at our church for the week. Am believing for the most boxes we have ever collected. I am excited because I have actually had some people sign up to help me. We have started filling our boxes here.....have you?

WE have a little movement on our adoption. Praise the Lord we have an approved homestudy. If you had told me that would take 5 months I would have thought you were crazy. But on Oct 15 we were approved and on the 27 we were notified by USCIS that we would get a finger print appointment. So we are moving along; very slowly but moving. We will work on the last of our dossier paperwork and just wait on God to move forward. But Operation Joy is still underway.

The kdis have adjusted very well at their new school. They were both allowed to play on the soccer team and basketball starts next week.

QUOTE

" Do all the good you can,

by all the means you can,

all the times you can,

to all the people you can,

as long as you ever can."

John Wesley

Biblical aplication;

" For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance , that we should walk in them." Ephesians 1:10

October Is....

Beautiful.....

Awesome......

Gorgeous.......

Busy.....

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH>>>>make sure you take care of yours....., : 0
( did I say that?)

God is GOOD...

Where to begin. As I posted yesterday, we have made the difficult decision to switch the two kids from Houghton to the local school. We put the kids down there 8 years ago, never thinking that we would be coming back. our local school is good but we desired a christian education for our kids. So we put them down there and didn't look back. Until now. We made the decision and then we followed through with it. I have cried more in the last four days. You would have thought that someone near and dear to us has died. And in a sense it had. We truly liked the school. Today I took the kids up and dropped them off at their new high school, I felt like I had thrown them to wolves or something. When Alex got out of the van, I just looked at him and told him it would be all right, have a great day, I would pray for him. He just looked at me like yeah right. I pulled away from the curb and started to bawl. I cried all the way home. What had we done? Also my husband has been out of town this whole week, so I have handled everything to do with the switch. I came home and snuggled with Ava, I held her close trying to make myself feel like not such a big scmuck. After a while I got myself up and read todays devotional ( I use Streams In the Desert) a devotional book I have used for 7 or so years. Todays reading was so perfect for me. Thank You God more appropriate words could not have been written. They brought peace to my heart and mind. Often times when God answers my heart cry I don't mention it but not today He has been my Peace and I must share, (even if noone reads it). So here are a few clips from todays
" He gaurded him...like an eagle that stirs up it's nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carry them on its pinions. The Lord alone led them; no foriegn god was with him." Deuteronomy 32:10-12

The rest of the devotional talks about a soldier being prepared.

Dear believer, do you understand that God may take away your comforts and privileges in order to make you a stronger Christian?............
No, God knows that soldiers can only be made in times of battle, and are not developed in times of peace............
So dear Christian, could this account for your situation? is the Lord uncovering your gifts and causing them to grow? Is He developing in you the qualities of a soldier by shoving you into the heat of the battle? Should you not use every gift and weapon He has given you to become a conqueror? Charles Spurgeon

So why is this meaningful, the taking away comforts or the shoving so very easily describe what I have been thinking this week. The begining part talking about the eagle pushing her young out of the nest, thats how I felt this morning. So as we walk in this new season may God be glorified.
Also last night Matt came home around 10:30 I was like what are you doing here? He came back to help his girlfriend get a truck load of horse feed. Then he came home to be with me this morning. Truly did not expect that, but he thought of Beth and Alex and wanted to be here for them also. So hey even when you wonder are we doing anything right, God is faithful so give us a glimmer.

Changes

This summer Bethany ran for our county fair queen. She won 1st runner-up. She placed 1st in oral communications and 1st in communtiy service her talent didn't go so great but she did really well in everything else. We are so proud of her and think she is beautiful : ) Here she is walking across the stage in the gown competition and then standing on her float just before the big parade.

oh the times they are a changing.... We have made a very big decision . The 2 high schoolers will be switching schools today. We have had them in Christian school for 8 years. This was an incredibly difficult decision to make. They will have their last day and then I will pick them up and we will go find classrooms and lockers and figure out schedules for them to start tomorrow. We have struggled with this decision for awhile but feel this is the right thing for now. Bethany is a senior so this is really big for her, please keep her in your prayers and Alex is just rying to figure out what is going on.

I have been incredibly busy with canning. I juiced out 140 pounds of concord grapes...UGH my back was killing me, did a bushel of pears, more salsa then I can count. But we are getting ready for winter. It is very satisfying to go down cellar and see the shelves full of rows of food. I have about 40 pounds of carrots to do, few more tomatoes , and then some applesauce and I will be done.....kinda sorta : )

The autumn weather has come and the leaves are changing quite fast. We have one maple tree that has already turned and lost all its leaves. So we need to get out and enjoy this season that God has blessed us with.

Trouble...

So is anyone else having trouble with blog posting? I have typed several and downloaded pictures and then it doesn't download right . ARGH!!!!

So i am doing a few posts trying to figure it out.