Happy Easter- As we celebrated our Risen Lord

Next year- our 2 cuties from Bulgaria should be Home for Easter

Gracie Jane and Andrew Seth-

We are praying for the time we will hold you in our arms and love you ever so closely...

Older girls

Younger girls

Younger boys

Older guys

Joseph,Naty, Rachel,Jonas,Cate,Leah,Olivia,Tia,Caleb and Luke from Ukraine

Jacob,Anna, Isaac, Lily, Josiah and Mya from Russia

Abraham from Mexico

Easter pics

Ideas for teens for celebrating Easter

This picture is for Gail... here are some of our teens coloring eggs..... I guess you need to adopt some younger ones :) We have found that if the little ones are doing something it gives our teens the "excuse" to do the same thing.... like coloring the eggs, doing all the crafts that the little ones are doing... they "help" me with the little ones. Also they are put in charge of organizing the egg hunt or games. Maybe your older ones would enjoy making some of that chocolate into molds. Tonight we are having a "girls" nite to do nails and pedicures. The big sister, Molly came over and is doing french manicures for the teens. We have also made candles and soap in the past years. We have found the older ones have loved being given the chance to do some more younger activities that the younger ones do... it has been a great way for our older teens to actually get to be a "child" and for several of ours they never got to do this when they were younger.

Getting Ready for our Easter Celebration

We have been out of "regular" school since Wed... and will be off all of next week for our break. We did craft days and were able to do some special things with the kids to celebrate the "real" meaning of Easter... We do Easter trees that the kids make decorations for and I have some that my original kids made that are 28 yrs old... We use the symbol of butterflies, eggs, and even bunnies for Easter but we do not get into doing the "Easter Bunny". Our symbols are a reflection of new life in Christ Jesus. We have read special stories and recreate the Easter story thru the resurection eggs which are the plastic eggs filled with symbols of Easter and each child gets one after dinner and then tells that symbols significants. We have done this ritual with our kids for 28 yrs now... Some of the crafts we did were chicks, finger bunnies that decorate our trees and wind socks we hung out in our Peace garden.....One night we watched the Jesus film... all the kids were moved by it. Most of our children have given their lives to Jesus and the rest are so close to it... It was very surprising to me that when given the choice to watch another movie about Jesus they all wanted to instead of a more "popular" movie.

Our watchdogs- Willy, Annie and Katy

We used to have 5 dogs.... we lost Abbie ( our mini dauchund last Christmas and Levi another lab, the Christmas before)... these dogs are as much a part of the family as we all are. These members are the most loyal, loving and playful ones and add so much to the family.... We watched the movie Marley and Me last nite. Our Willy looks alot like Marley..... it was so sad at the end when he dies but we can so relate to their love of him. All though our pups are better behaved than Marley... funny all the kids said," We would not want a dog like him... he is to disobedient."

some more news on our adoptions

We just got our registration number and are expecting to hear soon about our approval from USCIS... this can usually takes months and we are excited it was completed so quickly. We almost can not believe all that has happened in such a short time for us to be able to adopt these 2 precious children.... Please pray for us as we enter into the next part of this process... we need to be able to have the money for this adoption and Paul feels very convicted that it will come not out of our family expenses but that the Lord will provide as He has in the past... we have some news to share there as well.... We just heard about an extra 3,000 dollars made available that we were not counting on and this will go into our adoption fund.... thank you Lord for this gift. We also just received a check in the mail from some dear friends of ours who felt the Lord moving to help us adopt once again. Thank you to all who have given to our adoption fund ... We are eternally grateful and feel blessed to be sharing this journey with you all. We are excited and getting even more so with this last few days occurances. Sometimes when you adopt it seems like forever that things take to get done... most of us desire to have our child home yesterday... we hurry up and get the paperwork done, and hurry to submit and then wait..... the waiting is actually harder to do for me. At least with all the paperwork gathering I feel like we are doing something...

Did I share that Keith and Mary Kate are officially engaged !

Here is a collection from that wknd... it includes some pics of them, the pizza party we had that nite with Keith's family ( some old friends of ours who home school and they have 11 children). It is always a great get together with them... so we are all thrilled. A September wedding is planned.

This is what I found in bed with Daddy Saturday am

Ben turned 17

Here is Ben.....Paul took him to the National Spy Museum for the day. This was important to Ben. He was the youngest of our bio. children... and most of the time he has been very happy to have lost his youngest position to now almost 19 other children.... So one on one time was a gift to him :) He requested Southwest Chicken and Lemon Lush.

Jonas turned 14

We also celebrated Jonas's b-day with a funfetti cake... yeah Jonas one of my favorite box cakes. He often does not seem like he is a 14 yr old... I was just talking with a friend at our church about Jonas... He said he gets so moved to see how affectionate Jonas is with us during the service...It is especially poingnant remembering that Jonas had a very violent family life if you remember... his mom was killed by his dad and his brother killed the father... the brother is now in jail... Jonas also was a smoker... so for someone else to see this child's tender spirit come out is a true testimont to the love placed in our hearts for these children.

Olivia turned 17

She was our oldest adopted child when she came home . She has been home for 9 months now. She is doing great ... and is a very sensitive and dear yg. lady. She loves to help her younger brothers and sisters and also loves all our animals. She got a baby, dwarf, teddybear hamster named Ruby for her b-day. She is a quiet in the background type of child who expresses herself when she really does have something to add or share.... I love that about her because she does not waste her words but is very true to herself that way.