An Orphan Sunday Video

Here is a great video I just had to share. Brought tears to my eyes!



An Orphan Sunday Video

Family Fun

Such a cute M&M
Anyone else see the irony in this picture? :)
Caleb's face says it all- "My teacher is making me pose for this picture and I don't like it!"
Bubble fun with Grandma
She was trying to blow the bubbles and looked adorable- of course couldn't catch it on camera!

Caleb's school had a science fair last week. Caleb's class guessed which color occurred more often in a bag of M&M's and then counted them. Very scientific. There was an M&M costume available for the kids to try on. Caleb was not interested, but the younger two make very cute M&M's.

A local adoption group hosted an event at The Grand Rapids Children's Museum for adoptive families. I took the kids and met my parents, Jenn and Cardale there. We also saw some other friends there. I really appreciate the efforts put forth by groups to recognize adoptive families. At these type of events no one asks you if the kids are yours or not. :)

Latest happenings

Watching "Pororo" clips on You Tube
Shoes for Orphan Souls- 50 pairs of shoes and counting!

Orphan Sunday is done! I started planning/ working on Orphan Sunday this summer and I was really excited about it. I was also nervous that maybe people just won't care. I kept reminding myself that God is using me to get the message out, He is the one who will move people's hearts. Our church did a shoe drive with Shoes for Orphan Souls and we collected 50 pairs of shoes. As we packed the shoes I thought about how excited my kids are about a new pair of shoes and how happy an orphan somewhere will be to receive a pair of shoes. I wanted our church to participate in this shoe drive because it shows people that even little things can make a big impact. I also arranged for part of the MI Heart Gallery to be on display at our church. The Heart Gallery contains professionally done portraits of MI kids waiting to be adopted. Another orphan advocate shared with me the prayer cards she uses at her church. Each card contains the picture of a MI child waiting to be adopted and a little bio. On the back of the card are ways the sponsor can pray for the child. I had people sign up for a child so that I can let them know when the child is adopted. We all know prayer is powerful! During the service I shared about different ways to get involved in orphan care and some mission trip possibilities this summer. There is a 2 week mission trip to Romania that I would love for our family to go on sometime. It's a family friendly mission trip and you spend most of the time in hospitals holding babies and in the orphanages playing with kids. Most of the Romanian orphans will never be adopted and will grow up in the orphanage. The orphanage workers do their best, but these children need all the loving they can get. I would love to take our family to Romania this summer, but don't think that's going to happen. :) I'm really excited to see how God will move our church to love and serve orphans!

The first picture is of the kids watching Pororo, a Korean cartoon, on You Tube. All of them get excited to watch it and start dancing around the room to the songs. Pretty cute.

Caleb had his first serious offense at school. I won't go into all the details. However, tonight he wrote a note to Nate and I apologizing for misbehaving. He also wrote a note to everyone in the family saying he loved us. It was very cute. :)

I have been battling a sickness since about October 14. Basically an upper respiratory infection. I've had two rounds of antibiotics. I had to go back in today because of chest pain every time I coughed, sneezed, etc. I guess the lining of my lungs is inflamed so now I am on a round of steroids. My youngest two are both on antibiotics now too. I hope we all kick this bug soon!

Halloween

Ready to show the neighborhood some cuteness!
Isn't he the cutest bunny ever?!
Gotta love 'em

As I've mentioned in the past, we don't make a huge deal out of Halloween. We carve a pumpkin, but that is the extent of our decorations. We like the idea of letting kids dress up and pretend, so that is what we do. They aren't allowed to be scary, evil or gross things. We then trick-or-treat around the neighborhood. It is always fun to see the other neighborhood kids looking cute. Many of our neighbors don't pass out candy, but that is ok. The kids still come home with more candy then they need. :) Nate surprised us and got home from work in time for the costumes and trick-or-treating. I have also mentioned in the past that Caleb does not like to dress up. I imagine he will be a soccer player for the next several Halloweens. :) However, the other day he told me he wanted to dress up like a wolf next year. Either of the Grandma's want to tackle that job? I'm a little suspect though that he would actually wear the costume. :) Isaac wore a bunny costume that my Mom made when my siblings and I were kids. And Julia was a little Baby Bop. She rode in the stroller and quickly got excited when people started giving her candy. She is a little sugar addict like her Mama. :)

And the most exciting news, the outage is done!!! Nate is off for 4 days in a row- so nice. I am very proud of all of the work Nate did for the outage. I don't understand much of it, but I do know that he was entrusted with alot of responsibility and he rocked it. Now we go back to normal shift work until the next outage in 18 months. :)