This is how I've been feeling... and then God sent a glimmer of hope!

ADOPTION PAPERWORK HAS ALMOST KILLED ME... OKAY AT LEAST MADE ME FEEL LIKE POOR JOSH DID ON THIS NIGHT AT DINNER. Today though I went downstairs to check my emails and received updated information and pictures for Joy. Made it all worthwhile...(I highly recommend using www.redthreadchina.com to send your child in China things. You get updates and it's much cheaper than sending a package from the US.)





Isn't she absolutely adorable? We are all so excited. She has grown 5 cm and gained 2pounds since her last update about 6 months ago. That's great!! We hope to hear something from her soon!

Summers Over

Clayton and the kids extracting honey! Yes, we have honey bees!

Grace the beekeeper!

Cute Faith!

Joshie sunbathing... as if he needs a tan!

Isaac is so proud of his trophies!


It's hard to believe summer is over! Usually I am ready for school to get started and feel refreshed. Not so this year. We had a lot of doctor appointments, then when God led us to adopt again the frantic paper chase began!! This was our first week of school and it went well though. Isaac and Joshua are enjoying "doing school" and Grace enjoys Trinity Day School. She had a few days of feeling overwhelmed but overall seems to enjoy it. Faith is liking all the girl time with mom although she does miss her sister's companionship.

Announcing Our Newest Blessing- It's a Girl!

Yes, we are adopting again! We are so excited, overwhelmed, and amazed!! Excited and amazed by God's handiwork in the lives of our children. Overwhelmed at the tremendous amount of paperwork involved! We are naming her Joy Menqian and she is 8years old and lives in southern China. Grace and Faith will be traveling with us this time.... so please pray for lots of things but for now just the preparation of paperwork and hearts in ALL of our lives. It will be difficult for Joshua and Isaac to be left out of the trip even though I know they'll have a memorable time here. Well, I'll be posting more soon I'm sure since it seems the only time I get into blogging is when we're adopting or their is a major holiday. Thank you in advance for all of your prayers for God's work to be done in our family's life!

If you would like to help with our adoption financially we would welcome and be grateful for the support. We look forward to seeing how God will provide and are reminded that with God all things are possible. We are looking for construction jobs that Clayton can do for a little extra income, selling things at yard sales, and mowing some yards in our neighborhood for our builder. If you know of anyone that needs something done feel free to give them our contact information. If you would like to support us and receive a tax deduction you can go to Kingdom Kids website and their link is in the sidebar.

We are set up with this non profit organization and can obtain the support designated to us at any time. Again, we are so grateful for you prayers and support. We can't wait to bring Joy Menqian home!

Wow! We've been home a year. It has been quite a few weeks... full of emotion! Joshua's first birthday home with us and then remembering our time in China! Here are a few photos....

Easter Morning

Joshua loves Thomas the Train

Joshie (as his siblings call him) at one of his

3 year birthday parties!

Photos like these mean so much to us. When God led us to Joshua we thought "Oh how wonderful... a brother for Isaac". Then they spent most of his first 6 months fighting with each other. But now they are best buds... Joshua idolizes Isaac and Isaac teaches Josh everything. As we have struggled with speech with Josh it is Isaac who is able to get him to mimic sounds the best. It has been determined that Joshua has muscle weakness in his mouth due to his cleft so the next 6 months to a year we will spend in intense speech therapy away from home 3 times a week. Then when we are at home we have strict instructions from the therapist that works on his muscle strengthening and the one that works on his articulation. Lord willing we will be well on track in a year so they predict anyway. We are thankful for God's leading us to these two therapists. Well... home a year and this is the new us!!! Finally thriving for sure!

Grace, Faith, and Isaac are playing softball and T-Ball so our nights are pretty booked. Thankfully that will end in May but they are all having a good time. Josh just wants to play too but not until next year! We are looking forward to doing a lot of camping this summer and Grace is going away to camp for the first time. She is very excited!! Blessings to you all!

To God Be The Glory!!

What a beautiful family... on vacation in NC at an old homestead.


Their cousin got a BB gun for Christmas... notice the concentrating tongue action!



Making the annual Christmas cookies!




Birthday Party for Jesus! The Nabors Family didn't get to join us this year... don't worry guys we ate enough cake for us all!





Isaac's new favorite sandwich... peanut butter and mustard... yum, yum!






This was the Spiderman Christmas for Isaac... I saw him walk up to his Nana unprovoked not long ago and thank her sincerely for his Spiderman underwear!!!







Joshua loves trains and this was a favorite gift!

Sweet Grace at her piano recital... cool cake huh? No I didn't make it!

What a cute picture of two sweeties... they both love to be touched and hugged!!

Here is a recap for you in words of our lives over the past few months:

Over the past few months God has been doing a wonderful work in our lives. I wanted to share some photos of my wonderful husband and I. God has shown me what an amazingly humble, loving, sensitive, and adoring father and husband he is. We have experienced revival in our marriage and family and I am so grateful that I wanted to share some of that with those of you that check our blog every now and then.

It started about 4 years ago with gradual steps away from our Lord. Allowing hurt feelings to fester, not communicating, not being sensitive to one another. This continued and escalated for 4 years, then God broke through. On Thursday, November 14 we were confronted with sin head on. God made us both broken hearted and humble, needy before Him. And just as His Word promises in Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is near to the broken-hearted, close to those that are crushed in spirit." We were crushed that we were nowhere near where we wanted to be in our marriage or our relationships with Him.

Our relationships with Him had a "white washed tomb" look to our Holy God. Good on the outside, but spiritually dead on the inside. But God forgives and renews, He broke up the hard ground of our hearts through confession to Him and one another. Now after two months we are doing wonderfully. I am so grateful for such a adoring husband. God has truely given me everything my heart had been looking for. To Him be the glory.

Prayer Requests from us to you:

Joshua will have surgery on February 12th. The hard part will be recovering from mouth surgery and staying one or two days in the hospital. The amazing part will be this surgery will give him the proper anatomy to be able to talk. The doctors say that within a few months he'll be talking much clearer... pray for sooner rather than later. Thanks a ton for your prayers, encouragement, and support!

Family Pictures

As you can tell we had a lot of pictures taken. A friend came over and took over 200 photos and we are so grateful. It's finally time to change out all our pictures in the house and they get to include Joshua. Well, we are approaching 6 months home and I think we are truely adjusted. Everyone said 6 months was a turning point and "they" were right. Two months ago I was feeling really bad because I felt like Joshua was adjusted but I just couldn't get accustomed to four kids. Now it seems I've had a miracle. Things are still incredibly busy with soccer, gymnastics, doctor visits, speech therapy, school, etc. but we've settled into some sense of what normal is now and it feels good. It also helps that we bought a car we all fit in and are looking for another camper with four kid's beds after having sold our triple bunk camper. Oh, and sometime in September Joshua and Isaac made peace with one another. Now they are what we expected them to become "partners in crime". The sky seems to be the limit as to what entertains them and what they do. I thought watching sisters play was fun but brothers is definitely exciting. So all in all we are as happy as we look in the photos. Praise be to God!! Blessings!

July 4th

Some friends came for the weekend and the kids enjoyed being together watching fireworks. Joshua tried out jumping on the trampoline with someone his size for once.