Since we last "talked"

School started for my middle schoolers. Hopefully I'll home school more than three next year. Happy was perched ready to ride to school too as she has these last several years. I love that little aggravater.
Noah celebrated his 12th birthday. Adam celebrated his 13th!
Lauren went back home last week. We miss her and look forward to seeing her on fall break.
Our biggest news so far is that Adam, my step-son is living with us now! It is a dream come true for us. We realize that it is going to be difficult but we have coined a family slogan here: "Do hard stuff." We are ready! The night before school started after our family devotions we went around the table and did our highs and lows for the Summer. Everyone said their high was having Adam here. I could tell how that filled him up. We are so thankful.


We turned our guest room into a school room! I can't believe how excited I am about homeschooling! We start......TODAY! Right after Jazzercise;) First things first.



We sold our microfiber sectional, as I was tired of having it cleaned, and bought a used leather sectional. It fits all of us, until the kids grow! What it didn't fit was our family room! Ha. Next time I'll measure. We also had hard wood put in our downstairs. We don't have a large house for our family size. Our home is 2100 square feet and 9 of us live here full time. I think it's plenty big enough, but often folks come over and say "You need a bigger house." I hate this comment really, because my kids lived in one room before coming to America. One room. We have five bedrooms. We can make due.

My garden is doing pretty good. I am an amateur gardener. (Which is likely evident by the photos:). We have two 7 layer above ground organic beds. This is our second year. I LOVE it! I also started a Dahlia garden, my favorite flower. It's looking a little sickly right now but I have high hopes for the next few years as the plants roots mature. (Much like us really!) We have been watching many food documentaries with the kids. They seem to enjoy learning about what they should eat and where it should come from. Though these films are not Christian in nature it is beautiful and tragic to see what God intended for our land and where capitalism has taken it. The children seem to like hearing what they should eat from a film rather than hearing what they shouldn't eat from their Mom! Go figure!

SGI

Last week we enjoyed a family vacation at St George Island. It was a short 12 hour drive in a 15 passenger van:-) We spent the week soaking up the water and the rays with my parents, my in-laws and my brothers family. Grace and Manny got to experience the beach for the first time. We also celebrated Mercy's birthday...with a lot of chocolate!

Let me tell you something....

So today I went to visit with a sweet little old lady. As she was sharing about her life she asked me "How many children do you have?" I said "8". She said "Wow! Everyone thought I was crazy for having 4." I told her "5 of mine are adopted." She says to me: "You must be a very good person. Its disgusts me all these people going to other countries to adopt children when there are perfectly good children here." I said nothing in response. I'm somewhat used to this at this point. But you know what I really wanted to say: "You find find it disgusting that an orphaned child gets a home? You somehow deem American children superior to other children in the world? You think we are to turn a blind eye to the millions of children in the world who have no parents because they don't live in the US? Really? I am Christian. I do not identify myself as an American. Christ follower is the only title I will ever need."

Another

"You won't share your fame."

So happy!

I get to be Auntie Lisa again and one more orphan has a home!

Summer Break!!!!

Today was the last day of school! Ryan and I visited the kids for their awards ceremonies. Mercy earned the "friendly" award, no surprise to us as she's always greeting people with a happy face. Ben earned the "citizenship" award and Math award! His teacher said someday he'll be president! :-) Simon earned a Math award. Noah earned 6 or so awards including the Presidential award. Grace and Manny win an award from me for being such good troopers, this their first semester of school in America.
Adam and Lauren will be here before we know it to spend the summer. I have made our family schedule with our meal plan, game times, tv times, chores, homework and reading time, devotional time.....think that's all that's on the schedule. What's not on it is all our visits to the water park and the baseball park! We can get a summer pass to our water park for 200$ That's pretty great for 10 of us, unlimited access to the pools!
We are soon getting hardwood put in our downstairs. Why oh why did I not do that to begin with? Next up a leather couch, so I'm not paying to have this one cleaned.
I am planning my first home school year! Mercy, Beniam and Grace will be my first students. I'm praying the Teabow bill passes (allowing home school students to play sports in public school) then I'll be homeschooling the rest. (Unless of course I totally flop at this first attempt!) Any encouragement would be much appreciated.