We participate in a fabulous program with our church called Lads to Leaders and Leaderettes. And basically it is a tool for kids to study Gods word, give speeches, learn to lead songs, work as a team on a puppet team, art work.. The list goes on and on. I can’t say enough about this program.

We attend the Nashville convention. It is held every year at the Opryland hotel. Yes.. Awesome.

Our hospitality room… Ran by my fabulous friend Lori. She keeps things running smoothly at us well fed.

4th grade puppet team!:) we did out tonight if they won. They worked so hard!:)

8th grade puppet team!!:) they ha their best performance of the year yesterday which was a good thing because we were put in the 9th grade category. We needed a perfect performance!

Some of our bestest friends moved away this year but not after a long hard working L2L year!!! This is Camye with their oldest daughter Holly.

Waiting for the show to begin!

Mia sneaking in the candy bag!!

It is so incredible out of 10,000 people attending conventions across the US this weekend.. We have the blessing of attending the same convention with my first cousin and her family. AND we are in the same color!!! And tonight out girls Camye and Kinlee will be competing against each other in Winners Circle Scrapbook. Both deserve to win and both worked super hard!!

Bronze medals for Good Samaritan!

I had the honor of teaching Gifts to these beautiful christian girls.:)

Just a glimpse at our families bling for Friday night!! Bring on Saturday night!!!

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Okay..I have written this blog three times. Hopefully third times a charm.

We were able to go to my cousins wedding in Belpre. It was so beautiful. The bride was even more beautiful. And the groom… Looked didn’t look like a little boy which is how I have always looked at him.:( makes me feel old.
The girls love weddings. They think the bride is a princess… And Mel sure did look like the princess!!

The happy couple!

At the reception:) my mom, Blake and Avah.

Me and my cousin Scott:)

Avah and my cousin Scott!:)

Can you see the little girl in the pink? Yes Avah was waiting to catch the bouquet! Mel had lots of little admirers.

Yesterday we volunteered at our 4H Ag days at the mall. We love Ag days.. Especially the petting zoo. Mia loved the baby goats.

Camye was having fun feeding the llamas.

Paul was being attacked by goats… He even drew a crowd outside this window after awhile.

Avah loves animals! All animals!!!

Mia preferred baby Sam to the animals.:)

And at preschool yesterday the little girls planted seeds.

Avah has fun with everything she does… Especially getting dirty.

Out of order I know… But two weeks ago Paul and Camye were able to go to a junior youth rally which made them sooo happy since they are usually left at home while Chloe and Blake get to go!

They had so much fun! We had the largest group there with 29 kids!:)

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I attended the Pittsburgh Homeschool Convention a few weeks ago. I have come to the point where nothing is really that new in the homeschooling world, yet I still feel I am looking. I was able to steal away from the Used Book sale for an early conference on Homeschooling your Large Family. My friend for life, Tina, was with me and we were hoping to learn some new tricks.

Well that fell flat..because I realized the speaker had been homeschooling for 2 year less than I had. But she refreshed all old ideas making them feel anew to me.

I am feeling pulled towards something I am not comfortable with. PUBLIC SPEAKING. Not my thing. AT ALL. But I will be speaking on International Adoption  in May to our local MOPS group and am wondering if I need to be praying for more oppurtunities to speak on homeschooling or adoption.

Here are some wonderful ideas from the conference and my own added in…

We just updated our homestudy for HyunSoo. We were asked for one word to best describe Avah.. We both said excited.

So true.

The kids love to take pictures on my phone. Which can be a pain because of sorting through them.

But I love the surprises Avah leaves me…

She is a hoot! Love this precious girl!!

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The reason she begs to be sick.
The reason she pulls back when being held.
The reason she asks me if I will be with her forever.
The reason she packs bag after bag after bag.
The reason she folds and unfolds her clothes.
The reason she wants to show off and hang up all her clothes.
The reason she wants a drink of water at every inconvenient time of the night.
The reason why she wants to chug the entire cup of water.
The reason she wants to take up my entire lap.
The reason why eye contact for long term seems painful.

Those moments when it’s just her and I… She will look at me with those beautiful eyes and say, “Forever, mommom.”
And I answer, “and always.” She always smiles that award winning smile and hugs me tight.

I think how of how the events in her life have formed her precious heart. The loss of her birth mom… The loss of her foster mom… And then the loss of her precious orphanage and friends…

Her heart has been broken so many times. She is still looking for reassurance that I am the real deal.

That I will baby her when she is sick.
That I will hug her tighter when she pulls back.
That I will be forever this time.
That she will have every thing she needs in that bag, just in case.
That I will need her because she can fold and hang up better than my 16 year old.
Finally she has a mom to bring her a drink of water in the middle of the night…. And no one else.
She drinks it all because she may not get one until morning.
How many times has she been pushed off someone’s lap for someone needier?

The eye contact…. How many times before I came along did she try for that eye contact only to be told… Go on.. Go do this.. Hurry up… Move along.

Until it now hurts… Afraid of the pain.

She is without my daughter born in my heart.

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I have been asked to document our adoption journey for a college study so here goes…
July 2010, we went on a mission trip to the City of Children in Baja, Mexico. My husband, Kenny and I came home feeling we needed to do more. But what? We already had four kids. We drove a mini van which was about full. So from the day we came home…we kept wondering. We thought we should adopt domestically. Why not? So many kids available right here? Well we were turned down everywhere we looked. Unless we wanted to wait a long time for a child not even born yet. We knew our child was already waiting.
So after having one door after another shut in our face…we decided to look internationally. We looked at rainbowkids.com. We found a precious little girl on December 9th. She was listed with CHSFS. I started calling her social worker…and calling and calling and begging. I just knew she was mine! I knew it. February 21st, we received her file and on February 22nd, we said yes. She was 2 1/2 years old and had two severe diagnosis. Both untrue.We recieved our travel call on May 26th. The entire time we were in Korea getting our sweet Mia Grace. We knew we had another daughter..we were just waiting for God to reveal who she was.
Seven weeks of begging for yet another little girl file….and the same CHSFS social worker sends me a surprise file and she was almost 4 years old. She has Neurofibromatosis type 1(which she has) and many others diagnosis’ which she doesn’t have. She was so beautiful and we knew she was our missing daughter. She was 11 months older than Mia but we didn’t mind. We recieved travel call for Avah Noelle on May 21st, 2012, five days shy of Mia’s travel call.
We met Avah on May 24th. She ran into our arms and said, “Let’s go to America!” She is a total joy. In the same hour of meeting Avah, a little boy toddled straight into a wall. And was screaming….crying…he was hurt. He was lieing on his back …just wailing. No one was going to get him. Kenny and I could not take our eyes off of him. A few minutes of crying and our Korean social worker went and brought him to me. She showed me his scar from a previous surgery and told me he needed a liver. I looked at her and said, “I want him.” I knew it. I just did. He looked back into my eyes….and touched my face. A total and complete GOD moment. The Korean social worker told  me he was on our US adoption agency list. I was in disbelief I had never seen him before. But it was true…he was there just waiting. I waited for every door to shut. Every single door opened. Our insurance pays 100% of transplants….we live near the best liver hospital on the East Coast…and the biggest obstacle…Korea approved us. We have six children so it is unbelievable we are approved. Praise GOD!! We are currently working on paperwork and hope to travel this summer. ‘Robert Cade HyunSoo was three years old in January.
Funds….God has allowed us to adopt Avah and Mia DEBT free. We are however short about $12,000 for Cade’s adoption. We know God will provide. We will be having some online auctions to help fund, apply for grants and of course a donation can be made on our paypal button on the right side.

Please check out our adoption fundraiser auction on facebook.

On my phone.. I have many photos of toes, fingers, knees. Anytime the little girls get a booboo.. We must send it to daddy! So this morning… We had a booboo on our toe. This is Avahs toe.

Exciting I know..:)

I am member of a group of adoption moms who resale their kids clothes… This was an adorable etsy custom that Avah loves!!

A surprise find from my friend Karen… In one of our Korean agencies publications.. Was an article on our little guy when he was a year old! Isn’t he adorable?

And sick… Mia had her tonsils and adenoids removed. She did great until days 5-8… And wow!!!!! Vicodin wasn’t helping.

We are seeing the end of the tunnel with her ear pain. Finally.

Now we have a fever/cold and a stomach virus..luckily not all kids have both. Praying it goes away. Quick!
I feel like we have been sick since September. This is seriously the sickest we have ever been. Even my older kids are getting it… And they never do.

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Here is the link: https://m.facebook.com/?refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F&_rdr#!/profile.php?id=270740439724022&__user=1250353779

Okay that’s what I am calling it… My mother says I am nesting. Which ever I will take it.

I am going to try and blog my nesting… I mean organizing weekly. Basement photos coming soon!!

I have to make room for our little guy. So I have some major things to get cleaned up and out.

So the wall shelves in the little girls are coming down…this went up…

I had this cute decorative stand where the shelf above was. And with soon to be 7 kids… Decorative is out and functional is in.. But I still think this looks great.:)

I haven’t organized my new Expedit yet but you get the idea.:)

I have also cleaned out one of my antique dressers that really was for decorative purposes only. It’s gone! A nice clean spot in its place.

Stay tuned for this weeks projects!

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