Need a Mother's Day Gift?

Last year we discovered the story of an amazing young woman named Katie Davis. She is a twenty-something, beautiful American young woman who has given up her comfortable life in the U.S. to minister to people living in Ugandan slums. I don't think I have ever read any of her blog posts without crying. She is such an example of dying to self, and living for Christ.

I read something on her blog today that I thought I might pass along to others. She has been working with a group of Ugandan woman and trying to help them make money to feed their children. They have been making necklaces to sell through Katie's ministry, Amazima. You can read the blog post explaining her work here. You can buy the necklaces here.

Isaac's thoughts....

Isaac's been writing on his blog again, if you would like to check out his work. You can find his blog, Isaac's thoughts, right here. (And he loves when people leave comments.)

Birthday, birthdays, and more birthdays

The months of February and March are filled with birthday celebrations for us since Caleb, Luke and Isaac all have their birthdays in those months. Isaac's birthday was last weekend, so now we can finally slow down a little (and quit eating so much birthday cake!).

We decided this year for all three boys' birthdays not to buy them presents to open. Instead, we decided to start a new tradition of putting that money towards something we can all do together as a family. This year we decided to try out the Great Wolf Lodge. (The Great Wolf Lodge is a large hotel near us that has an indoor/outdoor waterpark.) It was a lot of fun, and I think the boys agreed that making memories together as a familiy was much better than getting another toy. Here's some shots from our time there:

Caleb splashing around with a basketball

Isaac standing amidst the sprayground

Andrew splashing on the stairs

Our trip to the Lodge was not without injury, unfortunately. When we were getting ready to leave, Andrew fell in the changing room and cut the inside of his mouth wide open. We almost took him to the doctor to see if he needed stitches, but decided against it. It looks much better now, so I'm glad we didn't put him through the trauma of stitches. The Great Wolf Lodge staff was really nice about it, and gave us a free day pass for all of us to come back since Andrew got such a bad injury. They also gave him this stuffed wolf to comfort him, which we thought was really nice. We decided to name the wolf "Ouch." Ouch has become Andrew's little buddy, and he likes to carry Ouch around and give him hugs.

Then Isaac's birthday came on Friday. Friday night we celebrated (just the five of us) at home with Isaac's favorite meal. Our tradition on the actual birthday is to have the brothers exchange gifts they pick out for each other. This year Caleb decided to surprise Isaac with a big box of Ramen noodles and Hubba Bubba bubble gum. (Isaac loves Ramen noodles, but I won't buy them very often because they're so unhealthy.) As you can tell from the photo above, he was very excited about the gift.

The next day we had our extended family over for the big birthday meal. Here is Isaac's Indiana Jones Lego cake.

Opening presents while Caleb looks on

Andrew cheesing it up over Daddy's shoulder

Uncle Mark was very generous and gave Isaac a tool bag filled with really nice tools. He's very excited to get started building stuff with his daddy!

Our birthday fun for this season is done, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Celebrating the lives of the children God has given us is such a joy!

Winter Wonderland

We have had quite the winter. Today we woke up to more snow, with a forecast of another storm rolling in this afternoon. So what do you do with all this snow? You build a snow fort, of course. Here's the impressive snow fort Luke, Isaac and Caleb (well, mostly Luke!) made this morning:

It was quite the endeavor. The only problem was they didn't have the plywood Luke wanted to build the roof, so maybe that will get added later this week. I'll post a picture if it gets done.

Since it has been a while since I've posted, here are pics of some of the recent happenings around our house:

Andrew started walking! He took his first steps on New Year's Eve, but he didn't really start walking a lot until about a month ago. Now he's all over the place, and stays very busy trying to keep up with Isaac and Caleb. We noticed he's been sleeping longer now that he's walking, so we think he must be wearing himself out. He even fell asleep in his high chair at lunch one day:

Isaac is now into his second semester of first grade, and is gearing up for his seventh birthday on March 5th. It's hard to believe we (almost) have a seven-year old. I'm starting to feel old.

Caleb turned five a couple weeks ago, and we had fun celebrating his birthday with the family. He has also started to sound out words and loves to do addition problems. He works very hard at keeping up with his big brother, and is an excellent big brother to Andrew.

On a recent visit to Mama Linny and Papa Terry's house, Andrew decided he wanted to try out Papa's cheesehead hat. A future Packers fan???

Following their big brother's lead, Caleb and Andrew have decided to take up the piano:

For our co-op this semester, I am teaching a class on Native Americans. It has been really fun working with this group of boys. Here they are posing with their Native American shields:

Our other big news is this...

This is a really bad picture, but if you look hard enough, you can see a "For Sale" sign in our front yard buried under all the snow. We listed our house a few months ago so it's possible we could be moving this spring. We don't know exactly where we're going to go if it does sell, but we're trusting God that if He brings us a buyer He will also provide us with a home. Why we're selling our home is a long story, worthy of a post all it's own. I'll try to write on that soon.

Which bring us to the question many people have asked..."When are you going to adopt again?" We are absolutely planning on adopting again, but decided we should wait until we know what is going on with our home first. We're both really excited to bring another child into our family, but we don't want to be moving and adopting at the same time. So hopefully our home will sell soon, and then we can get started!

There's our latest happenings! Stay tuned to see if the snow fort gets its roof....

An amazing story from Haiti

We've all heard numerous dramatic stories of the earthquake and Haiti over the last few weeks, but this one tops them all. It's a mixture of heartbreak and joy, and a beautiful picture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can read it here.

Winter fun

Remembering "Gotcha Day"

In the world of adoption, you often hear the day of placement referred to as "Gotcha Day." Well, today is Andrew's Gotcha Day! It was one year ago today that we brought this little guy home:

And just look at him now!

We love you Andrew!