Happy Birthday Dad

Today, March 11th marks my dad's birthday. He would have been 61 years old today. This day is always difficult for me even after almost 16 years. He passed away September 21, 1993, just 4 days after my birthday. I think this year has hit especially hard as my uncle passed away just over a week ago. His funeral was last week. He reminded me so much of my dad in looks and mannerisms. He will be missed.

I have a lot of emotions that come to the surface when this day arrives -

* I am thankful that my dad accepted Jesus as his savior before passing away. It took right up until days before his death, but God is faithful to answer many years of prayers by many for his salvation. His salvation is a testimony that it is NEVER too late.
*Sad I didn't have more time with him after his salvation.
*I am thankful that I will see my dad again in heaven someday.
*Sad that he wasn't here to walk me down the isle when I got married.
*Sad that he wasn't able to experience being a grandpa. I know he would have been awesome. He loved kids and they brought the kid out in him.
*Sad Martin, Luke, and Alesha were not able to meet their Grandpa Jim.
*Happy for all the family memories. Vacations, camping, baseball, softball, water rafting, trips to Montana, barbecues, gardening, yard work, etc. We worked as a family on a lot of things growing up and have a lot of stories and memories to cherish.
*Thankful for my mom. She is such a strong and Godly women. She is an example to me in so many ways. She has show what it means to "love in sickness and in health, until death do us part" She stood by my dad and cared for him until his very last breathe. I love you mom!

As you can see there is joy and sadness all mixed into one day. There are many more things that are running through my head, but I would be here all day. In closing all I can say is that

I love you dad, and I miss you very much! Happy Birthday.

Love always,
Pumpkin

International Day

Our homeschool group had an International Day Presentation. Of course, I jumped right in and selected India as the country our family would represent. We had a great time gathering more information about India. India is very close to our hearts, because that is the country we are in the process of adopting our daughter from. We worked for a few weeks on gathering information, planning out what we wanted to present to the group, etc. Right before we were to put the presentation together both the boys got really sick. Long story short, Martin and I were finishing up the presentation on the day we were to present it to the group. My husband stayed home from work, because Luke was still sick in bed. As Martin and I were rushing into the church with this big presentation board, an Indian dessert to share, a bag of presentation items, etc. I say to Martin "Let this be a lesson to you in that it is not wise to wait until the last minute to get a big project done" Of course we couldn't control the fact that we got sick, but the lesson was hitting home at the moment. Martin looks at me as we are running across the parking lot and says "Mom I think you are culturally stressed right now!" I was laughing so hard. You had to be there I guess, but trust me it was too funny. The presentation went well considering there was NO dress rehearsal. I stood up with Martin in place of Luke and talked about some of what Luke was going to talk about. I am just glad that at least we made it and all their hard work was able to be presented.


The boys created this board layout all by themselves.
I only provided the supplies. I think they did a great job!

Talking about the modes of transportation.

I had to get a picture with Luke. He was so sick and

couldn't attend the actual presentation, but he worked

really hard on this project so I wanted him documented.

I did have to do Luke's portion of the writing on the board, but

everything else was their ideas and work.

HELLO NUMBER 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a LONG day today I got home and checked my email inbox and read some fabulous news!! Maggie and her family who are ahead of us on the waiting list at #3 were blessed to receive a referral for their adorable little girl today. I can't wait to follow another journey and look at pictures of another precious Indian baby! This is SOOOO exciting!! I am so happy when another baby finds a forever family.

What does this mean for our family? You guessed it we are now waiting at #4 for a referral picture of our little princess. Today we were doing the happy dance again. I pray that more referrals keep coming and that our little girl in getting closer to coming home. This is a good way to end a long week.

Fun!

My oldest son is in Awanas this year and every week they have a fun theme for the kids. This particular night it was crazy hat night. My son had told me this was coming up, but I got busy and totally forgot about it.

The evening play out like this.....It is about 1 hour before we have to leave to take him to Awanas and I still have dinner to make. He says to me "Mom, I don't have anything for crazy hat night!" I said "I am so sorry I totally forgot, let's see what we can come up with." We scramble to find what we have around the house to make this hat, because clearly we don't have time to go shopping at this point. After materials were gathered and many ideas tossed around we had accomplished the below hat in 15 minutes time. He was happy and we were all laughing. Mission accomplished.

This smile says it all.


I had to put this one on too so you could see
just how high the pipe cleaners stood up on top.

New Hobby

Martin has taken on knitting as a new hobby. He had expressed interest in it for a couple months so I bought him some knitting needles for a stocking stuffer. I know nothing about knitting so my mom showed him what she could remember from when she was younger. This gave him a good start and then a friend from our homeschool group gave him a lesson and between the two lessons he made this.

Knitting by the fire in your PJ's looks like a very relaxing hobby :-)

Martin's very first knitting project.

God's Creation

As many of you know our family homeschools. I have really enjoyed having my boys home and teaching them. It is fun to see how each of my children learn and be able to tailor my teaching accordingly. A few weeks back we took a break from school to eat lunch and noticed that there was a squirrel right outside our back sliding glass door. He appeared to be very focused on eating and didn't seem to notice us. We laid down on our stomachs and watched this squirrel for at least 30 minutes. It was fascinating to see a squirrel that close up. They usually see us and scurry away so this was a treat. We were able to observe things that we wouldn't normally have seen. We saw how course his hair was, how long his toes were, this particular squirrel looked like it had been in a fight, because his ear was badly scarred. We watched how he held his food as he ate it, how his ears perked up when he heard a sound, how timid and quick his movements were, etc. It was amazing to see God's creation that close up and be able to see how uniquely God had made this squirrel. This was a great teaching moment......FUN and educational :-)