The Fellowship is Broken

As you can see it has been a while since I have posted anything, but I wanted my next post to be about the Kissacks. Well as most of you know my dear sil and the majority of my little friends moved to Alabama this last friday. As I've been pondering this change in our lives I have decided to write my thoughts about her and our relationship. I write this w/o a heavy heart, just a grateful one.

I actually met Tonya before I met Nathan, she was in my suitemates room at college, and I walked in there and saw this pretty girl sitting on the floor doing the splits while studying. I asked her if she knew this big, tall, bald guy with a motorcycle. She said "yeah that's my brother", I said "do you think he'll take me for a ride" to which she answered yes, and the rest is for another post. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that has endured for 17 years (so far). We have hardly been apart since that time. I got a boyfriend/husband and my best girlfriend all at the same time. We have truly not ever fought or been offended with each other. I mean once in a while I would get slightly annoyed, she is a little forgetful and spacey. And I'm sure I drove her nuts occasionally, I tend to be a slightly negative and uptight. Anyway, God knew what he was doing when he allowed us to become friends, and then have children at the same time, and our children became best buddies. It was always fantastic having her to walk through early motherhood and early marriage stuff with. We agonized over our babies and husbands together, we encouraged each other, supported each other and were just there for each other. I never would have made it to this point of maturity without her in my life. I grew up with no sisters, or cousins anywhere near my age or in close proximity, now I have 4 sisters. Change is inevitable, I just thought that somehow I would be spared it. This has been a long first book in a series of many more to come, I hope. We were young and foolish when we met, but as I say goodbye for now to my sister and friend, we are older and wiser, and confident in our roles as wives, mothers, and servants of God. I know that God gave me something that is rare, our relationship has been a reflection of the kindness and mercy of God, he gave us what we needed, when we needed it, and for how long we needed it. 17 years is a long time, we must have needed alot of help. I look forward to book 2 in this series, and I thank you Tonya for every good word, and naively optimistic word that has come out of your mouth. I treasure our friendship. This is incredibly short, and I'm leaving out tons, but I will save the rest for her funeral.

A Little Piece of Heaven

When Nate was gone, I found this beautiful horse farm with the most fantastic back yard I'd ever seen. Level, big walnut tree, nice fencing, with a barn that was old and run down and perfect. The house was a mess underneath all the lipstick and rogue, but I didn't know whether or not it was fixable or not. Well today Nate and I, Leonard and Celeste and Tonya all went and had the official walk through, and it was an unfixable mess, although everyone agreed that the land was beautiful. I no longer get my hopes up about houses anymore so I'm really not that disappointed. I am just thankful I have brilliant people surrounding me looking out for my best interests. Even though a hobby farm is my idea of heaven.

Whoops

Sorry I didn't rotate this one. In adoption news, we are stuck in IBESR(the black hole). I am praying to get out soon. We have a camping trip scheduled for June 18th, and I want Naomi to go. Pray that our paper work is released as you read this. I am so happy though to get all these nice pictures, it makes me feel like I am getting to know her.

Hubby is Home

Well my dear, sweet hubby arrived safely home last night at about 10:30. It is so nice to not be a single parent anymore. I honestly don't have trouble with the kids, I mostly just miss someone to talk to in the evenings. He loved the little town he stayed in during the week, I think it was called Hyde. He went to see the cliffs of insanity (the princess bride), I think they are called Tuvalu or something like that. He really didn't enjoy London at all, he is not a city boy, and the crowds of people really drove him nuts. He did say the architect was breathtaking, and I would have loved romping the streets and shops. He did go to the famous dept. store Harrods to buy me a purse, but when he couldn't find one cheaper than $1500 he decided to look somewhere else. lol Apparently everything is really expensive in the U.K and our dollar is worth half of theirs. As far as shopping goes he said leather and other goods are way cheaper here. He did manage to buy me a nice Lilac purse, (my favorite color is pretty much any kind of purple), with london written all over the inside, so I have my own little piece of Europe at home. He stayed home pretty much all of today, he had 700 emails to go through, and some stuff to get from his shop, so we saw him after 2pm. He is at a meeting tonight at church, so hopefully when he gets back he can go straight to bed and not have to much jet lag.

A Disciplined Life

Oh how I long to be a person of self discipline. In some areas of my life I am not so bad. In others I am quite pathetic. When reading Farmer Boy to my boys, I was in aw of Almanzo's mother who rose at an inhuman hour of the night to start her work. The children were just as impressive in their work. Almanzo told of how when her mother worked her hands flew so fast it was hard to see them. I often think that it was easier for them to be disciplined because their lives depended on them doing their jobs properly. If they didn't feed and take care of the livestock, they wouldn't have food and new livestock to raise and sell. The same thing goes for the fields and gardens. If I have animals it is mainly for recreational purposes, if I have a garden, my family is not in danger of going hungry if I don't tend it. I often find it difficult to be diligent in my work, because it doesn't seem to matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. We have tons of clothes, so there is always something clean to wear. My pantry and freezer are loaded with food, and if they are not, I just run across the street to the grocery store and restock. My flesh loves all the conveniences of my life, but my soul is hates it. I do not feel that my time with the children is wasted at all. Every bit that I pour into them is so worth it, and has eternal significance, so homeschooling and training of them is not what I'm talking about. I always feel like I'm missing something when it comes to housework and other endeavors. My home is relatively clean at all times, the children have nutritious food to eat, and the house feels like a home. I just lack the drive to go the extra mile. This is most notable to me when I make a schedule and inevitably it falls to the wayside due to my lack of discipline to maintain something that I know is good to fulfill my flesh which I know is never satisfied. The second and greatest lack of discipline in me is fasting. I know that God has called me to a fasted lifestyle, but my flesh is soooo weak when it comes to denying myself food. Fasting is one of the most significant things that we as believers can do to move the heart of God, yet in our culture it is one of the most difficult and lest talked about disciplines. NEVER is my heart and character more displayed then when I am fasting. All of my weaknesses are brought to the surface in times of fasting and I see my heart for what it really is. God doesn't usually speak to me in any huge way, I just see my sin for what it is, and it humbles me and draws me to the only source of my strength. I love to fast, I'm just SO awful at it. I know that someday soon I will desire God more than I desire comfort, and I can't wait to turn the corner on this discipline. Since God has called me to it I know he will give me the strength to overcome my weakness.

I am only thinking of these things, not feeling down in the dumps about them. I am still practicing thankfulness and so I am grateful for the insight into my character flaws, because I will be accountable to God for how I respond to his prompting.

My 8 year old

Some of the things I love about Evan: He's so sweet and loving to small children. He loves cats as much as me. He loves all animals. He has a sensitive heart. He is good at so many things like, disc golf, riding his bike and motorcycle, baseball, and running. I love my sweet Evan.

The Bithday Gang

Blowing out the trick candles

The Birthday Boys

Sleepover

We are home tonight after our sleepover at Tonya's. The kids all wanted to have one more spend the night before the Kissacks move to Ala. Landon and Nate are gone, and we moms were tired of single parenting, so we all spent the night at Tonya's. I can't say I'm any less tired, because Luke's rash/hives happened to make another appearance last night at 2am. He scratched around for an hour before the benadryl kicked in. I also had to get up 2 times in the night to tinkle, thanks to the tea I drank at 8pm. But overall it was nicer than being alone, and the kids had fun. Today was Evan and Micah's combined 8th b-day party at the disc golf course. I think we had 17 kids there including all 8 of ours.

Something Fishy

I just tucked the boys in bed and am sitting here quite puzzled. Today at about 4pm Luke broke out in a terrible, welty rash from his mid thigh to the top of his head. I called my sil, a RN to come over and take a look at him, she said it looked like an allergic reaction to something. The only thing we did different today was eat lunch at Captain D's. All of my children have had seafood many times, thanks to their seafood loving mother. Luke had chicken fingers, fried okra, hush puppies and a bite of shrimp. I'm hoping it was the shrimp that caused the problem because that will be easy to stay away from. No one on either side of our family has ever had a food allergy that I'm aware of. I'm just grateful that it was itching and welting, rather than throat restrictions and not being able to breathe. I was in my room watching a movie at 3pm when he came back there and said to scratch his back, This is a daily occurence, and the lights were off so I thought nothing of it, and didn't notice anything wrong then. It wasn't till later that I saw how bad it really was. This is one of those times that I am so grateful to God for watching over my children even when I'm not, because if he had had respitory distress I doubt anyone would have noticed, because the other boys were wrapped up with their computer game time and I was way in the back of the house. Now that I'm reading what I'm writing it sounds scarier then it actually was at the time. I gave him 2 childrens benadryl and gave him one more at bedtime, he was looking much better but I could see quite a few patches still so I gave the one at bedtime so he wouldn't lay there scratching. I'll probably call the Dr. mon and see if we can determine exactly what the culprit was. Captain D's said they fry there stuff in coconut oil and b fats because those are less allergenic. I hope he doesn't have some weird oil allergy, that will be harder to combat then shrimp or okra.

I'm Unbalanced, Yay!

I got some wonderful news on Wednesday, and I've been so happy ever since. I had a saliva hormone test done a couple of weeks ago, and the results came back that I am all messed up. This has nothing to do with my hysterectomy, since I still have my ovaries. Normal progesterone is 30-90, mine was 20, normal cortisol which is the stress hormone is 4-9, mine is 11.8. They gave me a natural progesterone pink bouncy pill which should really regulate me, they also said when you are this off balance it can affect other things like your thyroid, and mental wellness. I'm going to have to take this forever, but the good news is that this is not the bad hormone to take, estrogen can be harmful. In 3-4 months after this is in my system good, I'm going to wean myself off the paxil, I'm very hopeful that this imbalance has greatly contributed to my anxiety. I'm so thankful to be on the road to mental clarity.

Our Easter Photos

What can I say, this was actually one of the better ones.

Almost all the cousins, we were missing Nate's brothers two kids.

It looks like he may be after a rock. That's my boy

It's been awhile

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last posted. I was going to post sooner, and share our easter photos with you, but I left my camera at my in laws house. We had a very nice easter at mom's house, they have a great backyard for easter egg hunting. Then we went to mom in laws house and did it all again. I ate like a pig, and the boys candy is pretty much gone. I used to monitor how much candy they ate, and it would last a lot longer but now I just let them chow down till their done or sick, whichever comes first. The only rule is no eating candy after night snack time which is between 7:00 and 7:30. Honestly this much sugar doesn't change their eating or sleeping patterns, so I don't care what they do as long as they brush their teeth good.

I feel a huge wait off my shoulders, because the social workers visit to the house went off w/o a hitch, all I have left to do is fax her a copy of last years tax returns. (05) I've also finished all the tax stuff that was relevant to me. Nate won't be able to rest easy for another 2 weeks but hopefully after that things can calm down. Having a semi succesful business is not all fun and games, and boy has this been a long year.

Today I was running with scissors (don't ask, I run for fun) and the pointy end hit the wall and I stabbed my ribs with the handle. (I'm fine)

Today Luke told an older lady at the investment office that "if you are older than 47 then you are so old." I was in another room meeting with her husband.

Two days ago an old man came up behind me in the grocery store while I was looking at canned veggies and caught hold of my elbow and asked me "did you tell me to buy some peas"

Evan told me that since I didn't let stripey (our cat) get married and have babies, she would hate me forever. (I had her fixed over 3 years ago)

Adorable

I just received this picture yesterday. Is it just me? or is she the cutest little thing you ever saw? Except for your children or grandchildren of course. Dania Naomi is in red.

All Done

I am only posting to say that I am all done with updating my dossier, and homestudy requirements. The last obstacle will be the social workers visit to the home this monday afternoon. My pets are vaccinated and updated and so are Nathan and I. It felt so good to send my package out this afternoon at the post office. Now is the wait. I should be coming out of IBESR any day now, please pray for my paperwork to have favor with the officials, and for nothing to hinder them. Even if you only pray as you read this, I thank you greatly for standing with me before the lord to petition for this little girl to come home.

Sidetracked

Well this week has flown by with very little homeschooling. It is spring break in our area, but we follow our own schedule so it wasn't suppossed to be a break for us. I have been updating all my adoption papers, in preperation for the social workers visit on monday. I also have to send a bunch of stuff to immigration to try and speed up the visa process. You used to do this in Haiti when you went to pick up your kid, but things have gotten dangerous in that part of the country so we are applying stateside.

Today one of my cyber friends sidetracked me into going to the park. It was a little windy at first, but it warmed up nicely, and the boys had a blast playing SCA (squirrel catching association). They ran all through the woods by the river trying to catch fat, semi domesticated squirrels. They will sleep good tonight.

Right before our eyes

The scariest thing happened to us on the way to chess club this afternoon. Directly in front of us, a car coming the opposite way hit an older man on a motorcycle/scooter thing. The lady that hit him and her passenger jumped out and called the ambulance. My kids were telling me to go help him breathe, I know CPR. I just sat in my car and watched him roll around on the ground, then get still. I think he was in shock. Oh in case your wondering why I just sat there, it was because so many people were already there, and I heard them telling him to lay still. I would've helped if I could have been of any use. The ambulance was literally there in under 3 minutes, and an unmarked police car was immediately on the scene. I have never witnessed an accident that close up before, Evan actually saw the car hit him as he was changing lanes or coming out of a side street. I only saw the man and bike sliding in the road. I really think he was going to be Okay, because he pretty much slid out instead of getting his body hit.

In other news my husband is heading off to the UK soon to do some training with the British military. He invited me along but I said no, and no I'm not crazy. Traveling with him on business is kinda frustrating, he is totally busy and wrapped up in what needs to be done, he's up early and to bed late meeting with people, and I sit around the dinner table listening to other peoples conversations because I usually can't follow the technical jargon. Several people said I should spend my days sightseeing by myself, but that seems lonely to me. I would hate to see all that cool stuff w/out him, so alas I am staying home.