Merry Christmas!

This was our first Christmas since we have been in TN that we did NOT travel home to TX or have both sets of grandparents here at different times. What this meant was that we had ALL the gifts for our family, from Brent's parents, my grandmother, my great aunt and my parents under the tree at the same time. You could hardly see the tree. You must remember also that we had 2 more kids stuff under there too. It was a little nutty so we decided to do gift opening in "rounds". That proved to be a good plan. After each round we threw away all the paper, took stuff out of the box (which took all 5 of the adults we had to take stuff out of packages and put stuff together). Poor Brent was putting stuff together all afternoon :-) It was such a fun day and so many new memories.

I took this pic as the kids were waiting to run down the stairs on Christmas morning. To say they were excited was an understatement. By the time we took this picture they had already been up for about 45 min. We made them wait (mean I know) because my parents were sleeping downstairs and were tired from the long drive they had the day before from TX.

Jordan opening a present...

Hayley's gifts from Memaw and Poppy

Rachel was pure joy over every present!

Jordan's new watch from Nena and Pops

I loved this pic...just wish my dad's eyes were open :-)

My mom and Rachel

Whitney and my mom wearing her new hat, scarf and mittens from Meemee

We moved the coffee table against the wall so we had a big open space to open presents. It was a good move on our part.

I love the next 2 pictures. I took them as they opened their favorite present; an IPOD touch! These are going to be such a blessing to us the next time we make the drive to TX!

It was crazy, but Oh so fun! I was sad when it was all over! I LOVE Christmas, everything about it. We added some new traditions this year and my favorite was our advent calendar. We read a scripture, did an activity to go along with the scripture and then each had a piece of candy. It was a great way to have a devo every day and learn about all that Christmas means. We also did the candles on the advent wreath and it was neat at our big dinner on Christmas night to light all the candles and review all they had learned over the last 25 days.

Unlike many of you I have not started taking down decorations, but am planning to today. Blessings to you all...

Christmas Eve 2010

For all of you who have told me that you wish you could be a fly on my wall this Christmas, I am going to do my best to give you an accurate picture :-) It has been the best Christmas ever! Big families are SO fun during the holidays. I have been quiet on the blog for the past few weeks as we have been busy preparing for the holidays. I just can't get it all done. Today is my day off. I told everyone that Mom is not cooking or cleaning today. I have been working on downloading pics and watching the kids play with all their new stuff. We did take a break and head outside to enjoy sledding in the snow. I will show that in a later post :-)

We started a new tradition: Eating Ethiopian food for Christmas Eve. We went to our local ET restaurant and picked up some Injera, yellow pea and cabbage. This mom made Doro Wat, Gomen, Beef Tibs and red lentils. It was lots of fun and yummy too!

Doro Wat (Chicken stew)

After dinner we rolled out cookie dough and made cookies for Santa. We enjoyed eating a few too!

The First Gift of Christmas...Every year the kids open one gift on Christmas Eve. It is always new matching PJ's.

Christmas pics to follow...it was a GREAT one!

God Heals the Brokenhearted

The Lord is close the brokenhearted

and saves those who are crushed in Spirit.

Psalm 34:18

Have you ever watched someone who is brokenhearted and crushed in Spirit heal? We have a CD called "Seeds of Courage" that has scripture with a courage theme set to music. One of the songs my kids sing in the car is the above scripture. As I was driving yesterday those words came alive for me and I was overcome with emotion. The Holy Spirit comforted me in those moments when He reminded me that He is the only one who can comfort and He is our healer. As we are watching our children grieve and heal from so much trauma I realized that the Lord IS close to them.

We just completed 3 months home. Many people said that 3 months was a pivotal point and there would be marked improvement. The improvement may not seem like improvement to most. It is characterized by anger & frustration followed by gut wrenching sobbing. I am no trained counselor, but fortunately God is! He has used me and given me the necessary words when I needed them to draw out the pain.

No child should ever have to endure what my kids have. Life is NOT fair! I have to trust who God is right now and know that although I don't understand, this is what He orchestrated for both us and them. He chose them to be in our family and He moved mountains to get them here. I cannot fix anything, I can only love and be available and allow God to work. It is TOUGH!

We appreciate all your prayers. I know that the prayers of many have sustained us. Please continue to pray for our kids to heal and for us to have wisdom to deal with each situation that arrises. This has been an amazing adventure with both highs and lows. I never experienced God the way I have the last 6 months. There is not greater joy than to walk humbly with my God...

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

Have a great week! We have SO, SO much to be thankful for here in America!

Clearview's Orphan Day Slideshow

We have a team at Clearview starting a new ministry to support adoption, orphan care, & foster care. We planned our first "Orphan Sunday" and it was a HUGE success! Our pastor has a heart for this area of ministry and he preached about the church's role in this area. We took up an offering that day to start a Lifesong account for our church. This account would allow us to help fund adoptions through no interest loans and hopefully, in the future, grants. Our church body has responded with $53,800 to date!!!

One member of our team, Emily Jenkins, put together this slide show that we showed during the service. I thought you would enjoy it too :-)

By the way... Emily and I were on the phone for an hour a couple of days ago trying to think of a name for this ministry. We want something that will speak to all the areas of the ministry, not just adoption. If you have any ideas you are willing to share, please email me or comment to this post. Thanks!

One Way to Help AND Have FUN!

A "Shout out" for some friends of ours. Three wonderful families are hosting this fundraiser on Saturday:

Hope to see you there!

Pure & Faultless Religion...Celebrating Orphan Sunday

I wrote the following post yesterday BEFORE church. Because I am NOT a computer whiz, I did not know how to include the video at the bottom. Once I figured it out it was SO easy. Even though it is posted on MONDAY morning, it was written on SUNDAY morning :-)

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, this is National Adoption Month and today is a worldwide event called "Orphan Sunday". Last year at this time I had no idea what the statistics were around the world of how many children were living without parents. They have no one to hug them when they fall, to feed them, to clothe them or to tuck them in bed at night.

I have always had a heart to help children and had even investigated foster care at one point, BUT I had NO IDEA how BIG this problem is. What is worse, I had grown up in the church and did not know what the Bible says is our responsibility as the body of Christ to ALL be caring for these children. I am excited to tell you that our church will no longer be skimming over the issue. We will no longer ignore the plea. I have a feeling that today God is gonna move and our hearts will break for what breaks HIS. We are celebrating Orphan Sunday for the first time this year and getting the message out.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

James 1:27

I am going to leave you with a video today. Please watch it :-) Don't say you didn't know!

Orphan Sunday from Greg Buzek on Vimeo.

Going to the Chapel...

Here are the long awaited wedding pics. We all had a blast. Rachel felt like a real live princess and probably thought her Aunt Kelly was one as she had never been to a wedding or seen anyone wear a dress like that before! The whole trip was a great bonding experience.

Poppy and Jordan

Above and below: Everyone fell asleep in the car ride from where we were staying to the church. Everything in Houston is a drive. We always feel like we spend our time there driving :-)

Rachel and Jordan, being excellent host and hostess, passing out programs.

A quick family pic after the ceremony.

Ryan dancing with my mom, "Nena". She did great considering that just 6 months ago I was in TX caring for her as she had fallen and broken her hip.

There were many more great pics taken of the kids dancing and of Brent and I, but unfortunately, none of them were on my camara.

Hope you all have a great weekend!