five

Today our first born turns 5.

When they are babies, five seems so far off.

 But now to think of the next five years going as fast as this past five years went - she'll be 10 before we know it.

A little scary.

(1 year old)

Taylor brings so much joy to our house. Every single day.

She is so sensitive, has such a big heart and is very affectionate.

When someone is sick, or hurt, at our house - she loves to help take care of them. She will bring bowls to throw up in, washcloths, medicine, water, snacks, blankies, whatever she can think of that may be needed.

She seems so mature in so many of our conversations.

(2 years old) 

She is loving preschool and learning so much.

We are amazed at her writing and letter recognition and sounds.

She loves to draw and write words.

She asks to listen to worship music all the time.

(3 years old)

She loves to play house and lately has been playing school with her brother a lot.

She changes her clothes multiple times a day, and has to be in comfy clothes when she's home.

She is so independent and good about taking care of her responsibilities.

She orders water at restaurants because "it's healthy for you".

Who's child is this?

(4 years old)

She agrees to allow her brother to have the happy meal toy when mom says we are only ordering one happy meal - because when one child drinks water and neither finish their fries, there is no reason to order 2.

She's a good eater - and again, is always wondering what is good for you and what's not.

 She looks taller lately, and is really starting to look like the "bigger" girls now.

She is growing up so fast. 

(our new 5 year old!  poor thing woke up not feeling well at all, first headache she's ever had)

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

We love you so much and are so proud of the person that God is growing you into.

some details about blurb

I've had several questions about my book and I realized I didn't even specify what Blurb is.

I get my book done through blurb.com.  There is a free software called Booksmart that you download from their website.  When you first begin, you can choose whatever kind of book you are wanting to design.  There are lots of options, including just a picture book. 

By choosing "blog to book", it will connect to blogger (or a few other blogging sites if you use something different) and it will "slurp" (just the strange word they use) your blog posts and pictures into the software. 

You can choose to have it fill your pages automatically, or you can choose to place your own posts and pictures in each page and change the layouts.  If you have it fill your pages automatically, I think it pretty much uses one layout for the whole book.  Quite boring, and you don't get any of the pages with bigger pictures on them. 

I actually go ahead and have it place them on pages for me, but then I start at the beginning and change my layouts for each page.  I just look at the pictures I have for each post, decide if I want any of them big, or if they'll all fit into one page layout, etc.  The software isn't hard but there are a few things about it that cause it to be time consuming. 

I've also found that when it "slurps" your photos from blogger, they are a very low resolution picture.  But if you pull the pictures from your computer straight into the software, they are better quality for those larger photo pages, especially the full page pictures. So although my pictures are automatically uploaded into the software when I "slurp" it, I still have to go find them again and replace them with the original version. This really adds extra time. Have any of you other blurb users found this to be true? 

Now, if you really wanted to make a fast book and didn't really care about the layouts - you just wanted your posts and pictures on your pages - then you could probably just be fine with the automatic layouts that the software does for you.  And you could possibly spend way less time than I do. 

The pricing is awesome.  I paid $75ish for almost 150 pages I think.  It will do books with pages up to 400 or something around that.  I loved an idea I read about over at Under the Sycamore, where Ashley purchases 2 books each time she makes one.  One for that little hands to be all over and enjoy paging through, reliving memories, so you don't have to freak out about pages ripping or dirty hands making smudge marks. And then one to have on a shelf or storage somewhere and be kept nice for years to come.

If only I was good at staying on top of things and slurping one month at a time into my software and working gradually on it.  That would be ideal.  But really, I'm kind of okay with being 3 years behind.  If I was trying to scrapbook our family memories, I can't imagine where I'd be.  I love that my blog gives me a purpose for my pictures and stories and to record all the things I want to remember....and then they can be saved forever in a book that will hopefully become treasures to all of us down the road.  If it wasn't for my blog and these books - I'll I would have is folders and folders full of digital pictures and nothing being done with them.

Someday I may catch up to the current year, but even being behind still gives me a sense of accomplishment each time I finish one.  And already I see how much my kids love these books - it makes the time and money completely worth it.

2008 Blurb book

I have been getting lots of fun things in the mail lately.
Of course mostly things I have bought for myself - crib sheet, fabric, party supplies, etc.
But I was most excited about this little treasure.

One of the things on my "to-do before the baby" list was to finish our 2008 blog book. Yeah, I know 2008 was a long time ago.  I worked hard on it last December at our craft retreat - but then never came home and finished up just the few things that needed completed.  It's one of those things that is rarely on my mind. But I finally got it done and it showed up on our porch this past week!

 It is so fun looking back through our year...almost 4 years ago.

 whoah, we have a yard!!!

 Some memories were hard to look back at, like this one.

Cora, Mason and Braden were around 7 months old I think.

 But yet, I'm so glad that sweet Cora is a part of our book, and our memories.

There are definitely a few mistakes in the book.  Mostly my fault.  I was so ready to just be done with it and get it ordered, that I left a handful of pictures that still had the little symbol warning me about picture quality.  I knew these pictures were on my old camera - not that greatest of pictures anyway.  And it was going to take me so much longer to back through and fix them, so I just decided to leave them, knowing they wouldn't be the best resolution. 

I also missed a few pages where my text was too close to the page's edge - so a few of the last letters of my text are cut off.  Still readable - so oh well. 

The point of the book is for us to have something to look back at as a family, something for my kids to thumb through and remember these years.  And this book gives me such a purpose in taking pictures of my kiddos and all the little and big things we do.

So low resolution pictures and some cut-off text isn't going to change that.

Each book I do gets better - so I'll just be a little more careful on the next one.

With the energy and motivation I've had lately to get things done - maybe I can knock out 2009!

a necklace for sydney

As I write this, the rest of Dave's family are together in Michigan.

They are together, along with lots of their friends for the Detroit Half Marathon tomorrow, with LLS (the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society).

At the beginning of the year, Stacy, Sydney's mom, told us they wanted to form a team - TEAM SYDNEY - to raise money for Leukemia research and run this race in honor of Sydney (our 7 year old niece who was diagnosed with Leukemia a little over a year ago). 

The time came to actually register and we had just found out I was pregnant.

Early enough that we hadn't even told family yet.

Until this point, I had "told" everyone I would plan on running. I really really wanted to.  I had been wanting to do a half marathon anyway, and it would have meant so much more to run for our sweet niece.  But we eventually had to tell everyone I wouldn't be participating because I'd be 8 months pregnant at the time of the race.

So tomorrow is the race.

Tonight is an inspiration dinner, where Stacy is a guest speaker.

And Sydney was suppossed to be an honorary guest.

Thursday night Sydney was admitted to the hospital because of a fever, which means (as far as we've been told), she would not be able to attend tonight's dinner.

Such a disappointment.

But the team is gathered, and I can't  imagine the emotions they are all facing tonight.

It saddens us so much that we aren't there with the rest of our family.

Instead, we are babysitting our nephews and niece and enjoying a house FULL of noise and cheers for K-State football!

5 kids sure can make a lot of noise.

 We struggled and struggled with trying to figure out a way we could do something special, without being able to be there for the dinner and race tomorrow.

13.1 T-shirts, stickers, race day care packages, etc.

Lots of ideas, but nothing that we were super excited about.

It was just so hard to try to think of something - when nothing really has the same affect as just being able to be there with everyone.

Then, thanks to Pinterest, I ran across a marathon necklace. So I began to look into getting a necklace designed.

And quickly fell in love with this idea.

I work at the last minute - pretty much always.

So I had to find a seller who could get them to me in a week, enough for the whole team of 13, and still be possible financially for us to be able to get that many.

I found Crafty Creations on Etsy and Melissa was SO easy and flexible to work with. 

And most importantly said she could definitely have them to me in time for me to get them on the plane with the rest of the family.

I love the necklace she designed and tonight each member of Team Sydney will open their necklace and little note from us, and hopefully it will be our way to be a part of the weekend while still being thousands of miles away.

 We picked an orange stone because orange is the color for Leukemia awareness, as a reminder of all the money that was raised by the team and what a difference it will make.

13 people and over $29,000 - wow!

We put the reference to one of our favorite verses on the back of the necklace, in hopes it will bring encouragement, hope, strength and perseverance to each one who wears it.

Not only for the race, but every day after that.

(before I found Crafty Creations, I had Beki at The Rusted Chain design this necklace for Sydney's mom.  It is fabulous also but I forgot to take pictures)

As we wrote up the note that we sent along with each necklace, we really struggled in how to share our heart and bring special meaning to this necklace.  We wanted it to be worn as a memory of the race, the work and training and money raised to get there, and we wanted it to be a reminder to continue to pray for Sydney, and her mom, dad and brother, but we also wanted it to stand for something more.

And for us...this is what kept coming to mind...

In Genesis 50:20, Joseph says...

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done..."

Because we serve a GOOD God, no matter what.

No matter what we have to go through, no matter what our emotions tell us.

He is good and he works out his good and perfect plan in each of us.

We are praying that Sydney gets to join her "team" tomorrow to watch the race, instead of being stuck in a hospital room the entire weekend when all these events are for her.  But no matter what, we know He is watching out for her and is working out every detail.

the baby's room

We are moving slowly along with the nursery.

The walls are painted and we'll start painting the crib soon.

The walls are pretty much the exact color below.

My inspiration picture.

No more pink and green.

 I did a lot of playing around with colors.

They overwhelm me a lot and I always 2nd guess my decisions and rarely ever feel like I got the exact color I was wanting.

 But I think the colors are pretty much final.

So now I've moved on to fabrics.

I'm in love with the florals - but obviously can't use them unless we have a girl. 

So some of the room's details may have to wait till after the baby is here.

I'm going to do a collage of frames on one of the walls.  Some will have pictures in them, and some will have fabric. I found a few frames at garage sales over the last few months, am reusing several from Taylor's room, and the small white ones were something that came with us from our first house, so I've had them for almost 7 years.  I don't remember what they came from, but I know Dave told me I should throw them away, but I was convinced one day I'd find a use for them.  And now I am!  They are working perfectly in my collage.

So there's your sneak peak - I'm highly doubting you'll get to see much more before the baby gets here.

Who knows what's actually going to get done.

Along with the baby's room we are reorganizing and arranging our basement, my office is getting complely overhauled, which will lead to the "junk"/guest room probably getting organized too. Our bathroom got lots of work today and a few kitchen junk drawers is our next target.

Lots going on here.  Maybe too much.
My to-do list is kind of a dream.  But thanks to my wonderful hubby, we're making a pretty good dent so far.

7 months

I had all intentions of taking better pictures throughout this pregnancy.

I LOVED how Jess always captured her growing tummy each month.

But it didn't happen.

I took a few at the beginning - but never posted them.

And then I finally just now took another.

Today I'm 32 weeks.

I have to look at a calendar and refigure how far along I am multiple times a week.

The plus side to always forgetting is that sometimes weeks pass by quicker!

I've had comments that I look like I'm due any day now.

And comments that I don't look very big at all.

So I'm a little confused.

My only hope is to NOT look like a hippo by the end like a random lady predicted back in July.

The to-do list is a mile long.

The 2 week bronchitis visit definitely slowed me down a bit.

But I'm finally feeling better and getting my energy back.

I have a sono to check baby's growth next week.

The same day my sister has a sono to find out what she's having.

Can't wait!

country fair {recap}

 Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

Psalm 115:1

The Lord blessed us with beautiful weather,

 overwhelming attendance (wish we could have gotten a head count, but the guess is 200-300),

 overwhelming positive comments and reactions to the event,

many hands that came together to make this happen,

tons of donations that we were BLESSED with,

 the opportunity to bless our friends,

and the opportunity to share His passion for adoption with our community...

To Him we give all the glory.

Pictures from the Country Fair Adoption Fundraiser...

 Andrea's photography booth was a huge hit, she was busy non-stop most of the day!

 I had NO idea the food was going to be so good!

It was definitely my favorite part.

The guys that did all the cooking could most definitely be hired at Silver Dollar City, they rocked it with their dutch ovens and skillets. 

Breakfast skillet, harvest skillet, and peach and cherry cobbler - it was seriously SOOOO good!

I think one of the things we all loved the most was to see how much fun EVERYONE was having, but especially the tons and tons of kids everywhere that were in heaven...

 And while the food was maybe the hit for the adults, this was definitely the hit for the kids...

 We had such wonderful guys driving the hay rack ride and a golf cart to take you wherever on the property you needed to go.  They met people out on the road and brought them up the drive.

 Taylor and Mason were lucky to get 2 times to play out at the "farm", once the night before while Daddy helped set up, and then for hours on Saturday when Papa and Nana brought them out.

It was super hard to get them to leave.

 We had paintball, water balloon launch, and a fun haybail maze.

It was probably the most perfect day and outcome we could have asked for.

Such neat stories from strangers who just found our location, wondered if we were the "barn sale", and donated without even coming past the welcome table.

Another family from Salina who was looking for something fun to do with their family somehow came across our event on the internet.  They absolutely LOVED it and were so happy to be a part of something so special.

It was so neat to see everyone having such a good time, and not even so much focused on the "fundraiser" part.  That was just the blessing above and beyond all the rest.

So now the question that seems to be coming up quite a bit is will we ever do it again?

Lots of requests to make it annual.

Lots of kids wondering when they can go back.

I'd love to see what God has in store...

maybe another couple adopting could benefit from it next year.

Despite the MANY pregnant mamas waddling around all over the place, and the extreme exhaustion we ALL had when it was over,

It was really too fun to never do again.

Thank you to EVERYONE who supported our event.

Follow Ryan and Christy's adoption story here.