Thankful Thursday

This Thankful Thursday I am thankful for..

~We are finally settled in our new house!! It is actually starting to feel like home!

~That my brother-in-law, Dale, is back home after giving everyone a scare last week. He was hospitalized last week with blood sugars in the 1400s. That is crazy high. He is recovering and is back home. He still needs your prayers as he waits for a kidney transplant.

~Our Georgia family that is coming to stay with us this weekend. This is the closest we have lived to them (4 hours away). They are coming to help us celebrate Claire's birthday and her 1 year Gotcha Day with us! We are so excited to see them. Moving is hard especially when you leave all your friends behind and so we are looking forward to having some family here to spend time with.

~That sweet, precious Teddi's surgery went well and she is back home recovering. I know that Teddi is such a blessing to her family's nest and it is hard on all of them when she has to have surgery. We rejoice with them because Teddi is doing so well!

What are you thankful for this week?

Happy Birthday Gary!!

Today, we celebrate my ever-lovin's birthday! Last year, we celebrated his birthday in China and we ate at an amazing Italian restaurant on Shamian Island. I'm not sure we can top that birthday experience this year but we will try!



Happy birthday, honey. You are an amazing husband, father, friend, and leader of our household. Thanks for being the steady anchor in our crazy, hectic world. Thanks for showing the kids how real men treat their wives and handle tough situations. Thanks for showing them Jesus through all that you do.

Happy Birthday, Gary! I love you!

Gotcha Day - One year later!

One year ago today, we met our precious Claire for the first time. We were finally holding the child that we had prayed 2+ years for in our arms. I can't believe a year has gone by already but at the same time she has always been a part of our family, right!? I am so thankful that God chose us to be her family. The Bible says that children are God's reward to us and a blessing for us. Thank you, God for rewarding us with Brianna, Nicholas, Hunter and Claire (and soon Caleb).

Our year with Claire in pictures. Enjoy!

Make sure you turn up your volume!

Happy Birthday, Claire!!!

Today, we celebrate our sweet girl's 4th birthday! Last year at this time, we were in her Province waiting to see and hold her for the first time. We missed her birthday by one day! This year, we wait no longer and we look forward to celebrating with her. We are planning a party with family later in the month so today we are celebrating with just the 6 of us. We plan on taking her bowling! Claire loves to bowl, in fact, just the other day she ended her prayer by signing thank you for school and thank you for bowling amen! How sweet is that she was thanking God for bowling!! Happy birthday precious girl!

Check back tomorrow to see the video we put together to celebrate our 1 year Gotcha Day anniversary!

Thankful Thursday..

I am getting this Thankful Thursday post in with just 6 minutes left on Thursday but that still counts right? This Thursday, I am thankful for:

~ relaxing visits with friends. We are in Florida right now visiting our old neighbors and friends from Texas. We are catching them at their Florida paradise before they pack up and head back to Texas. It has been a wonderful visit, just what we needed after the stress of moving!

Best friends...

~ boat rides in the gulf and watching the amazement in my kids eyes when some dolphin swim near and one greets us with a splash!

Claire with her first starfish..
We thought Brianna looked marvelous!

All the kids swimming in the gulf..

If you look close you can see the 2 dolphin under the water..
Here's the one that splashed us!

Enjoying the sea and the sun!

~ sand between my toes and the relaxing sound of the water - that sound I could never get tired of!

Claire could very easily be a beach bum!

Brianna with her special message for Nick Jonas!


Believe me, I have so much more that I am thankful for and many more pictures to share with you but since it is now Friday I will sign off for now. I hope you have much to be thankful for as well!

Greetings from Al*bama...

Well, we are slowly getting settled in our new house and new location. What a few weeks it has been. We are bone tired and ready to be settled. We decided to move ourselves this time and boy what an adventure that has been! But, God is good and He has seen us through. Everything arrived safely and in one piece, which we weren't sure for awhile was going to happen. We would be happy to share our whole long drawn out drama over some St*rbucks! Part of our moving drama included a new tenant in our house in Texas that wanted us out before we were ready. Of course, the new tenant moved in about 10:30PM when we were trying to clean the house for our 9:00AM final walk through.

Here is the new tenant ~ a 4 ft long King snake (we think that is what it was)

The kids were playing outside and saw it go in the outside dryer vent which of course was open to the laundry room because the dryer was on the moving truck. Again, God is good, He made sure I was out the house when it went from the laundry room through the kitchen out into our sunroom. I have an unhealthy fear of snakes and it is killing me to even put this picture on the blog but I promised my family I would post a picture on the blog for them. Thank goodness for the p*lice that came to the house and "took care" of the snake! Gary was willing to let the snake have the house, since we were done with it! He took pity on me and my terrified face and called for reinforcements! It turned into quite the neighborhood spetical as they all came over with their cameras and cell phones. I had my neighbor take the picture with my camera because I wasn't going to get that close to it! Well, we have more boxes to unpack. I will try to update more later once we get internet connection at home (we are at the local bookstore!).