HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to my AWESOME
Hubby!!!


Here he is with another awesome guy, Kyacey Uscola from Ulitmate Fighter. Kyacey is a sweetheart and I am glad that Curt got to meet him, since I talk about him and the TUF show all the time...hehe One of the 'perks' of working the fights, getting to know the Fighters on a personal basis...they are great guys!









The face off.....Curt thought he could take him...to lunch. haha

Mitch Graduation

Well, as life has it's chapters, we closed the book on one of them this week. Mitch Graduated from Kindergarten! She struggled this year with being separated from mommy, structure in the classroom, sharing time with MANY other kids. She worked hard on language and to learn her letters, numbers, sounds and word recognition. There were times I doubted First grade would follow and that another year of Kindergarten would be required.....she proved me wrong.
With the help of her faithful Teachers, Ms. Wilkins (Regular Kdg), Mrs. Martinez (Extended Kdg) and Mrs. Mittleider (Reading Coach) she DID IT! Mitch went from a 1 on the IRI (Idaho Reading Indicator) to a 3...THAT ladies and gentleman is grade level words! We worked so hard with her at home, reading, quizzing her on sight words and sounding things out. C-Man and Roo would give her timed tests on letter sounds many times and encouraged her all the while...AMAZING!

Here are some pic's from the wonderful night!

Man, are they EVER gonna call me?

They Said My Name!

It's Official!

Thumbs Up to An Awesome Year






























Mitch & Ms. Wilkins

The Hawk Has Landed

C-Man has begged for a mohawk all year long. FINALLY he was able to have one. I have convinced Daddy that it would be ok, so we decided to let him give it a shot.
Daddy cut it himself, and let him have it the last 2 days of school as well as the summer. I must say, we think he is adorable in it!

Two May Birthdays!!

May is the month of 2 Birthdays in our family!



May 3rd, BooBoo turned....13......EEEEKKKKKK



May 16th, Mitch turned 6...and lost her first tooth

















Chillin together on the couch
























BooBoo, too cool for just about anything!

Mitch LOVES to smile!

Happy Mother's Day To ALL the Mother's

I say Happy Mother's Day to ALL of the mommies out there.

In our lives there are many moms...we have me, Mom's whose tummies we grew in (Often called Haiti moms) and the fact that I have a mom as well...the younger kids are all amazed that I didn't just appear on earth as a mother...strange concept I know.

Mothers Day is very mixed for me. Every mothers Day I not only pause to think about my own mother, but also about the mothers who allowed me to be a mom. Without hard decisions or their passing to the next life, I would NOT have been able to be the mother I am today. As we celebrate, I often cry (quietly and hidden) thinking about the ones in Haiti and that we should also honor them. So,

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY
THENAISE
MARIE LUCIE
LOURDES
GRUCETINE

Bingo....RIP

This blog post is a little over due. I have not been able to post about it for some time now, due to every time I start, I cried.

January 2010 we had to say goodbye to Bingo. Bingo had been the most wonderful, loyal and loving dog a family could ever have.

Curt brought Bingo home one day after we had suffered a miscarriage. He knew I needed something to love, to be my baby...I needed someone or something to need me like I needed it. He had been working at the Local Animal Shelter inspecting the Fire Alarms. He always hated to do it because all the animals pulled at his heart strings. This day he was inspecting and came across the skinny ball of hair that had a tag on its cage. He knew what it mean-this little ball of hair was due to be euthanized the next day. He found out that she was a puppy of approx. 5 months and that she had been abandoned out at Lake Lowell and left to die. No one had claimed her and her time was up. He looked at that little fur ball and brought it home to me.

Now, at first I tell ya...I love animals, but I had always been more of a cat person. Considering we lived in a trailer park with a small 2 bedrooms, I did not see where this little furry thing was going to fit into my life. I pet her, she licked me and I was done for.

I worked at a school doing OT/Pt and began having the dog come visit me on Curt's days off. The kids fell in love with her and helped us name her B.I.N.G.O. after the song. It stuck.

Bingo was our first 'child', our first 'adoption' and she lived thru 4 kids, many cats and birds; camping trips and road trips to Wyoming, Montana, and Washington. She LOVED car rides, car washes and taking showers with us.

In the end, Bingo was our baby for 18 years. She gave loyally and loved us and the kids tremendously. Over time she became blind (at about 7 years of age) and then deafness took over. In the end, she had given all she could give. We thanked her by saying goodbye and burying her near the house she spent so many years in, where my granny and papa live now. A wooden cross marks her spot along with a deep love from 'her kids' and 'her mom and dad'.

Happy Anniversary

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, to the man I married 19 years ago today. We have been thru ups and downs, and have managed to beat the odds of a couple who met when they were 14.5 years and 16 years old. Love you Forver babe!

Thou Art With Me

Have you ever had a moment or two in your life when you were just SURE that there was a God? I have always KNOWN there is a God, but the other day, he placed his hand on me and let me know that he was in the passenger seat with me as I drove.

I was driving home from work on the freeway. Fairly easy drive, not a lot of traffic, moving at regular 65 mph pace. I came up behind a truck pulling an enclosed trailer with construction items in and on it. I was following him and no one was around us, he was going the proper speed limit, my exit was coming up very soon and things were smooth.
I got the overwhelming urge to pass him. There was no reason to pass him...no REAL reason at all. I turned on my blinker and looked in my mirror....as I merged into the other lane, one of his ladders on the top of the trailer shot off the back and right into where I had been 2 seconds ago. The ladder whipped straight out (where the driver side would have been) and then shot sideways out behind me as I continued to slow down and pull over. He saw what happened and slowed to pull over as well. He asked if I was ok, which BY THE GRACE OF GOD, ONLY, I was.

I cannot express the amount of praying and thanking I did right then, and the rest of the night. I could have ended up a crazy accident statistic with a ladder in my face and chest...... THANK YOU MY LORD AND SAVIOR!!!

Amazing Accident....

I saw this accident happen right in front of me on the way home from work last week. The Good Lord put me, once again, in the right place at the right time. I was able to climb into the back seat and secure the womans airway as well as hold C-spine until the paramedics got there to cut her out.


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So Much Going On

We have had so much going on in the last month and a half and I am finally trying to sit and blog about it. 1. It is NOT ALL my fault that I have not written anything for a while....computer at home has been down-the video card was bad. Curt's computer really stinks at surfing the web so the only computer time I got for the last month and half was at work (not all that conducive to blogging if the boss is there..hehe)

We have finished up basketball times 2 boys. Have some pics I need to post of them here for all to see. We have not received BooBoo's official team pic yet, but we did for C-Man. He looks like a little MAN in them, NOT an 8 year old boy. Made me tear up some....curt looked and he did the same, where has the time gone?

Roo is in full fledged Cheer season, with performances or practice every Saturday. This month (March) we have several performances and a Spring Fling to perform in. Should be exciting and fun for all the girls.

I have pictures I need to post with certain blogs, so I will get to these in the next few days. So much to update and so much to say and show, that it may look a lot like blog-o-rea! ;-)

Amos Story - Music Video - Aaron Ivey

LOVE this song. Aaron wrote this song to show the waiting Adoptive parents go thru for their kids. Thank the good Lord, Amos and Story are home, as so many other Haitian children have been blessed with being united...we are NOT done yet, soon ALL the orphans spoken for will be home.

Progress

I have been pleased to see that progress is being made for the kids in Haiti and their adoptive families in the U.S. and Canada. I still have 1 family that I am working with that needs their teen daughter Daina home....they are so much further in the process than many out there that have been traveling and I think the frustration is getting to them. I can't say that i blame them...you wait and wait and still no word on if YOUR child gets to come home.
I do believe the logic is that the babies and toddlers are more at risk than the teens are...the younger they are, the more at risk for death due to disease, malnutrition and dehydration. Adopting an older teen, this child has shown they can survive Haiti (although scarred) they will not be the first to go in death or to their new life.
I pray for the family, who have tried to remain faithful in their wait, but also respect their frustration growth as nothing is happening for them...PRAYING J & M for you!

The scenes still coming out of Haiti are so mixed for me...Aaron Ivey said it correctly when he wrote his album 'Between the Beauty and Chaos'http://aaronivey.com/ . I think he hit the nail on the head. Aaron and Jamie also received word that Amos was on a plane and now have him home...WOOT!

I see how media is leaving, Haiti will go back to anonymity for them, but for many of us it will still be real. The Doc's who are helping who take 5 minutes to cry over what they have seen, the Haitian people in the streets who sing Hymnals praising a God that many think have forgotten them, yet they believe. Yesterday, 11 days after the quake, a 23 yo man was found ALIVE and barely scratched from the quake. He was buried in rubble and sipped a soda to keep himself going....a soda and prayer...what an odd combo that maybe only Ange would understand..hehe

I will post items here to the blog to preserve them for my kids and to share the triumphs and memories.

I Learned A Lot This Week

I feel like such a louse. I Pray non stop for Haiti and the people, for Humanitarian Parole, for adopted kids to pour into airplanes and go to their Forever Homes and still my heart hurts. I go to FB and post, spreading the word, CNN and MSN and the TV News and look at pictures of horror that every face reminds me of my own children, and then I read it...one of the teens IN the quake, Living thru this hell on earth, prays that the Non Christians around her and the neighbors of the Pension come to know that God Loves Them...thanks him for everything good and bad....then I cry, because I am a safe and here and I begged for something like this never to have happened, and they see it as something to bring their neighbors to God. I have learned alot this week.

Quake Hits Haiti-Catastrophic Consequences

I have so much that I need to update and write. So many Happy and good things to report...they seem so trivial today and in life in general.



MANY, MANY Haitians have lost their lives over the last 2 days. 1-12-10 @ 4:50pm Haitian time, a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti...the epi-center hitting Carrefour (Kaw-Foo) near the Capital of PAP. I have been thru Carrefour, it is where the new New Life link Orphanage is located. It took until midnight to receive word that Dr. Bernard, Claudette, Guest House staff, Creche Staff, children and HFC staff and children were all alive and well. Buildings have been badly damaged, but are not down.



Word from Dr. Bernard was this:
DEAR CHRISTIAN FRIENDS, THANKS 1000 TIMES TO EACH AND ALL OF YOU MY DEAREST FRIENDS WHO SEND US EMAILS ABOUT THIS DISASTER. THANKS 1,000,000 TIMES FOR YOUR CONTINUED PRAYERS. WHAT WOULD WE HAVE DONE WITHOUT YOUR FRIENSHIP, PRAYERS, AND FANANCIAL SUPPORT.PRAISES, GLORIES, AND POWERS BE TO OUR ALLMIGHTY SAVIOR AND LORD JESUS FOR SAVING MY LIFE FROM THIS BIG EARTHQUAKE WHICH MIGHT KILL THIS AFTERNOON THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. IT WAS ABOUT 4:50P.M, I STEPPED UP INTO THE MAYOR'S OFFICE ON MY WAY BACK HOME FROM WORK. AS I JUST ARRIVED ON THE 2ND FLOOR, THE BUILDING COLLAPSED ON EVERYBODY WITHIN SECONDS . THE ROOF CAME DOWN OVER OUR HEADS. I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DESCRIBE THIS MIRACLE.I WAS ONE STEP TO DEATH, BUT PEACEFUL, TRUSTING THAT MY LIFE WAS IN GOD'S HAND. MY MIGHTY GOD GOT ME OUT SAFELY. AS I JUMPED FROM THE 2ND FLOOR INTO ALL THE DEBRIS, I GOT HURT ON MY LEFT SIDE.HOWEVER, I AM SAFE AND SOUND...IT IS A LONG LONG STORY.WHAT A MIRACLE! WHAT A GOD THAT WE ARE SERVING! HE SURELY IS NOT DONE YET WITH ME.WHEN I GOT HOME, CLAUDETTE AND THE OTHERS WERE FINE, BUT THE GUEST HOUSE SHOOK UP SO BAD THAT THE WATER COOLER, BOOK SHELVES FULLO OF BOOKS, AND CABINETS FELL ON THE FLOORS.AS I AM WRITING THIS EMAIL, THE HOUSEIS STILL SHAKING UP. WE WILL SLEEP OUT SIDE, UNDER THE FRONT PORCH.ALL THE CHILDREN AT THE ORPHANAGE ARE FINE. BECAUSE TELEPHONES ARE OUT OF SERVICE, IT WAS ALREADY NIGHT AND THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN PORT-AU-PRINCE WERE IN THE STREET, MOURNING THEIR TRAPPED AND DEAD FAMILY MEMBERS, THERE WAS NO WAY I COULD GET TO THE NLL BUILDING OR HAVE ANY NEWS. EARLY TO MORROW MORNING, I WILL GO THERE. OH ! HOW I PRAY THAT ALL THE CHILDREN AND STAFF ARE SAFE.THE SITUATION IS AWFULLY AWFUL, TERRIBLY TERRIBLE. PLEASE, PRAY FOR THE GREAT NUMBERS OF FAMILIES WHO HAVE THEIR LOVED ONES STILL UNDER THE RUBBLES WITHOUT MUCH HOPE TO SURVIVE. PRAY FOR HAITI, AND THE CHURCH OF CHRIST.I WILL KEEP ALL POSTED.WE ARE SO GRATEFUL TO GOD TO HAVE YOU ALL IN OUR LIVES.Blessings,Jacob

Bon Fet Dr. B

A WONDERFUL BON FET TO DR. BERNARD!
We miss Dr. B and hope to tak the kids back to see him some day soon. Dec. 31st was his 29th (hehe) birthday! We tried calling but could not get thru....LOVE YOU DR. B!