Just being real....

Well after my last post, we have gotten two requests so far from my blogger friends to move...one to Denver, and one to Calafornia....They both sound great to me!! Here we come!! I find great comfort in these friends....as we have walked the journey to our daughters together and we lift eachother up and continue to love and support eachother through life! I am greatful for these friends that God has placed in my life...even if we met on the computer their support has been like no other, and I treasure each of them like a sister. My heart is so heavy today. I think for many reasons. One..Yes ...Terry and I feel we are ready for a change...but no we don't know in what at all. We will continue to look to Him for answers and seek his guidance. Two...My dance season begins in less than one week. It has been a great time off with little Gracie. Im ready to see all the students again, but honestly not ready for the business of running the studio. I will teach 16 classes a week and will juggle all the other stuff that will need to get done. One thing I do treasure is the fact that Terry gets off work as soon as I start to teach, this is great so that Grace will not have to have babysitting at all. This is and always has been important for our family. Three...Friends who use to be much closer to us are not so close, and on the other hand God brings other friends our way....funny how adoption changes your world and you suddenly meet many new people and families with the same stories. I do love that.

I added this next section to my post this morning as I woke up with this on my heart....

Adoption has also given us a true heart for orphans of the world. Ethiopia has been heavy on our hearts for many months. Terry made the comment (after a very long day at work) one day "well maybe we should just go to Africa". I said "ok, lets pack our bags and go". We would love to one day go there and help in an orphanage, and just show love to all the kids that are homeless and in need of a family. I have two families who have been a true inspiration to me and I have followed the Johnson family http://weloveourlucy.blogspot.com/for about a year now and also her sister who started "Ordinary Hero", http://www.ordinaryhero.org/Home.htmlan organization to help be a voice to find homes for orphaned children in Ethiopia. Through these two families our eyes have been opened even more than they were before...many times I have sobbed at my computer as I have read there true life stories and experiences of many of the children. It is true when GOd says when your eyes are open you can not pretend you have not seen. My heart has been broken in a good way with what these two ladies have written from there hearts about the poverty and need for families in this area. Who knows...maybe our change in life will have something to do with Ethiopia, maybe other things, but I know God has something good planned and I can't wait to see it unfold. ... Sometimes do you ever feel alone even if If you are surrounded by many people.

(I wrote the above earlier and saved it to post later...in the mean time I came across this on another bloggers site.........They were talking about feeling alone or confused...Maybe this will bless you today also!)

"I believe that God allows these things to come to pass in our lives for one main purpose: to have us all to Himself. He loves us so much and He knows that we will try to live life apart from Him, but can't. He has to get us to a place where all we have is Him, before He can show us His love and love us back into the relationship with Him that we were created and destined for.

God will thwart all efforts we make to try to find life apart from Him.If you find yourself in a new place and/or find yourself alone, may you know with confidence that God is just wanting you all to Himself, so that He can love you. Rest in that today and sit with Him a while."

I am thankful I popped onto this blog, and through someone elses words I see now that God is getting my attention. Yes when you feel as I have lately it has brought me on my knees to seek him and his direction.

May you have a blessed day!

Capturing a little Nature....and time together

IN All Things Worship HIM and Lean on Him for Understanding!

Daddy loves Gracie

Life is a Journey. This picture says it all! Lately my husband and I have both have felt God leading us to something...something different, but we do not know what that something is yet. Right now we are just praying and waiting on God to lead us in the right direction.

Thank you Kelly w/ Briar.Clair

Today Amanda and Gracie got a fun package in the mail from my friend Kelly. How sweet and special this package was since she makes everything home made and with love! Kelly makes beautiful hair bows for little girls. ..and oh are they ever adorable!! They also have a sweet daughter from Korea. I found Kelly's blog on line while we were waiting for Grace. Funny how God works sometimes...since I found great comfort in reading her posts while our wait was so hard. She always inspired us and of course we loved seeing her beautiful daughter. My oldest daughter still will ask..so mom what is Briar doing now..and she will come and take a peek too. So even though we have not met in person, this family still is special to us. I know someday our schedules will work out and we will get together...until then..Im thankful for Friends like this, who take time to make someone feel special. I will show more pictures of all the fun things this weekend, but for tonight I just had to post this one! http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6956412

Beautiful Day by the Water Falls

78degrees, family, and a picnic by the water falls and you can call that a perfect day!
Our family!

Grace loved wandering all over the place!

Terry and Bay

Me and Amanda

Tickle tickle..

Even though the water was sooo cold, Grace kept wanting her feet in it!

What a perfect day for sure! Love, Family, and God's beautiful design in a water fall!

Fun with International Students

My wonderful hubby prepared Bulgogi and an awesome rice and a few other things for our dinner! Everyone really loved eating Korean and using chop sticks again! Above is our student Chungjee that was placed with us through the international college program! We also have connected with a few other students and always invite them along with our family too. We really enjoy them all very much, it is fun to talk about and learn about Korea and also share American traditions with them.

Chungjee loves our kids, but she won't pass by Gracie without giving her a kiss. Gracie is showing off her korean baby doll. Chungjee that that was really aweseome that she loves this dolly. Pretty cute

Terry introduced the boys to a game of football. This went on all night, through the rain and into the dark time. They all had a total blast! What a hoot it was to watch them all having so much fun! That is what life is about! Enjoy and have fun!

Notice the cute little girl wandering around the yard. ..busy picking flowers and rocks!

Daddy Can I Play Too?!

Daddy can I play Ball Too?!!
I can hold this big ball too just like the big kids do!

Yeah!

This wonderful man just absoultly loves his Gracie!

Happy Weekend to you all!

5 Months Home Today

Our Eyes Met on April 16th our Gotcha Day-- 5 Months ago Today...Our Baby was placed in our arms forever!

Each month that goes by is such a milestone for us. We will never forget the 16th of April. Each month when the 16th of the month hits, it is our reminder of how the baby we so longed to hold was finally in our arms at last. Remembering back to this day it feels like it has been much longer than 5 months. I think about how she was with her foster family for 8 months, she has only been with us for 5...oh my how much we love her and it reminds me of how much they must have loved her too! That really is not that long, but yet so amazing how it feels we have really had her forever! I remember the anguish of waiting for that travel call and how I had myself in such a twit that I hardly could function. Adoption is an amazing journey, and the journey continues when you have them home as well. WE think back to how we use to be....sooo NOT cultured. Through the process of waiting for Grace to be home with us we had time to get to know her Korean culture, and one that we fell more in love with too. Then God brought us Woungbi Choi. He came into our lives two months before Grace was home. He was an angel really. He taught us even much more about Korea, culture, traditions. We fell in love with him and we knew that forever our lives would be changed for the better. WE knew we would want to always encorporate Gracies culture into our lives. So yes she is Korean/ American, and we are American/Korean and love it! Thank you Lord for guiding us..thank you for taking us on a one year detour to China, and then to South Korea , all to find that you all along had a plan for us and Grace to be together forever! You are an amazing God, and we Thank you for all your blessings!

Girl on the Go

Grace is a girl on the go, and keeps me on my toes. She is a huge fan of climbing too. She will climb up to her highchair when she wants to eat. Speaking of eating, she eats non stop. I think some days I feel like I do not leave the kitchen area until my husband gets home and I can take a" little" mommy break.

"Good thing for big sisters that dress me cool!"

Each day while we head out the door to go get kids from School she will seriously go get her bag that she has packed full. She has to have this bag with her, kinda like mommy has her bags too. She loves her shoes too, and will bring them to us to put them on saying "shooo, shooo". My kind of girly girl for sure.

Don't let this cute little face fool you too much. Oh yes she is sweet and smiles most of the time, but....Her new thing now is really letting us know if she is upset. I would possibly classify this as a "touch of a fit"! I hate that word and it is foreign to us since neither one of our other kids threw them. At this point and time we do not react to them and hope they will not continue or grow into a "real full blown fit". We'll keep ya posted on that one. :-)

Thank God for this sweet little girl on the Go!

New Friends From Around the World

In one of my last posts I spoke about the International Exchange program we are excited to be a part of with the college near us. The leader of the program matched us with CJ Chungjee from South Korea, and tonight we had her and many of her friends over for a American Cook out. We grilled out hamburgers, with corn on the cobb, bunkhouse beans, salad, chips and pop! We had a blast getting to know them, and of course everyone had fun loving on little Gracie girl! We plan to do many things with them while they are here. God is amazing how he brings such wonderful people into our lives. We love to learn about all the different cultures and make new relationships with these great young people. We pray their journey in America is a great one with many fun and wonderful memories!
IN the photo above (forgive me if I don't spell the names all correct) is From left to Right is...
"Water" Soobum (from S Korea), JK (from S Korea), Sadbhouv (from Napal), Terry, Gracie
Chungjee (from S Korea), Selam (from Etheopia), Andria (from Vietnam), Tina, Amanda, Bay.

Beautiful young ladie!! Chungjee, Selam, Andria

JK, and Water playin the piano

CJ and Gracie

Of course the fun of the night was when Amanda broke out DDR (dance dance revolution)

A few more favorites

A few more shots from the wedding. These are our three kids and my brothers two kiddos. They all adore each other so much, and just love it when they get to spent time together. We are lucky they only live about 10 miles from us.
Me and my awesome kids. Kids make the world a much more cheerful place. Some people can not wait until their kids are grown up and out of the house. NOT ME, I know how fast time goes and I savor every moment with them. Since school is started and schedules seem to get more busy, we want to be sure we are really connecting with the kids. After homework, dinner, play time, and some chores, after we get Gracie to bed, we sit down with the older two and just have fun joking and talking about out day. They are at such a great age. They just spill their guts to us about everything in their day. Amanda said last night...we have to keep doing this every night. Last night she was telling us her memory verse for the week. Wow, it was long...both the kids do a great job memorizing things. She has a great Bible teacher (same one Bailey had last year) who is soooo passionate about Jesus it spills over in everything she does. We could not have asked for a better teacher. Teachers make such a big difference in a child's life! We know now that they are both at the age where they need to own their walk with Jesus, it is not just about mom and dad and how we feel or going to church with us. They now have to want it, need it and be passionate about it. The theme of the school year this year is to not just have head knowledge , but to have Jesus deep in their hearts. I was thrilled to hear this and to see the change in the two of them already makes a mom smile. Not to say we don't have bad days...we all do! But I'm seeing them grow and that is what counts.

This is one of my most favorite pictures ...she was playing peek a boo with me and I caught this on camera. I love moments like this. What a precious little baby girl. She is learning so much so fast it amazes us. When she wants something she will come and grab my hand and bring me to it. Sometimes it is things she can have...other times they are things she can't have. She wants to touch, smell, taste and try everything. She is on the go 24/7 and we love her with all our hearts

Sisters Wedding Day!

Congratulations to my little sister and new brother in law Jason on their marriage! It was a beautiful wedding in my mom's back yard! Everything worked out perfectly. Nice hot day for sure! After the wedding we had a blast dancing! To see more wedding photos please visit my photo site at..... www.fromtheheartphotosbytina.blogspot.com

Brides maids and my mom dancing

I think this was an 80's song..tee hee!! Congratulations

Gracie say HUHHHH?

Great Grandma R with little Gracie

My sister Mandi, brother Jason, and Me!

Gracie

Our Family!

My love of my life!

After the wedding the kids were able to get in Nanna's pool to cool off!

Grandpa taking Gracie for a walk

My sister and I!

"Mark and the girls"

My sister, my mom, Mark, and me