Who Needs a Motorcycle?

Living on a ranch with a big group of kids can be really interesting!!! During the last few days, the kids have been working with their young steers to get them ready to ride in the Fourth of July Parade in Round Top, Texas. Some of the steers have done well, but others have proven to be a little more of a challenge.

Today, I came outside to find some of the kids having so much fun with their steers! Who needs a motorcycle when you could have a "moooootorcycle?" Some of our friends have called it "Texas Hotrods." Others have mentioned how interesting it will be when they start cruzin' town with these at night!

Nine...Nine....and Nine!

It has been interesting how the Lord has added to our family. Until just recently, we've almost always had at least two children the same age. We never planned it that way, but we've really enjoyed having them so close. They can't ever complain that they are lonely or that they have nothing to do. I really don't think I've ever heard any of our kids say, "I'm bored." There's just so much to do when you're part of a big family. For most of our children, I don't think they will recognize what a blessing this is until they are mature adults and can look back at the memories they have of their childhood in our family.
Miriam Grace was our third adopted child to add to our family. She was adopted from Calcutta, India at the age of 7 1/2 months old and weighed less than ten pounds. She was a little peanut! When she was three years old, Rachel joined our family from Tianjin, China. For years, Miriam Grace and Rachel were inseparable. They've always been very close and the best of friends. It has been really a unique relationship too because Miriam Grace has always encouraged Rachel to overcome the challenges associated with her handicap, but she's done so with compassion. She's helped Rachel when she needed help, yet never let her feel sorry for herself. Rachel in turn has pushed herself to do far more than doctors ever thought possible. I really believe that God gave them each other for this purpose. In December of 2008, the Lord blessed us with another daughter, Olivia, who is also the same age as Miriam Grace and Rachel. Olivia is from Taraz, Kazakhstan, but she joined our family through a disrupted adoption. I wasn't sure how Olivia would fit in, but she has been loved and welcomed by Miriam Grace and Rachel as if she was always here. Olivia is handicapped also, and she hasn't had near the determination that Rachel has had, but I've already seen her do far more than she thought she could when she came to us. I think part of this is because she's had to keep up with Miriam Grace and Rachel. It's been interesting having three nine year olds, but I've really enjoyed it. I really hope that the close friendship I've seen between these three sisters will last a lifetime.

"It Feels Like the House is Empty"

It was a very busy weekend and we were invited to far more than we could possibly attend. On Saturday, we went to the STLA Field Day in Johnson City, Texas, and we met several new friends and enjoyed visiting with everyone. At one point we were talking about missing Joshua and Andrew, who have been in Oklahoma for the last two weeks learning how to rope. Abigail made the comment, "It feels like the house is empty with Joshua and Andrew gone." It caught me a little off guard being that we still had eighteen people at home. That's hardly an empty house! Then it hit me and I knew exactly what she was saying and I felt the exact same way. God has created each of our family members with different personalities and qualities, and He has taken all of these differences and made us a family. On Tuesday, Joshua and Andrew will be coming home. We've missed them so much. Even though we've been really busy, it does feel like we are missing someone at home.

It's Raining......It's Pouring!!!

Ever since we bought out ranch about five years ago, we’ve had a drought. Our place is solid woods and we’ve been working on clearing openings for years with the hope of getting nice grass pastures established. We’ve planted grass and put out fertilizer a few times. Jay has been very careful to watch the weather to wait for the perfect time to put seed and fertilizer out where it rains right after. A couple of years ago, we put seed and fertilizer out twice, and both times when it finally rained, it rained so hard that everything washed into the creek and that money we spent was lost. Last year we didn’t even attempt anything because it was such a bad drought. We’ve had to buy so much hay the last couple of years and it’s become really hard to find good quality hay for the horses and show calves, not to mention it’s very expensive. Today Jay finally got the nerve up to put the seed and fertilizer out again. Jay sent me a couple of text today all stressed out because he was worried we missed the rain again. Well……it’s raining cats and dogs now and once again all the seed and fertilizer will probably wash into the creek again!!! Still, we are thankful for the much needed rain!

Driving Lessons

Teaching the kids to drive has been one of the biggest challenges we’ve faced with parenting so many children who came to our family as older adoptees. For many of our children, they never rode in a car or only rode in a car a handful of times before they were adopted. For this reason, we struggled with a few additional challenges, like children who had motion sickness every time we got in the car for the first six months or so after they came home. We found that Dramamine could help with this, but it usually made them fall asleep.

The written portion of the test can be somewhat of a challenge for kids that are still learning English. We’ve even tried having one of them take her test in Spanish, but what we found was that she had lost most of her Spanish and really wasn’t fluent in English either. She was basically lost between languages. After several tries and lots of one on one with mom explaining words she didn’t understand, she finally did pass the test.

Not many people can say that they started teaching drivers education to four of their children at one time, but that’s exactly the way it has happened for us. On round one, we had Elizabeth, Rebekah, Andrew, and Abigail. Round two, which was only about six months later, was Jacob and Joshua. We are now on our third round of drivers ed. This time it’s Naomi, Julia, Samuel and Hannah. We’ve also recently applied for Nathaniel and Sarah to start the written portion of driver’s ed.

Riding in the car with new drivers can be a pretty scary experience! We’ve had one child who became so stiff and pale that we worried he would pass out behind the wheel. One of our daughters, who we never were able to help get a license for before she left home, thought it was funny when we were about to hit a tree or drive through a fence. You can imagine how upset that would make her father and I. We reached a point where we realized that it was not worth the risk that it was putting everyone in and that she could try to get her license when she had matured enough to take it more seriously.

It’s interesting how things work. While teaching some of the kids to drive, we are the ones who feel car sick now! You can only handle that snaking back and forth for so long before it gets to you. Most of our new drivers are learning well, but it has definitely been more of a challenge for children who grew up in orphanages. There is a lot of learning that takes place just from riding in a car for years, and some of our kids missing out on that. Today we have driving lessons with Naomi, Samuel and Hannah. Wish us luck!!! J

In the beginning........

Some people have asked why we chose adoption, so I thought I shared an explanation as to what brought us on the journey of adoption. Over twenty years ago, when Jay and I were engaged to be married, we watched a BBC documentary film called, "The Dying Rooms." The film was about orphaned children in China who who had been left in "dying rooms" to suffer the cruelest of deaths: starvation, disease, dehydration, abuse and severe neglect. I can still remember the knot I had in my stomach as we viewed the hard truth of orphan children being left to die in rooms where no one had to watch their suffering. It was really hard to even believe that these things happened and that human beings were even capable of such atrocities. Before the movie was over, Jay and I both looked at each other through tear filled and eyes and said, "We are going to adopt one of those babies one day." Little did we know of what a plan the Lord had in store for us!

Over the following twenty years, He blessed our family with two biological sons and eighteen adopted children from all over the world. Apparently He thought we needed "icing on the cake" because last year, we were blessed with a biological daughter, born February 23, 2010.
Adoption was not new to my family. My father was adopted through a private adoption when he was a newborn. I remember my grandmother telling the story of how she couldn't have children and her doctor had another patient who was not married and expecting a baby. She was a young college student who knew she was not prepared to raise a child. It was agreed upon that adoption was the best plan for everyone involved. It was a closed adoption, but my grandmother would tell me of how she would sit in the waiting room on the days that my father's birthmother had an appointment, just to get a glimpse of the new life that she would one day call her son. My father was an only child and his one piece of advice he reminded me of over and over again was, "Don't have just one child." He described his childhood as being really lonely. I don't think it is that way for all "only children," but it was for him. My father passed away in 1988, at the age of 37. He took his own life, which has always been difficult for me to accept. I was only 16 years old, my brother was 13 and my little sister was 6.

My sister, Niccole, was adopted too. Nikki came to our family when she was only two years old. As a teenager, it seemed like my life revolved around the precious little girl that had been placed in our family. I loved her so much and I'm sure that God made her a part of our family as a way of deeply planting the seed of adoption in my heart. Having Nikki as my little sister was like having a living doll all to myself. I loved doing everything for Nikki. I was so proud of her. When Nikki was six, my father took his life and our world turned upside down. The family I had known was no more, and everything seemed to spiral downward. When Nikki was 16, the courts gave Jay and I custody of her. We spent the next two years, fighting to give her the protection she needed from the abuse she had experienced and helping her to recover emotionally.

About a year ago, I went online to see if I could find the documentary film that the Lord used to pierce our hearts for adoption. To my amazement, it is available online.

Officially a "Blogger"

Well.....here goes! With the encouragement of several of my friends, I actually set up a blog. This may be the closest I ever come to actually sitting down and writing that book we've talked about for years. Blogging is new to me, so please be patient and I will try to learn as fast as I can. :-) I'm not sure where to start, so I'm just going to jump in and start blogging as things happen in the lives of our family.