Kids Playing Together

Just a few pictures from my phone of the kids playing together. It is sweet to see them growing and learning to play together more and more. Certainly we still have rough patches and plenty of daily opportunities for training, but these pics are sweet memories that show some steps of progress. :)

Playing with their baby doll & bed

Ready to get going in the bike trailer

Snuggles during story time

Playing before bedtime

Hiding from Alaythia

posted from Bloggeroid

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One of Karis' most favorite places to be

These days, almost anytime Karis sees Hugh, she asks to be picked up. And if she is feeling particularly excited to see him, she will often tell him that she wants to sit on his shoulders. She just loves it up there and feels like such a big girl!


Love those smiles (and the giggles too)!

posted from Bloggeroid

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Growing our Family {through adoption}

I am so thankful to finally be able to share that we are adopting!  We began this process back in January by filing out an application and following that up with some additional paperwork and references.  Just this week our adoption agency approved our family to move forward with a home study and put us on their waiting list. We are so thrilled to be taking these small steps toward meeting our next child.  I know that sometimes adoption can raise many questions, so I'll try to answer a few common ones here.


What made us want to adopt in the first place?  Many things.  After Hugh and I were first married, we began learning more about adoption through a myriad of sources.  One of the couples we really admired was just finalizing their adoption of a young boy from Guatemala.  One of the guest speakers who our church brought in was pro-adoption and convinced us that adoption ought to be close to every Christian's heart: because God cares for the orphan and widow and even more so every Christian has been adopted into God’s family through Christ.  After he spoke, we read his book (Adopted for Life by Russell Moore) and understood more about the way God adopts us into his family as sons because of Jesus' atonement for our sins.  This reconciliation is so amazing that God even considers us co-heirs with Christ!  Such teaching was eye opening for me.  Hugh and I decided shortly thereafter that we would pursue adoption at some point.

But why now?  Why not just have some more children biologically?  Well, the Lord continued to keep adoption in front of us through various means (such as other friends adopting, reading about it in the Scriptures, being reminded of it through emails from organizations that are pro-life, and hearing in the news about the growing atrocities of the abortion industry).  After Alaythia was born, we knew we wanted to continue growing our family.  Although we would certainly like to have more biological children in the future (should the Lord allow us to), we felt led to consider adoption, specifically as a way to care for orphans, to serve as a shadow of God's own adoption of us, and to take action to help birth mothers (and fathers) who are so courageously choosing life. We want to stand by others who are fighting the culture of death by affirming that all life is valuable because it is made in the image of God.

What type of child are we hoping to adopt?  We have decided to adopt an infant from the United States.  Our agency typically works with young babies (newborn to a few months old), and we have specified that we would like our next child to be younger than Alaythia (to avoid disrupting the birth order).

How will we be matched with a baby?  Our adoption agency matches adoptive families with children by allowing the birth parents to choose based on their preferences for the child.

How much longer will we have to wait?  We have at least another few months while we finish our homestudy, but it could also take up to 2-4 years.

What do our other kids think about adopting?  Enoch is really excited!  There was some confusion for him at first about why the baby wasn't going to be in my belly (since that's where his sisters both came from), but as these questions come up, we talk through them.  The girls don't fully understand that we will have a new baby soon, but I'm sure they'll be ready to help feed the baby bottles and help with diapers because they are both growing in their motherly instincts.

Do we know anyone else who has adopted?  Yes!  Actually, quite a few people we know have adopted.  One of Hugh's aunts adopted 30+ years ago; some good friends from Arkansas adopted 6 years ago; two sets of friends from our church just adopted in the past 2 years; and one other friend just finalized her adoption last week.  The Lord has also blessed us to know a handful of young adults who were adopted as children, which has been very sweet as well.

How did we choose our adoption agency?  After we decided to adopt domestically, we began looking for local agencies.  There were only a few within our area (which I consider to be a 3 hour drive).  They all came with good recommendations; however, one stood out in the way they cared for birth mothers.  Their staff was large and well-trained; they seemed to be available to birth mothers all throughout pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and beyond; and they offered a unique service: a home for birth mothers who needed a place to stay.  For Hugh and I, this last feature was what really sealed the deal because we have had great experiences with people opening up their homes and inviting others in.  There seems to be something quite redemptive and life-altering about this, especially for those in a hard place.  Knowing that our agency could provide not only shelter and food to a birth mother in need, but also a home with a family and shared life experiences made us feel confident in our choice of agency.


Please join us in praying through this adoption journey.

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Kisses for your Hump Day

Here are some kisses for your Hump Day (video is from a few weeks ago, but I thought I should still upload it since she is too cute).  :)



{This is an example of one of those developmental skills that she must have learned by watching her two older siblings because Hugh and I never worked on teaching her how to blow kisses... she just started doing it one day!}

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Enoch Training Our Dog

For anyone who wants a good laugh, you can check out this video of Enoch "training" Cora to find a toy in his bed.  (We recently went to a dog show where the dogs had to find a toy that their owner had touched and retrieve it.  I think that this training is based on that activity.)  This happens almost every morning now with about the same results, Enoch is very dedicated and determined, and Cora is... distracted and not sure why he keeps putting her toy in the bed instead of throwing it for her.

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FFF: Karis' Eye Surgery

In early December of 2015, Karis had eye surgery on both of her eyes to fix her strabismus (crossed eyes).  Before surgery was necessary, Karis' eye doctor had tried other means of straightening out her eyes (like patching and glasses and even bifocals).  However, none of these treatments were ultimately effective (though the patching did have some short term benefits).

In the Fall of 2015, when we learned that Karis would need surgery, we changed eye doctors to one who was in our state and who also had a better bedside manner.  To be honest, the new eye doctor also had a much smoother office visit system, which made our appointments with him almost effortless (given that I was bringing a few extra kids along for the appointments, this was a BIG deal to me!!).  Anyway, the new doctor did due diligence with Karis in hearing her story, asking about our concerns, giving his recommendations, and then preparing us for surgery.

On the day of surgery, we had to leave our home around 4:00 am in order to arrive to the hospital before 7:00.  Hugh and the kids dropped Karis and I off at the hospital, and then they headed off to eat breakfast and play at a children's museum (which they all loved!).  Karis (who hadn't eaten since dinner the day before) was a trouper in every sense.  We had quite a few lengthy waits in different rooms, met innumerable doctors, nurses, and staff (all of whom she heartily greeted), and eventually I had to give her to a complete stranger so that they could put her under general anesthesia.  Not once did my sweet girl cry or complain!  Now I, on the other hand, boo-hoo-ed like a baby, especially during the final round of questions from the anesthesiologists.

waiting... waiting... and waiting some more

right after surgery

Her surgery lasted around one hour as expected, and everything went great.  After she began waking back up, they allowed me to hold her and comfort her.  She was so pitiful, and was hardly consolable when I first found her because she wasn't all the way awake yet.  After one dose of morphine however, she calmed down and then when she was finally 100% awake, she seemed to not be in pain.   After another hour or so of checking vitals and learning about how to care for her, they released us just in time for Hugh and the kids to have finished lunch and be ready for a nap on the ride home.  Karis wasn't interested in eating lunch, and she wasn't able to keep her post-surgery apple juice down either, but after we got home, she was willing to eat.  The rest of that day Karis was somewhat tired and lethargic.

Groggy at dinner that first night after surgery.

The next morning, however, she was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as normal, only with very very red eyes!  The redness was mainly on the insides of her eyes, where the doctor had altered the eye muscle.  Over about 2-3 weeks time, the redness faded.  We did use eye ointment for the first week to prevent infection.  Karis was over-joyed when we no longer had to put it in her eyes!  At our one week visit to her doctor, he said everything looked great, and we really haven't had any trouble with her eyes since then!  We will go back to her doctor in a few months for one more check up, but at our last visit he said he didn't expect that she would need glasses or more surgery.  :)

These two photos show how red eyes were in the first few days after surgery:

And one last look at a before:

And after:  

It's amazing how I didn't even notice how much her eyes were crossing before surgery!  Now when I look back at photos, I am so so thankful for the Lord's provision of Karis' eye doctor's skilled hands!!!  Praise God for a smooth and successful surgery for our sweet girl!

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FFF: Our Dog

Here is a long overdue post about our dog!  We adopted Cora, who is a golden retriever mix, from the humane society in February or March of 2015.  She was a fiesty little puppy, and I consider her to still be in the puppy phase, though now she is much bigger than when we first picked her up.  :)

Cora spends a lot of her free time outside, but when she is inside, our bed is like her throne.  

In the early mornings, if she is being especially obedient and we don't have to rush out the door, she gets to come and wake the kids up with me.  She loves this so much, as does one particular son of mine.  ;)  They play fetch and wrestle, and eventually when she gets tired, Enoch tries to be calm and love on her sweetly.  

And if she is being especially, especially obedient, she gets to stay in the house while we eat breakfast and then clean up the plentiful crumbs afterward.  

Cora also enjoys going for walks around our neighborhood!  She likes to walk right beside the stroller and guard the kiddos.  She is still pretty bad about pulling if left to her own desires, but we use a slip collar on her now, and it keeps her in check.  Kaitlin (Hugh's sister) also visited recently and did some doggy obedience training with her (and with us), which has helped immensely.  She taught Cora the beginnings of "stay" and "down" and "back" which are all really useful.  (Cora already knew "sit")  

Alaythia loves Cora's big, wet dog kisses, and is mesmerized by her.  Karis, on the otherhand, mainly enjoys the dog when there is some barrier between them (like the door, the kennel, or her crib).  Throughout the day though Karis likes to go up to the back door and yell "daah" to see if Cora will come up to the window and greet her, which Cora almost always does in hopes of attention.  :)

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