Happy Birthday Sarah!

Happy 15th Birthday, Sarah!  How did my first baby get so old all of a sudden?  Guess that makes me pretty old.  But Pat and I are SO very proud of Sarah and love her very, very much. She is a pretty special young lady.

Sarah is a very hard person to buy gifts for. She is NOT your typical teen and really doesn't "want" anything that I can buy her.  (Her birthday list included being healed from Lyme disease and a family for "Jacob" - if I remember right.)

(Bunny trail here.) This is Jacob. (No, they don't make bumpo seats bigger in Asia. When Jonathan came home at the age of 12 months, he was TOO BIG for a bumpo seat. He got stuck in it. Jacob is 3. He needs out. Like yesterday.)

Ok, so I can't heal her (although I pray everyday for that) and I can't bring Jacob home (no, I really can't), but I will share her birthday wish with you. Stolen Borrowed right from her blog: 

++++++ Sarah's birthday wish ++++++

I put out a plea on facebook today.

It's my birthday today, and can I ask you a favor? This is Sutter. Like me, he is also turning 15 this year, he has cerebral palsy, and he is waiting for a family in EE.

I was at his orphanage, I was at the institution he will end up at (when he ages out next year), and no person should ever have to live in either of those places. I'm also pretty sure I met him. He needs out ASAP before he runs out of time!

Would you be willing to donate just $15 to his grant? As a present to me, and as an effort to save his life.

And if you donate today, let me know and I'll enter you in a drawing to win a free custom hat of your choice (see here). Email me at forhisgloryhandiwork(at)gmail(dot)com or comment here.

The link to donate is: SUTTER and THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!

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Thank you so much for your consideration! (Sarah will leave the drawing open through Monday since I'm so late in blogging this.)

I am WAAAY behind on blogging our family events of the past few months.  ALL 10 of us have our birthdays between April and October, so lots of parties and not much time to blog about it.

Here are a few quick pics from Sarah's little party tonight. Sarah's traditional cake for her birthday is "Dirt Cake".  Except we forgot to get more Oreos when we ran to town to get the fair projects. Oops!  It still tasted great though.

30 candles
15 for Sarah
15 for Sutter

Yarn is always a safe gift for Sarah.
These colors were handpicked by her two little sisters.

Pat and Isaac were extremely privileged to go to the Packer pre-season game Friday night. Isaac's jersey (birthday gift a couple years ago) was still out so Elijah put it on himself and was dancing around.  

Yes, we were watching "Star of Christmas" in August...

Isaac's hair before the Packer game on Friday night. Summer buzz cut! 

Happy Easter!

Sarah here... as you can guess because this is a picture post. ;)

We're with family this weekend, and yesterday we had the egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's. Elijah and Jonathan quickly got the hang of it if they didn't remember from last year, but I don't think either of them realized that there was candy inside!

Jonathan

Elijah

Rachel

Rebekah

Isaac

Anna

And... this would be where my camera stopped working so no pictures of me. Not that I would have posted them anyways. :)

And some pictures from this morning (from grandma's camera)...

Best picture we got of Rachel in her dress... she wasn't in the picture taking mood. This beautiful Ukrainian sparkle dress was Little Miss Ruby's dress. She generously donated it to a blog auction to help her new big brother, Maxim, come home from Ukraine. Rachel loved wearing it today, even if she didn't want to pose for a picture.

Elijah was all dressed up too.

Happy Easter from our family to yours!

Fun in the Barn!

Yesterday, one of our friends from church took Isaac and Rebekah to their house for the afternoon. It sounds like they had a lot of fun!

Thank you Mr and Mrs. M!!

Playdate & the faces of Rachel

Sarah here - Tonight we had a playdate/get together with our local Ds group...

Both Elijah (right) and Jonathan had fun climbing around, and I think everyone else did too!

Mr. Monkey got a bit bored at times, but when you aren't big enough to climb much of anything, wouldn't you too?? (Helping him through was kinda outta the question, he's a chunk! Besides when we tried to, he freaked going over the netting.)

Anna and Jonathan, with Isaac and Elijah in the back...

 Anna and I (Sarah) also spent some time playing with and helping an adorable little girl with Ds around the playset. It's been awhile since I got to play with any girls with Ds (love you and miss you Bug and Bean!!), and Anna and I are both in agreement we need a little girl with Ds in this family!!!

After, we had some shopping to do, so the littles and I hung out in the van for awhile.

Rachel imformed me that she and Jonathan were holding hands nicely and wanted me to take a picture. ;)

She was asking me about the cars that were parking or leaving in front of us and who those people were, and why that car has it's lights on, etc. I finally told her when she said "Sarah?" for the 100th time that the answer is going to be I don't know. She told me that she wanted me to know so I could tell her. Good gravy does she like to talk! ;)

 She also makes pretty amusing faces.

Happy face

Sad face

Silly face

Grumpy face

She's a hoot. But don't let how sweet and innocent she looks fool you!

12.12.12, Sarah, Opie Taylor and MORE!

If you have been reading for awhile (well, at least 13 months), you may remember that I like these fun dates. The last two - 10.10.10 and 11.11.11 were significant for us in the adoption world.  On 10.10.10, our amazing church family held a benefit for our family to raise funds for Elijah's adoption.  On 11.11.11, we completed Jonathan's readoption with a court date.  What does 12.12.12 bring us in our adoption world???  Ummm...nothing.  :-/  Maybe we'll talk about adopting again...we'll see. :-)

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It's been quite awhile since I've posted anything on here about the boys, or any of the kids for that matter.  Sorry about that! Unfortunately, today will not be the day for that.  We are having fun with Christmas preparations and I'm trying to not get too stressed out about things. The boys have both had ENT check-ups and Elijah has had his vision checked. No big news there. I'll update more on that soon hopefully.

I'm so, SOOO very proud of Sarah!!!  She is currently in the middle of a 3-week stint helping to provide childcare for a large adopting family.  The family is adopting none other than sweet Maxim that I mentioned a few times here! She flew alone and even navigated O'Hare by herself!  I miss her terribly though. I can't say it's been easy for her, but she is learning a lot and is grateful for the experience.  You can peek in on what she's been doing HERE. It would be great if you would leave her an encouraging comment or two.  Stay tuned for a very, VERY funny video.  I'll let her post it on her blog first, but you will NOT be able to keep a straight face...I promise.

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Wanna see "Opie Taylor" in the flesh (if you are local)???? :-) Well, come to the "Mayberry Miracle" this weekend!  Our dear son, Isaac, has been working hard on playing the role of Opie in our church's Christmas production, based on the Andy Griffith show. Go HERE for more information. The Friday night performance is sold out and a few tickets remain for Saturday at 2pm and 7pm. So don't delay! This play is very well written and produced, and shares the real reason for the season.


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For all you homeschoolers out there! Please check out this AMAZING sale that ends tonight!!! Even if you only use a couple of things from this extensive collection, it will be well worth the $12 bucks.

Happy Birthday R & R!!!

(Has it really been a week since I blogged? Oops! A huge thank you to Sarah for uploading this photos for me, even starting the blog post for me. Without her, you would probably never see pictures of my kids! Thanks Sarah!)

My beautiful two youngest daughters celebrate their birthdays just two days apart. Rachel came home from the hospital on Rebekah's 3rd birthday. She still believes it's the best birthday present she'll ever have. :-)

We invited family and a few friends over on Sunday for cake. Sarah and her BFF, Rachel, made the awesome birthday cake on Saturday afternoon. It was FOUR layers with homemade butter cream frosting. Yum!!!

Rachel is 3 and Rebekah is 6!

We lit half of the cake first and sang to Rebekah, then did the other half for Rachel.
I love Elijah's reaction when we sign "Happy Birthday". As soon as we are done, he claps and  blows as hard as he can, whether he is near any candles or not! :-)

The beautiful 4 layer cake!!! It almost didn't fit on the plates.

 The girls' brothers got in on the fun too of course!

Rebekah was very excited to have her own duct tape so she can make creations just like her big sister, Anna.

$6 for 6 years old from Gma and Gpa

A new bike! She learned to ride w/o training wheels this summer. She's very excited! 

After the guests left, the training wheels came off and the kick stand went on - outside of course.

Rebekah G and Rebekah B

Rachel G and Rachel B

Nana (friend from church) and Rachel

The birthday girls with their grandparents

with Mom and Dad