Jacob missed Emily's birthday by 54 minutes. I am so glad that he was able to have his own special day! Happy Birthday, baby!


















fOURTEEN YEARS ago, today, my little boy (well..maybe my big boy now) was born. He came into the world fighting for air. The umblical cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times. It was a little on the scary side, but just after the emergency button was pushed, he let out a good scream. We praised God when we heard it. Jacob has brought such a oy to our life. He has taught me more about God then I think anyone has. He is such a precious and special young man. He is tender spirited, sweet, longsuffering, strong, self-disciplined, determined, intelligent, and has a sense of humor that blows us away! He is a pure joy.

Happy Birthday, baby girl!


































Today is my little girls birthday! 19 years ago, Mark and I were in the hospital delivering our very first child. I went into labor the day before; in the wee hours of the morning. We went to the hospital on the 13th only to wait a very, very long time for this little girl to arrive. At 9:30 am on Valentines Day, our little girl was born. She was absolutely perfect; the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. And throughout her nineteen years of life, she has become even more beautiful. She has given us more joy then we could have ever dreamed of.

Well, on Friday and into Saturday morning, we were hit with 15 inches of snow! It was crazy! I can't remember ever having that much snow all at one time. I walked out in the morning to 15 inches of very heavy snow to be shoveled from a very long drive. With 4 of us at work, we managed to get it done in less then 2 hours. It was the craziest shoveling I have ever done! You couldn't do more then a shovel full. Usually you can push the shovel across the drive and get most of the snow. ... not this time. It was one shovel full, literally, at a time. Each time you set the shovel down, you came up with 15 inches of snow on the shovel.

Tonight we are under another storm warning. This time they are expecting another 8-12 inches of snow. If we get the 12 inces, we will have had more then 2 feet of snow in 4 days. What a wild thought.

Mark is one of the greatest fathers. When it snows, he always makes sure that the kids have a good time. He straps the rope around his chest and the two little ones jump in the sled and both of them yell "yaw mule". Elizabeth decided she wanted to be the mule. So she grabbed the rope, wrapped it around her and promptly ordered Ri to sit in the sled. He obliged and hollared "yaw mule". It was adorable.

I Put this picture up just so you could get a feel for the amount of snow we shoveled.
The snow was very unique. It was heavy and came down almost packing. It was easy to scoop up big chunks of snow. Thanks to the plow, there were many, many big "ready made" snowballs. Ri couldn't resist them. He kept piling the sled up with them and making Daddy or Elizabeth pull them.

The things that ago on inside of a childs mind often catches me off guard. Today I found myself laughing and pondering and somewhat sad; all in a matter of hours. Not that those emotions in that time period are unusual. With 6 kids, I am constantly having to remind myself of the age of the child so that I can try to respond according to that child's mentality and maturity. It is a difficult thing to do and far too often I expect them to think like an adult and worse... to think like me.

Today started out with laughter. I had taken Elizabeth, Ri and Sara to McDonalds to play simply because I had a 1/2 hour to blow before the pharmacy opened up and I didn't want to spend that much time inside a store with two 5 year olds and a four year old who are completely full of energy when they are together! So, while we are sitting at the table and while Sara and Ri are off in the tunnels, Elizabeth started a conversation with me. Out of the blue, she says "I want to be a sister." I smiled and told her that she was a sister. She said, very adomantly I might add, "no... I want to be a big sister". She caught me so off guard that I could only laugh. With 5 siblings, why in the world would she want to be a big sister? There wasn't another person in that place besides Ri and Sara. It wasn't like she looked and saw a baby and thought about it. So I called Mark and laughed. He laughed too. Then he told me to tell her Sara was younger then her. I did. She (and SAra) were a bit confused at my response. But it seemed to satisfy her for the moment.

Then, at dinner time tonight, when everyone but Ri had left the table, she said to me "is my other mommy dead?". I try to take moments to talk to both Ri and Elizabeth about their birthparents. I think it is best to talk all they want to. One day, there will be so many questions and so much pain that I want them to be able to talk openly, without fearing that it will hurt us. For me, I kind of took it in stride and told her that we had no idea and that we hoped that she was not. Unfortunately we never go to meet her other mommy. She then looked at me and said something about her mommy leaving her on a bridge. I smiled and told her that, "yes, she did; but I am sure that she was watching to make sure she was safe and that someone would find her because I am sure that she loved her". I am really not sure where else we went in the conversation. She and I have had several. Ri wanted to know if he had another mommy like Elizabeth did. Now we have talked about his birthparents as well; but he must have just wanted to hear it anyway. I told him yes. He jumped up and down and asked if he had another daddy too. And that was just about the end of the conversation. Mark was in another room and heard the whole conversation. He came in at the end when one Elizabeth asked if God told us to go get her. He very happily said "yes, I heard God tell us". She was content with the answer and off they both went.