FFF My oldest princess

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in—behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you. AMEN

This is my favorite verse of the week. I have really struggled with fear after the incident with Taylor and this verse gives me comfort. We are not in control. God is . And praise him for that !!!

Summer nights

My summer sweeties

all cozy and clean in there pjs

Brayden is my little chipmunk ... always storing something is his cheeks :)

Oh your mark

get set

GO !!!!

This picture is a crack up .... they were doing this so I couldn't take anymore pictures of them !!


Thank you all for your well wishes and prayers for Taylor. He is doing much better and seems to be back to his normal self ..... he is already riding his dirtbike !! AHHHH ... boys. I am praying for no more concussions for a LONG while !!!

Day 2 of potty training went well . Brayden only had one accident. And SURPRISE at about 5pm tonight who should come strolling out of the bedroom with undies on ... ARIANNA !! She did give in to the "peer pressure" but we shall see what tomorrow brings :)

EXHAUSTED BUT THANKFUL

OH my goodness. What a day . I spent 5 hours in the ER today because Taylor had another concussion . But we are sooooo thankful he is okay. What happened is he was going down a waterslide at a lake and he was getting out of the water but fell back in and just as he fell back in he landed in the path of the next person sliding down and there knee hit his head. It knocked him out cold so we had to call 911. It was so scary . They sent him home with the diagnosis "mild head injury (again !!) and told us just to watch him for 24 hours. Thank you Lord that he is okay ... but boy I am exhausted !!!


PS Brayden did awesome potty training today. He was home with the nanny during all of this so she kept bringing him to the bathroom and NO ACCIDENTS !! He doesn't tell us when he has to go but we just bring him about every 30 minutes. I thought this would spark Ariannas interest but NO .... she just tells him good job , slaps him hi-5 and continues on loving her diapers :) She could care less !!

School days

ORIENTATION

Okay so this is the year it starts . 7th grade is the first time Angelika was embarrassed of me taking pictures of her :)

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Like Leslie said I think I am the last mom on the earth to have her kids start school :) We were all very ready !! Now that we are more in a rountine maybe , just maybe I will attempt again to potty train the twins...... AGAIN . They have to catch on soon ..... right !!?? Oh and ever since my meltdown Arianna has been much better. Maybe she knew I was at the end of my rope . Whatever it was I am enjoying her better behavior .... for today !!

Can you tell we are "2" ?? We have attitude written all over our faces !!

"One adoption may not change the world,
but it will change the world for one child."
-Author Unknown

I got this quote from the blog of an amazing 16 year old who has a heart for orphans. Check out her blog http://guatemolly1.blogspot.com/

FFF Black and white (and some color shots)

Don't mind the dark circles and bags under my eyes .... remember I am the mom to 2 two year olds :) My older kids can be challenging but not like the twinsies . ( so far :)

A pic Angelika snapped of me

My oldest princess

Some of my favorite pics taken recently :)

I love love this one of my little hunny bunny .... look how sweet he is !!

I love this one of my sweet princessa !!!

I'm not complaining :)

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books


Now Arianna is to the point that is she sees a mess that she or Brayden made she will automatically go get the vacuum .... nice !! In this one you will hear her tell Brayden "naughty" even though I am positive she contributed :)

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

I can not thank you all enough for your advice and kind words. I means the world to me to have such support :) Thanks y'all :)

PS I got a new zoom lens for my camera (canon digital rebel) so I had fun testing it out today ..... as you can see :)

EDITED TO ADD : Guess what ... Mark invited a bunch of people with kids over tonight for my birthday coffee and there was not one "incident" with Arianna !! WOOHOO !! Maybe we are making some progress !!!

HELP NEED SUPPORT

Hello all ! Help , I need support and advice !! I am in a hard place with Arianna. Let me start by saying she really is the sweetest thing but she can be very mean to other kids. I am the mother that is always embarrassed because my kid is the one biting, hiting and scratching. We are very consistent with our discipline and it is getting better slowly. But in the mean time how do you deal with criticism from family and others who look on and assume that you just sit back and do nothing when you are working your tail off all day everyday trying to be consistent . AHHH this is so hard. I know it is just a 2 year old stage but it is hard !! I honestly just feel like crying :(

PS Brayden is sooo super sweet so that makes her look worse .

Airplane crashes and mudslides

I know most of you have heard about this tragedy but I wanted to share a email that my missionary friend that lives in Zacapa wrote . Warning: If you click on the link to look at the pictures they are VERY graphic.






Hello everyone. I am writing to ask for your prayers for families of victims of a small aircraft crash in Zacapa yesterday. There were 14 passengers on board, with 10 being Americans missionaries. 10 of the 14 died from the crash, with only 4 surviving. One of the survivors is a 19 year old girl who survived with her mother, but lost her father and brother in the crash. Below is a link you can click on to see some pictures of the crash site. Click on the picture in the first article and it will bring you to more pictures. I was there not long after it happened. It was a very sad sight, with almost nothing of the plane left. The whole area stunk for burnt flesh. Please take a moment to pray for the families.

http://www.elzacapaneco.com/contenido/?cat=2 Also, if you scroll down further on the article page, almost to the bottom, you can click to see pictures from the landslides that happened about an hour and a half from Zacapa up in the mountains. Many were killed in those landslides as well. There have been many refugee camps in many of the surrounding cities, including Zacapa. Most of the families have returned home now, but with the danger that more of the city will fall down during the coming rains. Please pray for their safety and for the families that lost loved ones. Also pray that we can be used by Him in these situations, to share His love. This life is short, and we do not know when is our last day or moment. This family that was in the plane crash didn´t know that yesterday was the last day of their life.. they were just traveling to help others. So let´s tell everyone we know about our Savior, so that if our or their life ends tomorrow, they have a home waiting for them with our Creator above! Thank you.. In Christ, Ryan

Last night after looking at this article I started browsing around the Guate newspaper. I think alot of times I forget what ugly things happen to the people there. I just look at my beautiful babies and remember the beautiful country but I forget how tragic the lives of the people that live there really is. Like the mudslides, the rise in violence (especially in women), and of course the food crisis. Lord please just protect these people and give them all they need.