Family!

Below is a picture of my beautiful sister in law and my sweetie pie nephew. I was so happy to be able to spend time with them last weekend when Gavin turned one!
I ran across www.smilebox.com it's a cute website!
Have a beautiful day!

Make a slide show, scrapbook, or ecard

November update pics....oh how happy I am to see pictures of my boys but..it makes my heart ache to be with them. I miss them so much. They are my children...why can't i be with them?

 

 

 

 

Our families Christmas gift from a friend....

Last night a friend of mine said they had a pure bred Chiuahua that needed a home. They didn't want to sell her, they wanted her with our family. They have another dog and these two do not get along. By the end of the night she came to live with us. She is only 5 months old and is super sweet. She is very loved already!
Hugs,
Renee

 

 

 

 

What has been happening...hmmmm
*My hubby and I went to see Karen Kingsbury (wonderful Christian author who adopted 3 boys from Haiti) at a local church. She was speaking with Alex Smith (49'ers quarterback). He has a foundation Alex Smith Foundation that helps foster kids who are 18 and now have no support at all. I never really thought about that. How sad it that? I would hope that my kids will be able to support themselves at 18 (having grown up in a somewhat normal home) but chances are they will still need a family!
Karen was wonderful and spoke about spending time with family. We were very touched by her and encouraged. We then got to meet her and Alex (as cute as Alex is I was very excited to hug Karen and tell her that I learned about Haiti from reading about her adoption story!!)

*Operation Christmas Child!! I love this Ministry and for about 5 years I have spearheaded this at church. After being in Haiti and seeing these kids get 'simple things' and being so happy, this has meant even more to me. You can check it out for next year at www.samaritanspurse.org It is easy, you fill a shoebox with simple things, toothbrush, washcloth, toothpaste, soap, socks, crayons, lolipops, etc.
We advertised at church for people to donate money (if they didn't have time to do the box themselves) and I would be a personal shopper. That really helped and i was able to fill 100 more boxes that way! My friend and I shopped and put all 100 boxes (with our kids help) in a day.

*Jessica update--still has mono--but i think she may be on the mend!! She is so behind on school. Please pray for her to go back to school on Monday and be able to survive school and then homework...then makeup work. She is very smart, but just needs energy.

*Adoption update!! Well we have our adoption decree and now our I-600 approval as well!! Yippee...now we are waiting to hear that we are in MOI. We miss the boys tremendously. Jessica said last night that if the boys aren't home for christmas she doesn't want any gifts. She doesn't think it is fair.

Ok, well I better go for now!!
Hugs,
Renee

Happy Birthday Noah

Today is Noah's birthday. It has been a little more than a year since he went to be with Jesus. I am still processing how to deal with all of this. We had cake and sang to him. We miss him.

I don't want to ever forget him, our family never will. I am praying about a simple way to touch someones life, in honor of Noah. I want to bless someone, in Noah's name.

I just ask all who read this, if you feel led, to pray about a simple way to bless someone, to bring sunshine in someone's life, in honor of Noah. Our world was touched and our hearts filled because of Noah and I don't want his light to stop shining.

Hugs,
Renee

I have had a really busy week, but have experienced so many blessings along the way. As event coordinator at our church the Family Fall Festival is one of my big events. We had lots of fun games, trick or treat doors, astro jump, hay maze and a really BIG bouncy slide. Being as I was at church working the last couple days Taylor and TJ got to spend lots of time on the slide....and had to help us clean the darn thing for hours today! It was super fun! I had fun with the kids, and todd and pammi!
I am always so blessed to see so many people sign up to volunteer to help. I don't even worry anymore a week before an event when I am trying to recruit volunteers, God provides. I am so thankful for the many people who were willing to serve God, and it was sooo fun!!! Shanay even had fun when I made her do the FLUSHER..basically she had to sit on a toilet and let kids play a bean bag game with the end result being getting to flush the toilet which released a tank of COLD water on her head!! She did this for about 15 minutes!
Todd never ceases to amaze me with the amount of time he gives to the children's ministries at church, because he loves to serve God, and I ask him to! hee hee...I am so thankful for all his help. I wish I could find a way to be involved in Worship Ministries to help him out! I try to help by telling him which songs I want to hear at church! I actually did pick the special songs for Mother's Day (Carrie Underwood 'don't forget to remember') and Fathers Day (Rodney Atkins, 'watching you') Both songs made me cry! I am not that much into country music, it just worked out that way!

Oh, we did have some excitement the night before the fall festival. I had been at church all day and was standing with my friend Emily in my office. All of a sudden I thought it was hailing really loud, or else there was someone running really fast on the roof...then it all started shaking. Instead of running to a doorway, Emily and I just held onto eachother. It shook for a while. It was a 5.6 earthquake centered 6 miles from our house. I immediatly called home and Tay and TJ were scared. Jess was home with them. She made them go in the doorway. I was proud of her. She kept calm. Todd was in the sanctuary running musical rehearsal. He yelled 'go to the glu lams' or something like that..apparently that is what the big beame in the sanctuary are called! But of course being involved in the planning of the building he only knows these things so everyone was thinking todd was freaking out! Hee hee...anyway, we had lots of aftershocks after that. Yesterday we had a pretty big one but i was too busy to stop and think about it. :) Gotta love CA!
ok, well...that's all for now.
love you all...
renee