MY MOUNTAIN--please watch

www.rubytoots.com

Hi. This weekend has been good. Friday night we went to opening night at our local community theater where my daughter was in Bridge to Teribithia. It was really good. Then I took my 3 girls to church today to a Mom and daughter retreat. We missed Friday night because of the play but today was really good. I have really wonderful daughters. I am so proud of them. They are honest and sweet and have great hearts and much compassion. They are open with me and we are close.:) I am praying that we can keep things that way!

Now the rubytoots thing...i love that website. I ordered the most adorable sling!! I love it because it is small..can easily fold up and put in your purse. It wasn't too expensive, in comparison to others. I have only used it with a doll..haven't found a Solomon sized kid to practice with yet!! The fabrics they have are adorable too! In my research, i found a pattern too..so i am going to make another sling too..this would be a great gift for some of my friends!:)
THE PICTURE ABOVE IS THE ONE I ORDERED!

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Waiting, missing, praising

I miss Markenley and Solomon so much. I love to get updates and I treasure them but they also shows me what I am missing. When we were with Solomon in Aug. he had 4 teeth. Now he has 14. He is now starting to talk. :( It is so hard to go about my normal life with 2 of my children not with me. I know parents who leave their kids for a weekend with grandparents and miss them...imaging months and years. My love for the boys is no different than my bio kids. I try to live my daily life not dwelling on the sadness..some days are harder than others. I am not whole right now. My heart is not. I praise God that the boys are doing well. I praise God for the kids I have at home. I praise God for my wonderful husband and friends. Is it wrong to also feel this sadness? I suppose my sadness shows my love as well. I will continue to praise God through the sadness...my heart is just aching so much right now. I thank God for my online friends who know exactly what I am feeling. I am praying for all my waiting friends as well.
Hugs,
Renee

January update photos

Update!! :)

Hi! I know it's been forever since I have posted! Thank you to those who have asked about how we are doing. Well...let me think back to what has been going on...
Adoption---
We have been missing our boys so much. Obviously with the holidays it is very hard. Every event we were at, I imagined how the boys would be having so much fun...and aching to share these experiences with them. Then on Jan. 10th, our sweet son Markenley turned 4 in Haiti. We were praying it was a great day for him and imagining his Haitian Mom visiting and enjoying some time with him. I am not sure if she did or not, but I felt better knowing she may be getting that time with him and treasuring it in her heart...but we missed him so much!!
Our file is in MOI, we have been in for one month. They are saying that that office is taking 3-5 months to process...then it's at least a month after MOI for passports and visas. It is just hard to tell, I have seen files get signed out of MOI in one week, and others take a year! I have heard that the MOI office is getting more organized and processing much quicker. Obviously we are praying that it is soon.

Jessica, my beautiful daughter who has been recovering from mono, has been having stomach pains that weren't related to the mono. They did some tests and found out that her pancreas isn't working correctly. They did a stool sample test and the lactaid # (not sure what it is) was 60..and should be around 460. They retested it and it came back at 50. They said that she either has a pancreatic insufficiency or Cystic Fibrosis. That news was horrible...we found this out on Dec. 19th. Kaiser was sending her to Stanford to do a sweat test to rule out CF. That test wasn't until Jan. 3rd. We had lots of waiting/praying days. We didn't tell Jess what the test was for. There was no need to worry her, she already hadn't felt good for 2 months. Well, we are praising GOD that the results came back that she does NOT have CF. She was given enzymes that she has to take every time she eats. We are praying that is all she needs. She had a MRI last week..hopefully we will get the results of that this week. Please pray that all of her organs are fine. She only has one kidney, so that is always a concern for us.
She is feeling better, she is working hard to get all her grades up..she missed 2 months of school.
What else has been happening...well, in Dec., the 2 weeks before Christmas, I worked full time at he Family Giving Tree. That was fun..I made some great friends and it was great working for this organization. I was doing this to help out my friend, Tara, but I am not cut out for part time work, i get too attached! I was sad to leave. Oh, I am getting sad all over again. I MISS YOU FAMILY GIVING TREE FAMILY!!

Christmas was fun, the kids got a Wii...so, all we heard for days was the guitar hero game. Now TJ has a wrestling game..he is so into wrestling! I am not liking that at all, but again, I am not a 9 year old boy. He is a good kid who loves his family, loves God, and wrestling! He is trying to get me to buy him wrestling pants...I don't think so!!
My parents and aunt and uncle came over on Christmas, that was nice. I am happy, my mommy had Leukemia a couple years ago, and she is in remission and doing great! :)
We spent time in Windsor with Todd's family after Christmas. It was wonderful. My sister-in-law told us she is having another baby!! I am so happy. She has a beautiful 19 year old daughter and an adorable 1 year old son. She is having another boy. I love him already!! It was great to spend time with Todd's family.

We got home from time with family and quickly got ready for a new year's eve party. Our small group came over, and the girls had a bunch of friends over. Finally, time to relax, and then I got sick. :(

A couple days later, I was helping Taylor clean and organize her room...she has been wanting to switch rooms with TJ for a while. I was fighting it because I didn't want to re-paint anything...I feel like i am always painting!! Well, TJ's room is really small...there are bunk beds and a crib in TJ's room. It was cute, but small!!
Todd said, "it may be better to do it now, so the boys don't have to change rooms later", that's all it took...I painted over taylor's tinkerbell room design, it is now "oh brother blue"! The perfect color for the boys room. Taylors big girl room (her birthday is tomorrow, she will be 12) is now white, brown and pink. She loves it...then a couple days later i helped paint my friend Jen's babies room. Todd thinks I love to paint...i only love to paint at the beginning of a project...i just love things painted!! And someone has to do it!! It was a great idea to change rooms, the boys have more space now!! I was a bit concerned because that room is further down the hall..but it will be fine. I am excited because I can lay in the boys bunk bed and see the hills. I was imagining laying there showing the boys the farm house and cows that are on the hill outside his window....I will have to take a picture of that and post it. It's beautiful.
Well, that is it for now. I will try to update more often..so there isn't so much to read. I will try to get pics posted too.
love to you all,
Renee