Update!

I haven't been on this blog for a while now and I just saw that I had 20 comments waiting to be read. I don't know why they were not sent to my email to let me know people have commented. When I didn't get any after I last posted, I thought no one really reads this anymore, but I was wrong! Thank you guys for commenting and for keeping up with us! It was such a blessing to read everyones comments, Thanks!
Ok, so things have been going pretty good. We had our 3rd post adoption meeting last month, so one more to go next February and we will be done!
Jim has been busy for the big holiday, so the kids and I went up to Canada for a couple weeks. We got all 13 grandkids together for the first time and it was so much fun. We also went to this place called African Lion Safarri, where you drive your own vehicle through the saffari and all of our favorites was when the monkey jumped on our car and started eating the antena! It was great! We are back now and I am working on school things with the kids when they aren't swimming in the pool :). We are going to visit my family in Florida in 2 weeks and we are very excited. We will probably go to Disney which Juliana has been begging for, for awhile now! Here are some pics from Guatemala and with the family. Thanks again for all your encouaragment!



Our Awesome Team!


Our 2 Munchkins :)

Our Beautiful Kiddos!




Our New Friend!





Happy B-day Canada!


Jaysa and Nelena taking our order at the kids musuem


Jaysa learning to eat with Chop sticks


Crazy Kids!


All 13 of them!


The Garden of Eden at the Creation Museum

Gottcha Day!

Wow! It has been a year today since we got the kids. What a wonderful journey this has been. The kids are doing so much better then we ever expected and we have been so blessed. Juliana and Jim and I just got back yesterday from a mission trip to Guatemala. We had an amazing time working at an orphanage of about 400 kids. One of the days we went out to a village where 12 people prayed to accept Jesus as their Savior. There were 19 of us and there was not a dry eye as we left to come home. God is doing an amazing work in all our lives. John and Jaysa stayed back with my parents and they had a great time. I am sorry I don't have any pics to share at this moment if there is even anyone out there that still looks at this blog. :)
We were going to do something fun today to celebrate, but I am sick, Juliana had to stay home due to having pink eye and Jim came home early as he is sick too. So hopefully this weekend we will all be feeling better so we can have some fun to celebrate this incredible day!!!

Happy New Year!

And I guess Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas too! These last few months have gone by so fast. I keep thinking we forgot to celebrate Christmas even though I know we did. So, we went to Florida and had Thanksgiving with my(Jaime)family. It is a lot of fun celebrating the holidays with kids. The kids got to experience the Beach for the first time and loved it! Juliana turned 9 on the 11th of November and I can't believe it. She seems like she has grown up so much in the 8months we have had them. She is coming along well with her English and as her New Years resolution she said she wanted to learn Spanish! We are sad that she has lost so much of her Spanish, but we were told they would, so we practice what we can.

The month of December was a lot of fun teaching the kids Christmas songs and reading the story of Jesus Birth over and over. The day before Christmas I was going over the gifts for the kids and I saw the gift my mother in law had bought the kids about "What does God want for Christmas?" And I thought wouldn't it be neat to leave it under the tree and say it was a gift from Jesus. So everyone got in the car for Christmas eve service and I quickly laid it there on my way out. When we got back the kids noticed it and they were so surprised that Jesus would give them something. They opened it up and there was a story and 7 little boxes and each had a character of the manger scene, except for the last one. It was getting to the point about What God wanted for Christmas and when they opened the last box it was a mirror. God wanted them for Christmas! They were so excited and continued to talk about and tell everyone that Jesus gave them a gift and that what he wanted for Christmas was them. That had to be the highlight for Jim and I!
My parents came up after Christmas and stayed for the week and had a great time spoiling the kids. Between them, Santa, In-laws and other family the kids got a trampoline, train set, baby dolls, clothes and many other things. They had a great time celebrating their "first Christmas with their family."
We rang in the New Year with Fireworks of course, even though we didn't make it all the way to midnight. We are excited to see the new things that God is going to do with us this year. We are taking a group from our church down to Guatemala in April to work in an orphanage of about 400 kids for the week and are very excited. Juliana is looking forward to helping the kids and to learn Spanish again :) John is such a happy kid and so sweet. He is speaking English very well and continues to amaze us. Jaysa is still in the terrific twos and I am really struggling with the potty training thing. I didn't realize how difficult it can be. One week she does great then the next she refuses it. So I am starting something different that will hopefully help. She is growing up fast and through her sometimes gibberish she is speaking a lot now. One of the best days I have had with the kids so far was the day that it snowed and school was cancelled. There wasn't a lot of snow where we were but 10 minutes in town there was a lot. So I got the kids ready and we went to the park and played in the snow for about 2 hours. Juliana said "you must be the only cool mom around here" because there was nobody else out there having fun. I was so surprised there wasn't anybody else out, but after a couple hours of fun we went back home, cleaned up a bit, had lunch then snuggled on the couch with hot chocolate and watched a movie. It was the perfect day! No fighting or disobeying, just pure fun!!
We are continually challenged yet incredibly blessed raising our kids. We are just amazed looking back at how far they have come. Thank you all for your love and support!

Happy B-day Juliana!

John loved the Giant sandbox :)


My Perfect Day!





Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

The kids have been sooooo excited for Halloween, and I think they had a good night!
We went to Trunk or Treat at church and then went around with some friends in their mothers neighborhood. It was fun to see the kids so excited and dressed up.
Jaysa was so cute as after about 4-5 times of seeing people put candy in her bucket she started to get the hang of it and put it out for them herself. And boy, she did not want anyone touching her bucket! John has been really excited as I have been making his Thomas the Train outfit this week and he was watching every thing I did. We were so surprised by some friends of ours who made the buckets for the kids and gave them to Jim at work. What a cute gift!
Jim's parents have been here for a bit helping out with things around the house and with the kids. It was a lot of fun to have them here and we were sad to see them go, especially John as he spent his last week working with Grandpa and having the best time. This week we also went to a Japanese steak house and the kids loved our funny cook. They couldn't believe he cooked right in front of us.


Trick or Treat














John helping Grandpa

OK, OK, OK

I have been receiving many emails requesting an update :) I am so sorry to our faithful readers, that there has been no update for so long. So where to start? Juliana has been doing really well in school. She is surprising everyone at how fast she is learning and catching up to other students. She really is a very smart girl. On her report card she had 1 A 2 B's and a C. And she has continued to do better in her spelling and vocabulary which has been her hardest subject. Her favorite day is Monday because that is music day and she is learning to play the recorder. She is not allowed to bring it home, so I have not heard her play but she talks about it all the time. She has played soccer this fall and we are so proud of her. Her games have been fun to watch and she says she likes it when we are yelling at her from the sidelines helping out. I never thought I would be a mom that does that because I always hated it when my parents did it, but there I am jumping out of my seat and shouting, (sometimes) :) She still has her moments of testing us, but she is such a beautiful, sweet, smart girl and we have continued to be amazed at what God is doing in her life!
John is such joy! It has taken him a little longer to catch up understanding and speaking English but he is off and running now. He is such a talker and talks about everything. There hasn't been a day though that he hasn't gotten in trouble for doing something crazy like, putting rocks in the toilet or hanging on the towel rack and pulling out of the wall and making a big hole. One day he decided to go through the mail on the counter and riped everything up. We are on number 6 times of writing on the wall or couch with whatever he finds. He is definitely a boy. He too has been playing soccer, if you can call holding hands with his girl teammate and running up and down the field, playing soccer :) The one time he actually kicked the ball it was into the other teams goal. I think we will wait a little bit longer before we put him in another sport. I just don't know that he will be playing many sports. He is very good at putting things together like puzzles and loves to help his Dad work out in the yard. He goes to preschool one day a week and loves it!
Jaysa has started the terrific 2's. She had a birthday 3 weeks ago and we have started getting her interested in potty training. I have discovered this is going to be fun (not). She is such a cutie though and is interested in everything. She loves her brother and copies everything he does. One great praise report is that a few weeks ago I took her back for more x-rays of her hip and the Doctor said she is fine, no more hip dysplasia!! She has been sleeping great without her brace.
Jim and I have been enjoying being parents to these three wonderful kids. I don't think we could have been blessed with better kids. With every new day we feel more and more like we have been together all along. I will admit that some days have been tough for me. I thought I would immediately feel like a mom and it has taken me a little longer to get settled into my new life as a stay at home mom to 3 kids. I have been learning so much and I love that Gods mercies and grace are new every morning! Especially when I have a bad day, it gives me such joy knowing that tomorrow is a new day and new opportunity to do things differently!
Here are some recent picks!

At a friends wedding


Happy B-day Jaysa!









My parents stayed with the kids while I went on a business trip with Jim to Arizona. Our first time without the kids. They did great and it was such a fun time for us!




My mom had a bag of figs and Jaysa preceded to eat the whole bag by keeping her mouth full of them. It was quite funny:)


My happy Boy!


A good friend of ours brought home there 2 precious jewels from Guatamala and we spent some time with them playing at the park. This is her oldest Fernanda! Isn't she a cutie :)

First Day of School!

Friday was Juliana's first day of school and she was SO excited. The night before she could not sleep and was up at 5:30 in the morning ready to go. She wanted to ride the bus but I had to talk with the bus driver to see where and when she would pick her her up so we all took her. It was a little strange being at home with just the younger 2. It felt like I had more free time but I didn't really. What I had was more individual time with my youngsters. It was a nice change that I have been looking forward to, but also sad as we said goodbye to our 3rd grader.
I went to pick her up and she was all smiles. The teacher had walked her out of school and talked with me for a few minutes and said that she did really good! I really like her teacher and am so thankful that she got her for her first school experience here. We definitely have a social butterfly on our hands as we went to the store afterwards and she saw someone she just met today and she was waving and saying hi like she was a long lost friend :)
Since I picked her up, she has been talking non stop about her day. While we were at the school I talked with the bus driver and Juliana wanted to get on it and ride it home instead of coming with me. I hope she continues to keep up her enthusiasm for school!
What a great blessing as we were a little worried how things would go for her, but I think she will do just fine!

Maybe we are doing something right.......

I know we have only been parents for 3 months now, but we often get hard on ourselves and wonder if we are doing anything right. Well tonight was a special night as Juliana said she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart! A few days ago I was having lunch with the kiddos and was talking to them more about Jesus and asked them why he died and where He lives. They didn't seem to know so we talked about it for a little bit. Later on Juliana said that she wanted to ask Jesus to come live in her heart. I told her that we can talk with Jim tonight and she said ok. When we were going to bed she didn't want to say anything about it so we just said ok. We were really wanting to make sure she understood and wanted to do it for her and not because we told her to. So we have been praying for her for a couple days and tonight she told Jim that she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart to live. We prayed with her and used her spanish and english bible and read some verses to make sure she understood as much as posible. It was a precious moment!! August 2 2008. What a great day!