All because two people fell in love...

My grandparents celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary this year!
They had 5 children. (Ummm, within 6 years I might add. Oh, and my grandma was only 24 when she had her 5th!)
Who then had 9 children altogether (grandchildren).
Who then had 4 children and growing (great grand-children).
Our family has walked through losing precious family members... All my great-grandparents, my uncle and cousin are now in heaven praising our Lord. But the losses make us more appreciative of the times we are together.

Seven+ members of our family are deaf. In this picture below we are all doing the I love you sign. Most everyone knows sign language in the family (my hearing aunt is an interpreter for the deaf) and if we don't know it well, we know some home-signs and we just make due with lots of body language, reading lips and writing things down.
My sweet grandparents, Harold and Ruth.
I love this laughing picture. I had just told them to kiss like they made 5 babies and that got them giggling.
My uncle Alan and Aunts, Lynn and Sonja and my mom Angela.
The sis's.
Alan and his wife JoLynne.
Their family.
Their girls, Hannah and Jansen.
Lynn and Bobby.
Their oldest son was not able to make it this year, but here are their two girls. My cousin Misty and her boyfriend Stefan.
My cousin Jamila and her boyfriend Ryan.
They have two peanuts. Trevor, age 2 and Jayke, 8 weeks.
Here is baby Jayke.
My aunt Sonja and her husband Joe.
Their kiddos Joseph and Sarah.
Sarah and her husband Jason.
My mom and step-dad Chet.
My step-brother was with his mom this year, but here is a picture from his 18th birthday party last week. He is very handsome!
Their family.
My step-sister, Emily.
I heart this cute, artsy, tween picture of Em.
Our family.
Us.
All the cousins.
We have cousin look-alikes in the family. My cousin Hannah and I favor so much in our facial features and some in personality as well. (Little lips, nose moves when we talk, love making earrings, all kinds of things!)
ONTO THE FUNNIES AND AMAZINGS...
I asked my grandma on this trip to describe herself in 3 words. She said, "Busy ol' woman." Can you believe that! I think she is young, but I have to agree about the busy. That woman NEVER stops. That was her quote to me a few years ago when I asked how she raised 5 kids so young, she said, "never stop." Seriously before the fork is out of your mouth, it is hand-washed and in the drawer. I chose this picture because one of her children, Sonja, got this gene. They were of course, in the kitchen- cleaning and organizing.
My uncle Alan is AMAZING! Seriously he is the most awesome artist and sculptor. I always say he is like my grandma (who taught art for 35 years) my mom (graphic artist) and I (fine arts degree) rolled into one person... times a million!!!
Here is a recent sculpture he did in bronze of a woman lying on a table. Even the table is sculpted people. I had my cousin Jansen cover her goodies. I do LOVE a beautiful nude sculpture. We are all amazed by his work.
Here are a few of his things. Alan Gibson Art.
Our family was going for a morning walk. Well, it was very cold so I asked my grandma if she had a scarf I would borrow. She comes out with these two rayon head scarfs. This is SO my grandma. She is always wearing these. I meant a real neck scarf of course and proceeded to laugh at her. She quickly corrected me by saying, "These scarfs are all the rage. Jackie O wore them with big glasses and she is timeless. I would never put a wool neck scarf around me." Well I stand corrected! My mom and I acting Grandma Ruthish.
THERE IS ALL IS! WHEW!

I cannot believe in the old saying, "Blood is thicker than water," because my family is built through adoption. Rather I would like to think that a family is a group of people that He alone united so we can do life together. The good, bad, sorrow and joy- people in your world you are to love like Jesus loved. You know He is the blood that is thicker than water...
Here are some good family quotes I found:

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. ~Jane Howard

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich. ~Dan Wilcox

Family life is a bit like a runny peach pie - not perfect but who's complaining? ~Robert Brault

Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family. ~Anthony Brandt

The Perryman Family

The Torres Tidbits came over this week. We had a grand time until I tried to Mason's picture. He is going to have get over this phase because he is too handsome to not be photographed. Here is the littlest tidbit... Addison.
You have got to LOVE a friend who will love on your children like their own. Amanda has this ability with many children in her life. We have known this family for over 10 years and if I drank fine wine (yuck!) I would say they age just like fine wine... they become more amazing, mature and godly with age. Maybe they age like milk- I love cheese!
Sharing at it's best... the rest of mom's fruit smoothie. If I want them to share- all I have to do is hand them a drink with two straws in it and they think its soooo cool.
As ya'll know Avi Joy takes dance. She loves to dress up in ballet slippers or tap shoes and show off her moves. I never thought about Nehemiah trying them out until this week. I put and extra pair of tap shoes on him and it was the most fun of the day. They laughed at each other tapping in circles for 30 minutes straight.
My mom came over and played with the kids while I cut great-grandma Doris' hair. My mom is a wonderful NanNa to her two (and growing) grandkids.
Doris came bearing gifts. Nehemiah loves his new laptop (above) and Avi Joy and GGD played a game of Shoots and Ladders. We are so thankful to be surrounded by such love.
ADOPTION NEWS:
Our DHS (stateside adoption) is going well. A "Reader" verified that our homestudy was complete and sent it off to our case worker.
The next step is called a "Staffing." Our first staffing is December 8th. They are once a month.
Our case worker and the children's case workers will try to make a match.
We are praying for a quick match, as in months and not years to be matched.
The wild thing is that many families (like 50-100+) can be matched for one child. Then the case workers have to go though all the family-files to see which family they think would be the best match. Here again, we are praying for favor.
We believe that God has an older child for our family and we are waiting for this good plan to unfold.

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalm 51:10

The Perryman Family

Big Week

Last month I forgot to post that we re-finalized Nehemiah's adoption in court. This is a great step to take and it allowed us to change his name from his birth name to Nehemiah and get started on getting him a new citizenship, social security card, passport and all that other legal stuff.
Ummm just check this pic out...
Step 1: Take a bath and get all clean
Step 2: Climb on top of the table
Step 3: Pour mom's fruit smoothie all over yourself
Step 4: Shake salt into the mix
Step 5: Repeat take a bath and get all clean

November is National Adoption Awareness month. We were invited to share our story, along with two other couples, at a local church's Adoption Banquet. The two other couples that shared had awesome stories! One family has adopted 15+ kiddos from Africa. The other family is going on their fifth kiddo. SO inspiring and a joy to attend.
I opened the first half...
... and Adam closed. He did a great job!
We had a playdate with the Jones' this week. They are leaving for Africa for two years and we wanted to spend some time together with them before they head off.
Adam had his 32nd birthday this week. We went to the mall to get him a new Cub's had and we ate at one of his favorite sushi restaurants. I will say his b-day paled in comparison to my day. I WILL try harder next year for him : )
Cuteness shot of the week.
Over the weekend we headed to the Pierces for Lani's third birthday princess party! All the kiddos dressed up as princesses. Lots of games, food and fun.
We threw all 4 kiddos into the bath together. I love how Maggie and Nehemiah are like totally checking each other out. They are not sure what to think about this group bathtime.
A group shot with the princesses and the knight.
Lani cleaned house in the present department. SO many awesome gifts. But these shoes had to be my personal favorites. Only when a gal is 3 can she pull off these kind of streetwalker shoes and look cute-- and not like she's workin it.
Thoughts on life Under Construction...

The Perryman Family

Halloween

We started out our Halloween week with reading a book called "The Pumpkin Gospel." It was a great book to read before carving a pumpkin... the gist is that we are the pumpkin, God opens us up, takes all the yuck out, carves us a new life and sets His light inside us.
We carved our first pumpkin. I love Avi Joy's expression here. Adam told her to take the top off and look inside the pumpkin- you can just hear her saying, "owwwhhh."
Nehemiah got to play with the top. He loves getting gooey.
We washed the pumpkin seeds and sprinkled spices on them. We toasted them and snacked on them for a few days.
Now on to the good stuff! Over the summer we went to TX with Adam on a business trip. We stopped at the huge Grapevine Mills Mall to play before we came home and they had this great ice cream truck toy. The kids had THE BEST TIME playing ice cream man- I was completely inspired for their Halloween costumes. Here they were in the summer...
And Voila! After some sewing... She is an ice cream cone and he is the ice cream man. Our new church had a Sunday (during kids church) dress-up party. I LOVE that my kids got to go to church all dressed-up. They got candy and did crafts.
On Halloween night we went trick or treating with the Homan family in their new neighborhood. Our sweet girls had a great time!
Here is the whole clan. Avi Joy, Sarah, Andrew holding Samuel, Coy and Nehemiah.
All the kids thought going up to someones house, ringing the doorbell and getting candy was THE.COOLEST.THING.EVER. They all had to learn not go grab more candy from the person's bowl, but let them put it in your bag.
Before we left we were playing in the living room. Nehemiah kept putting his ice cream hat over his head, running into everything and falling over. Then Repeat. Avi Joy was in stitches. You can see here he is running without eyesight (such a boy thing) and she is full of laughter.
I LOVED making their costumes. My mother always made my costumes... just a few were: A banana, Hershey kiss, gypsy, a stop light and (like I just read on my friends blog recently) I was also 1/2 man- 1/2 woman in the 6th grade. Maybe some day I could post some pics of them, but I would have to hunt at my moms. It would be a good laugh!

Most of my friends do not dress-up their kiddos. I only have two good friends who celebrate Halloween and go trick or treating. I have a few others scattered around that dress up their kids and do something churchy. I just believe that you can serve Christ and have fun dressing up without focusing on a pagan holiday. It is the Wiccan Holiday, Samhain or Witches New Year.

Something else I found interesting was they celebrate Halloween in Vietnam. I follow a guy's blog who lives in HCMC. Here is a post about Halloween in Saigon.

"I am the LORD; that is My Name! I will not give My glory to another or My praise to idols." Isaiah 42:8

The Perryman's