Gettin all caught up-

Let's begin with amazing news!
In October, our church holds a fall retreat for the teens. This year the theme was Hide and Seek. Teaching the kids about people groups throughout the world that have to "hide" their faith (such as hosting underground churches or being undercover missionaries) and "seek" the Lord during persecution, for protection and for boldness.
I really did want her to attend, but had to get over some mama issues about her going. I took the weekend to Him many times and was really hung up about the church leaving at 10pm at night and driving hours in the dark. Over and over this was the only thing I could think about. Once I laid that down and started to focus on how much she would learn about the Lord and how the seeds of Christ would be planted, Adam and I decided it would be wonderful for her to attend the retreat. This was spiritual warfare because...
We are thrilled to say that on October 22nd, our sweet Beautiful accepted Christ as her Savior. The next day at church, she went forward on her own to follow through with baptism. We talked her through this being a symbol of dying to herself and being raised with Christ. The joy was overwhelming to see our One True Love pursue her into a relationship with Him and for her to respond to Christ's redeeming love.
(I have readers that do not understand our love for God or our relationship with Jesus. And by all means I want you to keep reading our blog, but I want to share that this is our life and my life is nothing without the sustaining Relationship with the Lord. I am proud that our daughter will have His Light in her life and protect her from the darkness of the world. Trials will come, but His Hand will never leave her.)
October brought lots of events. We celebrated a handful birthdays (including mine- 32) and made costumes for Halloween.
Nehemiah, my little Rock n Roll star, "Like yo'. Hope you got backstage tickets to my show. Catch ya later. Peace."
Avi Joy, our hot pink flamingo. Miss Beautiful was Pocahontas- she looked amazing. Too bad you can't see the pictures, frown.
Handsome boy...
Who yells a lot.
We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving with Adam's family. It was also Adam's birthday (33). Here is his mama and our niece Annabelle.
Great grandma Fern, 89 years young. Getting some kisses from her grandkids.
Then we headed out for a 5 day trip to MO, to my mom's side of the family. I completed some artwork for my cousin. I love creating special artwork- it warms my heart to give of myself in that way.
A boy playing dress-up. A bucket. (His shirt says, silly banana head. True.)
A girl playing dress-up. Princess dress, twirling, singing and jewelry.
My grand parents. He was SO ho-hum, so I started tickling his feet to get a smile. IT Worked!
On Thanksgiving day we played "Paper Corn." That is the name Avi Joy gave it. The 3 kids cut out corn cobs, made the corn spots with their fingers and glued the husks on the outside. Each person received a paper corn with their name on it. They were passed around the room and as you got each family members corn, you wrote on it what you loved about them. Then we read them out loud to one another.
On my grandma's it actually said, "Good lover." I mean WHAT?! Grandpa, seriously! I look over at him and he gives me a thumbs up. We were all in stitches to say the least. Look at my grandma's face too. Like, oh Harold, 59 years of this man.
Then our whole family (well, half actually, as only half came into town this year,) went outside for our yearly family pictures. All the pictures turned out great, but most of them have Beautiful in them and I just cannot take time to blur her face (well, I did try on one group picture but could NOT figure it out,) so anyway- here is my favorite picture of my cousin and her boyfriend.
One of the highlights of the trip (well, besides the awesome food, desserts, boardgames, late night talks and quality family time) was playing dress-up, grandma style. All the girls (me, Emily-my step-sister, my cousins Jansen and Hannah and Beautiful) all snuck into grandma's closet when no one was looking and got out "grandma around the clock".
Natasha: Grandma in her Ojama's (Obama pajamas). These are her favorite night clothes.
Emily: Grandma going to the Lady's Democratic Luncheon. (Grandma is the woman's Chaplin for MO.)
Jansen: Greatest idea ever- dressed up as Grandpa. His favorite shirt, hat and rolled up jean shorts. No one could have pulled him off better. Seriously funny.
Hannah: Grandma at the beach. Matching flamingo beach outfit.
Beautiful: Grandma going to church.
We headed home and on Dec 1st we started our Advent box. The first day was to decorate the tree. Our first Christmas as a family with Beautiful and our first Christmas in our new home. Future days include making a gingerbread house, crafts, scriptures, movies and more.
We also enjoyed day two where we talked about the scripture, "I have hidden Your Word in my heart." Then we talked about doing that so we can make good choices (not sin against You is the rest of the verse) and then we cut out hearts and hid them around the house and played hide and seek with the hearts. It was big fun, the kids really enjoyed it.

^{Philippians 2:13, "}[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight."

The Perryman's

Hookie...

I have a mom friend (of 7) who pulls a creative "Rewind" technique with her kiddos. Such as, they come down down for breakfast with a sour attitude, "Uh, Rewind," she will say. They will have to go back upstairs and come back down for breakfast with a changed attitude.

I LOATHE just surviving. I like to enjoy my days and children!
But this week, I was having noneya of it. I needed a total Rewind Week!
Nothing went right... Picture this...
Children= horrible, cranky, disobedience, testy, forgetful, on and on.
Days= overwhelmed, messy, disorganized, thing in boxes, on and on.
Me= irritable, impatient, horrid, stressed, period (sorry guys), on and on.

By Thursday afternoon I could take no more. I totally broke. Called Adam at work, cried for 15 minutes, then he came home and took Miss Beautiful to her learning center because I could not complete one more thing. Thank you Jesus for my strong and servant-hearted man! I then put Nehemiah to bed and Avi Joy on a task and just breathed and prayed.

I like things to be "just-so" you see and to feel like I am accomplishing a task makes me feel great. I love To Do list's and being on a schedule. With this move, everything has been crazy! I cannot get anything done. Homeschooling completely busted this week and we accomplished nothing. We added 7 hours a week for Miss Beautiful be/c she is a year behind in school and is now in tutoring and that has added unexpected stress on my part. And Nehemiah, well. (I just sighed really loud typing his name.) I do NOT know what to do with him. I need some discipline tips- SERIOUSLY. COMMENT. (Not like, oh sorry sweetie, it will get better, no, like- this worked for my 2 year old boy, try this...)
I have tried nice correction, i.e= talking sweetly, positive reinforcement
I have tried medium discipline= time outs, pinch on hand, going to room
I have tried harsh consequences= spakin' on thigh/bottom, separation in crib
NOTHING WORKS. He is impulsive and irritates others with his rash behaviors and constant whining. And sadly, I loose it right after he does.
He is my cherry in top in so many good ways, but when the house is going down hill, he is the cherry on top that turns it into complete chaos. Help.

I am still not over this week, but today made it better.
We played Hookie- yea us! No work, no school, just time together.
We have been wanting to go back to our college, Northeastern State University, to see the trees and to show the kids where we met. We had a wonderful relaxing drive, I read some from a book and we listened to music and talked.

We arrived at NSU and walked around for a bit. The first building we saw, the NET, brought back a lot of memories.
1.) The NET building was the computer center of our school. It was built my first year of college and we HAD to get an email address to get the syllabus for our classes. I was so completely put off by this and was actually mad about it. And email? What is email for heavens sake?
2.) I was in this building attending a teaching lecture for my student internship on September 11th. We all watched on the large TV screen in our classroom as the planes crashed into the twin towers.
Next we showed the kids where we used to live. Adam and I met in this building. Fall 1998. I will have to share how we met sometime- super funny stuff. I lived on First South and he lived on Second Southeast, we were friends for two years while living in these dorms.
We ate lunch at Sam and Ella's Chicken Palace. Divine salad and pizza!
Then we took some family pictures. This whole not-showing-her-face-thing is getting old already. My plan was to take lots of pictures in the colorful leaves and some individual pictures of the kids, but we got 8 pictures and the battery died. smile.
We stopped at the Tahlequah Drug and Soda Shoppe on the way out of town and ordered hand-spun shakes. They were delicious! Who doesn't love to end their day with a large pina colada shake, yes please!

OK- back to spewing. See, the To Do list is So long and nothing gets accomplished. How does that happen? So much to do that nothing gets done?? What?!
I have seen 2 organized mama's move and it seemed like they snapped and their house was done, unpacked, organized and children were all off playing, happily. I daily throw down comparing to others because I am just slow at this whole getting things done thing. I know some of you are laughing be/c you think I get everything done, and quickly, but there is SO MUCH, it is overwhelming. How does 19 kids and counting mom do it with such grace? Please don't knock the Duggers, I really love them.

They say you can hit a 3 month honeymoon wall and I think we hit it with LIFE. Miss Beautiful has been with us since July- that is an adjustment- hello. I took on a new job (homeschooling) in August and we just moved in Sept and I have two kids under four- I had to throw that in. Ok, do you hear the violin's playing? "Get over it," some would say, or "So and So, has it worse." Yes, those two things are true, but this is my life and as I stated above, I am not comparing, I am trying to enjoy my life, my Lord, my husband and my kids. But this week has been a struggle.

Something good in this string of blaaah... I love my new bible I got for my birthday last week. I asked for the Amplified bible. I am crazy over it. I feel like the one I have been reading for 12 years (NIV) is now my elementary school bible and this is my PhD bible. I beyond love the descriptions and added details and am really growing in my love for Him.

My second good thing was starting MOPS this week. My sweet girlfriend has been going to Mothers of Preschoolers for years and this week, I needed some connecting time- so I went and loved it. Now that we are doing school on MWF, I had to let go of some past activities that I enjoyed be/c they do not allow kiddos over 5. I used love bible school: studying the word, discussing questions, eating brunch and socializing (oh and getting dressed in something other than p.j.'s or painting clothes). I thought I would be ok without this, but again, after many months, nope. I need that time and it was renewing for my soul.

My favorite passage this week was 2 Corinthians 12:9, "But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!

Yes, pitch a tent over and dwell upon us! Oh how this description lingered in my heart for days.
The Perrymans

New Home

Well, I feel somewhat settled enough to actually catch up on our blog this afternoon, but I still have a twinge of guilt that I am not cleaning house or unpacking boxes. I know the latter is never ending, so I decided to stop and share a post today. Thank you to you all who have called, stopped by, babysat and prayed for us during this time of great transition. And I know two friends have asked to see pictures of our home, so here they are along with some highlights of the last month.
We finished packing our old house and we had just a few items left. Here Adam and the kids are "resting" from all their hard work.
While I was packing I found a tee-shirt I had bought while Nehemiah was a little baby. It is fun to find treasures like this and it fit him perfectly!
We sat outside on the last day and had a picnic lunch.
Then we woke up, packed our final belongings and headed out to have a special p.j. breakfast.
While we moved our kids stayed with the Lydens family and enjoyed having a sleepover at their house. A couple days later grandma Berna watched the kids while we unpacked and they played with precious Jaxson.
Sarah and Avi Joy, along with Nehemiah and Miss Beautiful all started gymnastics together. It is fun for the girls to be in the same class and we are all enjoying this season of life. (And we happen to only live one mile apart now.)
Here are their little toesies... Avi Joy's foot is on the left and Sarah is on the right. Wonder how long they will be the same size?
Here all 3 kiddos are practicing for doing handstands on their own. Nehemiah's is more like a headstand. AND I am so thrilled that Avi Joy is bearing weight on her arms, this will help in her physical delay when she falls, to be able to catch herself with her arms instead of her nose.
One of our very favorite treats of the year is heading out to the State Fair. We enjoyed the yummy food and rides. Miss Beautiful told me later, "Mom, I am so glad you told me before we came to the fair that there were going to be lots of odd people here... there are."
Every time the sisters or dad went on a ride, Nehemiah sat and cried. It was so funny. I mean, I really should not have laughed, but as soon as they were up there, he was scared for them and wanted his family with him!
Moving in and having our first dress-up day!
We all caught some type of sickness the first week we moved in. Sore throats, coughs, major mosquito bites, and more... but one of the funniest was Nehemiah's ear exploded. I am guessing it was some kind of bite, although I could not see any bite anywhere. He just had one huge Dumbo ear all day long, then the hard swollen ear went back to normal by the next day.
Little ham doing an art project in our new backyard.
I also love her morning hair. What is it about kids and precious morning hair? I wish adults could pull off this look and look cute!
Sooooo, here it is! Our new home. It was built in 1965. Four bedrooms, all upstairs, 2 & 1/2 baths and lots of storage and room to grow! It is a barn style, obviously, and I never saw myself living in a home like this, but I just love it. We adore all the huge mature trees in the neighborhood. Simply beautiful. We truly praise God for our new home.
The front yard has rose bushes that are 50 years old. Some have over 200 blooms on them when they are in season. They were transplanted from the previous home owners grandmothers home. He is a funny old guy who popped by this week to tell me to prune them. This could be annoying to some, but I was actually very grateful that he would teach me how to care for them. He actually said, "I realize that am a tough guy who likes to raise hell, but I love roses too." : ) We have a row of small plantation shutters in our living room and every morning a hot pink rose bloomed in the window. OH the little things!
Now to the other little things... Raccoons. We had to have the skunk whisperer come to remove our raccoons in our attic. He said there have been three generations of raccoons living up there! AND they have done extensive damage, like A LOT. And lucky for us it will be covered by our insurance, well 3 weeks of it will. Which is nothing compared to this damage. We learned that inspectors by law cannot put wildlife damage on inspections, so until they came no one knew that it would take about $14,000 to clean, restore, reinsulate and drywall the entire attic. We are not worried about it, but over time, this will be something to tend too.

I often wash dishes with the windows open and love the fresh air and beautiful trees.
We have taken out a row of cabinets that hung very low and was blocking the view to the dining room. We plan on putting some small hanging lights there someday.
And my original 1965 Frigidaire appliances work perfect!
The other big project that we did right when we moved in was take down a wall between two living areas. We really wanted one large living room, instead of a formal and a den.
The results are stunning and so open! We are now doing the hard part and deciding what color to paint the room. Carpet will be in the future and I cannot wait to hang some artwork in this home. I don't like clutter, but I dislike bare walls even more. I know this will make it feel more homey too.
With all this going on I have had my moments of being overwhelmed of course. Still having to cook, clean, do laundry and homeschool, seemed hard when everything needed to be unpacked and put in it's place. I am feeling more balance now and working on praying about it more. In Proverbs 31 there is a verse that talks about the woman laughing at the days to come. I do not want to be so stressed at the To Do List that I forget to have a great time in my home and add laughter to my days to come.
Blessings
The Perryman Family

Makin' mud pies...

All NEW PICS (May, June, July, August and Sum Hop)

We have been counting down the days till we move and are now in the home stretch... 4 nights left. This week I have said things like: this is my last Friday or my last time to drive home from Vietnamese lessons from this direction. Basically, sappy stuff. I am not super sentimental, but have definitely been reminiscing about the last 9 years and all the things that have happened in this home.
Here are just a few...
First home we bought together- moved in our first six months of marriage, bought "real" furniture, had two dogs, hosted multiple wedding showers, multiple baby showers, washed thousands of dishes, brought home three children, painted every room (some a few times, note to all- don't paint a ceiling orange, it will make your carpet look pink). We have had times of sadness, major anxiety and marital fights, but praise the Lord we have had more joy, peace, blessings, cherished moments with family and friends, great meals and laughter that far out weigh the tough times.

It took a lot of courage for me to decide to move, and many tears. I mean A LOT for me to set myself aside and surrender to moving. I felt like a child who lost their security blanket. On paper, there was no reason at all to move. I loved everything about my city, location, house, neighbors, no negatives. It was God who called us to move to a new home. We both had a stirring to move that came out of left field, it was actually odd. (And left me crying every night for a couple weeks. Yes, literally tears, ask my hubby.)
And so we obeyed His direction. But then I set my parameters. I literally handed the Lord a 3 square mile range in which I was willing to move. And it was in the same location as my current home, where I was totally comfortable and knew where everything was.
After about 4 months on the market all we had heard were negatives about our house. "We hate the driveway, ugly garden, outdated faux finish, blue bathroom, too this or that." (BTW, the best one we heard was it was "too country." Umm, what? My house is not country, not ober modern, but not corn husk wreaths and roosters either.)
All the while we were also looking at houses and I hated them all too!! Hated. I felt like it was a lose-lose situation, lose our house and lose by not finding one I liked.
Then one weekend I fully submitted my heart and decided that I really did want God's best. I did not want to pass-up on a great plan just because of my fears. And if you deal with fears, this is easier said than done. Your brain, body, spirit and will, are all at war.
But alas, we began to venture out and found one house that I actually loved. Like, loved like crazy. I dreamt about this house. Loved the price, the size, the age (1965), the area of town, I knew it was something special. But it didn't matter because no one wanted our house.
That same week we cleaned our house really well and dropped our price. That Saturday morning we had 3 showing. Those 3 families made back to back offers within 3 hours on our house. The timing was perfect in every way. And our realtor was just as shocked as we were. She gave credit to the Lord for our house selling and our offer being accepted at our asking price for our new home.
Oh how those details fall into place when we surrender. I learned that sometimes things just don't move until we open those secret passageways of our lives to Him. The Lord desires to reign in all places of our lives. (And trust me, I have many more places to give to Him. Don't we all?)
I memorized a scripture with a friend this summer, one of the lines was Acts 17:32, "For in Him we live and move and have our being." This helped me in a few areas in which I was struggling, but one day I received revelation about this scripture. You see the word? MOVE. Hello, Natasha! IN HIM WE MOVE. It was an ah-ha moment for me, not the, "oh, in You, O Lord, I abide and do life kind of here and there move." NO, it was so literal. In Him, I pack up my house and MOVE. Move because He moved, live where He wants me to live, be where He wants me to be.

Right now the house is about 90% packed into a POD (which by the way, I am a huge fan of the POD system! Pack when I want too). And the rest we are putting in a U-Haul on Wed night. It has truly been an amazing process for our family and we give Glory To God for such a gift as this new home. We pray for a smooth transition this week!

Since we have most of the house packed, I have had to be a bit creative to find things to do around the house with 3 kiddos. One afternoon we decided that we would all go make mud-pies in the backyard. There was a whole kitchen actually. Miss Beautiful was the chef, Nehemiah gathered ingredients and Avi Joy delivered them. And boy were we messy. It was a grand time! (Although the new home owners might not like the patches of mud.)

Crazy over this pic below.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21
The P's

Happy Sum Hop Day

Four years ago today, September 7, 2006, we were standing in court in Ninh Thuan, Vietnam, becoming a forever family.
We are filled with deep gratitude thinking upon our great love for Avi Joy. We are beyond blessed to have her as our daughter. And as I told her so today, she responded, "Yeah, and I am not anybody elses."
She is our girl through and through and we are so thankful to the Lord and to her birthmother for allowing her to be our child. She is pure joy, wise, patient, loving beyond compare, gentle, smart, talented, seriously- simply amazing.

Here we are hanging out at our hotel in Vietnam. Age 5 months.
Sum Hop Day 2007. Age 1 1/2.
Sum Hop Day 2008. Age 2 1/2.
Sum Hop Day 2009. Age 3 1/2.
Sum Hop Day 2010. Age 4 1/2.
Sum Hop in Vietnamese means, "to come together, to unite." We celebrate our Sum Hop day by going somewhere fun as a family (this year will be Incredible Pizza) and by taking pictures in traditional Ao Doi, the native Vietnamese dress. We also made a delicious cake to eat after dinner.
This year we were able to wear one of the dresses that Miss Anna, her Vietnamese teacher, gave to us. I love that I can see the stitching of each bead on the inside. I revel in the thought that someone in HCMC was sitting (probably on an itty-bitty plastic stool) hand stitching this beautiful ao doi for my baby!

I am head-over-heels for all these pictures of Avi Joy in ao doi, she is so beautiful. (And I will be posting all soon.)

The verse that popped into my mind about Avi Joy has a preceding story.
One morning we stopped at a donut shop that we had never been too before. We went in and sat down and Avi Joy said, "Mom, I am going to sit on this side, facing away from the t.v., because Sponge Bob is on and that is not an appropriate show for me to watch."
Wow the praise she received for desiring to keep her eyes pure and also willingly obey her parents rules. She excels in character and the following verse reminds me of her:
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8

The Perryman's