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 "We hate the driveway, ugly garden, outdated faux finish, blue bathroom, too this or that."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

Freeze

Because of our upcoming move we are going on a spending freeze for the month of September!
Like most all families, there have been hard months for us of course. I remember the first month I stayed home when we went from 2 incomes to 1, (and we had added a child), Adam called and said, "We have $80, do not spend another dime!"
Well we all are forced to spend-no-more-or-else at some time, but this is an on purpose financial freeze. We want to wisely save as much as we can in the next 4 weeks, so we can use the money we save in other areas.
While moving this month, we know things are going to pop up that need fixing or replacing. Could be a little, could be a lot, and we want to be prepared.
And we don't want something to arise in which we have to say, "Oh, no, we just spent all our extra money.. cannot buy light bulbs this month."
We also want to have the house cleaned professionally. This is not for everyone, but our new house was built in 1965 and has been setting empty for 15 months. I do not have the energy to pack our house, then clean our new house and unpack our new house. I know my limits and I am willing to save in some areas to spend in this area.
AND *nerd alert* the first week of Oct is one of our family traditions- eating dinner at the Tulsa State Fair. For us, it is about the food, not the rides, but this dinner is worth saving for!

We plan to do this in many ways. One is by only eating at home for the month. No lunches out for Adam at work, no lunch out after church for the family, no purchasing little odds/ends that we need, a total and complete freeze. We obviously will have to buy gas, and if I can get away with not buying more milk, fruit or veggies, I will be able to stay away from shopping all-together. We are also cancelling cable and made the switch to using minute cell phones instead of a plan. (Wow that savings was a shocker.) I am so curious about how much we will save not buying one single thing this month?? Have you ever done this?

Here is our menu for the month. I have never done a monthly menu before, I usually do every 2 weeks worth of groceries/menu, but it seemed necessary to take inventory of what we had and go with it.
Our menu does not include two daily snacks, veggies with meals or the usual morning fruit shake. Nor does this include our sweets. We plan on a few of these things: Puppy chow, homemade ice cream, nutella on anything, baked cinnamon apples and baklava.

Most items are homemade (like pizza pockets, sandwich bread or waffles from scratch), a few things are packaged, like the cheese ravioli. But in general, we shoot for scratch. (Maybe that is the title for my future food blog- Shoot for Scratch. Hmmm. We mainly to this to be healthy and for better taste.)

Menu:

1. Oatmeal- Cheese Nachos w/beans- Eggplant Parm
2. Quiche- Grilled cheese- Crock Pot Green chicken wraps
3. Biscuits and gravy- grilled chicken salad- pizza pockets (freeze 1/2)
4. Donuts*- pulled pork (freeze 1/2)- pasta w/cauliflower
5. Oatmeal- Eggrolls and rice- Baked potato w/ chili (freeze 1/2)
6. Pancakes- Pressed Sandwiches- Coconut chicken
7. Cereal- beanie weenies- Sum Hop Day @ Incredible Pizza*
8. Banana bread- Sandwiches-Lasagna (freeze 1/2)
9. P.B. Granola bars- Ravioli- Leftover Thursday Dinner
10. Eggs and sausage- Cucumber sandwiches- sloppy joes
11. Waffles- Chicken Salad- Ham and Egg breakfast for dinner
12. Greek yogurt w/fruit- Mac & Cheese w/fish-sticks- Jambalaya
13. Quiche- Leftover Lunch- Sundried Tomato Pasta
14. Cereal- Grilled Cheese- Chicken and Dumplings
15. Oatmeal- Ramen- Tacos
16. Breakfast pizza- Veggie lunch- Leftover Thursday
17. Waffles- Grilled chicken- Chili
18. Yogurt parfait- Pigs in a blanket- Chicken Tikki
19. P.B. Toast w/honey- Egg and Sausage biscuits- Nacho Bar
20. Banana muffins- leftover lunch- Turkey Burgers
21. Pancakes- Bean burritos- Cornbread w/ ham and beans
22. Breakfast pizza- Tuna sandwich- Spaghetti w/ turkeyballs
23. French Toast- Chicken Casadillas- Leftover Thursday
24. Cereal- Pulled pork- Chicken pot pie
25. Fruit salad- bacon wrapped chicken- Baked potato soup
26. P.B. Granola Bars- Can soup lunch- Ranch chicken and carrots
27. Egg and Bacon- Leftover lunch- Naan Pizzas
28. Cereal- Ramen- Lasagna
29. Waffles- pizza pockets- Pot stickers
30. Oatmeal- Beanie weenies- Leftover Thursday

*There are two things on this menu that we are going out for... it is the donuts and Incredible Pizza. My father is coming into town from Atlanta to meet Miss Beautiful and see our new house. We have a (once a month) family tradition of Saturday morning donuts. We may go ahead and do this with him, not sure. We want too celebrate, yet want to do the whole month too. But her Sum Hop Day (Avi Joy's fourth Forever family day) must be celebrated. She has chosen I.P. the last 3 years.

In making this menu I realized many things about us. We eat a lot of chicken for one and there is not too much variety in ways of fish/seafood and I can see we love breakfast foods!
I also do not cook with red meat. I use varieties of turkey instead. Turkey hot dogs, turkey sausage, Italian turkey, turkey pepperoni for the pizza pockets... all very good!

Beautiful made a fun calendar for us to X off each day. I already look forward to that!
A countdown to moving and a daily reward for saving.
And since we are on a new kick, here is a picture of something new. Think this is in another country?? No, sadly, this idol has been newly built, 3 miles from my current house. It is built between the Hindu temple and Buddhist temple right next to where we take Vietnamese lessons. I could see it a mile away. Made my heart so sad.
"But their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them." Psalm 115: 4-8

The Perryman's

A New Chapter

Well before we get on with the pics, which I know is the main reason you are here, I must share some good news... we sold our house! After 4+ months of hearing the crickets (more like hearing the words, "we hate your steep driveway"), we had several showings on Saturday morning and not 1, nor 2, but 3 couples made offers on our house! Wow. I have learned so much. I plan to blog about this process of surrendering soon. It was a long tearful journey, but the Lord is faithful to care for His children. Now onto searching for our new home.
In other news: We thrived in our first week of homeschooling. Our Beautiful attends a school on T/Th and we do all other subjects on MWF. She is taking fun things at school (such as stage craft and hands on science) and we are doing the core curriculum at home plus things like typing and art lessons.
Our bonding is going great. We are all gelling nicely and we have the privilege to watch this precious flower bloom right before our eyes. His faithfulness again... seeing Beautiful have new friends, love church, make great grades and return love to her family.
WE ARE SENDING OUT ANNOUNCEMENTS WITH PICTURES THIS WEEK. FACEBOOK ME YOUR ADDRESS OR EMAIL ME OR LEAVE IT AS A COMMENT (if you dare : ) AND WE WILL SEND ONE TO YOU!

Avi Joy's self-portrait titled, "Avi Joy dressed in Ao Doi."
We started a weekly devo/craft family night. It has been beyond my expectations. I have learned two new things from teaching them. 1. That after Hannah gave Samuel to the Lord, she went on to have 5 more children for her faithfulness. Who knew!!! 2. That Adam and Eve made clothes for themselves out of leaves, but then God killed the animals (the first sacrifice for sin) and made clothing to cover them with the animal's skin.
We are going through the book, "Bible Explorations, 52 Activities for Christian Learning," by Janice VanCleave and here is one of our activities. Cut Adam and Eve paper dolls. (One side was clothes they made and the other was clothing made by God.)
OH this little joyjoy is one of the most amazing people I have ever known.
Her cooking show, "Cooking with Joy."
This picture cracks me up. Check out Nehemiah's face. They were playing spa day and giving Avi Joy a massage. They were karate chopping up and down her back and he was realllly into it. HA! Only when a NanNa owns a spa would kids play spa day. (my mom)
Unexpected blessing... Over the summer I was able to give some private art lessons to my friend Tuyet. We met at Vietnamese language school as she was Avi Joy's teacher. Co Tuyet has 4 kiddos and they all came over for lessons throughout the summer. Her two girls have grown out of a handful of traditional Ao Doi's and they gave them to us as a gift. Can you believe that?! GAVE them to us. I love these Ao Doi's sooo much. They are all from HCMC and handmade.
OK. Totally honest here. This boy is a through and through classic Vietnamese man. Always havin shirts open, messy hair, skinny legs, squattin, rice eating type of man. He fits this to a tee.
Adam and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. We got into the attic and pulled out our old VHS wedding video and let the kids watch it. There was much awww's at the dancing (the good) and the uwooo gross (the kiss). I really enjoyed watching it with them.
Our last day at the pool for the summer. We loved having a local pool where we could spend the day, have a picnic and soak in the last days of summer before starting school.
Beautiful letting the kids play with a frog. Nehemiah was mega scared of the frog and would not touch it, but after a while he would at least set in her lap and watch it jump around.
Need anything fixed around your house? I highly recommend Naked Nehemiah's Home Improvements.
I was able to do a few back to school projects for some local teachers. Here is a school bench that says, "All good things are wild and free," Henry David Thoreau. She wanted it red with leopard print, stripes and heavily distressed.
My sweet girlfriend (in the middle) who lives in Kenya, Africa, was able to make a quick trip to the states as a grandparent on both her side and her hubby's side passed away this month. I lived with these two girls for 4 years during college. We were able to have an hour with my mom at the spa and have dinner with all our families (8 kids between us).
Here is a more accurate picture. I love to see them laughing. They are amazing. The sisters of my heart. The other friend on the right will be leaving soon to serve in India for 4 years.
We made a little purse out of an old tee-shirt. I turned it inside out and sewed the three sides together... I used the collar as the opening. Super cute and sew easy!
A passage that helped me during the transition of letting go of our home...
"Whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess." Judges 11:24
Really the whole chapter brought me great encouragement. It is odd reading, but that is just how reading God's Word works, it may not seem like it will apply, then zap, encouragement.

The Perryman Family

Family of 5 update!

Hello Readers. Thanks for checking in.

Miss Beautiful moved in last Saturday, so we have been a family for 10 days.
For those playing catch up, this is the child of our heart. We started the process with the state to adopt an older child from foster care last August and now Beautiful, age 12, half Native American, half African American is living in our home. We cannot share her real name until after adoption, which will be once she has lived in our home for 6 months, but the meaning of her name is "beautiful". And it fits, beautifully. wink.

She is adjusting very well. Everything is new in her life (and ours too). She is handling new parents, siblings, family, school, friends, church, foods and more! Can you imagine? Honestly, put yourself in her place. Tough stuff for a adolescent or anyone, right?! She went to a swim party today to meet all new friends from her part-time school. I was so proud of her for going. The host said she wanted to give her a badge of courage. I couldn't agree more.

The hard stuff... We have encountered one bad dream, several talks about birthmother and her past foster families and she faced her first consequence, but ended up making a wise choice and did not have to receive that consequence. We have had some typical bad moods and tears about this or that, but overall, really proud of her.

Now, on to me. Hear the song in your head, "It's all about me Jesus" oh wait, that is not what it is supposed to be! "It's all about You Jesus!" If I could get that straight, I wouldn't have to deal with half of the stuff in my life!

BUT, adjusting is hard. What is hard for me is busyness. I hate it. It causes me to stress and be fatigued, have anxiety and shut down. Other people can handle many things, but not me, I know I cannot do it all. One of my favorite words is NO.
But what do you do when so many things are changing and you have to say yes? Like new glasses for school, DHS appt's, school uniform fitting, testing for school, dentist, on and on, things that must get done? What do you do? I get tired, then the witch picks up her broom. And it is not pretty.
I do not want to just survive this transition of our new child, but thrive during this adjustment. The thing that pushes me over the edge is errands. I can realistically only do one (or zero) errands a day. With a 2, 4 and 12 year old in tow, it is taking some prayer and planning on my part to do things successfully. This part does not have anything to do with bonding, just the logistics of doing life- like going grocery shopping or going to the post office. But sadly, it is those little things that can seem HUGE to accomplish. A few of you will understand this and totally get me. Others who can do it all, will think I am a weeny. I am weak and flawed and that is ok. If I tap into Christ, His power is made perfect in weakness. But this part of adjusting to a new kiddo is for me (and was for each past child as well) a challenge.

I want to specifically say thank you to some friends who encouraged me. It feels good to be supported and have an encouraging word. Also to RR who called and asked me to cash in a coupon she gave me for Christmas for a date night. She said, "Oh, you will need it, and soon." So we booked a date for our 9th anniversary in a week. It is the little things.

I debated back and forth about sharing this because I do not want it to come across "pity-party-ish" but, I am glad (for me and my personality) that this particular adoption came third and not first. It is no secret to those who have adopted, that women having a biological child receive, in general, more attention than women adopting. (Exclude Jolie and Madonna, of course.)

There are the core friends/family who will ask you how you are doing, feeling, naming, planning, etc for the whole two+ years of your adoption journey, but you just do not get asked that often. Towards the end, when it becomes more real and you have pictures of your child, you will hopefully have a baby shower and be asked more often about travel and such.
But during the wait, it can be a lonely time. I learned this the hard way with our first adoption. God quickly showed me to always come to Him first when I was feeling sad about not getting the same attention as someone else who was expecting. See, comparison is always a killjoy. I knew this going into our second and it was much easier. Now, going into our third where our child is older, we received more controversial questions than the "oh you sweet thing, you are expecting, tell me all about it" type support.

I am not sure why I needed to get that off my chest. Probably because when I say, "thank you for your love and support," I mean it. Like, really really whole-heartedly mean thank you. I CANNOT do life without the support of my Lord, my husband, my family and my friends. I cannot fulfill this calling without you.
I have learned that the smallest kind word actually speaks louder than what money can buy. Those "things" are nice of course. We have had our parents and one friend give a gift to Beautiful and it was such a joyful moment for her and us. We are going to have a "love you around the clock" celebration when she is officially adopted into our family. And I cannot wait for it. A huge celebration after all these transitions will be such a sweet reward.

Funny's of the week:

Avi Joy- While I was cutting her hair, I told her to watch daddy unloading the dishwasher. She proceeds to loudly sing, "I am watching daddy unload the dishwasher. Isaiah 18." Apparently she took the liberty of adding to the scriptures.

Nehemiah- He has started to put on his own socks. (Which amazed me because little-joy just started doing that like this year.) BUT he puts BOTH socks on the SAME foot. Not just sometimes, every. single. time. One barefoot and one double socked foot.

Beautiful- While driving down the highway we passed some new construction. She said, "I cannot believe that new wall already has confetti on it." I said, "Confetti?" She said, "Yeah, like spray paint all over it." Ok, Ok, graffiti!

Psalm 3 really touched me this week.
Love,
The Perryman's

Last night as a family of four

Well, from here on out, we will be a family of 5.
Miss Beautiful will be joining our family tomorrow. It was scheduled for the end of July, but everyone (being our social workers, counselors, foster family and us) all felt that the time had come for her to move in.
We have an all day journey ahead of us to pick her up (about 5 hours one way). We will visit with her foster grandparents and have lunch with them at a local restaurant. Then we will head home to start life together. Amazing that you can sum up someone joining your family in one paragraph!
We have been working on all the details for her to start school, dance and youth group. We are doing both homeschooling and part-time school at a local private Christian school. She will be able to be involved in drama, band, hands-on science, study hall, lunch and "house" time. House time is where the kids spend time doing things together (sports, projects) and also compete against other houses like in debate or bible-bowl.
Our main goal this year is family. Education is secondary at this time. We never saw ourselves as a homeschool family, but we are built differently and this schedule is beyond perfect. I do not function well if we are an over committed family, so we are taking one week at a time. Making sure we spend time together, complete school work, worship at church and have outside activities. This is a whole new world for me!
Needless to say everything in my 12 year olds life is about to change. From living in the country to the city, from foster care to a family, from all that she knows to everything being new. So many changes.
Please pray for our family that every detail will be smooth. And that all emotional times (homesickness, grief) will be handled with love and grace. Pray for Beautiful to have understanding, strength and peace. And for us to find rest in the Lord when we feel overwhelmed by all the changes.
I shared with someone this week about our newest daughter joining our family this weekend. Their exact words were, "Oh, I could never adopt an older child." In a moment of bravery and defense of our child I answered, "You are right. You couldn't. It is not for everyone. But it is for us. God put this in our hearts and had equipped us for our daughter."
It is true that adoption is not for everyone. Either is adopting a child of a different ethnicity or a child that is older. But Adam and I believe more than ever before this is our calling in life. Why are we passionate about adoption? Simply put, God put it in us. Walking in it is so rewarding, so moving, so spectacular, I cannot imagine life any other way. I am so grateful for the gift of parenting through adoption. Lord, thank you for choosing us. I feel so lavished in love when I think about how our family is built. I know you feel the same way about your children, either from your belly or from your heart, they are precious in His sight and we would lay down our lives for our children.
Our Beautiful is precious and we know that God has and will continue to work all things together for her good. We appreciate your love, support, kind words and gifts from your heart. Thank you. Thank you!

"And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love Him." Romans 8:28

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We headed out for a playdate with the Homan and the Sweet families this week. It is such a treat when we get together as we have so much in common. Two husbands in the ministry, every child has joined through adoption, all serve Jesus, the list goes on. I love my time with these ladies, but weirdly enough, probably love the time my kids get to spend with their children a bit more. I love to see the connection they have with one another. Avi Joy just showed me a picture of baby Sarah today in VN at the center and told me how they were both there at the same time. Such special friendships. Heather posted some amazing pic's of our time together too!
Here was my favorite of the day. I just love it.
Laying out.
These two peanuts are so funny. They love their dress-up time and Avi Joy was beyond creative when she asked me if she could put one of her bows on Nehemiah as a bow-tie. I have never thought of that! It has now been done with each bow and he looks just hilarious.
Sarah celebrated her 5th birthday! More pic's from her party!
The princesses showing off their lipstick.
COMMENT PLEASE:
Please share to sharpen our family... We are putting together a "never bored" list. One of our goals is to show our kiddos that during free time/family time, there are hundreds of things that we can do. Please share your favorite things to do as a family/individually. Everything from writing a pen pal, crafts, cleaning, serving, etc. We want ANY & EVERY idea for our list. AND we will share it soon with you! Thank you.

The Perryman Five!

Gentle Kisses

ALL MARCH PICS
ALL APRIL PICS
(I am a wee bit behind, hopefully May-July will be coming soon!)

Several things broke around our house (remote, printer, weed-eater, my van's engine vacuum, phone- so many things... weird!) BUT it did not get us down because this was a super wonderful week!
We started off by enjoying some time with the Butter's family. Everything is better with butter, right?! She is expecting her fifth and us, our third, so this pic will have 8 kids very soon!
We had some serious fun flying. Everybody at our house takes a turn, as Miss Beautiful found out. Even at 12 and as big as me, I flew that girl all over our living room. I flew Adam, Adam flew all the kids. Big fun around our house. I am working on applying this flying fun to real flying. I have to pray a.lot. to fly.
Look no further gals. This hot look is straight off the Middle Eastern Runway.
Beautiful's house shoes. You can see a glimpse of her behind him. I even asked if I could post some pics privately on FB or somewhere of her Beautiful face, but no... catch me in person and I will proudly show you pics of her. : )
Beautiful took several pictures of the butterflies in our garden. Symbolic, don't you think?
Ummm. You would think this kid has sisters or something.
Then we headed over to my girlfriends house for the 4th. We hung out last year and it was just the best. Shooting fireworks, feeding the horses, letting the kids play- oh my heart loves her and her family so much! Here is her little Zo.
Another little peanut there, Jonathan.
My friend bought a water slide for the kids. A great investment, I'd say. They LOVED it! Delaney (Korea) played so well with Avi Joy, I was thankful for her befriending my daughter.
Bethany helped Nehemiah slide down. The big kids were such a big help with my little ones.
A very cool and touching tattoo. American flag heart in the middle for her and her hubby, and both the Ukrainian and Korean flags for their kiddos.
Great pic of Steve and his youngest of 4. We so enjoyed getting to catch up with this family. We met in college in 1997 and have remained friends. Steve took care of my hubby while he went on a ride along with him last night from 10pm-4am. It took me a long time to be brave enough to let my man go play COPS, but he enjoys every minute each time he rides along, so how could I say no?!
Watching fireworks. Note that we tried the new mosquito fans. They did not get any bites, so I am assuming they worked. We were up for trying anything, so we would not have to go through this again....
Being beat up by a team of Olympic Mosquito Champs. These 4 face bites swelled up SO bad they sent her to the doctor for a round of steroids and medicine cream. Sad, isn't it, just sad.
I booked a mini-art camp this summer. I am teaching 7 kids (ages 8-13) three times in July. A total of about 6 hours of art. They will complete many projects including making clay cupcakes, cave art and shown below, a study of Starry Night. They did awesome!
It rained several times this week. Oh, how I love rain. We put the kids in their swimming suits and headed outside to play in the rain. I tell you what, this boy is oober handsome.
He adds so much to this house: joy, noise, laughter, discipline, just all boy. O- and yeah, he doesn't want to grow up. Which is good because a counselor told me that when adopting an older child, it is good to let your youngest child stay the baby for as long as possible. This will not be a problem in any way, shape or form. He has reverted back to asking me to rock him and scratch his back every night. I do it and it is filled with lots of kisses, songs and rocking- if I slow the rocking part for even a minute, he Yells, "ROCK, mama" quickly followed by him lifting his shirt and saying, "and scratch." Oh this kid.
Playing in the rain.
So many gifts in life. Her curls are one of those sweet gifts.
Then we headed off to to teach (and Avi Joy attended) China camp. We had eight (or so, as they came and went) 2 year olds in my class. There was much playing, singing, reading, wiping, cleaning, bubble blowing and more. Here the class is playing dress-up. I love how the siblings of the Chinese kids are thrown into the mix. In order: China, Bio, VN, China, China and Ethiopia.
Lots of giggles from my girl before and after camp. But during the day 9:30-3:30 she attended as a camper. She learned her Chinese numbers and two weeks ago learned that Indian Tigers were in danger at India Camp.
As if you didn't already know about how much I love these heritage camps... Dillon highlighted our family as ROCKSTARS this month! (Article on the right.)
The best three bro/sis helpers in the WORLD. I know you all will read this and I have to say, you are simply amazing. And I will NOT say "Just kidding." So helpful- serving, cleaning and obeying The Boss, i.e. me : ). See you in two weeks.
And now for my favorite thing that happened at China camp. This is melt your heart good... One little gal in our class had a little hand. Nehemiah seemed fascinated by her and kinda sought her out to play. He kept looking at her hand and I showed him that she had baby fingers and to be gentle with her and love on her. Each day, he held her hand and they got along beautifully.
And many times I would look over and he was kissing her hand. Each day, many many kisses. This was the last day as we were leaving. This was not staged people, he was giving kisses to her baby fingers. The amazing thing to me was that it did not bother her. I really felt in my heart that he loved her just the way she was and that she enjoyed being loved just the way she was. These two were a perfect match at camp.
"Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ." 1 Peter 5:14

The Perryman's