Unscheduled Day

It was nice to have a day to do whatever our hearts desired. No appointments and nothing on the calendar. You have to understand this is not very typical for our family. So Jason let me sleep in a little and even made me breakfast. Did I mention I have the greatest husband EVER. We did some organizing and playing most of the day and then talked daddy into taking us to dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. This is one of our favorites. We like to eat dinner and then watch the trains at the train station. I'm loving these fun summer memories. School starts two weeks from today. I will be homeschooling two this year I can't believe it. So thankful for our co-op classes and friday school at Whittier Christian.

Joyful Heart

My heart has been overflowing with joy as I have been reading some of my favorite blogs. A few of the families I keep up with are either in China or are going. It has been exciting to read there journeys and to see the lords handiwork. I feel like I know these families so well even though we are states apart. I get so encouraged and inspired by each one of them and Love how we share this common bond of adoption. Thanks friends for letting us in on your stories. Life here has been good. We have enjoyed baseball camps, lake trips, swimming, and lots of icecream. We are preparing for school to start back up in a couple weeks and trying to soak in as much as we can of these final days of summer.

A fun And Busy Weekend

Friday evening we spent time with my Brother and sister in law. We went swimming, enjoyed a meal outside and made Smores by there fire pit. It was the perfect summer evening. we had a major breakthrough with Hannah and her fear of dogs. Since we have had Hannah she has been terrified of dogs and screams when she sees one. At first the dog would be a mile away and she would have a fit. She has gotten better at being able to look at them from afar and be okay. Well she finally was okay being in the same room with a dog which is a huge accomplishment. It has been hard for us because we want to spend time with our family but do not want to make our daughter feel scared at the same time so this was so huge for her. Saturday we met up with a family that adopted a little girl from china 9 months ago named Grace. Grace and Hannah are 7 days apart. They share the same doctor and similar heart condition and our doctor thought we should meet(he is so great). We had a great time at the park together. I love how adoption has connected our family with so many great people. we look forward to spending more time with this great family. If anyone is interested in hearing more about international adoption or our story. we will be holding an America World adoption seminar September 10th from 10-12 at 1507 Manhattan Beach Blvd. in Manhattan Beach, 90266. you can register at AWAA.org at there events page.

Baseball Camp and Potty Training

We have just unwined from a wonderful week up at Hume Lake(which I will post about later) and are back in the busy shuffle of life. This week Jonah is in baseball camp. This great couple from our church run this amazing baseball ministry www.calledupbaseball.com teaching kids baseball and also that the ultimate success in life is Jesus. He is loving it and will be so sad when the week is over. I love seeing his excitement and his self confidence lifted. I also reluctantly decided to start potty training miss Hannah this week as well. I have been wanting to put it off and decided I could no longer do that when she #1. Asks me to use the potty everyday and #2. started handing me her diapers after she had taken them off herself :) Fine okay I will potty train you. We started Yesterday and she has not had one accident. She tells us when she has to go and is loving her new princess undies. WHHAAAATTTT!!! If I had known it was going to be this easy I would have given in a long time ago. Heres hoping it continues.

Birthday Fun!

Last Saturday was my birthday and I spent the day relaxing with a few girlfriends at Glen Ivy a local spa. It was such a treat. They have these natural mud baths that are suppose to be great for the skin(picture above )mineral baths and lots of lounge pools. It was so nice but went by way too fast. Jason took me out that night and created a fun and creative evening where I had to answer lots of different questions that led to how and where the evening would go. It was super sweet and we had a great time. My kids had decorated the house with Happy Birthday banners and helped daddy make me a special breakfast. It was a super great day. I feel so blessed by all that the Lord has given to me and look forward to many more years. I have been so horrible at taking pictures lately. We are leaving tomorrow for Hume Lake so I will try and capture some great shots.

So Much to share

So much has happened in the last few days I may need to do two seperate posts :) Well Thursday I called the doctor to find out the results for the genetic test we had done. They were testing to see if I for sure had Myatonic dystrophy DM1. Well even after two neurologist diagnosed me and said they were certain I had the disease, the test came back negative. Our heads were spinning. We were of coarse grateful but were also left with so many unanswered questions. What now? Well this morning we went back to the doctor to discuss the test and other possibilities. The Neurologist told us that since we tested negative for DM1 that he was certain I had Myatonic Dystrophy type 2. Confusing right? We knew that there were two different types but since the doctors were convinvced I had the first type DM1 we did not read much about DM2. It turns out DM2 is a milder form of the disease without a lot of the serious complications. The disease could progress but might not. Our boys still have a 50% chance of having this disease however with each pass down the symptoms are less and less. This was really great news to hear. Still not feeling confident this is what I have until I get the results back though :) I have seen the Lord perform miracle after miracle and am in awe of his power and his goodness and faithfulness in my life. He can always choose to to take this away completely and I don't ever want to lose sight of his ability and just accept what the doctors think. We are relieved and will keep focusing on gaining strength and putting our trust in the ultimate healer. Our prayer is that he will get the ultimate Glory no matter what the outcome is. Thanks for all your prayers and your words of encouragement they have meant so much to us.

Grateful

Our family had a wonderful long holiday weekend. We had fun swimming, eating and just hanging out with friends. It has been so neat to see pictures of our sweet Hannah from a year ago. She has changed so much. We realized the other day that we have had her now longer than she was in the orphanage. We are grateful to have her in our lives and are constantly amazed at what a big girl she is becoming. Today we will greet a dear family who is bringing home there daughter from Taiwan. The Lord is doing great things through adoption and it is so exciting to see his handiwork. We have several friends who are in the process and we look forward to them all being reunited with there forever families soon.

I have begun to have more energy over the last few days. Praise god! I know so many of you have been praying for me and I'm so grateful for those prayers. I can't say enough how much I LOVE my trainer. It has only been a few weeks since we have started but I really feel like he is a gift from the Lord. He is having me do things I never thought I would be able to do again. I feel so encouraged and motivated every time I leave his gym and he is just so knowledgable about the muscles and how our mind plays such a big part in being able to gain the strength back. I read a quote from Joyce Myer the other day that spoke to my heart. God's will for you is greater than anything you can imagine for yourself. Be willing to obey God even when you don't understand what he is doing with you. I believe this with all my heart and I look forward to him using me.

This is a picture of my Trainer and world class champion athlete Dan Judge.