Wanted: One stay-at-home mom who enjoys loving on her house, making sure her children have clean clothes, catching The View while working out, and not working outside of the home. Position vacated by what may be a new permanent placement in the car, on the run, conferences at school, errands for the family, and involved in TOO MANY unwanted activities (most not by choice). Position needed ASAP.

Precious, Beautiful Hollie

I must have forgotten to blog about who Hollie is and how she came to be a member of our family. I think I shared a while back about our praying about two 9 year old boys in China who had been abandoned at 7 years old and needed homes. At that time, I felt very overwhelmed with the responsibilities of life with four children, but I wanted to be faithful to God if His desire was for us to add another child to our family. In my heart, I believed that God would tell us “no,” but I still wanted to at least ask His plans for our family. Rowland and I prayed about it and soon discovered that because of my need for antidepressants, we are now unable to adopt from China. The answer was very clear, and yet, I still felt that we had been obedient in allowing God to work in our family as He saw fit, in spite of my being overwhelmed most of the time!

Only about six weeks after we had prayed about these two little boys, we learned of an 18 year old senior at church who needed a home. Due to certain circumstances, she was no longer able to stay with her family and had nowhere to go. Rowland and I had only met Hollie a couple of times and didn’t really know her at all. Immediately, Rowland asked me to pray about bringing her into our home. To each of us, God spoke very clearly that that was indeed His plan. After meeting with Hollie for about an hour one night, we asked her to move in a couple of days later. She moved into Jia’s room, and the little girls share a room now.

I believe as I look back on the time that we prayed about adopting the Chinese boys that God was preparing us to be open to any “child” that He might bring into our family. I teasingly call Hollie my little Chinese boy!

So who is Hollie? She is a beautiful young woman with a precious giggle and a love for life. She has become a special daughter to me, although I would never assume to take the place of her mother. All of my children will tell you that she is their big sister. She and Carson love to “fight,” calling each other “loser” and “dork.” They chase each other around the house, stealing cell phones and laughing hysterically. She paints the little girls’ fingernails and toenails, and they totally adore her. William, too, enjoys having a big sister around. My favorite time with Hollie is when she lies on my bed and lets me rub her head while we talk until she falls asleep. Rowland has taught her to change spark plugs and bead blast something in a car engine. She goes to the church and helps set up for Sunday services and helps me with the first service childrens’ program. She is a part of our family now and forever!

We have enjoyed buying a prom dress and shoes, getting a pedicure and manicures, getting ready for prom complete with pictures, teaching her to drive, taking care of her when she is sick, getting her enrolled in college, holding her when her heart is broken, laughing at her giggles, buying her a car, and just living life with this beautiful girl whom God has placed in our family for this time. While she still has a family, she most definitely has an extra one, too! Hollie is also OUR daughter, OUR sister, OUR friend, and a precious, precious gift from God whom we love as our own - and always will! Thank you, God, for your blessings and for entrusting us with one of your children!

Rowland, Hollie, and Me at the Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Sunday - the Girls

Today was definitely Hollie Day!! She and I went to Front Range Community College in Westminster, and she is officially enrolled in the CNA program!!! College, here she comes! We are all so proud of her! May 22nd is Graduation Day, and we’re already trying to figure out where to take her for her very special day!

Once we got home, Hollie and I took the girls across the street to play in the hot tub. Rowland, never to be outdone, showed up with a Mustang for Hollie, her very own car! The smiles on her face speak volumes, and the squeals of delight have yet to stop. She says she’s sleeping in it, and I think she just might!

Can You Hear the Squeals?

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Rowland Getting Lots of Hugs

The First Test Drive with Me

Pretty Cool!

KeKe Taking Over the Passenger Seat

Hollie’s Friend George Joining in Her Excitement!

Happy Hollie Day, Sweet Princess!!! You deserve it, and you totally rock!!! We love you!!

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.

Finally fed up, God said, ‘That’s it! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.’

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They moused.
They faxed.
They e-mailed.
They e-mailed with attachments.
They downloaded.
They did spreadsheets!
They wrote reports.
They created labels and cards.
They created charts and graphs.
They did some genealogy reports.
They did every job known to man.

Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off!

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.

Jesus just sighed.

Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers.

Satan started searching frantically, screaming: ‘It’s gone! It’s all GONE! I lost everything when the power went out!’

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work.

Satan observed this and became irate.

‘Wait!’ he screamed. ‘That’s not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don’t have any?’

God just shrugged and said, ‘JESUS SAVES’.

(Joke compliments of my daddy!!! Thanks, Daddy!! You made me smile this morning!)

Deep breaths….deep breaths….deep breaths….deep breaths…..relax your neck….relax your neck….relax your body….relax your body….deep breaths…..deep breaths…..NOT WORKING!

Five kids…a LOT! Too many? Who would I give back? No one.

Deep breaths….relax your jaw….deep breaths….knots in the stomach….breathe into that space….deep breaths…..

God, You have promised to give me what I NEED, not necessarily what I want. I NEED Your help, Heavenly Father……..

Life is overwhelming…..schedule is always overpacked….where do I hide? Beneath Your wings, Father? Cover me…..

More deep breaths….one thing at a time….one foot in front of the other….deep breaths….deep breaths…..

In my weakness, Father, You are strong. You are my refuge. I’m running, Father. Do you see me? Of course? Will you catch me? Of course.

Deep breaths…deep breaths….one step at a time….recognize the stress and de-fuse from it….deep breaths….deep breaths….

Relax….I lie down in Your arms, Father….I rest in You….

Why am I up at 2:15 in the morning worrying about the work that my middle schooler hasn’t finished for school tomorrow? I know that I’m going to get him up at 5:40 to finish it, and I know that he’ll be sitting at the dining room table as soon as he gets home from school finishing a project that I wanted finished last night. I have no plans to go wake him up from where he fell asleep studying for a test so why can’t I just roll over, let it go, and sleep? He’s sleeping just fine.

I suppose it’s because I’ve learned (finally after 43 freakin’ years) that I live in a “just one more thing” mode. I’ve known for years now that there are certain things that I have to have done before I can leave the house even if doing so makes me late. For example, I can’t leave dishes in the sink, and my bed has to be made. My list used to be a lot longer, but since punctuality is something I’ve been working on, I’ve had to shorten the list. Still…..there’s always one more thing.

This morning, I took little Kitty to school, and on the way, she realized that she didn’t have her book for reading to the class or her tennis shoes for P.E. Deciding that she could be a few minutes late, I turned around and let her go back for them, something I don’t usually do. Of course, as soon as she got to school, she realized that she didn’t have her homework from the night before. It was lying on the stairs that she had climbed up and down numerous times. Knowing that it was hard work and knowing that I would be out of the house in only a couple of hours, I told her that I would drop it by the school so that she wouldn’t have to go to study hall and re-do it. Once again, I don’t normally take homework left at home back to the school. Suffer the consequences and move on; however, today I decided that I really didn’t mind.

Upon returning home, I sat down at the computer to e-mail Carson’s teachers about some make-up work, which ended up taking me a good hour. That led to my answering a couple of e-mails that had to do with the first service Sunday which led to my checking my bank balance which led to……10:10 and Rowland’s phone call. We had to take Carson to get his passport, and we both had to be present. He was finished with his morning tasks and was ready to go. After asking for an hour to get ready and get Jia ready, I remembered that I hadn’t called in Rowland’s prescription refill. It was just one little thing so I quickly phoned it in to the pharmacy. As I was getting in the shower, I received a text message from Hollie reminding me that I needed to order the bouttoniere (too late to care that that’s misspelled!) for her prom date. As I was getting out of the shower, the doorbell rang. It was Hollie’s boyfriend who had stopped by to decorate her room for prom. (He had called earlier, but my mind had since moved on to other things.) He decorated while I continued to get ready, then let himself out of the house. I actually got ready pretty quickly and was only interrupted one other time. This time, it was Rowland calling to tell me that Hollie was sick at school and asking me to call in permission for her to come home. Since I still hadn’t had breakfast (11:10 now), I ran downstairs and made myself a bagel. While waiting for it to toast, I called the school to excuse Hollie then called Hollie to tell her she could come home. Oh, and what about the bouttoniere? I quickly grabbed the phone book, looked up the flower shop, and called in the order. While spreading cream cheese on my bagel, I was digging through my purse to get my Visa to give to the flower shop. Jia, who had not been hungry or thirsty up to this point, decided that she, too, needed something. That’s okay…..just one more thing.

Finally, I grabbed all of the paperwork for Carson’s passport along with the grocery list and Kitty’s homework from the counter and headed out the door. As I raced to meet Rowland, I realized that I wasn’t going to have time to go by the school. Hopefully, I’d be able to get Kitty’s work to her in time later. Once I met Rowland, I quickly filled out the passport paperwork and realized that I had left Mom’s address at home. I called her, filled it in, and headed to the post office halfway across town. There was no line, and we were in and out quickly so, remembering that I had run out of face powder and seeing the proximity of the mall, I decided to “run in” to grab my face powder. While there, I remembered that I also “needed” a more decent bathing suit that didn’t make me look fat so I quickly tried a couple of them on only to remember that I HATE bathing suits and that my legs were still hanging out of the bottom of all of them!

Jia and I dragged ourselves out of the mall, both feeling like we couldn’t walk anymore because of our starvation and drove through Burger King before heading back to town. Once in town, I knew that I only had a few minutes to drop off Kitty’s homework and made the quick decision that I would check her out of school an hour early so that I wouldn’t have to return for her an hour later. The goal, of course, was one more thing to make one less thing!

As I walked into the door at home, I was desperate for a quick hour nap before Jia had to leave for dance. I checked my computer for teacher’s responses and realized that I now had several “one more things” to address with my precious Carson. An hour later, Rowland walked in the door, saw me at the computer and asked why I hadn’t taken my nap. Once explanations were out of the way and Carson was put on task, I grabbed some caffeine and flew out the door to dance. While Jia was at dance, I ran to the grocery store, barely making it back in time to pick her up. Meanwhile, I remembered a couple of items that I’d forgotten at the store and stopped back by again after phoning little Kitty and telling her for William and her to get on their homework. I knew that I had a Freshman class preparation meeting at the high school so, once home, I ran into the house to get to work on dinner (Rowland had already gone to band practice.) and calculated nutrition tables for one of Carson’s assignments. It took me 40 minutes, and I knew that he’d either never get it figured out or it would take him literally hours. Hollie had instructions for all of the kids to be bathed and in bed by the time I returned at 8:15. I grabbed a Power Bar and a Diet Dr. Pepper and stuffed them down my throat on the way to the school. Of course, the administrator was a “one more thing” person, too, so the meeting ended 25 minutes late at which time I had to drive back into town to get gas or risk running out in the morning. By 9:00, Rowland was lying on the bed, the girls were asleep (almost), William was in bed, Hollie was still lying on the couch asking for nausea medication (one more thing?), and I was going over completed work with Carson. At 10:00 I took my sleeping pill, my one last thing, and was dead to the world.

Now, it’s 2:56 a.m., and everyone in the house is sound asleep, and I’m up worrying about my son getting the rest of his work done before school. Just one more thing……

It’s baseball time again!!!! That means lots of purple, lots of hot dogs, a little bit of beer, lots of hollering, lots of dancing and singing, and hopefully lots of winning games!!! Rowland took Carson, William, and little Kitty to the game this past weekend, and the Rockies won with a little help from their fans!!

All of the eighth graders at Carson’s school have to make a roller coaster each year. There are certain requirements regarding turns, drops, etc., but other than that, creativity is key. Carson, in true Carson fashion, designed a rock’n'roll roller coaster named “Gene’s Tongue” in honor of Gene Simmons. The marble rolled right out of Gene’s mouth and passed through rock’n'roll posters, a pedal, and even a guitar. Great job, Carson!!

Click on the middle of the picture for the video to play!!

As I’m constantly trying to figure out “who” Kitty really is and what really makes her tick, I have come to one realization. I am a REAL Colorado girl! I L-O-V-E the snow! I don’t even mind the cold as long as there is SNOW!!! And we definitely have it! It is so clean, so pure, so absolutely beautiful. I have no idea how much snow we have, but Rowland says it’s about 30 inches, and it’s still snowing! BEAUTIFUL!!!!! I don’t care if it’s the middle of April. A nice, clean coat of snow lifts my spirits. It’s so bright and clean, washing all the old away. From now on when I sing about Jesus’ washing me white as snow, I know EXACTLY what that means!

I try not to take pictures without people, but it’s just too beautiful to neglect.

And My Daughters Still Wear Shorts!

Thank you, God, for raising Your Son from the dead for without His resurrection, His death would have been in vain. Without His Resurrection, we would be destined to a life with no hope of an eternity with You.

All of my children say that Easter is their favorite of all holidays that we celebrate. I’m not sure why exactly, but it is always filled with joy and laughter, the kind that comes from just being together as a family. After church and short naps, we went across the street to Joe and Jeannie’s and enjoyed a wonderful late lunch / early dinner with their family. We waited for our traditional Easter egg hunt until we got home around 6:00. This year, Carson decided to help Jia with her hunting rather than to hunt himself. What a fabulous day!!! Enjoy the pictures!

Our Family with Our Newest “Daughter,” Hollie

Really, Rowland, Purple?

You Know What They Say about Girls with Guitars!

Carson “Supervising”

Sissy on the Hunt

William’s Sharp Eye

Can You Help Me, Daddy?