handsful

So, we’re in Florida right now…and, it’s hot. Though, I hear it’s just as hot back in NC.

We’re here so that Abbey, Marley, Payton, and Ethan can be student leaders in our previous church’s Power Up Clubs. If you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time, you might remember what that is. In a nutshell…

80+ church members have offered to host and donated their front yards.
27 teams made up of 7 people each (age 12 up to college, plus 1 adult leader)
Each team puts on 3 clubs per day – 10am, 5pm, and 6:45pm.
Each club lasts 1 1/2hours and it’s made up of music, drama, games, snacks…think VBS without the church building :)
The kids spend the whole week at church…girls in one building, and guys in another. A whole staff of church members have the daunting task of feeding them 3 meals plus a snack each day. God bless them.

This is Abbey’s 3rd year doing PUC, and the trips 2nd. They have been beside themselves excited to do this again. And, let me tell you…it ain’t easy. It’s work. In very hot weather, sometimes in yards with little to no shade.

But, none of that matters. They get to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Something that puts Christ on display in front yards all over the city. Something that I pray will grow them in their faith, while they show kids what it means to love God without bounds.

This morning at church, the kids busted into the sanctuary (for all 3 services) with all the energy that 180 teens have, and did one of the PUC songs for the congregation. Forgive the blurry pics…

Abbey and Payton in this one.

And, Marley. It took us a while, but we finally found Ethan in the back. Because we saw his hat.

After church, we took the kids to lunch. Zach, one of the boys best buds, joined us. Guess it was pretty sunny, since 2 of them had to shut their eyes for the pic.

Move in time. Having 2 girls and 2 boys doing this, means we end up walking back and forth (and back and…) between the two buildings.

Abbey’s little corner of the world for the week. She’s been in the same room with the same friends for all 3 years.

Marley’s room. She’s the one in the red shirt. Heh.

The littles loved being around all those teenage girls. Two of the girls in Marley’s room took a special interest in them. These are sisters, both adopted from China. Elizabeth and Emeline spent a ton of time with them, letting them play with their phones and taking pictures with them. How sweet.

Abbey and Angelina – friends for years.

Over in teenage boy world, here is Payton and Ethan’s room. Payton has an air mattress, pillow, and blanket. Who needs a sheet, right? Ethan’s bed has a yellow ball on it. ?

I found Ethan in the jr. high room. The theme for this years PUC is Superheros, so each team comes up with their team name and signature (i.e. color bandana, mask, etc.)

Ethan might be taking it a tad too far. Not sure if this is superhero or terrorist?

They had their first clubs tonight. Payton has a part in his team’s drama, as does Abbey. Marley and Ethan give their testimony tonight at their clubs. I’ll be sharing pics of the clubs we take the littles too – you can be sure. Like you doubted.

Tomorrow…pictures of our afternoon at the beach with Lainey and Dylan (his first time!)

I realize the blog has been full to the brim with lake pictures lately. So, this one is for the grand parents, who truly want to see more of them! Sorry to the rest of you :)

Marley loves the new skis

Anna Grace and Marley strap into the knee boards. There are no pictures to prove it, but I actually knee boarded for the first time on Friday. Got up on my second try. It’s harder than it looks!

Samara…she also did some skiing, but I somehow deleted them all. Makes me a rotten aunt, don’t you think??

So, I’ll post two of her on the knee board. She’s making it over the wake here. She had a massive fall off the tube on Friday and pulled a muscle in her leg. Lake fun is dangerous.

She also joined Lainey in kneeboarding. This is the first time Lainey has held onto the rope, rather than just the sides of the board. I didn’t see it, but she had a scary moment when she fell and the board flipped over with her legs still strapped in. Randy said he swam like lightning to her, but she freed herself before he got to her. Kinda glad I didn’t witness it.

Micah, getting some serious air on the board. He tried skiing too, but couldn’t quite make it all the way up.

This is the closest he got. Not bad.

Josiah, the youngest of Randy’s brother’s family.

Sister-in-law, Dee Dee. She loved the kneeboard, said she could’ve done it all day. She was good, too. She rode with me when I tried, and was very encouraging as I struggled that first time!

All of these pictures are from Saturday. We went out on Friday too, but didn’t have the camera. It was that day that Ethan, Gabe, and Payton rode the tube together. Randy likes to give tube riders a good time (eh), and all three fell off at the same time. Ethan’s eye was cut, did alot of swelling, and is now a nice purple color across the whole lid.

Gabe. He loved trying everything and going BIG when he did.

Kneeboarding can be done in twos, which helps a lot when you’ve got 11 kids that wanna do things!

Ethan and Micah

We’re getting a lot of use out of our skis this year, since the kids got a new pair for their birthday. We even pulled out the adult skis.

Yes, that’s Randy doing something OTHER than driving the boat. I’m not the best boat driver (he’s gonna teach me), so having Tony here gave him a chance to ski. It had been years, but he got right up.

Tony also took a turn.

Of course, Ethan had to show everyone how it’s done on the wakeboard.

And, how to fall gracefully.

I don’t have shots of Abbey – I wasn’t on the boat when she was, and the weather was getting really windy – making it hard to take pictures. I’m told she landed some really good jumps on the kneeboard, and has the sore muscles to prove it. Dylan rode the kneeboard on Friday (again, a no-picture day), and did a lot of swimming on Saturday. He just asked Randy a second ago if we could “go boating”. Most of us are just about boated-out this weekend!

But, we had a wonderful time, no serious injuries, and no bad sunburns. Success.

This past weekend, our trio of 13 year olds invited their friends over for a day of lake fun to celebrate their birthday.

The weather was less than perfect, but not a party-canceler by any means. Just cloudy and cool. The water temp (82) was warmer than the air (72)!

That didn’t stop them. After pizza….

They headed out on the boat. Thankfully, we got the new boat the day before. We had 13 kids and Randy drove. Boat holds 14. Nice.

They left at 1:10. Party was scheduled to end at 4:00.

4:00 came and went, and parents started arriving. Still no Randy.

Time got away from them, and they pulled in at the dock about 4:30.

Worked out nicely, all the parents got to share the brownies and birthday cakes.

These cakes went like lightning. I never got a piece!

Party went perfectly, everyone had a blast, and I’m clear of birthdays for a while! Whew!

* Monday – Friday…VBS at church. Up and out early everyday. Abbey was a teen leader – helped teach the little cheerleaders, which she loved. Lainey was a big Kindergartner, the youngest group at VBS. I have to admit, being able to run a quick errand between the drop off and getting back home was priceless.

* Well check for Marley, Payton, and Ethan. All healthy and doing great…all below average in weight, some more than others! They survived their vaccines. The doctor we saw was very thorough (really like her), and the appointment was long!

* Okay, I’m cheating…Lainey and Dylan’s well check was last week. I’m gonna talk about it anyway. Lainey is 42.4lbs. (75%) and 44.5″ (90%). Who said Asian kids are small?? Dylan – on the other hand – is 27lbs (<3%) and 38.5" (25%). Yes, you read that right. He's STILL 27lbs. Same as almost 8 months ago. The doctor isn't terribly worried. He is growing in height. But, she did order blood work to rule out anything that could be an issue. * Wednesday was supposed to be Marley and Ethan's dentist appt, but we got stuck in traffic and thought we weren't going to make it. Called the dentist, and she said come on...as long as we're not more than 10min late, we're fine. Traffic clears and I know we're gonna make it. Whew! Dentist calls my cell...they've had an equipment failure and need to cancel. Sheesh. New appt? Next Tuesday at 7:30am. Oy. * Don't even get me started about Thursday. Spent most of the day in the van, driving what felt like thousand's of miles, carting kids here and there and always feeling like I was gonna be late. Started driving at 8am, finally drove back home for the last time at 8pm. Still tired. * Today...was great. Nice ending to a whirlwind week. VBS was great. They had the Finale celebration for the parents and Lainey was cute as a button on stage, singing and doing her hand motions. We had some downtime around the house in the afternoon, and then decided it was time to put the new boat into the water.

Verdict? We love it. Now, we adored our previous boat…we’d had it since the trips were Lainey’s age. But, this one holds more people (we’d about maxed out the other one with just our family), so we can have friends over for boating.

Speaking of friends…Marley, Payton, and Ethan are having their birthday party tomorrow! They’ve each invited friends over for pizza, cake, and lake stuff (kayaking, swimming, and boat fun). Stay tuned for pictures.

This week. It’s been full, frantic, frustrating, and fun.

Remember this picture? Somehow, Dylan managed to always get in the middle of everyone else’s birthday pictures! The lucky girl getting “iced” here is named Hope. She was adopted a couple of months before Dylan, and her mom Amy is a cyber friend of mine. They live in Orlando, FL.

As only God could ordain, one of Amy’s travel mates lives in our small town, her son also being from Luoyang. Amy and her family drove down to spend a few days with them. Hearing that we lived here too, Nickie was gracious and invited us to their home for dinner, so we could all meet. Dylan and Hope would see each other again! This time, with their forever families!

I printed the above picture for Dylan, and told him about our upcoming visit. He was very excited, telling me over and over that he liked Hope and wanted to see her.

All the kids spent time playing while the adults talked and finished cooking. Hope has 2 older brothers, one of which became an instant friend of our boys. Nickie and her husband have 4 kids, including Alex from Luoyang (he’s younger and was in a different room from Hope and Dylan).

Hope and Dylan were obviously happy to be around each other, but they were kinda coy about it.

Hope has the biggest smile, and most adorable laugh ever.

After dinner, they played upstairs while Amy and I snapped pictures and talked about our Luoyang buddies.

Hope wasn’t too smiley, but every time Dylan would hug her, she’d blush and look away. It was too cute.

Speaking of smiley…gracious, we look happy huh? I promise no alcohol was consumed that night!

We ended the night with a take on the Red Couch pictures in Guangzhou…this time, it was the Striped Couch picture :) Alex, Hope, Dylan, and Lainey. Our China blessings.

Last shot of the night. Dylan decides to plant one right on Hope’s cheek. Lainey is laughing, thinking “yep, that’s my brother!” Alex is thinking “hmmm…why didn’t I think of that?!”

We LOVED meeting Hope’s family! We feel very blessed to be able to connect with an orphanage mate of Dylan’s. Can’t wait till we can get together again!

Before, they were just kids.

Now, they’re teenagers. Unfortunately, that word “teenager” can be viewed negatively these days. We prefer to think of Marley, Payton, and Ethan as entering young adulthood. Which, I honestly can’t get my head around.

Has it really been that long since they looked like this?

Care to guess who is who??

Can you stand the cuteness?!

And, today…

Marley becomes more like me everyday. People even say she looks like me. Lover of all animals, rider of horses. Requests regular late night talks with mom. Sweet and quiet, but can be grouchy. (you know it’s true, Marley!)

Giving their best teenager glare

Payton? He’s my height. Already has his own cartoon character (you’ll be seeing Harry the Stick Dude in print one of these days), is learning to play the drums, and has a heart for others.

Ethan desperately wants a growth spurt. He has a style all his own – shaggy hair, shaken just right. Skinny black (never blue) jeans, loafers, and plaid fedora hat. Musician is written all over him. And, he’s good.

All those years ago…coming home from the ultrasound that showed we were expecting three babies. We were so blessed. Given the privilege of carrying those three babies was awesome. I remember Sundays at church, when we would sing “I sing for joy at the work of your hands”…those words made me smile and cry, all at the same time.

How could we have imagined what they’d be like today? 13 and they are such wonderful kids. Such different personalities, and different likes/dislikes. We thought we were blessed back then? We had no idea.

Their day was fairly normal at first, since it was a work day for Randy. I did make them cinnamon rolls for breakfast, of course. When present time rolled around, Marley went first.

Abbey gave her a birds coloring book (the kind for big kids), and we gave her a tee shirt and Toms. Which means I got a new pair, since we wear the same size. Yippee.

Abbey gave the boys coon skin hats (they loved), and we gave them a dad/son day at the shooting range. They’re at the age where anything involving fire or shooting things is cause for excitement.

As a gift to all, they got a new pair of skis and a new knee board. Marley has really been wanting to learn to ski, and we only had adult size. These are junior size. And, our kids are all doing so well on our current knee board, this one will allow them to do more tricks. Everyone was excited over these!

After much discussion, we decided to head to Outb*ck for dinner. Given it was a Thursday night, it wasn’t busy and we got right in.

Big dishes of ice cream with cookies, and the standard quick clapping birthday song.

We were the last to leave. lol…

Another triplet pose…gosh, I like this one.

Heading home for cupcakes…

Directing our rendition of happy birthday…

Make a wish!

And now, it’s true. We really have the Bigs and Littles. I can now say they are the Teens and the Kids.

July 4th around here means more than red, white and blue. More than fireworks, corn on the cob, and watermelon.

It means our blessings from China are having a birthday! Lainey Q is now 5…the age she’s been DYING to turn for so long. And, Dylan Y is a big boy at age 4.

The day began just like last year. A July 4th parade that passes right by our house. We drag the chairs to the end of our driveway and wave :)

Of course, there’s candy to get.

Present time! Prior to this, Randy led everyone in an opera version of Happy Birthday. Yep, that’s my husband.

Birthday boy

Birthday young lady!

Laughing at daddy’s opera

Someone loves her new watch…she’s been asking for one for a while now. She also got an 18″ doll and clothes for her.

Dylan loves this, he’s played with it everyday. Highly recommended if you have a little guy who likes daddy’s tools!
He also got a watch, and a kid sized tape measure.

Next request for their birthday was to go boating. We were happy to oblige.

Dylan is fully on board now, as far as swimming and boating go. He bobs along in the waves, wearing his green monster floatie, happy as can be. We affectionately refer to Lainey as our “fish”.

That night, we made the mistake of asking them where they’d like to go eat for their special day. We had our hopes high. We ended up at Taco B*ll.

Since we have 3 other birthdays this week, I decided against making 5 full birthday cakes. Who needs THAT much cake? Cupcakes worked much better. Especially since they get to decorate their own.

Was the day done then? Nope. Another boat ride, this time at night. We went out about 9pm, and cruised around looking at all the fireworks. We felt like those tornado chasers! Instead, we were chasing fireworks. We got home around 10:30…don’t tell Randy I told you, but, we got LOST. Abbey pointed us in the right direction.

I think Dylan really enjoyed his first birthday with us. It makes me sad to think that he had those first 3 without us – and without anyone to really make it special. We’re taking care of that now. And, Lainey….I can’t believe this is her 4th birthday with us! She’s growing into such a beauty. This year has been difficult for her. Really. But, we’re working on the rough spots and I know God will honor her (and our!) hard work.

Happy Birthday, Lainey and Dylan!