More celebrating!!

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Our next celebrations included Easter and TWO very special birthdays!!

Kayla was hosting again – thank you so much for that, Kay!!

The farm looked beautiful when we arrived there after church on Easter Sunday.


Our church service that day was FANTASTIC – so worshipful – the singing was BEAUTIFUL!!!

It was wonderful to have everyone together for Easter lunch afterward!

Kayla, Addie and I split up the meal preparations!

Lunch was DELICIOUS!!


Lane had a birthday two days after Easter!

So we celebrated him!!!

I cannot believe my Lane Stevan is sixteen years old!!

He is growing into a giant and already much taller than his mama.

It was fun to give him gifts to go along with his passion for all things STEM and robotics!


Kayla’s birthday was eight days after Easter!

So her Mom and Dad brought her birthday gift to our Easter celebration as well!

Saige loved the bow!!


Soon it was time for our annual Easter egg hunt for the younger children!

They love this little tradition that David and Kayla do!!

It was cold on Easter Sunday, but we had the hunt outside anyway!!

Then they came back in to open up their eggs.


Another fun celebration in the books!!!

Memories made and memories now kept!

I will say we are having some conversations about how we will handle celebrations now that our family is growing as Grant and Addie get married!

We will need to bunch them together more, I think!!

Time will tell!

Lane Stevan, you are turning into a WONDERFUL young man.

You have such a gentle spirit, soft heart, and show so much grace to everyone in your midst.

You are so, so smart – and we cannnot wait to see what the Lord does with your math and engineering mind!

Kayla Lauren, what a beautiful woman you have become.

You handle all the busy you have with laughter and a big smile on your face.

Your lighthearted spirit shows in your children!

The Lord has immensely blessed your and David’s efforts in so many areas of your life.

I pray often for the two of you to keep Jesus first, and the Lord is hearing my prayers!

Happy, happy birthday to my oldest and youngest birth children!!

What an immense privilege to celebrate you both!!

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!

Our FIRST celebration for Grant and Kamryn!!

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Welcome to my new blog series called “celebrations!!”, ha, ha!

We have had many celebrations as of late, and they are just starting!!

All of them for VERY, very good reasons!

Kayla, Addie and I hosted a bridal shower for Kamryn.

(Addie helped us plan for the shower, but was out of the country on a trip when the shower took place!)

It was a WONDERFUL celebration!!

We had the BEST time!!

Kamryn and Grant are blessed with SO much support as they start their lives together and they received so many thoughtful gifts!

Kayla and I got her home ready for the party while everyone was at church the second to last Sunday in March.

We had the such a good time planning and preparing for this day!!

I will let the photos tell the story!


I will add here that I had had a pretty strong conversation with Jesus early that morning about the weather.

Thankfully we live in Wisconsin where very few are afraid of a little weather because we are used to it!

During the shower that day it snowed almost the whole time.

Thankfully it was a wet snow during the afternoon and it was not sticking to anyone’s cars or the driveway at Kayla’s!

From what I heard, all of our guests arrived home safely before the real storm started.

I was still at Kayla’s, but Blake had dropped me off that morning – SO thankful we planned it that way!

Blake and the children came back to pick me up, but we were in the thick of it and barely made it home.

We also stopped to help someone who had slid off the road and was in a ditch.

I was SO thankful Blake was driving!!!


Even with the snow that day, it was the MOST PERFECT CELEBRATION!!

It could not have went better if I had been able to plan every single detail.

We are in WEDDING SEASON!!!!

Grant and Kamryn’s wedding is approaching quickly!!!

We are SO VERY EXCITED!!!

Everything is going to be SO beautiful!

It was a joy like no other to be able to plan and host a shower for my new daughter-in-law!

Thank you to everyone who joined us that day and supported my son and daugther-in-law!

We appreciate each one of you!!

And we had the BEST time!!!

Happy 12th Birthday, Eliza Claire!!!

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Our baby is TWELVE!!!

March 12th was Eliza’s GOLDEN birthday!!!!

That thing called time is CRAZY fast.

Eliza was SO excited about her birthday!!

We were SO excited to celebrate her!!

Eliza is tall for her age and such a beautiful girl.


Eliza asked for fish tacos and a chocolate cake with raspberries for her birthday meal and dessert.

You got it baby girl!!


We celebrated Eliza on a Sunday after church so the whole family could be there!

We were just missing Kamryn who was on a trip and out of town.

We missed her!!

After we ate lunch, Eliza opened her gifts.

I wish I could put a video here of all the funny things she said!!!


After all her other gifts were open, I had made a scavenger hunt for Eliza!

Even Kayla said, “Wow, Mom, that is creative!” as Eliza read the words of each clue to find her next clue!

I had been home alone the whole day before this party happened, so I guess the house was quiet enough for me to think of these cute little poems to help her find her last gift!

It was SO fun to watch all the grandchildren follow her around the house as she figured it out!

Eliza needed a new bike.

When she found her gift she said, “I thought it would be a new bike! Because I needed one! And you and Dad always give us what we need for our birthday!”

Sweet girl!!


Soon it was time to sing to our Zi and eat that cake and cupcakes!!

Addie Mae made the dessert, of course!

It was beautiful and I heard it was delicious!!


The rest of the afternoon the children played and the rest of us just enjoyed BEING TOGETHER.

What Sundays are made of!!


Birthdays make me reflective.

Especially when the birthday is for our youngest who the Lord brought to us from half way around the world.

Eliza will be home ten years this summer, as she was two years and four months old the day she was placed into our waiting arms.

My love for my youngest daughter is fierce and deep.

And super protective like only an adoptive mama could understand.

Some say they love their children all the same.

But I don’t think that is true!

We love our children differently here – because they all have different love languages, needs, and ages.

Love is unique.

It is not the same.

The Lord helped us fight hard for our youngest two children to be a part of our family – and that kind of love is just different!

I can never find the words with enough depth to say how very unworthy we are to be Mom and Dad to our Eliza.

She is a gift like no other.

The most precious child growing and maturing into the most special young lady.

Thank you, Lord, for our He Jie Zhao!!!

We are thrilled to be able to celebrate her!!!

Happy, happy golden birthday, Eliza Claire!!

We love your spunky personality, and how much you love pencils, paper, words, and crafts.

We love how athletic you are!!

We love how much you love animals and how nurturing you are.

You are SO special!!!

AND WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

Our Little Weekend Trip

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The first weekend of March took us on a last minute weekend trip!

If you have been here for awhile, you already know about our little weekend trips we take to Illinois and Indy!

We LOVE this trip!

Because it takes us to see our extended family!

We left on a Thursday night after Blake arrived home from work.

Tate and Eliza were part of our travel team this time, and we headed to Peoria, Illinois, and straight to our hotel for the night.

We are becoming friends with the folks who own this hotel!!

They remember us and we spend a lot of time chatting with them.


When it is just Blake, Tate, Eliza and I, we only need one hotel room – which is really nice – but limits my early morning self to have my quiet time and coffee in the bathroom of all places!

I did not want to wake everyone else up!

This time I had a very good reason to be up early anyway as I was sneaking out of the room to go and visit a friend at seven o’clock that morning.

We had the BEST visit that was WAY too short!

Please note the temperature as I headed out that morning!

It was so freezing cold, but that changed before the weekend was over.


Once I was back with my crew we finished getting ready and headed over to see Ross and Lilli.

It was SUCH a sweet morning and afternoon with them!

We took them out for lunch and found this wonderful deli that had many gluten-free options.

Eliza loved it so much she got a second sandwich!!

It always makes me so happy when the kiddos can get out and do things like just eat a sandwich that is safe.


Mid afternoon we headed to Morton to meet Blake’s Mom at our favorite coffee spot – Four30 Scones.

It was another opportunity to let the kids have a treat!

It is so fun to meet there to visit and have treats together!

Tate asked the owner what she was making someone who had come through the drive through, and so she brought him some of it – a shamrock shake.

Yes, he ate that all too!

We also got some scones to take to my Mom and brother.


Early that evening we hit the road to head to Indy, which is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Morton.

When we got to our hotel, we ran into some friends from many years gone by!!

And they had some friends who were also in the area that were coming to see them there, who were also our friends from years gone by!

It was SO FUN to stand in the lobby and chat with everyone!!!

What are the chances???

Then we headed to our room and got settled in for the night.

We had a wonderful suite with a kitchen, but only one bed and a pull out couch.


We woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning, devotions in the bathroom again, and soon headed to see my brother and my Mom!

My heart is stretched SO much on these short trips – as they are NEVER long enough – but I know that we would always rather do them more often than stay for a whole week at at time.


My brother took us to all of our favorite stops!

More coffee treats, grocery shopping for lunch, and Chipotle and ice cream for dinner.

He always buys the kids treats before we get there too – like Izzy pop!

We had a WONDERFUL visit and got to meet one of my Mom’s new caretakers who we love.


We spent Sunday morning with my brother and Mom too, and then headed out for the long drive home right before lunch time.

It is a LONG drive on the Sunday’s that we do this!

But super duper worth it!!

The weather that first weekend of March ended up to be crazy warm!

Just look at the temp on the dashboard as we headed home!


Home will always be my favorite place to be.

How I wish home also had all of these very special people right next door.

I picture it in my mind ALL the time how special it would be for them to be a part of our everyday lives!

I do know that this shapes the conversations we have with our own children about our future and how we will always do our best to stay close by to each other, Lord willing.

They see the need for this vision too!

When we turn down our road after that long drive I get teary.


Teary for the fact that we made it back home safely.

Teary for the fact that I cannot be in all the places I wish I could be.

Teary for the fact that time with our most precious loved ones is always WAY too short.

Teary for the fact that it gets harder to say “see you next time” every time we go there.

That’s the way it is for right now.

Until next time!

And we have plans to go back again already very soon.

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