Easter week

This year was not a typical Easter holiday for us. On Friday night March 29th, my step-dad John passed away. By the Grace of God I was able to get a seat on the 6am flight out of Amarillo to Dallas and I then rented a car and drove the rest of the way. I was in my moms living room by 11:30am!
   James and the kids stayed behind for two reasons Makayla had her STAAR test (Texas state testing) and his mom already had plans to fly in and spend Easter with us. It was hard for me to go without them and miss Easter with them but I have an amazing husband and he put me on that plane and ran this house like the Super Dad that he is for an entire week! I never had to worry about things here and I was able to concentrate on my mom.  He is a huge blessing to me.
  James, the kids and his mom had a great Easter! Our church children's ministry had a surprise waiting on them Easter morning.

They loved it and had fun looking for the eggs!

My blessings on Easter Sunday...

2 good-looking studs

GG and her grand babies

       They had a great Easter and James cooked a big meal for everyone including my Dad.

James' mom aka GG stayed for a few days and they had a blast!

I know she was a big help to James and they really enjoyed spending time with her.

 

While I was home, I did find joy and perks in seeing and loving on all those nephews of mine!

 

John's funeral was on Tuesday April 2nd and it was beautiful.

You can view his obituary and photo gallery here:

http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=John-Rowe&lc=4040&pid=163972835&mid=5478850

I am so thankful I was able to stay with my mom until Friday. John will be missed greatly. He was wonderful to my mom, he bought her love and happiness and my children loved him dearly. In times like these we can only lean on God's word and I am standing firm on it!

 Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

I find peace in knowing John's homecoming was on Easter weekend, what an amazing time to go to Heaven.

 

 

 

 

A big change and a new beginning

James and I have been praying and thinking alot about school for our children next year. We actually started trying to make a decision about school next year in January!
Our kids have been in a private Christian school for the past two years and we have loved it! It has been a huge blessing in our lives to be surrounded by other Christian parents, for our kids to be loved on and taught by wonderful Godly teachers. They grew leaps and bounds in their spiritual walks the last two years. It was hard for us to come to the conclusion that we were going to look for a new school.
We had pretty much decided to homeschool next year when God put Vista Academy in our lives. We honestly didn't know that much about it but I had a friend whose child goes there so I contacted her and she encouraged us to meet with the principal. So we sat up a meeting for a Wednesday afternoon.
As soon as James and I walked in the principal's office I could see his seminary degree hanging on the wall. I took it as a sign from God! James and I talked to Mr. Griffin for almost an hour and then toured the school. We felt so good about everything we were hearing and seeing. So good in fact, we scheduled to bring the kids back that same afternoon for a tour and to take their placement tests.
The kids loved it! The curriculum at Vista is reading based and self-pased and if you know my children this is perfect for them! They did over the top on their placement tests! James and I decided to go ahead and apply for the school and see what happened. We had been told there was a waiting list to get in and The principal told us there was one 5th grade spot left for next year so we went home and prayed for God's will.
On the following Friday we got a phone call from Vista saying that a family was moving over Spring Break whose children were in the same grades as ours(total God thing), and they would love to have our kids start after Spring Break!
James and I were a little hesitant since we weren't planning on changing them before finishing this school year but we decided to go ahead and change them since there is a waiting list at Vista and we really felt it was perfect for our kids and it was obviously all being orchestrated by God.
Yesterday we said good-bye to our SJCA family. It was a bitter-sweet day saying good-bye to people and a school we really loved and that had been such a blessing to our family.

This morning the kids started their first day at Vista Academy. They were very excited and everyone was so welcoming and kind! It is a great feeling as a parent to be so sure that a decision you made on behalf of your kids was orchestrated by God.

Spring Break 2013

I am a little sad that Spring Break has come to an end! We really enjoyed our week off. This is the first time in 5 years that we have not traveled anywhere. I love to travel but I have to admit our nice relaxing week was very enjoyable.

James and I took an adoption class and the kids stayed with one of their favorite sitters and went to lunch and to the movies.

We did some shopping this week together.

We went to the shooting range with friends.

The kids had their well child/adoption screenings. They got a combined 6 booster shots and 3 TB tests and they were huge troopers! They were so good. Don't worry, we soothed the shot pain with ice cream from Cold Stone.

Makayla spent alot of time this week at theater.

 

One night the boys had a camp out in the living room.

 

 One day we had a picnic at the park and played Frisbee, fed the ducks, and the kids played on the playground. The weather was so beautiful! We were even featured on the news that night buying treats from the ice cream man at the park!

 

 

 

We grilled this week and enjoyed a meal on the deck.

The weather was so nice!

I am sad to see Spring Break go, but it has given me a taste of what is to come this summer!

The Blizzard of 2013

This week we had a true blizzard! The news started warning us last weekend so on Sunday afternoon James went and picked up a few extra groceries, gassed up the cars, rented us some movies and bought some more wood inside.  A few hours after he got home the snow started. It really was not bad at all when we went to bed Sunday night but this is what we woke up to Monday morning.....

11 inches of snow in less than 12 hours and 55 mph winds and complete white-out conditions

The blizzard came to a halt late Monday afternoon, leaving in it's wake 19.1 inches of snow, wind gusts up to 77 mph and snow drifts as tall as me.

This drift was as tall as our wood pile.

The wind was so strong that there were complete bare spots in our yard and then huge drifts in other places.

 

Christopher on top of a drift!

James waist deep in a drift! It was alot of snow!

 

Monday and Tuesday were snow days not just for school but for the entire town! Tuesday morning James shoveled the sidewalk just so we could get to our cars, this is his "after" work!

We really did enjoy our four day weekend hanging out inside together and enjoying some family time!

 

The Lis Family 5 will be 6!

 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

John 14:18  NKJV

 

This verse has rang in my head over and over again for months. This journey started out as nothing more than reading a verse or hearing one at church. Have you ever heard the same thing over and over again and thought, "OK, God I am listening! I hear you!" That was us!

 

James read this verse first, " Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." James 1:27 After he read it, it sparked a conversation between us and opened a hole in our hearts we thought we had closed.

 

Back story: in 2010, we started the adoption process with a local agency and got almost to the end and that agency closed it's adoption division. We were upset

and at the time felt like God closed that door for his own reasons and we let it be. Until, a few months ago when God seemed to start pushing us through the adoption process again. 

 

We have always wanted a big family and after prayer and conversation we decided to add a precious addition to our family by adoption!!!

 

We have begun the process with Buckner International.

You can find their website here http://www.beafamily.org/about.shtml.

Some statistics we have found on domestic adoption are:

More than 6,000 abused and neglected children in Texas are awaiting adoption and about 60 percent of them are age 6 or older. The older the child, the longer they tend to wait for adoption.

 

In 2011, there were 13, 481 children in Texas alone waiting to be adopted.

 

Those numbers haunt me!

 

There are alot of choices out there for adoption including international, domestic, foster to adopt and infant.

 

James and I felt sure of our choice from the start and felt God was calling us to this program. It is called Texas Waiting Children. The description of Texas Waiting Children is Adopting a child who has been removed from their home because of challenging life situations. At any given time, there are children available for adoption through the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. These children have lived in traditional foster homes or residential programs, and for any number of reasons their parents’ rights have been terminated.

 

We have requested a girl ages 2-4 with no racial preference. We are so excited that our family is growing and I have heard, Adoption is the new pregnancy and we are eagerly awaiting our new addition.  I saw this on Valentine's Day and I love it!

We are still early on our journey but excited and blessed that God has trusted us enough to call us down this road. We can't wait to share our journey with you!

Our Valentine's Day

James and James Henry started off Valentine's Day 2013 with Dad's and Donuts. James Henry was so excited! He has been saying for weeks that on Valentine's Day he was going to eat donuts at school with his daddy!

 

 

 

The weekend before Valentine's Day, was what I like to call "Valentine's Day craft-a-palooza!"

18 "You make me feel squishy inside" play-doh Valentine's for James Henry's church class and preschool class.

54 "God's Conversation Hearts" for Makayla and Christopher's classes.

and 6 candy bar bouquet's for teacher gifts.

 

For the 2nd year in a row, we ordered the kids balloon-o-grams through their school.

They really like getting them as gifts!

 

oops! I'm not sure how I took this picture like this.

 

James Henry made us a Valentine at church on Wednesday night, and it is a true treasure!

 

We had a wonderful day together as a family and I spent my 13th Valentine's Day with my man this year!

We are so very blessed!

 

Snow Day!

We had a snowstorm come through on Monday night and it snowed all day yesterday! My ruler on the front porch says 4 inches but the weatherman says we got 6 inches total! Wow!

We don't always venture out in the snow, our southern roots tell us to hibernate until it's flip-flop weather but yesterday it seemed very inviting.

James pulled the kids around in the snow.

                                        
                                           We clowned around and threw some snowballs.

We built a pretty awesome snowman!

After a while we were cold and wet from our snowball fight so we headed in to some nice warm hot chocolate!

 

We spent the entire day just spending time together, and we finished the night with a hot bowl of veggie soup! Yum!