A LampPost Flickering

I haven't written too much about our homeschool time. This is our third year "officially" homeschooling. Every year I have a distinct plan that I want to follow, and so far it's never gone as I planned. In 2005, I had no idea how the adoption process and fundraising was going to consume my time. Last year, I didn't plan on the transition of adding Lily to our family being so difficult. And this year, well, I've started babysitting for a four-month-old little boy, and his kindergartener brother, whom I must pick up from school, and Lily has speech therapy that takes us away from the house eight hours a week. In addition, I'm tutorting at least 2 hours, sometimes 3 hours, a week and now leading a women's prayer group on Thursday evenings. Never is there a day that I can sit down with my kids and "do school" for several hours in a row a day. Now some of you may be thinking that I'm doing my school-aged kids a true disservice. And daily I DO

My days are FULL! We have so much going on, and I'm struggling to keep you updated regularly. I decided not to feel guilty but to just do what I can. Life is hard right now, but I'm only chronicling the good stuff. And later, maybe much later, I'll have more good stuff to share, and I'll begin it with, "Look at how God worked in this difficult situation!" A couple of weeks ago, I felt spontaneous, and declared that day, "Fasnacht Family Fun Friday." Unfortunately the head Fasnacht still had to work without too much fun, but the kids and I spent the day thinking up as many fun things to do (cheaply) as we could. We started off, after Lily's morning speech therapy session, heading to a state park nearby called Russ Forest. It has several trails, and we walked through the maze of paths for an hour and half!!! before we ended up at the play ground. Okay, so the last half hour of that walk was less than fun for my tired crew, but we truly enjoyed the

Please, please, please is there anyone out there who could bring this little girl home??? She is SO, SO cute, and look what a happy toddler she is! Here is a little bit about this little one, born on 12/20/2004 and found on New Year's Eve in Guilin, Guanxi Province, China: "She was found next to a lottery post near Fuli Hospital in Guilin City on December 31, 2004. Officials were unable to locate her parents and family; she was declared an abandoned infant and taken to the SWI with the permission of Guilin City Civil Welfare Office. She has been living with a foster family since April 25, 2005. She likes cartoons as well as the weekly Peking Opera program, she loves music. She loves to go out to railroad club, fresh market, supermarket, and to parks with her foster mother everyday. She loves eggs and flour products. In September 2005 she had cleft lip surgery and had her cleft palate surgery in 2006 . She can sing children songs and can count to 20 with help. She likes to meet

October is one of my favorite months. I even love the way the name October rolls off the tongue into the autumn air and is then whisked away by the curt breeze along with the swirling leaves. October holds tons of birthdays for my family, including my mom, Rob, Seth, my dad, Rob's brother Ryan, our nieces Emmaly and JoAnna, and our nephew Nathaniel. October has held her share of broken heartedness as well. On Sunday, one of my friends passed away after a long, difficult battle with cancer. She was only 55. Yesterday was her funeral. She was a faithful believer, and I'm so thankful that she is no longer suffering. Still, we miss her. October is also the anniversary of the deaths of my best friend and sister-in-law, Erica and her daughter, my niece, MiKayla. Eleven years ago on October 4th, God allowed a horrific car accident to take them to Himself, leaving my brother, age 18, a widower and single father to 10-month-old Ralphie. I once thought that the pain of that day would nev

Today is Rob's birthday. The very first of his birthdays we celebrated together while we were "just friends," he hinted to me that Tori Amos was coming to town, and it happened to be the weekend of his birthday. I was lucky enough to score a couple of tickets, and we spent a great evening together reveling in the soul-touching beauty of live music. I wish we could spend every one of his birthdays like that. We couldn't go back to those days of sweet, newly blossoming romance, leaning towards one another, knees touching, hearts pounding along with the piano, meeting his eyes at a particularly captivating stanza to enjoy it together, wondering what God had in store for each of us, and PLEASE, God, could it include this wonderful man beside me? But I wouldn't for a minute trade the new, baby flower blossum of our early relationship for the gorgeous,fragrant, hardy yet delicate flower that is our marriage today. How could I have gotten so lucky to be paired forever wi