Wednesday, July 28, 2010

How Big is Your God?

Yesterday I was looking for the author of the saying "God does not call the equipped, He equips those He calls"
My online search came up with this web site.
I found another nugget that I need to remember "Don't tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big your God is."

We just came back from a wonderful weekend. Eight adults, 17 kids from age 18-2. We all (except 3 of us) stayed in the same house. Two bathrooms, one shower, oh and it rained!
It was my family, we normally camp in our front yard and cook over a fire, but this year we decided to drive five hours to my brother's big 3 story house and "camp" at his house and grill on the back porch.
On Sat. after a downpour the kids went out into the puddles in the back yard and threw water at each other. ( My niece has all the pictures) They used what ever they could find to throw the water. It was a blast until they decided they needed a shower. HAH! should've thought of that first!  Anyway, the girls were the oldest and they needed to wash their long manes of hair so they pulled rank and went first. The rest stood in line and dripped.  We washed the little kids one at a time in a big basin of water and called it good enough.
We are all still friends, right Tony?  Wonder whose house we will camp at next year?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Look What's Growing at Our House!

About a week ago DH brought two very tiny little caterpillars in from
the field. They had been munching Queen Ann's Lace.
You had to look real close to see the little critters.
Every few days you need to give them new food, they only eat parsley or
Queen Ann's Lace.

Yesterday the girls noticed the poor worms didn't have any food, only sticks.
We sent Middle brother for more food, he brought back what looked like the right stuff, but when DH came home he said that was a poisonous look-alike. The caterpillars were smart enough not to eat it!

Look at how big those caterpillars are!
Then early today I noticed the one caterpillar was hanging from the
stalk by a thread and was curled up. By this afternoon it looked like
the chrysalis you see on the second picture.

Hopefully I will be quick enough with the camera- In about 2 wks we should see a swallowtail butterfly hatch.
We have been watching for Monarch caterpillars, even planted    milk weed
in our garden, but still no caterpillars.

They have a very beautiful chrysalis.
Watching the caterpillar transform into a butterfly makes you wonder how anyone can doubt a God created world.

Monday, July 12, 2010

I Finished It!!!

After many months of labor. Well, actually I put it away for awhile
because I got very tired of it, but now I am finished.

The quilt with 120 fans....9 pieces in each fan....you do the math, it
was a lot of little pieces.

It was a special order from a grandma....she wanted to replace the very
old tattered quilt and make one similar. She chose the fabrics she had
used to make dresses and nightgowns and curtains for her children and
grand children. The fabric smelled of moth balls, but it was fun
re-making a quilt that will be full of memories.

Each of those points is hand appliqued because there just isn't a good
way to sew those points by machine.

We will see how much money it is worth tomorrow. The adoption fund keeps
growing a bit at a time.

Now I will start on something a bit simpler....a turkey! Show you later.

Friday, July 9, 2010

God's Promises

After all the heat this week, the storm clouds on the horizon were very welcome.

But then it started raining when the sun was shining!

Rainbow!

We raced out to the end of our drive (gotta see our place to understand) we got soaked, the sun was still shining and we saw it! a faint glow of a rainbow.

We walked back to the house, it was raining harder, but the sun was still shining and what should we find in our drive, but our very own Promise!

The girls acted like ducks that hadn't seen water in a while. All the while the rainbow shone on our drive.

I went in the house to dry my hair and it started raining harder, the kids ran out and found a double rainbow at the end of the drive and the one at the house shone very brightly again.

I will hang on to the reminder, after this week's goof up with our paperwork.
Also, this afternoon I received a call telling me that a dear friend needed to help make the decision to take her 20-something foster son off life support. I knew this kid since he was little and lately he seemed on a collision course with trouble, I thought things would change, but....

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

SORRY!

My son is not even home yet and I need to apologize to him!

Three weeks ago I received the letter from the National Visa Center and for some reason I never grasped that we need to scan that letter and send it to our agency.

Today I was reading an e-mail and suddenly I realized what the writer was talking about.

THAT letter!

The one I just said "oh nice!" and filed it in the adoption folder. NEVER thinking it is IMPORTANT!

I remember getting brown envelopes from Guanzhou with our first adoptions and our SW indulgently said "oh yes that envelope, just file it away"

My stupid over sight put us 3 weeks behind! the only thing I can see positive is that I caught it on a Wed morning and hopefully our agency will be able to send someone on Thurs to sign the Article 5 so it can be picked up exactly 2 weeks from today and taken to Beijing. The US Consulate has a rule that paperwork can only be picked up on a Mon or a Thurs.

I guess I just have to figure God wants us in Ch*na on a different time table than what I was figuring. But you can bet I will be a real pest with our agency w/ any piece of official paper that shows in my mailbox!

Sorry Liang! Mama will try to do a better job.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Thanks!



  before her surgery- putting on a brave face


  
Lot's of prayers answered....
  She slept till I woke her with just enough time to comb hair and get
dressed.
She never once asked about eating, and her surgery wasn't until 10:30 AM
She only broke down once and clung to me, before surgery. Her biggest
worry was her undies, she wanted them back on!
On the way home she "threw up" once, but her stomach really didn't have
too much in it.
She ate some green beans (I know...green beans?) and now she is sleeping.
The trick will be keeping her out of the swimming pool for 2 weeks.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Prayers for Tuesday, please.

This little one is going to a nearby outpatient surgery center for
hernia repair tomorrow.

Yes I know it is a routine, minor, outpatient procedure, BUT

when it is my daughter it doesn't feel that way.

She needs to be at the hospital (an hour away) by 9:20AM

She may not have anything to eat or drink after 6:20AM...I don't think
I'm going to wake her before that time in order to give her apple juice!

I just pray tomorrow is one of those mornings that she sleeps in and
doesn't think about eating until they give her the "happy juice"

When she had her tonsils and adenoids removed she didn't understand much
of what was going on, this time there are more questions. She thought
she could just keep her hernia....

I'll leave it in God's hands and I'm going to bed.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Family History

I am working on a family book for DH's family. His dad is one of 10 children. Their father died an untimely death when the oldest child was 14 and the youngest was 3 months. The cause of death was never discussed, by the family. Of course every one else knew.

Anyway I am getting information from all the family members, making a book with names,DOB, and  pictures where possible. It is very interesting. Some of the cousins have not seen each other in many years. Some of the 10 children (now great-grandfathers) are sharing some of their stories. Most of the children were "placed" in other homes after the father died and were only able to come home for a school year in some cases. One of the boys was placed in 10 different homes from the time he was 2 until he was 18. Yet all but one of the children married and raised families.
My FIL told stories of being made to work in the tobacco patches and how sick he got at first from the nicotine. He went to the doctor, doctor gave him "pills". After he felt better, he went back to working in the tobacco fields.

While I was at it I decided to check the history books and see who all the ancestors were.                    So do other families have these huge books?
I looked back 10 generations to  Hans and Christian Zimmerman- boys who came  from the Palatinates, along the Rhine River in Germany, they probably had fled religious persecution in                        Switzerland. They came to Phila. aboard the ship Pink Plaisance in 1732.         Christian Wenger, another ancestor came from the same area in Europe on the Ship Molley in 1727.
In 1959 the Wenger families numbered 1050, I have no idea the number at this time.
The Zimmermans' book is more up-to-date  they number 12102 families in 1988.

What I found interesting in all this....As far as I can tell there was NO immigration from another country in our direct family line. Our children will be the first immigrants 275 years. I don't know I think that's kind of sad.

I also got to thinking...with all this talk about "family lines" will my younger children wonder ....did one of their ancestors weigh 400 lbs, where did they move in the 1800's, how many children did my great-grandmother have?

There will be no big thick books with that information, I am very happy to make my ancestors theirs, but that question still sits in the back of my mind.

The other thought,- those first Zimmerman's were 15 y.o. boys when they came to the new country...their decisions affected a lot of people, it is impossible to know exactly how much they affected us, but I can't help but think that our quality of life now, did depend quite a bit on their early decisions.

God did bless these ancestors of ours and I hope we can pass down the positive traits and lay down the negative.

Happy 4th!