By MykkaMoose on 7/6/2010 2:38 PM

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.  What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,
"That you may be justified in your words,
   and prevail when you are judged."

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? ( I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
"None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
   no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
   no one does good,
   not even one."
"Their throat is an open grave;
   they use their tongues to deceive."
"The venom of asps is under their lips."
"Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."
"Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known."
"There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.  Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

By MykkaMoose on 7/1/2010 7:51 PM

     When we moved into this house four years ago there were two raised beds already here.  They had, well, I’m not really sure what they had in them.  But anyway, they did have something in there.  And egg shells, lots of egg shells.  So I cleaned them out and planted a few things in there including four strawberry plants.  We didn’t have much money so four plants at 98 cents a piece was what we ended up with.

 

     Fast forward to today… or at least this year.  We have both raised beds filled up with strawberries.  Did I mention they are extremely prolific?  They multiply faster than rabbits or Silvas :).  We had to replant all the strawberries, cleaning up the plants and the rows as we went.  We cut a lot out of the lawn. 

We gave a lot away to Grandma Taylor.  And now we have two beds full of beautiful strawberries.

 

     When we got back from Church Camp on Saturday we found at least two bowls of beautiful red berries waiting for us. 

They were quickly gobbled up by the little girls.  I’m not sure how many actually made it into the house but I know many of them hit Jubilee’s stomach. 

By MykkaMoose on 6/29/2010 1:42 PM

I thought I would post a few picture of the fish we caught at camp.  This year we ended up with only 9 fish.  I was a little disappointed but I’m sure Gabe’s not (he doesn’t like to eat them as much as he likes to catch them.)

By MykkaMoose on 6/17/2010 7:25 AM

Dear Sweet Little Naya girl,

     Oh how I wish you were here with us!  I know that God has another plan for your life but that doesn’t stop my heart from hurting.  I had such wonderful plans for you, for us.  I had a bedroom all ready that you were going to share with Jubilee.  I had thought about clothes for you but didn’t get too far into that because I didn’t know what size you were.  I had visions of taking you to the beach, eating pancakes with you on Saturday morning and just loving you abundantly more than anything.

     I realized that this week some of the families that committed to children the same time we committed to you are going to get their children.  My heart is empty.  I won’t travel to Ukraine this summer to meet you.  I won’t get to snuggle with you and give you a mother’s first kiss.  I won’t get to know what you smell like or what texture your hair is.  I won’t know what foods you like or if you have a deep raspy voice or a high pitched one.  There is indeed a big hole in my heart.

     I love you and I’m glad you didn’t have to spend another day without a mother but I’m so sad I’m not her.  I’m glad you didn’t have to spend another day in the orphanage.  It’s bittersweet…

By MykkaMoose on 6/14/2010 4:45 PM

By MykkaMoose on 6/4/2010 6:23 PM

     We had a super productive Memorial Weekend.  I know that isn’t the reason for Memorial Day but it worked well for us. 

 

     Mike and Gabe made a run to the garbage dump on Saturday.  We had several things just that needed moved out to open up more room.  We had two clothes washers that had served out their days and then died and a clothes dryer that also had the same fate.  We had a water heater that was half broken but had been replaced, a double stroller that got left in the rain and started to mold (not unusual for anything here in the Northwest), a couple of glass closet doors that had been broken, and a moldy shelf that was in one of our sheds.  Needeless to say, I was super glad to see all those things go.

 

     Sunday we had a great time of fellowship at church.  We had a covered dish dinner (the Pastor’s wife has a personal objection to calling it a Potluck) for the missionaries that were visiting.  I always enjoy being able to stay and talk at leisure with the members of our church without having to worry about what we will be eating for lunch.  The construction theme of the lunch was cute and the paper on the table to draw blue prints for our dream homes was a particularly bright idea. 

 

     On Monday I got the craft bug and made an apron for my good friend Joan.  I found this pattern a couple of years ago and instantly loved it.  I am especially a fan of the fact that it’s two sided and doesn’t need to be tied.  The apron doesn’t take that long to make but I did a few things in between making it so I worked on it most of the day.  I really liked the way Joan’s turned out so I am going to make a matching one for me.  (On a side note Beth and Jubilee are in need of aprons so that is going on the to do list soon)

 

 

     We took a family trip to the grocery store and bought a bunch of picnic type food.  It rained all day but we cooked hamburgers anyway.  I made some potato salad and cut up watermelon (Beth’s favorite!).  We sat down to a very yummy lunch (even if it wasn’t ready ‘til 2pm).

     We finished up the day with a game of Phase 10.  The game is to be continued…

 

By MykkaMoose on 5/28/2010 8:44 AM

There are a lot of things I could be doing this morning: folding and putting away laundry, cleaning off my desk, cleaning up after breakfast, getting children dressed, making my bed and cleaning my room.  But instead I am choosing to blog :)  I haven’t been very good about keeping up on my blog (I know, I keep saying that and thinking that).  I really want to keep up on this because I think it will be a ton of fun to look back on a year or two down the road or maybe even 10 or 20.  It’s a great way to remember the little things that make life so meaningful during these sweet years.  So, I am CHOOSING to blog.  Or to use a phrase I’ve been hearing a lot of lately, being intentional.

I don’t know where to start since I’m so far behind so please forgive me if this post is all over the board.

Titus…I’ll start with him because his changes are so obvious and easy.  He is our mini moose.  He is getting so big and strong.  I don’t doubt that it soon he will be passing up Jubilee in weight and perhaps height.  He weighed 18 pounds 5 ounces when I took him in to the doctor last week.  I don’t take my children to the doctor too often.  I don’t subscribe to the “need” for well baby checks.  If my child is well why would I take them to the doctor?  So, why exactly was Titus in the doctor’s office?  Well, it all started when he was tiny.  He was maybe six weeks old and we noticed he was having tremors in his legs.  I took him in and the doctor said not to worry about it even though the doctor never saw him do it.  Well, fast forward to about a month ago and we noticed his hands would sometimes shake in unison.  Long story short we think he is having seizures.  I took him to Children’s and they can’t decide if he is having them or not.  Their general take on things is that we should wait ‘til it happens again and then pinch him.  If he reacts to our pinch it’s not a seizure but if he doesn’t then we will need to further investigate to find out what is going on with him.

Titus is also crawling!  He just started crawling last Sunday so he’s not quite all over the place but he’s going further and faster each day.  Yesterday he was able to get from the desk to the dog bowl three times.  It was hilarious to watch.  His technique to the dog bowl more resembled him doing the worm than crawling but it worked!

I am posting the only picture of Titus on the disk that I am using.  It is not a picture of him crawling though.  He needs sleep to be able to do all that crawling stuff so sleep it is!  As you also may be able to tell from this picture he is dealing with a little bit of exema on his cheek and chin.  We are in the process of trying to figure out what is causing it.  Usually it’s not too bad but in this picture it looks like he was having one of his bad days.

Beth, or Elizabeth, as she currently says she prefers to be called had oral surgery on Wednesday.  We had taken her to a dentist who said she needed to be put under to repair her teeth but would have to refer us out for the sedation.  Then I took her to the dentist we had been seeing but wasn’t terribly happy with because I knew they could sedate her.  They said she had a couple of small cavities that could wait six months to be repaired.  We took her to a third place and ended up using them to fix her teeth. 

We woke up at 4 am to start getting things ready to go.  Beth woke up about 4:30 and asked if it was morning (she does this regularly).  I told her she could go back to sleep but I guess she decided since I was up she would get up too.  I was hoping she would sleep longer because she wasn’t allowed to have any food or drink prior to her surgery and I didn’t want to disappoint her.  She never did ask to eat or drink which was a huge blessing!  About 4:45 we got everything in the car and put Beth, Titus, Mike and I in too.  The drive took us about 45 minutes.  The morning was sort of drizzly and seemed to match the mood of the day. 

The nurses at the hospital were super nice even though Beth was less than corporative.  She didn’t want them putting the blood pressure cuff on her, the pulse ox. or even taking her temperature.  The surgery lasted for two hours.  When everything was done the hospital volunteer came to get us and take us back to the recovery area.  Half way down the hall I heard a noise.  After just a second of listening I realized it was Beth screaming.  We needed to get back to her!  Of course, if you know Beth, you wouldn’t expect anything less.  The nurse said as soon as Beth was awake she ripped the breathing tube out of her nose.  By the time we got back there she was attempting to rip the IV.  The nurse had to move pretty quick to get the IV out for us but fortunately that was after she gave her some pain medicine. 

Now Beth has new princess teeth.  Her front teeth look so perfect!  She got the front, top four capped with tooth colored caps.  She got two bottom molars on each side crowned with silver crowns and then I think she had a couple of cavities on her top molars filled in with tooth colored fillings.

Jubilee can talk!  Yes, I know you are all thinking that every just turned two year old should be able to babble out a few words and phrases but this girl can talk!  I think she’s practicing for a career as a Mother of Many :)  This morning she came to me singing “I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck!”  She just chatters away all day, there isn’t anything she can’t say.

 

(She was eating her breakfast in these pictures so please excuse the messy face :))

Jubilee is also one of our best potty trainers.  I know, that’s almost TMI but when you are a Mother of Many it’s important!  The two things outside of Biblical truth that I find are most important to teach my child are potty training and learning to read.  I figure if I can get those two things the rest is downhill.  Jubilee readily climbs herself up on the toilette in the most unusual fashion.  I wish that I could video take it and post it for you all to see but there are just some things that aren’t suitable for a blog.  It also cracks me up that both she and Beth do not like their panties or tights up over their belly buttons, clearly they both belong to Mike.

Hosanna is going to the eye doctor today.  They keep saying she needs glasses but then want to wait another six months ‘til they give them to her.  So, we shall see if today is the day.  She is very excited about the prospect of getting glasses and I think she’d look so cute with them!

We were gifted with a second guitar last weekend.  A totally unsuspected blessing but SO appreciated!  Gabe has been wanting me to teach him how to play the guitar for about six months now and I had kind of been putting it off.  The new guitar was just the kick start that I needed.  He’s really been enjoying himself as are Elisha and Isaiah.  He was telling me just this morning how his callous are starting to form, definitely a good sign!

    

Isaiah has found another instrument to purchase.  He seems to have a natural affinity for music so I was glad to help him buy a third instrument (plus the other children will be able to use it).  Today’s purchase will be a clarinet.  He also plays the saxophone and the trombone as well as the penny whistle.  He will have to limit himself to playing only two of his instruments in band this fall and I have no idea how he will choose.

I will be done blogging for today but my head has many more things stored up in it to blog so stay tuned!

By MykkaMoose on 5/20/2010 7:33 AM

     I wanted to just post and say that I’m still here.  I took a break from blogging because our adoption of Naya fell though.  I am super happy that she has a family but I’m devastated it’s not us.  I love that little girl to bits!  I’m sure there will always be a part of my heart with a Naya sized hole in it.  I hope to resume blogging soon – I’ve got lots to share.

By MykkaMoose on 3/5/2010 11:50 AM

Yeah!  I’m so excited, I have blog followers!!!  Yes, I’m easily amused as you all can tell.  I just wanted to say Hi to everybody – so HI :)

I haven’t found a soundtrack for our adoption yet.  I had a couple that were suggested to me (thanks C!) but I already have both of those.  I am thinking maybe of getting a Sara Groves CD. 

I am waiting to hear back from our social worker about our homestudy.  We have everything done and are just waiting for him to get our background check from North Carolina.  We have one meeting with him that’s scheduled for the 13th and hopefully the next week we will have the signed homestudy!  The next step after that is to submit our I-600A and request for FBI finger prints.  The I-600A will cost $670 and the finger prints are $80 each for Mike and I.  I’m glad we have all that money set aside.  I’d rather just pay for things than have money in my bank account – it just tempts me to spend it. 

I am hoping that in the next couple of weeks we will get new pictures of our sweet Naya girl.  There are two families going to her city to get their children (Hi Jodi and Nancy!).

I’ll try and make a post with pictures soon, I’m not sure where our camera is right now.

Additionally, if you have a Biblical girls name we are taking suggestions.  It can’t end in an A sound though because her middle and last name will both end that way.  We are open to Biblical names that aren’t used as names in the Bible such as Jubilee and Hosanna.  Yes, we are stuck for a name so help please!

By MykkaMoose on 3/4/2010 12:42 PM

Are you out there?  Is anybody out there?  Does anybody even read this blog?  If you do leave me a comment and say hi because I’m feeling a little discouraged right now that nobody is reading my blog (well, except maybe Carrie – Hi Carrie!!!)