Pictures: Christmas

David at Anna's concert and Anna having lots of fun performing!

If I ever get our Christmas cards sent out, these pictures will not be on it! I wish that I would have had these before I made the cards. Oh well!

Coming soon: pictures of the reindeer ranch

Adoption Update

Well, I actually have found several adoption blogs that I LOVE to read because I see people at all stages of the journey! WOW--It is hard to even imagine the end of the journey in India. Actually, that will be the beginning of the journey with three little ones! All that to say, that I plan to post more about our adoption journey just so we can look back and have it documented. So, tomorrow we are sending off documents to begin this journey with a new placing agency. We felt that their India program was better suited for what God has placed in our hearts. Here we go...again! That's the short version! Other than that...waiting on the Lord which honestly is a wonderful place to be.

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving:) I think that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday:) It is truly just a time to gather with family, enjoy one another, give thanks to God, and of course eat! We enjoyed a day with my Johnson family...45+....LOTS of little kids running and big kids (the men) shooting each other with Justin's homemade nerf bullet shooters! I'm still not happy with Erik for shooting me in the neck:( Then we journey over to Bartonville for some relaxed Parmenter family time. We took the kids to the East Peoria parade of lights which is a parade of all lighted floats. It was a beautiful night:)

Let's see...10 things that I'm thankful for in 2009 (some serious and some obiviously not)
10. Our family: the four of us and our extended family too...What a blessing!
9. Our church family: God does knit us together:)
8. Our fuzzy puppy, Eli: I can't believe I'm adding him to my list, but he really has a place in my heart.
7. The Word of God: 2009 has brought such a refreshing and relearning in the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is the teacher and He wants to teach and lead us.
6. The Peace of God: Resting in Christ Jesus...no matter our circumstances, our actions, or our words...if our faith is in Jesus Christ: who He is and what He did for us at the cross: there is peace!
5. Chapstick: I am addicted and could not live without it!
4. Adoption: That God is working in us something far greater than just adding a little one to our family (although that is incredible in itself). So, I'm thankful for our little one that we are waiting to meet.
3. Puffs Plus: I have a runny nose...enough said.
2. The Cross: I am a sinner and am in need of a Saviour. Through the work of the cross I am saved, delivered, healed, a recipient of grace and the working of the Holy Spirit. It is FINISHED!
1. Jesus Christ...Thank you Father!

Thinking of our little one...

We don't know who you are yet, but we are holding you in our hearts and prayers! We know that you may be growing right now in India. Even though we can't hold you yet or whisper our love in your ear, we know our God is faithful to hold you in the palm of His hand. We are taking steps each day on our journey to be together and trusting God that He is leading us to you. The one He placed in our hearts several years ago.

Erik and I completed our "in person" training today. So that finishes up our part of the home study process. Now, we wait until the next step can be done. The training ended with two precious families sharing their journeys. They both had their sons with them. A 17 month old from Korea and a 21 month old from the Phillipines. The boys had a great time entertaining all of us with their running around, laughing at each other, and eating their dropped cheerios off of the floor! What a great encouragement to everyone in the room! We enjoyed our day together:)

If God lays us on your hearts, please pray for our little one. She or he is most likely alive and well and waiting, just like us, for this journey to be together:)

Happy (Belated) Birthday Erik

Anna decorated Erik's cake this year as a piano. She did it all herself and was very proud of her work:) I love her little smile in this picture.

Here's a little commercial...If you ever want a fun family day with your kids this winter, I would highly reccommend the Discovery Children's Museum in Bloomington/Normal. We have been there twice and it is fun. We headed there and spent the day with Erik's parents. The kids LOVED it. Plenty for both of them to do! Actually, it kept us all entertained! And then the best part of the day...eating lunch at Flattop for Erik's birthday:)

This is one of my favorite activities: "the painting wall"!

This is a very unique climbing structure. Anna and I went in, but she is not a huge climber. She did try it though! We kept David away from the entrance because...well, I'm sure any of you that know David will understand!

There is a really neat farming exhibit that kept David busy for a LONG time! Don't you just love this little farmer's face?

Most importantly, we celebrated the blessing of Erik! There really are no words that express how we all feel about you. We love you and thank God for the father and husband that you are!

Sliding

Annnnnnnnnnnnnna... I think this was last Friday when Anna was out of school!

It was beautiful and we finally got to go to the park!


Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaavid...........

I wish Davey was this energetic tonight. He has broken out with red bumps all over, puffy red eyes, his lips are swollen and sore. I'm pretty sure his mouth and throat are terribly sore. He won't eat anything! The nurse practioner called in the physician's assistant to take a look at him. He has them puzzled. So, he is on an antibiotic for his throat and swollen glands and a steroid for the "rash". They think it is probably viral, but with his throat looking so bad they are not sure. So, please pray for God's healing power for our little guy!

David's Ideas

If your kids need some new ideas for using their Little Tike's table...here are some ideas from Davey boy:)

He was lifting himself up and swinging. I didn't get him in the action. Can you see that he has his tongue stuck out in concentration:)

He takes the legs off of the table every morning and uses it to jump and whatever. I can just imagine his principal calling me someday explaining how David has taken his desk apart or the tables in the cafeteria or something! By the way, David does not like to stay dressed. He strips several times a day and anounces, "I naked!" I have got him to keep his diaper on thankfully! Praise God that he is fever free today! Yesterday, his fever came back:( His nose is running this morning, but he is jumping off of everything and eating and stripping and wanting to watch "Barney" so I think we are good!

If you read this blog and have a blog that I don't have posted on here, would you please leave me a comment with your blog's address so I can add it to mine:) Thanks!

Ahh...Fall

After five days of a fever, today David was fever free!!! Praise God! We finally got out of the house for a little family walk on this beautiful fall day. Here is Mr. Smiley! Hopefully, his puffy eyes will go away quickly!

Anna on the other hand has been great and healthy! She has cracked me up this weekend with funny expressions, stories, and wisecracks! She beat Erik and I in Blockus and Skipbo this weekend!

How fast can David dump a tub of summer clothes that need to go up to the attic?

Just a couple of seconds!!!!!

Here's something that keeps David busy lately...

rearranging the cords on the back of the DVD player.

It is driving me crazy!

Pictures

If you read my last post, I figured out that pictures will load in Internet Explorer but not Firefox. Here are some of our pictures. I did not crop them. They are straight from our CD. David was a trooper and Anna was trying so hard to keep her eyes open! She took them so fast and the flash was blinding!

I love this "action" shot!

And...here we are!

Family Portraits

Has anyone ever seen the episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" where they get their family portrait taken for Marie for Christmas? Hilarious! Anyway, I had this idea to get a Parmenter family picture with Erik's parents and grandma for their Christmas present. The whole time I kept thinking about that episode. Sunday we went to Portrait Innovations in Peoria for our grand photo shoot. I had never heard of the place, and overall I am very pleased with the pictures. It was a quick process of 85 pictures: snap, snap, snap and then we picked them out, they printed them and out the door we went for a very reasonable price. I wish they would have done a little more explaining or given us choices with the backgrounds. Next time, I would speak up--it just happened so fast and I was concentrating on keeping the kids going that I forgot about thinking about backgrounds. All that to say, we got some really neat keepsake pictures with all of us and I would recommend this place. But...I cannot get any pictures to load on here--GRRRRRR! This page is allowing me to type text, but the photo part is not loading all the way so I don't even have the option of clicking to upload a picture. Is anyone else experiencing this or have an idea how to fix it? So, maybe one of these days I'll be able to post our pictures.

Other than that, I wish it was a little warmer around here. I love not paying high gas bills and not wearing winter coats. Thank you God for the sunshine today:) Anna's strep test was negative, but the doc thought it was the beginning of it. She is back to feeling great today and off to school she went. This morning she asked me if I thought she was a good big sister. David's big hug and kiss goodbye should be her answer:) What a sweet moment...

I'm off to do something creative with Davey and Nate...maybe a blanket tent...that always creates a couple of hours of fun!

Fever

This is day 2 of Anna's fever. I'm just wondering...when do you take your children to the doctor? I never know when to go or when to wait it out. I usually end up taking her and wondering if it was really necessary. I know that antibiotics don't help viruses. The problem is Anna has had strep the past three years every winter--3X last winter to the point they were about to send us on to see a specialist-ugh! So, I feel that I should take her to make sure we don't start down that road again. But...I hate going if we don't need to. Anyway, I need some mama's support here...I just want to know when you take your kids...or I guess given support that I'm not crazy for taking her.

So, we've watched TOO MANY movies for the past two days. Although I've been in and out of the back room, I'm sick of the constant TV. David has been a crazy, cutie today. His latest adventures include enjoying opening the refrigerator and getting out his gallon of milk several times a day, turning over his little table and unscrewing the legs to bang them together or whatever he thinks of, pulling out the DVD and VCR and rearranging the cables and plugging them in where he thinks they belong, and taking off all his clothes including his diaper when he wakes up in the morning, after his nap, and whenever he feels the need during the day. Maybe after marching band season, I shall attempt potting training...I'm just not up to it yet!

Pray for my little one--she seems pretty miserable and hasn't realized it yet but is missing her school open house tonight:(

By the way, I can't get blogger to upload any of my pictures...any ideas?

Ahhh...October

As I wrote a check this morning, the thought went through my mind...ahhh...October. Cool days (hopefully sunny)and cool nights. Sweatshirts and Jeans. Beautiful fall colors. Crunchy leaves. My hubby's birthday. Football games. My little niece's birthday-today:) I love snuggly cool fall weather! I just hope the sun stays out nice and bright most days. I don't have much to say except...I love these guys:)

Adoption Update-Mountain of Paperwork

Erik and I are well on are way to the middle of the mountain of paperwork for our international adoption. It is quite amazing all of the things we have had to fill out or gather for this process. We just keep working on it and checking things off of the list. Tomorrow afternoon we have our home visit with our social worker. This will be the third time we've visited with her and she is wonderful. I'm not sure what the next step will be besides making sure that we have all of our paperwork finished up for her. Besides all of the paperwork process, our next child is growing steadily in our hearts. Here's some thoughts that run through my mind...our child is probably alive right now. Who is taking care of him/her? What is her/his story? God knows. Our family will be forever changed into an interracial family. Do people realize that there really is only one race-the human race? Did you not have any genetics in school? Through Jesus Christ we are adopted as children of God...grafted in...heirs...ALL His righteousness is ours...we are in Him. In the same way, our adopted child will not be born of our bodies but will be ours in every way...grafted in...an heir...in our family. Just some thoughts...the peace of Christ is so amazing. I look forward to the day when we will know our little one's face and then the day we see our little one's face----oh what a day!

Please keep us in your prayers:)

Sew, Sew, Sewing

We are in the middle of our marching band season which means lots of work has already taken place and now the fun of actually competing is here! Last Saturday the kids competed at Mt. Zion and won 1st in their class, best drum major, best color guard (yeah girlies), and best percussion. This crew in the picture is the pit crew. They are eighth graders who play the pit percussion. Our show this year is Around the World in 8.5 Minutes which includes six songs from different parts of the world. It has been fun! So, I made these outfits for the pit kids to wear from the different parts of the world. A couple of them I had made in previous years for different shows, but lets just say I had some really late nights for the past couple of weeks trying to finish these up. So, here they are...African, Spanish conquistador, Spanish dress, Korean, American pioneer, Irish, and Russian. These kids are so much fun and were so excited to wear these costumes! They even thought they should wear them to school on Fridays just like the football players wear their jerseys! How crazy would that be? Today, we are off to Pontiac:) I have to get a picture of my wonderful color guard girls. They have been so much fun to work with and are doing a great job!

APPLES!

Our attempt at a fall family picture:)
David has lost his ability (or desire) to smile for pictures!

We headed out to an apple orchard down by Champaign Saturday. I saw a friend's post about it, looked it up online, and headed out there ourselves:) It's a fun place and the kiddos really enjoyed it. So, here are some pics from our apple day.

Isn't this weather wonderful? It makes getting up in the morning and everything else easier with such sunshine:)

The Second Week

We enjoyed this past weekend:) Anna likes school although she seemed extra tired over the weekend and told me several times that she misses being home. I know that she is going to have a good year:) Erik's band performed part of their marching show at the first football game Friday night. No one has any idea how much time and effort and thought and WORK Erik puts into this marching band season. The kids did great for their first performance of the year! As they were performing, I had this thought...Erik puts ALL of this together from start to finish. You do an awesome job, honey:)

I have started babysitting again and my little Nate is chatting to me all day long. He and David...let's just say this--BUSY! I have started watching a one year old little girl. Today was her first day and she did great. I think all the action of the boys was enough to keep her distracted that she didn't have time to realize she was in a new place:)

Eli has grown into a thick, adorable dog who takes his naps very seriously. He loves to play fetch and go for walks.

This post is truly just rambled thoughts of the afternoon...hope every one is having a great, cool Monday! ("cool" as in temperature:)

First Day of School--2nd Grade

Anna started back to school today. She was ready but not overly excited! I will miss her stories and chit-chatting all day, and she is really a great helper too! What a beautiful morning to walk her over and give her a last hug before she enters school. Unfortunately right after I took this picture, she stepped back off the sidewalk and fell in the wet grass! Tears started to roll as she got up. Her legs were soaking wet and grassy. I felt sooooo bad! What a way to start the year! She handled it pretty well and on our way to the bathroom to get a paper towel she decided she was dry enough and OK. When I went to pick her up, she was all smiles, and David was excited to see his "Nannie"! Here we go school year...

New Pics

The 2 oldest babies of our church family...Hannah and Joshua.

We had two babies born on the same day in our church family. Darshini is the youngest by a few hours:) Isn't she a doll? Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the other baby. And the little Timothy baby will be arriving next week!!!!!! We also had another family who had a little boy who had to have open heart surgery right after birth. By the grace and healing of the Lord, he is home and doing very well! So, that's six babies this summer in our church family!
Blessings from the Lord!

Speaking of blessings...this is our oldest niece, Jessica. She is starting high school this year and we love her sooooooooooo much!

Here's David "eating" supper and having his car "eat" too! I find myself letting David do things that I wouldn't of let Anna do like have toys at the table. Here's my old philosophy...toys do not belong at the table. Here's my new philosophy...if you will eat more than a bite, you can have it at the table (within reason:)! Usually, he has animals or dinosaurs eating along with him.

Here's what happens when David helps clear the table! It was nice of him to help, but the bread dumped out of the bag. He did stack it nicely though:) And yes for all you germaphobics...the bread went back into the bag and we ate it:)