Don't Give Up!

This was something our Albina (Alli) said to us many times. She wrote in in art form and sent it to us when she had to be away. She wrote it in chalk when she was home and she expressed it in voice when she was distraught. After us being her 4th set of parents, she needed to know that our love was unconditional and that we would not give up on her. It was HARD, but looking back on all that has occurred, oh so wonderful. The Lord brought her to us. He had work to do in her life and in ours! She and I were talking earlier today about that time. She said, "I was such a bad kid".... I said, No. You were a HURT kid. And today, she is a lovely daughter and friend. Honestly, 10 years ago I was afraid for her future, but today, I'm so proud of her. She is truly a success story! She of course is more than that! I'm just so thrilled to see her flourish in her life. I was there was her son was born 7 years ago. I remember her saying, "Mom will you come? Your're the only mama I have!" and it touched my heart so deeply. I cannot wait for her new sweetie to be born and be brought into our lives. What an amazing story. What an amazing God we serve! No Sweetie! We didn't give up and neither did you!

The Adventures of Donato and Erika

After Donato and Erika married, they waited a year due to covid restrictions and then set off on a 4 month honey moon in EUROPE! They traveled to many different countries and recoded much of it so we could all follow. It was so fun!!! If you go to their site on You Tube you will see some amazing things! They came home to stay with us for a bit until they found a new apartment and caught up with job life. But what an experience! I'm so glad they did it!

Living Homeschool

My dear friend Trece Davis is the author of this most excellent book on homeschooling! Living Homeschool is the title of her book. She also had developed a FaceBook page for those who are interested. She has MUCH WISDOM as a fellow homeschooler who has raised 8 children! She still teaches classes and is just an amazing friend! Go check out her page! If you click on the highlighted word Facebook, it will connect you to her page. :)

Describing A Negative Feedback Loop

This is an old post from 2011. I remember making that toast! :) I have rarely used this wording , but we CLEARLY were in a negative feedback loop for a couple of days.
One of the things our kids will do for us, is keep us from being lazy parents. Lazy parenting will get you into all sorts of trouble whether your child is adopted or not!
Heather Forbes and Bryan Post in "Beyond Consequences Logic and Control" talk about "Negative Feedback Loops" that our children AND WE can get into.... and they discuss breaking out of the loop.

Have you ever been in a useless discussion argument with your spouse?  SOMEBODY has to make the effort to STOP, turn things around and jump off the roller coaster of despair!

In the VERY same way, this can happen with our children.  I wrote earlier today about my own issue but wanted to clarify in this post a little more detail.

We started school 4 weeks ago, we have had a really great start,  but I was not feeling very well.
It turns out my thyroid is overactive..... so my meds are being adjusted.  As a result I was not sleeping well, concentrating well, and just feeling overwhelmed.
At the same time, Alli's 6 month anniversary happened and she was feeling the unseen calendar.... the one that says "It is time to move on."  She didn't know why she was feeling so anxious, she just was.
This started her in a spiral backwards that she just didn't seem to be able to control. She was too busy trying to control everybody else. LOL
Poor baby.... She needed ME to be on top on things and I just wasn't.  What resulted was a little bit of head butting.
I won, every time.... but at what cost?
I began thinking about it.... and was convicted in my heart of looking for short term solutions to long term goals. This is called "goal killing". :)  I was becoming snappy, and judgmental and internally angry.  Instead of gently guiding, I was becoming a coach, barking orders.

Alli has come SO FAR in such a short time.... I am so proud of her.   I didn't look the other day past her initial behavior to see  that she was overwhelmed, and instead called her on the behavior, not caring about why it was there.   This did not help her at all and so, because of my OWN failures, we locked horns off and on.
And the Lord was convicting me.  I needed to be her lifeline and instead I pulled the rope away.

After seeking the Lord and feeling back on track , I was trying to do things right for Alli, but she was STUCK in a loop of negativity. Had I not escalated, I don't think she would have been stuck.
I cooked her favorite fish. We had green beans and I also made everybody a Strawberry Milk shake.
She likes those too.
I figured we would talk after dinner.
Instead, she came to the table angry and then proclaimed she didn't like what I had prepared.
She couldn't rise out of her trouble.  As Mike and I tried to encourage her, she dug in more and more.
And then, she started to cry.  She said, "I really will eat everything, but I want a piece of toast too!"
Honestly, I don't think she knew what she wanted, she just couldn't get out of her loop.

So, here I am thinking. No way!  But my husband saw something I didn't. He saw her trying and she didn't know what to do.  So he very gently said, "do you need the toast?"  She said "Yes Daddy".   He asked ME to make her some toast.
Inside, I was not wanting to, but I put myself aside, and trusted my husband's wisdom.   I brought her the toast and she thanked me, and then she ate every bite on her plate.  She even liked it.  And then, we had a chance for more conversation.

Without any prompting, she wept and said how very sorry she was for how she had been acting. She then began to tell us about some of the memories she was having and we were able to pray with her. I also repented to her that I had not been more helpful.  She engaged in deep conversation for quite awhile, and then during our family worship time, she openly prayed to the Lord, asking for help and forgiveness, thanking Him for her family and how much we care for her.

That small gesture.... a piece of toast, broke her out of her negative feed back loop.

Some may ask, "wasn't she manipulating"?  Some may ask, "What about discipline?"

My answer is, no to manipulation. She was out of control, lost in her emotions and sometimes in trying to gain control it can look like manipulation, but it really isn't.    And what about discipline. The end result of all of this was a very happy, repentant and apologetic child who ate every bite of her dinner and  told us how thankful she was to have us.  Isn't that what every parent wants?   She knew she had done wrongly and we did talk with her and give her tools to learn how to break out of those negative loops. 

I just need to be reminded that I am the one holding the rope. If I don't give it to her to hang onto,  it won't do much good.

Our Sarah

Who would have thought that not so long ago this sweet baby girl who was interested riding her first bike, would grow up, get married and become a wonderful mother to TWO little girls! Her newest baby was born yesterday! We do not post pictures of the babies but just know, they are so adorable. :) That little girl hanging out on her daddy's back while he fixed her bike and then learned how to ride it, is still so very precious to us. What a life the Lord has blessed us with!

It's HOTTER than HADES AROUND HERE!

This post was from 2011 when we had goats! Our temp is reading 106º in the shade, with who knows how much humidity! UGH
I felt sorry for the goat and chickens, so we decided to give them  a treat. :)
Here is Bryan and Midnight sharing a popsicle.  Of course, Midnight did NOT get her fair share. :)

Joseph And Eden

There have been many changes in our family in the last 5 years. Our son Joseph and his family moved away to South Carolina where he has worked with Davenant Institute. He teaches post grad theology and philosophy classes through them. In the midst of all this change, there was an unfortunate divorce. That is partly why our Grandson Sam came to live with us for the last 2 1/2 years. But in these years there has been a lot of healing going on, and as families move on and people adjust to a new normal, our Son Joseph and his former wife Becca have moved on. There was this post grad student last year that caught Joe's attention and he caught hers. The one complication, is she is from South Africa! So, early this year, as he took on a new job at Florida Christian College, in Indian Beach Florida, which is a classical Christian college that is fairly new; he went to South Africa to meet his Eden. The two of them got married 2 months ago in South Africa and she will finally be coming to her new home in America next month. We are all very excited to meet her and plan to introduce her to Texas Brisket right away! I sure do wish they lived closer!

Welcome to our family Eden! We cannot wait to meet you!

37 Years With This Man!

I cannot believe it has been 37 years. I would not want to do life with anyone else but MY MIKE! He is an anchor, a confident, lover of Christ and lover of his family. He has been a wonderful father and husband and I'm truly thankful to the Lord for him. Happy Anniversary!

A Part of Getting Older

A part of getting older is being faced with health issues. During the last few years, since covid, we have had some setbacks, but have trusted that the Lord knows our bodies and His hand has been on us. I had a very bad case of Covid in 2020 and then was diagnosed with Long Covid. For years I have had issues with pain in my body and it wound up being diagnosed as RA. The medicine they wanted me to take gave me terrible nightmares and I figured I'd rather have pain that nightmares. Then, a little growth developed on my inner lip. I went to the Dr and he said it was nothing. For 4 years I let him know and that it was getting bigger and it hurt. He didn't take it seriously. THEN CAME MEDICARE.... they take EVERYTHING seriously! SERIOUSLY! I fell out of a tree putting up Christmas lights! Then, I fell and ran a bolt through my hand. I fell and broke my arm! I let the Dr know I had that thing in my mouth! It turned out to be a slow growing cancer. I had the first surgery and they didn't get it all. Then they sent me to an oncologist and he sent me for a pet scan. That pet scan revealed a hidden tumor that was deep in my throat in the perotid gland. So, with a broken arm in a cast, I went into surgery last July. Praise the LORD that I had that mouth tumor, or they wouldn't have found the perotid tumor. So, I've been recoverying since last July. Part of my mouth was removed and folks say they can't really tell, but I can tell. My smile is crooked. :) I have what is called "First Bite Syndrome" which causes pain when I take my first few bites of food, but I'm so thankful that I CAN take bites of food! Mostly, I'm so thankful that it was all found out and I have recovered. All the pet scans have been clear. I have one more coming up and I won't have to see the oncologist again. He was a very good Doctor! Here are a few pictures of recovery: (the first picture is about 9 months after) I am at 13 months now.

I have been very careful since those falls to walk with intent. At 68, I don't need to break anything else! I also found an herbal concoction to take for the RA from INDIA. It is called RELAXI and it is doing wonders for my body. I don't even need to take an aspirin at this point. I've been on it for 2 months. I noticed the difference after 2 weeks. I'm so thankful that things have improved. Last year was a HARD year!

The Heavens Declare The Glory of God

Have you even been in awe of the beauty of what you are seeing and all you can think about is scripture that flows out of you declaring the Lord's magnificant glory? That is what happens when I go to the Grand Canyon, or sometimes just look at the beautiful sunset in Texas.

It happens when I see the sun set in Florida.

It happens when I think about the complexity of a blade of grass.

This is a microspopic view of a blade of grass! Isn't it amazing! It looks so happy and does make me wonder if it appears differently when mowing the lawn. :)
Nature causes me to worship the creator who made it all! This is My Father's World!

These Two.... :)

They bring us joy! :)

Our Darling Albina

I have written a lot on this blog, since 2011 when our Albina came to us. We have never worked so hard with a child as we did with Albina. I am so thankful to her for causing us to be on our knees calling out to the Lord for every decision. This is how it should be for all of our children.... she reminded us. :) A long time ago she sent us a drawing and it said "Don't Give Up"! She was very worried that we would give up on her. NO way! :) x

A long time ago I wrote a post about talking to her about not living her life in the rear view mirror. She was looking back at all her losses and all the terrible things that had made up her life the first 11 years. She was missing out of all the blessing she had ahead of her. Today, she has learned to see the many blessings in her life. She calls us several times a week just to say hi. She volunteers for field trips for Sebastian, works hard, loves fiercely and even rides dirt bikes and goes to the car races. She has learned that life is what you make it. There is nothing you can do about the past but there is EVERYTHING you can do about the present and the future.
She is a wonderful mama and is about to have another baby in just a few weeks. :) What a blessing she is. Thank you Albina for teaching us to always look to the Lord and depend upon Him. We are proud of you. https://minichfamilyblog.blogspot.com/search?q=looking+in+the+rear+view+mirror

Boys to Men

The boys have grown so much as have we. :) The photo with all of us was our wedding day almost 37 years ago! We have taken more recent photos and I am so proud of each of them.

Chuck continues to flourish in his music as well as working as a pharmacy tech. Tim, due to a horrid reaction to a covid injection putting him in ICU with life threatening blood clots, no longer teaches but works for an insurance company. He loves his work. Joseph is teaching at a Christian college in Florida and also continuing to write. Marcus works for a construction company. What a great group of guys. :) I'm really thrilled that they are kind and loving to their sisters. Next week Joseph and Eden will be coming to visit and we cannot wait! Chuck will be coming too! Those are our two outta state guys. We also have 2 outta state girls. Albina and her husband will be coming down soon to pick up a crib for the new baby and to visit.

Our Family has Expanded!

This is Erika's mom in law who she affectionatly calls Mamo.... Sometimes we hear Mamo and Mama at the same time and one of is correct! LOL

Erika's husband Donato is one hard working man!

We all vacationed in Florida this Summer. It was a lovely time together. The kids have purchased their first home! Donato works for a construction company and Erika works for a missions group doing finances. We love having our expanded family!