baby shower

I was also able to go to Vanessa's baby shower in March. It was wonderful to see our Oki family again! I wish I had taken more pictures.

The boys playing... James really needed his friend time!

JP, Aaron, and James

wonderful friends

Cathy and Vaness with their quilts

month of March

The month of March was a lot of fun for us with my sister here. We made some pillows and a quilt for her, went up to Lake Tahoe and played on the beach and in the snow (Mari took most of the snow pictures), and had a lot of fun just hanging out. Here are some pictures of her visit.

Jonathan hamming it up on the beach

The boys at Lake Tahoe at sunset

A mountain view of Lake Tahoe

The quilt Mari and I made for her

The pillows and the back of the quilt

In the snowy mountains

A walk in the snow


it's squishy

Making snow angels


There it is :)


Making a snowman


Not bad, Boys ;)


Snowball fight!


thigh deep in snow

Prayer request

About three weeks ago my Dad started losing function on the left side of his body. He went in to the doctor this past Monday and they thought he might have had a small stroke so they scheduled an MRI to check on him. They found two lumps on his brain. They sent him to a better hospital in another town (this happened yesterday morning) and that hospital ran more tests and found that my Dad has masses all over the organs on the left side of his body: his lungs, brain, liver, and kidney (adrenal gland). They have diagnosed him with stage four (last stage) cancer and have given him about a year to live. Please pray for my family. Pray for God's peace. Pray for our decision making. Please pray.

Mari is here!!!!! Yeah! My sister arrived on Tuesday and we have really been enjoying having her here. The boys are having fun playing with Aunt Mari and Mom is enjoying having a female to converse with during the day rather than just my normal toddler talk. Daddy is going to the Men's retreat this weekend, his first ever. We are praying he enjoys it and grows much. Just a quick update this time.

Isn't he a cutie?


Jonathan lounging in the sand


Super pirate


My beautiful sister :D


We are the pirates who don't do anything but play around a make a mess ;D

Valentine's Day surprise

I forgot to show you all what Jeremy got me for my valentines day gift. Someone at work couldn't keep it and so they offered it to him. He was going to fix it up a bit first.... strip the old finish off, sand it, restain it, and refinish it, but after considering it for a bit he decided not to. We cleaned it out and it is now waiting for the tuner to come and make it sound decent again (He comes Friday the 6th). I have been having fun playing around on it anyway and look forward to picking up learning again. I find it very therapeutic!

is it a roll top desk?


being a good girl and waiting with my eyes closed


No Way!!!!!!!!!


I have a piano!

It is supposed to be 75 years old, and the outside is pretty beat up. It took us quite a while to clean it off good enough before we could bring it inside. Hopefully there are no problems with the insides. All the keys work, although some are sticky. I'm so excited! Even if the tuner can't fix everything I am so going to enjoy playing around on it.. I already have and it sounds like it hasn't been tuned in years! What a wonderful blessing from God to receive a free piano!
(The piano tuner came today (March 6th) and fixed it and it sounds great. :D He looked up the maker and model and told us the piano was made in 1948, so it is 61 years old, not 75, but hey, it sounds great and is a wonderful gift!)

Wow, life has been hectic lately! My living room usually looks like a toy store exploded and Jeremy has been gone a bit so the boys are starting to drive me nuts. I am really looking forward to my older sister, Mari, coming to visit me for the month of March! Jeremy has his advancement test on the 5th of March and has been trying to study a lot and then as a reward he gets to go on the men's retreat that weekend. I am excited for him. I am praying he is able to connect with some of the guys and start forging some strong godly friendships. It has been hard for us here, but we were so spoiled in Okinawa with our wonderful church family! :) God has a reason for everything, though, and we know that it is through hard times that we grow stronger, so we continue to look forward to what God has for us.
I finally have a nephew! Brittani and my brother Tom had their first baby boy, Aiden James, on February 19th! His picture is at the bottom. I hope I will be able to make a trip out to Texas sometime soon so that I can meet him and my new niece Isabell, and my soon to be new niece Kaitlyn (not sure of spelling). Goodness, our family produces a lot of girls! I have 6 nieces and one on the way and only one nephew. The girls outnumber the boys 7 to 4 :D We're very proud of our family and love all our precious babies!

Oh! and Joshua is finally potty trained! I say 'finally' but really it is a blessing because this is 6 months sooner than James was trained.... it just took Joshua much longer once we started, but it has finally clicked and we now only have one in diapers... for the time being anyway!

Playing 'ring around the rosey' with the boys


James balloon scuba mask


My favorite nephew (and also my only nephew :)


Proud new Papa with his little angel

6 years and running :)

Jeremy and I have been married for 6 years now! It has been a wonderful experience and I am more in love with him now than when we first got married. He is such a wonderful man! Praise God! What a blessing to have a marriage founded on Christ! For our anniversary Jeremy tried to surprise me with tickets to see the Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Unfortunately he gave me one too many clues. :P That's ok. I was uber excited and he got to see my excitement for a week. :D A friend of our watched the boys all weekend long (God bless her!) and we were able to go spend some time with the Orpillas on Friday night and Saturday morning (the graciously offered to let us stay the night). It was fun staying up and playing games with them. I have missed them a lot! They let us stay in the Master bedroom...... WOW huge tub, huge room, it was like a honeymoon suite! ;) Nice bathtub :D
We left Saturday afternoon and rented a hotel near the theater and had some nice one on one time at dinner before the show. I have always wanted to see Phantom live and I really enjoyed it! They did a fantastic job and it was nice being with my best friend to see it :)
Now life is back to normal and we are frantically trying to get the house ready for our home inspection on Monday. After that we will be one step closer to having our little baby girl! The next step is just to wait for a Mom to choose us. Please continue to pray. We have had a really good experience so far (minus some minor issues with our portfolio but, praise God, He worked it all out). God's timing is perfect and so we will wait on Him through the rest of the adoption process. :)