Almost a month

The boys love to play on the piano together.

Their big Christmas gift was an easel. They love it and it is so nice to do James schoolwork on it.

We spent Christmas morning on webcam with my sisters in Ohio. It was so nice to be able to share with them like this!

The boys opening their stockings

Grandma and Papaw got Joshua a drum for Christmas! Praise God, the noise isn't too bad!

Well, it's almost been a month since I've posted anything. This has been a full month. It was nice to have Jeremy home for a few days at Christmas and at New Years. It was also wonderful to see all of our Oki family this past Saturday at Derek and Allison's wedding. We miss you all so much! We are still doing well and are encouraged to continue on with what God has called us to here in the desert. It has been difficult at times. but a good growing and stretching experience. I am enjoying homeschooling James and hope to start working with Joshua more often. It is harder to work with him since Jonathan wants to do everything his brothers do. I usually do James' school work while the younger two are asleep so we don't get interrupted frequently. Please pray for wisdom for me as I try to find a way to teach Joshua and James both while taking care of an 18 month old at the same time. Jeremy is doing well and is always very busy at work. He will be gone the first week of February for training and then he will leave again on his 30th birthday (the 16th) for a week of preventive maintenance at one of the branch clinics attached to 29 Palms. Praise God his 'deployments' (if you could even really call them that) are short and within driving distance of here. I am doing well and slowly getting into a routine. The house is almost completely put together, finally. We got everything out of boxes and pictures up on the walls, finally, and are just working on the piles of papers and small trinkets that we have acquired in our various travels. My older sister, Mari, is coming to visit us for a month in March and will be using our spare bedroom which is currently storing our piles, so i have good incentive to go through it all within the next month. :) The boys are also all doing well. James is learning to write his letters and numbers rather quickly, which is nice, and Joshua has shown an interest in learning to read his letters, so I am going to try to start working on him soon. Jonathan finally weighs 20 lbs and is steadily growing, Praise God! Thank you all for your prayers for him. We are waiting on the references to be turned in for our adoption so are at a standstill temporarily, but will hopefully be able to start the homestudy process very soon. We appreciate your continued prayer regarding that. After we complete the homestudy (a month long process) we will begin the waiting for God to bring us our daughter. We are praying that he reveals who she will be quickly, as we will need to finalize the adoption -a six month process- before moving again. I will try to keep you all updated as to how we are dong. I'm sorry for the month lapse. Hopefully I will be able to post at least every other week from here on out. Thank you all for your prayers for us! I will post a few pictures of Christmas and the wedding, but I have many more. If you are interested, let me know and I will email more of the pics that we have taken over the last month.

The guys

The girls

Okinawa family reunion ;)

Still in love after almost 6 years, praise God! Our 6th anniversary is the 25th of January!

The beautiful bride and groom

Some things never change :D We miss you guys!

snow day

It has been so long since we've seen snow! God blessed us with an unusual snow day yesterday. It had been raining all morning so everything was wet. I looked outside and the raindrops looked a little strange... They were snow flakes! I was thrilled just to see that and didn't expect them to stick, but they started to. I got the boys all bundled up and brought them outside not knowing how long it would last and had a blast watching them stare up into the sky in wonder at the big white flakes falling from the sky. They've never seen snow. This is the desert, so I didn't expect it to last long. God had other plans. It started snowing at about 10:30 am and it didn't stop snowing until around 6pm. By that time we had about 4 inches of snow sitting on the ground! :) It's kind of funny to see palm trees and cactus covered in snow! :) How cool our God is! I am so excited to see snow again, even if it is only for a day or two!

The Walton Zoo

December already!

It's hard to believe it is December already. We had a quiet Thanksgiving, but it was nice. We were supposed to go visit my Uncle Bob and Aunt Diane but Jeremy got really sick the Monday before Thanksgiving and we didn't want to get anyone else sick so we stayed home and had a small dinner for just us. It's just as well because we have all been on again off again sick for the past two weeks :P The boys are still amazing me with their imaginations and observation skills. Last night Jonathan (17 months old!) grabbed a diaper off the floor (Daddy took it off of him before bath time and was still trying to get kiddos dried off so had not had time to put it in the diaper pail) and walked it from the bathroom to the bedroom and over to the diaper pail and shoved it in the little hole, turned the lid and threw away the diaper. We have never asked him to do that before and didn't even know he knew how. The other day he wanted in Mommy's lap, but she was at the table on the computer. No problem, he picked up a step stool, walked over with it and put it in front of my chair, climbed up on it and climbed into my lap. Pretty scary when our 17 month old is already problem solving and learning from his older brothers. He still looks too small to be doing any of that! as of two weeks ago he still didn't weigh 20 lbs!
Our adoption paperwork is almost complete now! Lord willing, we will be able to start the Homestudy process in January! wohoo! please continue to keep us in your prayers!

Making Cookies

James came up to me earlier this morning and so very nicely asked me " Mom, can we make some cookies please?" I just had to comply. So I thought I would share some of the pictures with you :D Katie gave me the idea of Peanut butter cookies (I was trying to figure out what kind of cookies to make since I don't have chocolate or oatmeal) and I found a simple recipe (three ingredients!) in a Taste of Home cookbook. Here are the results :)

Boys are so much fun

We have one week now until we go to our adoption education class and start down the road of adopting a girl. I am looking forward to having a girl, but I love having boys. They can be so much fun. James has been having fun being creative with play dough among other things. His imagination still astounds me. Joshua is starting to speak more clearly and it amazes me what he already understands. Jonathan is still a huge toot. He is walking more and more and getting into everything he can reach. He is still so tiny. He is almost 16 months old and he still has to face the rear of the vehicle in his car seat because he only weighs 18 lbs. We got home late from church last night and While Jeremy got the older boys ready for bed (they all had fallen asleep in the van on the way home from church) I got Jonathan out of the van and got to sit down on the couch and just hold him while he slept. He moves so much when he's awake and doesn't like to miss anything, so he never lets me hold him in the cradle position. It was really nice to just hold my sleeping baby. I'm looking forward to continuing watching them grow. I pray they learn to serve Christ well. James already makes me smile. He randomly will say a verse that he's been memorizing or sings a song that Daddy plays at church or points to a cross shaped object and tells me that Jesus died on the cross for us because he loves us. I pray he understands all of that and never turns away from it.

Joshua showing Mommy something cool on our Painted desert trip.


Superman James and Superpuppy! (He put his cape on Gracen while we were doing dishes and wanted to show us Superpuppy :)


I know, I'm spoiled rotten. He was tired so he put himself down for a nap.


Believe it or not he started putting all these on himself :D

October 2008

October has been an interesting month for us here in the desert. It has been hot one day, cold the next and then hot again. The days are still hot now, but the nights are getting cold. the boys are adjusting fairly well. Joshua has been a little crabby lately due to his 4 year molars coming in. Jonathan is determined to prove he is just as big as his brothers. You can see him helping Daddy with the dishes. James is getting better at being a big helper and writing his name. Jeremy and I are doing fairly well and are very blessed to have each other.
As you can see in the pictures, We have a daredevil on our hands. Jonathan can climb up to the top bunk on his own, with no help. It was pretty quiet the other day so I went to see what the boys had gotten into and found Jonathan and Joshua on the top bunk of the bunkbeds. I wasn't really surprised since Jonathan had already tried climbing up there once when we were in the room with him. Boys are so much fun!
We sent off our formal application to adopt and are scheduled to take an adoption class this coming month that will start us on the way to, Lord willing, adopt our little girl. Please pray for us through this process. We are going as God leads, but it's still a little scary. Soon we'll have 4 monkeys running around the house :)