we love packages thanks Abbie and Chris!

along with other goodies Abbie sent Mei this quilt she made which we LOVE!
the next morning I found it being used in a different way. Abbie know that it is getting much love can't wait to see you guys so soon!

my chinese daughter makes norwegian rice pancakes

and loved them!

fun at the pumpkin farm

its been 2 weeks since my procedure and I am beginning to feel more well I can move anyway. So for our friends birthday we celebrated with them at the pumpkin farm
nice thing about home schooling is we had the place to our self. The kids rode this slide about 60 times

bonus, we realized this farm was right by aunt June's house so we were able to drop in always fun, we don't get to see them nearly enough

hopefully these trips become more and more frequent for me (with less and less medication to do it)

first firehouse visit

Mei's first firehouse visit was a real party!
for this little guy. His mom and dad won the party at our auction and we celebrated his first birthday today and they were generous enough to let us all come too.

the firehouse never gets old even after 7 years

you can see she loved it

another first , a complete success. Thanks rob &Tiff for letting us party with you!

If you keep up to date on our blog you know that we trust God with our lives and know prayer is such an important part of the body of Christ but sometimes God gives us things we never even asked for. The woman in this picture is just that! Siu came to America from China at age 7 with her family and has thankfully remembered her Cantonese this has been our answer to our unasked prayer. Every visit to church she visits with Mei. we have been able to tell her subjects in advance we need her to explain, and the two of them just chit chat about what we have been doing. It has been a wonderful miracle, why are we even surprised? God has given us

one after another in this adventure we just have to recognise them when they come.

thanks Columbus, we had a great day!

we spent the day at wendys doing scrapbooking for girls and bb guns for boys mei 's first scrapbook it took her a while to realize you don't just try and put as many pictures on 1 page as possible.

the boys and T played for about 6 hours

and there was inside fun too, T enjoyed both, as usual the kids showered and put on pjs and the little kids and I stopped at Target on the way home. They thought it was great shopping in pjs and it really was! A great day together with family remembering our grandpa and loving the country we live in.

steering meet

we were lucky enough to have more Fenwick support this week (it was 2 weeks ago)
the Lourias joined on this one

my boys at the finish line. It started out clod and then just got colder and colder

Gray found a new way to cheer

and the girls were in love with this toy sized dog we had to pull them away when our boys ran by

a great way to stay warm! IKEA bag with endless uses

learning from the best

october 12th a year later

one year ago today my grandma began a new chapter in her life, one without my grandpa. The reminder is bitter sweet I miss him but do not wish him on this earth, heaven is a much greater place for him. As most of the family was together for an old fashion grandmas Sunday lunch yesterday I looked up at this picture and was over come with blessing. The God we serve, he gives and takes away. last year He took our grampa home with him, this year with His same goodness He gave us someone new. here is grandma is enjoying her 17th great grandchild with tears in her eyes praising God out loud for His wonderful miracle of life. What a year God is good.

there is a new hero in the family!

our own Jenny was the first one in our family to ever run the Chicago marathon and finished a champion!Sky, and others, braved the freezing cold to cheer her on
another proud running moment in the family. In honor of Jenny I declare marathon Sunday's mooch from now on to be called Jenny's mooch where we all eat Italian beefs to honor her endurance. WE LOVE YOU JENNY TODAY YOU ARE OUR HERO! HAPPY JENNY DAY!

home from the procedure

I am back from the hospital now. The procedure took over an hour (of needles in my back ugh) but the Dr. was very excited about how well it went. He kept saying "This is real science, or this is the real deal, precision science that's what were doing" I was happy to have someone who loves his job so much! I told him I had a lot of people praying for him his morning he said "wow thank you, really, I've been saying prayers for us both all morning" so interesting sadly I was laying there getting stuck so I couldn't go any farther than that on the subject.
the pain I feel now is procedure pain from having the needles in so long and I have the local anesthesia still working so won't full know the full pain until usually 12 hours. I should know if it worked by Friday he said however remember that I always take 3x longer than most to heal so will not be sad Fri. if I don't feel it by then.
He did say, which makes me a bit scared, that this is the last thing he will do to my SI joint if this doesn't work we will start looking on to other spots. However if it does work it will probably take 6 months for me to "reset my gate" meaning teach my self to live not favoring the left side so if will take at least that long to get relief, assuming this works.

new unity, grab a tissue

newest family pictures

we needed some pictures for legal paper work so here are the newest family pic's, plus some
the real Rills

the last photo like this we took was in China and she was not ours, so much has changed in 2 months

I love how well you can see her toothless maggie look in this one

this weeks meet we traveled

as you see my kids love the travel meets!
Saucony has free bees and the rills won big! we were a walking commercial

it was cold but we all had our friar gear to keep us warm and lookin good!

my man turned 40!!

we had our friend siu tell mei it was d's birthday so she understood it all, notice the shirt she picked out for him. Couldn't be better ramien noodles! B calls her mei noodles and yes she is wearing her coat inside I guess well she isn't used to fall this far north
we had the whole theater to ourselves which great. I told David I arranged it for his big day!

wings for lunch and a paint ball day from sky once his knee is better

even the kids got gifts, we were sitting there and the man came to fill the claw arcade game and gave each kid a bear for free it was totally unexpected surprise!

what better way for the coach to celebrate but to watch his niece run a race! Tristan ,sporting her black and white fenwick style, was a true cross country runner braving the COLD rain!!!

the true blue fans, "all right now Tristan"

sorry this is turned, next we went to see his other niece and nephew. As always Madison was waiting at the door for us. We had a great time while the kids played, liv just wanted to take care of Sawyer

Madison is 5 months older than gray but he certainly is much bigger than his older cousin

you can just see in her face she is more than happy riding on B!

prime rib for dinner what else? B tasted his first prime rib and said "wow why haven't I ever had this before?" oh no I guess our dinner bills going to be larger now that he knows the sweet goodness

after a wonderfully full day we came home for cupcakes made and frosted by Gray, yummy. We both were hobbling around together in pain today but it was his 23rd birthday we have spent together and I couldn't have asked for more than being right there with him as he starts another year, God has certainly blessed us over and over again. Happy Birthday heavy you still got it!

yet another procedure for me

Dr. Candido read my MRI on Friday and found something curious with my SI joint. He has another procedure he wants to try and has got me in fast! tomorrow, Tuesday, at 11am I will be having yet another procedure at the hospital including needles in my back yippie! pray, pray,pray as always for Dr. Candido.It seems we can no longer get hopeful about these procedures as none of them have been the answer yet. My pain is really bad and can not function anymore with out the strong prescriptions. I take them for things like church, races or anytime I leave the house. That mean while I am home, and not taking them, I am in bed flat it is really miserable for all of us. For me pray my recovery isn't horrible and long my body doesn't handle these kinds of needles very well. T.