Did you say busy?

For the very first time I have missed a weekly blog. Here is a little insight into my life at the moment. In the past three weeks we have had five eye doctor appointments, four doctor's appointments in Morgantown (two hours away), five appointments at the pediatrician, five Christmas practices for the kids at church for two different programs, trumpet lessons, Ben's birthday, Ben's birthday party with 17 kids at our house, our seventeenth wedding anniversary (December 9th), kids' Christmas program at church, Becca had a young girls' meeting, and Mariah's very first birthday with us.

This week so far we have five appointments scheduled. We are supposed to have our social worker come for our six month post placement review. I have not even called her yet to make that appointment. Not to mention that Ben's sinus infection has caused an ear infection and affected his asthma. 

Our sweet Mariah reached a very important milestone this past week. She turned two years old on Friday. We had to celebrate in style! Here is a picture of Mariah's very first birthday cake. 

I stayed up until 2am Friday to get this completed. Since I had a sick little guy all day, I had to decorate after the kids went to bed. Mariah loves Elmo! 

Mariah seemed to enjoy her cake. She even pulled the cake board over and put her hand right in the icing! She wasn't sure what she had just done! Here are a few more pics of her special day.

The next three pictures are "Birthday Brunch with Daddy". Jeremy does this with all of the kids on their special day.

Here are a few from here at home. Her first ever present........a doctor's kit! We are all well-immunized now!

She loves this Dora the Explorer doll.

We enjoyed watching her as we sang Happy Birthday. She did a great job trying to blow out her two candles.

We kept it a low key day! Just the seven of us.

We ate Chinese in honor of Mariah. We went to a take out place and the Chinese woman there was shocked when we walked through the door with her. She looked at us and said, "You have a Chinese daughter! Oh wait. No. She is Korean." We smiled and Jeremy shared with her that Mariah is, in fact, Chinese. The lady was so sweet with us and called her 4 year old son out from the back to come play with Mariah. Mariah was very interested in this little guy but he never spoke.

Waiting for our Chinese take-out.

I have a confession to make. It has to do with this picture.

I have posted this as my profile picture on Facebook. Now the story behind the picture.......my confession.  Our sweet friend took our pictures for us. It was our first professional pictures ever taken as a family of seven.  This is the one day that Mariah decided was not a good day to take a nap. I tried. I tried hard to persuade her to nap. She was not interested. Well, not until about 30 minutes before we needed to get out the door. When I got Mariah out of her crib, I also got an attitude. This picture happens to catch her with a handful of leaves ready to throw at anyone within range. So, as cute as this may look.....it really wasn't pretty!

I'll go back now and show pictures from Ben's very first birthday party with friends. We had seventeen children here for that party. The theme was camping/military. Ben couldn't really decided so we combined the two. 

Here is the cake. We bought this one!

Lots of fun with swords.

Evidently it was a lot of fun in the basement.

 Playroom.........Legos!

PVC pipes for marshmallow guns! Jeremy spent quite a bit of time cutting those pieces.

 Our "campfire". 

 Jeremy and the boys making their marshmallow shooters!

Here are a few pictures from the kids singing at the mall.

Ben.......thoroughly enjoying himself.

Here are our oldest two. They are getting so tall!

After singing at the mall, Mariah had a little accident. Instead of putting her in dry clothes, Jeremy put her in the car without any pants....just her diaper. When we pulled into the garage this is what I saw. Becca's Broken sunglasses, winter coat, no pants, and no socks and shoes......that completes the look!

I am sad knowing that Mariah's birthday will also be a date that is shared as a tragedy. In China, a man went into a school and stabbed 22 students. In Connecticut, a mentally deranged man went into an elementary school and opened fire on elementary school students and teachers. Twenty-eight people lost their lives as a result. My heart is heavy as I think and pray for the families affected. 

This sounds like what so many others are saying but I am so thankful to have all five of my children safe. We live in a world with so much evil.

Friday also was a day that a very dear adoption friend watched as her three year old Chinese daughter was taken into her fourth open heart surgery. Lily made it through the surgery but is in terrible pain every time she takes a breath. I ask that you lift this family up in prayer. Jacques and Emily have four little girls and Emily is pregnant with their fifth child.  If you would like to read their blog you can do so here.