God's Perfect Love is Overwhelming!!!

We are so blessed to have had the precious children from this wonderful ministry come and stay with us for the past few days!!!  They travel the U.S. to raise awareness, advocate for orphans and encourage everyone to DO SOMETHING to help orphans. We may not all be called to adopt, be we are all called to do something (James 1:27).

Our church had 6 different host families that each were blessed to have a couple of precious orphans from either Ethiopia or Honduras stay at our homes where we could love on them AND experience God's lavish love in a whole new way! The best part was that they performed for our church Wednesday night...truly AMAZING!!! Here is a video of one of their songs.

The night that they arrived I was so touched by the deep JOY and PEACE that these sweet kids have. They all ran around our yard and played with our kids and the kids from the other Host Families as if they were all family. They laughed and sang the whole time they were here. It just shows that no matter how broken and ugly someone's past may be, Jesus covers it all as only He can once we accept Him as our Lord (which each of these children have!) God is SO Good!!!

Kennady made a Welcome sign for the door  ;)

Here are all of the host families, children and staff

Kennady and sweet Gracia

The teeter-totter was where all the action was!

Gracia, Haley, Mahder and Kennady

The kids got to sing for the news station!

Our kids were wishing they didn't have to go to school today - they just wanted to stay home and play!

Thankfully it was early release and they got to all go swimming. Daddy came home early and of course taught the girls to stunt in the pool!!! They had a blast!

After the pool Kolson and Gracia decided they wanted to get wet again!

The girls after the performance!

Kiki, Haley and Kennady all bought shirts

The girls with their new bows!

We will miss these sweet faces, belly giggles and beautiful singing around here!!!

Our Day....

We had friends over to swim today  :)

Kolson lost his 3rd tooth!

Keegan got a lot of reading in - he loves this new series that we found. They are from a Christian author about a brother and sister that solve mysteries and try to shine Jesus 

at their schools. Kennady loves them too!

He loves it when I take his pictures  ;)

Spring Fun!!!

We LOVE that it is almost SUMMER!!!

Kolson started soccer

Kennady decided to try track

We had another ROCK Youth Night here

The boys have been playing soccer in the yard

And Daddy and Kennady have been stunting

What we've been up to...

Last week I went with Kolson's class to the Zoo! We had a great field trip  :)  His favorite parts were the monkeys, the Winged Wonders Bird Show and the ice cream  :)  Here he is petting the sting rays (right before one jumped up and splashed him!)

 He also loved feeding the giraffes!

We had fun!!

We also had Cheer Try-outs

And then we went up to Sacramento to see Brodie's family. It was Jordan's 18th B'day!!! We went to the A's / Indian's game on the way home  :)

Snow Day!!!

We had an awesome Snow Day with our friends, the Shabaglians!

Chris, Kennady, Kols, Keeg and Symphony (how cute is she all stuffed in pink!)

Kennady and Keeg heading down the hill

That was fun!!!

Me, Andrea and Symphony

Dads vs Kids Snowball fight!

Kennady and Keegan mean business!

Keeg found a snow tunnel

Of course, Brodie took it up a notch by building a jump!

Even Keeg tried it out  :)

Kennady and Christopher

Time for lunch!

Heading back to the cabin to warm up!

Once we got back to the cabin, Keegan began creating (one of his favorite things to do!)

Thank You, Jesus, for fun family memories in the snow  :)

Our Friends - The Castros

Last Tuesday our dear friends son, Brett, was hit by a car. Miraculously he survived by the grace of God!!! He has a long road of recovery ahead of him but we are all so thankful that he will be fine!!! We are praying that Jesus will draw Brett and his whole family close to Him in this time - that they will grow tremendously in their faith and love for our Lord! They are such an amazing example of a family who follows Jesus wholeheartedly at ALL times. The Castro family is also in the process of adoption!! They are adopting a son from Jamaica...we are so excited for them  :)


The night before Brett was hit they launched a fundraising campaign for their adoption. They are asking friends, family and anyone with a heart for adoption to help out...all they are asking is that we contribute $10.00 if  we are able and also, to spread the word! Here is their blog and here is the site to their fundraising campaign. We are hoping to SURPRISE them by really getting the word out so that when they get home from the hospital their need will already have been met!!! Please check out their site and read more!!!

Happy Easter!!!

We had an awesome Easter Break...we relaxed over at the coast!

 We spent time at the beach

 We went down to the tide pools - always one of our favorite things to do!

 Keegan caught crabs with his bare hands!!!

 We ate at some of our favorite restaurants

 The boys weren't quite brave enough to go all the way in the water

 We walked on the walking trail down to the beach

We came home and spent Easter Sunday at church learning more about the Powerful and Awesome Love of our Savior who died for our sins and Resurrected that first glorious Easter morning!!! Then we enjoyed BBQ-ing with our family!

 And we can't forget about the Easter egg hunt...

We enjoyed having an extra day off and now we are getting ready to go back to school!