Just an update.....

It's been quite sometime since my last blog... Well life is really busy at the Andrews house. Just a little brief update on our life lately.

We've finished up football and cheer for 2012.  Will had a really good time playing football.  He even got to play on a Friday night Varsity game!  That really made him a happy boy!  Annagrace really enjoyed cheering, she goes around the house continually doing cheers!  Nathan is growing and having fun along the way!

School is still going good.  We are still enjoying using our Trail Guide to Learning.  I enjoy it too, I'm learning so much right along with Will and Annagrace.  Nathan does a little bit of preschool at home too!  He can recognize the letters A-H.  He loves to be read to.  We've had a really fun school year so far!  Just enjoyed a field trip last Friday to The Grande Ole' Pumpkin Patch.

We are still awaiting news for our adoption.  We are approved, now just waiting, we of course know that this is in God's hand, and we are completely trusting Him!!

My sweet Mama had to go to hospital yesterday with chest pains, ended up being transferred to Alabaster, and had to get two stints put in.  She's doing well and will be home today!!  Thank God she's recovering well!  No damage to the heart!!  Praise God for that!!!

 Today marks the 15 year anniversary of my Daddy's death.  His life was taken at the hands of a drunk driver.  I was cleaning some papers off of my bar this morning and came across this poem that I wrote shortly after he died.  I'm going to share it here,  to have it saved in cyber world.....

 

 

DADDY

 

 

Daddy, now that your earthly body is gone,

I know that you are resting in your heavenly home.

Times now are so very sad,

the deepness of my hearts hurting is very bad.

The fall air is crisp, and the leaves are turning,

I know I'll see you again oneday, my leaving of the earth, or at our Saviours returning.

Daddy, it hurts so bad because I miss you,

I wish I could hold your hand, hug or kiss you.

I feel a lot of sadness, sorrow, emptiness and loniless now,

I will overcome though, remember you taught me how.

In all my sadness and sorrow, I can find joy and happiness deep down,

Knowing that I'll meet in heaven, and see your wear your crown.

Everywhere I look there is always a reminder of you,

Whether it be a picture, or one of your many belongings, or just the early morning dew.

Many times I find myself starting to laugh and to cry,

As I remember the warmth of your hand wiping away the tears from my eye.

Just like "daddy's little girl" again,

I will remeber sitting in your lap, listening to your songs about the sunshine and rain.

Daddy, I will always love you so very dear,

Because, in my heart you will always remain very near.

 

Written in Loving Memory of Henry H. Helms, Sr

May 18, 1943-Nov. 1, 1997

By: Merle Annette Helms Andrews, Nov. 6, 1997

 

 

 

Yes many years have passed, but my longing for my daddy's touch will never leave.  I love my daddy very much!  I know that because of Jesus I will see my daddy again one day!! 

 

I am very blessed with a wonderful family & friends!!!  God is so good!!! 

 

Just a quick update of the Andrews Family!!

 



 

 



Time gets away...

Wow.... didn't expect to have allowed so much time to pass before I blogged again.... but... I have been a little busy!!  We've had a great start to our school year.  I am LOVING our Trail Guide to Learning, Paths of Settlement curriculum.  Will and Annagrace said it's been the best curriculum that we've had so far!  I love reading real books about people's lives during a certain time period, instead of just reading facts and dates!  I really think the kids like that aspect of it too.  Sometimes when we're reading we don't want to put the books down in anticipation of what's going to happen next.  I think we've read more books in the first few weeks of school this year that we read in an entire semester last year!! 


We've also been VERY busy with football and cheer.   Will had his first game Friday night and he did an awesome job.  Annagrace also cheered for the first time on Friday night! 

Annagrace in her cheer outfit!

 

Will at his game Friday night! ('He's #19)

 

We are so excited to be able to homeschool and have sporting activities too!  It's so exciting to see my children having fun!

 

Friday was quite an amazing day for us too!  We recieved our phone call from the state of Alabama approving us for adoption.  Excited to see where God takes us on this journey!!

 

Saturday we traveled to Vicksburg, MS to pick up Mark's mama and see his brother and his family and meet our new nephew!!



 





 Here's the doorstep cousins!  Will, Gabby, Cade,& Nathan.. (we're missing Addison & Marshall in this picture) This is the Andrews cousins!  They hadn't seen each other since Christmas!  They were all excited to see one another.  We cannot allow that much time pass again before seeing one another!

 

 

 

This is Mark's brother Aaron with his sweet wife Bethanie & their beautiful children, Gabby, Cade & Marshall... since Marshall decided to sleep through all the pics....

 

 

Just a quick update on our last few days!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

First week of school

 Our first week of school 2012-2013!!

We've had a great first week of school.  As promised, I'm going to keep you all up-to-date on our new curriculum, Trail Guide to Learning, Paths of Settlement.   I really thought my 12 year old would really not be happy about the curriculum change, but so far this week he's really done well and had a good attitude for the most part.  He enjoys history, and since this curriculum in centered around certain historical periods, he seems to be enjoying learning about actual people during those periods.  Annagrace loves to try anything different, so she's been pretty happy too.  We are still trying to get our "flow" of the work down, but I'm sure with time it will all come together.  Will is using the middle school supplement and that keeps him busy while Annagrace finishes up certain things.  I could see the benefit of having two books of certain books.  Example, when they are doing state work, it would be a help to have two of the Atlas books, so I may try and order us another one of those.  Other than that, having only one copy of each book is working for us, while one is doing individual reading, or copywork in one book, the other is reading in another book.  Hope that makes sense to you all....  (if you're familiar with TGTL you'll understand). With only one week in it's really hard to tell how this is going to really work for us. However, with that said, I'm really enjoying working with them together.  In the past I've felt so pulled, back-and-forth between the two of them,  trying to work with this one on history, then reading with that one.  With the TGTL we all seem to be "more on the same page". 

Nathan, my 3 year old,he's done really well this week.  Usually early in the morning after breakfast he will sit quietly and watch a little TV, which is working well while we do our copy work and dictation.  By the time we start read-aloud time, he's joining us at the table...

Here he's just coloring with color pencils.  It's funny because while I'm reading along the story, he will repeat several things that I say.  He's really getting more out of it than I realized.  One afternoon he began to retell me part of the story that he'd heard read earlier in the week!  He's really paying attention!  Of course the color pencils and crayons don't usually last that long.  Thursday of this week I was going to give him play dough to play with, but it was dried up... so I googled how to make play dough, well I was missing an ingredient, so I began looking at other alternatives and came across how to make slime, or goo....  I had all the ingredients so I made slime for him......

This was a HIT for him, he spent more than an hour on it the first day, then again the next morning, and asked for it again that afternoon!  Now I know this will probably get old in a few days, but it's given us, around 2 hours of nice quiet school time while he plays!  I know I just need to keep new and different things in front of him to keep him busy.  Now in addition to coloring and making slime, we did work on the letter "A"this week. He traced and colored the letter everyday, we used flash cards, etc...  by Friday morning he was bringing me something and showing me the letter  "A"that he'd found on his own.  So we are just going to work on letter recognition and sounds this year, nothing real formal, just having fun!  He's enjoying school so far.

In the midst of school, Will has started playing football with a homeschool group out of Montgomery, our cover school.  Evangel Family Christian Academy.  He's loving the football, we are making about 2 trips a week for practice, we are carpooling with another family.  Here he is in his football uniform before going to practice...

We finished our week on Friday by celebrating with lunch at Golden Ranch!  After lunch we had to run a few errands, here's my 3 sweeties waiting in the van...









A great start so far.  Thanking God for his love and mercy! 



Summer....bye bye!!

Today is the official last day , of our summer!   We've had a busy summer.   Not really gone on any real vacations this summer, but have enjoyed our summer.  We kick-started our summer with a trip to 6 Flags.  Enjoyed a few days at Kids Camp with our church.  Took a few days to visit with family in Panama City.  We are full swing into football practice now!  This is our first rodeo with football, so we are learning as we go!  Will is getting to play football with our homeschool cover school in Montgomery, so we are commuting to Montgomery for football a few days a week.  Thankfully we have another family to carpool with.  Will is having a blast, he is worn out by the time he gets home, but he's loving it!
We were hoping to hear from our adoption home study, but haven't heard anything yet.  Well we know we've been sent to state.  So, we just wait on state DHR to approve our study, then we can begin the "matching" process... we just wait and pray and trust God...... 
I have spent most of this week organizing and getting our school work together.  We are excited to begin with our new curriculum this year.  Not sure how it's going to work, but I'm excited.  Annagrace LOVES change and Will HATES change!!  I know I'm gonna have a bit of a challenge in that area!  We are going to take one day at a time, I'll keep all of my other homeschooling friends posted as we begin this adventure.
So, we are saying bye bye to summer today!!  :(......   we have to get started early to finish early,  I am always ready for summer by mid May!!  Going to spend the day together doing a few fun things in Montgomery/Prattville before football practice this afternoon!!  So, I'm off to get the family ready for a fun-filled day!!!

ADOPTION....

My husband preached an awesome sermon yesterday about adoption.  I'm gonna blog a little about it today!  I have such a passion now for adoption.  God really began to speak to my heart about adoption over a year ago.  I knew God was leading our family down this path, just not sure how.  I began to read blog, books, etc..  I began looking at types of adoption, adoption processes etc.  Still not sure how or what, I just kept praying.  I would mention it to Mark, and he was always in agreement.  I was really afraid to actually say, "Mark, I really think we are supposed pursue adoption, not just talk about it."  He was in total agreement.  God had been working on him all along too!  We really began looking at God's heart for adoption. 
Eph. 1:4-5 “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”
We begin to see how we as Christians are adopted by God into His family!
When we are adopted into his family we are;
Given his name
Given the spirit of his son
Heirs and joint heirs with Jesus
Entering his household
Receiving his welcome
Possessing his image
Receiving his discipline
Receiving a future to live forever in his presence
How AWESOME is that?!!
We are all born as spiritual orphans, until we accept Jesus, then we become His adopted child!!  Just as we began to see God's heart for spiritual orphans, we began to see His heart for orphans in the natural (the world around us). 
You know the truth is that there 143 million orphaned children and 11 million who starve to death and die from preventable diseases and 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and 2.3 million who live with HIV which all add up to 164.8 million needy children. At first glance that appears to be a big number, but to put that into perspective 2.1 billion people proclaim to be Christians. The truth is that if only 8 percent of the Christians would care for just one more child, there would not be any statistics left.  The truth is He loves these children just as much as he loves you and me! We began to see these statistics, and began to look at God's word.. James 1:27..
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
Many other scriptures relate to this as well...  We know that we can't change the world, but maybe we can change a child or two's worlds for them!!  We aren't perfect people, don't have it all together, just want to follow God's heart for our family!  God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things, David- a Sheppard boy that killed a giant....Mary- a young teenage girl, carried our Savior in her womb... Paul- a young man with a violent history, wrote close to half a the new testament & spread the gospel all over the world.  So you see just ordinary people..... 
So you say, what can I do?
 First realize God's heart for adoption... have you been adopted by God into His family?
 Second, is God calling you to help spiritual orphans to become adopted into God's family too?
 Third, ask God what can you do in the natural to help care for the orphans, No, not everyone is called to adopt, but we can pray for the orphans, become part of a ministry that helps care for the orphans, don't remain silent become active in sharing the real need for orphan care, donate to families that are adopting (international adoption is VERY expensive).  Just pray and ask God to give you direction.....  
This journey for us continues, we don't know what God has in store for us, we are just walking this journey out one step at a time!!!

Power Tools!!!

What an experience I had yesterday!  I got an idea that I wanted to try and make something.  So off I go.  I worked very hard, with my Nathan right by my side.  This was the first time I used power tools by myself.  I was having so much fun!  I called Mark to ask him a question about his drill. He sounded worried, I've often threatened to build stuff before, and he's politely told me not to, because if I didn't know what I was doing, I'd get hurt.  Well to make a long story short, I got "my project" almost complete.  I didn't get cut, I didn't saw my arm or leg off!  The only thing I did do was get a little bit of friction burn on my finger, because I didn't have the drill bit in correctly!  But mind you , I got my project done.  There was a price to pay though.  It was probably around 95 degrees or so, nice and warm.  So in went a lot of sweat equity, my back was a little tight last night when I went to bed!  I am not gonna post any pictures yet, because I want to wait and post the finished product.  I've still got a little bit of finishing work to do.  But I did make a sign with some of the scrap wood that I had left over.  Again inspired by the wonderful world of Pinterest, I came across  this post and thought I'd give it a try.  You see I'm not the best at coming up with ideas, but if I see something that I like, I'm not afraid to give it a try.  Here's what mine looks like.

This pretty much sums up my day yesterday.  I had to pray that what I was doing would turn out, and imagine, dream, work and of course laugh!!  Mark did come home and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had actually built something with only the help of a 3 year old!  Just hard headed and determined. I will hopefully finish my project later this week and post the finished project.
 While working on this it reminded me of my faith.  God has given me "power tools" in life.  Have I been determined to use those tools, or am I afraid to use them?  Good question.  I think at times I've used them, maybe kinda like I did the drill with the wrong bit.  God gives us gifts and talents how are we using them? Some of those gifts maybe like a few of the tools I used yesterday, they hadn't been used in a while, and their batteries needed charging, or some of their pieces were missing, and I had to search until I found them, and some where even misplaced all together.  My prayer today is for God to help remind me of the gifts and talents that He has blessed me with and to help me use them for His glory!

Summer Fun!!

Oh what to do on a rainy summer day.. ??  It seems that every afternoon this week we've managed to get a bit of a thunder shower.  Annagrace had a couple of friends over today,  we were planning an afternoon trip to the pool...... well the clouds rolled in, and what did I have on my hands... 3 young ladies...."we're bored"....... Watching it rain for a bit, noticing that we didn't have any thunder or lightening.... They come to me, "Can we go outside and play on the slip and slide, it's not thundering or lightening."... Sure go for it....  Well I take a peep outside looking for the girls on the slip and slide, so I could send Nathan out for a while. Well they aren't on the slip and slide!  I look out the back window and they've found the mud!!   They started their fun in the mud!  Well it just happens that the mud is on a bit of an incline.  It was quite funny watching them try and climb the hill in the mud!!  I grabbed my phone and snapped a few shots of them in the mud!  They all had a great time as the rain came down while they splatted in the mud!  When the rain stopped, they made their way to the slip and slide to "clean the mud off"!  The joys of being a child!  Playing in the rain and mud, what a carefree way to spend a rainy summer afternoon!! 

While writing this, it reminded me of how in life sometimes, all we can see is the rain and the storm.  Sometimes even in the middle of the storms of life, we need to find the mud and stop and enjoy the moment!  Knowing how God loves us and wants us to be joyful.  Sometimes in life we have a hard time finding joy!   A challenge to myself and others; Where is your joy?  Is life hard right now, are there somethings in life that seem really difficult?  Are you feeling alone?  What storm are you walking in right now?  Take a moment and look for that little mud pile!!  Sometimes we do have to let go and be childlike in some ways!!  A favorite verse comes to mind... "The joy of the Lord is my strength" Nehemiah 8:10... So maybe we need to muster up some strength to make it through our storm!!  Oh.... where is that mud?  

On a journey....

I decided to begin another blog, since it's been almost a year since my last post.  I'm now going to try and include my homeschooling adventure along the way too.  Much has gone on with our family...  Will is knocking on the doorway of 13, Annagrace is 10 and little Nathan is 3 and full of energy.  We are in the process of pursuing adoption with Alabama DHR. That's another story within itself.  I will blog about it once I can. Our homestudy is in progress now.  I will not be able to elaborate much on that subject once we have children placed with us, due to the privacy of the children, UNTIL we officially adopt them!!  We do not know who we will be adopting, we are in the "waiting" process now!  Once our homestudy is approved we will be matched with child(ren).  Once they are placed with us, we cannot legally pursue adoption until they are in our home for atleast 3 months.  So due to legal issues I will not really be mentioning our adoption until it's all over... so hang with me!!  It may be several months before I'm able to really mention it in web land!!!