On the flip side.........BLESSING!

On the flip side we have some of the sweetest boys to call (or almost call) our very own! Laine is so playful, so happy and LOVES playing with is brother Ezra now. They love wrestling. You will often find and hear Ezra laughing his head off after plowing into his brother Laine head first. Laine will grab on to him and roll over on top of him so cautiously without hurting Ezra and making him laugh even harder! Such a sweet and happy moment for parents! :)

Sweet Adalinne Rose

I've been trying to get all my thoughts digested through before I posted any information on our latest happening. It's been a tough week, our sweet Adalinne Rose got picked up by her case worker early Tuesday morning. It came as a COMPLETE shock for absolutely everyone involved, including the judge, her social worker and us.

July 2, they were to have her brothers' severance (termination of parental rights) hearing and when they arrived in court, the biological mother, father, aunt (the one who already has her brother), and the aunt's mother (in which the aunt is staying in her home), all showed up! The mother hasn't showed up in 1 1/2 years to any of her other sons' hearings, so this was quite shocking. The mother reported in court that she thought she was a very small fraction of Cherokee indian, so they took a recess so the judge could call and see if that was actually true or not and it WAS, much to any of our dismay! Why hadn't this come up WAY before in the past two years!?

What you have to understand is that when someone claims they are even a 1/100 part any native american indian, the judges' hands are completely tied! He cannot terminate (and if it finally terminates it takes YEARS to finalize), he also has to find "kinship" (a family member that might be willing to take and possibly adopt the children), or a tribal foster family. Technically, if there literally had been NO "family" for her, we could've kept her in our home as foster, but would've never been able to adopt her and take her as our own. That would've been TOUGH! And eventually if it had terminated, they would've more than likely found a tribal home that could've adopted her.

All that said, our family has had a rough week. We love her SO MUCH, but are SO GRATEFUL to the Lord for the privilege of taking care of her in probably the most crucial time of her life as she was detoxing from the Meth, even if just for 5 weeks. We pray we at least planted a tiny seed that would grow in her heart and that one day she might know Jesus as her personal Saviour. We pray for her constantly. Would you please pray for her as well!? For her safety, for her protection. That she would be WELL taken care of. That God would use her life to further His kingdom again!?

Thank you SO MUCH for those of you that prayed for Adalinne and will continue!

Ready..........Set.....???

Ezra had his 15 month WCC! He's growing so big! Still only 20 pounds, but he is SOLID! He is 5th percentile, but is 25th percentile on height! Can't remember his height. I think 31 inches. I'll have to check.

Anyways, lately he has EXPLODED with his vocabulary! Ever since he turned the magical ONE! He says, please, thank you, more, all done (signs and says at the same time), bye bye, ni-ni, he blows kisses. Still not walking. He did take three steps a few weeks ago and hasn't been daring since! :) Stinker! But, man when he starts walking, I'M IN TROUBLE! :)

He newer thing is that when we say, "Ready, Set..." he finishes and says, "GOOOOOOO!" So cute! Watch the video, we caught it on tape!

More updates probably tonight later. No promises though.

Saturday Swim Fun!

My sister in law, Aubrey's family, are in town visiting for about 9 days. Whenever they come to visit (usually annually) we try and do a few fun things as a big group! So, Saturday we went to one of our favorite "pool places" here in Phoenix called Pecos Park! We were there for about 2 1/2 hours, then we all went to have pizza at THE BEST new found pizza place there is EVER! Patzi Granaldi's (sp). OH MY GOODNESS! To die for! Then we all finished off at Coldstone Creamery! Okay, so we went a little overboard but we had SO MUCH FUN! Thanks, Ben, Aubrey, Mark, Val, Brian, Heidi, Haylie, Mollie, Jack, mama for such a great time! We had a blast. By the time we were ready to leave, Mr. David FINALLY got used to the idea of the pool and SCREAMED when we drug him out of the pool to go home! What a stinker. You can see in the video our little whale we have! He's getting less and less fearful of the water! So thrilled about that!

2nd Annual 4th of July BBQ at the Baltzly's!

Shew! That was quite the crowd of people, but we had SO MUCH FUN! I think we hit a little above the 40 mark of people in our house total from start to finish. Everything worked PERFECTLY! I didn't have the camera out too much I was too busy serving and making sure everyone was taken care of! So, the few pictures I do have I'll share! We ended up sitting out right across the street on our sidewalk to see the fireworks and saw every firework BUT the ground ones and had to fight no traffic at all! It was the greatest!

David's Surgery

The surgery went GREAT! Tonight he was playing rougher than he does normally, so he must've been happy from that sedation! :)

He's going to have a blood shot, itchy eye for the next week or so, but otherwise, the doctor felt he had corrected what needed to be corrected!

I came down with a HORRIBLE sinus infection about 48 hours ago and have been struggling with keeping up. Haven't had a sinus infection in years. Since I've moved out to Arizona and that will be 2 years in July! It's been nice, but I think I'm "making up" for the ones I haven't been having on a regular basis! :)

Getting ready for our big 2nd Annual 4th of July party! Should be fun. We have about 40 people coming over for it! Then we'll all go over and watch the fireworks at Pacana Park. Again, I'll post pictures later this weekend!

Please pray!

This is WAY LATE in posting, but I wanted to ask everyone to pray for David. He has surgery to correct his eyes tomorrow at 10:00. It's outpatient, but you can imagine it won't be a very fun procedure for him! Neither for mommy to comfort after.

I too went to the doctor today and have a pretty bad sinus infection. I'm feeling pretty miserable, but hope to sleep tomorrow afternoon while everyone is sleeping!

Then, need to do some work on the house to prepare for our 2nd Annual 4th of July BBQ! I'm so excited. Should be fun. We have about 40 people signed up to come! :) I'll post pictures this weekend.