"God Twins"

At Kelly's Korner http://www.kellyskornerblog.com she is featuring a blog hop of "Show Us Your- Life- Tell Us your Adoption Story."

Well here goes, God has blessed us with a very interesting adoption story. My husband and I tried to conceive for 2 years and nothing happened. We decided to start fertility. After many tries of IUI's nothing worked. We started to look into adoption and put the word out that we would be interested in adopting.

We prayed that God would bless us with a child and there was a lot of heartache. It was definitely the hardest point of my life. We decided to try IVF. At first I thought I was not pregnant, but after the blood test it showed I was pregnant. The nurse had called my cell while I was teaching, to tell me that I was pregnant. I didn't want to answer the phone during school hours and be sad to find out that I wasn't pregnant. The nurse couldn't get a hold of me so she called my husband and told him that I was pregnant. He drove to school and told me with tears in his eyes that I was pregnant! We were due Oct. 13th.

Three months had gone by and we were so excited to be expecting and praised God continuously. Around Easter weekend we received a call from my husband's aunt about a mother who wanted to put her baby up for adoption. The birth mother didn't know exactly when she was due, but she thought around Sept. My husband and I prayed about it and then I made the call back to her. The birth mother and I became good friends.

The birth mother went to the doctors and he gave her a due date of Oct. 15th! These two babies were only 2 days apart!

We continued to build a relationship with the birth mother. We flew her up to our town and she stayed with us for a long weekend. It was fun to walk around being two pregnant ladies. I remember one time my husband was out to dinner with myself and the birth mother and a waitress jokingly asked if my husband was responsible for both of the babies. He said, "Well actually yes!" The waitress was very puzzled.

At 5 months we found out that we were having a boy and then a few weeks later we found out that we were adopting a little girl. We were so excited to have both a boy and a girl!

About a week and a half before both babies were due. I flew almost 40 weeks pregnant to FL. My husband dropped me off at the airport and he drove down to FL with our car. My husband's grandparents live in Florida and we stayed with them. During our time of waiting we spent time with the birth mother. Our daughter was induced on Oct. 10th and we were there for her delivery. I was the first one to hold her and my husband came in after the birth and cut the cord. It was a beautiful birth, but after our daughter Avielle Joann was born there were a lot of tears. As we all knew this was not going to be easy. Avielle had three days with her birth mother in the hospital.

The last day at the hospital her birth parents allowed us to be her parents!!!!!!! It was one of the best days of my life! My husband was at the hosptial after the signing. I stayed with my husband's grandparents and family and just prayed that she would be ours.

After the papers were signed my husband was wheeled out of the hospital with our daughter and he brought her home to me! Avielle's name means "My Lord My God is Gracious."

5 days later I went into labor with our son, Anderson Dale.

God has given them such a beautiful story. I'm excited to see what God has in store for them in the future. I call these two little miracles our "God Twins." Only God could put these 2 five days apart!

When my "God Twins" were 10 months old I became pregnant with our daughter Ellie. I know that God does have a sense of humor. When Ellie was born the two oldest were only 19 1/2 months old!!!!

God hears our cries and He is listening. He knows our hearts desire and He is writing your story.

2 Fun Christmas Parties!

Before Christmas we had two fun parties with our small group and our besties. In the above picture are all the children in our small group. The older ones all play in the basement and the three younger ones usually are asleep during the grown-up time. Left to right: Avielle, Abby, Brooklyn, Bella, Ellie, Brynn, Anderson, and Ben. It is amazing that they are all looking at the camera. Don't they all look so cute in their Christmas clothes?

Anderson tickling Abby.

The kids table. Right after the picture we changed the kids into their pajamas.

Hugs!

Love these two cuties!

Our second Christmas party was with our friends that we have known for over 8 years. We had the party at our house and here is the table all set.

Man we are growing! Left to right: Ellie, Katie, Avielle, Brynn, Mackenzie, Stephanie, Bella, Brooke, and our only boy Anderson.

Uncle Jake read the kids "The Night Before Christmas."

Stephanie and Brynn with their Pillow Pets.

A Good Cry!

Okay, this is going to be a post without pictures. I know quite crazy for my usual! So, the time of the month is visiting soon and my emotions have been all over the place! Just ask my husband. Anyways, last night the kids were all tucked in asleep and Chevy was out playing basketball. I was reading a blog, "4 Little Men and Girly Twins" and the blogger was talking about memories. There were pictures of her and her husband posted, and they looked so young. Just looking at the parent's faces I saw such love and adventure in their eyes and no wrinkles. I pondered how they must have felt entering parenthood.

Without warning my eyes began to tear up and I burst out crying. All the memories I have of my children started flooding my mind. Now I haven't had a long hard cry in a long time, but this is exactly what happened. I started crying uncontrollable, just thinking about how much I love my children and how they are growing up so fast. As a child I always dreamed of becoming a mother and now I am and my kids are at the perfect ages of 4 and 2. I just want time to stop. It really has been a struggle for me to know if we are done adding to our family. Chevy without a doubt in his mind feels we are done, but for me it is so hard to say the word, "done!" I just love this age. As you can tell and if you are around me much, you know that I have wrestled with the thought of more or if we are complete.

Now, back to the story. I'm sobbing and Chevy comes home. I think to myself well it is dark, so maybe he won't see the tears. After a few seconds he asks me if everything is okay. Of coarse I just spill out everything I'm feeling. It was nice to share my thoughts with him and the next morning I cherished each moment with the kids. I love my babies!

Christmas at the Anderson House

The Saturday before Christmas we had Christmas with my side of my family. My three sisters were there with their husbands and all 9 grandchildren. It was Penelope and Kaeden's first Christmas! We had a fun day together. We all got there around 9:00 and my parents made a yummy breakfast. Then all the grandchildren opened their presents. There was a few times we had to send all the boys down to the basement so they could fly around like BUZZ! We all stayed in our matching pajamas for the day. The men all had "Grumpy" pajamas, The women had "Tinkerbell" pajamas, the young girls had "Snow Belle" pajamas, and the young boys were "Buzz."

Ellie just loved opening presents. She would start shaking as she opened the presents. The funny part was that she didn't really care what was in them, but she just loved the tearing the paper.

My sister Meghan with Katie Mae!

Avielle enjoying some time with GG!

My two favorite boys!

Buzz Cousins !

To the rescue!

Avi saw the boys jumping and then she told me I can jump higher than them. My competitive girl!

A Post About Christmas Cookies!

This Christmas the kids were able to decorate a lot of Christmas cookies. We decorated cookies at my mom's house, our house, and Nana's house. In the above picture we went to my mom's house with the cousins. We had a blast together and lets just say there was a lot of sugar!!!! For Christmas my mom got the girls these cute aprons.

Timmy decorating!


Just look at that cookie! I have a tummy ache from just looking at it!

Penny with her cookie that daddy made.

It was amazing, because there was order in the maddness!

Caleb and Ellie decorating.

GG and Avielle worked as a team to finish their cookies.

The finished product! Aren't they so creative??? HA!

The next three pictures are of us making cookies at home. As a Christmas gift the McMahon's gave us cookie cutters and cookie dough, already packaged. The kids had so much fun!

Now moving on to Michigan, these beauties the kids made with Nana. I was unable to take a picture of them making these cute gingerbreadmen, because Chevy's parents gave us a night away while they watched the kids.

I'm Back!

Well, I'm back! Have you wondered where I'm been? My blog was taken over by an unknown person and I was not able to access it for over a month. My very kind and #1 reader of my blog, Chevy, worked hard to get my blog back, so here I am back. I have a lot of catching up to do and so for the next week the blog is going to be about Christmas. Why not carry Christmas into January? I actually have a Christmas recital for my piano students this Sunday. I didn't want to do the recital during the Christmas season, because the Christmas holiday is always so busy. So after the Bear's game on Sunday we will have a fun little musical Christmas party.
In the above picture, are the snowmen that I made to give away during Christmas. Under the snowmen are Willy Wonka chocolate bars. I found the template on-line and free handed it and copied them and then used my Stamping Up colors to decorate them. It was a fun project.