Ada Grace being Silly!

One of the mornings at Mom & Dad's house Ada Grace woke up before all the other kids (very unusual!) Anyway, Mom fed her and I gave her a bath. After her bath she played with the towel on the kitchen floor for probably 45 minutes! Here are some of the snaps I was able to get of her and her silliness!
Isn't her hair the best?
"I'm a big girl!"
She was trying to stand up with the towel over her head, balance isn't at it's best while doing this!
Concentrate....concentrate...

She doesn't do so well with the flash straight on!
Here we go, let's try standing with the towel over my head again.
Didn't make it...
She is giggling at herself here.
The hair only gets better with each time she covers her head!

Opening Stockings 12-20-07

We promised the kids that we would "open" the stockings before we left for Grandpa & Grandma's house.

Here we have C playing with his new truck, with Princess looking on.
A with a very big smile, happy about what he received. Princess going after his "goods." C looking for more toys in the stocking.
 Princess playing with Sunshine's truck, and A playing with his Hummer.
 Sunshine after whatever he can find on the floor!

Mary Kay

My next big Mary Kay order will be on January 22nd. If you need anything please feel free to contact me, we have some great new mineral foundations, lipstick colors, and many other wonderful additions to the best selling cosmetics in the United States!

Eric, Melissa, & Sophie

I know a while back I promised that I would "flash rash" Sophie at Christmas and post all the pictures on the blog...she didn't show up!!! Well, it wasn't entirely her fault, she wasn't feeling well. I think she was just hiding from Aunt Ashley's camera!

Here is a beautiful picture of the lovely family!

We were VERY happy to see Melissa for Christmas, but we missed Eric and Sophie!

Puppies!!!

I just had to share with everyone! Jason told me last night that I get to keep one of my puppies! I have not decided if I am keeping Buzz (the boy) or one of the girls (Beauty, Belle, and Bambi)

I am going to wait a little while and see who (Nema Jaylee or Meshach) they start looking like.

On the update side of things.

Beauty is almost double the size of the other puppies now, which I think is funny. She must be going to take after her dad who while he isn't a very big dog, had a bigger body stature that Nema Jaylee.

Belle's right eye is starting to open. All of the other puppies eyes are still sealed completely, but it could be any day now. Today they are 10 days old.

I do think that they are starting to hear a little, I am unsure how to tell when their ears have opened up, but some noises are seeming to startle them some.

Our Baby Boy is 1 Today

It is so hard to believe that our baby boy is one today. I thought I would post his pictures. They are all so good, I have a hard time picking a favorite!


Notice the John Deere Tractors!

Family Picture!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we (Jason, Ashley, Ada Grace, & Ethan) were able to go to Melby Photography with my (Ashley) family to do a family picture. I am very excited about this. The only picture that fits in my scanner is a little wallet size of the entire group. We are very excited about doing it again in 5 years!

My Dude...

On Saturday while we were at Jason's family Christmas, Dude passed away. I miss my Dude! The other four puppies are doing very well! Mommy (Nema) too!

Christmas Letter!!

I am sorry to all of you that have not received our Christmas Picture/Letter yet. It isn't because I didn't have time to write one, I just haven't gotten all of them mailed yet. Please forgive me, getting to the post office to get more stamps is a trick!!!

So, for my faithful bloggers, I am going to type up the letter here and will hopefully get the real one out before the 1st!

Here we are, close to another Christmas for which we are excited to celebrate our Saviors birth. This is my favorite time of year, which is good, because it seems to come more quickly each year.

We started 2007 with a big change. On January 2nd our social worker asked if we would foster a newborn!! Ethan Alexander was 6 days old and cuter than cute! If that wasn't enough of a change, 5 days later Jason became the pastor of First Baptist Church.

In February we were able to have our first date, baby free, since Ada was born. This came courtesy of some dear friends...what a blessing!

March 30th brought happiness, with the finalization of Ada Grace's adoption. We are thankful to everyone who celebrated with us.

April 30th my mom (Pam) came to stay with the grandkids for a week. It was so nice to have that time with her. She was getting ready to leave May 6th, when the kids and I decided to go with her to see my Grandpa Norgaard, who had fallen. Ethan was able to meet his great grandfather and I was able to spend some wanderful time before Grandpa wemt Home to be with the Lord.

The first weekend in June we made a trip to Lake Crystal, Minnesota for my cousins HS graduation. We were also able to meet our two newborn nieces on Jason's side and see his Grandma Henry. The 24th was my golden birthday; Jason surprised me with a day of 4 wheeling in the hills. You all should try it sometime!

We celebrated the 4th with our church family and my parents. Our kids were not too sure about fireworks, but did enjoy Mt. Rushmore on the 5th. July was busy; Ethan was very sick and had 35 appointments (doctor & otherwise.)

The 10th of August was special, we celebrated our 5th anniversary. I cannot believe it has already been 5 years. How did we pack so much into these few short years? We still haven't figured that out! Thankfull God gives strength. We attened the annual Hartung BBQ at Jason's parents house and on the way there we drove into a hail storm. We watched tennis ball sized hail stones bounce off our van! We ended the month on a high note, with the closing of our house in Belle Fourche on the 31st.

September 27th our precious daughter turned 1! The weekend we had a princess party for her. Our two kids actually started scooting around ~ I wasn't ready to have mobile children yet. If that didn't keep me hopping, just after we returned home from Ethan's doctor appointments in Sioux Falls in October, they started going up stairs. We also added to our family, temporarily, when Andre (3), Christopher (2), and Kailey (5 months) joined us the last week of the month.

As I write this we are looking forward to sharing Thanksgiving with our parents and we do have so much to be thankful for! December 13th is a big court date for EThan, if all goes well it will be the beginning of the end, bringing us closer to adoption. We cannot forget that on the 27th Ethan will be 1 as well!

It has been a year full of many, many different things, but in the end all I can say is...God is SO good!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Jason, Ashley, Ada Grace, & Ethan

Quick Update!

Dude just found his Mama on his own for the first time and actually was sucking!!!!! We are very excited, most of you know that I never give up on the underdog....I am a Vikings fan you know!

Heehee, anyway, I do hope he makes it, he is still my favorite.
The other 4 had their dewclaws removed today and are still doing very well. Dude is about half the size of the others, but I had been feeding him evaporated milk with some sugar (energy boost for strength) and hopefully it was enough to pull him through and now he will grow, grow, grow!

We are bringing Nema and the puppies with us for Christmas...make arrangements to come to the farm so that you can see them!


ALSO REMEMBER ETHAN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY AT THE FARM ON SUNDAY FROM 2-4. CAKE, ICE CREAM, & PUNCH....IT IS A COME AND GO PARTY, COME WHEN YOU CAN, AND GO WHEN YOU NEED! YOU ARE ALL INVITED AS WE CELEBRATE ETHAN'S ONE YEAR OF LIFE!!!

Nema & Puppies

Mama and puppies are doing very well. Well, 4 of the 5 are doing well.

There are 2 boys and 3 girls. My favorite puppy (as usual) is very weak and I am not sure that he is going to pull through. He hasn't been eating nearly as much as he should, and will not drink from an eye dropper. I have started calling him, "Dude." You can see him in the post from yesterday, 3rd picture, and he is the one at the top most of the picture, brown with darker spots. He is the only one that was spotted all over like his Mama. The other boy is Buzz (brown with a wide white necklace~he does have a few spots on his back), and the 3 girls are Beauty (the dark one), Belle (Brown with a skinny white necklace), and Bambi(brown all over)! The 4 B's are doing very well and already growing! I have spent much time by their side in the last 24 hours, and plan do spend as much time and possible with them today. Of course I have to start packing as we will be leaving either tomorrow night or EARLY Friday morning.

They're Here!!!

This morning in stead of being woke up with a kiss from my husband, it was a cold nose from a puppy!

Nema had her puppies sometime in the night. Jason said they were still wet when he found thme. She seems to be doing very well with them.
As best as I can tell, she has 2 boys and 3 girls. I haven't touched them too much at this point, but we have one darker one, one dapple one, and three brown ones (two with white necklaces!)
She must not have had any trouble, all puppies seem healthy and she cleaned them off very well.
Nema is back to her skinny self, and Meshach is wondering what all then noise is about!

Random Pictures from last week

 Princess and Sunshine really like having a baby around! They are always tending to her. She is too big to turn the swing on, but Princess and Sunshine like to rock her and say "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"!
Tuesday night we went on a "family night" It was just Handsome, Mama, Princess, & Sunshine. This is Princess with the new ball she got while we were shopping on Monday night.
I do not remember what Sunshine is trying to say in this picture, but that is his sign for everything...he lifts his hand and shakes it around for bye-bye, please, baby, puppy, and pretty much anything else he wants to "sign". He is coming around though, he started saying please this week. It is so cute!
Thursday night we had a foster parent Christmas party.  There was also a nice couple at the table that were very helpful.
 Princess always enjoys a chance to get to sit with Daddy!

Nema Jaylee

As you can see, Nema still has not had her puppies, but sheis getting pretty big. We do hope that she has them before we go for Christmas, though we will be taking her either way. Everyone really wants to see the puppies! I cannot wait until they are here...it will be fun to be a "Grandma!" (That is only right since I still call the dogs my kids!)

Nema is to the point that she sits down almost everywhere and when she does have to walk she just waddles!

Court Yesterday...

I have heard that many of you have been wondering how things went yesterday...by now you have all probably figured out that it didn't go as we wanted, otherwise I would have poster the exciting news already!

Court started at 9, I was allowed into the courtroom before my testimony, they had said I may not be. I was happy about that. Birthmom wasn't there when we started, she showed up 30 minutes late! Things became more tense when she came.

There were 5 witnesses, I was the third. Of the 4 people that asked questions, birth mom's lawyer was the only one that made me nervous about answering. He asked questions in a sly way, that you didn't really know which direction he was going. I asked him to reform the question a few times.

Anyway, he hadn't turned in all of his paperwork "evidence" prior to court yesterday, so the judge said that he would like for all three lawyers (states, Ethan's, & Birth Mom's) to send him their recommendations, he would read everything over, and then make his ruling.

The states attourney said that it is possible to have word of what his ruling will be by the end of the year, but I expect it to be more like the end of January. This "bump" in the road has pushed finalization back, maybe even as far as June.

Thank you all for your prayers yesterday, we do ask that you continue to pray for the situation. We think of Ethan as our son, and love him dearly, it would hurt very bad to loose him at this point. We do not believe that to be an option at this point, but it seemed that everyone thought that there was no other option than termination yesterday.

God is in control, for that we are thankful.

Please Pray!!!

As any of you read this today, I will be in the courtroom in Deadwood. Today is a bittersweet day, it is the first giant step towards Ethan being free for adoption. If all goes the way we hope it does, termination of parental rights will happen.

Please pray, I will be testifying and they said I could be on the stand for HOURS. They also said it could be over for me in a matter of 30 minutes, it all depends on how much mud the birth mom tries to drag me through. Of course, it isn't actually her, it is her lawyer.

There are 4 people that will question all witnesses today.

I do thank each of you for your support, and Aunt Wendy for your very wonderful email. Thanks for praying!

Parade of Lights

Friday night Jason promised me that we were going to go on a date, with 5 children I wouldn't exactly call it such, but we were going none the less!
As we were driving to Guadalajara's, we saw that main street was lined with cars, since I am not working outside the home any more, I do not hear what is happening around town these days! We guessed it was the Parade of Lights and found a great parking spot.
None of my picture turned out great, I forgot to switch my camera to "motion" mode.
The college in town has the mascot of the "YellowJackets".
The last thing in the parade was a fire truck lined with lights. Though we hadn't planned on this, it was fun and I think the kids really enjoyed it!

We went on to our favorite Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful evening.

Ada Grace!!!

The other night before bed, Ada Grace was being just silly!
"Peek a boo!"
"Getcha!"
Her new laugh is to start by looking at you with her mouth wide oper...
Throw her head back, and then drop it down in front of her. She is too cute!
Looking bigger and bigger every day!

Our Christmas Tree!

I took one picture with the flash...
And one without!

I just love our Christmas tree this year, It almost touches the very top of our living room. It is probably 12 or 13 feet high!!!
We were having a wonderful snow on Friday!

Kids

This was Sunshine's first meeting with Nema, our very hyper Doxie. As you can see, he didn't think much of it!
 Princess generally loves the dogs, but she wasn't sure about them in the house with her! Sunshine is keeping his eye on Nema Jaylee, just to be sure that she isn't going to try to lick him again. (She did!)

  Sunday night after church we invited the two newest families in the church over for pizza, it was funny watching us "train" from the church to the house. There were 13 kids and six adults, the first people made it to the house as the last of us were leaving the church, one steady line of people!

It was alot of fun....we are so excited to see what God is doing!