Bob

Sometimes I call J Man Bob, so that is what I have decided to call him in my little blogger world. He is so smart! This picture just goes to show what I am talking about!
What do you think?

Hope that you all have a very blessed week!
Leah-Joy.

J.Man and SunShine's first CHRISTmas!

WoWW! a lot has happened since my last post. Sorry I have been out of blogger world for a long time )it seems like every time i post i say i'm sorry i haven't posted in so long). We had an amazing time with Cousin's, a blessed CHRISTmas, and a fun time with an Aunt and Uncle ringing in the new year. I would to do this post about CHRISTmas morning and then another about the afternoon and then our visit with the cousins!

We got up at 8:00 and did the usual wake up call (stomping on the floor above Mama and Daddy's room to wake them up and caroling at the top of the stairs).

Then we came down stairs, took the annual "children on the stairs" CHRISTmas picture.
Before we opened the gifts, Daddy read the CHRISTmas story. It was so peaceful.

J. Man was so excited! He didn't know what to do with all his gifts!

Sunshine woke really fast when she saw her first very own doll house!
And just her Mother, she put as many tables in one room as possible!!!

IT was so awesome to see Little Man excited about getting books about animals!
He loves them!

It was amazing to my little big brother excited about getting his new Bible!
This morning it was awesome to sit with him in the foyer and read the Bible.

How many 13 year olds would do you know that would excited about getting a hard, all one, Narnia series?
MY SISTER!!!!! She is so insipiring!

I know, I. AM. CRAZY!
I was so excited to get a pretty apron!
Hope said that I picked out the loudest one!

Hope is so cute when she gets excited!
I got to help Mama do a lot of shopping for Hope! It was a lot of fun!

And MARIGRACE GOT A GUITAR!!!!!!
She was really excited and so were we!!

Thank you all for stopping by! I hope that you a have peace in your soul about the this new year that surpasses all understanding! God has blessed me beyond words and I am so grateful! Thank you again for stopping by!
God Bless,
Leah-Joy.

Picture Perfect (post 200)

Buddy is growing into such an amazing young man. He now has cows pigs, and this summer he had an amazing garden. He has become even more of an amazing older brother to J Man and Sunshine and I am now looking up to him. He works so hard and becoming everyday more like our Lord. It is wonderful to see him fill the chivalric code of being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave,pure and reverent more and more.

Dear Father,
Thank you so much for my brother. Thank you for allowing to look up to him even though he is younger then me.

It Is Amazing!

Last year at this time I never would of imagined that every night before we "off the light" as Sunshine puts it, would I read a Bible story to her and then pray with her! It amazes me every night! I get share with her about my Lord, listen to her tell Mommy the babies name in the basket, and listen to her tell Hope and Grace* "Jesus said 'Let the little children come to me.'" It is amazing! Just the other night she was saying the words of the story with me as I was reading them and she asked me about the guards in front of the tomb. I got to tell her why they were there, how they went to sleep because God wanted them to and that Jesus came out of the tomb! It was so awesome. Then we learned what Mary said when she saw her Lord! It is amazing to hear our precious ball of a miracle look at Mommy and say, "JESUS IS ALIVE!" All I can say is that it is awesome!

Then I get to pray with her. We pray for Grandmother, Nana and Papa, and Grandpa, and Noel and Darell every night. She always asks to pray for Mommy and Daddy. She loves them so much. It has been wonderful to see her get more and more confident saying things without me saying them. Not only is it teaching her (i hope), but, it has taught me that I need to be more like her. One night in her prayer (i say it, then she says it) we said sorry for not listening to Mommy. That has taught me that I need to apologize more, it made me realize that when I throw an attitude at Mama, not only does it hurt Mama but it hurts Him and that when I mouth off at Daddy, that hurts Him too! I need to be more honest, tell Him more and ask for something even if I think that He may not care when really, HE DOES! They both have been such a blessing. As Grace* said, "They needed us and we needed them."

I can't imagine our life without them and can't think of a time when they weren't here. They fit in so well. We love them and they love us. We have learned how to even each other out, listen to each other, and discipline each other. We remind them to chew with their mouths closed, if they eat all their food they get a cookie and they tell us to answer Mommy when she calls and to not pout (because we remind them not to). We are like little accountability partners for each other. As Mama and Sunshine say, "It is amazing!!" I hope that this has been encouraging. Thank you for taking the time to read it!

God bless and sorry for being absent from blogger world for so long!
Leah-Joy.

More Pictures of Our Precoius New Additions!

God has blessed us with an awesome week!
We have had a lot of company.
Here are just a few pics and more to come!

Our paster came by and what was the first thing he taught J Man???

They love the blocks and build such awesome towers!

Aren't they amazing??

They both love Cody!! He so good with kids! It's like he's a magnet!

Buddy's friend, Grasshopper is always at our house so he is like a brother!
They loved him and his sunglasses!

God Bless,
Joy.

Our Babies are Home!!!!

On our way!!!

Looking and waiting

First sighting

J. Man is a little card even after being up for twentytwo hours

Sweet Pea went straight to her Daddy!

Our babies are home!!! I am completely out of words. He has been so good to us. He provided everything we needed and continues to do so, He gave us safe travels, and brand family members. They are such beautiful, amazing, well mannered children. They are so obedient, so loving and so smart! More pictures to come!

God Bless,
Joy.

I'm Late!

As you all know, J Man has his passport!!!! PRAISE GOD!!! I would of done a post sooner but we were at a youth retreat (which I will be doing a post on later in the week) when we got the most amazing call from Mama saying Joha had the passport! And when Joha got word that the passport was done, it was after hours. He didn't HAVE to go get it, but he wanted to have it as soon as possible. What a chivalrous act! He went above and beyond!

As I think that you all know, all the youth come to our house on Sunday nights for Small Groups. Mama gives a devotion and then we break up into small groups and pray for each other. Well, all of the youth have REALLY been with us on this whole thing. It was so awesome to see a bunch of teenagers so EXCITED about a little boy's passport whom they haven't even met!

God has given us so much! Without Him these babies woundn't be ours.
Thank you all so much for your prayers, support and encouragement!

God Bless,
Joy.

FIRST EVER TEARS OF JOY!

HEY EVERYONE!!! WE HAVE JUST GOTTEN WORD THAT JESSE'S PASSPORT IS FINISHED AND WILL BE PICKED UP MONDAY!!! PLEASE BE IN PRAYER THAT EVERYTHING WILL BE IN ORDER THAT OUR BABIES CAN SOON COME HOME!!! tHANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!!

ps. please read the post about Daddy below. because of him and his obedience we can adopt these precious babies and raise the up for him!!!

Chivalry

Nowadays you don't see much chivalry. But, I have been blessed to see it in friends and family quite a bit here lately.

We have heard that a girl's part of being chivalrous is accepting when a guy offers to do something. Well, for us independent girls at times it is hard to do that! Baby Girl especially. Well, the fella above, a friend of our cousin, did an act you rarely see, he gave Baby Girl his chair and would not take no for an answer. Baby Girl was not going to be left standing up!

This little cutie is my double first cousin. Two sisters married two brothers. Just the other Sunday he was at our house. When he walked by he noticed that I was leaning over my foot with a pair of tweezers. He asked what I was doing, I told him that I was trying to get a piece of glass out of my foot. He then took the tweezers away, put my DIRTY foot on his knee and ran his finger across my foot to find the glass. Then, he just pulled it right out! It made my week!!

You all know Buddy. He is growing up and maturing so much, so fast! And you all know that when we come home from the mission trip we are VERY TIRED! Well, the Friday we got home, Hope was looking for her dirty clothes. Buddy then walks into the kitchen, figures out our problem, and looks at Hope and says,

"Well, I hope that you like your clothes on heavy duty."

All on his own he got Hope's clothes, and started the washing machine!

I know that we all want to see more chivalry in our society, don't get me wrong, but girlies, half of chivalry is us; we have to accept it when a guy wants to help us! We have to say, "Thank you," when they want to give us their chair. Baby Girl could have stood up; I could have gotten the glass out of my foot and Hope could have washed her own clothes, but these three young men wanted to help us. And in helping us, it made them feel needed and us feel loved. Accept it when a guy wants to help you. When he does ask, it doesn't mean that he thinks that you are incapable of doing whatever it is, he just wants to be the man that God is molding him into and we need to accept it so that God can mold us into the women that he wants us to be.

God Bless,

Joy.

Thank you

• Going to church
• Blowing bubbles with a little one
• Going on a Mission for God in Louisisana
• Being with my family
• Having reunions
• Blogging whatever I want
• Shopping
• Fishing with my little brother's
• Spending a day in the kitchen
• A night on the town with my sister's
• Watching a movie with my family
• Driving my Daddy's Ford

This list could go on and on. What is the list for you ask? It is things that I know that I do and don't even think about them. Today I have thought a lot about them and why we CAN do them. We CAN do them because of what I and my brothers and sisters and mama witnessed this morning. The homecoming of a fallen soldier. This brave, 21 year old Sargeant left his home and family to go fight for you and me. Not knowing at all what the future held. Sure, none of us know what our future holds, but he was going to a land where he was hated and going to be shot at WITHOUT MERCY. A land where his brother's are dying for others who don't even care anymore. You and I are safe, here in our homeland, the motherland. He left his young wife and newborn son. A couple weeks ago I was at the docters office with my grandmother. As we left I saw an older gentlemen, nicley dressed witha cap on that said, "Veteran of Vietnom." AS we left, I hesitated and then thanked him for his service to our country. After I told him thank you, he thanked me for thanking him. Mama and Daddy have taught me and my siblings to thank these men and obviously, they don't get thanked enough. I not to brag or anything, I just want to give you something to think about. Thank a soldier when you see one. As I write this I wonder if Sgt. Jordan was ever thanked; I hope that he was. I haven't cried like I did this morning at the airport in a long time. I kept thinking of his familiy, his young wife and 1 year old son who's birthday is the day that his life was taken. June 4th. I also kept think of the "This is just a dream" by Carrie Underwood . How I wish that had been a dream, but it wasn't. It was real. IT IS REAL! Please keep his family in your prayers. Please for all of our troops.

Thank you for taking time to read, and, if you take the time to thank a soldier,

Thank you again.

My new little sister and brother!

Our God is an awesome God,
He reigns from heaven above!

Most of you have probably already seen it on Mama's blog but I had to post something about our God sent awesome news!
We are now approved by the Ghana court!!!! PRAISE THE LORD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW!!!!

The Saturday after Mama's birthday it was around 1am and we were all up talking because the next day, Darell was going to have to leave. Well, Mama had told us good night about an hour before and then she comes into the glass porch SMILING!! I had Marigrace's laptop and she asks if she could have it. We were all very CURIOUS! Well, she then read the email and we were all just SO OVERJOYED! Earlier that day, I think around lunch time I began to think of a Christmas song about a family adopting a little girl from China. I then began to think of a song for our adoption. As me and Mama were talking about it, she said I could very well of been writing that song when our little one's were IN COURT. Here it is,

Six thousand, one hundred and sixty miles away.

I hear the rooster crowin' and the squirrels talkin'
as I sit here thinkin' my mind starts wanderin'
Six thousand, one hundred sixty miles away
There on a play ground swingin' away
Two little ones play
Orphans to some, treasures to another
How my mama longs to be their mother!

Chorus:
Oh, how I wish to bring ya'll home!
To be my brother and sister, no more to roam!
I want to bring ya'll home so we can play
and all your hunger will go away.

It seems like there is no way to make it doable
But we all know that with God, all things are possible.
So much to do and so many places to go.
It seems like we'll never get done with it all.
But as we give our signatures, God continues to give us His, too!
Six thousand, one hundred, and sixty miles away
While kids laugh and say boo
I sit here and think

Chorus

As I look through the mail and answer the phone
and go through my life here at home,
I can't wait for you to be home with me
And before I know it, you will be!

Oh, what a miracle it is that you're home!
You are my brother and sister, no more to roam!
Together all day long we can swing and play
and all your hunger has gone away!
You are no longer six thousand, one hundred and sixty miles away.
Thank you, Lord, for bringing them home to stay.

As I look our two little ones I am overjoyed, then I look at all the other treasures there. They look so sad and discouraged but why not? If you have even considered adopting I hope that you pray about that decision and if it is what God has for you to do, I hope and pray that you do not hesitate. I also hope and pray that you will consider the precious treasures at Eban House in Accra, Ghana.

God Bless,
Joy.

Two Little Boys

My Little Brothers are so much fun! Buddy voice is starting to squeak, Little Man is getting so big and grown up and I can't believe it! Have you ever noticed the funny little things that boys say? Sometimes they can be so smart and so unexpectedly hilarious! One day, Little Man asked us where the "Windowdex" was. And at any given moment Buddy will have us bursting out laughing and in the end we will be crying!

My Little Brothers

Thank you Lord so much for my little brothers!
Though they might not be that little, they are such wonderful little brothers!
Thank you for allowing them to work with each other and always be there for one another!
Please keep them safe and in your hands!
Amen.