Caleb has helped us with our official "PUBLIC" announcement that we are adopting two more children from Ukraine! Caleb really wanted to let our babies know that we love them while they are waiting for us to bring them home so he made them this Valentine. Sooo sweet!! As you can see he made the Ukrainian flag in the background and the country of Ukraine in the middle of the heart.

Family knows and only a few close friends who had to give references along with doctors and officials that had to help us with paperwork. We have been holding off from making it a public announcement until we had gone through our homestudy process and received full approval.  Now you are all probably catching on about the need for the larger vehicle.  Anyway, we have been working on our dossier and homestudy since the Fall and are close to sending our paperwork over to Ukraine to then wait for our invitation to travel. Ukraine does not allow preselection of children before you travel so only God knows who our next little bundles will be. We have stated on our homestudy and the petition to the adoption center in Kyiv that we would like Twins or Two unrelated children between the ages of 0-18 months as healthy as possible. We have no gender preference. This time around it will be even more of a surprise!

So there you have it.... We are expecting again!!! Please pray for God to go before us as we walk through the rest of the process and for His peace.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!

1) It's exactly a month before my birthday. (edit: now it's exactly 29 days before my b-day. *lol* When I added pics I clicked on update time by accident which bumped it to the 13th.)

2) I don't think any birthday can trump 2004 when I met my twins for the very first time!

3) I have been growing my hair out again so that it's long enough to pull it back for my next trip overseas. That and Eric likes long hair... I want it back to at least these pics. However, I plan on helping my curls better this time around by changing the way I wash etc. Sidzwife has been talking about a book called curly girl that I really want to get a hold of and read!

4)

"Beep Beep!"

After long research and test driving vehicles we bought a Sprinter that is made in Germany by Mercedes Benz and currently sold by Dodge in the US. Many of you have seen these vehicles for commercial use with Fed-ex, DHL, UPS and in other countries they are commonly used for ambulance and police. Commercial vehicles of course don't have the side windows. The dealer believes we are the first and only family to own a Sprinter Passenger van in our State.

So, how did our new vehicle get its name? Well when you back it up is says, "beep, beep, beep, beep..." As you get closer to an object it beeps faster and when you get within a foot it says, "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" Naturally, like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Beep got it's name from how it sounds!

What brought us to such a unique vehicle? During my research I had asked lots of large families what they drove and what their pros and cons were of whatever it was. Very quickly our options were limited to the Ford E350, the Chevy Express (aka GMC Savana) or cramming into an 8 passenger mini van that you had to flip down seats every time to get babies into the back. The only other option to us other than mentioned would have been a large SUV type like the Suburban but, again you have the flipping down of the seat issue for access to the back seats.

Ford's are just known for their lack of reliability so we were not going there. 'nuff said  The Chevys believe it or not felt much higher off the ground and longer than our Sprinter. Having owned an 8 passenger GMC Safari and never liking the vehicle I knew I was only looking for punishment to basically be buying the same vehicle but larger. The Cargo space for both the Ford and Chevy in either the 12 or 15 passenger was pathetic! So awful that we might as well have stayed with our Toyota Sienna and our luggage storage on the roof! Also there was this spider web issue with hanging seat belts in the isle that you had to untangle your way through to get back into each seat. Then there was the issue of four out of the twelve seats were not usable for children (or anybody for that matter) because they only had lap belts. Anyone sitting in the back seats, other than the driver and passenger, did not have a head rest either. That dynamic provides no comfort as the children get older for long road trips!

The last thing that put me over the edge of disliking either the Chevy or Ford was the fact that I had to constantly be hunched over while trying to get every child into their carseat. In the Sienna for instance, I could at the least stand outside of the vehicle and buckle them up because it was low to the ground. In the Chevy and Ford it was so high up that you had no choice but to climb in to buckle kids into their seats but the whole time you are bent over, avoiding hitting your head on the roof, with absolutely no room to move. None of my children could enter the vehicle without help. For goodness sakes, I needed help to make the big step! 

Most Moms I found also would admit that they would do anything to avoid backing the Chevy or Fords up if they had to drive them. I found that to be true as I didn't even want to drive them forward! For as big as the Chevy and Ford passenger vans are on the outside they do not provide much practicality for a large family. My final review of both the Ford and Chevy large passenger vans is that they are awkward monster vehicles with absolutely no room or comfort. In other words, a big waste of money due to its many inconveniences.

I had been told about the Sprinter by another Mommy of many children. Dana gave it RAVE reviews taking in consideration of her large family and tall hubby! I was torn because it was definitely far more expensive initially than any other vehicle we had looked at. However, I was so disappointed in my search that in curiosity and desperation to find something that would suit our family I searched online where I could find a Sprinter to take it out for a test drive. Initially, I could only find Sprinter passenger vans in states very far from us. Then, to my surprise, I stumbled upon this bright red one which happened to be in MY STATE! It was the ONLY Sprinter Passenger van in my state!!!

The moment we got in the van we never looked back! The Sprinter was meant to be... I was so excited with how roomy it was and absolutely LOVED the super high roof for standing up inside the vehicle. Each seat had its own shoulder belt and head rest. The isle is free from the spider web ordeal and the cargo space is mega huge!! I could lie down and take a nap in the cargo. *lol* The kids (ok, I admit and myself) got extremely giddy when Papa backed the van up and it started beeping! The biggest plus, I could drive the vehicle with complete comfort and absolutely no hesitation!

The Sprinter has a diesel engine which will outlast any gasoline engine. Sprinters are known for going beyond 500,000 miles with just normal maintenance. You can't beat that!! Besides it's a Mercedes. What more can you say?

As you can see, because the Sprinter is a European vehicle, it looks very European and has a bit of European quirkiness if you will. We are having fun trying to remember which side of the steering wheel has what levers and buttons. *lol* The angle of the steering wheel is very different but the seat can be moved in so many different ways that you can adjust yourself well to it. All in all it's quirkiness is a novelty and nothing outweighs the awesome convenience of everything else we gain. We are in love with our big red "Beep Beep" and look forward to making many ministry road trips in the comfort of our Sprinter!

Passenger Side with sliding door. We went to the walmart parking lot in town to take pics since they have the best sun in the middle of the day and mountain views.

The children got to pick where they wanted to sit! First bench is 3 seats, second bench is two so you can walk to the back and third row is three seats. The kids sit up nice and high with big windows. They love it!

Papa starting the engine.

I'm showing you how huge the cargo is in the back. I'm 5'2" and can stand without having to ever duck my head in the entire vehicle. The mat I'm standing on is a huge hearth rug and there is plenty more beyond that both behind me and in front of me. Btw, the grey box on top of the vehicle and on the interior ceiling is a mega air conditioner. The back doors open all the way too not just where they are here in the pic. Oh! We also didn't forget to add a heavy duty tow package for our camper, Myrtle.

After the children looked at our honeymoom photo album Jared asks...

Jared- "Mama why do they call it a honeymoon anyways?!"

Mama- "That's a good question."

Jared- "Is it because there was a sticky situation on the moon?"

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Earlier I was looking for some other pictures the boys had asked to see from when I was in highschool but I was unable to find them. I was completely frustrated until Caleb began this conversation...

Caleb - "Mama don't you just have them on computer?!"

Mama- "No we didn't have computers back then to put pictures on."

Caleb- "Did you have a TV?!!"

Mama- "Of course I had a TV!"

Papa- "But Mini remembers when there was no TV."

Caleb- "Did you have DVD's when you were little"

Papa- "No we didn't have any DVD's or CD's."

Caleb- "You must have been bored!!!"

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Because of the above conversation I decided to go to my closet and get the handful of my favorite childhood records to show the kids.

Jared's response, "Those are some BIG CD's!!!"

I wish you could have seen both boys' eyes when I pulled the record out of it's jacket! *lol* I wished that I had a record player for them to be able to listen to them and experience playing the records.

This morning I woke up really cold and just couldn't shake the chills. I thought maybe I was coming down sick as I wanted to keep climbing into bed to keep warm. No one believed me that it was cold because Mama is always cold. Then around noon Eric finally admits he was a little on the cold side as well. Hmm... now that's weird! Finally around 2:30pm I realize it's getting REALLY cold and even the kids are starting to comment. I went to look at the thermostat even though Eric more than once assured me that he did "bump" it up a bit to take the chill off.  I noticed that the temp was registering below what we even keep it at during the night. Something was not right! So I put the thermostat on 80 just to see if I could hear the furnace turn on. No such luck. I then cranked the thing all the way up, opened the basement door to listen and again dead silence. Keep in mind it was only about 8 degrees outside so it felt colder in the house than normal especially with the sun starting to go down around 3pm.

I politely interrupted Eric on a ministry call to let him know we had been without heat all day and he needed to get a repair guy to our house before the evening. The kids and I then lit a blazing fire in the fireplace and watched a movie all huddled up together until dinner when the heat was back on. The good is that our furnace was still under some sort of warranty so the repair guy went right to work replacing major things that had gone wrong. The bad is that we will have to replace, in a few weeks, the entire pipe line from the furnace to the oil tank with larger piping because there is a clog somewhere that they were not able to clear and it is making the flow of oil slow. I guess they use larger piping now these days than what was put in our house originally so that you can avoid these clogs. The piping goes from once side of the basement to the other so one can only imagine the hours of labor. The major bad... we were told to start saving now because our furnace is on it's last legs and will need to be replaced in the near future.  Oh the joys of owning a home!

What am I thankful for? HEAT and LOVED ONE'S to bundle up with!

ETA: For sidzwife's sake I had to add the most important aspect of this whole story. Look above to see the movie we watched.

That's what we have been doing for the last couple of days since we need something that holds at LEAST 8 passengers. Not a fun chore! Right now we are weighing the pros and cons of trading our 7 passenger Toyota Sienna for an 8 passenger Sienna or going with something like the Chevy Savanna/Express 12 passenger. We are tight in the 7 passenger now with all our long distance trips so we are thinking of making a big leap to the 12 passenger. However, we really love the Sienna. I love the Sienna verses a bigger van because I don't like driving large vehicles. Not to mention the rolling over reputation that the larger vans have had recently. However, it would be nice to have all that extra room even to just to buckle kiddos into their carseats more comfy. We need more cargo room as well! Decisions, Decisions...

...are in time out AGAIN! For some reason my kids constantly feel the need to fight over certain pieces and more scary is that they poke each other with them. In my frustration of being worried someone was going to lose an eye I said to Eric, "I don't understand it. I loved my tinker toys when I was a little kid and I never poked anyone with them!" Eric's response, "That's because you didn't have any one to poke and you would have done so if you did!" (My sibs are much younger than me so by the time they were into tinker toys I was in highschool) When I don't understand sibling rivalry Eric often tells me funny stories of  he and his brother when they were little to bring reality into this naive aspect of my life. For instance I don't believe that boys should instinctively want to wrestle in the living room.  I have been informed otherwise....  Anyway, in our discussion Eric then adds in 2 more cents, "Not only would you have poked them YOU would have laughed after doing so." He was hinting at my three stooges type of humor. Hmmph! How dare he think I wouldn't have been a perfect sibling?!

Yesterday, I was filling out the applications for both my twins to get their US Passport. I really hate paperwork as anyone does! Anyway, I just had to scan and crop the top of the application for you all to see how honest at least our government is. Check out in the right hand corner, third line down... notice the word "burden"? Ya, that just about sums it up well with any legal paperwork up for me! Eric saw the 85 minutes and said, "You have to be kidding me?!" Nope, honey, that is why it takes me so long to do one stinkin' thing on my to do list and why I get easily irritated when someone interrupts me!

Total accumilation of snow at 3pm was 2 3/4 " This was on our patio that we had cleared off before hand so we would have a fair measurement. It is now changing over to sleet and rain so we thought we better take the measurement before the nice snow is gone.

Caleb's measuring stick... a dinosaur of course! *lol*

The kids are out playing before it gets too icy while Papa is snowblowing the driveway before it turns to an ice skating rink.

Caleb helped shovel off the patio for Papa!

It has been snowing all day but we are supposed to get our bigger storm tomorrow. So the family has been making guesses as to how much we will get.

Papa -10 1/4 "

Mama -7"

Jared -8" (at first he said 2 feet but then changed his final answer. I think he's a tad bit excited!)

Caleb -10"

Chloe -"Deep Enough" was her first answer  After prodding further she finally said 9"

Phoebe -2"

Who will be the closest to the actual accumilation? Stay tuned tomorrow for our measurment!