The Holidays

So Christmas was good this year...like usual. We spent the time with my husbands family. I love being there. I love seeing nieces and nephews and watching them open presents. I made like oodles of cookies and other goodies (some of which are still in the freezer...yeah, like I said oodles). One of my favorite things is getting my brother-in-law, Randy all riled up. It's pretty easy. Just call jello a dessert and you've got a full-fledged argument on your hands (he swears that all jello is a salad). To be honest, I really don't care what you consider it, I just love jello.

Being with my husbands family is a very relaxing time. Most of the adults take turns napping so that someone is always watching the little ones...but we all end up sleeping. It's a good time.

Then for New Year's we went to my family's place in Alta Vista. I love being there, too. I love the food that we all eat (oodles and gobs...and I still have cookies left). I love my nieces and nephews all the same on this side of the family too.

But you know, after all those similarities, my family is totally opposite. Where I get rested up at my in-laws house, I usually wear myself out at my parents house. We stay up all hours of the night and then get up early the next morning (or just a few hours later) so that we don't miss a single moment with anyone.

This year my older sister and her boyfriend came down. This thrilled all of us because she lives in Minnesota and doesn't get to travel to Kansas very often. And her boyfriend, Robbie, is so much fun to be around. I'm very adamant about couples being married before living together, but I guess in this case I will love them anyway and call him brother-in-law.

It's so neat to watch the family grow and watch us have to use a bigger table each year. We used to be able to fit on the dining room table with a card table in the living room close by. Not anymore...my parents pull out the full-size ping-pong table and we cover it with a pretty table cloth and set the chairs around it. Then we have a dining room size table set up for the teenagers (and a couple or two that think they are still young...lol). And then there's the really little kid table...a plastic "little tykes" table. This seats the 3 that are old enough to sit by themselves. (there's still one that is an infant) I'm pretty sure I won't even try to count because I would get lost.

And this year it was our turn to add to the table. Yeppers...Katryna got to spend New Years Day with us. She didn't get to spend the night, but we left at 4:00 in the morning to pick her up by 6:00. Then we got back to my parents house at 8:00 and got ready for church. It was so much fun to watch her interact with everyone again (I say again, because she was with us at Easter just as a guest). She did meet a few new people that weren't there at Easter. She had to be back to the place she's staying at 10:00 pm. Boo =(

She got to open a bunch of presents from everyone, and was even a part of our white elephant gift exchange. We took pictures as a family, even though we were dressed in sweats and "play" clothes instead of "good" clothes. We are so ready for her to be in our house.

She started talking that day about changing her name. My older sister asked her what her last name was and Katryna almost wasn't going to tell her. Daggers almost shot out of her eyes. (I can't blame her for not liking her last name...I can't share, but there's a good reason). She then talked about changing her facebook page asap and putting the Soodsma name on it. And she wants the yearbook to have it as Soodsma as of when she gets back. It made me tear up to hear her talk about taking our name.

And then, to top it all off, she plays piano. Ok, let me back up a little to share the whole story. Martie got a keyboard for Christmas from Santa. Within a week she had a song learned and was playing (two-handed chords) and singing with it. So we had her play for my family on the piano. Martie gets done, and Katryna asks if she can play a song. All I have to say is that my girls are very talented and I can't wait to polish it all up and get them performing with me on stage.

Well, I could go on forever and ever, but I'll save some for another post. If you can't tell, I'm so excited. I love being a mommy to two beautiful and amazing girls. What a blessed woman I am.


Below is our family of four...and of course the new sisters:

Agony and A-ha!

Agony, pure agony. I'll tell you what it is. It's when your soon-to-be newest daughter calls on the phone almost every night and is almost in tears asking when she can come home. To hear her voice saying, "Mama, Papa, can't I just come home?" Talk about heart-breaking...especially when I can't do diddly-squat about it.

But anyway, I was thinking tonight about something. Psalms 113:9, "He makes the barren woman abide in the house As a joyful mother of children. Praise the LORD!" God gave me this verse about 5 or 6 6 years ago when I wondered why I couldn't have a baby. I've always held on to this verse and I've even had people tell me that they envisioned me with my house full of children (even if they weren't my own).

Guess what I realized?!?!?!?! I am a happy mother of children...yes, plural! I have Martaysha, soon to by Katryna....and to add to it, I have friends of Martie's and Katryna's that call me mom. Martie's boyfriend for example calls me "mommy #2". I can't even begin to express how this makes me feel. It's such a great feeling to watch God answer a prayer that is 8 years old.

And as I look back I can see how everything fit together. I may have gotten angry and frustrated at the time, but if things didn't work out just like they did, all of it would be different.

For example, if we had our own baby we never would have adopted Martie (loss #1). Then if we hadn't adopted Martie, she wouldn't have become friends with Katryna and taken her under our wing....and there would be no adoption of Katryna. Then, if we didn't have Martie, she wouldn't be dating Neal and therefore, I would not be his other mommy. Are we seeing a pattern here? There's a reason for everything.

So, just think about your life. Have you had times that didn't make sense, and maybe even made you angry? Just think of your future (past all these "trials") and imagine what good God might do with it all. I promise it's there! God Bless!!!!

New Addition

I am so excited to be posting this....I feel like I did a little over 3 years ago when we found out we were adopting Martie.

Here goes....


We are adopting again!!!!!

Yes, you heard me correctly. God finally said it was time once again to add to our family. She is actually from our area and we know her really well. We know her situation and what she's been through. She just turned 14 in October. Yes, we weren't sure we wanted to do the whole teenage girl thing again....but I've learned that what we want and what God wants us to do are usually two different things.

She is such a sweet girl. She and Martie are already good friends, so the transition to sisters won't be a drastic change. The only difference is that they will fight more because they will live together.

We started our paperwork, fingerprints, and will be doing our physicals very soon. The tentative date for right now is February 17th/18th. (yep..right around my birthday!) There is a chance it could be sooner, but with the state and the way it went with Martie, I'll keep the Feb date in mind.

If the paperwork gets done in time, we may get to see her for New Years at my parents house, but again this is up to whether or not the paperwork gets done and they get things in line. They want it all done soon so we can start getting weekend visitation. That will be awesome. We get to talk to her on the phone as much as we want and if we are that direction, we get to visit her if we want. We just can't take her out of that place for a visit until all the stuff gets done.

It sounds really crazy, but we have been getting a much better response this time around. Not that people weren't excited that we were adopting Martie, but I think it was such unknown territory around us that people didn't know what to do. I also think they were worried about how two inexperienced parents were gonna do with a teenager. I guess we must be doing a good job, because people seem to know a little more how to act and that we will be just fine.

One really neat thing about it was that when we announced it at church, it actually gave me a feeling that I think is close to announcing to people that you're pregnant. I don't really remember with Martie how that was...but I think since it was all so unknown and new, the feelings of fear and anxiety clouded the excitement that I felt. This time I am able to just fully feel the excitement since we know the process.

So I finally get to announce one more time that we are "expecting"!!!!

Gluten-Free Thanksgiving

I've started my gluten-free Thanksgiving baking. I made cookies with chocolate toffee bits in them. I've baked chocolate chip banana bread. I have also made a loaf of sandwich bread, rolls, and bread dough to make into caramel rolls sometime this week. Oh....and I used some older gluten-free bread to make dried bread for stuffing.

I will be working on the pumpkin pies when I get there. I have gluten-free brownie mix and gluten-free rice krispies to make rice krispy treats.

I found my favorite bread mix. It comes in a green box...and I can't remember the name right now. But I had tried another kind of bread mix and the bread just fell apart after I baked it. But this one was an actual sandwich bread mix. I was able to bake it, let it cool, and then slice it pretty thin and it stayed together. So we will use that for Turkey sandwiches and toast this week.

I will eventually get my recipes on here, but I just had to share how much stuff I am able to do gluten-free. (it's pretty much everything really).

I'll keep ya'll posted on how well it all goes over. I'm hoping to get my family to eat one gluten-free meal with me just so they know that it's not all bad. There's nothing to be afraid of. I already got Martie's boyfriend, Neal to like the chocolate toffee cookies. Score one for this mommy!!!

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving everyone!

Gluten-Free

I think I'm gonna (as well as posting inspiring stories) start posting about my gluten-free journey. I started it a couple months ago and then quit. But I started it again yesterday. I think it would be kinda fun to share recipes and tips about my favorite gluten-free products.

Like I said, I re-started this again yesterday. I weighed myself yesterday morning and then carefully monitored what I ate to make sure it was gluten-free. When I weighed myself this morning I had already lost 3 pounds. I was shocked! I really wasn't expecting it to work that fast.

I'm really excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas and have given myself a personal challenge to eat exactly what everyone else is eating...but make the gluten-free version.

For Thanksgiving:
I have a pie crust recipe and plan to make myself (and my daughter) a gluten-free pumpkin pie. We have gluten-free cream soups, so I will make us a green bean casserole. And don't forget the stuffing, rolls, and of course the gravy!!! My challenge is gonna be to make all these things for us, so we don't miss out on anything. Good thing the turkey is gluten-free...lol.

I will share how this goes as I make them...and I'll share how good (or not good) they were.

And here's my inspiration for you for the day:

From a strictly Mathematical Viewpoint:
What equals 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been in situations where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 101%? What equals 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11=98%

and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5=96%

but,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5=100%

AND, look how far the love of God will take you:
L-O-V-E-O-F-G-O-D
12+15+22+5+15+6+7+15+4=101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Love of God that will put you over the top!

God said "NO"

So I decided to go through forwards I've gotten through e-mail and have printed out. I found a lot of very inspirational stories, poems, and other things. I'm always running out of ideas to make my blog more interesting, so I'm gonna start posting some of these periodically. They will reflect what is speaking to me at the moment...so you'll still get a glimpse of me through them. Here goes!!!

God said "NO"
I asked god to take away my habit.
God said, "No.
It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up to me."

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, "No.
His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary."

I asked God to grant me patience.
God said, "No. Patience is a byproduct of tribulations;
it isn't granted, it is learned."

I asked God to give me happiness.
God said, "No.
I give you blessings; Happiness is up to you."

I asked God to spare me pain.
He said, "No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to Me."

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
He said, "No.
You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful."

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.
God said. "No.
I will give you life, so that you may enjoy all thigs."

I asked God to hel pme LOVE others, as much as He loves me.
God said, "...Ahhh, finally you have the idea."

"May the Lord bless youand keep you,
May the Lord make His face shine upon you,
and give you peace...Forever"

My baby boy

Today I did one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I buried our most recent angel baby. We named him Isaac Samuel. I've had 8 miscarriages, but have never been able to actually bury our babies.

We picked out a nice little box to put his remains in and then I used a wooden recipe box to put that little box in along with cards and letters from us as his family.

He's not too far from us. There is a small tree in our backyard and I thought it was the perfect place for my sweet angel. I bought a cross marker that has his name and the date that he passed. I placed flowers by his tiny grave and a stone on top of his place of rest.

I know to most people, a miscarriage means nothing but a woman losing a pregnancy that would have one day been a baby....but to a woman who has had a miscarriage they are losing an actual baby. Someone they wanted to get to know and watch grow up. A woman already loves her baby from the moment that she finds out this tiny person is real. (aka...a positive pregnancy test).

I know most people think that life is supposed to just go on like normal, but I just can't do that. I have to grieve like any other person that loses a loved one. I made a good step today. I was able to get motivated to clean my house and do some work that I've been neglecting. I thought this was a great step in the right direction. I know that I can continue to move on because of today.

Sorry if this post seems too personal, but it's like I said...I am pretty sure it's just for my benefit anyway.