A little bit of crazy, a good dose of chaos, and a lot of love.

Yesterday we said goodbye once again to our summer time guests.   They didn't stay quite as long this year so the three weeks went by too fast.  I love having my close friend and sister in law around.  We laugh our way through the days, make fruity drinks in the evenings, and it doesn't hurt to have an extra set of Mom hands around when the kids get rangy and the laundry heap looms high.   Over the past four summers together we've worked out so many of the kinks that come with meshing two families/ households together for any extended period of time.  Certainly, any time you slam together two households into one (or put any two women into one kitchen) for a month there is plenty of opportunity for irritation, offence, or selfishness but part of what I love about our extended visits is that it's grown us in grace, healthy conflict resolution and patience.   We've learned to love each other better.  You can tolerate a family member, or keep the peace on a surface level for a few days...but after several days or weeks, you have no choice but to start digging deep.  

I love these two, my sister in law and her son, to bits.  Even though my nephew is now nearly as tall as I am.   It's wild to look back and see how much our crew has grown.  I'm glad I got to meet my nephew while he still had a bit of little boy left in him.  Most of the crew has grown bigger and taller, but you might notice from the pictures that one of this crew just keeps getting smaller.  While she keeps shrinking physically she has grown in every other way.  She is a beautiful, mature in her faith, extremely generous, huge hearted woman.  I'm so thankful to have her as my friend. 

It's sad to see them go home for another year

but the coolest thing is that this year  I get to fly to Seattle, alone, in November and hang out at her place for a few days.  I've got my spot booked at the R13 conference that her church is hosting in down town Seattle.  I'm so stinking, super duper, excited already.  I've never gone on a trip, just for me, before AND to top it all off I get to go be a part of what I love.  Lots of Jesus, great Bible teaching, and kick butt music.  Oh, and to top it all off a bunch of my home church peeps are going too!  

On Sunday, our last full day together, we had a friend take a few snap shots of our family.   It's really very pathetic that we don't have a single real photo of the seven of us.  The only family picture we have is one cell phone photo of us all at the airport after our long flight from Beijing.  We ALL looked mostly dead in that picture.  

We were over due.  I would love to get some real portraits done up, and have an actual photo session sometime before the year is over but we just really needed a few photos with all of us in it...

even if we look like mismatched, shoeless dorks. 

Only a few minutes into our attempt at a family photo and I was reminded why we have no family photos. 

"CHEEEESE"

Ok we got a photo...

everyone can stop pretending to be normal now.  

I need to do an update post on this little monkey boy.  I've been hugging him now for 6 whole months.  Half a year!  It's hard to believe that it's already been that long since we were getting to know our newest little guy in Guiyang.  Time has flown by.  Why couldn't time  go that fast while we waited? 

Today I printed out a couple of the family pics for Elijah.   He is thrilled.  I think somehow having a picture of us all...a family photo with him in it, validates his place in our family for him.  Whatever we can do to add some security into his insecure little heart is a good thing.  He's still  pretty convinced that we're going to ditch him at some point.  

I love this kid so much it hardly seems possible,

and certainly goes beyond probable or reasonable.  

That's the crazy thing about adoption, 

it just defies logic.  

{A little cheese touch for you}

I have loads of posts, topics, and lots of fun summer pictures stored away on my computer and in my scattered brain that are begging to be posted here....

I'll get it all on here eventually,  bear with me,

once the raspberries are picked, the garden is weeded, and the laundry is caught up I'll have time to blog.

Aw, who am I kidding? 

I'll just blog because those things will never be caught up anyhow.