how are we doing?

We have settled into a new normal at our house and that normal includes GREAT PEACE. School is going extremely well, with my friend teaching my curly headed kiddos SO MUCH everyday. They absolutely love her and school this year and E,J, and K and I are booking through Algebra, US History, Writing and Science. They are working on Spanish, with Rosetta Stone. My newest kiddos are making HUGE strides in both reading and math. Layne and Gavin are flying through 2nd grade math and reading at a 3rd grade level. I am only stating these things because God deserves praise in all of this!! When LB was a baby, we weren't sure she would ever be able to learn, much less learn as quickly as she does at 6 years of age.

Cross-country is in full swing, so our weekends are spent going from meet to meet and loving every minute of it. The kids are doing well and making some great friends. On Saturday, Janika was in 3rd (over 100 runners), when she tripped over a tree stump that was right in the middle of the path. She went down, twisting her ankle pretty badly. Mike happened to be standing right there and asked her if she could walk. She replied, "It hurts!!" He said, "Run! You can think about it later." She started running again and finished in 9th!! We all learned a bit about courage watching her gut it out. Our little Gavin had every Williston parent yelling for him as he booked it to an 8th place finish in the elementary race. You can't help but cheer for him when he runs because he smiles so big while he's passing kids twice his size- he loves to run and we love to watch him. Our other three runners did equally as well--

Our new normal also consists of weekly calls to the Ranch for Kids. Last night was our first night to talk to our child who is there. We are learning so much through this process, especially about our own prayer life. We would love continued prayers for our child who is not with us right now, prayers for the child to know the love of Jesus. You see, with Jesus, all the other stuff should be so much easier.