Christmas 2010

We had a very sweet Christmas. All the kids had a good Christmas. It was mostly our family with a few friends dropping in and celebrating for awhile with us. We have been blessed beyond measure for yet another year. We have EVERYTHING we need. We have a Savior that LOVED us so much that He came to this earth as a baby so that we may be SAVED, and we have family and friends that shower us with LOVE. We have so many amazing people in our lives I am humbled and thrilled for all that the Lord has given us.

Here is the REAL story of how picture time goes in our house....



Lashae and Chaney looking like dorks. They sure have fun together. We have enjoyed their new relationship as much as they have I think. The whole family gets excited when CHANEY COMES OVER. The boys think he is coming over for them....and Chaney is nice enough to let them think so.

My youngest 2 boys...they are wild and crazy!! Don't let that sweet look on their faces or the fact that they are hugging each other be deceiving. They are trying to put in one last effort of "being good" before Santa arrives. haha




The older kids playing games...Kelsie is GAME LEADER. That girl can play more games for more hours than I can count.

Changes and Traditions

Christmas is such a wonderful time of year!!!

This year is different....as every year is a bit different...even though we have 'traditions' we try to stick with, every year, has it's changes. We know one thing NEVER changes...we are celebrating our Savior's birth. Oh praise the Lord.

This year some of the changes in the Brewer house are.....my folks are living in Arizona and this will be the first year without them. We will miss them terribly.... but, they have sent the all-time favorite candy that my mom makes, and they will be sending the family calendar...so we are keeping some traditions even from afar.

Lashae has a boyfriend and Kole has a girlfriend, and we need to consider everybody's traditions....I'm trying to be flexible and SHARE because I know they are doing the same and I appreciate it soooo much.

We have a little girl that is ours in our heart and she is not home with us yet, she is still in Ug*nda, so we have a stocking and a few gifts that won't be opened until she gets here. We are praying that it is soon.

This will be, more than likely, the last year in this house celebrating Christmas. We will have some big changes in the coming year! We are excited for whatever the Lord has in store for us, and we are just enjoying each day and tradition and memory that we have for this year.

We are glad for change, it makes life interesting and exciting, and we are glad for traditions and some things that NEVER change. I'm so glad that no matter what our traditions are or no matter what the future holds....we know WHO HOLDS THE FUTURE!!!!

Jesus Christ will always be the reason we celebrate Christmas, and He NEVER changes!

Have a Wonderful Christmas and embrace change and tradition! Both are blessings.

MBM-God Changes Minds in the Night!

This is a Memorial Box Monday story that is HOT off the press. I have been so excited to tell this story even before it was a finished story....when the battle was hot Linny said that we should pray and believe this is going to be a MBM story. Well, praise God she was right ON because God did a mighty work.

We are in the process of adopting Esther a 9 year old love from Ug*nda. We have been working on our home study, we have attended classes, we have filled out papers, we have had fingerprints, gone to the Dr., notarized, notarized, notarized, we have done 4 hrs of on-line classes, paperwork....on and on.....We were rejoicing because our home visit with the social worker from our agency was scheduled for this Friday. Oh we were thrilled, it worked perfect, our son did not have a basketball game; ( which is unusual for a Fri. nt) everything just seemed to be falling into place perfectly. We were ready and excited to get to the next phase of this adoption and get our daughter home.

I can not give all the details ....but there was a terrible misunderstanding....not with us, but with some other communication that was going on.......again I can not give the details, but it was concerning enough that we got an e-mail on Thurs. evening that said our home visit was cancelled and our money could be refunded.

WHAT????? WHAT?????? WHAT?????? WHAT????

Oh my goodness, I was absolutely thrown for a loop. The only thing I knew to do was to pray and to let others know so they could pray. And that's what happened we stormed heaven, and on a moments notice people prayed and people fasted, some people I don't even know, but they know the Lord and they care for the orphan. We prayed and cried out to God! We prayed that the minds would be changed and that our appt. would be reinstated for when it was originally scheduled!

I called a prayer partner and mentor of mine and she prayed with me over the phone, and gave me this verse.

Proverbs 3:5-7 (New International Version, ©2010)
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.[a]
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.

Her emphasis was on me not to be wise in my own eyes. She told me NOT to go out and try to fix this and get all crazy, she said pray, and trust the Lord and DO NOT BE WISE IN MY OWN EYES. This is what I needed to hear. I could have spent all night trying to figure it out or FIX it, but instead I did what she said. I brought it before the Lord!

At 9:00am we were expecting to make a phone call and plead our case, because that is what time the offices were to be opened.

At 8:30am my hubby got a phone call on his cell phone! In the night their mind had been changed! Our appt. was reinstated for the previous scheduled time, and we were 100% back on track.

OH GLORY!!!! God moved a big huge mountain. He answered prayer, He showed us Himself, and it was GLORIOUS. He showed off and we PRAISE HIM!!! Our home visit went well, and we are just that much closer to getting Esther home to her forever family!

Bringing Our Kids Home

I just went last week to see a precious baby boy at the hospital....FRESH FROM THE WOMB!! MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE THING!!!! Oh this baby was gorgeous, with wonderful proud parents. These parents were soooo loving and attentive, I left that hospital just REJOICING at how the Lord blesses us with babies and parents that love them from the moment they are conceived.

As I was leaving and walking out of that hospital and thanking God that I just got to witness another piece of heaven on earth...seeing that gorgeous baby so beautiful and content and loved...it NEVER once occurred to me to ask these parents if they could afford to bring this baby home, or to ask how they were going to pay for the hospital and delivery.

But, I constantly ask myself how we are going to pay for Esther and how we are going to afford going to get her....that is soooo small of me and so small of my faith and love. As parents, we just do it, we just trust the Lord. We don't question whether we can afford our kids or whether we have enough money to bring them home. We trust the Lord, we walk in faith, we conceive them, have them, bring them home and take care of them. It increases our love and faith on a daily basis, but as parents that is what we do weather they are conceived in our belly or in our hearts first.

We have conceived Esther in our hearts. God has increased our love, and we have her growing in our hearts and when it is time to go get her SOON, we will just walk in faith, we will have to trust that the Lord will help us bring this daughter home. No different than the times we went to the hospital to deliver and bring home our 5 other children. We walked into that hospital in FAITH that God would provide and help us to have a safe delivery, and that we would bring home a baby, and never question whether or not we could afford to bring them home.

This time we will board a plane and walk into a courtroom, and walk in faith, and never question if we can afford to bring her home. God will bring her home to her family, just like He brought our other kids home to their family.

Yesterday was Charlie and my 21st wedding anniversary!!!! Oh the JOY!!!! We can not even comprehend how fast the last 21 years have gone by. It's a blur. One thing we both agreed last night was that we WOULD totally do it all over again.... knowing all that we know now. Whew...that question could have gone either way on me...hehehe

We were soooooo in love when we got married we didn't EVEN think about much, we did not have a life plan, we had no big aspirations, no expectations of where our lives were headed, no magical kid number (thank goodness...Charlie could totally think he was deceived if we had discussed a number...haha) just acting like we could live on LOVE and nothing else mattered.

Our wedding was such a gift from my parents and my sisters because I was just in a cloud, I didn't help do anything, I didn't care about anything, they made most of the decisions and did ALL the work. I just was having fun with my boyfriend.....we also have to remember I was 18 years old; so I was pretty much just floating through life having a ball anyway.

I can honestly say...I'm much deeper in love with this man than I was 21 years ago...hopefully, I'm not as oblivious to the world around me, but I'm definitely in love. Can't really say I have the goose bumps every time he walks in the door, but I definitely look forward to seeing him at the end of the day, and my feelings for him are much stronger and deeper than the goose bump kind. And I'm not gonna lie, he still turns my head. I always think he is the most handsome man in the room, no matter where we are! It was a fun day of reflection and lots of people wishing us a Happy Anniversary.

We ended the day by saying we can't wait to see what the next 21 years brings...the first 21 have been pretty great....5 kids....1 more on the way soon, from Uganda. Lots of ups and downs. But, overall growing closer to our Almighty Lord, and closer to one another.

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Happy Birthday Reece.

Yesterday was Reece's 3rd birthday.

This kid is a total blessing. He is sweet, and cute, and naughty, and smart, and humbling, and HILARIOUS. Sometimes we need to discipline him, but we are trying so hard not to laugh that we just have to walk away.

*I know....not the best parenting technique, but he is just FULL OF IT all the time.*

He can shout "AMEN" louder than anyone at church, and his timing is always perfect.

Reece is teaching us many things....mainly patience at this point. :) He is just a light in this family, and we truly would be lost without him. He is full of energy like nobody's business. It takes ALL of us to keep up with this little body FULL of energy.

He keeps us on our toes when we aren't rolling on the floor laughing!!!

Yesterday, Charlie calls me from work and says he has an idea of what to do for Reece on his birthday....I say that I am all ears....He says we have not yet dedicated him to the Lord...I mean we have prayed for him, and asked the Lord's hand on his life many times, but we have never done it officially with others from our church family....so last night at the prayer meeting we dedicated Reece. It was very cool, and so fun to do on his 3rd birthday. Luke is the only one missing from the picture because he was at AWANA, which was at the same church building. However, in true Reece from, we had a VERY small window of opportunity before he had a major melt down, so we just proceeded with dedication and pictures without taking the time to pull Luke out of his class.