"Children are a reward from him."

I am sitting here in the peace and quiet (yes, there are a few moments like this - they don't last long however) and got the urge to post to our blog. Sherry has always done this (very exceptionally I might add). With that said, here I go.

Over the past week or so I have been looking back over the past crazy year and noticed some of the "more normal" things that have happened recently. A couple of weeks ago Sherry, Corinne, and Hollie were gone one Saturday morning. I took the little kids to a local pancake fundraiser (which someone graciously donated the tickets to us - thank you). There was a long line. Standing in the line I had to laugh to myself. The memory of all of us standing in the US Customs line came rushing back. What a horribly hard time that was! The kids were running all over, they were scared, we were exhausted and stressed to our limit, and many other things. And now, there I was standing in line with four kids under the age of 6 and things were calm and pretty orderly. The funny part was when we got to the serving window and the lady passing the breakfast plates out asked if I was by myself with all of the kids and I said yes. She immediately went into a small panic mode and said we will get you help right away. I almost laughed out loud because she obviously thought I could not handle all that. If she only knew how we were a year ago.

We have found it pretty odd that Josiah does not talk at his pre-k class he goes to a couple of times of week. At first we just thought it was because it was new and he was just getting use to things. Over the last many months we have continually asked his teachers if he talks and they kept saying no. At home Josiah talks pretty well and has a sense of humor that we all laugh at. So one night sitting at the dinner table we asked him why he does not talk at school. He responded it was because he did not talk good. We reassured him that he talks very well. After his next day at school Sherry talked to one of his teachers and she said that Josiah was full of energy and talked the whole day. We all smiled - the real Josiah!

Little things just make us smile as we continue on this road the Lord has called us to. We have been trying to have the little ones build trust amongst each other. We have been asking Isaiah to help zip his sister's coat. He does it very calmly and tenderly. He has such a servants heart. It is such a blessing to see these little moments.

We were in the play room the other night and the boys were playing with legos. Hollie has quite a little collection the boys have latched onto. It was fun to watch them concentrating on their creations and not on what the other one had. I sat there and they kept coming up to me explaining what they were building. At the same time Lydia was playing with the play kitchen. I was served a whole host of entrées and they just kept coming. The imagination juices were really flowing.

A very fun dad and sons event was in the play room with seeing who's hot wheels cars were fast. After several changes to the hot wheels track layout we finally got one that would let the cars go as fast as they could. We worked on the typical brother point of what order each one would go and then they took off. Each one would put their car on the track, let it go and if it went fast they all got excited and if it did not they all sighed. This went on for some time.

All these moments just reinforce that children are a blessing from the Lord. "Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." Psalms 127:3-5