superstar in the making

we listen to a lot of music in our house and recently beniah started singing along. here is his cover of something in the water by brooke frasher.

adventures in arizona: (fake) camping

i was really exciting to take beniah camping. not because i like to camp. in fact, i don't think i've really ever camped, camped, like sleeping in a tent, camped before. but i thought he would love it-and it was a way to continue to explore arizona. so we made plans..and then beniah got a cold, which turned our camping trip into a dinner by the campfire trip. (its okay though, because it would have been pretty cold too, lol)

we met dave's brother & family up at the gordon hirabayashi campground on mt. lemmon for campfire fun. the (big) boys had fun helping get the fire started and looking for "marshmallow sticks" to roast with. eli had fun eating and being cuddled. i have to admit, those hot dogs were pretty delicious and beniah had his first memorable bite of a smore-he loved every second of it (and half of dada's)!

i was really excited to check out this campsite after hearing about its history from some hiking friends of ours, but this just means we have another trip waiting for us!

total money surrender

dave ramsey "ruined" our life almost two years ago. he threw out our plans to get our backyard done and many other fun projects around the house. instead, we tackled our debt. most of it was mine, brought from college. what we thought was capable to pay off in 18 months we actually pulled off in 12 months. then we decided to get moving on this adoption. enter $27,000.

we knew this was going to be hard work. it was going to be both emotionally and financially taxing, but looking back its been an amazing journey. i am humbled and honored to say that we have about $3000 left to raise. i can't believe we've made it this far and its only because of the grace of God. we have felt lead to adopt and God has provided every step of the way.

i felt lead to take a promotion-i honestly had trouble asking others for money when i felt like God was providing an opportunity for our family to bring in some extra money. this has helped tremendously and while it is so hard to be away from beniah, i work early hours so beniah is home with either dave or myself as much as possible. we also have some amazing people in our life who look after and care for him on a weekly basis. we are so grateful for their love for beniah and their support. speaking of my job, starbucks offers adoption reimbursement for up to $4,000 so we cashed in on that. and dave has also picked up some additional coaching jobs to bring in some extra money. when we paid off our debt to begin with we took the ramsey mentally-work, work, and work some more. do what you have to do to get it done. and so far, its worked.

by the way, have you seen our car recently? in five years of marriage neither dave or i were involved in a car accident..until this summer. we were rear ended, twice in a month. the first time dave was driving and the second time i was. ask beniah about it-he really likes to tell the story. since we own our car we took the money (twice), and applied it to our adoption fund. dave and my dad spent the weekend redoing our bumper (even though i was fine with the way it looked..as long as its safe and has a/c i'm good) and dave plans on finishing it up this week.

we've also done a number of fundrasiers: a photo shoot, poker tournament, car wash, and collecting ink and whip creme cartridges. outside of that we've had a ton of thoughtful and amazing people send us gifts. i have been surprised time and again by the generosity of those in our lives, some we haven't spoken to for quite some time. we are truly blessed.

when we started this journey a year ago we had no idea how we were going to pay for this adoption, but in the midst of surrendering ourselves-and our money-i look back and see how faithful our God is.

adventures in arizona: ft. lowell museum & park

after asking many friends to share some of their favorite arizona spots, we asked a few to join us in our adventures. not only did we get free tour guides, we also got to spend some time with fun people.

we visited ft. lowell museum & park with our friends, the allertons. i had taken beniah to this park many times, but had never known the significance. we actually visited on the first saturday of the month which included free admission to the museum as well as a reenactment of sorts. they had erected a tepee out front and a military band played for a small crowd. i enjoyed seeing the women dressed up in their late 1800 fashions. beniah loved chasing the allerton's son, ethan around and around the tepee.

ft. lowell was used as a protective outpost just outside of tucson to help fight the apache wars. it housed officers and their families and enlisted men. james read that the fort was placed far away from tucson because the soliders were creating too much trouble downtown. a well known officer to serve at ft. lowell was walter reed. read more notes from wikipedia.


since beniah wasn't into reading all the notes in the museum i didn't catch all the history, but we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the park and finding the hidden creek. i think beniah preferred this part of the adventure.

reach!

package of love

about a month ago we put together a package to send to h and her foster family. in it we included a letter thanking them for their love for h and introducing ourselves a bit, a giraffe that beniah had picked out for h, some via, an arizona calendar, a jar of sonoran desert honey, prickly pear jelly, and a photo album filled with photos of our family (both nuclear and extended). i was telling dave i wanted to put together a christmas package for h & her foster family at dinner tonight and he asked me whether or not the first package had even made it. i told him that we aren't promised to be told if and when our care packages arrive..and honestly i hadn't planned on knowing, just hoping when we went to pick her up that we would find her with her giraffe.

i open up my email after dinner-and my heart skipped a beat. a new photo? she is sitting with her foster mother, foster brother and all the goodies we sent her. she is beautiful. dave and i were both speechless. i hadn't expected to receive any more photos! what a blessing.

i would love to share the photo with you, but for security sake we will have to wait. :)

operation christmas child

i packed a shoebox for operation christmas child with a small group during college one year. and now that beniah is older i want to pack a box with him (and h) every year. last night, we took him shopping, and while i first thought we should choose to do a girl box so he wouldn't be conflicted about giving the fun stuff he picked out away, he actually choose to pick for a little boy. so we talked about the little boy who would be receiving all these fun toys and had him pick out stuff that he likes. he picked a big truck, small planes and tractor toys, glow sticks, blocks, a puppet, puzzle, some cranberries, yogurt covered pretzels, toothbrushes and toothpaste. we also prayed together for the little boy who would open the box. initially, i think his heart was conflicted-here are all these great toys i just picked out!-but as we talked through it he was excited to mail it to him and even asked if he could play with him. that made me smile, but i told him he is far, far away.

put together a shoebox this week-you can drop it off at several locations in tucson throughout the 21st of november!

you've got to love those sweet smiles on the kid's faces as they open up their boxes. :)

i am a robot

happy (belated) halloween. beniah loved the weekend festivities-but mostly i think he wants to know why we can't go to our neighbor's houses everyday for candy.

while beniah was not very interested in helping us carve pumpkins he did like them once they were all lite up. and dave had fun showing some wildcat pride.

the knife stuck in the pumpkin makes me giggle

scooping the seeds

aunt jaime lending a hand

helping dada with his design

Cousin Eric leading B around the cake walk at a halloween party

The Robot

with the Reyes gang

the loot

in trying to keep things simple I spent some time thinking of a fun and easy costume..and whats more easy than some boxes?! beniah loved being a robot-he has sort of a monotone voice to begin with,  but he loved saying "I'm a robot, whats your name?" the design was inspired by the robot from one of beniah's favorite videos-party rock anthem (which he can grow out of any day now, lol).