Our life is nothing short of an adventure...

Wind in our hair and screams of delight but also unpredictable turns and unknown outcomes. We are a family of six; Dave, Susie, Nate, Jake, Sam, and Bella.

God has been faithful in our marriage and through the birth and blessings of our boys.

God has been faithful during our adoption journey and united Bella with us in May of 2008. We were privileged to visit with Bella's birth mother; therefore, Bella's family in Guatemala will always be dear to our hearts.

On October 16, 2008, Bella was diagnosed with ALL Leukemia. We are now battling the disease with 2 years and 3 months of treatment. We believe God will continue to be faithful!

Our family is committed to living life to the fullest...even on the hard days. Thank you for checking in and journeying with us!


Saturday, December 19, 2009

Picture Perfect Christmas


We had Christmas at my parents tonight, and as you can see, Grandma came through with yet another year of home made jammies for all 13 grandchildren! She tells us this was the last year, I'm hoping it not so, but I certainly can appreciate the daunting task of making that many sleeves.

Bella continues to do well. She had chemo this past week and started her monthly steroids as well. They started her on a small dose of prozac to try and counter act some of the unpleasant personality side effects of steroids, and its working! Bella's personality has really bloomed in the last 2 months. She is very social, say's hi to everybody and we are amazed by her language. She uses complete sentences, uses spanish words often, can count to 10 in both spanish and english, say's her abc's and can completely communicate with us verbally. She loves to spin like a ballerina, sing songs, play her brothers electric guitar and drums, still totally love's Dora and Minnie Mouse and is a little unsure about Santa but loves that he is bringing presents....preferably a "new baby doll" and a "big Dora Kitchen". Bella is doing so well that we often forget that we have monthly treatments of chemo. We are now 1 year away from completing her 2 yr. 3 month treatment plan.

The boys are great, very busy, seems that Bella and I spend the majority of our day driving them around. I have told them at this point, when I pull up to their stop, they need to "tuck and roll" as I need to get to the next drop off. There adoration for Bella and hers for them lights up my heart. They never complain when asked to watch her which is daily and they often argue over who gets to play with her.

Merry Christmas to all, may each of you know the power in the eternal gift that was given to you so many years ago in Christ.




4 comments:

Prayer Pals 4 Orphans said...

I love the picture of your beautiful kids.

And I really love the picture of all the cousins. What a sweet tradition that your mom has kept.

So glad to hear that Bella is doing well. we continue to pray for her daily.

Merry Christmas!

The Adoption Journey of Baby King said...

I love the photos! I love all the matching PJ's. This is our first year of matching PJ's and we are wearing Sponge Bob.

I am so glad Bella is doing so well.

Merry Christmas.

Alex and Sam said...

merry christmas!!!!!!!

Mama Bear said...

Those jammies are so incredibly awesome. How fun is that. What an amazing grandma. So happy to hear Bella is doing well. We think of her and say a special little prayer every night during our prayer time. Blessings and happy holidays.