Sunshine Rocks the House!

Sunshine's high school choir had a concert tonight.  The highlight of the night was the last song where Sunshine and their normal accompanist combined together to accompany the choir on the piano.  After snapping a couple of pics of them at the piano, I recorded the rest of the song on my camera.  The video footage is poor, but the playing is excellent.  It's one of those times where as a parent your pride swells greatly, and with a tear in the corner of your eye you want to stand and tell everyone, "that's my girl!"  I was very proud of her.

Grandma and Grandpa Nordstrom were also there and together we enjoyed a feast of lasagna before the concert and homemade lemon meringue pie after the concert.  Awesome cooking Bo!  What a woman! 

After the pie, we were serenaded by Rye-Bread and T-Bird on their horns to "Thriller" and the SSC fight song.  After T-Bird put down his trumpet, Eddie Joe picked it up and blew some notes.  It was hilarious.  I should have taken some video shots of that too.


Sunshine and the SSC Choir from nordstromseven on Vimeo.

A Couple of Videos....

The Dunlap family have an amazing story.  They were on the waitlist for a total of 4 hours!  They received their referral phone call a brief 4 hours after they had been informed they were officially on the waitlist last June.  Very exciting. They adopted Yohannes, a really cute toddler boy.

You have to watch....especially the part where they return on their second trip and Yohannes sees them from the gate of Hannah's Hope.  The excitement on his face as he runs to them is indescribable.  It is truly the miracle of a child realizing that his mom and dad have returned for him. Check out the Dunlap's blog by clicking here.




Also included here is a video from the Smith family. They also recently adopted through our Agency AGCI. They adopted two siblings. What joy on their faces! Check out the Smith's blog by clicking here.


Blessings of a Burdened Heart from smith on Vimeo.

Psalm 24 - Who is This King of Glory?

Our new number is 24.  We received an email from Kiersten with our new number on Tuesday.  Hopeful that this would be the week for our referral (for whatever reason, it seemed like this was the week for us), we instead received an email with our updated number.  Initially, we took it as a big blow.  More waiting.  But after time to process everything, we realize that we are very fortunate to have the opportunity to be on the waiting list and we are privileged to be able to provide a home and a family in the near future to a beautiful little girl.  A girl who desperately needs and home and desperately needs a family.  God richly provides in many ways in our lives every day.

Our Psalm this month is Psalm 24.

24:1 The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
2 for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.

3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully.

5 He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah

7 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

8 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle!
9  Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
10  Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory! Selah

I have always loved this Psalm.  The beauty it paints as the psalmist asks, "Who is this King of Glory?"  A question that leaves the reader silent, pondering the depth of the question that has just been asked.  To explain who the King of Glory is, goes beyond words or language.  To answer the question requires silent lips, a bowed heart, an undone soul.  Only then can we see Him for who He is.  To think that He is not only full of glory, that He is not only worthy to receive all glory, but that He is the KING OF GLORY!  We bow and say, "Selah."

The Psalmist answers His own question and declares that the King of glory is the Lord, He is strong and mighty, He is mighty in battle, He is the Lord of Hosts.  This covers His royalty, His strength, His victory, His Holiness.  One day we will fall on our faces before this King of Glory.  And in His presence, every tear will be wiped away, every orphan's bed will be empty, every lonely child will be made whole.  In His presence there will be fullness of joy.  

How quickly our eyes can be turned to the worries of the world, the impatience of our thoughts, the presence of our own wills.  And how quickly a Psalm can restore our hearts.  He pours His plenteous grace upon our lives and hearts with His word and refreshes us during times when we feel like the thirst is unquenchable.

And so, with the feeding of the Psalm, our eyes are returned to Him.  Our souls rest once again in the fact that He is the King of Glory.  In Him we find perfect peace.  He is our shelter in the time of storm.  He holds our Peaches in His arms.  She sits within the shadow of the One who is the King of Glory.  We gladly wait upon Him.  Selah.

Waiting and Wrestling

We've been waiting now at #1 for a girl toddler since we got on the waiting list on April 22, 2010.  That's a little more than five months of knowing a phone call could come at any time.  That's a little more than five months of knowing that out of the 5 million orphans in Ethiopia, there is one girl out there that is waiting for a home, one girl that will be our little girl.  For now she sleeps in an orphanage.  For now she wakes in the morning without a mom or dad.  It is similar to being 39 weeks pregnant (not that I would know how that feels!) for over five months.  It is knowing that on our end everything is in place and ready, except for the final referral phone call. 

So as I think about us waiting for over five months, I also think about our girl who could be 5 years old.  I think about her waiting for five years for a family, not knowing if there will ever be one.  I also think of her waiting alone, without a mom or dad to support her.  As she watches other children and babies get matched with their families, does she wonder "who is coming for me, who loves me, will I be alone again tonight?" 

So our wait becomes two-fold.  Our own hearts are ready to be joined with our little girl.  That hurts and causes us to become impatient.  And we know that there is a little girl that is ready for a family.  We are waiting for her, she is waiting for us.  When will the referral come?  We know it will come in God's perfect timing, under His perfect control, to reveal His perfect Glory.  We again rest in Him. 

Our minds know the truth of these words, and yet our hearts sometimes struggle.  We wrestle with our own impatience and wanting the process to move at the pace that we best envision.  Our minds go through the endless pieces of our story that have yet to be unveiled to us.  We think through each of the details, trying to bring them to closure by simply processing them over and over.  In the end, we need God's help to allow us to see His purposes through this and to know that His plan will be for our good (and for Peaches' own good).  We are reminded that we need to continue in prayer for the process and for Peaches.  We need to cast all our anxieties on Him, because He cares for us.

And so we pray, and yet we wrestle.  We wrestle and we wait for God.

Hillbilly Yardwork

There's always a way to do things on the upper end of the financial scale and a way to do things on the lower end of the financial scale.  When we do things on the lower end of the financial scale, it's clearly doing it the "Hillbilly" way.  When faced this weekend with getting the grass re-seeded in our yard that was destroyed (for the second time this summer), I picked the Hillbilly way to get the work done. 

Note:  After the septic system was replaced this Spring, we paid to have the lawn reseeded not knowing for sure if we were going to do the addition.  We ended up paying for two Yahoo, 20-something kids to careen around our yard in a fourwheeler pulling a drag.  At that point, I realized, that I wasn't going to repeat that mistake.  (see old post)

Back to the Hillbilly story.  Some of it is the Alden that is in my blood (see post about the pitchback net).  You see, my Grandpa Alden was famous for his contraptions.  Contraptions which from his viewpoint were functional and resourceful, but from the viewpoint of others they were somewhat of an eyesore and and were the source of much family conversation.  So, with that blood coursing through my veins, I contraptionalized a gadget to cultivate the bare ground in the backyard so that it would be prepared for seed. 

The contraption consisted of two boards with many screws sticking through them.  The two boards were then affixed to a larger board.  On top of the larger board I mounted three large landscaping stones.  Then I attached the whole thing to my riding lawnmower.  Voila!  A Hillbilly, landscaping contraption. 

Here is a picture of the bottom of my contraption after the work had been completed.  Clearly, I needed heavier duty screws and will take that into account if I have to build another one of these.

Here's the pictures of the Master Contraptioner (aka, Hillbilly) at work.  

(Heather laughed loudly when she saw these pictures.)

Next step was the grass seed which I did yesterday right after completing the cultivating.  After the grass seed was planted, it was time to cover it all with straw.  The boys and I headed to Bomgaars today to get some straw bales.  We threw as many in the back of the surburban as we could (you can fit 6 straw bales in the back of a suburban just in case you needed to know that).  I considered tying several to the top of the suburban (you can just picture that, can't you?), but decided to stick with six.

So then the boys and I proceeded with spreading the straw bales.  We felt rather manly as we threw the bales around and smelled like a farm.

Here's the pics of us spreading the straw.  Check out the pipes on those dudes!

The yard work made for a busy weekend, but hopefully the grass will beat the cold weather and we'll end up with a green yard next spring.  It will be a great place for Peaches to play!  We think about her and pray for her everyday.

Addition Update

Time for another update on the addition.  As I have written before, at times it seems that it is going quickly and yet at other times it seems as though we have been, and will be, in construction mode forever.

It's a very strange feeling having strangers build something attached to my house that I am going to live in and own.  And yet, how do I know that they're not using styrofoam or marshmallows to build this thing?  How do I know that it's not going to just fall over the first time the wind blows on it?  How do I know that I'm not going to sit down for the first time in the finished room and say, "what was I thinking???"  I guess I don't, but it's all still very weird.


Well enough rambling.  Here's some pics of where we are with the addition:

The new HVAC unit was put in this week.  It is supposed to be sized large enough for the existing house and the addition.  The old unit was original with the house (1984 - good long life on it Dennis!) and so we planned to upgrade it. 

Here's Eddie Joe in the new shower in the new basement part of the addition.  Most of the plumbing is done.

Eddie Joe loves being in pictures.  How can you not love Eddie Joe!

All of the sheetrock upstairs was completed today.

Gutters and downspout also went up this week. 

At lastly, this is the basement wall that will likely have a big hole in it tomorrow where it will connect to the new basement.  Although we have been promised this will happen each day this week.  An important lesson - Contractor timelines have nothing to do with the normal reality of time that us normal people live their lives by.  Contractor timelines are based on the movement (or lack of movement) of stars in an alternate universe.  

So, it does seem like a lot has been completed this week.  It's good to see progress.  I've had to "watch" most of it from a distance as I was in Tulsa, OK during the first part of the week.  Bo did a great job keeping track of everything and keeping things going while I was gone....as she always does when I'm here too.  What a woman!

Matthew West Video

Have you seen the video Matthew West has where he shares his thoughts behind the song "One Less"?  Check it out here!

One Less by Matthew West (The Story Behind The Song) from emicmg on Vimeo.