GLO and Dr. Laura

Yesterday we were so excited to celebrate with Micah as he earned his 6th GLO star award! They can start earning them in 1st grade so Jake is not able to yet. But both boys did get a perfect attendance award for last quarter! Below is a picture of Micah and his best buddy Jack!

Last night my friend Jennifer took me to see Dr. Laura! My ticket was a gift for my birthday, back in December. Our husbands happily watched our kids so we could have a girl's night out. We both love listening to Dr. Laura on the radio and she was going to be giving her final performance of her one woman show in Honolulu. She has been doing the show for 3 1/2 years. We were not able to take pictures once the show started but we got a few pictures before it started. While we were taking those shots two different security people came over to tell us we could not take pictures once the show started. It was a good show. She told stories, shared emails and answered questions. Thank you Jennifer, I had such a great time!

Wooden Shoes

When I was little, and I went to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Vanderbilt, one of my favorite things to do was wear the pair of little wooden shoes that they had sitting on their shelf. They felt strange but I loved the "klomp klomp" sound they made when I walked around in their kitchen.

Now we have a pair of wooden shoes that sit on our book shelf in our home. Naomi's feet are the perfect size for them and she loves to walk around the house with them. She paired the wooden shoes with an armful of bracelets we bought while in Africa and some silver beads!

Jacob turns 6!

Yesterday our sweet Jacob turned 6 years old! We had such a great day celebrating!

Naomi and I brought lunch to Jacob at school to kick off the celebration! Then in the afternoon Jacob shared a birthday treat with his class. We made Aquarium cups and the class loved them!



Then after school we headed over to the Hale Koa to celebrate with friends. We swam and played until dark. Then it was time for cupcakes, presents and then fireworks! It was a blast, thanks everyone for helping us celebrate! You can check out all the pictures on Facebook!

Jake's Nose

I guess it was bound to happen and actually in the 8 years I have been a parent, it has never happened before. Today we had our first bloody nose and it was a good one.

Jacob and Micah were running around outside playing with their friends and Naomi and I were in the kitchen making cupcakes for Jake's birthday. All of the sudden I hear a huge thud outside and then screaming. Right away I knew it was Jacob. By the time I got to the front yard where it happened they boys had run to the back yard. Micah dashes up to me "Jacob's bleeding!"

Those are not words that you want to hear and I pictured his teeth out or a huge gash somewhere but thankfully it was a bloody nose. Jacob was running and tripped and he hit his face right on our front sidewalk and then his friend running close behind him, tripped over Jacob.

It bled pretty good and it got on his clothes and my hands. I did what I knew to do for a bloody nose. Then I called my Mom to make sure I was doing the right things and I was! Thanks Mom!

His nose is really tender tonight and starting to bruise. We'll see how it looks in the morning!

Hays Boys

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Our Kids

Micah Jacob

Naomi

Women's Luau Brunch

Saturday, the Women's Ministry at our church, put on a Women's Luau Brunch. There were 152 women in attendance including me and my dear friends Jennifer and Pat.

We had a yummy meal and great fellowship and worship. But the highlight was definitly the special guest speaker: Bethany Hamiliton. You may remember her as the young surfer girl who survived her arm being biten off by a shark years ago. Well she is now 19 years old. She is an amazing Christian and living her life and surfing for the Lord.

We watched a 30 minute video of her story and then she spoke to us. Her and her family are very inspirational and we were all encouraged. I bought her movie if anyone wants to see it and I put a trailer below.

Heart of a Soul Surfer: The Bethany Hamilton Story

Nothing Much

Well it is 10:30 pm and the day was pretty uneventful. We had some heavy rain and strong wind but nothing bad.

At about 4:30 we lost power and I am not quite sure why. So our friend Jennifer Homesley invited us over for pizza and to hang out. It was so much fun and we just got back a little bit ago and the power had come back on while we were gone.

So far so good

It is 10:00 am now and last night passed pretty uneventful. We had some winds but nothing too powerful.

We had an appt. at the doctor this afternoon but he just called and said we need to reschedule because the hospital is closing for appts. Also Micah's scout campout for this weekend has been cancelled as well as our mini church for tonight.

Today the wind is blowing and we are getting some occassional gusts and I see lots of dark clouds coming in, so we will see what the day holds!

How bad is it going to be?

For the past few days we have been hearing about a big storm that is going to be hitting the islands. The winds could get up to 60 mph!

We just heard on the 5:00 pm news that all public schools are closing tomorrow so everyone can stay home.

It makes me a little nervous, am I ready? What do I need besides flashlights...

Teeth

I am not sure if everyone knows this or not but when I met Naomi for the first time, I discovered that she is missing her two front bottom teeth. The orphanage said that the teeth were gone when they got her and so they had no explanation.

We have been wondering if she ever had them, or if they got knocked out. Does she have adult teeth that will come up in the future?

Well today was her first dentist apt. so we were hoping to get some answers. We were not sure how she would do so we have been talking to her about the dentist and what they do. We go to Pearl Family Dental Care and I love them. They are so relaxed and kid friendly. They let Naomi sit on my lap in the chair. Thankfully she let the lady take 2 x rays of her front teeth so we could see what was going on. The dentist got a little over half way done cleaning her teeth before she freaked out. They said that was good.

Then we got the good news from the dentist that he saw 2 adult teeth in the gums in the x ray. He said that the teeth were probably knocked out because if people are born missing teeth it is usually certain ones and the front two are not it. He also said that there was no pieces of the teeth stuck in the gums so that was good too.

He said if we wanted we could have false teeth wired in her mouth until the adult teeth come up but he did not recommend that. So we were happy with what we found out!

Then it was my turn. With Naomi on my lap and Jacob peering in my mouth and asking the hygienist a ton of questions I got my teeth cleaned. Micah and Jacob saw the dentists too so we are all good for awhile.

Our Dancing Girl

On Friday we went a Birthday Party for Jacob's friend Allie at Chuck E. Cheese. We had a good time. The boys played games and tried to win tickets and Naomi enjoyed the music. We were not sure of how Naomi would feel about big rats but as you can see from this video she was just fine.

Waikiki Aquarium

This morning we took the kids to the Waikiki Aquarium. It has been a few years since we were there so we were all excited to visit there again.

The boys were so excited to show Naomi everything, starting with the monk seals. She loved everything and screamed and jumped and made sure each one of us saw everything!

Once we got inside it was like fish overload for her. She kept buzzing from tank to tank pointing at all of the fish. Micah enjoyed the handheld audio tour and informed us of all the interesting facts we were missing by chasing after a 2 year old. Jake did not like the audio tour-he said it was boring-and liked pointing out the details in each individual tank.

Once we got back outside we went to the touch pool. Micah wanted nothing to do with it and kept listening to his tour, Naomi was scared but Jake wanted to touch everything, including a really cool hermitcrab! Naomi decided to try it once she saw Jacob having so much fun but really only wanted to splash.

After we left the Aquarium we took a short walk along the ocean before getting back in the car. The kids decided to be a train. First Naomi was in front but then they switched around and she had to hold on for dear life, and then they just got silly!

We took a few shots before getting back in the car. It was a really fun time!

You can find more pictures on Facebook!

Dedicating Naomi

Today was a truly incredible day. We were able to stand up in front of our church and dedicate Naomi to the Lord. We know that even though God has given us this amazing little girl that she really is not ours, she is His.

Before we went up, the church saw an awesome video of our family that told how God led us to her. As soon as we get it, we will post it here for you to see.

Then all five of us plus Pastor Mike went up on stage. Darrick said some very touching words and then Pastor Mike led the whole church in prayer. It was so awesome to see everyone stretching out their hands to pray for her.


It was such an amazing moment for Darrick and I. Just to think about the road God has taken us on and the miracle He worked in our lives to bring Naomi home, it was overwhelming for us and a lot of people. Our story has touched so many lives and we give God all the glory because He did it all!

After church we were able to snap a few more shots to capture the day!

I love the picture of Naomi with the beautiful purple flower in the grass. To me, I see Naomi as that flower. There she was among so many orphans in Africa, but God saw her and she is beautiful and He picked her and He saved her and gave her to us. Many people have told us that they believe God has a very special purpose for Naomi and that she will do powerful things for His Kingdom.

Our family truly believes in the power of prayer and we are so blessed at our church to have an amazing prayer ministry with people gifted in this area. This afternoon we met with two members of the prayer team to have them pray over Naomi and lay hands on her. While one of the ladies was praying she got a vision of all these cords attached to Naomi linking her to her past. I don't want to get into the specifics on the blog but you can talk to us about it if you want to know more details. Then the ladies prayed specifically for these cords to be broken and that she is now a child of God and under His protection. It was truly amazing.

Naomi was not in a picture taking mood but we did the best we could trying to capture the moment.