Sammy Turned 5!!

Well our sweet Hosea "Sammy" turned 5 on November  14th, the same day as his beloved Uncle Herschel! (although Herschel is a tad older)  We were able to have a party for him this year and was thankful that he is at the age to really enjoy it.  Over the years he has had a lot of cakes at community group, so it was time he had an actual party.  He wanted Spider-Man and had a great time.

Sammy's chocolate chip pancake breakfast:)

Eating at party with his friends.

Playing games at his party!

Sammy with his "twin" Caleb they were born same day, same hospital:)

Of course his favorite part, the cake!

Sammy at 5:

He is full of energy!
He wakes up full of joy, ready to talk your ear off and get going-not like the rest of his family:)
He still loves to give hugs!
He has a very thoughtful and sweet side to him, we often say he has the gift of encouragement.
He loves school and loves to learn.

Other Fall Stuff

We continued in our homeshool co-op that Isaiah, Sammy and Shiloh attend on Tuesdays while Micah and Anna are still in Oak City Academy.  This year Sammy got to be in a class and he absolutely loves it!  He talks about it all the time and loves the little boys in his class.  He also has been able to do science class with Mrs. Dana some this year and has loved this too!

Sammy and Mercy showing their food chains!

We moved into our new house at the end of October, so this allowed our kids to go out in the new neighborhood and meet a lot of people and enjoy some candy in the process.  We were able to do pumpkins and they really enjoyed this.

Shiloh did stay home with me to help pass out candy along with another little friend.  Someone had advised me that it might be a good idea as she could get scared in seeing some of the people walking around on Halloween.  Boy was she right.  Our neighbor happens to work at a local corn maize so she is all dressed up, face painted in black and white and came to bring candy to our kids.  So I answered the door and Shiloh totally flipped out, which I guess makes sense.  This happened a couple more times with a couple of the darker costumes, but she does love herself some candy-guess she gets that from her mama and papa:)

Shiloh as princess

Mei-Lin trying to get some candy out of the bowl:)

Soccer in the fall

All the boys played soccer this fall.  Of course this was tons of fun, but did provide for a lot of running around on the weekends.  Sammy played this season for the first time and really enjoyed it, he liked watching himself run around sometimes more than watching the ball but at his age that is usually how it goes.  And we would much rather him do that than push other kids down, like many have the habit of doing at this age.

Micah had another season with the Crusaders, where Travis was his coach.  These boys had a great time playing together and pretty much dominated the league, not loosing any games, and tying one.  Micah improved a lot and even got to play goalie a couple times which he enjoyed.

Crusaders-of course Micah has head down:(

Micah coming in!

Isaiah also had another season on the same team, although they changed their name to the Spartans in hopes of having a fresh start with coaching changes and a struggling season.  Isaiah did well this season having a good attitude in the midst of a lot of losses and of course that is a good skill to acquire:)  He played a lot of defense this season and proved to be a great defender!  Since we moved he will tryout for a different team this year.

Anna turned 7!!

Anna turned 7 in July!  We had our standard pancake breakfast for her and were able to go to Monkey Joe's, which is a big indoor playground with inflatable slides and take her dearest friend Mercy with her.  They all had a grand time.

Anna at 7:

She loves to still role play with her dolls.
She loves to read.
She loves to eat.
She likes to take care of Shiloh.
She loves school and works hard.

Anna is full of joy, she loves to care for others, pray for others and is full of life.  We are so thankful for her.

I know it's been too long!!

Well my last post was in July and needless to say ALOT has happened since then.  I am going to try and update and do some recap of time that has passed as best I can!  Some of the major changes are that   we sold our beloved home on South St., moved into temporary housing for 3 months and then bought a home in Garner the end of October.  We also found out that we are expecting baby # 6, that is now due January 12th, so we have been quite busy!!

Stay tuned, will post some updates with pics!

Look who's wearing glasses now!

Shiloh!!!

We knew she had a lazy eye when she arrived, and after a handful of visits the eye doctor said both her eyes are bad, but of course the one is worse.  So she will wear glasses for now, and then we will start patching her good eye for four hours a day.  We haven't started that yet, so we will see how it goes.  But so far Shiloh LOVES her glasses and has no problem keeping them on.

A bit of irony....below is a picture one of Shiloh's workers sent us months after we brought her home,  she said that Shiloh always loved to wear glasses, I guess this is proof.

Beach fun

After all of our adventures, we had planned to go to Seacrest Beach, Fl with Travis' family to celebrate his parents 50th wedding anniversary.  I always tell people the ironic thing about going to the panhandle of Florida is that growing up in Florida we always went to the east coast, either to where my grandma lived or to the closest beach which was around St. Augustine, so I had to marry Travis to make it over to the panhandle...because a lot of folks from Tennessee drive straight down to the beautiful white beaches, so anyway we had a fun week with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents!

Sadly I only took pictures on one day, always forget the camera.  Enjoy the pics!

Shiloh's first beach trip-loved the sand, waves not so much!

Sammy loved the mask & waves!

Micah loved riding waves.

Anna loved the sand.

Isaiah loved riding waves too!

All the cousins, loved this water spot of the beach!

They also dug their own as well!

We had a great time, we spent one night surprising/honoring Travis parents with a cake, slideshow, memory book, and show filled with skits, jokes, music, poems and sharing stories, it was super sweet.

Time in SC

Well like I said earlier we spent a week in South Carolina at a little cabin out in the middle of nowhere, no cell reception, no computers, no tv, just the great outdoors and it really was great.  It was also really fun to go into these little towns that my dear friend Holly grew up in and see where she lived and hear wonderful stories.  Her parents were very gracious to us.  Her dad teaches swimming lessons once a year during the summer and we were hoping to do that, but then our house went under contract so we missed them...however he was so kind to take us to the pool one day and give our kids a mini-lesson, they loved it, shortly after this is when Micah started getting really brave in the water and swimming on his own, so we were thankful for this time!  The kids would play games in the woods with Travis, they loved catching frogs and throwing them in the river as well as any insect they could capture.  A couple of them were brave enough to swim in the river too and had a blast!  We had a great time in Clio and were so thankful for all the friendly people we met, our kids want to move there by the way:)

A couple pics:

The little dock at the back of the cabin.

Travis and Isaiah in the river.

Time in Tennessee

While Travis was in Turkey we spent a week in Tennessee, here are some pics of our time there:

Shiloh's first time in a swimming pool, she liked it as long as she  was held.

Micah really grew a lot in the water this summer!

probably Shiloh's favorite spot. 

Sammy & Micah:)

Granna and Grandpa's neighbors have a pool that they let us swim in almost everyday, so this was very nice and of course they loved it!
Then no trip to Tennessee is complete without a trip to the zoo, this time Aunt Lori, and cousins Jacob and Tyson got to come too, this made it extra fun!

Sammy & the elephants

Anna too!

And Micah.

And Isaiah.

Shiloh with the zebras!

The cousins together!

Update on Life......

Well the past month and a half has been pretty much a whirlwind.  We have had our house up for sale for quite a few months now, this was a very hard decision one that we have pondered for awhile as our family keeps growing and our house size stays the same.  We moved on to South St. 8 years ago when Micah was a little baby, and have enjoyed being there everyday!  We brought home Anna, Sammy, and Shiloh to that home and shared tons of wonderful memories there together.  We have lived there with the Cordells, our dearest friends for these 8 years, so needless to say this was really hard on everyone in our family whose best friends were always in their backyard:)  We don't take this for granted and do cherish our time on South Street and all the memories we made....

But we finally got an offer on our house, and the gentleman was selling his house so he wanted to close on June 14th, not much notice, and the day Travis is scheduled to leave for Turkey for 10 days, but we did what needed to be done.  So that is why Shiloh's birthday was somewhat low key, we were busy packing up our house:)  So we signed paperwork on the 13th, and the kids and I headed off to TN for a week.  The house we were going to rent wasn't available until July 1st, so we were kinda homeless for a couple weeks, the kids thought this was pretty exciting.  After a week in Tennessee, we met up with Travis in South Carolina where some of our dearest friends parents let us stay at their little cabin for a week.  This was very restful, a place on the river out in the middle of nowhere, the kids had a great time!  Then we headed back to move into our temporary house while we keep looking for a house to be our permanent home.  So we are getting settled in Knightdale about 20 minutes from downtown Raleigh.

A picture of the kids on the last day at 324 E. South St.:(

Shiloh turns 3!

Well our life has been a little crazy lately(will explain more later), thus the delay in blogging and sharing that Shiloh turned 3 on June 9th!  We are so thankful to be able to share her third birthday together.  She has now been a Williams for 6 months, and as all our family says, it seems like she has always been with us.  She has grown in so many ways, she now loves bath time, she sleeps great-of course better if Anna is in the room, she is speaking more english everyday, she is running more and faster, and really tries to jump now too!  Some things Shiloh has always loved are accessories, she loves  jewelry, scarfs, glasses, anything that she can put on herself.  We have pictures of her in the orphanage dressing up in these things, so she clearly has loved these things for awhile:)

Here's a picture from December when we first got her:

And here are some pictures from her birthday:

Shiloh with her princess crown card from Aunt Beth!!

Cool toy from Auntie Lorraine and Uncle David

With one of her twin dolls from Granna & Grandpa

Shiloh at 3, a precious gift!

For her birthday we went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast, and then had a cake at community group with all our friends.  She loved blowing out the candles, and sang happy birthday over and over for a couple days afterwards.  Other pictures are on Travis' phone so will have to add those later:)

We are so thankful for Shiloh and for her birthmother on her birthday who chose on that day to leave her at a place to be found.  We think of her on this day too, and pray God would be near to her!

Uncle Ted's Adventures

We were able to go to Tennessee for Easter last minute and of all the fun adventures one was going to Uncle Ted and Aunt Elizabeth's house.  He is really Travis' cousin, but its easier to call him Uncle Ted.  Anyway because he is a history teacher he has the coolest stuff in his house, our kids loved it.  He had a whole room that he made for reenactments he takes part in.  Enjoy the pics!

Isaiah, Micah, Anna and Sammy all dressed up.

Uncle Ted, with the boys!

Annie Oakley...Anna

I think this was a fox??

Micah's team

Here are 6 out of the 8 players on Micah's soccer team, this was their last game.  Travis has coached these boys for two years so they really do get along really well and have a fun time together.  Go Crusaders!!

Isaiah's Team

This was a picture of Isaiah's soccer team at their last game this Sunday.  One of the moms brought orange and white hair spray so all the boys decided to go with the intimidation factor for their last game, while it didn't necessarily work, they played a great game and have improved all season!  

Go Man City!!

Best Buds

Shiloh and Justice have become fast friends, one because they are neighbors, and two they happen to be the same size, and they currently speak the same language:))  I remember one of the first times they met, Shiloh was very fresh being home, and grabbed something out of his hand, they had a little grabbing match, and it was really cute because Justice had gone through this already too, so they were having a bonding moment.  Now they are learning how to share, and take turns in the back yard.  I took these pics one night when I was watching them, they were so cute trying on shoes together, and following each other around!

So they were both trying to sit on this stool, when I got the camera, Shiloh put her arm around Justice and he gave her this look like, what are you doing isn't that my job.

Shiloh smiling, Justice chilling! 

Having a drink together.