Lots going on!

We have had a very busy, but fun couple of weeks, Tadd and Charity got a chance to get away to one of our favorite places in Oregon for 3 days (kid free). You forget how much you need those trips, until you make one and realize how much you love being together with no interuptions. The problem with taking those trips is, you are so glad to get away without kids and then you spend half your time pointing out things the kids would enjoy, and complaining about how much you miss them. Therefore, we had to take another 3 day get away with the kids when we got back.

Mon, Tues, Wed are our getaway days since our weekends are so busy with church we try to really focus on family time the first part of the week. We bought into a timeshare early on in our marriage to gaurantee that no matter what finances were, we could always get away to our condo for little, to no cost. It has definantly paid off. We always have a place to stay at over 140 different condos in the United States and we don't have to eat out, as you can make your own food in house. So if we can splurge for the gas, we have insta vacation anytime. They all have pools and lots of movies and board games you can rent, so the fun neverends. Here are some shots of the pool time.

Elijah making sure Dad understand exactly what the schedule is for the day.

Somehow, we turned pool time into stunt time. Annecy and Kenya decided to try Dad out as a Jungle Gym. This was a feat for Kenya as she is afraid of heights and this stunt was very risky for her.

Not to be out done, Isaiah had to practice his back flip from the side, into the pool.

Amazingly we had no injuries, but they all slept very well that night.

Isaiah, Annecy and Kenya tried out for a play and landed some pretty cool parts. Isaiah gets to put his acrobatic talents to work as a member of a Gypsy family that travels from town to town doing tricks. He is mimming, juggling and walking on his hands. Annecy gets to play a daunting shadow that lays heavy cloths on a girls shoulder, as the girls gets insulted, symbolizing the weight that degrading comments can put on people. Kenya is using her amazing operetic singing voice to sing a duet with her on stage brother. They are all working so hard to memorize their parts and make it to 2 - 3 practices a week. The play is showing the next couple of weekends, so we'll try to get some good pictures for you. Here they are studying hard.

Isaiah just finished his very last basketball game, They swept the division and came out as the Grand Champions of their league! We are so proud of him, he practiced so hard and had to learn all of the rules besides. He worked very well with his team, even though he wanted to make all the baskets. Way to go buddy!

Please help us pray for the building we are still negotiating to get into, we know the Lord will provide what we need, but we met there for one sunday today and boy, did it make it more difficult to wait on the Lord. It is so perfect for our needs and we were so blessed with the room and provision that we had for all of the classrooms and meeting room. We did not have anyone crammed into a corner for a change. Please pray that God would provide the finances and the go ahead to make this happen if it is in His will. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Beautiful 10 year old

Annecy turned 10 a couple of weeks ago on Jan. 31st. It was her first real birthday party and she had so much fun. Mom took 13 hrs to put extentions in her hair a couple of days before and she flipped her hair atleast every 10 seconds for the first week she had them.

She had a butterfly themed party, complete with a pinata, that she has been asking for since she got home. I have never feared for my life more than when she started swinging and I had to be the one to steady the pinata. I did learn that if she ever gets violently angry, I am going to run and hide. They played some of her favorite games and she got to open her much anticipated gifts.

Church is going great! We are hoping within the next few weeks to be moving into out first real building! We are in the process of purchasing a building from another church that has moved. We are excited to see what God will do and so blessed to be in a position to be able to discontinue unpacking and loading it back up for each service.

It has been so nice to have Tadd at home a little more as he is making due with his "laundry room office" until we move into the church and he can have an office. He went to full time pastoring and is no longer trying to juggle a full time job and full time ministry. He is so blessed to have more time to dedicate to what he loves.

God is so faithful and we are so blessed to sit back an watch what he is doing. We are so blessed to be a part of it and can't wait to dive in deep. Have a so blessed week!

Happy New Year!

The older you get the faster the time goes! We can't beleive it is 2011 and Annecy and Isaiah have been home for almost a year! It has been a wonderful year of first and is finishing off with the best of the best. Christmas was such a blessing this year to have our whole family together and Grandpa Davis even got to come too. Kenya and Annecy were blessed with exactly what they wanted, we had a wonderful friend bless them both with the "American Girl" dolls they wanted and then went above and beyond, as she made them each a "girl and doll" matching night gown to go with it. They were in 7th heaven having tea in there pajamas on Christmas morning.

Isaiah and Elijah didn't do so bad either, they got a play station from a friend who wanted to hand it down to them and for three days straight after Christmas I don't think they gave their thumbs a break, we finally put some limits on their play time, so we could remember what their voices sounded like. Here is picture they were willing to pause the game for and I think they were surprised to find out they were not the only ones occupying the room.

The kids are taking a homeschool science class from a graduate student at the college, who is trying to get some teaching experience, she is a great teacher and the kids are loving the class. It is very hands on and this month they got to make volcanos out of paper mache and set them off with vinegar and baking soda. Here is a picture of Elijah's master peice erupting.

We had plenty of snow here in Ellensburg this year and all though the cold was hard to bear, the hours of sledding made it all worth it. Here is a video of us sledding with some friends and our cousin Mia, who got to come down for a week over Christmas break. You would never believe that Isaiah and Annecy had never been sledding before, they were pure naturals.

You would think after all of this it would be impossible to fit more fun into our holiday season, but this year we finally have 2 January birthday's we get to celebrate. Isaiah was on the 15th and a Annecy's will be coming on the 31st. Scheffer family tradition allows you to pick your menu on your birthday. So on Isaiah's birthday we had a Haitian schmorgusboard. He went with Bacon and Cheddar muffins for breakfast (not haitian, but very good) Then for lunch was "Haitian Spaghetti" (recipe: lots of oil, white noodles, ketchup, tomato paste and beef boullion, topped off with fried hot dog pieces.) Dinner was fried Chicken with Creole seasoning, Pikliz, (a spicy habanero pepper, vinegar and lime juice cole slaw) along with a Haitian staple of white rice with pureed beans on top for sauce. After our arteries started opening back up, we had cake and ice cream with some friends and opened presents.

We should get our cholestoral count lowered just in time to celebrate Annecy's birthday with fried "Patte" (a fried biscuit stuffed with onions & pork) and more fried hot dogs with ketchup and spaghetti. It's a good thing birthdays only come once a year.

Hope you had a blessed holiday season and wishing you a very blessed New year!

Yay! Holidays!

It's been a little while since I posted, so we have lots of pictures! Yay!

We will do the most exciting news first! On November 19th, in the Whatcom County Superior Court Gaspard Chancy and Anthionine Petitome officially became Isaiah Gaspard Scheffer and Annecy Anthionine Hope Scheffer. Even though this happened already in our hearts over 10 long years ago, the papers are now official. Here is a picture of everyone in their smiles, after Mom had a good cry while signing the papers. Following the court appointment they had a reception for all of the adoptive families that had their papers finalized that day and they had lots of sugar, presents and most importantly a really funny balloon man. Her are all of the kids sporting their balloon decor.

We hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving sharing it with family and friends. Ours was wonderful, we got to share it with lots of friends and followed the dinner up with a Wheeler/Scheffer re-enactment of the original Thanksgiving! Here are some pictures of our little Pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower and the Indians saying goodbye to Squanto (the pilgrims look very similar to the indians).

And finally we have a picture of all of our kids together for Christmas time. They all had so much fun putting up the tree and all of the Christmas decorations together. When Elijah was still in the womb, Mom made felt stockings for all of the kids with their names on them. For the last 8 years we have hung Isaiah and Annecy's stocking with all of the others, in faith that they would be home the next year to use them. This year our faith came to fruition. They were so excited to hang them on the mantle and know that this year they would get filled with goodies like all the rest.

All together a pretty productive and blessed couple of weeks. We pray your holiday season holds the same and we'll miss seeing you that are far away, but know we love you just the same.

Harvest time!

We had our church Harvest Party on the 31st of October. Isaiah had a hard time deciding between dressing up as Zoro, a Ninja or Superman, Superman finally won out. Annecy was a Princess and Kenya was a pirate girl, wiht Elijah as the Pirate. They had lots of fun making Carmel Apples, fishing, bowling and bean bagging for candy. They also got to do a cookie walk and a cool craft.

Isaiah and Annecy got to experience their first fall season this year. Piles of leaves are now their favorite thing. This is them at our friends The Wheelers.

Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving, if you don't have a place to be, we would love to have you. We thank God for our countless blessings and hope you are blessed even more!

First Face Painting

We went to Dusty's pumpkin farm for some Fall festivities and Isaiah got his face painted for the first time, it was not a simple heart and balloon shape either, he and Kenya got the whole works.

We got to go through the corn maze with help from the Wheelers, we made it through after several failed attempts. We found some cute little pumpkins, did a couple three legged races, some gunny sack races and Isaiah and Annecy came in first with their long legs, on all of them.

Annecy got to take her first horse ride and since she didn't want to wait in the long line for the more detailed face painting, she did get the heart shapes along with Elijah, who got a snake.

We had so much fun and we are looking forward to lots more Thanksgiving and Christmas memories coming up. Please continue to pray for the building we are hoping to buy. We need to give them an answer in the next week, as to whether we can come up with the down payment they are looking for and it will definantly be only God if He makes this possible. Thanks for the prayer if He wants it, He will do it! Happy Fall to you all!

It's show time!

The kids have started putting on shows for anyone who will watch. So we got the camera out and figured we would broaden the spectrum. It starts out as practiced, serious drama and some how turns into serious goofing off with in a matter of minutes so here is a little of both.

We got to go to the Northwest Pastors Conference in Seattle last Monday and Tuesday. We spent the night in a hotel and got to eat vietnamese food for dinner. It was so nice for us to spend some time together while the kids stayed with a sitter. You forget how much you need it until you get it. If Charity would have not had a sore throat clogged sinuses and a cough. It would have been even better.

We are enjoying the fall activities with the summer weather. We turned on the air conditioning closed the blinds and made hot chocolate to pretend it was a snow day, we snuggled and read books most of the day. Then when we got tired of that, we took blankets and pillows out on the lawn and enjoyed the hot sunshine while we read some more books. Those are the days I live for. To bad they have to come to an end.

Please continue to pray for a meeting place for Calvary Ellensburg. We still have not been successful in finding one and know that it will all be in the Lord's perfect timing. Thanks!