So much in 15 years

This picture (doesn't do justice) is the beautiful quilt that Jade gave to Dave and I for our 15 year anniversary. She also gave us a beautiful picture frame to put on the wall.
It is amazing that is has been 15 years already. We have had our fair share of up and downs in our marriage, some times you feel like you want to throw the towel in, but then you realize that you can work it through and your love becomes more stronger for one another and that both of you become more appreciative with one another. There has been times that I have questioned God, whether it is with my marriage, with work, with trying to have bio kids, going thru adoption, understanding why people do what they do and why they hurt you or a love one, I have also learned that God always knows what he is doing and that you might not understand at the time, but eventually you will understand him. There has been many times when I have been scared, unsure, confused and I just pray and think. Right now we are working very hard on bring home our next daughter. I have been feeling overwhelmed, trying to work full time and do all the fundraising and so forth. I keep praying to God to help me succeed on being a great mom, wife, worker and to have me be successful in our fundraising to bring home our daughter home. God never give you more then what you can handle. He gave me a sign on Monday and that was to have Dave be laid off work for the next 4 months, my first reaction was I don't like it, money wise it won't hurt us much because he gets unemployment and had some comp. money coming, so we will be ok with that. But God has given me the help I was asking for, lightening my load. Dave is now going to do more around the house (He has always helped and is a great cook too), and work on paperwork for our daughter and everything. I don't feel so overwhelmed anymore and feel that there is hope that I will accomplish everything. I am so thankful.
Our South Dakato trip (see previous post of pictures), was awesome. We went with another family that had a 6 year old girl and a 5 year old boy. My kids did awesome with traveling and didn't have any complaining in the car which was the first. They each had a back pack full of new books (thanks to half price book store for their special reading promotion), along with coloring books that they haven't seen for awhile. On the 8 days of traveling, the kids only had 4 movies in the van and none of them took naps except for Jenny on the way home, the last hour. The weather was beautiful during the day. At night it went down to the high 30 low 40. After 3 nights of being in that cold weather in the tent and sharing a sleeping bag with Monika (and being kicked a lot) The two mom decided we had a enough and we hotel for the last 4 days. I was glad for a nice warm bed, but missed the camping. The boy (Alex) has announced a while ago that he is going to marry "Momika" (that is how he says Monika). Them two were so cute with one another, they were always nice to one another, they looked out for one another.
Monika and Alex

We saw a lot of the beautiful scenery in Badlands, Custer, Keystone, Rushmore, Devils Tower, Rapid City and so forth. The kids are enjoyed it and love being so close to nature again. We are talking about trying to go again soon ( year or two, depending on the status of our daughter) and extending it to Yellowstone. I am thankful we had such awesome company for this trip and that other then the cold weather, nothing went wrong.
We have been struggling for the last 3 nights with Monika. She is afraid to go to bed now. About 3 weeks ago, on America Got Talent, Penn and Teller did a magic show. It was unbelievable, the magic was the typical cutting the girl in half, well they managed to keep the girl in the box and cut her in the middle and the girl walked onto the stage even though her body was supposely still in the box. So all is good. Then all of sudden Teller puts the saw all the way thru and fake blood and guts come out. Never heard a peep out of Monika regarding being afraid of this (she does get easily emotional and afraid with things on TV). Well Sunday she was just freaking out like I never heard her cry like she did, pure fear. After about 1/2 hour got it out of her what was wrong. So we try to work thru it, and finally I had to sit on her bed and wait until she fell asleep. She was fine then. Again Wednesday night and tonight, she is fine until we say good night and then all of sudden the crying starts, and it is the pure fear cry. I don't recall her cry in fear like this before. We have tried, singing to her, making it funny (dave pulling out all the scary thoughts out of her ear and throwing them outside, which is laughing through it all), but it isn't working. She wants to sleep with her sisters (they share a room) which we allowed Wednesday night, but don't want to make that a habit. Anyone got suggestions on how to deal with this. She sleeps thru the night once she goes to bed.
Again, thank you Lord for giving me a wonderful family, husband and friends.