A New Dawn....

Well, the day has come....the first steps down this new path God has called us to have been taken. And, might I add, where God leads, God will provide. Yesterday, (Friday, Dec. 28th) was Noble County's Swearing In Ceremony. That means if was officially Scott's last day as Noble County Surveyor. Sixteen years. That's 80% of our married life! It's the only job our 5 youngest children have ever known their dad to do. Hannah was 1 when Scott took over as County Surveyor. She really remembers nothing else. Patrick was 5 at the time. He may remember bits and pieces of the job before but probably not much. Even I barely remember what life was like....before.

Heading out for a parade in '96

These last few weeks of December have found me thinking, praying and reminiscing about what's to come and where we've been. I've discovered there are some things about this job that I'll miss and some things that I won't. Take my ramblings for what they're worth....ramblings.

Our very first Swearing-In Ceremony, Jan. 1997. I was ready to pop with Zachery. :)

What I'll miss most:

     *FLEXIBILITY
           Scott was almost always out and about looking at ditches, talking with landowners, meeting with contractors at job sites, etc. It was easy for him to pop home if  I needed help with something or maybe it was a rough day and our autistic teen was having a major meltdown and I didn't have anything left to give. Scott could stop by and pick him up. Give both of us a needed break. This aspect of the job was one of the things that made 10 years of foster parenting doable for our family.  If you've never fostered, you have no idea how many hours and hours you are on the road every week taking your foster child/ren to visits, therapies, doctor/specialist appintments, etc. It can be mind blowing! With the flexibility Scott had, he could run kids to or from visits and go to court hearings. It was a tremendous help!  The flexibility allowed our family to participate in numerous family mission trips. I know he'll miss his annual trip to WOL Canada with the teens from church. Not sure what his new job will mean for our annual family trip to WOL NY, either. We'll find a way to make that one work, I'm sure!  The flexibility also allowed him to attend most of the sports activities that Hannah and Noah have been involved with. He was able to attend Hannah's Volleyball Nationals in Missouri this past fall knowing he wouldn't be able to go during her senior year next fall (smack dab in the middle of harvest season).  Yes, I would say flexibility is what I'll miss the most! :)

    *THE PAY & INSURANCE
            Yep. I'll be honest and say it......it's not that the pay was incredible, Scott could have made more many other places. But to make the changes in position it will mean a drastic cut in pay. If God chooses to bless the new surveying business the pay cut won't last forever. I know, I know, it's not all about the money, but since we're in the middle of building a new house and adopting another child I tend to lean a little toward "freak-out" mode. 

Third Swearing-In Ceremony, Jan. 2005

Now for a list of some of the things I won't miss:

     *THE HOURS & PHONE CALLS
            The looonnngg, crazy, never routine hours of the job. As a public employee you are on-call 24/7. I knew we were in trouble when..... The day before he took office for the very first time 16 years ago was a Sunday in September. We were having Hannah's first Birthday party. The house was full of family when some stranger showed up at our door insisting that Scott come with him to look at some ditch that couldn't wait another hour or two.  Yeah, from that moment on I knew he was no longer ours only. :( I won't miss the phone calls at home from outraged landowners demanding I tell them how Scott's going to fix their problem. How on earth should I know?! How about the Christmas Day he spent babysitting a flooding problem? Meetings that lasted long into the night. Days that kept him running around the county and he had to stay after hours to get caught up on office work and miss supper with his family. That wasn't occasionally, that was several nights a week some months. 

     *THE UGLINESS OF CAMPAIGNING
            Having to ask people to let you keep your job for the next four years is physically and emotionally exhausting for the entire family. We've had some easy, breezy campaigns and we've had some "knife in your gut", "ugliness of humanity" campaigns. The last one was the worst. This time our kids were old enough to read the papers themselves. To hear people tell blatant lies about their father is something as a parent you are never prepared to help your children through. My children have gone to the doors of strangers who had horrible things to say about their daddy as they passed out campaign flyers. One time Hannah and a friend were passing out flyers and some strange woman proceeded to tell them what a no good crook that
Zeigler fellow was. As they turned to walk away from the woman after she had spewed her venom they heard her sudden intake of breath as she read ZEIGLER on the back of Hannah's volleyball sweatshirt. Yes, the whole family is involved and pays a price if a price is demanded (it always is to some extent) even in small town elections. 

Oh how ready I am to turn the page to this new chapter. There's so much more I could compain about with this job. But I don't want to focus on the negative. The last four years have been rougher than most. Don't misunderstand me. I don't expect this new job to be without it's flaws or challenges. (Scott doesn't know how to work a 40 hour week so the long hours issue will still be there.) I'm just really looking forward to a brand new set of flaws and challenges. :) God truly has blessed us both through the surveyor position at the county and with this new opportunity. I can't wait to see where He takes us!!

P.S.
     One of the highlights! Scott was named County Surveyor of the Year in 1999!!

Posing for the paper. Hannah was mad that Patrick got to hold the plaque. Did she tell us why she was throwing a fit at the time? NO! Several years later when we were looking at pics she tells us why she was throwing a fit. Oy vay!! 

Homeschool Refreshment

A few weeks ago, Scott, Hannah and I had the opportunity to attend the Great Midwest Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. What an incredible time of refreshment that weekend was for me! We heard some great speakers like....
Susan Kemmerer from School House Publishing and my long time mentor (through her books, anyway), Diana Waring, Dr. Jobe Martrin from Creation Ministries International, Kirk Martin from Celebrate Calm, Dr. Jay Wile from Apologia, Dr. Susan Wise Bauer, author of the Story of the World Series, Carol Burton from Burton Reading, and Carolyn Schulte from Flowering Baby, LLC. There were probably some others that Scott attended but that's who I can remember.
It was such an encouragement and water for my homeschooling soul to attend this convention. The price of the convention is extremely reasonable and if you stay across the river in Kentucky like we did, the hotels are just as nice with more reasonable prices. I would highly recommend it!
I think Scott's favorites were Dr. Jobe Martin and Kirk Martin. Mine were Diana Waring and Susan Kemmerer. I bought Susan's book and plan to blog about what the Lord is doing in my heart through her biblical view of mothering. It was a thrill to meet Diana Waring! She and her husband are moving to Anderson, IN from Seatle, WA this summer. I'm hoping to be able to schedule her to come speak to our homeschool group soon!! Hannah's favorite was Carolyn Schulte. Carolyn spoke on teaching young children with special needs. Hannah has such a heart for little ones and especially those with learning challenges. She is looking into a career in therapy (speech or physical, probably) field and wants to work with small children. Isn't it amazing how God places people or ministries in your life to give you direction for the future?!

                                        Hannah and Chuck Black
Our favorite part of the trip, though, was meeting one of our boys' favorite authors, Chuck Black! He has written the Kingdom Series, a Biblical allegory set in a medieval time period that covers the time period of  Genesis to Revelation. They are full of action and adventure where swords, knights and battles are all Biblically symbolic. They are full of Godly character lessons! And there is no magic, mysticism, or wizardry in the books.
We began collecting the audio versions of the books for Patrick when he was young and they have all since passed down to Noah. Chuck has a second series out called The Knights of Arrethtrae. Each of those is based on the specific knights from the Kingdom series and deals with character qualities. We're beginning to collect those; picked up a new one while we were at the convention. :)
We got to meet Chuck's family and shared some of our favorite parts of the books with his son. He reads all of his books to his kids first before publishing. We bought a poster for Noah from one of his favorite books and Chuck signed it for him. I don't know who was more excited....Hannah and I to give it to Noah or Noah to recieve it! :)

 Be valiant for the King! Chuck Black Heb 4:12

A New Chapter Begins.....

I love the periods in my life when I strive to see the hand of God working and the last few weeks have shown He's working in our lives. Yesterday when I woke up there was a definite sense of a new chapter beginning in our lives. After 16 years as the Noble County Surveyor, Scott lost his run in the primary election. It was a bitter-sweet night for all of us. Every election (this was our 5th) has it's own fears and anxieties with it but through the years God has been using these stressful campaigns to draw me near to Him and teach me to utterly rely on His faithfulness no matter what the outcome. I was completely prepared last night for this loss. No, it wasn't expected, but I never once felt devastated and fearful for the future. We are held in the palm of a mighty God and He sees our future. He has plans for us that we can't yet see. There are soooo many directions Scott could turn. The prospects are literally exciting! I must also say that I will be thrilled to have my husband back. In his current position he is on-call 24/7/365. We've had him miss family birthday parties and even one Christmas Day! Yuck! Scott loves his job as County Surveyor and he's good at it! He's a people person but he's also very good at listening to people vent and not taking it personally. Believe me, he gets a lot of that in his position. He tells a story of one man coming in to the office and ranting and raving for quite some time and Scott just nodded and listened. Finally the man said, "Am I ever going to make you angry?!" Scott smiled and said, "Not today, you won't." Haha! I love my husband!! With his gentle leading and hard work ethic and fully relying on God's providence we will be fine. God is good all the time!

Quick June Review...

June was busy, busy, busy! I went to a couple Homeschool Used Book sales and was able to sell a few things. Noah went to one with me and we had some good bonding time. Patty went to the second one with me and it was great to spend the day with my teen! We even went to lunch together. I can't remember the last time just the two of us went out to lunch.
While I was doing book sales, Scott and Hannah were on the Jr. High SMO (summer mission outreach) in Canada. They had a great time and I'll have Hannah make a slide-show or two of pics later. We had several graduation parties this month. It seems those invites greatly multiply the older your children get. Their friends become family friends and suddenly our social calendar is full to overflowing. What a blessing!
Zac spent a week at Red Cedar in Fort Wayne for Autism camp. He did horse therapy everyday along with karate, fishing, canoeing, arts and crafts and lots more! He loves it!! He raved about it so much last year that Noah has begged this year to get to go to Red Cedar for camp himself this summer. His week at camp is in August. I hope he enjoys it as much as Zac.
On July 4th, Patty headed off on his Sr. High SMO trip to Hazzard County, Kentucky. The teens were putting on a Vacation Bible School in the evenings for a small church we support in McRoberts, KY. During the day they would be working on any projects the church needed done. He is on his way home as I type. I can't wait to hug my little boy and have his spark back in our home! What am I going to do when he heads off to college?
4-H starts this week. Another busy month for us!

WOL, NY part 2

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Word of Life, NY part 1

Make a Smilebox slideshow

She's Ours!!!

Our prayers, our faith, our patience rewarded. Hebrews 11:1

It is with great joy

we introduce the

newest Zeigler...

Naomi Beth

born January 19, 2007

adopted forever into

our hearts

May 18, 2009

Proud parents... Scott & Annette

Adoring siblings... Patrick, Hannah,

Zachery, & Noah

Our team: back row Claire, Abbey and Laurie Keister, Nancy Zeigler. Front row: Zac, Annette and Hannah Zeigler

Yesterday was the Autism Walk with ACT (Autism Community Together). The monies raised goes to pay for summer programs like summer camp at Red Cedar, hippotherapy (horse), speech therapy and more. Zachery will attend Red Cedar's Autism Camp this year again and will be taking hippotherapy for 6 weeks this summer (thanks GG and Grandma Nancy!) at Red Cedar, also. The week of camp is absolutely amazing! Zac has so much fun and they work him really hard, too. Last year they rode horses every day, learned some karate, yoga, went swimming and fishing, had a scavenger hunt just to name a few things. He grew so much that week! His self-confidence level jumped! It was the best thing we had ever done for him. I can't wait to see what this year does for him!


This year's walk was very cold and rainy. We ended up heading home before the walk actually began. We had Naomi and her baby sister with us (they were warming up in the Excursion during this picture) and they were just way too cold to stay. The baby ended up running a fever that afternoon. Poor baby...

Naomi's EEG

Naomi did super for her EEG. They wanted her sleepy and she was! She fell asleep half way through getting all the probes stuck to her head. She snored while the EEG tech and I talked away. The results were basically inconclusive. The neurologist's words were "it appears to be normal, however, this test was just a blip in time and because of the symptoms she presents we would be wise to do a 24 hour video taped EEG." So... we are waiting for the hospital to call and tell us when that will be. Answers like this really frustrate me!

Naomi's Heart Test Results

We saw Dr. Dick Friday for the results of Naomi's EKG (pictured above) and Echo. Her EKG was normal, but her echo did show a tiny whole in her heart so we are scheduling an appointment with Dr. Ghazali to follow up. Hopefully it is just like Zac's and the doctor will just want to watch it and wait for it to close on it's own. We also discussed the concerns of her speech therapist. Her speech problems appear to be more neurological in nature and she feels we would benefit greatly by consulting with a pediatric neurologist. Dr. Dick agreed and his office is scheduling an EEG to rule out seizure activity and a follow up appointment with Dr. Kahn. So, one more test and two new doctors. On the adoption front, we may be making an announcement of great importance very, very soon!!! ;-)

Hannah and Patty leave for TI

I couldn't resist posting this! Hannah and Patrick are heading for an overnight stay with the youth group for their Regional Teens Involved competition. Hannah can hardly lift her bag and keep it there long enough for me to take the picture! She wants to make sure everyone knows that Patty didn't have to pack any makeup or hair styling tools and she has her Chapel Heirs (choir) outfit and he isn't in Chapel Heirs. However he does have an outfit for the competitions and a casual outfit to change into plus clean boxers and pj pants. She really does not get this from her mom! I would pack a bag that size full of books, but not clothes, make up, hair stuff.... no way! Oh, and notice Patty's jeans, the wholes in both legs. This is the only pair he has left. When he went to Michigan with some teens a couple weeks ago, he ripped the butt out of his other pair so this is what he has left. He went to Wal-mart to buy some new jeans but couldn't find any that fit that didn't look amish. His words, not mine. What is a mother to do? I love them with all my heart and pray for their future spouses fervently! ;-D

Top photo is Patty's wonderful Wal-Mart luggage and the bottom photo is Hannah's designer Vera Bradley luggage.

Patty and Hannah head to Regional TI

Here are their 2 bags together plus Hannah's purse and notebook with her quizzing notes because she will actually be reviewing her material on the bus. Notice Patty has no notes with his bag...this concerns his mother, but I am learning to let it go. :-)

Crazy Birds!

We had some crazy visitors this week. A mourning dove couple were trying (rather unsuccessfully) to build a nest in the windowsill above our front door. We had seen these birds flying around the porch off and on all week. I was afraid they would make a nest too close to the front door and then attack the kids all spring as they tried to go out side. We were shocked on Thursday when Noah and I noticed a strange creature peeking in on us through the window above the front door. The first picture is one of the birds watching us as we watched him. The next picture is their nest debris where it kept falling as it would slide off the sloping sill. Then a couple pictures of the doves and their futile attempts to create a nest. Finally on Saturday they gave up and headed to the tree around the side of the house. Now I can hear their calls from my bed every morning. How pretty!

The Race is On!

Zac and Naoh had a blast at their annual AWANA Grand Prix. They both made mustangs. Made it easier on Dad! Of course, Noah's had to be black and Zac's had to be John Deere green. ;o)

The Journey Continues

Naomi had a check up with Dr. Dick Friday (3/20/09) and I went prepared with lots of questions. She had been seen by a nutritionist last month because of concern with her eating habits. She will eat from now til tomorrow if you let her. I have seen her refuse food only 2 times in the year and a half she's been with us and that has been peas both times. Dr. Dick put her on Zoloft 7 months ago to stop her from screaming for the food on other people's plates. I mean SCREAMING, banging her head on her highchair tray, extremely over-the-top reaction. It was pretty scary. The Zoloft controls this, but she still seems unable to tell when her body has taken in enough food. According to the nutritionist she is getting way more calories than she needs and the balance of proteins, fats, carbs, etc is great and this is with me putting a lid on how much food she eats per meal. However, she has never had an ounce of fat on her. Her little ribs and breast bone stick out and her belly is distended like a malnurished child. The nutritionist suggested checking her metabolism (not an easy thing to do Dr. Dick said) and I asked him to check if she is not absorbing the nutrients in the foods she is eating (very easy to do, he said).

Then he proceeded to do the routine check up and would you believe he found a heart murmur?! He gave me an order for an EKG and they will be calling with details on the echo-cardiogram as soon as they get it set up. He then order a total of 16 different labs to run to try to answer all my questions. This poor kid! :( We do need answers, though. I hope this gives us some.

We also agreed to up her Clonidine a little to try to control some new behavior issues that have developed since the last time we saw him. She will play in and eat her feces and pick her nose inside and out til it bleeds. All pretty common for FAS kiddos, but not always easy or fun to deal with as a parent.

On a brighter note, she may be ready to graduate out of Physical Therapy! What amazing progress she has made in a year! She is a fighter and I'm excited to see where God will take her in her life. She is so sweet and loving and gentle. She loves her baby sister and spends lots of time holding her hand and smiling at her. What fun!

A close up view.

Zac's AlphaSmart has arrived!

Back in November, Zac's Occupational Therapist suggested we apply for a grant from the ARC Foundation to purchase an AlphaSmart. It is basically a personal word processor with a few added features to help those with special needs. The public schools use them with their special needs kids.

For Zac this will really help his writing ability. He has tremendous trouble with remembering how to tell his hand to write the letters. His mind can work through the spelling portion pretty well now, but then taking that info and transfering it to written form is torture for him. Also, the legibility of his handwriting is very rough and we can't seem to make it any better. Believe me, we have tried everything!

I can type up worksheets on my computer, download them to his AlphaSmart and he can fill in answers then print the page on our printer. He can also practice spelling words on it, type copywork or dictation, etc. I'm excited to experiment with the many ways we can use this tool.

Do you need to change your mind?

I've been struggling with where I spend my time lately and how much gets spent on me verses housework, schooling the kids, changing diapers and bottle feedings, etc. Is it okay to set apart time for me and why do I feel so guilty when I do? God gave me Prov. 14:8 to chew on these last few days. I'm reading The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan, a book about reclaiming the Sabbath rest God intended for us to use, but so many lessons in this book can apply elsewhere in my life, too. I love Mark's breakdown of Prov. 14:8...

The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,

(they think about where they are going)

but the folly of fools is deception.

(they keep lying to themselves.)

Mark goes on to say..."Wise people ask, Does the path I'm walking lead to a place I want to go?

If I keep heading this way, will I like where I arrive?

Fools keep making excuses for themselves, justifying and blaming, all the way to nowhere.

They dupe themselves right to the grave. They never change their minds."

This has challenged me to look at the path I'm on and the choices I'm making every day and ask "Do I want to continue down this path? Will I like where I will arrive at the end of this path?" To change our direction, we need to change our mind, our attitudes, thoughts and actions and head down a different path. This idea of changing my mind has been a lightbulb moment for me. I have been the fool, lying to myself, making excuses, justifying, blaming. For instance, with my weight...I can blame the hormones my doctor put me on or my hysterectomy for messing up my hormones. I can justify my decision not to exercise with the fact that there is not enough time in my day to add it in. I'm too busy with all of these kids. My list could and did go on and on and on. I'm just duping myself right into the grave! I have to face the truth about my weight and the physical problems it is causing and the fact that I'm the only one who can do something about it. I won't wake up one day and find it magically fell off while I was sleeping. I must change my mind, my thinking, about what I need to do everyday and the choices that are best for me. That is when I will begin to see real change and improvement.

I can apply this "change of mind" to many, many things in my life and I plan to make more changes in the coming days. What a difference it makes when we do as it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5

Take captive every thought

to make it obedient to Christ.

Naomi's adoption UPDATE

Our attorney officially filed our petition to adopt on Feb. 11!!! We are just waiting (as we have for the last 6 months :( ) for the county and state to finish up the paperwork on their end of things. Our caseworker was out this week and we signed a few more papers. Hopefully we are getting close to the end. We don't have a date yet, but I'm hopeful we will soon.