One of my favorite memories growing up is strawberry picking with my mom and brother. The three of us would spend countless hours harvesting those succulent little red candies of nature. Okay, maybe they spent countless hours actually harvesting while I spent hours frolicking around the strawberry patch and antagonizing my big brother.

I would steal strawberries out of my brothers bucket as to say, “pay attention to me.” I mean if I annoyed him enough he would have to engage with me right? I would take strawberries and make a sticky red paint in my dirty little hands and then proceed to “draw” on my brothers bare back. There wasn’t much of a canvas as my brother was a little dude, even being seven years older than me I never remember thinking he was big or scary. My brother maybe weighed 98 pounds with a backpack of wet beach towels on his back…his was little. So I would “draw” and “write” on his petite little canvas in strawberry ink until he was so annoyed he had to call Mom. He normally waited for quite awhile before calling in the backup though, he obliged me for longer than he should have. I always remember that about my brother, he was pretty patient with me as the pesky little sister.

Mom would gently distract me away and then I was off on another adventure among the red and green fields. Oh summer, it contained so many possibilities of fun. There is nothing like the feel of the sun beating down on my freckled little face as strawberry juice drips out of the corners of my mouth and landed on my Rainbow Bright T-shirt. I remember those days and how I didn’t have a care in the world and how each new day seemed like it could be the best day of summer break yet.

We always ended up with quite a harvest at the end of the day, not any thanks to me though as my method was a little like this; “one for my bucket, two for me, one for my bucket, three for me.” I took great pride in our “team effort” and bounty though. I loved sitting in the back of the car surrounded by the buckets of berries and the smell of summer. My little hazel eyes would twinkle all the way home as I knew what mama would do with these berries. Jams and jellies and strawberry waffles with whipped cream piled high, yahoo! Did you know you can and should get whip cream refills if you have a bite of waffle that doesn’t have any? Yep, my mama told me…and showed me. Every bite should contain a dollop of whip cream, a bite of of waffle and a few fresh strawberry slices.

I think back to my strawberry picking days and an endless grin comes upon my face. Picking days were days spent with two of my favorite people in the world. Picking days had a purpose, we were working on a common goal of getting as many strawberries as we could. Picking days served another purpose as well, the purpose of togetherness and what I think most important…time. We were cultivating more than strawberries those days, we were cultivating family and memories.

I look at my three children ranging in age from 8 to 18 and strive to set them up with their own “picking” day memories. I want to nurture times of carefree fun and togetherness amongst the crazy busyness of our lives. I want to make time and space for play, teamwork and family time. I want to foster a cultural in my home where we allow for fun and grace filled sibling interactions even if we are working on a common goal, like cleaning the house.

I know it is easy in our list driven, check off this, do that, kind of society to overlook the power of play and fun. It is easier to be more task driven than carefree. I want to strive for a balance in my home where maybe one doesn’t out weigh the other time wise, but heart wise. I want my kids’ memories of our home and family to be more of “strawberry picking” and less of homework or chore nights. When they are contemplating memories as they get older I hope our “picking days” are what permeate in their memories.

Now I am sure we had plenty of chore days and evenings full of homework at my house growing up but those are not the memories that I recall most often. I day dream about fields of red, fishing in Eastern Oregon and backyard croquet games. I first don’t think of vacuuming the stairs or unloading the dishwasher…although I had to do those things. I remember the memories and most importantly how they made me feel. I felt a part of something, felt loved and felt joyful.

I am challenging myself to find and make more of these moments with my children. I am challenging myself to evaluate from time to time how well Daniel and I set the stage in our family for this. Will you join me in my personal parenting challenge for creating more “picking days?”

As we approach Valentine’s Day tomorrow I reflect on those without the love of a family.

Those who will have no such thing as a Valentines Day. My heart is heavy for them and we are continually praying about how and what God wants us to do about this. What is our role right now? What is our role in the near future? What is Gods mission and vision for us as a family to care and advocate for the “least of these.”

I will celebrate tomorrow and cherish the love I have for my hubby and 3 kiddos.

I will use the day to talk of love, the love God has for us and the love we have for each other.

I will be ever thankful tomorrow and every day, but I also will remember, pray and act on behalf of those who do not have what we do.

Will you join us in asking “Where is the Love” and what I am supposed to do about it?

Tomorrow will be chalked full of warm fuzzies but today I challenge us to look at the cold hard facts.

It is estimated there are between 143 million and 210 million orphans worldwide (recent UNICEF report.)

Every day 5,760 more children become orphans

Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…

Each year 14, 505, 000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age sixteen

Each day 38,493 orphans age out

Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home

Studies have shown that 10% – 15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen

These studies also show that 60% of the girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminals

Another study reported that of the 15,000 orphans aging out of state-run institutions every year, 10% committed suicide, 5,000 were unemployed, 6,000 were homeless and 3,000 were in prison within three years…

The UNICEF orphan numbers DON’T include abandonment (millions of children) as well as sold and/or trafficked children. The current population of the United States is just a little over 300 million… to give you an idea of the enormity of the numbers…

According to data released in 2003 as many as eight million boys and girls around the world live in institutional care. Some studies have found that violence in residential institutions is six times higher than violence in foster care, and that children in group care are almost four times more likely to experience sexual abuse than children in family based care.

An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year; (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)

2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion-dollar commercial sex industry. (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)

Oh 2012 how great,beautiful, amazing and hard were you?!!!! Reflecting on this last year we have so much to be grateful for. So many things to bring smiles to our faces.

We are finally getting into a great groove of being a family of 5! Wendem has been making HUGE strides in so many areas! Growing in trust of us which completely transforms our house, growing in confidence which totally helps him in school and socially and of course his English is improving amazingly which helps everything. Communication makes things so much easier! He is really picking it up, people are amazed to know he has only been home 4 months. I feel like he is finally coming into himself. The Wendem we are getting to experience now is giggly, enthusiastic, grateful and just plain silly….yep he is a Herzog alright! He recently conquered one of his biggest fears….the school bus. When he first arrived he was down right adamant that he would never ride one of those, even if brother did he was just too darn scared. Well one day a few weeks before Christmas break he came home from school and declared he was ready. I about fell over but I jumped on his energy and called the bus folks. They don’t allow parents to ride the bus for lots of reasons but I did convince them to let Chase ride with him for the first day. Sure enough Chase rode with him, showed him the bus transfer protocol and he was off. (He rides a bus, gets to the hs here and switches buses both ways.) Now he is an old pro and riding the bus to school and has even rode it home. Yahoo!!!

Just as many new mothers fill a baby book with babys first words and funny toddler sayings I too am doing the same. Here are some fun things our little man has said:

*When talking about his homework and the top of his page he said, ” I wrote on the upstairs of my paper and teacher helped me on the downstairs” (bottom) 🙂

*He wanted to play with a friend from school the other day but I told him I didn’t have his friends phone number or address. He said “Mom just ask the lady in your phone to give you directions like before when went to Yibis house, she tell you how to get to Ryans.” I just cracked up! I tried to explain to him that we had to have a address before the nice lady could give us directions, thanks MapQuest!

*We were at the mall as a family visiting Tay at work and he saw the photo of Santa and wondered why in the world Santa would come here. I asked him if Santa ever came to Ethiopia, “nope, his legs would get too tired to walk there.” LOL!

*I was folding laundry the other day in the dining room where he came and promptly turned the light off in the room. I said I need that light on, he then asked me, “Do you have money for that light mom?” I think he is listening when we tell the kids to turn the lights off in a room eh!

The list of these are forever long but these are a few of my current favorites. I love the way he says “little and really” in his cute Amharic accent.

Wendem many days is a mini-Chase, he just LOVES big brother and those two have so much fun together. We are constantly impressed with Chase’s love and energy for Wendem, we often find them wrestling or watching movies like old pals 🙂

Wendem loves music as does the rest of our family, he loves to dance and sing even if he doesn’t know the words 😉 Some of his favorites range from Chris Tomlin to Flo Rida. Like I mentioned before, a true Herzog;)

Here are some other fun things to reflect on that we are grateful for this past year!

God brought our son home after a long 13 months of waiting and fundraising!! We pushed through some hard adjustment times but we hung in there and now things are better than ever. Not to say we won’t ever have rough times again but we have finally got into a smooth groove as a family of 5.

Taylor Dawn graduated high school and started college which she is loving. We can’t believe she is 18 now!!!! She is smart, beautiful, funny and fun to watch grow into the woman God created her to be. All I can say is watch out world! She has been working at the mall for a year or so now working at Orange Julius and Chattys. She loves the barista part of working so just recently took a job at up and coming CoffeeHouse here in downtown Bozeman that she will start in a few weeks. She will graduate from the Esthics school in April and plans to work in her field along with the coffee house and then is looking into going to MSU this fall.

Chase is loving 7th grade and realizing his true passions and talents. I can’t believe he just turned 13, really two teenagers in this house! This year he laid down his 9 year soccer career for focusing on music. He loves playing guitar, singing and making music on the computer. He and his best friend Karen tried out for the talent show this year. With over 60 plus acts and only 20 chosen they got in and will be performing at the Emerson in the show later in the month. I can’t wait!

Our house is full of love, laughter and big extremes. You might catch us chatting about college financial aid or what would be a good snack for a second grader….the joys of having kids 10 years apart! As most of you know if I had my way I would graduate one and bring a new one in 😉 Now my hubby on the other hand doesn’t agree, although we do not think that we are completely finished though…we know we may do this addition thing once or twice more…but God’s timing is perfect and we will know when that is. (I am petitioning for a girl to even things out!!!;)

2012 brought a lot of work, pain, joy and peace as does each year. This year though we are especially thankful for God’s provision in our lives. His hand was all over our adoption of little Wendem and you never had to doubt if it was His plan, it was and He provided for us ever step of the way.

We are so grateful for all of you who journeyed with us and continue to do so! Praying 2013 is an amazing year for us all. God Bless!

Lots of Love, The Herzog 5