Hello All! Just a quick update as far as the adoption process. Our home study is finally complete! This time though speed was not of the essence. Because we don't yet have a child identified, we aren't really in any rush. So now we send it to our local USCIS office in Detroit. After that is received we will be scheduled to be fingerprinted in the Grand Rapids office. You know while I am on this topic, I am going to get on my soap box for awhile. We have been fingerprinted before by the feds for Luke's adoption. One would think they could keep some of that information, somewhere. But why streamline anything? Why would governmental agencies share information? How many times do you have to jump through the same hoop? Such inefficiency, yet praise God we have our government. We could be living in Liberia. That is where God really has to work as far as adoption. I can complain about Uncle Sam, it is my right. On the other hand, Liberians wish Uncle Sam would come in and take over. So I guess when viewed in that light I can "suck it up" as my dad always said. I will hold out my hand again to be fingerprinted like a convict. It is worth the hassle for a little guy's life, correct? Love, Crystal

Hello All! Luke is now officially two as I write this. We had a great CARS birthday party yesterday with just us the Briden five. The dining room was decked out in CARS stuff. Luke loved it, especially mommy's idea of decorating with little die cast cars that were part of his present. Luke loved the cake and being the center of our attention for the party. He choose his cake flavor of Chocolate. We ate the cake after our craft and coloring time. We have a cream rug in our dining room. Needless to say I also bought some bath toys for immediately following the cake feast. So the kids moved from the bath to playing with cars. Luke loved this as well. We bought him a CARS rug play mat that he can drive his cars on. He and the girls played cars for quick awhile. It is funny to watch a boy play though. He kept banging his car into all the other cars including his sisters that they were playing with. He would even use sound effects as the two cars crashed. The girls did not appreciate this part of the game as much. They wanted the cars to be a family. One car was the mommy, one the daddy, you get the idea. So even when playing cars girls and boys play quite differently. The last event of the evening was watching the movie "CARS". Luke loves it, he even laughs appropriately at the funny Mater. Our little man is two!! What a good little guy he is, we are so thankful for him! He has been with us for 17 months now. I wish I could have seen him his first seven months of life before he became our son. But I am so blessed to have these last seventeen months and the many more to come as he grows. God Bless our little man, Luke!

Today we are heading to a fun place in Holland, MI called CRAZY BOUNCE. More pictures and the story to come tomorrow : ) Love, Crystal

Hello All! Birthdays come quick for us this time of year! Last Friday Grace turned five, tomorrow Luke will be turning two. I can't believe it. I remember when he was barely ten pounds soaking wet at seven months. The changes you see in 17 months. He is a little boy now and he loves CARS. The Disney/Pixar movie. I whistle often as we go about our day. My favorite thing to whistle of late is the"Life is a highway" song that is featured in CARS. I can whistle four notes and Luke will say in his deep voice " CARS, Mom". It is so cute! Kind of like name that tune. His voice is so deep and sometimes I forget I am whistling the song until I hear from somewhere behind me, "CARS, Mom". He is crazy about CARS and he always has to point out any item that has his friends from CARS on it. So not only does he play this game when I whistle, but in every store we go to. Do you know how many items in one Meijer store have CARS on them? Too many to count : ) Today he picked out his birthday cake at the store. You'll never guess who will be on it. "CARS, MOM".

Hello All! Well today is our seventh wedding anniversary. Time seems to go so fast, too fast at times. We went away to Traverse City, Michigan for our anniversary this past weekend. My sister, Heather, came to watch our children and she did a spectacular job! We have not been away together for that long in possibly the last five years of parenting. We had a great time. We attended a "snowshoe stomp" and a wine tasting tour on Saturday the 17th. The snowshoeing through the vineyards was great. In the pictures you can see the Grand Traverse Bay in the background. The "stomp" was very neat as we snaked our way through trails in the vineyard at Black Star Farms. We loved the fresh air, time to chat and scenic views of the Grand Traverse bay. We had dinner out that evening at a restaurant called Boone's Long Lake Inn. If you are ever in the mood for good Prime Rib and you are in the area we would highly recommend it. Just remember at Boone's they don't do "Heart Healthy" options. Overall it was a great time for us to reconnect, laugh and talk. Kelly says I talked for pretty much the whole drive to Traverse City and it takes us over three hours. So needless to say I got all my words out. We women just need that sometimes. : )

Yesterday we had visitors arrive a few hours after our arrival home. My mom and her sister my Aunt Debbie came to visit. Debbie lives in Washington State and it was a real treat to have them both. This morning we all went sledding at our favorite sled dunes again. We had a great time. The kids didn't stop. We were outside climbing the hills for about an hour and twenty minutes. It was sunny and about 25 degrees while we were sledding. It felt so fabulous. I was even able to remove my gloves and hat. Fun, Fun, Fun! God Bless you all - Crystal

Hello All! Well today at 8:56 am central time Grace turns five!! She is our joy and we are so blessed to have her. God has been good to us over these past five years of parenting. Thank God for our Grace and for his grace to us all! Love, Crystal

Hello All! Well tomorrow is a big for Kelly and I. Tomorrow we leave for a weekend away to celebrate our seventh anniversary on the 19th. Our children have not been without us both this long in a long while. It was back before we had three and maybe back before we had two even. So it is a much needed break! Last year we tried to stay one night away, but it was not meant to be. We had a huge ice storm that weekend, lost power and the kids all had an upper respiratory infection of some sort. My mother ended up driving about 3 1/2 hours from the other side of the state to watch the Briden bunch. It ended she helped me out as Kelly got sick with a stomach bug that same weekend. I had prayed for months about that trip. As I have for this trip. My sister, Heather, is coming over from Midland to watch our trio. She is a great aunt to them, they will have a blast. Kelly and I are headed to one of my favorite spots on God's green earth, Traverse City, Michigan. Traverse City is north of us, still in the lower peninsula. We will be touring wineries and we have a fun trip planned through the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association, a snowshoe stomp. We get to hike through the vineyards for about two miles on snowshoes. It should be fun!! Traverse City is located on two large lake Michigan bays facing north. It has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. We are thrilled to be going, but please pray for the kiddos and Aunt Heather. I will let you know how it all turns out : ) If you want to check out the organization we are going to be touring with go to http://www.lpwines.com/ Love, Crystal

Hello All! I hope you have had an enjoyable Valentine's Day. Grace had her first Valentine's Day party last night at her school. It was fun for the whole family. They had cookie decorating, games, and crafts. The kids loved it and Daddy got out of work early especially for the big bash. Grace also loved her Valentine's Day card exchange at school. She was very excited to show me all her "goodies" and her cards from her classmates.

It is hard to believe that seven years ago tonight I was pulling all the last minute things together for our wedding. Time really flies when you are in Love. I remember the week leading up to the big day very clearly. Many good memories! We know we are blessed and we thank God for our marriage. God brought us together on July 16th 1998. How God managed to pull that off is a romance story for the ages. One would think it was chance or coincidence. For those few of you that don't know how we met, here goes : ) I was going to have my first real nursing job and I was to be employed by Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan. To get the job I had to have a pre-employment physical in the hospital clinic. I will never forget sitting in waiting room. I was reading some boring magazine. With the lame reading material in hand I began looking around the room. I remember watching the receptionist talking to the nurse. Then the nurse said something to someone out of my view. I could tell she was speaking of me. That I was here for the 11:15 am appointment, etc. Next thing I see is a cute guy with a white coat walk up to the desk and grab a folder. Considering there was only one other person in the waiting room and she was there for a immunization, I assumed it was my patient folder. Did I say he was CUTE! I looked down at my magazine so as not to be caught staring. I could see him out of my peripheral vision. He looked at me briefly, looked at the folder and than said something to the nurse. Next, he excited stage left. I remember thinking, maybe I will see him sometime in the hospital. After a short while the nurse called my name. Before I knew I was in a cloth gown stripped down to my underwear. Don't worry, you couldn't see anything through the gown : ) So I waited. Next came a knock. I said "come in" and the rest is history. I still find it funny that on that day I wore my San Francisco T-shirt that my parents had bought me while on vacation there years before. It was that shirt that started our conversation and kept it going for nearly 45 minutes. Yes, I was the last appointment of the morning before lunch. So the doctor could sit and chat. We even found we had a mutual acquaintance during our conversation. The amazing thing is I could have seen any Family Practice resident that day. I could have made a different appointment. I could have worn a different shirt. I could have got a different job. I could have worked at Sparrow hospital for years and never met Kelly. But that wasn't God's plan. I think as Christians we often through around "God's will" to liberally. There are a few things in my life I know without doubt God willed. One of those is my marriage to Kelly. It has been confirmed to me many times over. I went home from that appointment absolutely certain that we were to be married. I called my sister and mother that afternoon to share it with them. It is fun to think of those times! It was the first time I had heard the name Briden spelled five times in one conversation. "You know where to find me and my name Briden, B-R-I-D-E-N" Kelly said with a smile. Almost nine years later, yes I know how to spell Briden. Happy Valentine's Day!! Hugs and Kisses, Crystal

Hello All! We had a blast today. We all bundled up in many,many layers and went sledding on our sand dunes down the road. It was cold, but nothing compared to last weekend! It was twenty, that felt pretty good actually with three layers of clothing on. The kids did great, no they did exceptional. Grace, Faith and Luke didn't complain at all. They all sledded beautifully and I only carried Luke up the hill once at the very end. Very impressive considering it is difficult to walk up the hill in triple layers of clothing for me. Luke will be two on the 23rd of this month. Faith loved the pink saucer. Grace the round tube, because it was soft. She said" the pink one hurts my bottom." Luke liked riding by himself. In the beginning Luke would ride with Kelly or me. After awhile though he wanted to be big like his sisters and go solo. It can be exciting at the sled dunes. When we first arrived the Ambulance and Fire trucks were in the parking lot. We heard from some other sledders that a boy went way up to the top and flipped probably five times on his descent. Any way it can be dangerous. No one is supervising, there is no ski patrol. In snow skiing you have people watching and enforcing safety rules. So just like driving you must sled defensively. I imagine though that young boys, high snow covered dunes and sledding equipment often result in many injuries. I couldn't help but think about how often the Paramedics visit this park in the winter. Thank God he protected us today and don't worry we stayed on the bunny hill!! Love, Crystal

Hello All! Today we celebrated Gracie turning 5. We had a fun family party. Just the 5 of us : ) I started planning Grace's party a month ago. One day when I was obsessing about it Kelly showed me an article in our local paper. The article was about taking the pressure out of kid's birthday parties. The article shared about some parents who have had enough of the bigger is better philosophy for kid's birthday parties. An example from their article was " A mother reaches her limit with 36 children at her two year old's party. Her husband says she is hard to live with when planning parties." So I read all the examples of parents going overboard to celebrate their child's birthday and I thought no big party this year. Some may say, "Oh, that is cruel" or "She is missing out". I totally disagree. I did not have a party every year while growing up. It helped me to be very appreciative of those parties I did have. I remember two that really stand out for me. My parents treated me to a McDonald's Party and a surprise party in our basement where all the girls that were invited played dress up. I don't think for either party they went into debt. The party today was great! We had balloons, crafts, gifts and games. Grace even got to pick out her own cake at the store this morning. The party was great, quite low stress. I think we will have bigger parties where the kids can have friends again. but, not each year for each kid. I think the kids can come to expect it and they are not as grateful. Today's 5th birthday party for Grace had a kitty cat theme. Complete with kitty cat balloons, suckers and cute little stuffed cats. The craft was even a cat valentine craft that said "you're purrfect" on it. The favorite gift was from Grandma and Granddad Briden it was the Full Armor of God. The Full Armor of God comes from the bible in Ephesians 6: 13-18. The kids loved and played with that for quite some time. Another thing downsized today was the cake. It was a little mini-sheet cake. Commonly in the past after birthday parties I feel the need to finish of the cake. Leaving me on a wild sugar high until all the cake is gone. Not to mention the addition of several pounds added to my weight when I step on the scale after the cake binge. A little cake + a fun smaller family party=good for mommy, good for daddy, and good for kids : ) if you are interested in the article I read go to http://www.birthdayswithoutpressure.com/ Love you all- Crystal

Hello All! Well we had a "Brand New Girlfriend" Kind of Day. When we are stir crazy and need to burn massive amounts of energy we play a country song by Steve Holy "Brand New Girlfriend" and we dance and dance. The kids love this song because Kelly sang it to them all last summer. It reminds them of their fun loving daddy. Our kids love to dance and spin and they can replay this song for 45 minutes at a time. Sure mommy might get sick of the music choice after that long, but they love it! Faith was dressed as a fairy as we danced this evening and she keep spinning and spinning around in circles until she fell over. I take pictures from my vantage point on our stairs between the kitchen and family room. Tonight, Grace, wanted to take pictures with me. So I have attached quite a few of those I took. I also attached a picture of the view out our kitchen window. It was taken this weekend and the snow looked so pretty in dots blown against the glass. We warmed up today, 17 degrees!! YAHOO! I actually ordered a swimming suit today from Land's End. So you see I have kept hope alive!! Blessings- Crystal

Hello All! For the past four days we have had a fire in our wood burning stove in the family room. It has helped I am sure on heating costs as the temperature has only been at max 15 degrees in the past five days. Most days less than 5 degrees. Anyway I am becoming quite the frontier's gal. I am now enjoying the challenge of the fire dying and rebuilding it. When Kelly returned to work after the weekend the torch (so to speak) passed to me as far as care and maintenance of the fire. I will have to admit I like fire, but Kelly loves it. I think he is a closet pyromaniac. But that my friends is a whole different topic for another day. : ) I am now seeing the fun of fire. Building a fire is so gratifying. I see now why on the TV show Survivor they kill themselves for the tools to build a fire. It is fun to be challenged to keep something going. Most days I assume the heat will continue to heat the house and give it little to no thought beyond that. I suggest building a fire and listening to it burn as it is quite therapeutic. So now I am a frontier's women I can build a fire and keep it going! Before you know it I will be baking my own bread over the open flame. O.K. so I start it with the butane lighter, it still counts, right! : ) Blessings- Crystal

Hello All! Well as I write this today we are still under a winter blast. The kids are doing great considering we have been inside for basically three days straight! We did escape bundled up and very carefully yesterday. We went to shop at Sam's Club. We couldn't stand it anymore. We had to just see past our street. Plus we knew it wouldn't be very busy. So the kids walked the aisles and burnt some energy. The roads were bad and the gusting winds made for white out conditions here and there. I am always at ease though with Kelly driving. Rarely does he get rattled while driving. So the Briden kids got to enjoy lunch courtesy of Sam's Club. Pizza, Egg rolls and crackers and dip. the perfect cuisine for a snow day. Let me just say those who have not had one quick meal of appetizers at Sam's Club have not lived. Still today I am dreaming of warmer times. So I posted this picture to remind myself it does get warm in Michigan and God willing it will be July again. I am not complaining about winter. I love the seasons. But the temperature was one degree on my outdoor thermometer this weekend and that did not include the wind chill. The kids cannot play outside in this for fear of frostbite. So I think I have a right to dream of warmer weather. Maybe I don't want 70 degrees, I would be jut thrilled to reach 30 degrees. Look at this picture though we are on the ferry boat to Mackinac Island, I think we are even sweating. For now we wait and relish our time of board games by the fire with hot cocoa. God is so good to create the seasons. It amazes me to think that at this moment the Island called Mackinac is a virtual ghost town. Only the tough, true residents are there now. It is frozen and isolated. But come May it springs to life. The beauty in both seasons is something to be an awe of. I am glad God didn't stop with summer. It is from the winter new life springs. I believe to truly appreciate summer you must have winter. God has set it all up to my amazement. It is today that I thank God for a warm home and enough food for armies, again courtesy of Sam's Club. I pray God blesses you today, no matter the weather. For now I will praise him for the winter, the summer and and my life to experience both. Blessings- Crystal

Hello All! We are under a blizzard warning today. The snow is falling and the wind is gusting up to 40 mph. So needless to say we are home bound. With the wind chill it is supposed to feel like 20 below zero outside. BRRRR! We have built a fire in our wood burning fireplace. The kids love the heat and it is such a novelty. As you can see from these pictures the mail is still delivered, even during a blizzard warning. Impressive!!! I have also included a county map of our side of the state with the blizzard warning . It is a mess outside. But it amazing to me that we can still communicate with the world via the internet. For now we hunker down and watch the snow fall. I am so thankful as I look outside for our warm home, plenty of food and the love of family. Uh-Oh, gotta go- Faith is screaming! Blessings- Crystal

Hello All! Well today Luke got his social security number!! YAHOO! One obstacle down and one to go. Kelly had to wait outside in line at the local social security office this morning before they even opened. Needless to say from my post yesterday you all know Luke was freezing by the time they entered the building. They waited 1 and 1/2 hours and they succeeded. This is so much different than biological children. In adoption you commonly feel like you are fighting for every piece of information or validation you get. Having a child to me is so much easier in that respect. You have to work harder, be on top of all the angles and not stop asserting yourself for the child. Of course it is very worth it, you just have to accept you have to work harder. Now we wait for INS or USCIS to approve Luke's N-600 form for naturalization. When we received the receipt in the mail for that form after we sent it, they said it took six months to process. Well we've still got awhile as six months has not elapsed. So we will let you know when it is official and final. As if it isn't already. Love, Crystal