Suburbia

Only have time for a quick post and I can't upload pics from my iPad so they will have to come to tomorrow. But we are officially in our house. I L.O.V.E the suburbs!! I know people that know me well are probably shocked to hear these words come out of my mouth, but it's true!! I love getting up and saying good morning to the neighbors, I love having a yard, I love love love the space and I love being so close to church. A neighbor actually came over today with 3 handmade oven mitts, cookies and fudge to welcome us to the hood! So yea, I was meant for suburbia! Our house is looking good and all of our stuff is up! We definitely have some blank walls and empty rooms, but it's ok! It is so exciting to know that this is the house where we will start our family! These are the tubs that will wash little chunky arms and legs, this is the kitchen where I will make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my kids and this is the living room where we will read stories and watch movies!! I can't wait to see the memories that unfold in this house!!!

On a different note, this little slice of suburban heaven has given me a serious little commute in the morning. So I must go to bed. House pics coming tomorrow!

Happy week ahead!!

Fall happenings!

Halloween this year was fun! I haven't really done the whole dressing up thing for a while, but this year we had a couple of good excuses! One of our friends had a Halloween themed 30th b-day and then the next weekend some friends had a little dress up party too. We found this Bee Keeper costume for Lance and thought it was hilarious! However, it took some work to find a bee costume that covered my, well lets be honest, booty. The costumes now are insanely teensie!! I was in shock. Most things that I tried on were so hoochie mama that I couldn't even leave the dressing room to show Lance! But we found one eventually!

Me and my little nun sister!
The bee keeper, bee, nun and munk. A very eclectic group! :)

And best of all, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Max!! Oh I just love that little spider!





On Saturday, we headed out first thing in the morning to be at a 10am shower in Dallas. One of our sweet friends is having a baby girl and we definitely didn't wanna miss out on celebrating little baby Jayde Marie Miller! Don't have pics of that b/c camera cord is in a box somewhere! It was SO fun, and SO fun to have a girls day with my sis and see some of my best friends! I wish Dallas was closer sometimes!



On another totally different note, November is adoption month! It's crazy how engaging the adoption world is, and I already feel like the whole idea of adoption is just a part of me! Our church doesn't do Orphan Sunday stuff, but we will be going to First Baptist in Houston Sunday evening to an Orphan Sunday event. I think my parents are going to come with us too! I can't wait to meet other adoptive families in the Houston area!



Without going into too much detail, I have to give God some serious glory for somethings that have been happening around here! We had our first little adoption hump to overcome and we prayed prayed prayed and God came in and blessed us with MORE than we could have imagined. I was moved to tears by the love, and generosity of our church family and friends this week! It was just a great reminder that God is in control and listens and responds to our prayers!





This week as I was struggling with trusting that God would provide I prayed, "Ok God, here is my mustard seed. I wish I had more than a mustard seed to bring to you right now but I don't. So please take this tiny seed and move a mountain" and guess what!? He did! Duh. When will I learn!



If I have said this one time I will say it 1,000 times. But I just can't believe how blessed I am that God has chosen me to watch over this little baby and be her mommy. I have had several friends express their "sadness" for me over not having biological children yet. I think this is a normal reaction. And I would be lying if I didn't admit that somedays I think "will it ever happen to me?" I know adoption is a bit weird and hard to understand, and I don't expect people to. The only way I can think to describe it is that when God plants a desire in your heart, it fills it up. My heart is full of love for this baby. God has literally "turned my mourning into dancing and my sorrow into joy".




Biological blonde babies or curly head little brown cuties are all fine by me!!



Remember the 147 million little souls this month. Pray for them daily. If I am learning anything in this process, I am learning that God listens to the prayers of his children! :)





Happy Weekend! We are moving TOMORROW!!! The next time I post I will officially be a suburbanite!

Keep Calm & Carry On

Last night as Lance and I were going to sleep on our couch (both sneezing & coughing and drugged up on allergy meds), wedged between piles of adoption paper work, half packed boxes, dismantled bed frames, mattresses leaning against the walls, and the contents of all of our kitchen cabinets piled as far as you can see, he prayed, "Dear God, please help us to keep calm and carry on with our lives as best possible". I had to chuckle at the sheer chaos of our lives right now! That picture came to mind and I think we just may need to buy it and hang it above the mantle in our new house! Everything we have going on is such a blessing. We are crazy busy with our jobs. Blessing! Crazy busy with moving into our house. Blessing! Crazy busy with our adoption. SUPER DUPER AMAZING BLESSING! But, these blessings are also making us tired! Bring it on God, this phase of our lives will definitely bring glory to you if this A.D.D girl is still standing at the end of 2012, baby in arms, still employed and with a house that actually has furniture and pictures hanging on the walls!

Baby bedding!

I know I am jumping the gun due to the fact that we are just about to start our home study (e.g., social worker comes in and checks us out) and have months ahead before we are holding our baby. BUT I just can't help but browse baby bedding! A baby girl sleeping in my house in her beautiful pink bedding has been a dream of mine for a loooooong time and I can't wait to see that little brown head poking out of her pink and white crib in the morning! Here are the ones I love! I like the soft pinks and antique looking old school stuff!! So excited! I can't wait to create a pretty room for my baby girl to come home to!! She soooo deserves some ruffles!! Who doesn't!? These are the two I like right now!

I Love My Hair

I have been doing a bit of research on how in the world I am going to do this little ones hair. I am actually going to a conference in January and they have some "just for fun" sessions and the one I signed up for is African hair care. I also have a friend from work that has been telling me about the PROCESS involved in doing African American hair. It's a far cry from the the 5 minute brush, add some curl spray, and shake with a towel I do every morning! BUT she showed me this video and I laughed so hard!! For any one who knows me well you know, biological or not, my child will be a spaz! This little spastic puppet made me laugh so hard! I can so see myself blasting this video and performing the moves along with the lyrics for our daughter on days when she "hates" her hair!
Enjoy!

A girls gotta have some clothes!

I realized I never actually posted about the gender of the child we will be adopting. We went into this with no intention of specifying a gender. However, after some prayer and other factors that I probably won't blog about, we are officially adopting a little girl!!!! When this decision became official I just had to go out and get baby girl some clothes! Aren't those little jeans and that tiny bow JUST THE CUTEST!! :)

Oh Lance, you have no idea the world you are walking into!! But, such a cute daddy already!! :)

Why Ethiopia

Why are we adopting from Ethiopia of all places? Well let me tell you!

We went into this whole thing with the intentions of adopting from Uganda. I LOVE the people there and always imagined our family consisting of a Ugandan or two (maybe someday it will). Without going into too much detail we did a lot of research about Uganda and the children and came to the conclusion that, yes, there are thousands of children without families. There are children of all ages available for adoption with the majority of the need being kids over 4. I would sit on the computer and look at waiting child postings (not just in Uganda but here in Texas) and sob looking at the little faces dressed in their best clothes hoping someone would notice them and bring them home. A literally gut wrenching painful reality that leaves a knot in my stomach just typing it. I began to slowly have my eyes opened to a real life crisis not just across the world but right here in the US! And when I say crisis I mean CRISIS!!!

This is a bad thing y'all. I learned that there are about 147 million children that do not have a mom and dad to tuck them in at night. 147 million children that have never had a hug from mommy and daddy, never had a hot meal and never had a bed to call their own. 147 million children that have no sense of security, safety, our love! 147 million little babies that would do anything to have a mommy to squeeze tight at the end of the day and a daddy to show them off to his friends. 147 million innocent lives at risk of being victimized, abused, starved or worse.

As I looked at my precious little nephew and so many of my friends children I began to get angry at the harshness of this world. While these babies are being rocked to sleep in snugglie blankets and watching baby Einstein, 147 million others are starved for love and affection not to mention literally starving for their basic needs to be met. Just not fair!! So how could we help!? We don't really have much extra money. We don't have a big house. I drive a beetle, I couldn't even fit 1 baby in that car! Those were just a few of the things I was dwelling on. In reality we are rich compared to most of the world, we have a bigger house than most people in the world and we own two cars free of debt while the majority if the world doesn't even own one car! Not sure how I got so out of touch with reality but I'm glad God was able to bust through my shallowness!

So we are officially adopting but don't know for sure from where. We learn that it will be rather hard to get an infant from Uganda right around the time that we learn we are having some fertility issues of our own. I selfishly want to experience raising a baby and want Lance and I to go through that together. This is a very hard thing for me to admit b/c I often still feel like I am turning my back on the precious 8 year old girl in the red dress with matching red bows. If I wont be her mommy who will?! These things still leave me laying up at night. We learned that there are millions of orphans in Ethiopia as well, and that there are often young babies available for adoption. We did the initial interview with the Ethiopia people and I asked her if there was a bigger need in Ethiopia or Uganda and she said, "Where there is one orphan there is a need". So true! This was so good to hear and reinforced that it doesn't matter where of how you are helping as long as you are helping. We prayed for about a month about it and decided Ethiopia it was.

We are not changing the world by any means and aren't even putting a dent in the orphan crisis, but at least we know one baby will have a chance to know Jesus and feel like they belong! Ohhh sooo excited just thinking about squishing this little one!!! So there you have it. So excited to finally see the family that God has planned for us! So glad He has opened our eyes!! :)

If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?"
Proverbs 24:12