Friends

We have some amazing friends, and have realized this now more than ever!! I mean seriously generous friends!! We prayed that God would put people in our lives that would help support us mentally, financially and just with time and company when we needed a mental break from all the adoption stuff. God has POURED out his love and support for us through friends! We literally have checks rolling in night after night, people calling, texting, and praying for us daily!! This is largely because of our friends, but really because God put it on these friends hearts to support us in lots of ways!! We feel SO loved and SO blessed to have friends like we have!! So, all of you amazing friends out there, We love you and are SOOOOOO thankful for the support you guys have given us already! I also MUST mention that we now have enough money towards the adoption to cover everything on the U.S. end. We still have a long way to go, but are 100% covered as far as fees go up until we get our referral for our baby. This means we have lots of months to get the rest of the funding. Our friends are awesome. God is awesome. He is providing for us in abundance!! This picture is special to me. I drove to Del Rio a couple of months ago for a wedding with these wonderful friends. This was the first weekend that I told everyone about the adoption and these two girls were SO supportive! Michelle (on the right) shares my heart for adoption. She just gets it. It was such a great 6 hour drive. Talking about plans for our families, babies, lives and everything else!

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!! :)