Sweet Memories

This makes me cry EVERY TIME I WATCH IT!
There is no feeling like meeting your son.
Even if he cries a little.
Then there is poor finn on my back, he's not sure what to do either :)
These moments and the progress we made that week help me to get through these days.

These memories are similar to those you have at the hospital. When you think back, you think , "Gosh, you were so small. I remember the moment I first saw you. I remember when you first cried in the night..."  These are our "new parent" moments and memories with him.  Next time we see him, he will be 3 months older (hopefully less).  I would compare it to your child being in the NICU across the globe...

Trying to walk with Gigi

Our sweet boy and his snaggleteeth... :)

The leaning crawler...at the beginning of the week he wouldn't crawl at all.

I kept throwing his toys far away so he had to get them...

Crawling a little lopsided, but he was doing it by a couple days into our visit!

And although the sweet guy can be a little bit unsure, he loves to play!

Sweet Finn got his first tooth on the plane ride to Ethiopia and his second one right after we arrived. He spent a lot of time running his tongue over his new teeth.  

I know updates have been sparse here lately.  I am trying to enjoy these days with Finn, really mourning that they are the last ones that we get just us.  But also childproofing and rejoicing that soon we will have a new brother.  We are so excited about that!  Finn is rolling all around.  If I walk out of the room he will have rolled across the room looking for me!

We haven't heard anything from embassy or our agency.  It will be four weeks since court on Tuesday.  That means we are probably about one third of the way there!  That seems encouraging to me!  I have had friends there almost continuously so far playing with him.  When the last one leaves, that will be very  hard, because noone I know will be going over there to play anytime soon.  That breaks my heart!

I hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday.

Today, I left Finn in the nursery for two services at church while I served the school age kids.  I tried to get him to take a bottle with no luck.  In the past, when he has taken them, he will take them if they are warm (this was not) and if I am not around.  Today, he refused, even though he was starving. It could have been the temperature...but.. Any tips? If I leave this guy for 7 DAYS (slight panic at the mere words), I definitely need him confidently taking a bottle before I leave!!  I am really praying about leaving him home and going tiwth Brandon to get Eli.  He would be with my in laws, who were going to go with us, so I feel very comfortable with that....but not with the idea of leaving him and being on the other side of the world.  Maybe we should start with one night?? It's all hard...but I definitely need him to be used to a bottle of breast milk...and..has anyone pumped for a week and kept their supply?

I am SO HAPPY we took him on our first trip. NO REGRETS AT ALL. But, he will be mobile for our next trip...and I don't want to be trying to transition home to Georgia with Eli while dealing with a possibly sick (I'm talking colds, not big illness...) Finn as well.  I haven't written off the idea...but I am trying to look at options.  Plus, taking him in the car there was crazy....horrible pollution, no car seats, etc.(He threw up every time we got out of the car there)..so we ended up staying at the transition home most of the time...and I would love to get to see Eli's place of birth,etc, which we can't do if we have Finn...so...just some thinking points.

ANYWAY. Thanks for reading all the rambling. I love that so many of you have followed our journey!

Eli's Laughs, so sweet.

Oh my goodness. This little man blesses me so much.  He is so sweet.  He has a laugh that will make you melt.

You can hear in the background how they are discussing how much change Eli has made since we arrived.
(PS, I see that his pants are falling down..) She mentioned "you had to really work for it, but it's working now...". Eli was not quick to befriend us :) but once he did, we had such a great time together. We will fight for him in Georgia. For the rest of his life we will fight to let him know how much we love him.

It is CRAZY the picture of the gospel that adoption is.
Think of it this way.
God LOVES US, ALWAYS. Before we knowhim, God knows us. He loves us, he accepts us fully.  He longs for us to show him just the tiniest bit of love back.  Often we accept him, show him love....and then over time, or love fades, because we find things that entertain us more.

My sweet Eli.  I loved him so much before I even met him.  I accepted him fully.  I longed for him to love me back.  He would show me just a tiny bit of Love.  Then more and more.  Then, when he had finally showed us love and I thought we were over the hump, the next day....he sort of switched back to the whiny version of himself.  Who didn't love me as much :)  Oh Jesus, how I realize my sin when I look into the eyes of this sweet boy.  HE IS NOT SINNING....but he makes me realize how I SIN when I ignore my father in heaven....who loves me enough to DIE for ME.  I take him for granted. Oh, how my father longs for me to live my life for him.  This sweet Eli is doing so much for ME already.  I am so glad I am his mom.

For the road, a video of his dad...


This photo was taken the first day we had Eli with us.  Eli's given name is Yosef.  They often call him Yosi.  To get him to smile, they call him "Yosi Yosi" or sometimes just "Yos" prononuced "Yose" (yuh-ose) or (Yuh-osi)  This sweet boy has the softest, sweetest skin.  I can't think about him being there without me.  I pray for him, but I can't think about reality. I want to puke.

So glad...

One of my favorite things about the transition home (place where we stayed in ethiopia, where all the adopted babies stay while they wait) was the other amazing people that we met!
I mean, just amazing people.
Many of them live in Louisville or surrounding counties, which is awesome to know I can see them again when I am in KY!

One friend that did not live in KY, but in UTAH was a friend who went over to live there while she waited to be approved.  Julie and her hubby took the most beautiful pics of Eli (yosef) several months ago.  We have treasured them.
Then I met her in person!
Julie is way more on top of things than I am.  Uploading and blogging every day from Ethiopia. Putting me to shame. :)
Sort of embarrassing considering she has ZERO internet connection and she is busy helping to love on everyone's babies...
Julie has the most PRECIOUS GIRL named Zaidee.
I want to EAT. HER. UP.

We have always thought we would go back to get a girl. I truly think we will. She is GORGEOUS.

Julie is the kind of selfless person you just want to be friends with. She loves on all the kiddos. The nannies love her, because she truly takes an interest in them. One day, I went outside and she was out there trying to communicate and learn words from the nannies for at least an hour....who speak VERY LITTLE ENGLISH...so she was trying to piece together their broken amharic/english...
She might even play with Eli while we are gone. So amazing.

I stole her photos of us, since at least she is put together enough to have them up :)

Please watch her journey. Her case is in Nairobi, so she (hopefully) will be approved and on the way home in a week or two!!


Enjoy these for now!

Just a crazy redemption revelation

First of all, thank you for your encouragement about EVERYTHING!! I love hearing about things that you go through, and how you relate to me. Even if my add mind doesn't always respond, I really really appreciate you sharing your stuff with me.

On a funny note, as I was writing this title, I was writing "crazy" and wrote "cray"...and I keep hearing these middle schoolers say "cray cray" instead of crazy and it makes me laugh so hard, just like omg used to. So...here I go...my cray cray redemption story.
Why does middle school reality make me want to join in? Getting too old...

This story has to do with my sweet Briar, and my new little man Eli.  Finn isn't involved in this story as much, although you know if you have read this blog for any time at all, that he is just the light of our lives at the moment ;)

 

As you know, (hopefully), we lost our first son, Briar, last year in September 2010. He was due in November 2010. You can read about the story here.  We started our adoption process a while ago.  You can see some of the process here.  Which, by the way, I'm not sure why I said in that post, "we got a referral".  More like "We got a child!!!" :)  Anyway, we always asked for a young child in our referral, we were thinking under 12 months.  Not long before we got our referral, our agency called just to double check where we felt like the Lord was leading us.  We said we really felt like up to two years old would be appropriate, we just wanted our children to be close together in age.  I had trouble with this, because I really wanted a young child, to make the transition easier (<---selfish) but I felt like I should be open to older, for whatever reason.  Brandon definitely felt open to that.  The night we got our referral, I really felt like she was going to say it was a child around 12 months.  Sure enough, she said that our child was around 13 months.  His age was estimated, so we actually don't know for sure, although he does have an estimated birthday.

I was talking to a friend at the gym.  A sweet, wonderful guy married to the funniest, sweetest friend I know.  She reminds me so much of Sarah Clore :)  Anyway, her hubby and I were talking about how I was bringing home a toddler, and I was nervous.  We were talking about toddler behavior, and I said he was about 13 months.  He said, "THat is the same name as Ezra".  I froze for a moment.  Because, you see, Ezra is one of those kids that most of the time I have no problem seeing, but sometimes I do, because he had the same due date as Briar.  Of course Briar was born early, but they had the same due date. So, for a while, I would look at Ezra and think "that would be how old Briar would be".  Things are not like that anymore, as now I see him and just think he is sweet and kind and cute, and that is not my first thought...

Anyway...here is the crazy redemption part.  God knew this.  He knew that he would be giving us a baby that was Briar's age.  not to replace Briar in anyway.  But to bring his story full circle.  To ease my fear of raising a toddler by saying, "I have already equipped you to raise a toddler...Briar...".  I feel like God has been clear that this is no accident.  It is the story he has written.  A beautiful story...that I feel blessed to be a part of!   Eli Matthew....we cannot wait to meet you in a little more than three weeks!!

On another note, if you have adopted, or know people who have, do you know anyone who does fund raising or offers help with that? We are applying for the "both hands" project through lifesong, as well as a local grant through an adoption agency in our community. We applied for money through an awesome place, jscfoundation.com, but they do not offer money for travel.  Unfortunately, those are the only expenses we have left.  We are going to do a fundraiser with some things we buy in Ethiopia.  we are also going to do more t-shirts. But other than that...it is time to get busy...we only have about $7000 left for expenses, and about $12000 or more left in expenses.  Just wondered if you have any ideas?

and one last note...I did zumba for the first time today. And I won't lie, I really enjoyed shaking it a little :) but I didn't sweat like I would in spin class or after a run. It was a workout though...so I'll take it! Have you ever done it?  Will I sweat more after I start to get it? I felt like half the time I was lost with choreography..

oh.my.goodness.

what is going on in my life?
look at this child.
growing so fast.
Did I get robbed of my little tiny child? This five month old is large. skinny. but large.

I really want to talk to you about something other than him.
okay, let's talk about my other child ;)
we are going to meet him march 25th!!! IN ETHIOPIA!
I cannot wait to meet that little cutie.
Eli.
He is old enough right now (13-14 months..) where he KNOWS his name.  So we really want to keep it a part of his name.  I think we are going to keep his current name as part of his new name. Talk about identity.  I really want him to keep part of his "old" identity from the orphanage, because he is a little older.

GOSH, he is cute. I am a little partial. 

I love this guy.

This weekend, we hung out with our sweet, wonderful friends.  They adopted a little guy from Ethiopia not too long ago. They are the only people we know that have a child from Ethiopia, so we have lots of questions for them, clearly.  Since we are leaving soon...we have so much to find out.  It was great to watch her discipline her adopted child.  Her toddler. My friend lesli is a great momma. I loved watching it.

big fan of this blurry picture :)

Today, (in kentucky) we got to experience snow.   Greer (who came home about a year ago) was loving it.  Ryan (who is so much like my husband...very inapproriate, awesome, loves the Lord..etc..) is such a great dad to Greer and is a great college friend to us.  They drove down from Louisville to spend the weekend with us. Look at my little man. Very uninterested in the fun :)  Either that, or checking out this first snow of his life...

l to r: kevin, my daddio, my momma, me, brandon, jenny (mil), calvin (fil)  Love them all so much.

I will talk more about this later...but my large group of family (including Kevin, on the left who is a family member by friendship)  ran/walked a 5k this weekend in Kentucky.  Noone wanted to do it, but I reminded them that we were making memories.  Our pastor constantly says that...whenever he invites us to do fun (inconvenient,expensive or not sounding fun things) he tells us that we are MAKING MEMORIES.  So, my parents did their first one. My in laws did their second one ever. Brandon and I did it.  It was great.  More on this later. :)

Watch out for momma bear!

oh goodness, watch out ladies, because four month old finn is turning into a handsome little man! he has always been handsome, but now he is starting to look a little less 'baby' and a lot more 'boy'. I'm not saying I'm happy about it...but trying to embrace it, because come on, he will grow whether we like it or not!

No joke, I did not enhance his eyes.  Got them from his dad.  I ran a basic preset over the photo, but I didn't brighten his eyes up.  Crazy little guy and his bright blue, gorgeous eyes.  And the drool.  One month of drool now.  Waiting for the tooth, but not in a any hurry to have it either :)

Let me tell you about my crazy momma bear instinct that I had no idea that existed until I had children.  I didn't even know it happened, but let me tell you it does!  I am sure you all have it, in one way or another.  The way I hear parents talk about their kids, "Little Johnny is so naughty when he does this, I wish he would stop", but the minute anyone else talks about little johnny, you better watch out!  It's not okay anymore :)

I have seen this in several instances with my children, briar included, two of which I will give examples of, but neither of which were that "big of a deal".  I am sure the other person didn't recognize that the situation even happened and probably didn't even think to say anything to me about it, because it was that minor.

Okay, here we go.  First, we'll talk about Finn.  I stay at home with him.  I love being with him.  I leave him with Brandon once every couple of days to run an errand.  Other than that, he has hung out with my friend Terri (holla for a screaming child!) and my friend Karlisa's mom, the childcare workers at fitness for women (5 times), max fitness (3 times) {WHY AM I TELLING YOU, YOU DON"T CARE...SORRY! JUST MAKING A POINT..}....oh, and the grandparents...but needless to say, he has not been away from me that much.  So leaving him is a big deal.  I try not to be one of "those parents", so I have been trying to leave him with people more...but at the same time...he won't be spoiled people, he's four months old.  And if he does get spoiled, well...then we'll deal with that :)

ANYWAY, I left him at our church nursery. I trust them.  They know him.  I knew he would be fine.  I left him sleeping with his airplane engine (sounding) noise machine, and a cover over his car seat.  Sleep should have lasted an hour at least.  When I get back, about 50 minutes later, he is being held by a worker.  I ask if he was fussy and she said, "Well that white noise was pretty loud and he MUST be hungry", then she said, " He sure is a serious baby".  I felt fine until she said the last part.  I mean, I can say that he is serious.  But when you tell me he is serious (unless you're a family member, who can make those comments :), it is like saying, "Wow, that scarf is interesting" or "Your hair is different looking".  I wouldn't call them insults, but I certainly wouldn't classify them as compliments either!  So, of course, i couldn't stay quiet.  i said, "Well, he smiles all the time for me".  {really? why did I feel the need to say that? she wasn't being mean, just making an observation!  see what i mean??  momma bear is coming out!}.

Then there is example number two.  Involving Eli.  Well, since I can't show his real photo online, but I can show it in person, I am desperate to show off my child to others.  You can find me flashing it to the workers at Starbucks, my dental hygenist, etc.  So, when my 5:30am workout buddies (random acquaintances who I have been seeing at the gym for 4.5 years..>} asks about  my "new" baby, I proudly get out my phone to show a picture of Eli.  Although Finn is my "new" baby, most of the people there have already seen him.  To make sure we were talking about the same child, I said, "This is the newest baby who we are adopting".  As I held out the phone to show him (an older man, in his 60's}, he seemed confused and then uninviting.  He looked at me, almost disappointed, then said, "Oh, well where is the picture of YOUR baby?"...insinuating that Eli is not mine..?!  Also, looking at his photo, and making me feel a very distinct sense of RACIAL prejudice.  I cannot read minds, but I feel pretty certain that there was something bothering him about the way my child looked.  And that made me so mad!!!  I know that I have to prepare myself for a lifetime of weird questions about his race and his place in our family, but as far as I'm concerned, he is just as much "my" child as Finn is.  He might not have been born from me, but the Lord called us to him, and prepared his way to be in our family...so there is no difference.

Okay, just had to see if anyone else had these crazy momma instincts to protect their children when others start to talk bad about them!  Or even start to talk ANY WAY about them...or even look at them a different way.  If I'm this bad now, how will I be when he gets here?!

In other news, I am feeling very weirded out by my angel care monitor. I have a video portion of it, and it is quiet until it hears something in the room (usually him fussing).  But lately, close to midnight, it has been coming on, but all I hear is white noise.  So I click on to see him, and he is sleeping SOUNDLY.  Not moving, not rustling around, NOTHING.  Then, it goes silent again.  THen, about 30 seconds later, I hear the white noise again, but when I inspect the screen, he is STILL.  Umm, hello house from 1924, I do not believe in ghosts, but I would appreciate that whatever is happening in Finn's room...could it please stop?! It is weirding me out to have this thing come on!  Umm, thank you.

Oh, and in further news...I did launch the photography blogsite, only about a month past my projected goal..which was at the beginning of 2012. :)  If you get a chance, go say hi there :)  I will just post there with new photo shoots, and occasionally some personal shoots of Finn, etc.

Accepting Compliments

Do you accept compliments well?I have always known that i do not.
However, my "love language" (if you've read the five love languages..) is words of affirmation. I thrive on hearing positive words. But people probably don't like to compliment me because I don't take them well.I usually deny (because I don't know how else to respond) and then compliment them in return.
For example, my friend told me I looked skinny at church. I said, "Oh no, not really (mumbling under my breath), then looked at him awkwardly".  He was just being kind.  Then, he could tell he made me uncomfortable (it actually was nice verbal affirmation that I just couldn't accept well...) so he said, "WEll, I just have only seen you pregnant for two years and. you look so much smaller".  Well guess what, it made the compliment a little less awesome when he added that on.  If I could have just graciously accepted the compliment from the start, it would have been better.
At the gym, a friend said, "Wow, your stomach looks great, you have really come a long way".  I should have said, "Thanks so much". No way. Why would I be so gracious?  Was I fishing for more? Or could I just not accept it? I said, "Well, I have a long way to go".  She was supposed to say, "No, you look great'.  She said, "Well, yeah, but you have come a long way".  HAHAHHA. Basically saying, Well, you've lost a lot, but you're still a fatty.  Gotta love that.
Whose fault was it? MINE!Just accept the compliment and WALK AWAY!!
It is funny, because I have been realizing that I am not good at this. Even with Brandon. He said that he doesn't give me as many compliments because he is afraid I am going to think he's lying. Really? I guess I might be that bad.
I suppose being pregnant for two years straight will do that to a girl.  
Today, I went to visit a friend in the hospital who just had a baby.  She was talking about her belly and how it was a little jiggly.  I told her I understood. Then she named another friend and said she hopes she can get her belly back like hers.  I wanted to say, "Oh, what, you don't want this bowl of jelly I have?". :)  
 Maybe Definitely the problem is that I want extreme compliments. When I compliment someone...I go on and on. And I make sure they leave CONVINCED that I meant it.  I guess when I ask questions, I am testing the person to see if they meant it.  Everyone fails my tests :)  
In other news...Finn is sweet as can be. But I think I have an irrational fear of him getting sick.Let's be honest.Kids get sick.Babies get sick.It's going to happen.it's a matter of time.Why am I so scared of it?
Maybe becasue I can't control it. I don't get  a say in when it happens, and what sickness it is.
I also think I'm in panic mode a little about Ethiopia. My pediatrician said maybe we should take someone we trust to stay in the room with Finn while we visit the orphanage. I agree. But that is a lot of money to ask someone to pay to help us with Finn.And I know you're thinking "Just leave him!!".Well, sorry, I can't.
Leah, if you are reading, you convinced me not to.Leah adopted a baby when she had a newborn. She decided not to take the baby, and her husband went on one trip alone and she went on one alone. She said it was not encouraging to do it separately, and her milk dried up.  Both of those sound sad. So she convinced me...I'm taking him. I want to continue nursing. I do not want to be away from him.  And I think he will be fine.But I am nervous.
So if you think of it. Pray for peace in that area. His health.Maybe I'm just nervous because I NEVER WANT ANYTHING TO HAPPEN TO HIM.There.I said it.I already lost one.I don't want to lose another. 
And I won't. And if I do, the Lord will carry me through it, just like he would for any of you.  But there is no need to live in fear.
So I won't. Okay, God? I am choosing to trust you with Finn's health. With Eli's health.With Brandon's health.I am going to choose not to spend life worried.And I don't.But I can see how easily it would happen.
Okay, just for fun...here are some {blurry} pictures of Finn and Dad playing! 

ps. to my real friends who have read this far..I need help. I am getting my photography website together.  Does anyone know how to do a portfolio on there? Right now it is a blogsite...but I don't have a portfolio.  I don't know how I would host it..or include it...?!   If you want to see the work in progress, email me, and I will show you so you can offer constructive criticism.  :) GOODNIGHT!

YESSSS!!! WE GOT A REFERRAL!!!!!! :)

BIG NEWS!!! BIG, BIG NEWS! WE GOT A REFERRAL!!!!!
WE ARE SO EXCITED!! I don't know if we can tell his name, I'll have to check on that!
He is 12+ months. A little older than we thought...but just perfect.
I can show you his picture. Well, actually I can't.
I can show you a picture of some of him.  You can't see his face, because that would be considered child exploitation until he is legally ours.
He is SO HANDSOME, I can tell you that!! He is just amazingly good looking. :)

If you are reading this and waiting for a referral, I am so sorry. I know what it's like to watch other people get theirs and wait for your own.  We are beyond excited and a little overwhelmed to know we will be traveling in 8-10 weeks...could be less. AWESOME!!!!
If you aren't up on the way adoption works {pretty much if you haven't adopted or aren't adopting, you will need this lesson}...here is how it works
1. Do all basic paperwork, homestudy, fingerprints, etc.
2.  Mail Dossier to selected country and wait.
3. Wait, wait, wait.
4.  Wait some more.
5.  Receive "referral" or paperwork that shows your child, information about them, etc.
6.  Accept referral, begin paperwork to go to court to claim your child.
7.  Travel to Ethiopia once you have a court date and travel approval.  Meet your child!!! Go to court.
8.  Once you 'pass court', the child is legally yours, but you cannot take them because you have to wait on papers to process the US Embassy.
9.  You return back the US to wait. THE WORST PART.
10.  Wait on embassy approval. WAIT seems so long. DREADING THIS PART!  Could be 8-12 weeks...
11.  Return to pick up child.
12.  Return home and try to begin the new, challenging, amazing life with an adopted child.

We are on step 5.
Step 5 costs a lot of money :)
Now, let's back up.
So many people have been generous since we began our process of adopting.
I found the following timeline, and I wanted to share it with you.

Okay. What is today? January 16th. We got the referral last night. January 15th. So the updated timeline should look like this:

How neat is that?!?!  We found out we were PREGNANT January 15th last year...found out we were "PREGNANT" with a child in Ethiopia...who is already a year old...on the same day, one year later.  WOW. So neat.  That is clearly from the Lord, nothing in our own power.
I sure wish you could see his face. He is so handsome.
Here is the deal. We have calculated with costs to travel (roughly $2000 per plane ticket, two people, two trips, plus probably an extra seat on the way home, plus 10% of our ticket for a lap baby...), referral fee $8000, costs to stay at the guest house, driver ($50/night), plus tons more small fees that you probably don't care to hear about...the total we have left to pay is around $24,000. Overwhelming, yes. The Lord has already provided $14,000 of that.  We have already paid around $8,000.  All this to say, we are trusting and believing that the Lord will continue to help us raise the rest.
We have a limited amount of t-shirts left.  If we could sell all of these at $20, that would be $1,100 right there!  Don't you need a t-shirt?? They are super cute...I will try to post a photo tomorrow.
I will post a list of available shirts tomorrow....and beg you to grab yours up!

Thanks for being excited with us.  We are truly overjoyed. We cannot wait to meet him, bring him home, and make him a part of our family...

Adoption is not easy. Not cheap. Not what God intended. God intended us to be with the people that birthed us.  But SIN is in this world. And sadly, it isn't always like that.  There are children starving to death, or dying with no clean water. There are children dying of treatable diseases.  So, we are going to push through some of the "hard" and the "expensive"...and the "scary"...because we feel like God has asked us to do that.

Am I scared? YES.
Am I possibly terrified to miss my best friend Hayley's wedding...in almost exactly 8-10 weeks from now....YES.
Am I scared to see how Eli will sleep? How he will eat? How he will transition into our family? ABSOLUTELY.
But I know that God has asked us to walk this road. So here we go!

Thanks for joining in the journey with us!

In and Out

Life.

is

BEAUTIFUL.

Thank you JESS FLYNN for the photos!

I'm so lucky to have this for Finn.  Such a cool memory, carrying him for all those months.  This picture was taken PAST 40 weeks...and the other photo was taken when he was a little more than a week old.

 I wish that I had this for Eli.  Things are so different in the context of adoption.  You hope and you dream and you pray, but it is not tangible.  It involves a ton of waiting and paperwork. A little bit of confusing self modification and evaluation, as people come and evaluate your home and your life.  Adoption involves a TON of faith.  You basically commit to doing it...and then realize there will be no reward that is visible for quite some time.  I am not saying I am perfect at this, but I am truly trying to wait in faith.
I have friends that tried to begin the foster care process as we began our adoption.  They still haven't received a child!  Talk about waiting in faith...everyone assumes doing things deomestically, things will be quicker...
I have been really getting impatient (see, I'm so good at waiting in faith...) since I had Finn.
I needed something tangible.  So Finn and I got on a plane to Kentucky.  My six week old baby and I had to figured out how to do this flight on our own bc Brandon had to work this coming week (it was successful, despite nursing on this prop plane with my baby's feet in my seat mate's lap).  Saturday I went to a reunion for families that have adopted or are in process of adopting through Arise for Children/Lifeline Adoption Agency.  I was filled with a room full of people that love the Lord and have a heart for adoption.  These people have a heart for orphan care.  So many people in this room had already adopted, mostly from Ethiopia.
The colors of people in this room...it was a beautiful room that looked like the kingdom of God.  It was full of different cultures, ethnicities and families.  A single mom, adopting her second child from Ethiopia, a family adopting two ethiopian siblings to add to their four biological children, a sweet friend who just brought home their little boy eight months ago.. who turned two this weekend...

As we walk through the adoption journey, I rejoice as we wait.
Knowing that the Lord's timing is perfect.

We have been waiting for our referral for {SIX MONTHS}.
I am trying to be patient.
The wait was supposed to be 3-6 months.  I thought it was when we sent our dossier {March} that the time started.
But the time didn't start until it arrived in Ethiopia {May}.
Dang it!
November marks 6 months.
But we had to update our homestudy to reflect our new child.
So we wait.
But we have a beautiful distraction as we wait.
Sweet Finn.
As I wrote that, I almost wrote "sweet briar".
I suppose that is appropriate.
As I remember him each day, I think of his two big brothers...
the one that lives here and the one in Africa.
And I think just how lucky we are!

FUN LOVIN

Well Hello friends!!
Honest moment here.
I thought I was going to go into a black hole this past week! I was not feeling well there for about three days. Not good at all. And I wondered if those were the last two weeks of pregnancy. Nauseous. Cold chills. Grossness. Tired. Couldn't get out of bed. Early Labor? Hormones? A small virus? I can't explain it. But it is pretty much gone. And for that, I don't care WHAT it was...I'm just happy it went away :)
And then I came out of the fog. And I can walk and breathe and eat again.
And I just want to skip around!

I saw a commercial for cymbalta during that day on the couch...
and it said, "are you tired? no appetite? don't want to get up off the couch? {insert more symptoms here..}...maybe you have depression"  and I seriously called my midwife and told her maybe that was my problem.  She just laughed in my face and told me that we would worry about that if it really becomes a problem, but right now I am 38+ weeks pregnant and just sick or possibly in the beginning of labor.. which is just a normal process.  Oh goodness.  The things that go through this pregnant brain...

Not that depression is bad. In fact, I am going to be on the lookout.  Having a baby within days of the one year anniversary of losing my first son sets me up for an emotional party (not necessarily a happy party) that might be a lot of crazy mixed emotions.  So...I'm not ignorant to that possibility after birth...


This picture made me smile this morning. It came from my shower. With my sweet friend Jess, who is moving (DANG IT!) at the end of the year.  My poor moustache can't decide what side of my face it belongs on...

This was a free download from Sprik Space.

YOU need to go check out Sprik Space. She has some super cool freebies...all the time. Definitely worth looking in her archives too. I found some super cute things to print.
Kinkos and their crappy copiers were not my friends, so I had to send them off to be printed WELL. How is that for $1-$3 wall art? Well done, I think :)


Plus, this print belongs in my house. Sometimes I forget to speak love. I speak truth in the truest form, if you know what I mean.  Sometimes our job is to simply SPEAK LOVE...whether we feel it or not.  God calls us to LOVE. Being married allows us TO LOVE.  If we constantly just speak frustration...what kind of home are you creating?  Well...it's a good reminder for me, at least...


I am praying for continued energy and good health as I prepare to deliver this sweet boy. Brandon and I are so excited to meet him. We are scared of his crazy crying {how do I stop this crying?!} ...but knowing that God will allow us to handle every little bit of it :) We are so excited to welcome a new addition. And getting more and more excited to receive our referral...although I will be honest and say we are getting a little anxious...looks like it will be NOVEMBER...because of when our packet arrived in Ethiopia...they count the six months from that point, rather than when you turn it in (tricky...) But, the good news is...the boys will probably be CLOSER in age now. Because if you figure we get a six month old referral in SEPTEMBER...they would be six months apart, but if we get one in November...they will be FOUR months apart...so I feel like God knows every part of this journey. I trust that.


Today, I think I am going to attempt to go POST tailgate an Auburn football game. {meaning go after the game is over and hang out for a while outside the stadium...}  it is getting much cooler here...and I figure if I only go for a couple hours...I should be okay... :) Plus, my mom had me after sitting out at a hot football game all day...so here goes my best try.. ;)


Love to you this SATURDAY!!! :)