"A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul..." Proverbs 13:19
God has already fulfilled many longings in our lives, but there are still many yet to come.
This year, Jonah decided that instead of having a birthday party, he wanted to have a "vacation" to LegoLand to celebrate. In our family, a "vacation" is defined as staying overnight in a hotel (usually found on Hotwire for very cheap). Jonah is a BIG Lego fan and he's read a lot about LegoLand.
If you ask the boys what their favorite part was, they all 3 will say the big trampoline. This wasn't even in LegoLand! Some (very smart) guys set up a bungee trampoline in the mall right outside the LegoLand doors. So, they all 3 begged to do it. Huge bungee rubber bands were tied to their waists and they were hoisted up to jump. Luke was pretty freaked out by it, but Noah and Jonah loved it. During this busy busy stove season, our family really needed the time away together. It was WONDERFUL!
My baby is 6 today! So hard to believe. How did this happen? It seems just like yesterday that we were crawling to the birth center in thick ice. Robby had the day off because school was closed. My Mom had spent the night after deciding she wouldn't make it home to Greenville on the icy roads (we spent Dec. 7 walking the mall trying to induce labor!).
It was a very eventful day. Both Nanas were there for Jonah's birth as well as Aunt Penny. My Dad made it right after Jonah hatched out. His birth was definitely the easiest of the three. I felt the urge to push and he was here! I can't imagine how easily Mrs. Duggar's births are!
Jonah is our clown that always keeps us in stitches and our family wouldn't be complete without him! We love you, Jonah!
Today was a great day! For several reasons, actually, but mostly because.....drum roll please.......
WE MAILED OUR DOSSIER!!!!!
This just the first of several mailings. It's not on its way to Haiti, yet, but it was still a very big accomplishment. 24 pieces went into that puppy! It took 7 months to get it all together. We mailed it to our adoption agency today and they will look it over. There might be corrections we have to make. Then, it goes to the Secretary of the State of TX. She will put her seal on the notarized documents (proves the notaries are notaries). Her name is Hope. Thought that was cool! From there, it goes to the Haitian consulate in Chicago. They put their seal on it. THEN, we get to send it to GLA! I'm shooting for March. We'll see....never know about the government.
Just the idea that we might possibly could bring our baby girl home in 2012 makes us all giddy!!!!! My baby turns 6 tomorrow. He's really filling up my lap, although he still cuddles with me every day. I'm ready for a tiny one again! : )
It's THAT time of year. Every year, we get pictures of the boys made for grandparents. (They seem to enjoy those gifts for some reason! :)) We have a sweet friend who just happens to be a VERY talented photographer. Bless her soul...she is SO patient even with our monkeys' antics. Jonah wouldn't come out of his room because I was making him wear a "church shirt". Noah was in tears because the shirt I wanted him to wear was a "pajama shirt" (note to self: never buy waffle weave for Noah again and expect him to wear it in public). Luke decided it was time to groom Boomer and dog hair was flying everywhere---after he had his "church shirt" on. Needless to say, my blood pressure was up! All of that to say, I highly recommend our photographer. I told her she is a miracle maker! She took mass chaos and made beauty out of it! Here's one little preview. If you have kids that make visits to the portrait studio pure torture, click here and meet our "miracle maker"!
This book is so good and so "meaty"! (Thanks, Beth!) The chapters are very short, but so thought provoking that I'm only reading one a day to really let them soak in. I read this passage this morning:
Those who make decisions based upon external data become thermometers of society: Their lives reflect the natural forces that shape their destiny. But those who make their decisions based upon what they see in God become thermostats of society: They influence their world through the forcefulness of bringing divinely received initiatives to bear upon this earthly sphere.
Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? How are you influencing your world?
Gotta run! Fingerprinting at the Department of Homeland Security in Dallas today. YEAAAA!!!!!
Today was a wonderful day! Luke has been counting down the days to his baptism. We had 1 1/2 pews of family come to celebrate with us. Just seeing his excitement to "tell the world that Jesus is in my heart and He's my Savior" filled my heart with joy beyond words! He knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. God is SO good!
My sweet Bailee girl was here around dinner time tonight. I made her a "kid plate" of PB&J, grapes, and Chee-tohs. All she was interested in was the Chee-tohs, but she named everything on her plate. She's saying my name, too, which just fills my heart with joy. Between bites of Chee-tohs, she would lean over and give me a kiss. We both had Chee-tohs on our mouths! SOOOOO sweet! I love this little girl SO much! Never knew I could love one so much that I didn't give birth to. : )
I have to write about the precious way God encouraged me this morning. On our way to Bible Study, my iPod was on shuffle. God has always spoken to me in very powerful ways through music, but I just love how he used the "shuffle" feature to bless me today. : ) First, the Steven Curtis Chapman song "When Love Takes You In" played. I can still remember where I was the first time I heard this song (sitting in the Hastings parking lot in Greenville). It's a very heartfelt, sweet song that Steven wrote about adoption. If you've never heard it, grab some Kleenex and listen. As I sang along with it, I was just smiling at God and dreaming of our Gracie. I was dreaming about the day in the near future when she will be in her car seat in the backseat with the boys and going to Bible study with us. I just love thinking about her and dreaming about what she will be like. Of course, in my mind, she is the most beautiful little girl that God has ever made. Her hair is always in cute braids or pigtails because I just love fixing little girl hair. : ) She's always dressed cute because I've had 10 years to buy boy clothes (dinosaurs, transportation, or stripes?) and can't wait to buy purple, frilly girly clothes. Anyway, I was just singing and dreaming as I drove.
After that song, the next song that played is a new song by Casting Crowns called "Already There". It's such a beautiful song about how God is not constrained by time. He sees the total picture of our lives and He's already at the end. It just gave me such hope this morning to think about how God already sees our COMPLETE family (whatever that may look like) and Gracie is already in it. He sees me rocking my grandbabies and loving on them like I know I will. There is just so much JOY and comfort in knowing that even as we wait and as we struggle with waiting, this is such a small amount of time on God's infinite timeline.
He WILL bring Gracie home to us and it will be in His perfect time. He's "Already There".
Yes, the story continues, for those of you still with me. All of that happened just in the drive from MV to MP! Our Bible study teacher's lecture was on HOPE. Yes, that's the way God works. He delights in wowing me with His encouragement through other people. It was a very uplifting lecture about crying out to God when we hope for something and just waiting on Him.
As I left the sanctuary, I ran into a homeschooling/adopting sister. When I met her this summer, she told me their story of fostering to adopt and the number of children who have been through their home, but not been able to stay. They have loved a number of children, but had to send them back for various reasons. Well, when I saw her today, she was holding a newborn baby boy and it literally took my breath away! She explained to me how they had friends at church who knew of a girl having a baby that was up for adoption. Now they have Caleb. It brought me so much JOY to see my friend holding that baby and I just felt like God was (again!) wrapping His arms around me and saying, "Just hold on. Your day is coming!"
Today is one of those days that my heart and my arms ache for my baby girl. I want her here NOW and I want to beg God to hurry up. I am so thankful for His reminders of hope today. Please take the time to listen to this song and just know that whatever you are going through or whatever you are waiting on God to do, He's "Already There, standing at the end of your life".
Today we celebrate all of the brave men and women who have defended or are currently defending all of the freedoms we enjoy. In writing class, we discussed the parallels between veterans and our Savior. He gave His life for everyone in the world. Every time a veteran steps on the battle field, they are risking their lives for us. Happy to share the three veterans in our family: Uncle Neal, Uncle Mike, and Aunt Maura. Thank you all!
WOW! God is making up for that lost time I was talking about! The USCIS was supposed to take 3-4 weeks to give us our fingerprinting appointment and we got the appointments yesterday! It's only been about 10 days since we sent our application in. We go to Dallas on Tuesday, Nov. 22. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at at time!"
I have read LOTS of parenting books. I have tried for years to parent the "right" way that I thought God wanted me to do for our boys. Man, He is really working on me right now. God pours out His infinite grace upon me every day, yet I am teaching my kids to follow the "law" and not showering them with the same grace He gives me.
I have a lot of growing up to do! I'm only on Chapter 3. I'm sure He's got much more to show me.
I was on GLA's website and read this update on their Adoption blog. There are so many precious ones that need forever families. It breaks my heart that they are waiting on papers from families like us that love them already. How long will they have to wait? Is my baby girl already there just waiting on our paperwork to get there???
From the GLA website: Oct. 13 2011 Adoptions are going very well. We had three dossiers signed in IBESR in the last few days and several are in passports! We have had a few dossiers arrive in Haiti and I hope to give a few proposals before I leave for Canada on the 23rd of October. We have a lot of sibling groups still waiting for "forever" families. Please be praying that we will receive more dossiers soon.
So, last night, the house was absolutely quiet (and still!). Robby and Noah were in Oklahoma at their boy scout campout. Luke and Jonah were sleeping soundly and I was checking email. Suddenly, the desk where our computer sits starting swaying. Now, this desk is very rickety and the boys bump it all of the time. So, I thought I had just bumped it with my leg. I backed up and realized that the ground under my feet was moving! I looked around and the strings on the blinds were swaying. A friend gave me some wind chimes last week and I flippantly hung them on a cabinet knob. I started looking around the room and those wind chimes were moving, too. I just froze. I really had no idea what was happening. I quickly dismissed the idea of an earthquake because we're in Texas! There are no earthquakes in Texas, right? I thought maybe there was an explosion somewhere and the ground was vibrating from that. It only lasted about 15-20 seconds. By the end, I started thinking maybe it was a tremor. Since I was at the computer, I Googled "tremors in East Texas" and found nothing. I clicked on Facebook and a friend in Arkansas had posted that she was just in her first earthquake! Very quickly, there were others posting about it. It was nice to confirm my suspicions. Good ol' Facebook! When none of the news sites could help me out, Facebook was my friend! I really thought I was going crazy or something. Then, for the rest of the night, I kept feeling like it was happening again.
At 5:30 this morning, I woke up and felt the bed swaying. Sadie (our dog) woke up, too. At first, I thought maybe it was just a dream, but I checked when I got up and there was another aftershock at that time.
I have enjoyed reading all about it and reporting what I felt on the U.S. Geological Survey's website. I just never in my wildest dreams would've imagined that we could feel them here. I guess I did know they had them in Oklahoma. The epicenter of this one was in Oklahoma City and they're saying it registered at a 5.6.
So, here's the Grandpa coincidence (if you know my Grandpa, you know he's kept a record of coincidences for years). When I was putting the boys to bed last night, we were looking at a book they had gotten from the library. It has a duck on the cover and the title is "Earthquack!" Luke was laughing about that and Jonah asked what was funny. So, I explained the play on words to him. Just an hour later, Mama felt a real earthquack!
Today was a GOOD day! Got to go to my happy place (Super Target), eat a yummy lunch, shop some more, and all of that with my MOM! Even though she only lives 45 minutes away, we are both so busy and don't get to hang out---just the 2 of us---very often. It was a very happy : ) day! P.S. This pic was from our trip to New Orleans. Wish I had one of those yummy beignets right now!
I mailed our I-600 immigration form today. This is the government's form that goes to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They check us out and make sure we're "good folk". Then, they'll send us an appointment for fingerprinting by the FBI. This will happen in Longview or Dallas. Not sure which yet.
I am just happy we're doing SOMETHING now after sitting (well, not really sitting, but the papers were!) for a month.
Once we find a psychologist or psychiatrist to do our psych evaluations (so many people have to prove we're "good folk"!), this will be the last item for our dossier. Yea, yea, yea!!!
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17
Our family is celebrating and rejoicing today and so are the angels in Heaven. Luke burst into the living room at 7:00 this morning and said, "I have some exciting news! I asked Jesus into my heart last night!" I was so surprised and overjoyed at the same time. Of course, I was skeptical that he really knew what he was doing, so I asked him lots of questions and he answered them all perfectly. I have no doubt in my mind that our little boy was changed last night. He said, "I even faced toward the window when I prayed, like Daniel!" (We have been studying the book of Daniel and when Daniel prayed, he faced his window, which looked toward Jerusalem, his hometown. This was customary for those in captivity.) That's my Luke. Never missing a detail about anything. Oh, I left something out. When he told me he prayed, he used the words "that very night", which is also from the book of Daniel. King Belshazzar saw the hand writing on the wall and died "that very night". Details like that always seem to stick in Luke's mind. For breakfast, we put a candle in a blueberry muffin and sang Happy Birthday to him. I told him October 26, 2011 is his "Jesus birthday" because he has been born again.
He is VERY excited about being baptized and ready to go talk to our pastor. He was telling everyone at Bible study about his new birth day and our teaching director even talked about it during her lecture. Not that this is at all about me, but.... God just really used this to humble me. See, we are in the prophecies of Daniel right now and they are STRANGE, to say the least. Beasts with horns and 10 heads and wings. It can all be so overwhelming and so confusing. I have just been asking God all week what the point of studying all of this was. I just want to move past it and that's not right because it IS God's word. After Luke's salvation experience, God gently reminded me that He can use ANY part of His word to bring His children to Himself. Good is good. The angels in Heaven are rejoicing....and so are we! P.S. Sorry the pictures are out of order. Not sure why they uploaded like that.
The girls went home today. They were here almost exactly a month. I am really going to miss those little munchkins. I am so thankful that they are just 5 minutes down the road. If they lived far away, it would've been much more sad. Their Mom is doing great and I am excited about their future. I pray that we'll always have a relationship with them.
The boys were WAY too celebratory. They are glad to have things back to "normal". I know it was hard on them, but they were troopers for the most part. I think they will be getting a lot more sleep now that they won't be having their bedtime party together every night.
When we were eating supper tonight a sweet conversation happened. Luke: "So, where are they?" Me: "Where are what?" Luke: "The blessings. You said God was going to bless us for taking care of the girls." Me: "He will. You have to be watching at all times. Be on the lookout because He is going to send blessings our way because we obeyed Him." Luke: "You know what I think the blessing is going to be? Gracie. I think she's going to get here really soon!" Me: (no longer talking because there's a lump in my throat)
During the last month, there have been times that I have gotten frustrated because of the "lost" time with our adoption paperwork. The immigration papers have been just sitting here for 2 weeks waiting to be mailed with a check. But, God has reminded me during those times that He can very easily make up for "lost" time. We have no idea what blessings He has in store for us. All I know is that every time we have followed Him in the past, He has blessed our socks off! I have no doubt that taking in those 3 little angels this past month was just simple obedience. We are watching....
The girls said they had NEVER been to the zoo (haven't confirmed that with their parents) and the weather has been so gorgeous, so we loaded up today and had a field trip to Caldwell Zoo in Tyler. We bought the "Family Membership", so we can go back for free for a year (totally worth it with 6 kids!). I really want to make a point to do that more. It's such a neat zoo and very kid-friendly.
The girls were totally mesmerized by all of the animals. It was a GREAT day! Everyone stayed together and no one got fussy til the end. Aunt Amy was my co-pilot. I couldn't have done it without her!
This book is so good and so "meaty"! (Thanks, Beth!) The chapters are very short, but so thought provoking that I'm only reading one a day to really let them soak in. I read this passage this morning:
