A week later

Hope that the week has went well. We have enjoyed the past week and weekend. We were able to celebrate our second daughter's birthday with the girls' friends. She chooses BOWLING. Everyone, even our son, had a great time. It is awesome to see how our girls and their friends work with our son. We are blessed. Then we had basketball and sickness for the rest of the weekend. Actually there are no complaints as my husband had a younger boys' basketball tourney on Saturday and a Special Olympics basketball tourney on Sunday. Thankfully those of us that needed to stay home did and the rest went to watch basketball. We do love basketball in our family. We were thankful for no girls' tourney this past weekend. Then Monday arrived and we were off to school and the start of 2nd Semester. The day went well even though I was stressed due to schedules. It taught me to go to Him right away instead of trying to figure things out on my own. Now that leads me into this week. Struggling a little as our Home Study should be done soon. The wait is challenging. I was hoping to get news today that it was completed, but we can wait until Thursday or next week. I need to keep remembering that it is His timing, not mine or ours! So today we enjoyed the day being off because of ice. We were given the gift of time today - true blessing as long as it is used correctly in my opinion. As a family, we went to town as we missed the "no school" call and thought that we had only a "2 hour late". Honestly it was a blessing. The kids and I played in the gym as we were at school anyway and my husband got most of his grades done for last semester. So we accomplished things at school and ran some errands. Then this afternoon we, as a family, watched the "Dukes of Hazards" series. We have the seasons and are huge fans. My husband and I went for a walk in the woods and just enjoyed being outside and together. So this evening we played games and now are ready for some quiet before tomorrow. See all of the blessings and didn't think much about the Home Study. God is good and the day was good too. Hope that you, readers, have had a good weekend, start to the week or that this week is great. Next post, we hope, will share the news about our Home Study or maybe it's not in His timing yet:)

Birthday

Our second daughter celebrated her birthday yesterday. We are so proud of who she is and what she does. She has an energetic attitude and yet can quietly sit with her brother. She is a wonderful blessing in our lives. We tried to celebrate her birthday on Saturday as Gramm was up watching both of the girls play basketball. Although the evening ended well by watching Butler and Gonzaga basketball with cheesecake, the attempt in making it special didn't go so well. She was patient and just asked if we could get cheesecake so we did and the birthday evening was good. On her birthday she opened gifts, brought treats into her class and ate Subway for supper. Hopefully for her it was a nice day! That was our birthday adventure...In regards to our adoption adventure, no news. We are pleased to share that our friends are picking up their twins and should be home soon - PTL! So tonight we'll leave you with this: "This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24 We rejoice in celebrating a special girl.

Unexpected

When you don't expect wonderful "pick-me-ups" they happen so much. This week we've had a few...former students came in to visit, which I love! Laughter was happening everyday with our kids, coworkers and friends. High school friends are planning a get-together, which are always fun. And great friends of ours took two of our kids overnight so that we could get to our other child's appointment early this morning without extra stresses. We are so BLESSED. We've had a good and busy week. The other unexpected situations are in relation to our adoption process. We inquired about some children and already we have received some communication. Now we are almost done with our Home Study -we just need our agency to complete it (and they have many so I am not being impatient) and then we can move onto finding matches. We have decided to adopt domestically. So I wrote a few emails in order to ask some questions. The wonderful piece to adopting is that you learn something new everyday, whether about yourself, your family or others. So we have at least started in the right direction, we feel. We are trusting that He will place the correct children in our family and if that is not the plan, we will have grown stronger as family through this adventure. So just wanted to share that "unexpected" things can bring smiles to your day, sometimes we just need to recognize that the unexpected things are blessings! Hope to be writing in about a month or two on the next step in our adventure. We'll share more about our family as we have basketball tourneys, wrestling practices, and fun family times coming up, but hopefully we will be able to share news on where we are being lead. May your day have unexpected blessings so that you can Praise Him for what He is doing in your life. Have a great weekend!

laughing

We had a nice weekend and then Monday came. To say the least, it was an interesting day. Interesting is being used in a non-descriptive manner as we had some ups and downs. BUT we got a terrific email this evening that states that our Home Study is almost done. Now the post is called "laughing" because we believed that we needed 16 hours of educational hours. So I read the readings, listened to the podcasts and viewed the videos and then wrote up my paper work. My husband did most of these, but he had not written up his educational sheets...well our hours are completed. Honestly I am laughing as he is very thankful that he is finished and that he was "slower" on getting things completed, but it still worked for him. I guess after his day that he deserves this and really I am just glad to be DONE- yay! So now the unexpected laughter begins as we are moving on in this adventure and sooner than we thought. We are nervous, but hopeful for the next journey that we are taking. We have decided on where we will go from here and we should be moving along next week. Such great news to have on Monday! So after you have read this post, I hope that you are laughing at the little blessing that my husband got and in the excitement of continuing on in this second adoption adventure. Also our family friends in the South are leaving the US to pick up their two children and bring them home this weekend. So amazing how God's plan works and how He still needs to teach us how to listen. Praying for a great end to the month in regards to our adoption adventure. Thanks for reading about it here. Hope that you are enjoying this written journey and having some good laughs like our son in this picture.

Emotions

This week the word "Emotions" is stuck in my head. Tragic, unexpected events cause people to seek understanding or find a focus. Due to a couple of sad events in our surrounding area and in my home town, I started thinking about "emotions" and how they direct us, whether it is good or bad. So this week we are checking on our emotions in our home. It is a good thing to do. So I wanted to share some stories of emotions from this week. First, we have had sick kids this week so all of us are tired. Due to being home because of a sick kid, we were able to answer a call from our Social Worker with our agency. Yay! We had a good discussion. Wished that I would have called her sooner to reduce some negative emotions. Then heard about a tragic death of a young woman from my home town. So already I believe you are seeing the impact that emotions have played this week. My husband and I had a good discussion after his basketball game without interruptions, which is not a 'norm' in our family. We were ready for Wednesday! I shared with my older students that we are in the process of adoption and felt good about being able to tell them. I had a student share with me a story, which is at this link http://nwc.edu/web/undergrad/arianna-and-kristen It is a wonderful read especially if you have children through adoption. (Gracias estudiante) So the day went well. We had church class, but ended up with a sick kid. Now it actually was wonderful as our child and I had lots of snuggle time that evening. Then I heard sad news of a young man in our area. My heart hurts for this community and especially his family and friends. So in checking in with my emotions, they have been all over the place. The constant in feeling different ways is that God stays with us, no matter how we allow our emotions to direct us. So besides asking for prayers for those that have been sadly affected this week, I ask you to look at how your emotions direct you. In our prior adoption and in our current, we felt and are feeling many emotions. We need to focus on our kids' emotions as well as our own and remember what to depend on... Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY

"Happy, Happy, Happy" comes from a TV program that we watch as a family and I thought that it would describe our Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday, which was shared yesterday, was a great evening. The day actually an amazing HAPPY - we have a new member to our extended family, a little girl and Mom and baby along with the family are doing well and all home now. HAPPY for the birth, the strong Mom and the whole family being home all together today. Saturday, which has a few things in yesterday's post, had good sports (even though my team lost) great friends and a good friend asking about the adoption. She was a great listener and gave some insight as well as snickers- thank you! The evening ended with all members of our family, except me, being very HAPPY about the football game winners. So Saturday was our second HAPPY. Now really I thought of the three HAPPY words in regards to today, but then decided that they would work for the whole weekend. Sunday's three HAPPYs are: taking down the Christmas tree as a family. The help from the kids, the moving of the tree and the clean-up went great. HAPPY The next thing was the family was invited to hang out with cousins. We have great families in our lives and the picture is of the event that happened at Christmas and then was replayed today. The kids love playing Tball in the house of their cousins so off went the kids and Dad. HAPPY I stayed home to complete Home Study materials. HAPPY The materials that we found most beneficial are: 1. "The Road to ADoption and Foster Care: Becoming a Bridge Family Resource" video on youtube 2. Mamalita book by Jessica O'Dwyer 3. the davethomasfoundation.org website 4. the webpage www.creatingafamily.org with podcasts of interviews about adoption topics and 5. an interview of Linda Goldstein Knowlton on youtube about her film, "Somewhere Between", which I now want to see. in our opinions these resources are wonderful and free. The paperwork is almost completed so we are moving on in the adventure. The summarize Everyone enjoyed the day and we accomplished a lot. As we get ready for the week, we are thankful for the HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY weekend.

Sports Day

Today is a sports-filled day - yay! Both of our girls had basketball. We enjoy being around sports. Last night, the kids and I went to watch their Dad, my hubby, coach. I am always thankful to have friends to sit with as being a coach's wife can be both rewarding and challenging. We had a great evening and it was a good way to end the week. This morning we watched younger girls practice basketball skills and then we road with friends to watch the older girls. We are surrounded by good people and enjoy being around the families of our daughters' teammates. Also if was nice to be asked about the adoption. Part of the blog is to share with others our experience, keep track of our process and do reflections of where we are all feeling. Yesterday and today people asked about our adoption and it was nice to share. THANK YOU to our friends for asking. So last night and today were nice! "Be glad" Now we are waiting for a big NFL game. In our home, we have two teams that are liked and the teams are RIVALS. The big game is coming and we will see who will be happy by the end of the night. We will be watching with friends and waiting to see which team moves on...Hope that you are enjoying the weekend with your family and friends. Days like these encourage us to add children to our family. And may the BEST team win tonight.

Growing

Peter 1:6 "Be glad. There is truly wonderful joy ahead." So this verse needs to be the focus. Trust is all we have in this process so in Him we trust. After an interesting and feeling worn-out week, trying to be glad is tough. We've had some ups and downs with illness, friends struggling, and busy times. In regards to the adoption, we are almost done with our Home Study. The Home Study allows us to move onto the next step of the adoption process. Until we finish this part, we are stuck. Our only piece left in completing our Home Study, besides our adoption counselor writing it up, is our education. Each of us, the Mom and Dad, need to have 16 hours of education to better ourselves in learning and growing in the adoption. So far a great book was read "Mamalita" and a video found on youtube about adoption was viewed. Another book was read and it was not a favorite, but may be great for others who are adopting, "If You Could See Me Now". Now we believe in being educated. We actually stand behind it as we are teachers in various aspects of life so 'earning' the hours is fine. The struggle is that we want these hours so that we can complete the Home Study and that is a bad reason. I wish that we could interview children and families that have had these experiences. We know that the hours mark that we have completed the Home Study, but are we truly growing in what we are doing. Well that is up to us! So now the goals has changed - we need to grow in our education in order to grow in our process. "Be glad" that we have this opportunity to grow and have these experiences. Now we want to share some things that we are glad about... soon we will have a new baby in our family as a sibling and his wife are due any day, we both have jobs that are challenging and rewarding, all of our children know that they are loved, families surrounded us at Christmas time to celebrate and play, friends spent time together with laughter, we live in a country where we can state what we feel and pray when we want/need to, and finally we have had adoption placed on our hearts so we are in another adventure. Now looking at Peter 1:6 - seriously how can we not "Be glad".May you find joy in your day!

Happy New Year - Welcoming 2013

Happy New Year- As we drove into town today to grab a few things before watching football, I noticed the church's board "Remember to keep God in your resolutions" or something close to that idea. What a wonderful reminder as we begin the 2013 year. During our Holiday celebrations, we were BLESSED (and it's LARGE PRINT as we don't have enough words to express it without making it BIG) by wonderful moments...we gathered with co-workers, who are truly great friends, after Christmas. We watched sports and met up with friends from far away. We chatted with various ages about many topics. We played games. We watched a great football game, for me anyway, with friends who have been with us through our first journey and we rang in the New Year with old and new friends along with our kids. Our holiday moments were full of wonderful people. Really we have ended 2012 with so many blessings. Now as today marks the New Year of 2013, we need to remember our focus- God. Every year the kids in my family get a Daily Guideposts book from my parents for the year with short devotions. The verse of focus for this year is 1 Thessalonians 5:18. It reads "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" So as we start the new year, this second adoption journey and reflect on the many blessings in our lives, we are keeping this verse as the focus, just like in Daily Guideposts. No matter what happens, and if you have been in any part of adding to a family (you know many and challenging things can happen), we need to give Him the glory for whatever route we take in this journey. As this year begins, may the love of those around you and especially the love of Christ be filling your hearts. Giving thanks for the family time today as we end our vacation and get ready for a New Year. Happy 2013!