We got a dog!

Yes, it's true! We got a dog! My kids have been begging for a long time, but I just wasn't ready. My plan was that after we got our little one home and settled, then we'd begin discussing the idea of getting a dog. Since the process of getting our little one home has been so LONG (and getting LONGER by the minute, I might add) I started re-thinking the idea. One day, a friend posted a picture of her on facebook saying that she needed a home and I fell in love. That was on a Friday and I went and picked her up that following Monday. Her name is Pippa Lucille and she's a sweetheart. We fell in love right away.

This is the first picture I took of her after I got her home that day.

The main reason I didn't want to get a dog was because I knew it would create a lot of work for me. I wasn't wrong in that assumption. She digs, makes messes and goes potty in my house. She's actually getting better, we are almost done with the house training!! But, for the first couple months, she pooped in the house almost every day :( Also, she sheds. That is the main thing I didn't want. We were told that she doesn't shed that much. That is a LIE. But, she's here now and we love her, so I have to deal with all the excessive sweeping, mopping and vaccuming. Yeah, like I have TIME for that?? Oh well! Good thing she's cute :)

Here's an example of her mess making...

She is really sweet. This was taken not long after we got her. I was baking in the kitchen and she had curled up and laid her head on the top of my foot.
She loves to snuggle! This is her snuggling with Rhett and I on the couch one night as we were doing Rhett's reading homework for the day.
Sometimes when I'm working in my office, she curls up on my good chairs where she can see me and she takes her little "cat naps" there.
She has 4 outfits. This is the first one I bought her. Yes, it has a pink tutu on it. She looks pretty ridiculous in it, but I got it on sale for $2 and couldn't resist :)

We think she was about 7 months old when we got her in September, so she's about 9 months old or so now. She was in the vet right away for a checkup and shots, and she was spayed about 3 weeks after we got her. We weren't taking any chances! So, she's all healthy and definitely a part of our family. Now the kids think they need another dog. And I promptly told them they'd lost their minds!!

Things I am thankful for

Rhett wrote this in class on 11/17. He just brought it home yesterday and since I still don't have my laptop/picture situation fixed (this has been a total nightmare), I thought I'd share this today.

"Thanksgiving, Turkey all makes me think of the thangs I am thankful for. First, I am thankful for my loveing parints, my loveing dog Pipa, and my brother and sister. Next, I'm also thankful for chrch. I pray evry day and night. Last, I am thankful for my hole famaly. Thay are so loveing. finaly, if you were me you would unrstand."

Coming from my boy who has improved his school work IMMENSELY this school year... this is just extra special. His handwriting on this paper was so neat I had no trouble reading it at all! It's a true miracle! Thank you Jesus! :)

Did you notice that he's thankful for his dog? Yeah, that was a post that was done but lost in oblivion, thanks to the kind person that hacked my computer with a nasty virus. Anyways, yes, we got a dog! I'll get a whole post on her up at some point :)

Love my sweet boy. We have so much to be thankful for.

Word to the wise...

1. Back up your pictures, videos and important docs on your computer onto an external hard drive or burn them to a disc regularly.

2. In addition, make sure you have an anti-virus program installed and that you update it when necessary.

If you do not do these things, don't blame me if you are up all night worrying about 2 YEARS of pictures and videos being GONE FOREVER.

Also, you will end up wasting HOURS of your life trying to retrieve your items, reconfiguring your computer, and FINALLY backing up all those thousands of pictures and videos.

How do I know all of these fabulous tidbits of information, you ask?

Because I have 1 computer (with all of my business stuff on it) that I am a good girl and keep everything backed up and virus program installed and functioning.

I have a laptop however, in which I use for internet, blogging and picture storage.... and because I am stubborn and lazy when it comes to stuff like this... as I was happily surfing the net last night on said laptop, it was infected with a virus.

After spending some time with the nicest Geed Squad guy on the planet this morning, I discovered that it was a rather tame virus, which didn't delete my hard-drive, but hid and locked everything so that I cannot find it or access it.

In lieu of giving them $350 to restore my computer I am spending hours of my precious and valuable time that, quite frankly I do not have to spare, trying to fix it myself.

Yikes.

This will be a once in a lifetime deal, people. I've learned my lesson. Amen.

In addtion, I had MANY blog posts already done and waiting to be posted on the laptop. They are gone. So, there may be another bout of blog silence until I can get this figured out.

Grrrrrr.

Happy Birthday MeMe!

Happy Birthday MeMe! Your KRAZY grandchildren wanted to send you this special birthday message :)

15 Months

I haven’t really written many adoption update posts lately. Mostly because it’s impossible to put how I’m feeling into words. And sometimes, I just can’t make myself go there and to try to put it into words.  But, I’ve been getting lots of questions lately, and thought it was time for an update and to try to put at least a few thoughts about how we’re doing into writing.

Today marks 15 months on our adoption agency’s wait list. As of the end of October, the average wait time for families to wait for a referral was estimated to be 16.5 months.

If this holds true for us, we are finally really getting close now—just 6 weeks away from that! As the average wait time has changed through the months, we’ve never been less than 2 months away from the average, so there is definitely a sense of renewed hope. We are still praying and believing every day that it will be even sooner than that though! :)

We are excited and anxious as we wait for that phone call.

If you will remember, when we first announced our plans to adopt, the details included that fact that the entire adoption, from start of paperwork to having our child home, was supposed to be anywhere from about 15-18 months.

Here we are, 15 months on waitlist and almost 19 months since we started the paperwork…. and we haven’t even seen her little face yet. Much less court…and Embassy… Sigh… this is shaping up to be nearly twice the time that we had expected.

I’m not going to lie, the waiting has been really, really hard. But, it’s also been really good and beautiful too. We (all 5 of us!) have seen our faith grow so much.

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

The Word of God is TRUTH. All of it. And this has been so true for us. We’ve felt Him close in these times of uncertainty. I am so thankful for that. I can look back and see how He had His hand on us and in different situations. I didn’t always see it at the time, but looking back I can.

Among other things, I’ve been given ministry opportunities that I wouldn’t have had if she was here and I was in “full time mom mode”. I’m so thankful for each opportunity that God gives me to encourage and love on others. I feel like I’m most “me” when I’m serving.

I know that God is preparing our hearts for our little girl each day, so we’ve had extra preparing! I trust that his timing is perfect and am convinced that there is a specific child that he has for us to parent and it’s not just by random coincidence.

I know that the other side of the waiting isn’t going to be easier and I know that once the adoption process is complete and she is home—it won’t be easy then either. (Have I ever mentioned that I REALLY need my sleep…???) BUT- I know that God is already equipping me to be her mother and that he will continue to do so as we go through the ups and downs of life.

The kids are handling all of it really well. They still pray for her every night and talk about her every day. They are still really excited about having a little sister. There have been times that they’ve really questioned the process and why it’s taking so much longer than we thought it would. We have been totally truthful with them about each step and they know exactly what’s going on and the reasons. Mostly, we have had so many teachable moments with them. Through every step and every bump and every milestone, we’ve talked with them about God’s perfect plan, His faithfulness, trusting in Him alone, what it means to have faith, how to find our hope and joy in the Lord. Of course, they don’t grasp or understand everything, but any chance we get to talk about these things with them, we are. It’s a daily thing, really.

Also, we are really busy most of the time. With all 3 kids in school and with homework and extra-curricular activities. Mixed in with their Mamma and Daddy running a business—we stay BUSY. I’m not gonna lie—being busy sure does help the days to pass by just a little quicker.

I don’t want time to pass by too quickly because we have so much to enjoy about life NOW, but looking at it in the context of waiting for our girl… it helps :)

We have SO many family members and friends who are so anxiously awaiting her arrival into our family. Literally hundreds of people. She is going to be SO loved. I just can’t wait to be able to introduce her to everyone who has been praying for her and loves her.

My heart swells to think of what it will be like to finally be able to share some news other than, “we’re still waiting”…..

So, there it is. A few thoughts on how we’re doing. Not sure if any of this made sense as it rambled out of my head, but it is what it is I guess. I’m planning to head to bed early tonight and spend some extra time in the Word and prayer.

Thanks so much to everyone for your continued prayers for our family. We are so blessed and so loved.  I promise that we are so thankful for that and do not take any of it for granted.

Braden on Shakespeare

All of the 5th grade GT (gifted & talented) students in the school district recently put on a Shakespeare Festival. Each elementary school participated and it lasted 2 nights and 2 1/2 hours each night. That’s a lot of Shakespeare!

Each school’s 5th grade class chose which play they were going to do. They were limited by time, so only did certain scenes of the plays.

Braden’s group did a scene from Macbeth. He played the part of Banquo.

While the theater arts may not be his most favorite thing in the world, we thought he did a great job! It was fun to watch him perform!

He makes his entry about 3:30 into the video. He is wearing the green vest.

Grandparents Day

My Dad, aka Papa was able to make it to Grandparents Day at the kids’ school this year. We were thankful that he was working in our area that day and he could be there!

He and I sat with each of the kids as they had their lunch and also got to go see their classrooms and meet their teachers.

In Gracie’s classroom, after lunch their teacher was helping with another class across the hall for a few minutes, so PaPa even sat on the floor with the kids and read a book to them :)

Me and the kids were glad you got to come Papa!

Labor Day Trip to Tulsa

Braden had a soccer tourney in Broken Arrow over Labor Day.

We left right after the kids got out of school on Friday, checked into the hotel and headed for the Cheesecake Factory for dinner AND we each got our own piece of cheesecake. We usually share, but we had been go,go,go, crazy busy and pretty stressed—so we threw caution to the wind and splurged. And it was worth every penny (AND calorie!) My favorite is Vanilla Bean. Braden (our chocoholic) got the Hershey’s Special one. The other 3 got original. We all had some to take back to the room and eat the next day too :) Except Mamma…. I might have eaten my ENTIRE piece at the dinner table. And I may or may not have thought I was going to throw up on the way to the car because my belly was SO full. To make it a little better, I ordered something off of the “skinnylicious” menu and I only ate 1/2 of the dish JUST SO I could enjoy that entire piece of cheesecake I’d been dreaming about. But I paid for it for the next hour with a stomach ache :)

All of these pics were taken with my iphone. We only got the good camera out at the soccer field that weekend.

Waiting for our food

If these 3 were any more handsome, I don’t know what I’d do…

Sissy was COZY on her little rollaway bed.

Boys playing playstation in their beds before bedtime.
Thanks for the gorgeous face, Braden :) And Rhett looks possessed by the game! Yikes!

Playing putt-putt at the hotel before we had to leave for the first game on Saturday.

Gracie teaching Daddy and Braden some ballet positions before we left :) We decided they’d better not quit their day jobs…

Practicing her “dive” :) This was the first time she was jumping into the deep end with no life jacket and swimming to the side by herself. Growing.Up.Too.Fast.

The loot B scored at the vendor tent after the games on Day 2. Spoiled.Rotten.

Rhett got his first very own pocket knife at Bass Pro. He was so proud of it! Too bad he put it in the pocket of some athletic shorts just a few days after he got it and lost it somewhere…  good thing we went with a cheaper one. Told him he has to buy his next one with his own money…

Since Monday was Labor Day and we didn’t have work or school, we stayed at the hotel on Sunday night too. We ate a nice meal, hung out at the hotel and left for home the next day after we checked out at noon.

We love being able to travel for soccer. It gives us a nice excuse to escape the real world for 2 or 3 days at a time. We can reconnect as a family as we all coexist in a small space. We always have so much fun and lots of extra snuggling and special time with the kids.

Getting away from the normal routine from time to time is always such a great thing!

Costumes 2011

My kids did a great job picking out what they wanted to dress up as for Halloween this year. I had fun helping them get all of the elements picked out and put together.

Hello Kitty Ballerina

Slash. The Legend.

And Napoleon Dynamite himself.

The boys went with some great friends to their church’s Trunk or Treat on Sunday night. I was told that there were over 200 kids there and “Slash” won funniest costume :) I thought it was pretty authentic myself.

And Napoleon… we laughed so hard we couldn’t hardly keep a straight face every time he got into character. And the dance. I tried so hard to get him to perform the dance moves on camera, but it was a no go. Let me tell you—the boy’s got moves :)

Little Miss Kitty has a stuffed Hello Kitty ballerina and she wanted to be just like her, so that’s what we did! She was especially proud of the bag I got her to put her candy in. I love that she's easy to please.