Friday, July 15, 2011

Vacation 3- Family Pics

I’ve always wanted to take beach pictures like this. I’m so thankful that we got our chance!

We took these ourselves with our own camera. For the pictures of all of us together, Jason and I took turns setting the timer and running back into the picture :)

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When we were all done getting the shots I really wanted to get, we just played around with the camera for a while.

Rhett took this one. We were laughing so hard… he directed us to pose like this and it CRACKED us up!

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And we had fun being silly when Braden got behind the camera too :)

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I’ll leave  you with a few more of the fun ones that we ended our evening with.DSC_0428

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Thursday, July 14, 2011

Vacation 2

Day 2 started with letting Mamma sleep in!

Daddy took the kids for a morning walk on the beach.

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Beach Day 2 there was lots of fun in the sand.

First up, big sand castle fort!

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Almost done!

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Here’s Gracie walking thru her princess castle. She even had seashells decorating each tower.

Next up: Burying Rhett in the sand!

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He decided to sit up and he asked his Daddy to make him a back rest :)

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L-O-V-E

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What a WONDERFUL day!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Please Help This Family

Please take a few minutes and go to my friend Ashley's blog and follow the links to help the Ward family bring their little one home.
Thank you!

Monday, July 11, 2011

11 MONTHS

Well… I never thought I’d have an “11 months on the waitlist” post. But, here it is. 2 days ago, we hit the 11 month mark. Looks like there will be a few more of these before we get our referral. Hoping and praying that it is no more than a few!

BUT. My God is in control. He has a perfect plan and I’m trusting in HIM alone to unite us with our little girl.

WE ARE READY. Beyond ready. But we are trying to wait as best we know how.

Some days are easier than others. Some days are just really hard.

I’ve read this on other blogs before, but I think it bears repeating:

Adoption is not for sissies!

We are praying for our sweet girl! There are SO many people praying for her—and for that we are SO grateful.  We love her so much already and can’t wait to see her sweet little face……..

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Vacation 1

At the beginning of June, Jason was able to take off work for a few days and we made a quick trip down to Gulf Shores for a few days.

On the road!

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Gracie started running a fever and complaining of a sore throat the night before we left. I was able to get her into the Urgent Care clinic right before they closed and even though her strep test came back negative, since she was running over a 103 temp and we were going out of town, they went ahead and gave her some meds.

She was still running a high fever when we left the next day, but she seemed to be feeling ok other than that.

We got about 10 miles down the road and she started throwing up. Poor thing! Here she is after she threw up. You can tell she wasn’t feeling too hot. We decided not to put clothes back on her while we were just riding in the car, because we didn’t want to ruin another set of clothes.

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Thankfully, she didn’t throw up any more the rest of the entire trip and she acted like she felt ok even though she was running a fever even with her meds.

14.5 hours later, we made it! View standing in the living room. HEAVEN!

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Rhett didn’t want to do anything but lounge on the balcony!

DSC00009 Can’t say that I blame him! Jason and I fell asleep on the lounge chairs holding hands the first night we were there.

Yes, those silly children belong to me.

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FIRST BEACH DAY!!!

Gracie woke up with  NO fever!! Praise the Lord!

I kept my burn covered up the whole time! I wasn’t risking sun burning that brand new skin!

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Panoramic view from my beach chair. Heaven.

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I got all excited when Jas found a crab. Bummed when I realized the poor guy was dead.

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Taking a little break from the sun.

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Playing in the sand!

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Her Sand Castle Day 1. Putting water in her moat :)

The boys LOVED boogie boarding.

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Daddy played in the water with them the whole time.

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Gracie was tired of the beach and ready for the pool by that afternoon.

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I found me a nice, shady spot and enjoyed watching her play in the water.

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This concludes the pics of Day 1. We could’ve stayed there forever. We LOVE the beach!

Saturday, July 2, 2011

A little boys purchases

Anytime Rhett has money, it burns a hole in his pocket. He’s recently had bday money as well as some cash from the tooth fairy. She pays pretty well here at our house… :)

One day, we were in the mall and  he purchased these cool blue shades :)

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Another day, he really had some cash to blow.

Here were his choices:

A new hat.

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Yes, Razorback fans. That is what you think it is. The boy hasn’t stepped foot in Texas in his life. For whatever reason, he’s always said the Longhorns was one of his favorite teams.

We get to the hat store for him to buy a NY Yankees hat (what he wanted to go to the store for in the first place) and left with this. I figured I’d take a ribbing for it (from his daddy and his grandma mainly…) but I thought, “Hey- it’s his own money. It’s a stinkin’ hat. What does it really matter??”

So, I approved the purchase. And I got ribbed :)

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And my favorite of his purchases. Some Converse All-Stars.

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I told him I wasn’t buying new shoes until August when we’re getting ready for back to school. It’s my rule. Who wants to go back to school in ratty used up shoes? And I’m not buying 2 pairs of tennis shoes back to back for no good reason. There are plenty other things I’d rather spend our money on! The boy loves shoes and frequently will use his own money to buy cool shoes.

He wears them all the time and loves them. Plus, he’s just as cute as a button in them :)

In the summer, my kids have daily/weekly chores that they do and, in turn, the earn an allowance.They always have to keep their rooms clean and put away their own laundry. But in the summer, they also fold and put away towels and socks. Switch loads of laundry, dishes, trash, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, dusting and even cleaning their bathrooms- toilets and all. They really do work pretty hard for young ones. (They are always too busy during the school year, so they don’t do as many chores then. They don’t get any compensation for chores done during the school year.) If the work is done satisfactorily and without whining throughout the week, they each receive the dollar amount equal to their age on pay day.

That $8/week will surely be burning a hole in his pocket all summer! In an effort to help him not buy $8 worth of junk every week on payday, I’ve been withholding his pay the past couple weeks. I don’t often carry cash… so, I’ve been keeping a running tab and I will go get some cash soon so I can pay them what I owe them. The bright side is that I’m helping him save up a little bit more so maybe he can get something nicer!

Update since I wrote this post: we went camping and I gave him his back pay of $20 the 2nd day we were there. He tried not to spend it all and just bought one thing at a time from the gift shop. But, by the time our 2 days was up, he was B.R.O.K.E :)

Friday, July 1, 2011

God speaks thru boo-boos

While Braden was at church camp, he scraped his finger on the concrete ground two different times while playing in a ga-ga ball tournament. He said it bled and it hurt really bad.

He held it up and he said, it’s kinda shaped like the state of Louisiana.

I took a look at it and said, “Oh my gosh! Turn it this way. Now what does it look like?”

He looked up at me and smiled and said, “No way!”

Do you see it?

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His boo-boo was in the shape of Africa!

I told him that God used his pain to speak to us!

We’ve all been a little discouraged lately. When we started our adoption journey, the average time to wait for a referral was 8-9 months and we thought we might even have a chance at having her home just after school started this next year. Now the average wait time for a referral is around 14 months.

We have been on the waitlist about 10 1/2 months. We’re getting closer! But, it still seems like we’ve been waiting for her for so long.

The kids still pray for her every night and it just warms my heart that  although they are discouraged and asking questions about why it’s taking so long, they’re not giving up hope either.

How can you miss someone so much without ever even knowing them? I don’t know, but we do. There’s definitely something missing in our home and it’s her.

So, when we saw this “sign”, we talked about it and we decided to take it as God saying, “Hang in there. She’s coming. I’m watching over her. I’ve got it all under control. I love you.”

Thank you, Lord, for speaking to us!

Braden thought it was SUPER COOL that this happened to him and he’s been begging me to blog about it and tell people ever since. He has a copy of this picture in his room to remind him of it.

He’s a proud big brother and follower of Jesus!