Hello, November!

November is finally here!!!  Yay!!!!  I love November!  It might be my most favorite month, with December close behind!  There are so many great things about November!  The cool weather, fire pit nights, football, Jerry's birthday, our Anniversary, it is National Adoption Month, our nephew is being born!  Did you hear those???  First off the cool weather is having a bit of a delay.  This was the weather forecast for the week.  Yes the first week of NOVEMBER!!!!  

Then Jerry's birthday and our Anniversary!  It is so hard to believe that that 11 years has gone by!  I am so lucky to go through this adventure with Jerry!

National Adoption Month is HERE!!!!  There are so many fun activities going on this month for adoptive families.  I'll be talking about some this month that we are participating with!  I'll be talking about some of our favorite local groups and people here in the local adoption world!  Stay tuned!!! 

AND.....

In case you haven't heard!!!!  Amy got her promotion this summer, I am so looking forward to holding my favorite boy!  He has no idea how much he is going to be spoiled by his Aunt Brooke!  Mac you are so loved! 

If you have followed me on Facebook over the years you know every November participate in the 30 days of thanks!  Those of you that know me know I try to show my thanks and appreciation on a daily basis.  I do love that we can bring attention to being thankful!  We should be thankful for our blessings everyday, NOT just in November!  Won't you join me in taking time to thank the one who blesses us daily!

Today I am thankful for the One who blesses us.  We have a wonderful Father in Heaven who is always there for us.  He knows our path and what our future holds.  We need to keep the faith in Him.  God continues to bless our family daily!  I can't even image where we would be if we didn't have Him.  What are you thankful for today?

Check back for fun November happenings! 

When you ask God you better be ready!

When Jerry and I decided we wanted to pursue adoption we asked God to use this as a ministry.  Use our journey to help others,  use our story to encourage and give hope to those in the same boat as us, give us the ability to help answer questions of those who wonder why we are doing what we are doing.        Basically just use us!! 

God is doing it!  Adoption has become my passion.  Adoption has become my family.  Adoption has become the face of my beautiful daughter.  Adoption has become my platform.   I want to be able share our journey with others.  There are so many horror stories out there about DHR adoptions, and to be honest

 I thought we were going to be one of them.  And then everything changed. God broke our hearts to prepare us for His ultimate plan for our family.

I received an amazing phone call on Thursday with a great honor asked of us.  I can't wait to share the exciting news with you and how God is using our family!  We are humbled to be asked to be a part of this event.  More info on that soon.  This event will be part of a local National Adoption month celebration.  Did you know:

Isn't that awesome!  A whole month dedicated to tslking about adoption!  You might not be called to adopt, but you can help.

    

More on all the exciting things happening in November.   Thank you for being part of our journey.  Thank you for your encouragement.   Are you ready for God to use you?  He is waiting to use you!

92 days or 3 months

How long have you been your current age?  You don't keep up with how many days since your last birthday?  Well I have this year!  No, not because I'm keeping up with my birthday.  Only because we got the best gift possible on my birthday!  It has been 92 days or 3 months since my birthday!

92 days ago all three of our lives changed. 92 days ago our house got a little louder.  92 days ago my heart felt different.  92 days ago our newest member of our family moved in!  I know that legally she doesn't become a Shands until the court date, but in our hearts she has been a Shands since this day!  For those of you that know the process know that she has to be in our home for 90 days before we can apply for adoption.  Our official placement date was July 6th, so this week we will be able to make our official request for adoption and then we just wait for a court date.  Then you will be able to see this beautiful girl's face.  I have people all the time ask me when we can share information, her name, her face, well we have to wait till the court date! The picture above was taken on the way home the day she moved in.  On my birthday...isn't God amazing!  I could talk to you for hours about how God has worked in our family and process!  We continued to be blessed!  All 92 days haven't been rainbows and sunshine, but we have grown together!  We continue to learn from each other everyday!  The most important thing is that our love is growing and I see God working in our girl everyday!  Please be praying that our wait for court is in God's timing, yes I would like for it to be quick but God knows what time is best for us!  

Stay tuned for all the fun from today!  We have a very EXCITED girl about her Gotcha Shower at church.  Her Mommy is very EXCITED to all our family and friends!!!  

Update and God speaking through children!

It has been a while since I wrote, but hey I have a little girl taking up my attention now.

Today was Grandparent's Day at our girl's school.  Mom and I went and it was adorable.  They asked for photos and had a cute little slide show, a skit, songs and breakfast.  Our girl was so excited to see her pictures show up on the screen.  Her excitement on so many things makes me heart smile.  

Tonight we were getting ready for bed and our girl cam running in telling me that she was scared and didn't want to sleep in her room.  After talking through everything she was worried about the clowns that are around town and hitting the schools.  Talk on the bus today was about the clowns.  After talking to her about everything we continued with our nightly routine, include our devo from Jesus Today.  My awesome Village Girls gave this to me before we met our girl.  I have to tell you this book was written for us.  So many nights the devo is written for exactly what is going on in our day.  Tonight's devo was about turning your fear and worry over to God.  This is a small thing, but seeing her face light up as we were reading just after talking about this very thing.  Thank you Lord for working and giving us an example of how you work.  I can't tell you how many times God has done things like this.  God continue to amaze me with our girl.  I wish I could talk to everyone about how God is working and answering prayers. Maybe one day I will put something together, right now you will just have to settle for my thoughts.  

This event was too cute/amazing not to share.  At the end of last year our children's minsters daughter (who is adopted) came running up to me and asked me where my daughter was?  (This was while we were waiting to find out what was happening with Susan) I told Juliet we didn't have a daughter.  She told me that we did, she dreamed about playing with her.  I told Juliet to go find her and bring her to me, she ran off to find her.  I thought it was a strange and painful (at the time) conversation.  Fast forward to this past Sunday.  Juliet came running down the isle quietly screaming our girls name.  She slide in to sit with her.  God used Juliet to speak to me when I didn't want to hear it.  I wish she was a little older so I could sit and ask her about the girl she dreamed about.  

Here is the point...God is amazing, God is faithful, God works in His own timing.  Don't ever think that something He is doing is too small.  

God did the most amazing thing tonight!!!

First of all I guess I should update this strictly as documentation, because I know anyone who reads this already knows that we have our daughter that we will be adopting in our home!  We are so very excited as we still work through the transition, but we all seem to be doing great!  I can't wait to share more with you when we can.

God has been all over this process.  Even when we didn't know what he was doing he did.

I have to tell you about the amazing way God worked tonight.  One of my bests and I went to a journaling class tonight.  We had a great dinner together before hand, we caught up on the week and headed to the class. We were running a tad bit late, but no big deal.  We were walking up and Loren realized she left her Bible in the car, normally these are all things that are not important...but tonight they are.  We went back to the car and I moved it a little closer.  When we got to the class it had already started there were ONLY TWO SEATS LEFT.  So we took our seats upfront in the only seats left and listened to Kasey talk through all the fun journaling things!  We were then free to be creative.  We introduced ourselves to the ladies next to us and started working.  We carried on a little chit chat throughout the night. This was not what God had planned for our night.  Loren and I started talking about adoption stuff and our girls.  We told Alison (the sweet woman sitting NEXT TO ME) that we were both adoption families.  And she said she had just finalized her adoption.  How cool.  God put us all together to have a great conversation...nope that was not it.  I asked if she had friends who had been through adoption of an older child like hers, she said yes.  I mentioned how great it was for us to have Loren in the process and I asked if we could exchange emails.  She said yes.  I asked her to tell me again if they had adopted a boy or a girl?  She said it was a girl, she told us her age and her birthday.  GET YOUR TISSUES.  I started tearing up, I asked her if she minded telling me her name.  She said her daughter's name was Susan!  Same name, same birthday, same child we had been matched with.  They finalized their adoption July 15th!  Remember this post? God sat me next to the mother of the little girl we prayed so hard for.  God sat me next to the woman who's family we prayed so hard for.  God sat me next to the one person I never in a million years thought I would be able to meet.  God was able to show me tonight so many answered prayers.  Alison and I were able to tell each other our sides of the process.  So some skeptics out there might be saying so what, you both happened to be in the same place at the same time...you live in the same area.  WRONG...she lives 45 mins away and just came in for the class tonight, because she is friends with Kasey the woman who owns the art studio.  So tell me again how this is just all happen stance?  I think not.  This has GOD written all over it.  So to all of you who prayed with us that Susan would be in a loving, christian home with wonderful parents....our prayers were answered.  I hope that this is the start of a wonderful friendship for a family who we have been praying for a very long time!  

God took two little girls out of hard circumstances and put them with the families they were supposed to be with.  He has blessed two families and we are now connected forever!

Finally getting around to it....

How many of you have a really great idea and really want to do something that is going to be great, but you forget to do it or haven't had the time.  Well put me in that bucket.  If you are reading this you are aware of our waiting period for our adoption.    I came across this article several months ago.  I thought it would be a great way to help us get through the waiting period.  I don't know about you but these are some of my random thoughts on waiting:  

Honestly I try to wait patiently, but it is hard.  I don't know if I am the only one who has a hard time waiting or not.  But I am trying to not to only wait, but still do something.  Our life does not stop while we wait.  So I had wanted to this cool waiting bucket idea.  I knew immediately that I loved this idea, but wanted to make a few changes to it.  I knew that I wanted our support group to be able to be involved in this amazing gift to our future child.  I also want to pause here and give a DISCLAIMER!!!!!! 

Remember this post????  Remember when we talked about how we can't share many details during this process.  I know when I start to post something or do something people start to get excited and we thank you for your excitement.  We know you are all with us in the journey and are praying for us.  But we can't share everything with you at this time.  :)  I know I know, but it is the way it has to be.  Just know that God is still in control and He is working.  DISCLAIMER OVER!!!!

Here is how you can help and be involved.  I am sending out an email on the adaptation of the bucket idea.  If you do not get the email, but would like to be involved please let me know.  

We cannot thank you for all your prayers. It means so very much!!!

Battling Emotions....

Have you ever walked around not knowing which emotion is going to come out?  That has been us the last day and a half.  This will not be a long post, mainly there is not a lot to say nor do I know the words to write something profound, motivational, inspirational, etc.  

Anger

Frustration

Confusion

Love

Sadness

Peace

Happiness

Hurt

Grief

We heard back from DHR this week and was notified that the child we had been matched with had been place in a new foster home.  This foster family plans on adopting the child.  

We know that God is in control of the situation, We know that he has a plan.  We also have a lot of unanswered questions.  My brain is pretty much mush at this point.  We are thankful that our prayers were answered that if this child could not be with us they would be in a good place and the transition would be smooth.  It sounds like it was.  So we praise our Lord for that.  

It is a strange feeling.  I feel like we are grieving another child we didn't get to meet.  This time is a little different, we had a picture of this child, we knew the back ground of this child, we had a room ready for this child to help us decorate and make their own. While this child was never ours there will always be a place in my heart that will be dedicated to this child.  

We will regroup, pray about it and evaluate what our next steps should be and where we should be looking.  I do not think that God is done with our journey.  We will continue to pray for God's guidance in our journey.  We are thankful that all of you are on this journey with us.  The prayers you send up on our behalf are comforting.  Your messages, hugs, and understanding helps to keep us moving.