I thought you were adopting?

“You’re pregnant? I thought you were adopting!”

This is something that we’ve heard quite a bit, since announcing my pregnancy. The answer is “Yes, I am, and Yes, we are!” We are expecting baby number three, and we are still adopting. We are very much anticipating the birth of our third baby, but we have had to put our adoption on hold until sometime after the baby’s birth due to regulations at our adoption agency.

This came as no surprise, as we had been informed that this was part of their policy since we began the process. This seems to be a standard policy for most adoption agencies. It is designed to give each baby in your home (whether biological or adopted) adequate time to be nurtured and bond to the family, as each baby deserves.

Even though we knew this, it was still difficult to hear that we would be taken off the waiting list. Our hearts are invested in this adoption, we have been obedient to the Lord, and he has provided everything needed to complete the process thus far. We know this is something we are called to, so it hurts to see your calling and dream put on hold. But that’s all that has been done, it has been put on hold. We are still adopting, it just won’t be as soon as we had hoped. God knows each child that belongs in our home, and he will place them here when He they will most glorfiy Him.

Ecclesiastes 3:11-12 tells us:

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

All of this is beautiful for its own time…the birth of the sweet child that God is forming within me, and the adoptions and births of any children God plans to place in our home in the future. It’s ALL beautiful. We don’t see the big picture the way God sees it. I’m sure that one day we will look back at this chapter in our lives and have a little more understanding of what God was up to. He sees it, beginning to end.

Right now I am just so thankful for the life inside of me, and enjoying every moment of this pregnancy. I’m thankful that I am blessed to experience both pregnancy and, one day, adoption as well. We will celebrate this growing life, while continuing to pray for our children that will be brought into our family through adoption.

It's been a long time

It has been months and months since I have last blogged (almost a year I think), and I've really been missing it. Things have just gotten really busy and I feel like I don't need to be blogging if there is laundry to do, or the house isn't spotless. But there will always be laundry to do, and my house may NEVER be spotless.

I enjoy blogging. Sometimes you just need a place to get your thoughts out, especially when most of your daily conversations revolve around dragon's (each member of our family currently a different type of dragon. Some breath fire, some breathe ice, others breathe monkeys and even trees! I love the imagination of a three year old).

We've had a few changes in our family that I plan to be blogging about soon! The biggest change is that I'M PREGNANT!!! We are expecting "Thing 3" around December 4th, and could not be more excited! However the pregnancy has effected the adoption time line, but more on that later!

For now, I'm glad to be back!

Teaching Shapes {part one}

This week we have been working on our shapes. Thing 1 was already familiar with his shapes, so this was not brand new information.

When first introducing the shapes, we started out with the basic shapes; square, triangle, circle, diamond, and rectangle. I used shapes that are plain white, with a black outline, so that I could isolate the concept of "shapes".

The first activity that we did was cutting and pasting shapes.

You will need:

Basic Shapes Print Out

Glue (I pour it into a small cup)

Q-tip (spreading the glue)

Sheet of construction paper (something that is not white)

I cut out the shapes (if you child is older you could allow him to do it himself), because I wanted them to still resemble the shape that I was teaching!

I showed Thing 1 one shape at a time. Handing him the circle, saying "This is a circle". Then allowing him to trace the circle with his fingers. Then he glued the circle on the paper, using the q-tip to spread the paint. Once he pasted the circle on the paper, we traced it again, saying "this is a circle".

We continue this with all of the shapes. When he had finished gluing all of the shapes, we went back and talked about and traced each shape again!

The finished product:

He glued all of these without any help from me!!! I'm a proud mama!!

Here are a few tips for teaching shapes to small children:

Teach one concept at a time (resist the urge emphasize the color AND the shape)

Say the name of the shape, while the child traces the shape.

Keep it simple (there's no need to talk about how the square is made of of four right angles just yet)

Adoption Profile Book

We just finished our adoption profile book, and it should be in production as I type! If you are not familiar with the adoption process, the profile book is like a Family Album on steroids. You include pictures of your family, friends, church, and home. You include some facts about things that you like to do as a family, and things that make your family yours. Yeah...its a pretty big deal!

While putting the book together, there were times that I felt that I was "marketing" our family. Part of you wants to make sure that your book is "better" than the others. God quickly dealt with me about those feelings. Adoption isn't a competition. If anything we are united with the other families by a shared calling. We should be praying for each other as we go through this process. God is the one who places children in families, not a birth mother or agency.

The most difficult part of creating the profile book was writing the "Dear Birth Parent" letter. It's so hard to write to someone that you have never met, that will be making such a life changing decision (for ALL of the people involved). You want to convey your gratitude and respect for this woman who put her child's life above her own, but I don't think there are words that can even do that. I found myself looking for examples of other birth parent letters that couple's have written before. But in the end, after much prayer, I just had to write from the my heart. I trust that God will use my words to whoever it is that is carrying our child.

So that's where were are now. The book in production. It should be at the agency by the end of next week, and they will begin showing it to the mothers.

Waiting to Adopt

While I was pregnant with Thing 2, my husband and I began to feel a strong calling to add to our family through adoption. We began talking about it, praying about it, and searching out what God's word says about adopting. We knew we felt like we should adopt, but once we began studying scriptures about it, we knew we were going to adopt.

We shared the news with a few people. Some were supportive and others were what some may call "realists", providing reminders that "adoption is expensive", "there's so much paper work involved", and my favorite "you don't know what your going to get" (yes we do....it's called a CHILD)! When God calls you to something, all of those things become irrelevant. We didn't (and still don't) have a plan perfectly written out, step by step, before us, but we had enough.

We knew that we were supposed to adopt, so we began to act on what we did know. We began searching out our options, which ultimately led us to domestic adoption (within the country) from a private agency. We prayed, researched, and received confirmation about a specific agency, made the call, and began the process. There was paperwork to complete, classes to take, books to read, questions to answer, and checks to be written. Amazingly, none of this was overwhelming. I think that it could have been, but knowing that God was in this, allowed us to see the big picture. It allowed us to see that little hand wrapping around our fingers instead of stack of papers to fill out. We saw a child being raised to fear the Lord, instead of bouncing in and out of foster homes and prison. We saw the promise of life, instead of money leaving our bank account. God showed us the eternal picture, and that was enough to act on.

Now we are just waiting and expecting. It's sort of like being pregnant....except we don't know the due date. What's a due date anyway! My first was a week early, and my second was two weeks late. Due dates don't really tell us much as we want them to. Psalms 68:6 tells us that "God places the lonely in families". Thing 3 will be added to our family when God sees fit. We don't need a due date. For now, we are just waiting. Waiting and praying for our baby and the courageous woman who chose to give him or her life.

Our ways are not His ways

I hear giggles coming out of my bedroom, and hear a little voice saying, "tail, tail". I know exactly what that means. Thing 1 is "playing" with the dog. By playing I mean squeezing, wrestling, and tail pulling. Our dog, Caesar, is a 9 pound, hairless Chinese Crested that scared of his own shadow. He will literally go flying across the room at the mere sight of a plastic, grocery bag.

While I know that Caesar is not very likely to bite or nip at the boys for playing rough, he is still a dog. So, I go into my room, and get Caesar, and let Thing 1 continue playing. Thing 1 was a little upset about this. (on a side note: he "used his words" instead of throwing a fit. this is something that we have really been working on lately). He didn't understand why I took his wrestling partner from him.

This got me thinking. How much are we (grown ups) like this when it comes to our own lives. Sometimes God keeps something (or takes something) from us for our own good. We become like whiney little toddlers, fussing and complaining, when God was doing this because He loves us. Isaiah 55:8 tells us, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways", declares the Lord".

Our thoughts and our ways are so different from God's thoughts and ways. We don't know what He is up too. We always know what He is protecting us from, or preparing us for. So, next time God keeps something from me that I really want, I will try think about this, and realize that He has something better for me. Hopefully, I'll "use my words" instead of throwing a tantrum, and trust God to work in my life.

Getting Crayon out of Clothing

PLUS

EQUALS....

a

great

big

mess

If you have kids, or just really like to color, you have probably done this or will do this in the future. You know...wash and DRY something with a crayon in the pocket, leaving a very colorful surprise for you when you open the dryer door.

It has recently happened to me...TWICE. you would think I would have learned the first time. But who REALLY has time to check all of the pockets when they are doing the laundry. I'm doing good to DO laundry period!

The good news is that you don't have to turn all of those clothes into rags for dusting. You can get it out with simple combination of things you probably have around your house already.

1 cup of white distilled vinegar

1 cup of borax

Laundry detergent (i just used the correct amount for the load size I was doing).

I let the washer fill up and let it soak for several hours, and then let it finish its wash cycle. All of the crayon came out!!! If you are wondering, there was no vinegar smell left behind either.

And....borax is like the superman of house hold cleaners. You can do just about anything that with stuff....it even removes urine smells fabric {great during the potty training phase}!!!