March Number

Our official March number is...

One of my favorite toys when I was about 7 or 8 was the magic 8 ball...to ask a question and get an answer right away (no matter if it was right or wrong!)... Oh how I'd love a magic eight ball right about now =) Of course, we would miss this faith journey if we knew when, where, what, who in all aspects of our lives! So we continue to wait, learn, trust, surrender, ask questions and simply wait for the time when the answers will be revealed! And you know what? As soon as we get our questions answered we will have more and He will be ready for us to lay those down at His feet too!

We got the sweetest present a couple weeks ago from Mike and Heather! I just love it and it's all Hungry Caterpillar. Diaper changing goodies, bib, burp cloths, texture toy... too cute! Can't wait to have a little baby bottom to use it with.

A few things that I've been really praying about lately is our little guy's birth family and especially his birth mom who is probably going through a lot right now. A lot of people don't realize there are two stories to adoption and our joy and answer to prayer is going to be someones deep loss. There is a lot of grief for all involved including the birth family, our son, us... please join us in prayer as we prepare our hearts for our little guy's story and how we will be instrumental in allowing God to use us to help heal his heart, mind, spirit and body.

I've also been praying about our transition plan for when we will be bringing our little guy home (won't be for awhile!) We plan on cocooning for awhile which basically means we will be staying at the house and will be limiting exposing him to new people and places right away. We need to establish the trust and attachment to us first and foremost... this is challenging for me for many reasons. First, we didn't do attachment parenting with the girls meaning I didn't wear them on me, they didn't sleep in our room, we didn't feed on demand, we didn't rush to them at every sound they made, etc. We will need to do things very differently for our son so he knows his needs are and will be met! Second, I'm not someone who likes to stay home =) I'm a go and do person so this will be hard and it will probably get a bit lonely. Third, I've heard from other adoptive families that telling people we need this alone time called cocooning can potentially be something that can be hurtful and they've gotten very negative reactions to it. I REALLY don't like hurting people's feelings or seem ungrateful for people's support and interest. Almost too my fault I care a lot of what people think of me. We have been so blessed by so many and can't wait for you all to be a part of the rest of his life! We do have to be mindful of this time as it will affect how he bonds and attaches in his future relationships - he will be our number one priority. I will write more about this when we get closer!

Ok - last one and if you've gotten this far you will be SO excited to hear I've been praying about whether or not to induce lactation or not (see aren't you glad you kept reading?). I'm part of an adoptive mom's breastfeeding group and learning a lot. I want to be doing it all for the right reasons and above all to do it for his benefit and what it best for him! Praying for wisdom and discernment in this area!

Alright - thanks for hanging in this long. I don't get to share a lot of this with people and this is such a great way to express myself, inform a lot of people at once and to ask you all for prayer!! Please pray that we get our referral call and get a court date by August so that we don't get caught in the court closures. If we don't get a court date in August or before we won't be traveling for the first time until November which means he probably won't be home by Christmas. Just thinking that makes my heart heavy but I know that although I'd like a magic eight ball, I'm much better putting my life in our almighty Father who can work miracles and move mountains!

October's official Number (yes, in November)

Back on Oct. 28th we got our October number update from AGCI

Sadly this is the number we posted the last time I did a number image but that doesn't mean things aren't happening! There has been a ton of great news this week for AGCI families with first court dates, embassy dates, MOWA letters finally being produced after months of waiting, news that people are really advocating for the children in the midst of southern orphanage closures, etc. We actually had moved to 15 but got bumped back up as a family before us lost their referral and was added back onto the boy list. I don't know all the details of how or why but it just breaks my heart to hear that. Again, not sure the situation so hopefully it meant the birth family was able to support and raise him in a loving and safe environment after all. But alas! We continue to wait and wait and wait...

I look at the ticker on our blog right now and it says we've been in process for 1 year, 7 months and 1 week. That's two pregnancies right there. And we've been on the wait list for 1 year, 1 month, 2 weeks and 2 days (not that I'm keeping track or anything!) So yes, when I look at the numbers it seems like forever but I know it could be much longer than we will eventually be waiting. I've been a little down about it this week as we approach the holidays. When we first started this process 19months ago we thought he would for sure be home by Christmas. That obviously won't be happening but as always I try to trust God's plan and timing to be better than our own. It still doesn't make it easy.

As we've been waiting this past month we started doing a few things for his room! The girls, Neil and I painted some canvas', used a little hot glue and Hungry Caterpillars decals to create these that will hang around his window:






We will continue to get things ready for him little by little but we also continue to get our hearts ready for him as well. Just the thought of getting that call with his name and picture seems so unreal and almost like it's something I just talk about but won't ever really happen. I know that seems so pessimistic but it's true right now. People ask questions and I tell them the process but it's like I'm just going through the motions of telling them... it still just seems so far away at this point. I'm so glad we have the girls to keep us busy and distract us because I know it would be infinitely harder if we didn't have children at home. It's also going to be infinitely harder of a wait after we get that name and first photograph of our son...Please pray with me that we will hear by March or April!

Yesterday Claire out of the blue said to Neil "Dad, I wish tomorrow we'd be #1" - we were talking about it and realizing that the girls don't remember a time that we haven't talked about adoption and baby brother. They are just as ready as we are =)

November #

We got our official November Waitlist number last week and we are...
I can't believe how much movement there was our first 5 weeks on the waitlist!! We started out as 69 but was told a week later we were really 63. That's still 12 spots! Things have slowed down this week as people are now waiting for court and travel dates. I asked if this movement was normal and was told that it's just hit or miss. There are fast months and then SLOW months so we are just counting our blessings. We are THAT much closer to seeing our sweet boys face! Even with all the excitement of referrals, I can't help but remember the families that are losing so much and what the kid's are going through in their experience. I pray for them daily so that they are comforted and find peace knowing that God's hand is in every detail in caring for their sweet ones.

Here's for another great month! Now off to celebrate with our 5th garage sale on Saturday - I can't believe we are doing another one but we continue to be blessed with donations from friends! God continues to show HIS provision for our journey. We have a payment deadline at the end of the month and praying that this garage sale will put us just where we need to be. We are still waiting to hear about our total from the marathon and are not counting on it being available by the 22nd (we know it is at least $3700 if you can even believe that one!) HE IS SO GOOD!

Little Leo

I've started this post over and over and it's one of the main reasons I just haven't been able to blog lately. This past week and a half have been so hard. When one of my childhood best friends, Kristi, lost her sweet little Leo to an accident at his in home daycare, I didn't know what to do. I wanted to be there for her and her husband, Leo in any way I could. Although I've been through a lot of tragic loss, this has been so different. It's been greiving with and for a friend's loss at a whole new level. What a blessing it was to see them the following day at her mom's house. Kate and I went to her and just sobbed and held each other. There were no words that could've taken away their pain but we were able to just BE there. The time Kate, Kristi and I had alone together will be something I will NEVER forget. It was so surreal to see us as grown women all sitting on the couch comforting and experiencing such heart wrenching loss and then remembering us as inseparable little girls so long ago. God has truly blessed us with a connection like no other.

The few days that week were a blur with the small service, the fellowships and the funeral of hundreds. The tears and sadness. But through all this tragedy, it was TRULY amazing to see God's strength just pour into Kristi and Leo. The way they spoke at the funeral was nothing short of a miracle. I sat there just in awe. They continued to always point to Christ and I will never forget them saying that "this will not break us but make us stronger" and "the day little Leo was born redefined us and the day he passed redefined us again" - simply amazing testimony and they all three have touched SO many people's lives through the past two weeks.

Personally, I've had a really tough time. Although I hadn't spent a ton of time with little Leo, Kristi spoke of him constantly. The last time we had them over was back in late June. It was such a memorable day - Kristi asked me if I'd be little Leo's Godmother. I was shocked and SO honored that she asked me to be a prayer warrior for him and them as parents and be a spiritual mentor for him. I hadn't seen him since that day although I had been praying for him a lot. It's really weird how I immediately felt this connection with him. One of the first things Big Leo said when I saw them was "And you were his Godmother. You still ARE his Godmother." It was so sweet of him to say that and meant so much.

I really couldn't blog about "life" until I wrote about everything. Please continue to pray for the Seitz and Oberpriller families. If you are wanting to help out with a donation, the info is on the picture above (click it to enlarge). The pics below are of the first time Claire met Leo. As you can tell, she was in love!

I didn't get any pictures the last time they came to visit us and so sad I didn't but Claire and Eden were just as smitten. He was just learning to really get around and after he left she said "I know what we can name our baby brother! Leo!"

Priorities

Wow - have I really not posted in a week and a half? I just can't seem to catch up these days!! Between teaching, ministry work, garage sale preps, traveling to Austin, dealing with a flea infestation (YUCK!), dr. appointments, half marathon training, being mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend - I am treading water.

In the midst of the past few weeks and through my BSF bible study of the book of Isaiah, I've been truly convicted about my priorities. How am I spending my hours? minutes? seconds? I get so caught up in the busyness of life and checking off things on my to do list at times. Things. And although most of these things are positive including the people I love dearly in my life, they are becoming my top priority. I am not reveling in God's word daily and putting my relationship with Him first. I am making idols of my things - even in ministry and serving - it's about doing and being busy a lot of the time and not being still and just simply BEING in HIS presence. I have fallen to idolatry as I've let other things come before my Lord and Savior. No wonder I feel like I'm treading water!! I ask for your prayers as I am struggling in having my priorities reflect my heart. It's a daily choice I must make and He is longing for me to come to Him with all my heart, all my soul and all my strength.

And because I can't not post for this long and not share a picture, here is a cute one of my sweeties! I hope to post this next week about so much - Eden's 22 month, our unofficial waitlist number (#68!), fleas, big girl Claire, our trip to Austin, our garage sale Saturday, my mom's amazing wreaths/baskets, marathon team runners - I'm so behind!

Homestudy COMPLETE!

(Don't miss the sponsorship opportunity in the post right before this one! We are looking for tax-deductible donations for our Half marathon on Oct. 23rd. We would love any support you could give! Details are all in the post)

It's official!! Just got an email from our home agency saying that AGCI approved everything and they are sending notarized copies of the home study TODAY!! I can hardly believe it! We started our first home visit back June 21st so it's been a long road to get it all together with revision and one addition after another.

Our dossier (which is the big paperwork process for our adoption agency) is just waiting for the home study and it will be sent as soon as we get it. Our agency looks at dossiers on Fridays so I'm hoping to get it there by this Friday. That means we might actually be on the wait list by next week some time... I really am in disbelief because paperwork has been our evenings for the past 5 months. Our next paperwork will be USCIS paperwork for immigration and fingerprinting but it's not as extensive - expensive yes but won't be time consuming to complete!

Please say a prayer that we get our home study tomorrow so we can get the dossier in by Friday! Thank you all who have been on this journey with us!

Louisiana

As an LSU Tiger, I love Louisiana - love the people, the culture, the food, the music, the school, the food... not loving the Louisiana background check run around they have me on!! I know that God's hand is in everything and it will be His perfect timing for everything to come together but I am worried and being impatient. As little time as we've even spent on this journey, I know this is just the start of a long wait but I can always ask for your prayers to help us along the way!

Here is the update on LA - After sending in my request the second time, I called August 10th and they said it would be 7-10 more business days to process. This week would've been the week so I called to followup again yesterday. The lady didn't seem to have any information at hand so she asked to call me back. I was concerned that there wasn't something in the system right there for her to tell me. So I waited until 4 p.m. but decided to be persistant and call back. She had forgotten and quickly got information to me after consulting with someone else. She told me that the results had been sent to Lutheran on August 6th (I called August 10th and wish they would've told me that then!) I called Lutheran and they never got it so called LA back and they said they would send a copy - not an original. One more call and Lutheran said a copy would be fine. This is the only piece of paperwork we have been waiting on to complete our homestudy that we started back in May.

Our home agency sent our homestudy this morning to AGCI for review in hopes that they would start the review process knowing that the LA paperwork is now on it's way.

All this to say, please pray that the LA background check gets to Lutheran this time around and that everything was done correctly. Pray that our AGCI review goes well so that everything can move along. We are still working hard on our dossier paperwork and training. Most of all, pray for us to be patient as we know this journey will go just they way God has planned it! As we get further along, we get more anxious to just see our little guy's face.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philipians 4:6

A 21 month old post is soon to come and I can't wait to share our pictures from our zoo trip three weeks ago!

You know you're having a garage sale....

when your kids watch way too much TV and when your living room looks like this...
when your cat doesn't have anywhere else to perch except the coffee table (and you don't care!)...
when your garage looks like this because of amazing people...
and this... (and we've gotten more since this picture!)
when you find sale stickers stuck to your foot...

when you are wanting to eat anything that will make less of a mess...

when you are so excited to see how God is going to work!!

Thank you again to those who donated so much! We aren't expecting to raise as much as the last two but you never know what will happen =) Please pray for a good turn out and for Neil and I to be efficient in our work tonight and setting up tomorrow. We open at 8 a.m. but will probably have people coming around 7:15 or so. That means we'll be setting up around 6! Lots of work but SO worth it!

(on another note, we had our dossier conference call yesterday and it is A LOT of detail! I also finally got my LA background info sent today praying that it was now all done correctly and is going to the right person! More to come on that!)

Praise!

OK - whoever is praying out there for us - THANK YOU!! We finally got our FBI fingerprint records in the mail on Saturday and we were so excited! Claire ran around the yard yelling "Baby brother! Baby brother!" - wish I had that on video! Too cute =)

We submitted the paperwork for our print records back in mid-May because they said it took awhile to get results. They weren't kidding but we are so thankful they are here and already faxed to our home agency to get that much closer to completing our home study!

We are now only waiting for my Louisiana background check and my income verification letter from a CPA. I called LA office today and sadly they said they never received my background request that I sent almost 6-7 weeks ago =( So prayers for a speedy turn around as I have to resubmit via snail mail.

Thanks for all your prayers! We are knee deep in garage sale prep and Craig's list postings. We continue to be blessed by so much!

A moth, a caterpillar and a bite

An eventful day!! We have had this strange cocoon in a crystal light container since July 4th. Neil's parents gave it to us after they had it for two weeks. It was large, off white and you could hear something moving inside of it. A little creepy but kept our interest. Well, today we finally met the mystery resident!! This AMAZING and beautiful moth was already out when we woke up this morning. He quickly flew away after we caught some good pics. I still have to post about Lucy and Tweety - the two swallowtail butterflies that we watched emerge from their cocoons. I'm a little cocoon crazy this summer but loving sharing this with Claire! An incredible science project right in our home!

Next event was creating this caterpillar after seeing my friend Rachel post it on her blog. Thanks for the idea Rachel! Her kids are doing an at home Carle art camp and I just couldn't pass up this easy, fun craft with Claire.

We then had some cousin time at Mimi and Poppa's today and had yummy lunch!! Shannon had gallbladder surgery which went well - didn't get pictures of our lunch time but this foot made it really hard to play at all:

Claire's right foot got an ant bite yesterday (in between her toes) while we were out at the park for playgroup. She didn't even tell me when it happened but I noticed a little swelling later in the afternoon. By the evening, it was large but this morning it was spreading up her foot/ankle and it was feverish. This pic was taken in the morning and when it got worse throughout the day, I took her in to see the dr. He seemed a bit concerned with how it was spreading away from the actual bite site. We came home with an antibiotic to protect it from becoming a staph infection, topical ointment and we are keeping it elevated as much as possible. She also gets to soak it in warm water mixed with bleach. She is loving the extra loving care and carrying around as she can't even get a shoe on her foot. She can't even walk on it. Most of all I think she is loving her extra TV time =)

Last July, Claire had a spider bite on the same foot. Can't believe how similar it looks minus the pussy bite. Please pray for her to heal fast and have a good nights rest. She was up twice last night complaining of pain.

2nd Home Visit

I want to make sure to write down our experience with our second home visit so it might help someone else to know what to expect! A long time ago I searched for blogs about home studies/home visits and didn't find much so here it is. If interested, this was the post on our first home visit. (We are using Lutheran Social Services out of Austin for our home agency)

We were of course up till about 1:00 a.m. getting ready for Mary's visit back on July 9th. Claire and I had made cookies the day before but I couldn't get much done cleaning wise with two munchkins doing their job - playing and making messes! So Neil and I worked hard making sure everything on the inspection list was completed, floors were cleaned, everything dusted, etc.

We weren't as nervous because Mary's visit went really well. She created a very comfortable situation which was such a relief =) She first interviewed Neil while we had lunch and then she did the inspection. This sounds scarier than you think. Mary gave us a list of what should be done in the house before this visit so we were ready:
- She looked in the garage to make sure all paint, bug spray, flammables, etc. were out of reach.
- Checked for no rubbish which was interesting considering we have a garage full of garage sale donations!
- She turned the water on to make sure it got warm/hot. Looked where we kept our cleaning supplies to make sure they were out of children's reach.
- Checked where we kept medicines - I had just switched it to a higher shelf in the cabinet!
- Checked to see where we kept our matches and lighters. She made sure our glass doors was marked with something (we got a wall/window decal) at children's eye level so they wouldn't run into it.
- She went into our attic to make sure everything looked ok.
- Made sure we had a working fire 5lb. extinguisher near the kitchen (we have to get it inspected)
- Asked if we had a fire drill plan and if we practiced regularly (yeah, we couldn't say yes to this one but she said her family is working on this one too!)

She did not look in every crevice of every room with her white glove! Didn't even go into the closets or our bathroom. On the phone she told me "This isn't to see if your house is perfectly clean and if it was, I would be concerned!" That gave me room to relax because she understands as a mom of two herself!

Again, we were prepared for all of this because she gave us a list of what she would have to check when she was here for our first visit. I appreciate her being so thorough as I know she takes her job seriously - having the children's best interest at heart.

After inspection, I put Eden down for her nap and Claire in quiet time. She then interviewed Neil and I together about our relationship - how we met, why we married, how we resolve conflict, our strengths as a couple, how we discipline, how we will keep our son's culture in our home and family, why we are adopting from Ethiopia, etc. It was great to sit and talk together about our lives!

In all, she was here for about 3.5 hours. It was a wonderful experience! She will not do another home visit until our little guy comes home! Hard to believe because that won't be for a long time (we're hoping for sometime during Fall 2011) The next step to completing our home study will be her write up, our approval, Lutheran's approval, still waiting for FBI clearance, still waiting for Louisiana's background check for me, waiting for my income verification paperwork. Once everything is completed, we will need AGCI's approval and then it should be good to go! Then off it will go to get translated and mailed over to Ethiopia's govt. We can't wait for the home study to be completed so we can go ahead with applying for grants and adoption specific loans. Please pray that it will be a speedy process from here.

I will soon be writing about where we are with AGCI. It's been slow moving but it's soon to be getting one step closer!

Hope this helps those who might be looking for home visit experience! I pray it has been as positive for you as it has been for us!

Home Visit

Just got a call today from our social worker and we are having our first home visit MONDAY!! YIKES! I have a lot to do before then! I'm hoping to just get it done fast so that I don't have to think and mull over getting ready for it. They aren't looking for a spotless house but I do have lots of things to work on. If we couldn't do it Monday we were going to have to wait till July and the sooner the better =) Monday is our 7th year wedding anniversary too! Big day to remember!

Please pray that this weekend is productive and that I don't have unnecessary anxiety!

Hague Training

Wow - this week has been IN-SANE!! We were at VBS all morning everyday and everyone is pooped =) Claire and Eden had a great time and my video room was great! I'll share some pictures of Claire sometime soon. On top of VBS, I had two other nights up at the church for worship committee and worship support ministry. Lots of driving but well worth the trips!


Last weekend we were up in Austin again getting our required 10 hours of Hague Training for our home agency. We will also have to do mandatory Hague hours through AGCI but that will be a workbook and online classes. For those who are wondering what Hague Accreditation means click and read. It meant a lot to us to use an agency that was Hague accredited so we were assured that everything was being done ethically and legally correct.


The training was really great! We learned a ton and some of the key points they talked about were the stages of grief for everyone involved in adopting - very eye opening and interesting. No matter what age these kids or babies are they all go through a grienving process that we need to be aware of. They lose everything they know as home, caretakers, friends, surroundings, language, country, etc. I'd love to talk more about this with anyone who is interested! We also spoke about how to integrate our baby's culture into our home and how we will now be a multicultural family, what to expect for medical issues when traveling and upon return, attachment and bonding (we're going to have to do a lot of things differently than we did with the girls!), saw video of some orphanages, child development and SO much more. So glad we got some much info - it was certainly overwhelming trying to remember everything!


One of the other greatest parts was meeting so many different families. We met a couple who are adopting from China and have been in process for 5 years, a single mid-30's woman who was waiting to travel for her court date to Ethiopia for her 26 month old son, another single woman adopting from India, an older couple adopting from Ethiopia, a family adopting their second baby from Korea and a handful of families hosting older kids from Columbia through Kids Save. There was one family there who lives about 10 minutes away from us and I'm so excited to get together with them. They have a 3 and 2 year old and are adopting their third from Thailand. They spent a number of years there as missionaries by running a workout gym. I really clicked with Julie and look forward to connceting with them soon!

A HUGE thank you to Aunt Heather for keeping Eden for us during the day. She had a blast with you! Thank you also for letting us stay with you and the yummy dinner. Our training was only 10 minutes from Mike and Heather's house so we were able to spend time in the evening and Sunday am with Heather. Also, a HUGE thank you to Aunt Shannon and Uncle Steve for letting Claire come stay. She is still talking about her time with her cousins! We couldn't do all this without our families!

OK - off to work more on the garage sale for Saturday. Please pray for a big success and for people to come! We live in a little inlet of our neigborhood so I'm nervous about people not showing up. I've advertised on Craig's list 3 times already and we're putting our signs up tonight to catch people in the area!

Application

Well, this past weekend we got a tiny glimpse of the waiting game we will be playing the next year or so =) We faxed all our supporting documents to AGCI on Thursday for our phone meeting that afternoon and we never heard from our contact. We were pretty bummed - I left a message and emailed. I knew that something must have come up because they have been WONDERFUL about their communication. So, it was pretty much just waiting to hear back and wondering what was going on! Monday we heard from Christy and she had been VERY sick and out of the office Thursday and Friday. I knew it and was not glad to hear she was sick but glad to hear that it wasn't simply because she just didn't call, etc. So....

Good news! She said all our pre-app supporting documents looked good (financial wrksheet, doctor's documentation on Neil's melanoma, Neil's personal statement on his cancer and my personal statement on a handful of counseling sessions I went through back in 2001). YIPEE! So now we filled out the REAL application and will be sending it to them tomorrow along with our fee, a picture of our family and a picture of the front of our house. Then we wait again to hear if we've officially been accepted. Please pray for a timely response so that we can possibly apply for a partnering fundraising opportunity. We will have to be accepted by AGCI by May 1st to get our application in on time =)

Just called two of the social service offices today to compare procedures, costs, etc. so please pray for us as we make the decision of who to use. I'd like to get that started soon because it's a lot of paperwork to be included in our dossier and we can know a date for our home visit. That just makes me nervous thinking about it!

(Here we are sending our app off to Oregon today! Claire was so excited! "So we get our baby brother now?" and I got to tell her "Not for awhile honey but this is our first big step and we're one step closer to him!")

We're adopting!

Oh, if you know me at all, you know that I've been DYING to write this post!! Neil and I have officially decided to start our adoption journey to get our little boy from Ethiopia. Yes, it's true and we're excited, nervous, overwhelmed, humbled, scared, excited and more =) We've always talked about this time in our lives and can't believe that we are actually here.

Well, Neil and I started seriously researching and praying for God's timing back in December. His plan was a little sooner than ours (we thought we'd wait till Eden was 2) but we're going to trust that His will be done. We've been keeping our own private adoption blog to get our feelings, research and journey down and I just opened it to share with friends and family. I'm hoping it will help answer a lot of people's questions. The most common one is "Why Ethiopia?" and I've loved expressing how God has led us to this beautiful country with some amazing people. We've actually written about 7 posts on this question of "why" Ethiopia and just why adopt. I am nowhere near done learning the "why" and look forward to what else God will be revealing to us our journey together. Click http://nklewisadoption.blogspot.com/search/label/why to see all 7 posts if you are interested! (disclaimer =) For some reason I don't have a spell check button on our adoption blog??? So I have TERRIBLY misspelled posts!)

I probably will start writing everything on this blog now that everyone knows and I thank you for so many of your kind words and prayers already this week. We've gotten so much positive, encouraging emails and it makes us so thankful for our support. We won't be able to do this without you!

I want to leave a special prayer request that I included on my email out to close friends and family this week. Please pray for us as we go through the process of gathering all our paperwork for our dossier and go through our home study. I'm a little nervous about it going smoothly! Also, I'd like to ask for VERY special prayers for our little one who has probably already been conceived. My heart breaks for the family who will have to make a tough decision for us to be able to welcome another sweet child into our family. Our joy will be someone's heartache... I can't imagine what his birth mother is going through right now or what she will be going through soon. I pray that she is as healthy as she can be and that our little boy is growing strong.

We are so excited to share our journey with you so please ask us ANY questions at ANY time! You can just leave a comment and I'll try to answer them in another why post!

Prayer Request

Just a quick prayer request. Today I call to find out how many (if any) spots are open for the MDO/school program over at Northwest Hills. I REALLY want the girls to go there next year so I'm praying that there is a spot or a short wait list. I will be standing in line Saturday morning (probably SUPER early) to register them. This is really the best situation for us so I'm praying it works out! Please pray for us!

***Update: Called and the four year old class is completely full =( So Neil or I will be standing in line on Saturday at a ridiculously early hour to make sure she is the first one on the waiting list. Eden's class has three spots so we will register her and pay the registration fee in hopes that Claire will get in off the list. I will be looking at some other programs too before we'd decide to keep her at the school she is going to now. If you could now pray that Claire is the first one on the wait list and will get in =) Thanks for your prayers!

What would they say?

A few weeks ago, I went on a wonderful retreat with our women's ministry. Our speaker, Beverly Ross, was amazing and really inspiring. She inspired me to get a prayer chain going for our kiddos at church and so far we have 22 participating! (If we haven't gotten in touch about this and want to participate, let me know) God is so good. He has blessed our church with prayerful women.

Tragically, Beverly lost her sweet daughter Jenny on Monday. She was 32. It started out as the flu and quickly took over her body in so many different ways. I followed along through her care pages and have been forever changed by this family's story of faith in our loving God. In almost every post, their trust in God was overpowering. His love resonated on each page by them as well as the comments that thousands have left. I've also witnessed how a community of believers can come together and be connected. I've randomly come across so many who knew Jenny or of her. Amazing how people of every faith or of no faith can be unified in tragedy. God's glory has been shown and through her, I know many who have been deeply touched by her.

All this to say that last night on my way to church I was quickly reminded of something else Beverly talked about at the retreat. She told us that she always taught her kids at a very young age to write down what they want people to say at their funeral. What they want to be remembered for and then to live their days so that this would happen. How would people see them? How would they live their life? Would it always point to Jesus as their Lord and Savior? This memory of what she said struck me. I don't know what Jenny wrote down but at today's funeral, I know it will probably surpass her expectations if it's anything I've witnessed the last three weeks.

So what would people say about you? I challenge us to write it down and live our lives as such. This reminds me of the song I LOVE by Nichole Nordeman "Legacy". (click to listen to it! It's also on my song list on the right)

"I wanna live a legacy. How will they remember me? Did I choose to love? Did I point to YOU enough to make a marks on things? I want to leave an offering. Child of mercy and grace who blessed your name unapologetically.... and leave that kind of legacy."



Jenny's funeral is being live streamed at 1 p.m. today so if you'd like to take part in something amazing, the link is:
www.livestream.com/rhchurch

Here is what was left on the care page after she passed. I ask you all to keep the family and everyone close to Jenny in your prayers:

Jenny Bizaillion
Posted Feb 22, 2010 5:05pm

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your
sting?

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ!

Jenny Bizaillion passed from this world at 3:38pm.

She was the most beautiful, wonderful friend, perfect mom, devoted sister, loyal daughter, and best wife a person could ever have.

We will see her again.

Billy Boy

Well, today we said our goodbyes to Billy after staying with us for 6 months... wow... can't believe how fast the past 6 months flew by. He started camping out on our couch in August, he set the goal to move to Austin in November and after his last shift today he loaded up and off he went. I've NEVER seen him so excited about anything in his life! I'm so extremely proud of him for setting a goal, sticking with it and meeting it.

This time together was priceless. Neil and I had always wanted to be there for him and I just pray we were there for much more than a place to stay. We've never had so much time together. We've never talked so much. One of the best things was having him see us as a family and for him to spend so much time with the girls. He admitted to us the other day that he didn't like kids before he moved in and now he loves them! I'll never forget the picture I have of him yesterday in the Kohl's parking lot. One hand holding Claire's and the other pushing Eden's stroller. I laughed and said I wished I had my camera!

So my baby brother is growing up. He's taken a lot of tough roads so I'm praying that he continues on this self motivated one he's on right now. Most of all I pray that he comes to know the Lord so that he realizes that he can't do it by himself. I ask for you all to remember him in your prayers as well. For his transition to go well, for him to get a job in Austin as soon as possible, for him to stay focused and to make wise choices, for him to have good friends and influences in his life and most of all, for him to come to know the love of Christ for him.