GOTCHA day

On December 4, 2013 at 5:45pm we picked up our new 7 year old son! We GOTCHA buddy!

Welcome Home, Z!!

I will have details soon, but its crazy town over here!

Z is finishing his 2nd day of Kindergarten right now.

Praise the Lord.

32.

I cant even blog about the adoption right now. We are still waiting for DFCS to place him permanently. Please pray. We have him on weekends and see him on wednesdays so thats all I got. I will update when it happens!

Tim turned 32.
I can't tell you how mysterious and crazy it is that we met 13 years ago and are about to celebrate 10 years of marriage. Not that I am in any boat to dish out advice, but I have learned 1 really important thing.
Tim and I have always pursued the other persons dreams, maybe to our detriment sometimes. It should go without saying we look to the Lord for our worth and not to each other, but Tim really gave his all for my dream of having a big family. (It feels bigger than it is sometimes because we have shared so many children).  And I think he would say I sacrificed pretty hard and gave it all up for him to switch careers and pursue a passion. Whats crazy is that our passions truly became the other ones passions. Even if initially you were very critical about the other persons ideas or plans, its actually amazing when you lay it all out for the other person anyway. Humility wins.
I used to feel guilty about dragging our kids through the loss of other kids, pursuit of careers, house renovations, sacrificing for a long term goal, living debt free and on the actual money we have. That we weren't the most "fun" parents. Our cars will never be new. My kids know what coupons are. And even at a young age they understand buying something and selling it for profit. The value of a dollar. And working really hard. And actually loving what you do.
So, no. I don't feel guilty now. I believe we have taught them 2 really important things. Life isn't all about them. And to follow your dreams even when you become a mom and dad. I think if our life was "all about them" our marriage would suffer.
We were first. And we will be last when they leave one day. I want to start well and finish well.
We will be here and still married when they start their own life one day. Babies don't keep and they will graduate and have families of their own one day. Isnt the best thing you can give a child is a healthy marriage? I would like to believe so. Both Tim and I's parents are at 35 and 37 years of marriage and we owe most everything to them.
I want to still be in love.
I want to still have passions and life and not go into depression when "this part" of motherhood closes. I will always be mom, it will just look different. But, my role as a wife is more long term than my role as a mother. And we have a whole lotta life ahead since we became parents at age 23.
We have to give to our spouse and ask the Lord to make us the help mate he created us to be to them.

Anyway, I love you Tim. I love you for the guts you have to do what matters, to do what your passionate about, and to never let us stay stagnant. I feel like we are learning how to be "settled" but also never stagnant. And you have integrity to do it the right way.

I also hope people reading this know we are ALL trial and error. We have nothing figured out. We mess up all the time. And we are okay with that. Because Gods okay with that and it lets us know we need Him. One of my favorite quotes, to date, is "Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that doesn't really matter" DL Moody.

I have to share a funny conversation Tim and I had the other night. When all 3 kids fell asleep we were TOTALLY the lame parents that set up a date in our home at 7:45pm since we had no idea what we were going to do with all of them asleep from wearing each other out!! So, we had a nice dinner and candles :)
I told him about how I was reading through some of my old journals the other day from the first year we were married.
It went down like this:
Jen- (reading excerpt)...."I hope one day that our life is never boring. I don't want "the american dream" of obtaining every material possession we can, having our family, having our wants, and life is just all about us. Yuck. Boring. I don't want a cookie cutter life. I don't want it to look like anyone elses. I would rather die young than to live a long boring life. Lord, I hope we blaze our own trail and we never look normal."
Tim- "Check."
"That's great babe, thanks for journaling that 10 years ago. Looks like we have all that covered. 
What else?"
Ha! He later told me that was his very same hope for our life. Cheers for being crazy!!!
Happy 32nd birthday Tim!!! I love you!

Fall in Marietta!!

The Final Hours...

I think every time I have tried to sit down to write, I have fallen asleep!
I wanted to update our time with him. I cannot post pics of his face and I want to protect his full name right now, so we will call him Z on the blog.

Right now, I want to remember all the logistics and the crazy of this month!
I almost feel a little delirious. Our life has literally been driving to the orphanage and maintaining some kind of normal life at home for David and Mackenzie. We have had him on the weekends and go up during the week to see him after school. Its a 2 hour round trip and it is all incredibly emotionally draining....and at the same time....we are FILLED WITH JOY!
Its all going really well!! Z is wonderful. I can't wait to slowly introduce him to our community. He is Sweet. Funny. Alert. Smart. Precious. Observant. Affectionate.
He is just a sweet little boy who has been in isolation for a long time. And, that's all about to change. Processing what this sweet child has gone through is a lot.
And, again, its his story. Z will have an amazing story one day.
Anyway, that's been all I could handle this month. Seeing Z. And keeping our household running. Please forgive me all family and friends out there for not being the most together person right now. This has taken my all.... and it has been worth it all.
David and Mackenzie are doing great with him. Mackenzie of course, is oblivious to reading any social cues and just talks to him non-stop. She grabs and holds his hand most places we go. And she explains everything to him. She has also set up a full fledged orphanage in her bedroom during the day telling me she is, "running the orphanage." She lines babies up and takes meals, ect. Lord only knows what this child is going to say when she starts kindergarten next year. David and Z are sharing a room. They are only 40 days apart. Its like he instantly has a twin brother! They are super cute together and Tim has made me refrain from dressing them identically right now. (Hello, Christmas! That will be my excuse:)
Z has not had opportunities to interact with other peers a lot so he is literally having to learn how to have conversations and engage with people. David doesn't understand this sometimes, but we are teaching him Z will come out of his sweet shell soon :)
Everything is new to Z right now as his life has consisted of school and the orphanage. We are treating it as if it were an international adoption.
 
Here is one of the last shots of me and Z together.....

Months ago, I felt God speak the words to me, "He's yours." And, I not only know that in my head, but now I have felt it in every part of my heart. This is through and through our baby.
I also had a very real moment in my faith. God interrupted my life in an amazing way, came in, and forever changed my heart and life and the way I live when I became a Christian. Christ has adopted us as sons and daughters and we did nothing to earn that. The opposite in fact.  As I was driving Z out of the orphanage, the verse John 14:18 hit to the core, "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come for you."
God came RIGHT in the middle of our mess. Z is in the middle of a mess and we have felt the very hand of God leading this boy into freedom. We have been humbled to be apart of God redeeming and restoring.

Tim also felt a few weeks ago that he heard from the Lord and told me, "God is going to heal him."
Those words we heard we have clung to hard. I could blog for days about all the theories, ideas, diagnosis, problems, progression, observations, notes, comments, opinions, and so on and so on about where each person we have encountered believes where Z is.

What are his real needs?
Does he have any special needs?
How has being in an orphanage since the age of 3 affected him?
How has never having a family affected him?
Will he thrive?
What will the school do with him?
How will our family and friends respond to him?
How will he be once he is given a family for the first time in his life?
What if he is given a childhood?
A brother and sister? 
What if he is given a mom and dad that are crazy in love with and about him, no matter where he is?

Z's greatest need is a family. And a childhood. He has had neither.

And we can do that.

We are asking the Lord to give us wisdom on the rest. The school. The administration. The therapies he may need. All involved with the sweet boy will have wisdom.

A song we sing a lot here is:

Into the darkness you shine.
Out of the ashes we rise,
there is no one like You, none like You.
Our God is greater, Our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome in power, our God.

In Isaiah, our God says He will "heal the broken hearted and set the captives free....."

And, we are supposed to set our little captive free this weekend.
We are hoping, HOPING, this is the weekend that he will stay on Sunday.
No dropping him back off at the orphanage. No more driving him back.
Please pray for the details to finish.
And it to be finished.

We are waiting on the Lord to finish this. We have seen him do some amazing things this month.

Last Sunday when our time had ended with Z and it was time to take him back, I simply could not go. I could not do it.
Tim had to take him back.

Would everyone join in prayer that tonight will be Z's last night in the orphanage?
We are all ready to not have to say good bye anymore.
Please pray our boy will be home for good this weekend!

We Matched!!!

4:00pm Atlanta time. September 17, 2013. We matched with our new son. This is the little boy that I have blogged about previously that is the most recent situation and he is almost identical to David in every way. It's crazy. That will have to be another post all together. He is 6. He has been in an orphanage since the age of 3. His parental rights were terminated long ago so we will not have a legal risk involved. But, today I wanted to write about our news: We Matched!!! And we are celebrating that. And asking for prayer as we have a few more steps in getting this boy home!

WOW! Whoa.... and Holy Cow!!!!

And it has taken me, us, and our kids some time to even begin to process this amazing thing. Please give me grace in waiting to share because you literally go from one day with nothing to the next day with a 6 year old moving in within weeks. It is a lot to take in.

You see, I got the call in the middle of my event planning job in Las Vegas. Of course I did. I go out of town all of ONCE a year. And that's when I get the phone call. Can you imagine getting that phone call, not being with your HUSBAND, and being completely ACROSS the freaking country?!!!

I could not even process. I screamed into the phone with excitement at my DFACS worker. Cried. And ran down the hall like a maniac. Its Vegas. No one gave me a second look even. And then I thought, Oh my gosh I have to call Tim. Like, yes. Tim. He needs to know this.

I call him. We are in shock. Freaking out. Excited. Nervous. And realize we have no idea what to do next. Do I fly home right then? Is he coming tomorrow? What do we do now? We had focused so much on getting everything done. All our ducks in a row. To have the hope of even matching one day. We had NO IDEA what even happened after you actually matched. We flipped.

Upon calming down, then talking in depth with DFACS, we quickly talked through our next steps and I did not fly home as our new son wasn't being dropped off that night.

I had to wait from Tuesday ALL the way to Saturday to just be with Tim. And just be together with our news.  It sure was a good homecoming. It felt like I came home to a new life. New hope. An answered prayer. Joy. The Lord. My sweet husband, partner, and best friend. God had done this for us.

We told our kids the next morning at breakfast. In typical 7 year old and almost 5 year old fashion, they begin hooping and hollering and broke into a wrestling match in the floor, like puppies.

We celebrated Davids birthday that night with family and Daves buddies and were able to share our news with them. We had a meeting with DEFACS the next week and reviewed all his paperwork. We had planned a trip to Disney World a while back that was perfect timing to go on and settle in with our news. Our next meeting (and final meeting) will be next Thursday. Now, we begin setting up a move in timeline, which will happen hopefully sometime this month and ask any more questions we have. Would you pray for the next few steps in moving this sweet boy into our home?

Matching is a funny thing. I feel as though you waiver back in forth from being 100% excited and then 100% terrified. You have NO IDEA what the child is like you have matched with!! AAHHH!
And with our new son, he is 6... almost 7. Like a real person. And we have no idea what he is like. You don't meet the child until right before you begin moving him in and WAY after you have committed to them. It doesn't matter though because the kid you meet will not be the kid you end up bringing home. We know he is going to change so much from being in a permanent home.

Whoa.
Blew our minds.
Adoption is crazy. And like a war zone.
And awesome.

But, God's sovereignty plays a role, right? We ultimately believe God does the family matching. So, do you just blindly walk into any situation? What about your current children? What if it isnt a good match?
What if something goes wrong? What if it doesn't? What if this was the road your family was meant to go down? What if fear is the only thing that kept you from it? Does it matter if you meet the child? Because the child will not be the same child in a year after being with a permanent family? Can you really know EVERYTHING about a child anyway? Can you predict what this child will be like in your family? Can you predict anything in your own life anyway? What if this child completely de-rails your family? What if one of your own biological kids ends up doing that anyway? What if your family becomes closer, stronger, more united, equipped to embrace others, and happier.... even happier?
And lastly, if part of Gods' heart is orphans in distress.... then might we get to be apart of something much, much bigger than us? The answer to that is Yes.

All I can tell you is that we have Great Hope. Great, great HOPE.
And all I am asking is for the people around us to share in this great hope.

We are trusting in Him who works all things together for the good of those who love Him.
We need support and prayers.
We need people who will speak life and speak hope.
We know about the fears.
We have come to a crossroads with the Lord about it.

We believe with our whole hearts, this child is ours. Meant to be. The Lord has just given us that. I have said it before, but we love a child we have never met. How? We have 2 kids we loved before they were ever born into this world. Prayed for. Wanted. Fought for. Fought very, very hard for. We feel the same about this 6 year old precious, precious boy. We are his people.

You don't get a lot of information when you adopt. Maybe a paragraph. Blurb. Maybe nothing.
It is blind faith.

You will always have more questions that you have answers for. That is the truth.

But, we serve a God who is Almighty. All knowing. And Always with Us.

We are matched. MATCHED.
And we are All In.

SEVEN.

Can you believe this sweet little 2 1/2 year old boy with his baby sister is now SEVEN?? 

I mean, there is no WAY that my boy can be SEVEN!

Sure makes this mama feel old!

Since I am very behind, I will catch up a little in this post! We just finished our crazy month of September. Tim went out of town for a week for his work Deep Sea Fishing/Golf trip and had a blast. I went on my annual event planning job to Las Vegas for a week. And we ended the month in Disney World with my mom and dad! Whew.... lets just say we are HOME for a while!

 

In between all the traveling chaos, this little man had his buddies over for a Ninja Party! Would you know the day I plan for LOTS (16 children and 32 adults) to come over, it rains. Yep. Rain.

So, the only way I can remotely bring you into the chaos is to describe it as a frat party with 7 year old boys. Tim fully embraced the testosterone in the house. And maybe helped bring it up a few notches. Everyone had swords. And then he made ninja balloons to be the targets and tied them all around the house. 

Whatever. Just, whatever.

PLEASE NOTE> Do you see my hallway?? It is the last darn thing I have to paint in this old house. And guess what? I didnt even BOTHER before this party! That is an old rug I threw down so no one would body bowl down the hall and that is straight DRYWALL behind David. I guess when you throw a frat party, you need to look like a frat house. Done. And done.

Well, they had fun. We survived. Nothing was broken and I'm pretty sure no one was hurt. We didn't hear them if they were. The best part of the night was the end..... downtown Marietta re-scheduled their fireworks from the 4th of July that night. So, David still thinks the town fireworks were just for his birthday. We told him no different. It was a memorable day for my sweet boy and I loved it being all about him.  David suited up...

David and his new electric scooter. Yes, it goes 10mph. And yes, he is wearing a helmet, wrist guards, elbow pads, and knee pads.

Ninja cupcakes! Pintrest inspired. They look cuter far away. I did these when I was way too tired after flying in from Vegas.

Tim's awesome ninja balloons all over the house. I think there were 15 sword stations.

Happy Birthday sweetheart! We sure have had an amazing 7 years and I love the time we got together this month.... in Disney World!

Ok, for the record. This was our 3rd Annual Disney trip! If you ever want to know how to go on the cheap, email me! For real! I owe my sister a lot for her research, but this year we did something just as cheap! Years past, we have camped at Fort Wilderness. But, if it rains on your trip.... it aint pretty. 

This year, we stayed in an awesome condo off VRBO in Buena Vista, Fl. It was ridiculously nice. And cheap. And 10 miles from Disney. Full kitchen. Spacious. Amazing pool. Right next to Publix. So close you could hear fireworks. Anyways, our goal is to go and only spend a few hundred dollars. There are ways to get deals on tickets. We did Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween night in Magic Kingdom and it was only $59. Sea World had tickets for only $50 right now. Ok enough. Here our a couple pics!

Our Pool!

 Would you believe while we were there a film crew showed up and asked us to be in the hotel filming? I was reluctant at first because we were on vacation, but my parents totally thought it would be hilarious. So, I signed the papers and was up for a good laugh.  It was hilarious. I will post the video when they send it to me. I am in the intro, because I totally knew what I was doing, and my kids were filmed going down the waterslides. The cameramen would go down before them and video them the whole way. It was too much. They went around telling everyone they were going to be on tv. We did feel like reality stars because since people saw us with film crews around, they naturally assumed we were "someone". Wasn't there a Saturday Night Live skit about that? People just flock to cameras I guess. 3 years ago, we were asked by HGTV to do a Renovation Reality show while doing Nellie Mae. I blogged about it here.
Anyway, people can do what they want. I was super annoyed after only spending 30 minutes with them. And Mackenzie was acting way too much like a diva after only a few shots on camera. That's not our bag, baby.

Magic Kindom, Halloween style!

3 years in a row, the characters still hold high ranks with what matters with my kiddos. They are just so sweet and genuine with the kids. Its like, they fully embrace that they are a reality and superstar in the eyes of children. It is just fantastic to watch.

Mackenzie was also kind of a big deal this year because she could ride all the roller coasters. I knew she would love them. Mackenzie is a roller coaster. David was also on top of the world because he could drive his own GO KART!! I mean WHAT IS GOING ON DISNEY? Have they totally lost their minds? Yes. Yes they have. Anyway, I don't know if I was in more fear of my own son driving or more in fear that he was driving my father? I just don't know. But. In that moment, sheer terror entered my body and I realized that he just may never drive a vehicle. I then began a list of reasons why he need never drive. We will live in walking distance to where ever he wants to go. Solved that.

Thanks for having us Disney! We love you Mickey!