New header

My sweet blog-and-adoption friend (read: I've never actually met her in real life, but I kind of feel like I know her since I read her blog and we are FB friends, so I get to follow her adoption) does graphic design for her business and she made this really cool blog header for me!  I love it, it so perfectly illustrates our life right now.  You can visit her Etsy shop here! 

She also makes adoption announcements and Christmas cards for adoptive families.  Go check it out!!

Brayden and Ashten

Brayden and Ashten are 6 1/2 years apart.  It's really a great age gap.  Close enough together that they will remember growing up together, but far enough apart that they are not at all into the same things, thus there is nothing really to fight about.

Brayden takes the role of big brother the most seriously with Ashten.  I don't know if it's because she's a girl or because she doesn't get into his stuff or what, but he is so great with her!  Often times he will get down with her and play with her girl toys, but there are also times he includes her in his big boy play and she gets right in there with him and has a great time!

One day Brayden was making a big mess cutting and taping a box he had.  When he was done, he brought it up and said he had made a car for Ashten.  It was a pretty cool car and she had a blast with it.  She "drove" all over the town with it and even brought her baby's car seat a few times.  I was sad when that thing got so ripped up we had to throw it away.

Another thing Ashten likes to do with Brayden is help him with his homework.  Sometimes she'll get her own paper and pen and pretend she's doing her own, but sometimes she just wants to sit on his lap and help him with his.  It is seriously so sweet to watch!!

Sometimes it's just hard

Being a parent has been just hard lately!  The boys are fighting almost all day long it seems.  When I ask them to do something, all I hear is complaining and questioning.  When I try and talk to them about their attitude or behavior, they agree, apologize and then the next day, it's back to the same old thing.  One child is being so intentional in his disobedience, like he's doing it for attention or because something underlying is going on (which just gives me more mom guilt because I feel like I caused it in the first place), but every time I try and talk to him about it, he won't.

There are some days I feel like such a failure, like I'm doing this whole thing wrong!  What am I doing wrong?  Why must we have crying and fighting in the middle of a family game every single time?  Why must they make faces at each other and pick on each other just to get a rise out of the other person?  Why does everything have to be equal to be fair?  Didn't I teach them better than this up to this point?

Apparently not!

I have felt convicted lately about getting mad at my kids for just acting like kids.  Like when they can't sit still in church for 3+ hours, that's a normal kid thing, I know it's not just intentional disobedience.  Or when they sit at the table and make farting noises and then can't stop giggling, that's normal for a boy (although we definitely need to work on table manners).  

I just feel like all these bad habits are coming out now and I don't know what to do to turn things around.  I feel like I am constantly correcting them and it's not fun for anyone.  No one is patient, no one is peaceful and no one is enjoying all the correcting and training, most of all me!

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  

Proverbs 22:6

This verse keeps coming into my head, but most days I don't even feel like I'm fulfilling my end of the bargain  my part of the verse ("train up a child in the way he should go"), so how can I expect them to fulfill their part of the verse ("and when he is old, he will not depart from it")?

Oh goodness, they weren't kidding when they said being a parent was the hardest job there was, were they?

Tea time

When you grow up with three older brothers, it's not uncommon for a little girl to play star wars and shooting and cars and stuff.  I kept wondering why Ashten didn't have more of an inclination towards girly stuff (although she is girly at heart, so some of it comes natural!), but then I realized that it's because she's never seen it played before.

So I corrected that problem quickly!!  She has a couple of tea sets, but never really played them.  So one day we sat down and I taught her how to play tea party.  And she loved it!!  She played every day for the next two weeks and even got her brothers to play with her a few times.

The tooth fairy comes again

 We have had a long dry spell in our house with no teeth lost for awhile.  But Logan changed all that in January.  January 14th he lost a tooth.  Once he has a loose tooth, he works on it a lot, always wiggling it and playing with it to loosen it more.  Then, when it is ready, he is so brave and lets Chris pull them out without much of a fight!

Then January 26th he lost another tooth.  Well, actually this one has a little bit of a story to it.  Preston and Logan were arguing about something and Preston (like he usually does when he's angry) punched Logan right in the mouth.  To his credit, he said that Logan was hitting him with a towel or something, I dunno.  Anyway, after Preston punched Logan, the tooth was literally hanging on by a thread, so Chris had to pull it the rest of the way out.  But, apparently if you lose your tooth because someone punches you, you get $2 instead of the $1 the tooth fairy normally brings!

Now he has a diagonal gap in his teeth, he thinks it's so cool he can stick his tongue out without opening his teeth.

Poor guy

Preston has had a rough winter.  We think it's because this is the first year he's been at school and his body is just not used to all of the extra germs.  But, man, after this year, he should have a killer immune system!!!  In December he had a super bad cold that lasted for 2-3 weeks with on/off fevers.  That then turned into a double ear infection.  Then the first week back at school in January and he got another ear infection.  The other three have been sick some, but not nearly as much as Preston, poor guy!

Ashten has been the ever-patient nurse and couch snuggle buddy, very loving and comforting.  (She's going to make a great mom someday!)

I think Brayden was actually the one who was most sick in this picture, but odds are Preston wasn't feeling well either.  While I hate my kids being sick, the one upside is that there is lots of cuddling and quiet rest time!

Letters to my kids

Dear Brayden,

You are getting so big and I can't beleive you will be 10 this year.  I know this year in school has been a hard one for you and my heart breaks at kids are being mean to you.  I am so proud of the way you have handled yourself though, you have so much conviction and courage.  I could learn a thing or two from you about not backing down frommy beliefs in the face of adversity or ridicule!

Dear Logan,

I imagine it must be hard being one of the middle kids.  I pray for you that you will be able to find your own identity and feel secure in your place in our family.  I love your servant heart that is so compassionate and kind.  You are a good brother and a good friend and I admire your tenderness towards others!  I want to learn from you how to see the hurt in others and have empathy, like you do, you are so good at that.  I know your heart breaks when other people's hearts are breaking and I wish mine did too the way yours does.

Dear Preston,

I miss hanging out with you so much every day now at you are in school.  I am happy that you have made wise choices in who your friends are and that you don't just follow the crowd if the crowd is not doing what is right.  You are so good about carving out time in your day to play with each of your siblings individually.  I know I need to do a better job of making time for each of you, so thank you for being an example to me in that!  You are so good at seeing the unique qualities in each person that make them fun to play with and adjusting your play to fit that person.

Dear Ashten,

My girl!  How are you already almost 3?  I love spending my days with you, you are a lot of fun to play tea party with, or crazy eights or babies.  I know you will make a good mommy one day because you are so good at seeing people who are hurting and going to them and comforting them.  Like the one day when you were so reassuring to Preston at the doctor and rubbing his back and stuff.  And like the day when you kept telling me you truly loved me when you knew I was frustrated and having a bad day.  You are so sweet and I want to learn that from you!

Dear ------ (haha, dad, you didn't really think I'd tell you her name yet, right??)

I don't know the shape of your face, or the sound of your sweet voice or the warmth of your hugs, but I do know that you already have a place in my heart.  Your adoption has been the avenue through which God has already taught me how to love a child besides one that grew in my belly and through which He has taught me the fierce love of a parent longing to redeem and restore a child.  I can't wait to see your personality and learn from you!

One year ago today

On February 13, 2012, we went to the post office after I picked up the boys from school and we mailed off our applications to officially start our adoption process!  We were excited, anxious, nervous and a little unsure of what was coming next.

Today, 1 year later, we have seen God move mountains, change our hearts to look more like His, provide finances and bring people into our life to walk this journey with us.  We are officially #118 on the waitlist (we have moved 20 spots in the last 5 months), but we are hoping and praying that our referral comes this year.

Maybe next year, instead of a "still waiting....#??" picture, we can take a "she's here!!!" picture! Wouldn't that be awesome?  Will you join us in praying?

The good stuff of waiting in adoption

I feel like I should write a follow-up post to balance out my post from the other day.  I say it all the time, but seriously, adoption is such an emotional journey, full of it's ups and downs.  It's all where I place my focus, so thank to those of you who are praying me through this journey, I can definitely sense those prayers.  Lately, I am choosing to focus on the good parts of the adoption process.  I am always so quick to focus on the negative, but once I get my thoughts out and process a little, I can more easily see and focus on the positive.  So that's what I've been trying to do lately.

I am sure that our greatest joy is still to come (when we are finally all under the same roof as a family), but we have already experienced such joy since we began our adoption.  The things that have brought me the most joy were the things that were totally from God, times where He provided the money we needed, times when He led us outside of our comfort zone and showed us a little piece of His heart, and times when He reaffirmed His call on our family to adopt.  Even just recently as we near the 1-year mark of officially sending off our applications, we can look back and see how much He has changed our hearts and minds about adoption and reminded us time and time again how He has adopted us into His family as well.

Anticipation can be a fun thing adoption.  There isn't much in my adult life that I have anticipated with as much excitement as the day we will get our referral and see our sweet daughter's face (besides the birth of our children and finally not being huge and pregnant)! And even more than that, I am in so much anticipation of actually getting to go to Ethiopia and meet her for the first time.  What a unique experience at will be: not meeting our child for the first time in a hospital delivery room, but in an orphanage in a third world country!

This will probably sound strange since I complained so much about travel in my last post, but I'm actually really excited to travel to Ethiopia (when I don't think about having to leave our kids!).  I have always wanted to go to Africa and I've never even been out of the country except for twice to Mexico, once for a missions trip (just right next to the border) and once for our honeymoon (at a fancy resort).  I haven't really seen the world and I'm excited to do that.  And there is no one in the world I would rather travel anywhere in the world with than Chris. We are a team and this is just another adventure that is new to us, like our own mini version of Amazing Race (haha!).