A Glimpse .....

My precious children are all tucked in their beds hopefully fast asleep. David is out he will be heading out of town again this week and me well - here I am. I have written this post in my mind what feels like a million times - though not really. It is my sincere desire to share with you my heart tonight. Beware this post will undoubtedly be lengthy and grammatically incorrect and probably sporadic in thought. Writing has never been my gift. I hope you continue to read and pray for us as we head into a new chapter of life.

In January of this year David and I received an email from our friend Nicole who goes to church with us. She had a friend whom I will call Jane who was 16 weeks pregnant and going to have an abortion the next morning. Dave and I both got the email early Friday morning - I can remember it like it was just the other day. It was around 7 am and David wanted me to call Nicole immediately. I knew she would be awake as she teaches at a preschool but I think I was probably a little hesitant to call her - deep down I knew why we were going to call her and just before I picked up the phone David says to me tell her we will take the baby - just please don't have an abortion. We called Nicole - Jane comes from an Islamic background and her mother was going to kick her to the curb if she didn't have this abortion and it seems as she may have had a previous one. All this to say we told Nicole to give her our information and that we would gladly adopt her baby whatever the cost. At this point for me I do not think gravity so to speak had really set in. I thought about it a lot that day as Nicole was supposed to call us that evening with any news and she did. Nicole's mother and aunt had taken Jane out and they spoke and now Jane knew there was a family who would gladly take her baby - she decided not to have the abortion but she didn't know what she was going to do. What a praise - this baby was going to have a chance!!! We waited for a few weeks and nothing - no contact. I can tell you that I often thought what if this precious baby is a girl??!!! A few more weeks went by and we heard Jane was going to have a baby boy and she had decided to keep him. I was sad but not crushed. I must confess though - if she had been having a girl - I am not so sure if I would have handled it as well. We did not tell many people about this - especially not our children and you can see why. This precious baby was born just a few weeks ago and he is so adorable and I am so thankful God in his sovereignty spared his little life.

Now what? Well David and I have always talked about possibly adopting. Side note here for you who don't know - when I was in college I spent a couple weeks in China. I would have brought home all the children I encountered if I could have. I also was in the last stages of becoming a journeyman with the International Mission Board when I met my husband. Obviously God had other plans for my life. All that to say that David knew it was my desire to have a baby from China. I have always known I wanted 4 children - just one of those childhood dreams. Obviously adoption has been on our minds. Two weeks ago when David was at a conference he sent me an email all it said was " more paid time off for adoptive families at CFA." I immediately responded "That is so ironic that you just sent that to me as I have been really thinking a lot about adoption lately. I will continue to pray about it and hope you will too. Hope you are having a good time. Love and miss you." To which he responds " I got the email from CFA when the guest speaker was speaking on adoption. I think we seriously need to look into this." That email correspondence literally gives me chill bumps. Look how God was working in both our lives miles away from one another. I immediately called a friend who has adopted twice domestically. We talked for a while and she gave me an agency to check into. I of course googled them and read what I could. Then I got an email from a friend at church who has adopted from China - she has always known of my desire. This email was from an agency letting people know the great need for adopting children with special needs in China. David and I both have a strong desire to adopt a little girl from China - so here we are. I have contacted two adoption agencies and we are waiting on information packets. We know personally two families who have been through this process - I think what makes me so excited is that David called one of them. We both know I am fifteen steps ahead of him in my heart. All I can think about is we have to get our little girl home. I know if we had the money we would go get her tomorrow. However there are many steps in this journey. Why did I tell you all this? Well because most of you that read my blog are pray-ers. And boy do I have many requests. I have so many emotions going on inside of me. So if I may here are a few specifics.

1. Patience. This is such a biggie for me in so many areas of this journey!! We have to choose an agency and be accepted etc etc. Once paperwork is turned in there is a 12-18 month waiting period for a special needs child. 50 plus months for a non special needs child. Plus we have to have a good bit of money to even begin things.

2. This little girl - whoever she may be. I know God is sovereign and He already knows all the details.

3. Finances. I have started a little basket putting spare change in - the kids have even been helping as well. I am not good with money - so thankful for a husband who is!!! Please pray that when I have that urge to stop and just pick up lunch or whatever I think we might need at Target that I will think of this little girl - she is worth every penny. This will be costly and I will again need patience here. Men and women think differently - I with my heart and David with his head and the need to provide for our family etc. Pray that I will trust all his decisions regarding the how and when of finances. This really is the biggest request I have. I want to be a God honoring wife. I really want God to just dump a large sum of money in my lap - but I must be realistic about this - this part will take time. I am not a good waiter.

Please pray for me. I could write so much more but will save it for another time. Thanks for keeping up with us. Blessings ~

Pillowcase Dress Tutorial

Okay Angie this is for you!!

I have always wanted to post a tutorial because I have benefited greatly from others posting them. So here goes - however I cannot take credit for this alone - my sweet friend Kristin deserves most of the credit because she took pictures first and sent them to me to teach me how to make a dress in the first place. On top of that she endured my millions of questions and chatted with me while I made my first dress. THANK YOU Kristin. This tutorial is not of my first dress (which happened to be a cow print dress for cow appreciation day) this is a dress I made this afternoon for a friends daughter and I put her monogram on it. Hope this helps anyone that might need it!

Lay out fabric like you would wear it. You need two layers

Fold the two layers in half vertically. Use a tank top or sleeveless dress to guide your armhole cut - but leave enough space (couple of inches) to come up past your armpit. Make sure you don't cut on the fold :)

Now you have two choices here: You can fold over the armpit area twice and hem or you can use bias tape. I used bias tape - and for this particular dress I actually made the bias tape.

To make bias tape : cut strips of fabric you determine the length depending on the size dress. Width can vary as well - I chose 3 inches wide.

Then fold in half and iron over. Open it up and fold one quarter to the half on one side and do the same to the other and iron. Now you have bias tape.

Stick the edge of the armpit area into the bias tape and sew. You will do this a total of 4 times.

Now small hem at the top of both layers - and then add a larger hem so you can fish your ribbon through it. You can always just fold over your fabric and then fold again for just one hem the point is just to have a finished edge.

Now place your two pieces of fabric right sides together and hem the sides. I start from the bottom and go up to armpit area. Then hem up the bottom - you can also use bias tape here as well.

Now monogram and fish your ribbon through and tie.

This is such a fun and easy project!! Much thanks again to my friend Kristin!!

Quick update.....

I seriously do not know how my blog friends keep up with their blogs!! I know I always say that. I have loads of pics and stories I must blog about but not enough time tonight - I will try to play catch up this week - but I just wanted to let you all

know I'm still here with my super duper hubby and 3 munchkins! We are all doing well staying busy. Let's see since April 14th my last post - Nathan graduated kindergarten, Luke turned 4, Dave and I went on a cruise, had VBS, and celebrated mothers day, fathers day, 4th of July and cow appreciation day and of course we have been swimming!! I have pics of all of this and I will elaborate in blogs to come - hopefully. I will leave you with a recent picture

of my munchkins on cow appreciation day! Aren't they ADORABLE!!

What did you do today??

So I got the boys settled with their magazines and Ethan with his blankie and sippy cup and then I sat down in the chair - and let the teeth cleaning begin- to which I then said to Pam my dental hygienist- is it crazy that this might actually be relaxing!! I have to go get my teeth cleaned just to be able to sit down for 30 minutes and mind you I had all of my boys with me!! No I am not strange - other moms have said the same thing. Thankfully my kids were very well behaved and I of course promised popsicles when we got home and they got to feed the fish in the waiting room at the dentist office- thanks Dr. Ed!!

It has been such beautiful weather. If you know me - you know summer is my favorite season and I cannot wait for it to get here!! I am ready for school to be out and the pool to be open. I am not the only one who loves the outdoors my boys have been outside everyday this week - it has been soo much fun!! It was a fun afternoon outside starting with our promised popsicles. We then tried to shoot a bird with the BB gun. I know it pains me to even write that. Me shoot a precious innocent creature that God has made. Well I missed - but that sweet little bird is building a nest in my dryer vent!! The funny part of the story isn't even that I missed - I just scared the bird half to death - he dropped his nesting materials and took off! What is funny is when I was holding the gun and Nathan comes right next to me and says "I know what kind of meat we'll be having for dinner tonight - bird meat." He was so serious. I am crying laughing right now just recalling the moment! We finished our afternoon with a walk. David's parents do not live to far from us and you can actually get to their house through some woods in our neighborhood so......
Over the fence and through the woods to Grandmothers house we go.......

Pops was cutting the grass when we got there and of course the boys had to have a turn riding around. Luke just liked to drive in circles and Ethan was terrified of the tractor!! The boys played in the dirt for awhile and then we headed home - check out Luke's face in the above pictures - I think he might have eaten the dirt!!

HaPpY bIrThDaY!!

My sweet Nathanael Allen turned 6 on Monday April 5th. I love my kids birthdays - it is always a sweet reminder to me of their birth story. God is so gracious to me and I want to always be mindful of His sweet graciousness that comes in the form of my children. I do pray that he will grow to love God with all his heart and follow after His ways. He is getting to be soo tall. I can remember when he laid in his swing just looking at me and I would wonder what he would be like when he was older!! Oh time passes too quickly. Nathan is such a sweet young boy. He is doing so well in school. He is a great reader and seems to love math - you can almost see him think. He is very much into jokes - I have David to thank for that - like father like son!! He has gotten me a few times - and he just giggles and I smile. He enjoyed having a little birthday party with family and friends. I made him a cake in the shape of a cowboy boot similar to "Woody's" from Toy Story. We are very much into Toy Story and cowboys these days. We gave him a BB gun and he was speechless. Of course he is only allowed to have it with daddy and it is put up far away for safe keeping when not in use!!! I am so thankful for these special times we have as I know the days of Toy Story and cowboys will fade before I know it he will be shooting all by himself - AHHHH!! Nathan we love you soo much and are grateful God has entrusted you into our care. Happy Birthday sweet boy!

Luke who made the creek? God and Mr. Doug

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Sanitizer the cure for everything....

If you know us at all very well - you know my husband is the sanitizer KING!! He loves sanitizer so much that a guy at work gave him a glass collectors bottle of Purell - I am not kidding about this. If it were up to him we would have dispensers of it in every room of our house. This is not a joke. He LOVES sanitizer.

Luke has had a fever today. This evening when it was spiking and he didn't feel very well I explained to him that it can be good to have a temperature - it means that your body is fighting to get rid of all the bad germs . Then my sweet silly 5 year old Nathan says "well why don't you just put some sanitizer on him?" Yes - I got a really good laugh today, this was definitely a story for the blog.... and his father would be REALLY proud!

One can never learn to early ......



So do you like that?

God Bless Chick-fil-A!!

I have said it before and I will say it again and again and again - I am thankful for CFA!! David and I have just returned home from Washington DC where we attendend our annual CFA seminar. It was like a great big family reunion!! We had several great guest speakers and singers - this was one of my favorites! More pictures and detail to come later!

SNOW

"God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend. For to the snow he says, 'Fall on the earth,' likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour. He seals up the hand of every man, that all men whom he made may know it."

Can you guess which picture is my favorite?

Suzanne this is for you

Parenting is by far the hardest job I will ever have. That was a big surprise wasn't it??!! Thankfully it is also very joyful and God has given me wonderful friends to share the woes and throes of parenting along the way. Who else can understand your sippy cup mishaps?? Your 1 year old's screaming fits?? The selfishness of one child and the kindnesses of another?? What school to send your child to? The list could go on but you get the picture. This award goes to my dear friend Suzanne!! I have told her she should have her own blog she has lots of great stories and her kids say some cute things but since she doesn't I am blogging this story for her and for me too!

A little info for those who need it. I met Suzanne through CFA - our husbands work together. She has 3 children. Madelyn is 5 and goes to school with Nathan. Samuel will be 3 in March and Caroline is 16 months - she and Ethan are 3 weeks apart. So you can see we live in the same season of life right now. There are many things I love about Suzanne - she is authentic, her kids are not perfect and she doesn't try to hide it - hence the picture below and this blogpost.


This picture was taken on my phone on our recent walk in her neighborhood. It is not a very good picture so let me set the scene for you. Nathan and Madelyn and Luke and Samuel are supposed to be taking turns riding in the powerwheels jeep. Ethan and Caroline are being pulled along in the wagon. In this picture Nathan and Madelyn are having their turn in the jeep and Samuel well - he is not liking it - in fact for 97% of the walk he didn't like it. He is running after them screaming and crying and making a spectacle of himself. So we end up turning around and eventually Suzanne has to pick him up and hold him - all the while he is flailing around and screaming and making an even bigger spectacle of himself. Meanwhile the jeep runs out of battery and we still have two babies in a wagon and we have a bit of a ways to get home. Needless to say it was a less than pleasant walk. We made it back jeep and all and we were laughing a little then - but now we laugh a lot about it. I can only write this because I have had similar experiences and because we both know our kids aren't perfect and neither are we. As I write this I realize this story probably isn't funny to anyone else -because it is one of those where you kind of just needed to be there. However I want to look back and remember these seasons (I love reading my old blogposts - they make me smile because I forget soo much!) and thank God for giving me friends (like Suzanne ) to share them with who know exactly what you are talking about, who share the same Hope and desires for their children. "And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. " Col. 1:28