Sweet Liam

God is good. I am reminded over and over of His goodness as we travel this journey.

 

On Tuesday I went home from work early because I was sick. I knew that our birth mom would be finding out the gender of the baby this week, but I didn't realize it was that day. She texted to see if she could drop something off, of course we said yes!

 

She brought over some sweet pictures of our new little man! It is so uncommon to have these little treasures in adoption, but we get to see them and experience this part of the journey.

 

 Have I mentioned that God is good?

 

He is.

 

Here is sweet Liam's face. It looks like he is wearing a hoodie and you can see his nose, lips, and chin poking out.
Jayson thinks he looks like a Sith Lord :/.

Here is his profile and spine. These shots always bring to mind David's Psalm about how fearfully and wonderfully made we are.

Match Maker, Match Maker, Make Me a Match!

We have been waiting one and a half years to write this post...

 

WE HAVE OFFICIALLY BEEN MATCHED!!

 

We are very excited about this opportunity and feel that God has had His hand in the details.

That being said, we aren't sharing many of the details :).

 We want to respect the privacy of all involved.

 

We are also aware that this is not set in stone and we have some time before the baby is due. A lot can happen during that time. We are praying that God prepares our hearts for any outcome.

 

We have made the decision to share it with everyone because we believe in the power of prayer. We are asking you, our beautiful community of loved ones, to pray for us and for the birth family.

Ways to Pray:

1. Pray that we have wisdom when we need it.
2. Pray for Ava and Ryan who know about the match, but know that things can change. We decided to share this with them because we believe it is an opportunity to teach them how to depend on God especially in the unknown and vulnerable.
3. Pray for the birth family and the relationships we will have with them.
4. Pray that through all of it, God would be glorified.

Thank you all for your love and support. Our hearts and lives have been blessed by all of you immeasurably!

Lord of the Rings

So I have found that either you love Lord of the Rings, or you have not seen it. There really doesn't seem to be any middle ground here. Which makes sense.

We love it.

It's how we kick off summer every year. Starting on the last day of school we start our marathon. We used to watch one whole movie (extended versions of course) a night. So it took us 3 nights to get through. But then we got older and so we started watching one half of a movie every night which then of course made the marathon 6 nights. But then they made The Hobbit movies and we have to add those in so this year our marathon will be 9 nights, or possibly 12 depending on if we can get through a whole movie a night! I am so excited I can hardly stand myself!

We have 8 more weeks of school. Or in other words, 8 more weeks until our marathon!

I may be a nerd. But that's ok. Because I married someone who is just as much of a nerd as I am. :)

Hike to Table Rock

We took a group of teens from our youth group up Table Rock this morning! So much fun!!

Spring Break!

One of the things I love most about my job, is Spring Break! I love that I get to be home for a week and regroup before the big push at the end of the year. This year my plans are pretty laid back.

 

I want to work in my flower beds some. I am not a great gardener, but I at least like the front to look nice. I try to pick things that are low key and easy to keep up with.

 

I also want to run every morning of spring break. I have another 5k coming up and I have been slacking lately so I need to get it in gear! I think this year I am going to do a couple of 5ks. One in the next couple of months and one at the end of summer.

 

We are also planning on going to the zoo a couple different times during break. I think I have mentioned before how much we love the zoo. :) If I could have any animal as a pet, it would be a monkey. I love monkeys. Jayson won't let me though! My dad had a monkey growing up named Stumpy. He liked to eat cigarettes. The monkey, not my dad :).

 

I am also hoping to get a little more caught up on house work and that chore-which-must-not-be-named.

 

And I want to quilt some more. I am working on a quilt right now and it is coming along nicely. I am excited to see what it looks like when it is all done. I am making this one as a gift so it is a little more stressful. I am hoping that the person I give it to doesn't quilt, lol. That way they won't see all of the flaws :).

 

After spring break, it's eight more weeks until summer break! Who could feel bad about that?! Not me!

Ryan Turns 4!

When we went in for Ryan's ultrasound, we agreed we would wait to find out the gender until he was born. Turns out, Ryan had his own plans. When the doctor put that thing on my stomach, the first thing that showed up on the screen was his "gender". And pretty much that's all we saw through the whole ultrasound. We almost had to reschedule the appointment because the doctor was having a hard time getting all of the measurements she needed because he kept flipping around and showing us "that".

 

We should have known right then and there how strong willed that boy is! When he wants something, by golly he wants it right now! I think that this will benefit him when he is an adult. He will know what he wants and go for it!

 

This trait has carried over into his fourth year even. We had planned on going to the zoo on Saturday to celebrate his birthday. The forecast all week said that Saturday would be sunny and 70*. Sunday was supposed to be cool and rainy. So imagine our surprise when we woke up Saturday morning to RAIN. Lots and lots of rain. We tried to talk Ryan out of the zoo and suggested we move the party somewhere else. But he insisted "I wike duh zoo in duh wain." (aka "I like the zoo in the rain")

 

So we loaded up in coats and hoods and rain boots and headed to the zoo! It actually turned out nice! It rained almost the whole time we were there but the animals were all out. And there were lots of puddles to jump in! And who doesn't love to jump in a good puddle?! Ryan loves it! So we let him jump to his heart's content, it was his birthday after all. In our family, birthdays are kind of like a "get out of jail free" card. You can eat whatever, do (almost) whatever, and stay up late!

 

Here is a picture of the birthday boy with his Spiderman cake.

 

 

Me and the birthday boy! Please excuse the bangs, it was raining and it couldn't be helped.

 

I would like to say I got a ton of pictures but we were having so much fun, I didn't get many :/.

 

We are all quite happy that "zoo season" is back! We already have our next two trips in the works!

 

Happy birthday sweet boy!

 

Spring Fever!

Spring fever has struck hard around here! And not just in my classroom, which it definitely has! I have found myself getting home at the end of the day and opening every door and window in the house and just letting the fresh air blow through! We like to keep it classy and open the front door and put a baby gate across the door jam. We don't have one of those cutsie storm doors :).

I might have to find a way to make one...

Maybe I could put that on Jayson's list of things to make out of pallets...

Hmmm...

This DIY thing can quickly get out of control I tell you! Pinterest is baaaad news. ;)

I currently have Jayson working on a desk of some sorts for my sewing machine/crafting area. I am envisioning something with old crates and fun table legs.

I also love this weather because I can get out and run outside again. While I love, love, love my treadmill (when it isn't being a clothes line), I always feel sad when this is my view. 

She looks like I have betrayed her love.


We got out today and had a beautiful run/walk today though! Oh boy am I out of shape! I am going to have to kick it into gear if I am going to be ready for my next 5k in a couple of months. I also would like to do the Color Run this year!

The other thing we start doing in the spring is going to the zoo!! We love, love the zoo. We buy a membership each year because it is something we can do as a family for cheap!

Check out my next blog post for the first visit to the zoo this year. Because, what do you do if your four year old wants to go to the zoo for his birthday and it's raining?

You go to the zoo, DUH! :)

Surprises

It all started out sweetly enough. I gave Jayson a brown bag with some fun things in in for Valentines. It said something like "A brown paper package all tied up with string, here are a few of your favorite things." I filled it with a Pepsi, a Coke, Cadbury eggs, Resee's eggs, his favorite Chapstick, Brownies (are you sensing a food theme? He loves food.) and the last item was silly string. He ate all the goodies and used the Chapstick. Pretty soon all that was left was the silly string. It was just sitting there all lonely in the now empty brown bag. Naturally, I felt bad for it. 

So I used it last night. 

On Jayson of course, it was his gift after all.

 He was standing there looking at the computer completely oblivious to the lonely silly string. 

Spsssst. 

I hit him square on the cheek. It was perfect. He gave me this look like "Really Andrea?"

Spssssst. 

Yup. Really. 

It was on like Donkey Kong!

After he finally tackled me down and took the silly string away and hid it, I formulated my plan. 

Today after work I took the kids to Target and we got three more bottles of silly string. 

And then we waited for Daddy to get home. 

The conspirators all ready to go!

Jewel kept a look out for Daddy! 

Wait for it...

Ava thought this was pretty cool.

The aftershot.

Ironically, I got it the worst. But it was fun!

This may become a regular occurrence in our household. How have I not known how much fun silly string is? I apparently was deprived. :)

Thankful

Today I am feeling thankful. Our girlie, Ava, has a nasty case of pink eye. I'm not thankful for that though, I feel bad for the poor thing! She is pretty convinced that she has pink eye because she had a staring contest with her cousin at school yesterday and one of the other kids told her that she shouldn't because it would hurt her eyes really, really bad. I tried to assure her on the way home from school that, that wasn't true, it's just a silly thing that kids say. But when we got home she showed me the eye that hurt, it was pink. We got right in to our amazing pediatrician and got some antibiotics for the eye. Unfortunately it spread to the other eye so she has two puffy, red slits for eyes. So we are doing the eye drops and they are slowly looking a little better. I don't know that she will ever fully believe that it wasn't the staring contest with Tyler.

Anyway, back to what I am thankful for. I am thankful that I work at a school that understands that me being mommy comes before me being teacher. I work at a small school and so there isn't a huge selection of substitute teachers and there are a lot of teachers out today. But they made sure my room was covered for me, no questions and no guilt, so that I could be home with Ava. This is rare. And I understand the value. I will always be mommy first and teacher second, as much as I love and adore my students (which I do!).

I am also thankful for this journey of adoption. I would be lying if I said that it didn't hurt, or that I understood it all. It does and I don't. But I believe it is shaping me and molding me into a better person. I have learned to be more patient, even if I didn't want to be :). I have learned a new and deeper love for my husband. I already loved him and knew that he was one in a million, but it's deeper and somehow more now than it was a year ago. He knows my heart, because his is feeling the same as mine is.

I am also thankful for coffee. When you are home all day with a sick kiddo, you can drink as much coffee as you want! Also, for freshly baked chocolate chip cookies...<3 <3 <3

The Circle of Life

"The circle of life" will forever make me think of The Lion King. I love that movie. Generally, I like children's movies more than grown up movies. I don't really know what that says about me, but I'm good with it. 

This week I have been thinking about how life does cycle. And it's strange how some areas of life seem to go agonizingly slow while others seem to move so quickly it's hard to catch my breath. My grandma is dying. Hospice gave her 2 days to 2 weeks. She isn't my biological grandma, but she is my grandma. I think I may have mentioned before that both of my grandfathers passed away when I was 5 and 6 years old. When that happened, my younger sister Jessica didn't understand why we didn't have anymore grandpas. So this lovely couple in our church said they would be our grandparents so that we would still have a grandpa. They haven't missed a birthday or a Christmas for me or my three sisters since then. 

Grandma Mary is about 5 feet tall. But she gets things done! She reminds me of that Shakespeare quote "Though she be little, she is fierce!" I have been going to visit her the last couple of days even though she isn't verbally responsive, she seems to know when someone is talking to her. She always holds my hand. 

Her preparing to pass has really made me think about living life with them. I remember how spunky she was. How fiercely she loved her family, us included. She had a definite opinion on the way she thought things should be done. She was endearing, and gruff, and stubborn. But she loved. I remember her love. I used to sit with them in church every Sunday. They sat in the pew directly behind my mom (my dad was on the platform since he was the pastor). They always had gum. I LOVED gum! I loved it! They would sometimes have dress up jewelry for me too. That was always fun! 

Quilting

On the level of patience with 1 being the most impatient and 10 being the most patient, I am a 1 1/2... Maybe a 2... Mostly this is when I am wanting something, or expecting something to happen. Day to day things I am a pretty patient person, I mean I teach kindergarten so I have to be right?! But around my birthday I can get a little anxious trying to figure out what my present is. I like to know right now. So one thing this adoption process has forced me to face, is my need to know right now. I can't know right now. It's been hard. Sometimes really hard. This last month or so has been more on the difficult side. So I thought that maybe rather than mope and feel bad for myself, I should do something! 

So I started looking on Pinterest for some ideas. I love Pinterest. It's a bit of a time suck. I love it. Last night I looked at the Animal and Pet board at all the cute little baby animal pictures for like an hour..... Anyway, I digress...

While I was looking for something to create and work on, I found a link to this lady's blog. She made a quilt for her baby girl that she was expecting and it seemed pretty simple. 

(I mostly did what she did, but made some changes too.) 

So, in true Andrea fashion, I decided to make a quilt. Doesn't matter that I have never sewn before, it can't be that hard, right? So I went with my mother-in-law for a quick trip to the fabric store to pick out fabric....

Two and a half hours later we left with all we needed for me to sew a quilt. 

Two and a half hours. 

My stomach was in knots. 

I think I had the beginnings of an ulcer. 

Picking colors is stressful folks! It felt a bit like getting married. I mean what if I pick these colors, put in all the hard work, and then hate it in the end because the colors look like poo?! And, I don't know why I have never noticed this before (probably because I had never sewn before), but there is a freaking ton of material to choose from! And it is all different textures and weights and what-not. I kept picking fabric and my poor mother-in-law would have to tell me why I couldn't use it. 

Once I got it all home I pre-washed it (apparently this is important so that your fabric doesn't shrink when you wash it after you sew it together). Then I got to cutting. Each square has to be exactly the same. (I decided to go with a 4.5 inch block instead of the 3.5 inch block like the blogger I found. )

I did my best... I ended up with a rather large pile of blocks to use. I was pleased with all 182 of them. Yes I counted. I made Jayson help.

The next day I laid them all out in a random order. I didn't want it to be too patterny. 

Then I started sewing the blocks together into rows and pressing each one as I finished it. I got out my trusty iron that I hardly ever use, and used it for one row before it broke. This is my luck, people. I can never do a project with out having to go get random things because the things I have break. It all fairness it was a wedding gift so it is almost ten years old, but still, I hate ironing so it rarely gets used. Ironing is related to that one chore... ya know... the one that must not be named. 

Anyway, here is all of the blocks put together and ironed after I borrowed my friend's who lives down the street. Thanks Angela!

Then the real fun began! I took my blocks and laid them on top of a batting called Warm and Natural. I used this instead of the big fluffy batting mostly because my mother-in-law told me to. But it turns out it was a great choice because it's an all natural fiber and it was really easy to sew together. My mom says that it also hold up really well after it's been washed. 

Then I laid both of those layers on top of the gray minky fabric I picked for the backing and I ironed all three pieces together. This helped them stick together a bit better. 

Then I started pinning, and pinning, and pinning, and pinning, and pinning. 

And then, just for good measure, I pinned some more. 

I used straight pins. 

That kinda hurt. I had to stop sewing one night because I was having a hard time sewing a straight line while holding the blanket strategically so as not to bleed on it. 

No worries though, I didn't bleed on it! 

Yay me!

Up to this point I had been using my mother-in-law's machine. She had been making a quilt but they weren't getting along and so she decided to stop talking to it for a while. I think they have since made up. 

Anyway, my mom had an old machine lying around that she didn't use and so she gave it to me! I am so excited! That is how I know I am getting old, I am ridiculously excited over being given a sewing machine. Anyway, old or not, it's pretty cool! Here is a picture of Ol' Bess. She's pretty cute.

Once I got all of the quilting done, I pinned the satin binding around the edge. I love the different textures that this quilt offers. 

Here are my sewing buddies keeping me company. 

After I got all done sewing the satin binding on, I turned it over to check out the back and found a few places that hadn't been sewed. 

What. In. The. World. 

I have no idea how this happened. I mean you saw how many pins I put in the dumb thing. So I took a picture to text to my mom. 

Side note: I don't know how anyone learns to sew with out technology. I texted my mom pictures, and questions, and called her about 734 times... give or take. So when I sent her this one, I literally couldn't stop laughing at her response. 

"Say bad words." She understands.

Anyway, after ripping this particular corner out EIGHT TIMES, I finally got it to sew together nicely. 

And I finally got the sweet thing done! I am so happy with how it turned out. It is really nice and snuggly. It fits nicely in the crib. And I think it will be a nice one to use in the car seat too. 

I think I may be hooked on quilting after this. It is so gratifying to finish a project and know that it was me that made it. It has a lot of some imperfections, but that just adds to the charm right? 

The chore which must not be named...

So I hate laundry.

Like, loathe laundry.

It's the "L word" in my vocabulary.

I would rather scrub a toilet than fold laundry and put it away.

I can get it from the laundry basket into the washer. And I can usually get it from the washer to the dryer before the mildew sets in.

But then the problems start for me.

The folding and the putting away.

I like to blame it on the fact that the bedrooms and bathrooms are upstairs while the laundry room is downstairs, but that just makes me sound lazy so I try not to use that one.

I debated even putting this on the blog because I don't want any potential birth moms who may be looking at the blog to get all freaked out thinking I can't do laundry. But then I thought to myself "Self, you are hoping for an open adoption. This hatred of the L word will not go unnoticed forever." So I figured I should just put it out there and hope that it is an endearing quality. Or at least something that helps a birth mom get to know me better. Also, I have no filter.

In my ideas of what hell is, it's a room full of laundry that has to be folded and put away but then the piles never get smaller.

Maybe my hatred of the L word dates back to when Jayson and I were first married and we were poor college students and he dyed all of my white clothes grayish blackish when he washed them after washing the bathroom rugs. Probably not. But I do like to tell that story because it makes Jayson squirm a little.

That's another thing about me, I really like to pester Jayson. I should probably save that for another blog post. He is such an easy going guy though! It really is fun to see how far you can push him before he gets annoyed. Ava has joined in on this with me. Which I enjoy even more.

But I digress. Back to the L word. I think that if I could organize laundry in the same way I organize my classroom, I wouldn't hate it so much. But really when it comes down to it, the job is never done. It's one of those things that unless you do your laundry in the nude, you are never really done. That would just be offensive. So I do my laundry fully clothed and never truly finish.

My nephew is currently into designing things. He is quite brilliant about it and creates pretty intricate blue prints for his designs. His most recent is a robot that "does jobs". These jobs consist of scanning clothes to decide if they are clean or dirty (he hates this chore), folding them, and then he is working on how to make it put them away. I love this kid! I already have an order in for one! I would be more that happy to test out a prototype.

I guess until then I am stuck doing it the "old fashioned way". Or, I could just go buy everyone a new pack of underwear and put it off for a couple more days...

Reflecting on a year's journey

So at this point, we are hovering right around a year's time going through in this adoption process. There are a couple of things that have happened this year that I believe are worth noting:

1) The call to adopt is not an easy one for any party involved.

At this point, we have had close to two dozen encounters with potential birth families. I am guessing for a variety of reasons, our family has not been picked. I truly believe that our match is out there, yet it can be discouraging to go through the process of finding out that there is a birth mom who has our profile in her hand, only to find out that she is going to pick another family.

I won't pretend that the discouragement that I am experiencing is even close to the emotional roller coaster a birth family must experience. To be willing to let another family raise the wonderful, beautiful person growing inside of a birth mom... that is a decision that has no equal to what I will experience in this process. So to all birth moms and families that come across this blog, I want to encourage you as you seek to decide what is the best decision to make for your child. That child is and always will be your child, and the choice you make, whether to adopt or to raise the child yourself, is a noble one, worthy of praise and encouragement.

2) The call to adopt is real, not of my own design.

One of my personal characteristics is that of being an achiever. When this process began, my mind shifted mostly to the logistics of the adoption; how were we going to make this happen? And we began the process to make it happen. It is one thing when you have a plan, and are able to execute it on your own to make it happen, but I soon discovered that while we were in the process of trying to figure this thing out, God in his great glory was working on the hearts of individuals to help us make this happen. Unprompted by me or my family, individuals began to step forward with financial commitments and service commitments to help us raise the funding to be able to adopt when the time comes. This to me, is evidence of God working to make it possible to adopt, and proof that our family is on the right track as we adopt.

3) So we wait.

We will continue to travel down this road as long as it is seen fit for us to be there. We are hanging out in the adoption waiting pool, and over this year's time our waiting has shown us to be very good swimmers. We are ever increasingly looking forward to the opportunity to begin a beautiful relationship with a birth mom, her family, and her child.