First Steps towards a family of Four

After collecting and collecting lots of yellowed papers, we were able to complete the first of 4 steps toward completing our home study! Our scavenger hunt included many personal documents but also signing forms. The fun part was finger prints. Its kind-of cool (new to me) the GBI fingerprinting is done inkless. They have this 'box' that they press your fingers on to capture each of your finger prints and no black finger prints! FBI is a different story :)

We met with our assigned social worker (further refereed as SW) on Feb 3rd, and talked about our families, dating life, married life, parenting, etc...
Note: NO privacy when going through an adoption. :)

SW was very pleasant to work with and really stressed that her goal is not to eliminate applicants but to help in areas of need. Marriage problems before an adoption = MORE marriage problems after.

SW got to meet Austin, observe our interactions with him, and tour our home. I have really enjoyed working with an organization that focuses on education, family unity and God.

February 28th we will be meeting with SW to have individual interviews and again to observe our interactions with Austin. This is also when our autobiography's are due.

In the meantime we are reading our required text: The Connected Child: Bringing hope and healing to our adoptive family by Karyn B. Purvis, David R. Cross, and Wendy Lyons Sunshine.

Please pray for:
The workers at the orphanage taking care of our son
Gods protection over our son
Continued success in completing tasks and requests
Focus on receiving our son 

It's the little things

  

Listening is one of those things we just take for granted.  Really have you ever thought about the sound of things that just make noise and are tuned out because you always hear it? 

When Austin was little he could tell us a plane or helicopter was up in the sky WAY before we could see it. He was learning to listen and could hear EVERYTHING! 

Looking back I remember always being told to lower my voice or I was too loud. But not until I had my son that I was concerned I wouldn't hear my baby in the monitor if he cried. Being responsible for someone truly makes me take care of myself better, knowing someone is depending on me. 

The first time time I put a pair of hearing aids in I thought something was wrong with the hearing aides. All the sounds I had never heard before. Florisent lights, carpet, paper (yes paper!)

I had a headache for a week trying to adjust to my new improved sense. I wish I had gotten them sooner, it has opended up my world. I am not just nodding n' smiling. I can actually have a conversion and know what is going on! 

Now after 7 years I am on to my second VERY pricey pair and these are AMAZING!! Technology has come a long way just since my first pair in 2006. 

If you know some one who could benefit from hearing aides even at the young age  PLEASE encourage them, allow them to be part of the conversation, laughs, TV shows. Help their spouse not have to repeat every punch line and quick comment. Enjoy life and all the sounds of our life. 

Hearing my world also makes me ponder how my spirit is listening to Gods call on my life. Everyday I need to reset and focus on Him. To start listening to His call for me to join Him when our world has made me immune to looking for where He is working. 

Onward and forward!

Well our first phone interview is complete and now we beginning the process of the home study- We have been told that this could take 3-4 months to complete and that there will be a couple more face to face interviews along with a home visit to our house. If you don't hear about the adoption for a while we are knee deep in looking for long lost certificates and proof that we exist :)

If you pray we specifically ask that you pray:
1- First and foremost for our child's safety, protection, and well-being as he will already be born.
2- For those taking care of him.
3- For strength and endurance in this long process.
4- Make financially good decisions now as it is easy to think of today and not next year.
5- Parenting growth for Tony and I as we prepare to bring home an orphan.

Adoption

I know it might sound silly but it is always been awkward announcing big news. Like getting married, having a child, getting my masters. Its not that I feel like I'm being prideful but that it is scary to just put big things 'out there' where others are going to ask about it, your progress, and look at you to see what your reaction is. When all I am trying to do is take it one-day-at-a-time. I have never been great with words and this blog does stretch  me quite a bit. (I'll give it a go AGAIN this year!)

All that to say...

We are adopting! I know this might come as a shock to you because it really isn't something we have openly discussed (see first paragraph) and to be honest I really didn't want others opinions to weigh in on our decision. So let me start from the beginning...

Austin was conceived quite quickly and to be honest with you, when we decided to try for a second we both agreed that we had to be ready since we thought it would be just as quick. When that didn't happen it became overtaking. It overtook my every thought and daily activity wondering if I was pregnant or not and should I do this or not. It is really hard to understand until you have been there. I never truthfully understood how mentally overwhelming it would be until it happened to us. We were advised to just keep trying and after a while I felt I needed to get a second opinion. This time I was told that at our age we really should seek fertility assistance.  Both Tony and I agreed that going beyond diagnosing the problem and minimal assistance neither of us we wanting to go through infertility options. So be both got checked out and were given a clean bill of heath. The only issue was age. I took Clomid with no success. This is when we decided we were done trying. Soon God removed the desire to bare another child but not to raise and nurture another child. 

[This is a great article on the pain of infertility. I really felt peace knowing my emotions and feelings of trying to have another child weren't just me going 'crazy'. A good article if you or someone you know is challenged by infertility. God is good and "all things work together for the good” (Rom. 8:28)]

After much praying and seeking others who have gone this route we started attending informational meetings for some adoption organizations. 

After one meeting about foster-to-adopt we realized we didn't feel God leading us into the labyrinth of the U.S. foster care system.  

Then after attending a meeting with Lifeline Children's Services we both felt God lead us to this group. We felt their goals and ours were aligned and we would be well taken care of through the entire process of this journey. 

So let me bring you up to speed-

September 22, 2013 we submitted our application- we then needed to decide what country to adopt from, we didn't feel God was leading us to a specific country so until he did we started the most rational approach. We literally started black lining countries from the spreadsheet that wouldn't work for us. 
1- The length of stay in the country. Since both of us work it would be difficult to be out of the country for more than a month. 
2- Cost- lets be honest it's not cheap.
3- Length of time for adoption to be complete. 

In the end we have chosen to adopt a little boy age 2-5 from Southeastern Europe. (per request we are not identifying specific country on this blog until adoption as complete.)

November 2, 2013 we signed our papers to begin our home study  but had some complications getting some bonds that we earmarked for the home study cashed so it was frustrating to have to wait so long to begin. 

December 18, 2013 January 3rd, 2014-Finally able to make a date for our first interview! 

One question you might have is- What does Austin think? He is very excited and at the beginning wanted a blow by blow for everything we have to do. As time moves on he will forget about it for a week or so then say as he did about a week ago, 'I wish my brother would get here soon'. BOY so do I!!

Well now you are in the loop! I hope you follow our journey and I will share as much as I can.
 

New Old Couch

Here is a tired old couch...

I would LOVE a new set! But it is not in the budget ANYTIME soon. 

So how do you make lemonade out of lemons?

1- Take all the stuffing out of couch pillows. Great time since I haven't deep cleaned since Annie died and I have been running and then sitting on the couch = smelling my stink long after a shower. :(

2- Wash all covers. I washed the throw pillows without taking stuffing out but later realized they were damp and had more potential than I was giving them. Hence the drying pile- (it was spread all over floor)

3- Pull all filler apart and allow air to infiltrate. This is great to do while watching TV :)

4- As it is fluffed, fill pillow casings. Long and tedious process. Stick with it, it's worth it!

5- Sew back seam. I used heavy coat thread. 

6- Cut batting to cover bottom cushions. This can be a puzzle if you want to get the most out of your money.

7- Spray adhesive according to the directions. I put new batting right on top of old batting for a more full look and feel.

8. Wrestle the foam/batting back into the casing. 

9- Put couch back together and be amazed!!! 

The total love seat revival cost $16.00!!

Now I have to do the bigger  couch...another day :)

Have a great day!!!

Running..me?

I have never been a huge fan of running, but for some reason lately I have really been interested in doing 5k's' so I signed up for the Run or Dye in Atlanta on Aug 3rd. Then Tiffany approached me about running the Grayson Road Race at the end of April. So here I go...running... not sure how I got here but I am going to enjoy it!

Light at the end of the school year

This has been a week to be at my desk, it doesn't happen very often so I am going to take advantage of it! Working at my desk can have its pitfalls and advantages. One pitfall is that everyone knows where to find me. The advantage is that everything I need is in my office. I will enjoy the time I have to get what little I can done each day between kindergarten, lunch duty, and 4th grade specials.

This next week Austin and I get to visit Baby Braden and his wonderful family!
Hoping to be a little more frequent in my posts now that school is coming to an end.

Is spring here yet?

A beautiful day to play outside the cherry blossoms are all in bloom and I love seeing all the flowers on the trees! I am ready for spring!

We enjoyed a relaxing Easter, Tony had to work 9 services so his weekend was pretty busy. We feel so blessed to attend a church that shares the truth in a non condemning manner.

Austin and I enjoyed dyeing eggs in Koolaide with Levi and Emily. Along with an egg hunt, basket hunt ( while FaceTiming Tony) and a delicious brunch.

March Madness :}

Austin earned two trophies for his pinewood derby car! He earned third place for design and first for speed! Soo happy with all Tony and Austin accomplished!














Mom made this and sent it to us for Easter!

I got to enjoy a weekend away with girlfriends scrapbooking in March.

Playing cards with Austin can be so much fun when he is happy using his new card holder :) gifts from my Nags head trip.
















Happy Saint Patrick's day! Special green pancakes in shapes of clovers, top hats and coins. Adding green milk and its a perfect breakfast!


















Library trips are always fun! I have almost given up on buying books he reads them so fast! Austin's craving right now is Geronimo Stilton books on CD

Posting Blog Entries To Facebook

So, when Tony started this blog for us he also set up a service so that people could sign up to be notified via email when we would put a new blog post up. This was back before he and I, or many of our family were on Facebook. Now that we are on Facebook, many of the people that keep track of us are not signed up with that service so they aren't aware when we put something new up. Tony found a new service that we are testing out for the first time with this post. Hopefully if it works, anytime I post a new entry, this service will automatically put a brief post on my Facebook timeline letting people know that there is a new blog entry and should give a link for it as well.

The service he is using for this is called IFTTT. It stands for If This Then That. So he's set it up that essentially IF there is a new blog post THEN post a brief message and link on Facebook. Well, enough typing....here it goes! Cross your fingers!

Time for Family

Austin and I took our 4 day weekend to surprise Aroa for her birthday and also to visit the Mimms/Strange Clans.

I sure miss being close to them and the kids ALWAYS have fun together!

We arrived in STL around 3pm and surprised Aroa, when we walked in she was not very surprised. I think it was more shock than anything. Anna seemed a little confused too :)

We soon headed off to get Build-a-Bear birthday presents (Aroa-Feb and Anna- Apr)and Austin's Build-a-Bear Valentine.

 It was a cold weekend (to Georgia standards) but playing outside was a must for the Strange girls and Austin loved playing with his cousins. I enjoyed relaxing, watching and listening to the kids, and spending time with Kim. I also enjoyed some yummy cooking by Jeff and delicious cake by Carol.

Of course Kim and I HAD to go to Target :) Where Austin got to pick his birthday present from Aunt Kim and Uncle Jeff. (Always acting silly!)

  and when we got back the Legos got built. 

On Sunday Aroa had her family birthday party and Aunt Katie had the winning present of a mini build-a-stuffed animal kit. All three kids love it. It was fun watching them build their animals and then get the sewing supplies Carol gave her and proceed to make clothes for them. 

 

(yes, Aroa is younger then Austin but she is taller) 

 

 Carol made a BEAUTIFUL cake for Aroa and it was yummy too!

The night before we left Kim and I could hear the the two big kids talking in the bedroom about being grown up, driver licenses, girl/boyfriends, and college. It was soo cute to hear them be best buds and hang out together. That is time they will always cherish!

I really enjoyed my weekend with my family, I couldn't have prayed for better family-in-law's and I am looking forward to seeing them all again this summer!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you enjoy Valentines Day as much as I do. Really any holiday that I can celebrate, I like :)

 Tony was soo sweet to surprise me with flower on Wednesday at work. I had no clue but they couldn't have come at a better time. Stressed by my work load, meetings and deadlines along with an approaching trip. It was just what I needed. He is the best!

Austin and I looked at Valentine ideas on Pinterest this year and he really loved these. I Photoshopped hearts and text on the pictures before I sent it to Walgreens for printing. So much fun!

 Austin woke up to his Valentine friend waiting with a VERY special present. This Love Bug is sooo cute! He has a backpack on so any presents can go in the backpack and his hand has a clip so he can even hold things too. The bug was from last years Valentines Day, great time to recycle!
Since we were going to see Aroa and Anna. I knew that we would be going to Build-a-Bear as our gift to them for their birthdays, sooo for Austins valenine present I also gave him a gift card to Build-a-Bear. It was a little more expensive of a gift than I would normally give him but this year was special. Hopefully he will forget about it for next year :)

 For school I made Austin a cute shirt, originally the heart was 'scarlet' which I always thought meant 'red' but apparently it is a hue of pink. Eventually the heart became green and the alien blue, it turned out super cute and he loves it- which is what matters!

Austin and Sarah showing off their loot bags, Austin sure had a lot of fun decorating his.

For Valentine's evening we all went to Panera. It was my last day of work for the week and I was not leaving until the yearbook was finally submitted, so around 5pm Austin and I finally left school and headed to meet Tony for dinner.  Austin took this pictures of us. :)

Austin wanted to have a 'dinner-party of one' night so he sat down the bench from us. :)

I hope you had a wonderful day full of love, surprises and joy.

The yearbook is finally done!

My days have been consumed by the school yearbook. Busy days and busy nights! I am soo glad that it is done! I have never been happier to have completed a project!
I kept thinking about how I wanted to post to the blog but the yearbook had a deadline and this didn't :(

In the mean time we have enjoyed some fun around our house.
I am finished crocheting Emily a beret and made some cute winter hats for two newborn babies. I can't wait to see them on them!

We watched the Superbowl over Tom and Gretchen's the kids watched most of the game with the help of the Viggle App we all had fun answering trivia and watching the commercials.

We went and saw my dad and his wife Darcie at an SCA Arts and Science Event. My Dad has been participating in SCA since as long as I can remember.

We also had a fun date at the Studio Movie Grill and had dinner in front of  the movie. Fun, not for every date night but fun.

 Made a trip to the library to get more books, this boy can read so many books so quickly. He finished the Heroes in Training in 3 days!

Don't forget about Valentines day (more pictures to come)! Austin and Tony did a great job assembling them!

Austin is doing may jobs/chores to earn money these days one of them this week is to fill the dish washer. 

Other posts to come but soo happy to not be exaused by this yearbook projects, a least for a year :)

Austin's Pinewood Derby Race

Jen asked me to post something about Austin's first experience in the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. I have to admit, when the time came to start getting ready for the pinewood derby I'm not sure who was more excited, me or Austin. I remember being in a couple pinewood derby's when I was a kid. I still have both my cars. I don't remember too much about making the first one but I do remember some things about the second one.  I remember that I went through ALL of my Hot Wheels cars to pick out one that I wanted to have turned into a Pinewood Derby car. Once selected, my dad did a great job of transferring the essence of that Hot Wheel car design to my small rectangular block of wood.

So this year, once Austin had his car kit, we started searching the web for car designs. I didn't bring up having him check his Hot Wheels cars because I am NO WHERE NEAR skilled enough to try and transfer one of those to wood like my dad did. We searched and, honestly, all on his own Austin picked a car that was kind of a combination of a crayon box and a crayon all in one. So we printed out the design and on one of the 'build days' that one of the pack leaders hosted we went and got the design cut out. Austin helped me sand the car down to get ready for paint. We set up in the garage and Austin and I got to painting.

In the end, I actually screwed up the paint job and on the next build day we had to go so I could use a power sander and sand off the paint and try again. Anyone who knows me knows that I can be somewhat of a perfectionist and the thought of trying to repaint this car as a crayon box in the dwindling time we had left was stressing me out. (A perfectionist with very minimal artistic skills doesn't mix very well) So my amazing wife came up with the idea of printing out the crayon box design and attaching it to the car with Modge Podge.

This was an awesome idea! Some of you may know or have heard of actual cars being 'wrapped'.  It's a process where a design is essentially printed out on a type of vinyl and then the car is literally wrapped with it. If done right, it looks like a really elaborate paint job on a car. A lot of service businesses do this to company cars that potential customers will see. Anyway, we printed the crayon box design out with the color modifications that Austin wanted and Austin and I 'modge podged' the design onto the car. Once it all dried, it looked amazing and you almost couldn't tell that it wasn't an actual paint job. In the picture below, the blue tip and the black section are actually paint. Austin did the white squiggle with a paint marker. The yellow section with the writing and blue stripes at the bottom is the modge podged wrap. The 2 and the 4 are actually stickers meant to represent 24 crayons in a box. 

Next was getting the wheels and axles ready and on the car. I remembered from building my pinewood derby cars that my dad had put graphite lubricant on the axles and wheel hubs. A friend that I work with whose son had been in scouts had some other advice about also polishing the axles. He gave me some tools that they had used on his son's cars. I also bought 7 different grits of wet/dry sand paper and Austin and I got to polishing. We'd put an axle into the end of my drill and while Austin would pull the trigger of the drill, I would file and sand/polish the axle. He wanted to try some of the filing as well so he did that on a couple of the axles. Once all 4 'nail' axles were polished we put the graphite lubricant into the wheel hubs, slid the wheels onto the axles and then hammered the axles into the slots for them on the car. Once that was done, we had our Cubola Crayons #24 Pinewood Derby racer!  We went into the race weigh in/registration and had to add just a little bit of weight to get it as close as possible to the 5oz weight limit. 

Then came race day!

Austin was up for the first race of the Tiger scouts. A quick explanation, the Tiger scouts raced against each other in their own grouping and then the Wolf, Bear, and Weblo scouts all raced in a separate grouping. So in the first race, Austin was pitted against 2 other scouts from our den. The race started and Austin's Cubola car shot down the track and won the race.....except that the race software was showing that lane 3 had won. (Austin was in lane 1). The software was flipping the results of the race. So we retried the race...and again it was showing the opposite lane as winning. This time, we swapped Austin's car and the car in lane 3 (so now Austin is in lane 3 and the other car is in lane 1) and raced it again. Again it swapped, showing that lane 1 had won the race this time instead of lane 3. We then took the finish line sensor and flipped it around and still had problems. Finally it was discovered that for some reason, the software wasn't resetting the results after the race and this was causing it to incorrectly accumulate time and speed results. So got that figured out and raced Austin's heat one more time and this time (queue singing angels) HALLELUJAH! the results were correct and Austin won his heat (not to mention the 4 or 5 other 'races' that didn't count ;-)). Each car raced three times. each time in a different lane. Then all of their time and speed results were averaged. Once all the cars had raced the results came back that Austin's car won with the overall best average time and speed!

The top 3 finishers go on to race in the Boy Scout district races in April. Austin and the #2 finisher are both in the same den so our den took 2 of the top 3 spots! We'll have both boys in the district race. All the boys did really well and all the car designs were really cool.

Later in the evening during the Wolf, Bear, and Weblo races the computer running the software locked up. Due to the delay at the beginning of the race with the results being reported wrong, we were already running WAY behind so at this point Jen decided that she and Austin would go home (we did not know yet that there even was a district race). So they left...a little while later is when I discovered that there was a district race and that Austin would be in it. I sent a text message to Jen to let her know and to tell Austin that he couldn't play with his car, we'd need to put it away until districts. She text me back..."He is upset." I had been afraid of that since he couldn't wait to be able to play with his pinewood derby car alongside of mine that I'd let him have. Part of it was that it was late and he was just tired. By the next day, knowing that he and Arav would both be racing in the district races he was fine with it.

Overall it was a really awesome time. It brought back some cool memories of working on my pinewood derby cars with my dad. It was really fun (other than stressing about the paint job) working with Austin on his car and seeing him really want to try some of the different parts of building it, i.e. filing the rough parts of the axle, try spray painting, sanding the car, drawing the squiggle with the paint marker. This first pinewood derby for Austin was a really cool experience for him I think and a another good learning experience for me. As much as I stressed out about certain parts...those things didn't phase him at all. Was just another reminder that as a person...I still need to work on not being as much of a perfectionist about certain things and that as a parent....I have to be careful not to transfer that perfectionism to Austin. I want him to strive to do and be his best but that doesn't mean it has to be perfect and that if it's not, it wasn't his best effort. I fall short there sometimes and it's something I continue to struggle with and try to do better at.

Actually there is still one part of the competition we don't know the results of yet. The cars were judged by the former mayor of Snellville (I believe) as to 'best in show'. So maybe we'll win again...who knows. 

Good Bye Annie

Annie has passed away. It was very difficult to let her go but seeing her on her last day I knew it was time. Austin found her in the morning not able to walk and she was whining. He got me, and I put her in her bed thinking she must have hurt herself in the night and thought she could rest better in her bed. She seemed fine. We left about an hour later and she was still in bed. When we came home much later in the afternoon, she had again fallen and was unable to stand. After much discussion and tears, Tony took her to the vet for evaluation. The vet said there wasn't much quality of life and the only viable option was to get an MRI, which he wouldn't recommend at her age, to see what was going on. We decided that it wasn't in her best interest to do that.

Austin took the situation very well, as he had for Max's death. We explained that the Dr. couldn't do anything for Annie and that she had died. He didn't have any questions and we told him that if he did we would answer them. So far he hasn't had any.

It feels weird not to have a pet. This is the first time in my life that I haven't had one. We have talked about eventually getting another pet, but we are going to wait until at least August.

This is one of my most favorite pictures of my precious dogs. Max passed away last April and almost a year later Annie joined him. They are both about 2 or 3 in this picture. They were both such beautiful dogs! 

It is a miracle that I even got this shot! That's a whole other story!