We're all Growing Around Our Neck of the Woods

I know, it's been two weeks since my last post. My life seems to be revolved around playing catch up these days. A lot has happened in these two weeks so this is going to be scattered so bear with me.

Lately I've had to truly focus on the necessaries in life and let go of the not so necessaries (at least for awhile). With the little bits of energy I'm given throughout the day, they must be focused on schooling and housework. The rest is all rest from there. If you could peak inside our house you'd see us spending a few hours each day in the school room doing our work and lots of time spent reading a good book like Farmer Boy or Strawberry Girl while lying under a shade tree or snuggling in bed. And the kids (well I should specify, Colton and Gracie) have been really helpful with the daily household chores to keep our house from looking like a bomb went off(although many, many times it certainly does resemble that). And yes Fletcher continues to undo any cleanliness that may occur around here. Gotta love the terrific two's!

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To be completely honest, some days in these past few months were very, very hard. I just didn't know how I was going to meet all the demands that life called me to when I was feeling the way I was. So worn out, tired, sluggish and not to mention very nauseous. But then I would always think of the many women who feel much worse than I do during their pregnancies. And to think of the ones who have to get up early for work each day followed by coming home to a house to clean, mouths to feed and a husband and children demanding her attention. I then would realize I have nothing to complain about. Nothing at all. After all, if I was having a really rough day and just didn't feel like getting out of my jammies all day, then guess what? I didn't. I know, how gross. Don't feel bad I thought the same thing. But hey, I was just in survival mode so in the end, I just really didn't care if I smelt bad or not.

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But thankfully now that I am past 14 weeks things are looking up. And out. This baby bump is out of control!

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Other than watching the belly grow in amazement of its rapid expansion, we've been busy watching our 17 adorable chicks grow. Make that 16 now. Most of you probably heard about the bobcat that snuck up to our back porch area one morning and took one of our babies. It was a creepy couple of days but we are hoping those days are over since it's been six days since he's shown his presence. The kids have gotten so comfortable with going out back and picking up a chicken to play with and have really bonded with these guys.

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We have been spending an extra amount of time playing with them today since tomorrow we are planning on bringing the majority of them to a farm. A nice lady in Palm City was willing to take them off of our hands for us and let them come join her farm. No surprise at all, but this saddens me. I truly wish we could keep all 16 of them.

So last week I made my first official baby purchase. A whole stock pile of cloth diapers for this little wee ones bum! I haven't quite figured out why yet, but I am so excited about this. It is something I wanted to do with baby number 3 but never got my act together in time. I think my life at the time was wrapped up with beginning my adventure with homeschooling so I made a compromise and thought "let's tackle one big journey at a time". So now that we are settled into homeschooling along with the fact that I figured I've made enough waste in the landfill for one family, I'm going to do my part by putting in the extra effort to cloth diaper this baby. Don't worry grandparents, aunts and babysitters, I'll have a stash of disposables just for you : )

Besides being lazy allowing myself to get the proper rest I need to grow this special gift of mine, we have been keeping busy with other stuff too.

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Like celebrating Earth Day...

While we were painting our earths, look who came up to our back porch to say hello...

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Visiting the Nina and The Pinta...

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Exploring the Savanna marsh with our friend Mr. Henry and a few other homeschool friends...

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And of course beach days...

We love to get our feathers wet and swim in God's perfect pool...

And of course spending lots of time lovin' on our chicks. We have fully enjoyed our time with our 17 16 chicks and this process has been so heartfelt yet educational. Definitely something we will always remember. We've enjoyed making the memories while we had them.



And have I ever mentioned that we spend a lot of time playing in the mud around here? Well if not, we do that quite a bit too.

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Stay tuned for more updated pictures of our chicks and also some cute pictures of the most adorable visitor we've ever had at our house. Well, depending upon who you're asking I guess. We were able to babysit a teeny baby pig for a few days and have fallen in love. Again. I'm starting to think that happens quite easily around our neck of the woods.

Oh yea, and we even get to bottle feed him! As soon as I can get my act together I'll get those pictures off my camera so stay tuned!

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In fact he's at my feet right now nudging me so it must be feeding time. Gotta go!

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Until we meet again... Fletcher says, muah to all of his fans!

Easter Fun

Okay, so I know I'm way behind but at least I have an excuse these days : ) We've had such a busy and exciting week and I've had so much to post about, but quite honestly I seem to have lost something. Has anyone seen my energy because I believe I misplaced it somewhere? I have gotten so behind on so many things this past month or two but I'm not giving up. I'm still searching high and low.

Seriously, I don't remember ever feeling so tired with my other pregnancies. I do seem to have that mama brain though and have the gift of letting go of the not so glorious pregnancy moments. Like ahem, natural childbirth. But we won't go there right now. No we won't. I have 28 more weeks before I have to worry about that. But I guess it is quite possible I always have gotten this tired and sluggish but I've let that part escape my memories of pregnancy.

As far as Easter goes, we had a nice one. Even if we didn't put out the decorations this year, we were able to stay focused on why we were celebrating which was what truly mattered. However last night while we were straightening up the garage I asked Josh if he could put the Easter storage bins back into the attic when he got a chance. Gracie looks at me and says "but... but we haven't even decorated yet!" This is just the way our life is right now. Things are getting better though. I can feel it. I actually scrubbed the back porch this morning. That was a sign that I needed to see because I have a lot of catching up to do.

At least I did make sure we dyed Easter eggs this year as we always do.

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This first photo shows the kids dying eggs with church friends at a birthday party.

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And then we also did them at home and they even asked to do it again. But mama said no.

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Fletcher made himself a monogrammed egg with a little help from Daddy.

and then couldn't help himself from eating one.

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Easter morning...

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This is such a cheesy picture to me but Colton's smile made me laugh! And Fletcher's too but his always does.




Later on that afternoon we went to Grandma and Papa's for a delicious dinner and Easter egg hunt.

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Sweet girls Gracie and Faith

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Fletch was an Egg hunting champion...

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but Colton found the golden egg in Papa's grill.

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Gracie didn't do too bad herself. She found as many as her basket could possibly hold.

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After the hunt we came inside to feast on this rabbit. Wow was it yummy! Nice work Grandma and thanks for the Easter outfits for the kids. They were perfect!

Hope your Easter was Egg-stra special!

God, the Giver of All GREAT Surprises!

We are so extremely excited to announce that...

That's right, another chickadee is on its way!

God certainly snuck up and blessed us when we weren't expecting it.

There's a very long story to explain why this is such a huge blessing and just why it was such a surprise. It's a long one so feel free to skip it, although I think it's a good one :)

Most of you probably don't know this but God had planted a seed in our hearts many many years ago to adopt. We just knew that we had to trust in His timing for it to happen. In 2007 He put it on our hearts that it was time to "go for it" even though we had no clue how we'd come up with the expenses to adopt. He allowed us to fully rely on our faith alone to believe that if we followed His calling He would work out all the details. Josh and I made a choice to keep it quiet until we knew more certain when it would happen because international adoption can be a long and somewhat unstable process and we didn't want to get our children's hearts all excited until we knew for sure.

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Towards the end of 2007 we signed on with a small Christian agency and started the process to adopt a baby girl from Vietnam. It felt so right and we were more than excited!

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Just as we were preparing to being the paperwork to compile our dossier, which is an expensive and lengthy process of compiling notarized documents for an adoption to take place, our agency kindly told us to hold off a bit because there had been some unethical practices occurring in adoptions between the US and Vietnam and there was even talk that Vietnam might not resign their adoption agreement which was due for resigning in September 2008.

So we put the paperwork aside and prayed. And prayed and prayed some more.

By April we had been informed that VN had already decided that they would not be resigning the MOU which was the adoption agreement. Our agency felt strongly that after September it could take 6 months up to 2 years for them to come up with a new agreement, but they were nearly certain that it would eventually happen. Again, all in God's timing.

So we realized that this process was going to be an even longer road than we had anticipated. We were glad that we didn't have to break our children's hearts and tell them the news. Also we were feeling sad that now we would have a large gap between the years of Fletcher and our new baby girl because once we would be able to start the process, it would still take around two years to complete but we put our total trust and faith in God that He knew exactly what He was doing.

Then an even bigger blow came. In February 2009 we received an email from our agency informing us that due to Vietnam closing down, which was their biggest adoption program, they were financially forced to merge with another larger agency or close down. So they found another Christian agency with similar values to theirs and they would be merging together. The good news is that they would have a few other programs to choose from, the bad news, we had until March 12th to choose one of those programs or we would lose the thousands of dollars that we had already invested. Waiting on Vietnam was no longer an option for us and we were deeply saddened.

So after praying hard about this and researching the countries that the new agency adopted from, we realized that our only option that seemed possible for us to pursue was Mongolia. We studied the country a lot and I even Incorporated it into our schooling. We read every Mongolian book and watched every video on Mongolia that we could get our hands on. We truly had begun to fall in love with the country and it's culture. I had never known what a beautiful and unique place it was.

But then more setbacks came to us. When speaking to our original agency owners they really had their concerns about Mongolia. It would be a 3 year process and the youngest child we would be referred to would be a 2 to 4 year old but more like 3 to 4 they said. But that wasn't what would hold us back. At this point we were completely open to whatever God led us to. Mongolia had a policy that they could chance their adoption laws and guidelines at any point which could cause us to no longer be qualified for their program and they didn't grandfather anyone in. For example, 2 years into the wait we could be informed that they now only allow families with 2 children or less to adopt from Mongolia and we'd be left high and dry with a lot less money in our pockets and no child to show for it. Our agency said they've done it in the past and seen many families go through this exact thing. We still prayed and prayed about it but so many various concerns were leaving us feeling lost.

The pressure was on big time as March 12th was nearing, but still, we received no clear direction from God.

Just a few short days after having this conversation with our agency of all the concerns with Mongolia and how it just doesn't feel right to us, I realized that my cycle had come and gone and I was several days late.

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On February 28th, the morning of Colton's 8th birthday party Josh brought home a pregnancy test. Yes, I know, he's truly the greatest! I on the other hand was very resistant in taking the test and thought "This couldn't possibly be God's plan for us. Could it?" After all He's already blessed us with three amazing children and we strongly felt that if we were to ever have another child it would be through adoption. This would be a complete and unexpected turn in our plans but obviously not His.

So I took the test. And what I saw boldly appear on that little white stick was something I NEVER expected to see again in my lifetime. We weren't done with our family yet but I didn't expect to be going down this road again. After all, we were adopting.

Josh to say the least, was overly excited just as he has been with the news of each of our pregnancies. But for some reason, this time around, he seemed just a little more excited than usual. I think we both had been searching so deeply for God's direction that the relief of knowing our search was over was a complete joy.

So of course the first thing I did was get out my calendar to calculate when the big due date would be, and the feeling I got when I realized just what that exact date was is a feeling I won't soon forget.

Chills from head to toe.

"Okay God, I know this isn't my own life to live nor my own life to plan. You hold my life in the palm of your hands creating every last detail for your own glory. And I trust you. I believe in you. I am humbled before you that you would give my whole family this amazing gift. A gift I won't ever forget."

November 4th, 2009, exactly five years to the day that I lost my precious, precious mom, will have a whole new meaning this year. We will have a whole new reason to celebrate her life this year.

Because on November 4th, 2009, we are expecting our precious miracle from God.

And we can't wait!!!

I truly never imagined to be at this point again in my life, but I can honestly say that I don't know if I've ever felt so proud to be. I know that this was God's gift to us and I am truly humbled to be the recipient of His grace.

I hold this treasure sweetly in my womb and dream of the day that I will welcome a new son or daughter into our lives as a remembrance of God's love for us. He doesn't want to hurt us. Or forsake us. Or leave us in sadness. Although my mom's death was the greatest challenge that I have ever faced, I have peace. I have hope. I have love.

We are so excited to live our lives with you my precious child. You are wanted, needed, and loved more than words could say. And I can promise you that not a day will go by in your lifetime that you won't be reminded of what an incredible gift you are to us.

Another huge blessing in all of this and answer to our prayers was when we contacted our agency to tell them that finally, God had revealed His plan for us. They were completely overjoyed. They themselves have six biological children and three adopted daughters from Vietnam so they greatly appreciate God's gift of children. They were more than gracious to find it in their hearts to hold our money for us for the day that Vietnam reopens. There is even a greater need now for adoptive families to commit to adopting from Vietnam since the orphanages are overfull due to the shutdown. Some are being forced to turn away babies for lack of room in their overcrowded orphanages. We pray ever day for the children of Vietnam and even more so for orphans everywhere all across the world. There are an estimated 147 million orphans who wait everyday for a family to come and embrace them into their lives and love them, care for them and offer them the hope and faith that they deserve.

In James 1:27, God commands His followers to care for orphaned children in their distress, and although 34% of Christian families consider adoption, only 1 % of Christian families actually do.

We don't know if we will ever be blessed with the opportunity to adopt but we have committed ourselves to God's will if He continues to lead us in that direction. We trust in Him and rely on Him daily to give us the tools we need to care for the children that He has blessed us with.

"...once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12

And this verse completely sums up what we've come to realize on this journey of ours...

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9

I leave you with a little bit of Easter sweetness. We just love how springtime brings new life. Don't you?

And one last picture of the soon to be big brother's Popeye smile. I love it!