VBS is NOT good for the BLOG

Just for the record, VBS is not good for the BLOG. I've been burning the candle at both ends in an amazing way the past couple of weeks. Sorry for the lack of posting. I have a friend that jokes with me that they'll need to take a vacation day to read all of my posts because I usually post all the time. Well, now's the time to catch up if you are behind. This will probably be it for a while.

Not only is this week VBS/Cheering for Jesus/Sports Clinics, we also have Water Day Sunday. Not to mention that Scott, my brother, is coming home for a one week leave from his training prior to heading out to Iraq. The next 10 days will probably be a blur. But it's going to be good! Nothing fuels me more than ministering to a bunch of kids! And I'm very excited about seeing Scott and spending as much time with him as he can stand.

Nothing new on the adoption front. All of our paperwork has been sent, now we just wait for it to be processed. We're still looking at about a 12 month wait, but we're of course praying for things to proceed more quickly than that.

There's also the fact that my baby girl will be starting school in a few short weeks. I'm not happy about this, but it's the way that it is. I know that it will be good for her, she's so ready to learn more. But I plan on spending some major time with her in the next few weeks. This will be the last few days we'll have like this. Things will be different after she starts school. She'll be more independent and she'll be a big girl. I just don't like change...

Anyway, see you guys in a week or so, unless something majorly post-worthy happens.

Face for Grace,
Holly

YEAH for BELLA

Some of you may remember my friend Amanda that I've met through our adoption process. She and her husband have been going through so much during their adoption process. They've been caugh up in a lot of red tape and just plain old craziness, with months of delays and not an end in sight! But, God has heard our prayers and He has moved...and she's got good news! BELLA IS COMING HOME! You've got to visit her BLOG to see this precious baby. It is the absolute best news that I've heard in forever! I can't describe the happiness that I feel for them right now...I can only imagine that their hearts are overflowing with joy, excitement, relief...

God is good, and He answers prayers!

A great weekend & a reflection about tomorrow

Yesterday Jason and I celebrated our 12 year anniversary. 12 years. It seems impossible...the time really has passed so quickly. To celebrate we got away for a few days, just the 2 of us. We had a great time...it was a much needed mini-vacation. Jason really went all out in making sure that we had a special and memorable weekend and anniversary! He is such an awesome husband...and I am one blessed woman to have him! While we were away, we got a call from Christi at our adoption agency, and she told us that our Dossier was mailed out and was on it's way to El Salvador! That was the news that we really needed to hear, at a time that I really needed to hear it.

Tomorrow, July 16th is the due date of the last baby that we lost. Due dates are always the hardest days to face. No matter how hard you may try to not dwell on the loss, or on what should have been...you can't help but wonder about what should have been. We should be welcoming a new life into our family tomorrow. A new bundle of joy with 10 tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes. With itsy-bitsy little hands and feet. We should be eagerly awaiting the time when we get to meet this precious little life, learning the personality of this new family member. I still cry for this baby...my heart really still does hurt over the loss.

All weekend I teared up at the sight or sounds of little babies. It was really difficult to stop the tears. But I did. Even though I had so many thoughts of the life that we've lost, I had to make the decision to be ok with going on. I decided that I was going to have a good weekend, and that instead we would celebrate the lives that are still to come into our family. Whether biological or through adoption; our family will grow, and Jason and I will be ready and waiting when it happens.

I wonder about who she would have looked like. Would she suck her thumb like Bayli? Would she have a head full of hair? Would she have been another 9 lb moose? Would she......if only we had been able to know. From past experience I know that tomorrow will be one of the 3 hardest days that I will ever face. But I will face it, and eventually the sun will set and night time will come, and a new day will be only a few hours away. And I will make it through, even though I wish I didn't have to.

Father God, I know that you have us on this journey for a reason. We really are excited about our future, even though the present is sort of difficult right now. I know that it will get better and you will carry me and Jason through. Thank you that your hand is upon us as we continue with our adoption. I thank you for being with us during the paperwork process, and I praise you for having your hand upon our papers as they are being processed in El Salvador. I pray for favor, that things will go according to your marvelous plan...as we continue to the next leg of our journey. I thank you for a sweet little girl that we will name Gracie, that will come into our waiting arms and hearts and home in your precious, perfect timing.

Face for Grace, Holly

Something unexpected

I've struggled with whether or not to post about a particular recent happening in our lives, but I finally decided after much prayer that God needs to be glorified for the work He's done. Without giving away too many details, I will try my hardest to tell a sensible story without too many holes in it.

One of my earliest posts was in reference to my fear regarding the financial side of our adoption...and that after much prayer and just daily laying down my fears and struggles at His feet, I came to place of peace. I was not sure how the finances would come about, but I knew that God had spoken this to us...therefore He would provide.

I have tried many times to make this work out according to how I thought it should go. Jason and I had made the decision when I got pregnant for Bayli that I would stay home with her. The end. It was absolutely important for both of us. When we decided to adopt, I figured I would go back to work to help fund the adoption; and then would stay home again after Gracie came home. But we knew that I only had a few short months until Bayli started K-4, and neither Jason or I felt that it was fair to Bayli for me to go back to work now- just to fund the way for another child to come into our lives. I automatically assumed somewhere in the back of my mind that God would just send an angel with a check written from The First Bank of Heaven to the tune of $20,000. Well, we waited...and it didn't happen.

After much dragging our feet and gnashing of teeth, we did something we did not want to do...we got a loan for the adoption. With the intentions of after Bayli started school and got settled, that I would go to work part-time to pay this loan off.

I sought counsel from 4 or 5 different people regarding this decision. They were people that I really trusted, and whose opinions I value greatly- and most importantly they were people who I really trusted would give us Godly counsel. They are also people who are good stewards of their money and don't have a lot of debt, if any at all. They all had slight variations on their opinions, but all basically agreed that it was ok to get the loan, so long as we paid it back quickly. I had peace about this, but still really struggled with whether or not this was the right thing to do. I wanted to trust God for the finances, but I also didn't want to put a time-limit on Him, but then I didn't want to do things on my own accord. So, we continued to pray and fast and felt a release to get the loan. We figured that if God felt the need to bless us unexpectedly with monitary blessings, we would just apply it to our loan and pay it back that much quicker. We also went into it with the understanding that we'd pay for everything we could out of pocket, that the money from our loan would be there for the bigger payments that we didn't have time to save up for.

With all of that said, I had gotten to a place of peace with the way that we are paying for the adoption. It wasn't my ideal of what we'd do in a perfect world, but I was ok with it. But we were still believing for all of the blessings that God felt should come our way. We have sowed seeds, continued with our tithes and offerings above our tithes. And I thanked God that I had found a job that I could do 3 days a week while Bayli was in school to pay this off. It was all good.
Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue...the unexpected happened. God had impressed upon someone's heart that they should bless us with a specific amount of money towards the adoption. They said, "It's not much"...but it was plenty. Not just the dollar amount, but the whole package...the kind words, the hugs, the prayers, the fact that they were obedient to what God had instructed them to do. And, last but not least, the reassurance to us that God really certainly has ordained this time in our lives. And we were at a point where we needed another confirmation to that fact.

The best part was, we had to make a payment Friday when we sent off our Dossier. We also had to pay quite a bit for all of the apostilles, and for the shipping fees. And everything was covered with our unexpecting blessing.

Our Pastor just shared with us Sunday night at a Leadership Meeting a quote that goes "if it's God's will, it's God's bill"...

Father God, we were content but still asking and praying for bigger, for more. Thank you for not allowing us to make due with just making it...thank you for giving us more than we hoped and asked for. We continue to leave this all in your hands...the rest of the process, the rest of the money that we'll need, the waiting, the everything that goes along with it. Thank you that you speak to your children, and thank you for making our hearts soft to listen and obey.

Face for Grace

A college education is definitely required...

I woke up this morning and my child was a 3 year old asking 3 year old questions. By about 4:30 this afternoon, she had blossomed into a 3 year old asking 20 year old questions. Now, make no mistake about it, we've always known she was smart. We joked when she was 1 year old that we were going to pre-enroll her in Harvard. I realize that everyone thinks their child is the smartest, brightest human being that God ever created...and we, obviously were no exception to that.

For her 1 year check-up the pediatrician asked me if she could say about 3 words, even if others couldn't understand them...if we were the only ones who could understand them they still counted as words. I took a quick mental inventory of the words that Bayli could say, I'm talking clearly say where perfect strangers could understand her. The total was 15+ words. I'm not just talking "Mama" and "Da-da" type of stuff here. By her one year birthday she could say the normal stuff plus "balloon" and "elephant". By 18 months she was up to 100+ words.

How cute, we thought. Awe...she loves to talk. We really had no idea...It's now a race for the child to get in 10,000 words by 9:45. IN THE MORNING!

I really thought I was prepared for the question stage, because she's been talking for so long. And she has always talked so much, and was down-right good at it. I feel safe in saying that talking could be considered a hobby for her. Maybe one day she may be able to tie it into a lucrative profession. I'm telling ya'll...she's that good.

Anyway, for the past forever, she has been dabbling with the question phase. Just dippin' her toe in the water apparently. Why is it supper and not lunch? Because we already had lunch. But why? And so on it goes. Well, today she decided to try her hand at the big guns. She was helping me make supper and asked, "Mommy...when I tell someone I'm 3 with my hand (holding up 3 fingers) what holds my fingers up?" My limited 1 1/2 years of college education self answered her in all honesty "Your hand and your arm holds your fingers up". She said, "No Mommy what makes them stand up straight and not fall over...is there sticks in there?!" Oh. Ok.

So much for the typical 3 year old "why" questions. At this rate, by Christmas I might have to enroll in some night classes at the local university to keep up my qualifications to be her primary care giver!!

Face for Grace

FED EX spells RELIEF

Well, today was the day. We officially mailed our Dossier today! As much as I thought I had everything together waiting for that one last document from New Orleans; I was sadly mistaken the more I looked things over. I had over looked a few things, misinterpreted a few instructions and just plain old messed a couple of things up. I'm making it sound a little worse than it actually is...I was able to correct everything in just 2 days. But it did leave me scurrying around a bit more than I had wanted to today. I feel pretty confident that all is well right now, we're just going to have to wait it out for a few days until I hear from Christi, our coordinator from America World.

I got very nervous earlier today when I handed my documents over to the clerk at the Secretary of State's office to be Apostilled. My hands were shaking and I had a hard time letting go. I can't put a finger on it; maybe it was just the finality of this stage in our lives...or a deep down fear that something might be wrong, or maybe just a fear of letting those papers out of my hands for the 10 minutes it took for her to process them. Regardless of why, I can promise you that I went through a broad spectrum of emotions today; excitement, pressure and tension, overwhelmed with tears at one point...but eventually total relief won out. I feel as though we'll be able to have our lives back now. I had no idea how much of my time this would consume. Now we'll be consumed with waiting and watching the pages of our calendar flip as time passes.

Anyway, just for the fun of it, I thought you guys might be interested in seeing the fruit of our labor. This is the plethora of paperwork, documents, home study report, psychological report, etc. This is what has taken me since February 20th-ish to complete. And, rest-assured, there are several of these stacks that are more than one document deep.

Aside from the stacks of paperwork, I've also included a picture of one of our photo pages. Aren't we cute?

I've really enjoyed this part of the process, but I'm glad to be leaving it behind and moving on to the next step. I will, no doubt, keep everyone posted on any progress from here. Aside from being officially logged-in, I can't imagine there will be much to communicate for quite some time. Which means that you'll have to be bored with hearing about "us" for a while...just good old family stuff while we wait.

Are we there yet? Is it May 2008 yet?

Just kidding! Have a great weekend!

Face for Grace

Being OCD is hard work...

I've admitted before that I'm a tad OCD. This should come as no surprise to any of you. However, I realized this weekend that this is hard work. I need to lighten up and give myself a break already.

See, I don't allow myself many hobbies; I guess it's because I don't rest well if I can't follow something through to completion. I love to scrapbook. Any every time I have the opportunity, I scrapbook like the wind because I can't stand to be behind...I am only at peace when I'm caught up or working on current pictures. There is no such thing as just leisurly doing a page or two for the fun of it. Oh, no...there's no fun in it anymore. I must conquer the scrapbook hobby. It's quite sad.

Aside from scrapbooking, I love to read. I don't necessarily have a style of writing that I prefer, I just love to read. If it sounds interesting, that's good enough for me. Since I have that little OCD thing happening it's hard for me to start a book, read a chapter or two and just put it down until there is more time. Because guess what? There is never any more time. Not just to lie around and read, that is. My only time to read is in the tub, and even that isn't totally uninterrupted. But it's so relaxing to me. Until recently. See, I decided some time ago that I might put novels aside for a while and stick to some easy reading, like Reader's Digest. It's full of short stories and I can just pick it up and read several articles and then put it down, and I'm ok with it. The problem is this...our subscription had lapsed. When I finally got around to filling out a check and mailing it in (is that antiquated or what? Let's get with the program here...online bill pay people.) Anyway, we had missed a few issues by the time they received my subscription card and payment. But apparently they decided they'd be nice and catch us up or something. Because currently I have 3 months of issues that I've got to read. Then, my sweet husband ordered me Real Simple for Mother's Day. I love this magazine with all of my OCD heart...it feeds my need for organization and all things OCD. It's awesome. But see, when he decided to suscribe to it for me, he bought me the May issue, then the June issue came out the next week and he picked that one up for me too. So I have 2 of those to read also.

5 magazines y'all. And I can't just skim through them because I might miss something. I have to read from cover to cover because it's the way it should go. The craziness...

I tried to share my magazine woes with my sister. I really thought she could offer some sound older sisterly advice regarding this oh so delicate situation. Her response was quite shocking to me. She subscribes to 9 magazines. Nine. A few of these come in weekly! And she is looking for a few more things to read by the end of the month. I would have to take a vacation daily to read that many magazines. I can not imagine keeping up with that. Not to mention the clutter that nine magazine subscriptions could create in a month's time. Anyway, she proceeded to advise me that reading is supposed to be fun, and I should lighten up and enjoy it already.

OK really, so that's how that works. I'll make a mental note of that.

On the way to Baton Rouge tonight Jason called the people from Real Simple because it appears that we haven't received the July issue yet. Apparently it takes a while for them to begin sending the magazines to you once you've subscribed. My first one will come in August. He was totally sad for me and told me that we'll just have to purchase July. He is so precious. But, deep down inside I breathed a sigh of relief. I think I'm just going to throw caution to the wind this time and wait for the August issue to come in.

Maybe I will be better caught up with my summer reading list by then.

Face for Grace,
Holly

Please join me in singing the Hallelujah Chorus...

The envelope please...

Q. And what exactly was the return address on the envelope?
A. US Department of Immigration

Q. And what very important document was inside of the envelope?
A. The single piece of paper that we've been waiting for 6 weeks to recieve!

Q. Did you hear the angels resound with the glorious singing of Handel's Messiah/The Hallelujah Chorus?
A. O.K. you may have missed that part...but we heard it clearly and so did all of our neighbors over here in our cul-de-saq!

Q. What's next?
A. I have one more appointment to get some things notarized & I have to fax the last little stack of papers to our adoption coordinator for her review. Once she approves everything I head to the Secretary of State office to get all documents "Apostilled"...then I send them all off to America World. After they are translated to Spanish, it will be sent to El Salvador and logged in. In other words, we'll officially be on the waiting list! (Sounds like a lot, but shouldn't be longer than a week or so)

Whew! What a relief!

Father God...thank you for answering prayers. We are one step closer on our journey. Even though I've gotten discouraged at times, I have certainly grown by leaps and bounds during this process. I know that the wait really has only just begun...but it feels good to have made it this far. Thank you for guiding our footsteps to make it this far in this amazing journey!

Face for Grace,
Holly

Soaking it all In

This weekend I was able to get away to a women's conference in Lafayette. Our Pastor's wife was one of the guest speakers and she invited some of us to go along with her.

I was very excited to go, but I'm always hesitant to leave Jason and Bayli for any amount of time. I guess the devil senses that about me, because he always tries every trick in the book...and every time I am supposed to go away Bayli gets sick. For real. This time I thought I had eluded this, and then she woke up at 3:00 Thursday morning with high (102.8) fever and croup. She went to bed Wednesday night with no signs of any sort of sickness at all. Oh, and did I mention I was to leave Thursday in less than 12 hours?

And this time, to make matters worse she didn't just have the Croup cough, you know the one that sounds like you have a seal living in the room next to you? This time on top of that, she had much breathing diffiulty. Much. It scared me to death. Jason, on the other hand, told her to calm down and that it would all be fine. She was gasping for air at times. Good thing we balance each other out, because as you can see, he's not easily rattled or alarmed...as I'm sure you can imagine I was totally calm myself. Ahem.

This was her 3rd time with Croup, so from previous experience our Pediatrician had told me to stick her head in the freezer to let her breath in the cold air and it would shrink the swelling in her throat. He also said that swallowing ice chips or drinking very iced down water should have the same effect. We opted for the latter. After a few minutes of drinking the ice water she was able to breath a little better, at least momentarily. So, my suspicions were confirmed that we indeed had a case of the Croup. Not being the one to over-react, Jason felt she'd be fine waiting until the morning to see the Pediatrician. So, I allowed her in our bed (which never happens...) it was quite the treat for all of us involved! She is not a calm sleeper, and I woke up with bruises...well, I got out of bed in the morning with bruises. Saying that I "woke up" would imply that I actually slept with my child wheezing and crowding me and kicking me, etc.

Anyway, we went to the Dr. first thing in the morning. He gave her a steriod shot and she was breathing better within minutes. But still had fever. Considering that I hate to leave at all, when she is sick its almost impossible to pry me out of this house. But I really felt an urgency to attend this conference. So, I arranged to drive myself to the conference. That way I could leave later, and would have my own transportation if I needed to come home. It just made me feel better.

At 3:30 I dropped Bayli off with my Mother in Law and I got on the road. And, I kid you not, I felt like a woman on the run. I was all panicky and kept looking in my rear view mirror...thinking that the "Mommy police" would be behind me with the sirens going and the lights flashing. It's like that feeling you get when you think you've forgotten something, or when all day you keep thinking you left your flat iron on and just know you'll come back to a cinged house. I remember right after I had Bayli, I had severe depression. My friend suggested that I get out of the house, go to Wal Mart or something. So I did...but it was never the same again. No matter where I went, she always belonged to me, and the realization hit me that I will always have someone to take care of and to be responsible for. I guess I didn't feel guilty for getting away, as much as I felt irresponsible. Jason kept telling me she's be fine, he could handle it. But, he's not me.

But, it was absolutely the best weekend. And we all lived to tell about it. And my goodness, the sweetness when I got home! She kept holding my cheeks and kissing me and telling me that she "is happy that I'm her Mommy" and that she was "so happy that I'm back, because she missed me all day long!" And, I was "her favorite and her best". Maybe I need to go away more often?

And, I got to hear 7 incredible women of God speak...I sat in 6 sessions and a 2 hour long worship session! You have to understand, Jason and I are in children's ministry. I have only been in "big church" 4 times since January 1 this year. We've had a lot of changes in our ministry and a lot of adjusting due to adding a service, and we've had to miss a lot of church to have all areas covered. So, to get this much word in one weekend was so amazing to me. And I wasn't responsible for a thing. All I had to do was show up and sit on a pew. Now, I love our work in the ministry and I love being a servant...but sometimes it feels good to receive. It was amazingly good...I cant' even begin to describe how refreshed I felt.

And the best part was...I came home to an almost spotless house. And Bayli's fever was gone. Her Daddy had taken excellent care of her while I was away. They had some good quality time together...2 whole "Daddy Days". I am certainly blessed.

Father God, thank you for making a way for us to get away sometimes. And thank you for making it so very sweet when we get home! I love our life, and I love the place where we are right now in our lives. And I love my husband and my daughter...thanks for your abundant blessings!

face for grace,
Holly