HOME STUDY!!!

Ok Folks....without further ado, I can FINALLY tell you that we are having our homestudy on Tuesday Sept. 28th at 7:00 pm. Of course I told you a specific time so you could be praying for us, and of course I will remind you again the day before :)
As you know, we had a very VERY busy summer,( Thank you Jesus for a great harvest!) and with all that winding down, we have been able to refocus on this adoption again. This makes me happy! There is a season for everything, and we are entering into our time of really pursuing this adoption full force. On October 30th we will be having our big fundraiser in front of our church. This should be a lot of fun! There will be multiple raffles, crafts for kids, face painting, hot dogs, popcorn, lemonade, games and candy, cake walks and bake sale, bounce houses, and a professional photographer taking awesome pictures of families at an amazing cost! And of course, she is donating the proceeds to our adoption :) We are also in the process of having some awesome t-shirts printed up to sell. See...I told you it was time for us! God's timing is perfect and the time is now :) We are so excited and nervous all rolled up in one! I really hope if you live in our area, you will come and have fun with us on October 30th. Hope to see you there! Keep praying for us and our baby boy! Pray God leads us straight to him and pray that we will pass this homestudy with flying colors!

Just for grins

I haven't shared a funny kid story in a while so I thought I would share one just for kicks. Every week in school Alyssa gets a new memory verse, that she has to recite to her teacher at the end of the week. This week's verse is "Depart from evil, and do good." Psalm 34:14. We were practicing going over it, and Alyssa kept on saying ""Defart" from evil and do good." Oh my goodness, it was hard not to giggle. I corrected her and said, 'Honey it's depart, not defart,'all the while trying to keep a straight face. She kept saying it over and over....and I would correct her. I hope she gets it down by Friday, or else Mrs. Smalley might be giggling too :) And I know all who read this story will never hear that verse in the same way again. Hope it makes you giggle everytime, for I know that Jesus was up there giggling right with my sweet girl thinking how precious she was!

Local Celebrities...uhhhh...sort of :)

Next time you walk into your local Market Street or United Food Store, you may be greeted by a poster of our family! Look for us and then look for some of our okra and go buy some :) Support your local farmer :) Hopefully next year we can re-do these pictures and have one extra little bug in the picture! That would make it just perfect!

My little Kindergartener!

I have had the priviledge of being a stay-at-home mom with my girls! I spend 24/7 in the presence of my babies. I hear a lot of parents say they can't wait for school to start, but I never felt that way. I absolutely love being at home with my girls! It has been my greatest joy to do so! Of course I need a break from them from time to time, but 35 hours a week seems a little too long. So to say the least, I had a bit of a hard time when Kindergarten snuck up on me. My sweet girl did great though! She was excited and came home telling me that she made some "very new best friends," and was telling me she had recess 2 times! She also hopped out of bed on her own the next day and was ready to go. Alyssa's teacher is such a sweetheart and loves the Lord, so that helps me to know that someone like minded who is Christ centered is teaching my baby 7 hours out of the day!
So although this is an end to a precious time of being able to stay home with Alyssa, this also marks a beginning of a new time of growth for her and the first step of letting go for me. I have decided instead of being sad, I will be excited for this new step and to enjoy my one on one time I now have with Aubrey! I will soak it up, because I know in a short time she will be starting school as well!

CAKE WINNER!

Tonight we had the drawing for the winner of the cake raffle. Aaron did the honors tonight and he drew...........


Karen is a dear friend of the family! She is one of my mom's best friends and the mother of my brother's closest childhood friend! Karen is as sweet as they come and is a prayer warrior! We are so thankful we have sweet Karen and her husband Darryl, praying for us on this journey! Congratulations Karen! And I'm sorry to those that didn't win! Just know that your money is not at a loss! Every penny brings us one step closer to our little man! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all that participated! We are thankful for you and love you!

Vacation in Galveston!

With this summer being so chaotic, we were needing some good quality family time, so we took a little trip down to Galveston Island! It was the best thing we could've done! We had such a wonderful time! The only negative was that it went by way too fast! We spent most of our days on the beach... dolphin watching, boogie boarding, looking for seashells, and building sandcastles. But we also went fishing several times, went to the aquarium, ate icecream more than twice :) and tried out plenty of local restaurants. A favorite night was sitting in the rockers on the big patio built over the ocean at Merdochs. I didn't want to leave. Our little condo we stayed in, wasn't anything special, but the location was awesome and we had THE BEST view from our little balcony. I was in bliss sitting out on that balcony...so beautiful and peaceful and just what the doctor ordered! I sat out on the balcony for about an hour and-a-half one afternoon while the girls napped and watched a storm roll in. I could see Aaron fishing on the jetty across the street from our condo! It was a perfect moment! Staring at that ocean that never ended reminded me of how amazingly creative and Huge our God is! Just like the song says...."There's something about the ocean that makes me want to rise up and praise!" There's something about the ocean that makes me stand in awe of Him." What a glorious and creative creation and gift of beauty! We were so grateful for that time of family togetherness and fun, and that gift of God's beauty!

Ordinary Hero Blog: New Video of our day at the trash dump in Ethiopia...

Please everyone that reads our blog, please click on the blue letters below and watch this compelling footage that a team from Ordinary Hero ministries took while visiting a dump in Ethiopia...Korah. This broke my heart and I cried through the entire video. Please watch and consider how you can completely change a child or children's lives forever. We are more than blessed living in America. Even those of us that have just a little have far more than these people. If we really think about it, we can selflessly give a little something up to help someone else. This small amount doesn't just provide a little, it can be life changing for one of these precious children! Let God use you in bringing hope to them! Be their change! Just think, when you change one person's life, you not only change their life, you change generations of lives to come!
It is so precious that these children think of their sponsors as "moms and dads."
Just goes to show you how much it means to them!

Click here :Ordinary Hero Blog: New Video of our day at the trash dump in Ethiopia...: "Well....here it is. This is a video that I put together to show you all first hand, just why we all came back so moved by the area in Ethio..."