Yes we are still adopting!

It's been way to long! But I'm still gonna make this one short and sweet. Maybe?? That's the plan because I'm ready to go to sleep.

I just felt the strong urge to make a blog entry. Sometimes I wondered if I would ever do this again. It feels good to finally take the plunge and just go for it.  I truly believe that the Holly Spirit guides me thru each entry.

Anyway Yes I'm Prego! Yes we knew we could get pregnant or at least we knew there were no issues  the first time. God really and truly placed adoption on our hearts and we are obeying and a little pregnancy isn't gonna change our obedience to our Heavenly Father!

So anyway believe it or not we have made little progress in this year that we have been in the process of adoption. (at least it looks like it from a by standers point of view) to us a lot of progress has been made.

1) Our relationship with The Lord is stronger!
2) Our marriage is stronger!
3) Our life has changed for the better!
4) Our outlook on life is SO Different already! And we haven't even been to meet our child!
5) We have made some amazing friendships
6) tons of paper work has been done and redone and redone :)

Ps. I'm not bragging and saying everything in our life is rainbows and butterflies because we are adopting. We are human! I'm just saying.....
I highly recommend a relationship with God! I mean living your life his way kinda relationship! Not the way that you think feels good to you. What you might think feels good to you feels so much  better when you let go of all those things and decide to let him take control of your life.

Anyway.. If you feel led to adopt feel free to contact me! I would love to help.

The Mystery Entry

I had a friend send me a link to a blog about a couple who is adopting from Ethiopia. I decided to wait and read it with Derrick. She had outlined the story for me and when she told me about it I said "you have to send me the link." She did today and Derrick asked Lily and Davis if they wanted to listen. It is the most amazing adoption story I have heard so far. I have read several blogs.. I love reading about other peoples experiences and seeing their babies. So anyway I was reading it and tried to hold back the tears and couldn't so Derrick had to take over. It's a amazing story! If you would like to read her last entry which is the one i cried through like a baby here it is.. http://www.theirworldwillchange.com.

So after reading their story I decided I have to get my blog up to par. It is so boring.. So I decorated my blog the best I know how. When finished something kept telling me to do a post (that voice inside my head being the Holy Spirit)  and I kept thinking I have nothing to say. Nothing exciting is going on in my life. I could write about the fact that Derrick and I spent hours in the ER last  night with my baby boy and that I was up all  night changing poopy diapers and washing vomit out of blankets. No one wants to hear about that. So I tried to avoid that voice telling me to do a blog entry because nothing would come to mind... So finally I gave in and decided to hit the new entry button after going on facebook and trying to shop on 31 website. I had a friend who is having adoption fundraiser tonight that I can't make because Davis is sick so I wanted to see what I could have them order for me. Anyway the 31 catalog would not download so I got led back to doing a blog entry.

I really don't have anything to say except God is good! He is working all around me in many different ways and it is amazing to see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears and feel him in my heart. Prayer is so powerful! Following God is not always rainbows and butterflies but I'm telling you it's a good feeling knowing he is always with you guiding you through..

Thank you

I want to say Thank You to everyone for the support that we have gotten so far with our adoption. I struggle with taking help and donations.... receiving in any way that is. I feel as if I am unworthy of all the kindness we are receiving and I want to repay everyone in some way. I just want everyone to know how amazing it is to see God provide during this process. We still have a long way to go but I know this is Gods plan for my life and he will make it happen.. his way, his time. I can't stress enough how thankful I am. I am not only thankful for all of the support but am so thankful that God chose me to adopt. This process has been so life changing..

I get so anxious at times and think I need to get this stuff done I have a baby waiting on me and then I think take your time enjoy this, this  is not supposed to be a stressful process. This is Gods plan this is all for him, for him to be glorified. This whole process is for God to show others he still works in the lives of people and performs miracles today in 2012! For goodness sakes people I am adopting a child from Ethiopia!! I'm flying on a plane 17 hours straight!! TWO TRIPS AHHHH!!! And I'm not scared.. Well maybe a little.. I have had a few plane nightmares here lately. But I was scared.. Scared to death! Scared about every little detail about this whole process.. Philippians 4:13 is so true (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me)  



For those of you that don't know where we are in the adoption process, we haven't got very far. The slow process is good though. We have so much to think about and all the interviews and education is helping us know what to expect, get to know ourselves better and each other if that even makes sense. We have to have four interviews and we have had 2 so far. In order for us to schedule our next interview we have to read a book called The Connected Child. Which is pretty good, better than we both expected. We also have to complete online education. After we complete are Home studies (interviews) we will start on our international paperwork and once that is done a approved we will wait for our child :)

So as of right now we are leaning towards a boy!! I LOVE the name Abraham. Lily and Davis have been studying Abraham in Sunday School. I was reading to them about Abraham and I thought... I love that name. So maybe that's what God will give us, a little boy :) I can't wait to meet him!!

If anyone has any questions about adoption or anything at all feel free to message or email me!!

You are amazing...

Since my last post I have had quite a bit goin on. There have been so many days when I wanted to grab the computer and make a blog entry but never got around to it. I have so many people to thank and so much to be thankful for. God is doing some amazing things in my life just like I knew he was going to when he placed adoption on my heart. Now that God has called me to adopt I continuously find myself wanting him to ask me to do more. When he placed adoption on my heart I really struggled with it for a while and I thought I don't know if I can obey him or not. Now I'm praying like what have you got for me now God?? Like I can do anything and well I know now that through him I can do anything! I can face my fears! It just takes trusting and praying and people praying for you and supporting you. God has worked in my heart and through the hearts of others and it is amazing to experience his works personally every day.

Derrick and I had a home study on Sept 4th. Nothing exciting really happened. Lily and Davis had to be present. She took a tour of the house, asking if we had smoke alarms, fire extinguisher, guns nothing major. Asked us questions about our marriage as usual..Davis feel and hit his head as usual. It was easy nothing to be nervous about. Derrick is always so nervous. I ask him if there might be something he is hiding from me that the social worker is going to find ;) She then told us in order to move on to the next interviews (which are Derrick and I individually) (He's really gonna be nervous on that one) we needed to complete our autobiographies. (We completed those Yesterday and Our individual interviews are scheduled for Oct 2)

We had a HUGE yard sale this past Saturday Sept 15. Thanks so much to everyone that came and showed their support and helped out!! Derrick and I really are blessed with amazing friends and family... I mean amazing! It was a perfect day. We got to get to know our church family and build our relationships with them and I got to hang out with 2 of my besties that have been there for me my whole life!  We couldn't have had it at a better place. The owners of Extreme Swing my cousin her husband and daughter spent the night there the night before and helped set up bright and early the morning of the yard sale. My friend from way back  who works at IGA had hot dogs, buns, drinks and hamburgers donated. Our Sunday School class took care of the baked goods and cooking the food. We had tons of items donated from so many good people. If you didn't make it to the yard sale you missed out! It was a success!

This whole experience so far has been a little overwhelming at times.. All of this is not something that I would have ever saw myself doing. If someone had told me 2 years ago I would be doing all this I would have laughed at them and not believed it for a minute. It's not really my style.. Man has God cramped my style!... I hate receiving! I don't receive much of anything very well ex. complements, hugs, kisses, money, gifts, etc.  Well lets just say I'm getting much better at all of it. I find myself wanting to hug people (Crazy) I used to cringe at the thought :) I have to say I have received a lot of gifts and we have raised more money than we thought we would have at this point but none of that is as exciting as seeing God work in the life's of others. This whole process is changing life's for the better including mine and Derricks. I can't even explain how awesome it is.... And this is only the beginning.

Derrick and I decided that we will be open to male or female as of right now. We don't want the child to be older than Davis, so baby to age 3 if it's a year from now. Please pray for our soon to be child.

Headband anyone!?

If anyone would like a headband for the game this weekend email me olivia_A_boone@yahoo.com. I will get it to you by Saturday and will make whatever colors you would like... I just can't let Derrick know if they are red and black ;) I'm selling them for $7.00. They are really cute and they go for a good cause :)

Surprised

 I am so grateful and thankful for all the support that has been shown since Our Big News was announced. I hate to say this but I am a little surprised by it. I never thought that so many people would be so excited and open to the idea of our adoption. I have had so many kind things said to me about how great it is that Derrick and I are saving a child.... I can't take the credit for it. It is all to obey the Lord. Of course saving a child's life is important too but would I  have done this on my own... Sorry to burst every ones bubble but... Not this girl! Without my relationship with God and a lot of praying this would not have been possible for me. Don't get me wrong I am so excited and can't wait to meet my little baby but it has taken time and prayers to get to this point. I have to say though the support from family and friends is amazing. So Thank You! Thanks for all the offers to help!! Just know if you are offering to help I'm probably gonna take you up on that offer :) I'm pretty needy right now..

So Derrick and I had our first interview on Tuesday. I thought it went well, Derrick on the other hand might say different. I think he screwed up on some of the yes and no questions one of them being about divorce. Basically the lady probably thinks he is secretly going to divorce me. LOL. Let's hope she knows he didn't mean that. I hope he didnt anyway. J

On to more about surprises. I keep surprising myself. I am now doing crafts!! If you know me very well that is probably really funny. If you know me very well you probably think this isn't me even typing these blog entrys. I understand because I'm surprised too! Thats what happens when you let Jesus take the wheel :) Just sayin he surprises you all the time.. Back to the crafts. We may have a booth at the Iron Horse Festival. That is if we get some crafts made by the deadline to sign up to have a booth. There will also be a booth at the Arts and Crafts Fair called Maggies Hope. Details to come...

Our Yard Sale is September 15! We have a location now!! The owners of Extreme Swing offered their parking lot to us! If anyone wants to donate yard sale items just let me know. I will gladly take whatever you have to offer. IGA of New Haven has offered to donate food to sale at the Yard Sale. My church family has offered to make baked goods to sale. God is good! Hope to see yall there :)

Our BIG News!

Derrick and I are excited to announce that we are adopting from Ethiopia!! We are adopting through a Christian Agency called Lifeline.  I am sharing our adoption journey with the hopes that it will answer questions if you are considering adoption or inspire those of you who have never considered adoption to adopt.
The first question that everyone has asked me is what made you decide to adopt when you can have children of your own. This is a very hard question for me. It is hard to explain. All I can say is God wanted me to and I am obeying him. When God showed me that this was his plan for me it was not easy. In my selfish mind I thought of way more reasons why I shouldn't adopt than why I should.
*I already have two beautiful children and I want to have another of  my own (which we prolly will just to go ahead and put that out there)
 *We do not have the money. Where will we get it?
* It makes me sick to even think about flying and on top of that I will be leaving my kids twice for a week.
* What will people think of me?? Adopting a child of another race. Will people be accepting?
 After many months of being scared to death and a emotional roller coaster we decided to start the adoption process. Without prayer and trusting in God none of this would have been possible. I hardly have any of those fears that I had in the beginning. Our life has already been changed and we haven't even set eyes on our child. ( Just Sayin :) )
So far we have turned in our adoption application and it has been accepted!!  We received more paper work via email to complete so that we can start our home studies. There will be 4 home studies (details to come). The agency told us that it can be up to 2 yrs before we bring our child home. As far as male or female we are still undecided. We are wanting a baby or toddler.
Derrick and I will be doing some Fundraisers for our adoption. We will be having a yard sale Sept 15. Not sure of location yet. We will also be selling tee shirts :)