Fall Photos

I doubt I'll make it in somewhere to get pics of the kids taken, so maybe I'll just get one of these printed up to hand out. . . we're way overdue on having current pics in our wallets.

The kids are sitting on our new tree ring! Pics to come later of that.

Had the wheelbarrow out for our landscaping project, and rides up and down the driveway of course.

Love those red boots! Fallyn had a pair a couple years ago that she wore constantly--every day, on Sundays to church with dresses, in the summer. . . we were so sad when she outgrew them. They were sorta the icon of her toddlerhood. It took us until a couple weeks ago to find her new size on Ebay! Oh happy day! :)

Later that day they were having fun with suspenders and cool seats made from old tractor/implement parts that came from my grandparents' farmstead. There's a funny story about the day they bought them decades ago when my dad was a kid. . . if I remember right, several (7?) people in a station wagon coming home from a roadtrip, luggage included. . . Grandma insisting on bringing them home when they spotted them for sale, so they added FOUR of those seats to the station wagon.

Marathon!

I love our neighborhood and I love having little adventures in our neighborhood. Last Sunday morning, we met our friends on the corner a block away from our house to sit and cheer for the Prairie Fire Marathon runners. It was fun to get the kids up and pack everything and tell them what we were going to go do.

We were at about the halfway mark for the half and full marathons. We got to see the first full marathoner, and we saw almost the first of the half marathoners. So exciting!

We spotted several people we know--some we knew were going to do the race, and some we didn't know about, so it was way fun to yell at them! I think a lot of them were surprised to see us, too. This is the first marathon in Wichita that actually went through the heart of Wichita--downtown, by the river, through the older beloved neighborhoods, etc.

The weather was GORGEOUS again, and we got to stay out a couple hours since we had went to church the day before. We were prepared with a blanket, snacks, drinks, coloring books, a thermos of coffee and mugs. . . Tara's girls came with noisemakers, and Macy let me borrow her toy piano to play the Chariots of Fire theme song. :)

I think Matt needs to publish his list of "Things NOT to Yell at Marathoners," which he did yell to some of them. "We had waffles for breakfast!" "Chipotle's just a mile away!"

Our friends had to go get ready for church after awhile, but we stayed out longer. Fallyn and I stayed out there about 30 minutes more than Rick and Calvin, and we got to see the very last runner!

We had such a great time, I think we'll have to make it a tradition. You can guarantee that I will always be sitting and watching it and not running in it! Yikes!

Not related:

Response to Anonymous Comment

Just received this comment on my previous post: "what about american children adoptions? consider a fost to adopt, most of your expenses are reimbursed by the county/state."

It was left anonymously, so I don't know who I'm responding to. But I'm always happy to talk adoption, so I wanted to respond and not just ignore the comment.

"Anonymous" is right--it is a cost-effective route to adoption. That is definitely a huge perk to that route.

In a nutshell, we have considered about every possible route for adoption. Trust me--we've spent countless hours over the last 3 1/2 years looking into all the different ways you can pursue adoption. We have considered foster-to-adopt, and maybe someday we will, or maybe we won't. We plan on a couple adoptions at least, and we have no idea what option will make the most sense at that point in our lives or what God will want for us at that time.

There are children all around the world in need, and since God's love is not limited by geographic borders, neither is ours. So we are open to other countries, other states, or right here in our own state.

For now, though, we know foster-to-adopt is just not the best option for many reasons (too many to list, although if you want to know, I'm totally willing to talk about that--it'd just take a lot more time than this brief response I wanted to post).

We started with Kyrgyzstan three years ago for many reasons, and chose not to do domestic (whether it be through "the system" or private adoption or through an agency). We started our domestic adoption with an agency this May for many reasons, too, verses switching countries for our international, or going through the system.

There are pros and cons to every possible adoption route, and the set of pros/cons for each route works differently for each family depending on so many factors--ages of other children already in the home, the house they live in, "the unknowns" or "knowns" with each option, timeframes, what each process entails, etc.

If you ever have any other questions about adoption in general, or our family's adoption journey, feel free to ask!

Late-Night Adoption Thoughts

Adoption is hard.

We made the commitment to adopt the rest of our children when Fallyn was a baby, but good thing we--I mean Rick--took that official step last December. I might be mighty tempted by now to just add another child the easy way. Probably not REALLY, but I'd be tempted. Which leads me to my next thought. . .

. . . God is patient. I am not. I am trying to be. I was patient for about two years, but these last 10-12 months or so I don't think I have been.

My kids are being patient, bless their hearts. Rick is being patient. I'm glad I have those 3.

I just wish I knew SOMETHING. . . even which continent. After 3 years of this, we have no clue what God is doing. My friend who I saw Saturday said that is exactly what she said after dealing with infertility for quite some time--she just wished she knew something, anything. . . even if God said it'd be X-many years from then, or never at all, that that'd be better than not knowing anything.

So there's my super-profound adoption post. I am not patient and I don't like not knowing anything.

Tomorrow I'll try to find some time to dig deep with God about all that--again. :) It's about daily here!

More Thoughtfulness from My Boy

In addition to the alien decorations I mentioned in the last post, Calvin was really sweet the day before my birthday, too.

Driving in the car, I mentioned my birthday being the next day. He mentioned something about presents, and I said it's OK, Mommies don't need presents. A minute later he asked me how much a McDonald's ice cream cone costs, and I told him 99c. He said, "Maybe I can borrow 99 cents from Dad tomorrow and pay him back after I get my allowance."

Extra sweet because he wiped out his change--a very precious $1.21--a couple days before by donating it all to a fundraiser at his school for kids in Africa.

A few moments after that little conversation he said, "How much does a dress cost, Mom?"

How do you describe that feeling of seeing your little one want to do so much, with such a sweet heart, but being so limited in their abilities/resources because they're so little? That's not a hypothetical question--I'm really asking if there's a good word for it. Amanda, you got one? :)

The only term I can come up with is "Awwwww!"

Pretty Perfect Weekend

Saturday morning, we watched 2 of our little friends while their parents had a date. The weather was gorgeous!

I stepped inside for a bit, and came out to find the following scene. Rick had moved the bench from the porch to the middle of the yard to get out of the sun so he could read better, and all the little kiddos promptly joined him. This lasted a long time. . . just sitting. :) The bench stayed there all weekend and it was kinda fun.

Our friends really like Rick :)

I let the kids have at all the remaining marigolds.

Me and the hubs. Age 29 and 30. I liked the sound of 28 and 30 better, but oh well, Saturday was my birthday and that's what happens.

When she giggles she loses muscle control really quickly :) She was giggling like crazy when we were trying to do patty-cake as fast as we could. Didn't do it so well with the lack of muscle control, but it sure was lots of fun and made us laugh!

Our friends went home at noon, lunch and Fallyn's nap time and inside playing (full of just tape, paper, staples, and a box! love it!) came and went, then the kids were back outside together again for a long time with the marigolds. . . over an hour and a half at least. They played so well all day Saturday and didn't touch a single toy all day (except the bear and babies, which are friends, not toys :). All their giggles and planning and imagining on that gorgeous day were the best birthday gift ever!

Not sure what Rick and I did all day. . .we sat outside a lot, we watched, drank coffee. . .

Our church has a Sat eve service now, which I LOVE. It frees up ALL of Sunday, which makes it feel like Saturday all over again! So we went to the Sat service (after spending a long time combing out Fallyn's hair with a fine-tooth comb), then my parents had us and some of my friends over for birthday cake. It was so fun to see everyone and I'm thankful for all of you who came!

Calvin was saying on the way to my parents' house, and then on the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's after the party that he thought the party was going to be at our house. I found out why and it melted my heart! He had made and cut out aliens for me, and taped them to walls in the house to decorate for my party. :( :( :(

What a sweet, thoughtful little guy.

I was crushed that he was thinking the party was at our house, and I was kicking myself for not realizing what he was doing earlier. We could've transported the decorations to Grandma's and he'd feel good about doing something special for Mommy's party. I could tell he was bummed on the drive home when he explained why he wanted the party at our house. I did the best I could to reassure him that I was SO HAPPY about having aliens taped up on the walls, so that our house could be decorated, too, since all the birthday stuff was at Grandma's house.

Sunday pics to come next. . . another wonderful day. . . what am I going to do when these perfect-weather weekends are gone for the winter???

To My Brother On Our Birthday

Here ya go, just cause I know you'd get a kick. . . has nothing to do with birthdays, just wanted to say a public happy birthday and I needed something to go with it and this had me laughing today.

Watch this one first:

Then this one:

3 Year Mark on My Birthday

Tomorrow is my last birthday in my 20s. *Sigh* :)

Mostly, though, I'm reflecting on October 9 as the 3-year anniversary of officially starting the adoption process by turning in the initial application to our agency. And that was preceded by about five months+ of prayer about country options and agency options. But it'd really suck to say today marks almost 3 1/2 years of making the decision to adopt the rest of our children. . . so I'm just saying THREE. :)

October 9th's a joyous day as we remember all that God has done, but, I have to admit it's a bittersweet day, too, as I think of what still hasn't happened yet.

I've already talked to God about what I want for my birthday :) Or at least before I'm THIRTY, please!

On one hand, this has been the most incredible three years of my life. On the other hand, I sometimes find myself wishing God had just done things differently, or at least let us know why. But even in those hard moments, ultimately I have the peace that surpasses understanding that this is exactly where we are supposed to be right now. Nothing went wrong, we didn't hear from Him incorrectly. . . On the contrary, we have had so many confirmations along the way that this is the path He's chosen for us and we did hear him correctly and clearly. . . Even if it hasn't turned out like we thought it would by now.

We have been so humbled and privileged to be a part of what God is doing--we've witnessed countless miracles, really, and awesome things He's done in our own lives and others' and for the orphaned. I think were it not for so many obvious "God moments" we might have been tempted to chock everything up to our own decisions just not being good timing, or maybe we just heard completely wrong. But as we often look back on the course of events, answers to prayer, how He provided clear confirmation of decisions, we can only be sure that this has been where He wanted us all along. Praise Him for that. I don't know how my heart would be were it not for God providing that. He knew we would need it.

We know we will never know all the reasons why God chose this path. We can see many of His purposes being accomplished along the way, but ultimately we know that we will never have all the answers. . . Even though we would like answers! :) He's not usually about answers, though, He's about being the Answer.

About a year ago I felt like God was asking me, "Even if you never had another child, would you still consider all this worth it?" I can honestly say, YES. Even though it's hard and sometimes it just plain sucks--yes, it's all worth it. His glory is worth it and His plan and His purposes are worth it--those purposes we get to see, and those we can't see.

Big life lesson we're learning firsthand: Just because we follow in obedience, doesn't mean it'll be easy or always make sense! Seems simple enough, but to live it. . . not always so simple or pleasant.

The words from the hymn, The Love of God, often come to mind in looking back over the last few years, and in anticipation for the next . . . months? years?:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

He's full of LOVE. Love for us, Love for our children who long for their next brother or sister every day, Love for the fatherless. . . He has not forgotten any of us, although the enemy of our souls would like us to believe so. His ways are indeed mysterious, but we are being led in joy and peace.

From Isaiah 55:

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12 "For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."