It's cold outside, baby

This week has been cold.  Highs below freezing for several days in a row, even a day that didn't get out of the 20s.  I know y'all up north are not impressed but for us this is crazy cold.

This is how I looked most of the week, I was so cold even inside that I never took my hat off.  I bought that hat in Korea so if you think it's less than fashionable, like my sis, I plead jet lag.

Even crazier today we got snow, just a dusting but the kiddos were excited.  Kylynn was all about running around and dancing through the snow, Jack just wanted to eat it all.

I hope y'all are managing to stay warm and enjoying this chance to hunker down and spend time together as a family.  And I hope today you have a reason to smile as big as that boy of mine.

News?

I know that many of you want to know what's going on with our current adoption of our daughter, Chloe.  I often want to know what's going on with our adoption too...if I actually took the time and energy to focus on this adoption I would be probably be a touch frustrated and entirely sad, so honestly it is something that I don't think about very much.  I've allowed myself to buy a couple things here and there, some clothes that still had tags on at the Goodwill, some bows at the grocery store, fabric for the curtains in her room and this part of getting ready for her is fun and helps me feeling like I'm doing something productive.

So as you can guess from the above, we don't have much in the way of news, timelines, or the like, but we did get some good news, not very exciting news but good all the same.  About two weeks ago, Chloe's paperwork for her permission to leave Korea was submitted.  Once this is approved there are several steps that need to happen in order to get the call for travel (to pick up Chloe), but this first step really gets the ball rolling in that direction.  My prediction is that we still have about two months to wait.  My prayer is that prediction is completely wrong and we'll be heading to Korea in a few weeks.  My hope is that she'll be home by her first birthday which is towards the end of March.

Chloe's bedroom was formerly a loft connected to our bedroom and the project to build a wall and turn it into a nursery is now complete.  We still need to paint the trim, and by we I mean my hubby who has single-handedly done all the work.  I have a sweet friend who made Chloe a beautiful baby quilt and because it was so beautiful I just couldn't use my nursery decor I used with Kylynn and Jack, so she's making me a bumper and crib skirt from the fabric she used to make the quilt.  I'm so excited to have a girly room for Chloe.

I have been praying that God would prepare our hearts and our family for our new little girl and most of all that God would prepare her for the very difficult transition of leaving Korea and coming to our family.  I know that the older she gets the harder it will be on all of us and I'm praying for wisdom on helping her in her grief.  As always we would love your prayers for our family and Chloe's adoption.  The fact that you continue to encourage us, ask about the progress, and pray for us is one of the great blessings in my life.

*Here you go Jessie, new pictures of the kiddos, thank you Laura, they are beautiful and you are so talented.

You are not me

When I look at you, I see me, I see everything good in me, and the fear of passing on everything I wish I wasn't.

Who will you be, is it possible for you to only have the good, can I keep the sicknesses away from you.  I wonder if you will look in the mirror and not like what you see, if food will loom in big in your life, either too important or not enough, in order to medicate, in order to be beautiful.

I wonder if you will be afraid, will you leave your dreams unchased because you might fail and you might fall on your face and what will the people say.

I wonder if you will understand God as He actually is, not as you've imagined Him to be.  Will you know how deep and wide His love is for you or will you doubt and always, always be chasing "good enough" to deserve this love that we can never deserve.

I wonder if you will know your own strength and if you will chose to submit all the same, to be a wife who loves a man and lets him be the man or if you will always want to lead, always want to win, always, always be so sure of everything you know.

And I look at you and I see that you have my hands and my ears.  You have the shape of my eyes and my kneecaps.  As I lean in I see you are more than the parts of your whole, and you are not me.  You have some of me, some of him, but you are not me, not us, and the good inside and the bad inside belong to you.

And isn't that what motherhood is, trying to do better, to learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before us.  But we are broken people in need of Him who loves us till we're whole, and I know that you will have sickness too.  But I know that the sickness will show you that you need Him, and I know that part of the good is you will always know where to find Him.

When this life is too much for you, when the bad seems to outweigh the good, come to me and we will go to Him together, the one who takes away the sickness, the one who will pick up all the pieces and love us whole.

Trash Day

Oh, to be a boy

A boy who loves

A boy who loves the simple things in life

"mommy I willy willy lov trashman"

*These pictures were taken on a trash day in December, we don't still have our Christmas decorations up...not that there's anything wrong with that :)

For the locals

If you live in the Brayn/College Station area a little heads up, you can now go online and submit your requests for The Big Event, here.  It took me over 10 years to learn that anyone can ask Big Event to come out to your home or office and perform a service project, it is not limited by income or age, it is the students at Texas A&M's way of saying "thank you!"  So if you need a room painted, some weeds pulled or even some spring cleaning head over to their website to sign up.  The big day is March 26th and they will take the first 1500 submissions they receive before February 18th.


This Thursday you can get your flu shot for FREE at a drive thru clinic in Bryan set up by the Brazos County Health Department.  Our family already got ours, which really bums me out because I so want to get a flu shot at a drive thru clinic, is that odd, it seems my love for anything drive thru increases exponential with each child we add to our family.  The FREE flu shots are open to people 18 or older and will be available Thursday, January 27th from 3pm to 7pm at the Brazos Center, 3232 Briarcrest, in Bryan.


ps-If you read this whole post even though you don't live in this city, can I tell you thank you...you make me smile and I do love you so!

Race article to read

I've talked about this before on this blog, the idea that we are not colorblind, and more to the point, that it's OK to not be colorblind.  We are different and it's important to talk about our differences and celebrate them instead of making discussions on race taboo.

Kristen Howerton, blogger at Rage Against the Minivan, has a great article, How to teach kids about race, I highly recommend it.  In her article she speaks of the mistake that so many white parents are making today,

"What NurtureShock discovered, through various studies, was that most white parents don’t ever talk to their kids about race. The rule is that because we want our kids to be color-blind, we don’t point out skin color. We’ll say things like “everybody’s equal” but find it hard to be more specific than that. If our kids point out somebody who looks different, we shush them and tell them it’s rude to talk about it."

I experienced this first hand one night while in a room full of white people, except for one man, a friend of mine.  In normal conversation, I said something to the effect of "well [my friend] is not white so he may have had a different experience."  The room filled with nervous laughter, and "Oh mans", the basic feeling was that I had insulted him...by stating the fact that he was not white.  This article was so helpful for me to see that although I hadn't insulted him I had shocked  the other white people by speaking about race, not just in the abstract but in the here and now.

Click on over and read the article, it has great advice for how to raise children who will actually see diversity as a good thing to be embraced and celebrated and not a secret :).

 

Need to crave

The sun came out today, with rain the week before and more rain to come, it was a welcome sight, and suddenly going outside to play shot to the top of our to do list.  We spent the morning in our front yard playing with bikes and soccer balls, climbing trees, and pushing babies, but our time was cut short with a fall and a bleeding head.

So that afternoon we ventured out again, this time to a local playground.  They played and I snapped pictures remembering that I have a blog I've been neglecting and the sun was just right to turn children into angels, if only they would hold still long enough.  We played later than planned, it was so beautiful, so many playmates, and a late dinner never hurt anyone.

Some times I dream of California, always a sunny 70 degrees, there I wouldn't have to pop vitamin D and turn on all the lights in my house to keep the blues at bay.  But it's the rainy days, the cloudy ones where the sun seems to have abandoned us, that make me crave.

I need to crave, in the craving I remember what I truly love.  In the craving I am stretched, molded.  The dark, cloudy days remind me, even when my human eyes can't see him, He is there, always there, waiting for me to turn my face toward Him.  As I do, the clouds part, the warmth of his love shines down, and I walk into the Son.