Wednesday, March 30

Another Day My Heart Stood Still

As I mentioned in my last blog post there have only been a handful of days that my heart has stood still. One being the day my husband said I do, the day Parker was born and the day Beckham was born. This last Sunday, March 27th was another day my heart has stood still. I opened my email before church not really looking for anything in particular and then I saw..... an email from Sue Hedberg  with the subject titles Potential Referral. OMG!!!! I think my heart skipped about 20 beats. My whole body froze and I ran to my room in a frenzy!! I opened the email with Phillip and all she said was....

you applied for a girl 0-3, would you be interested in a girl that is 2 1/2 - 3?

Honestly that is a little older then I anticipated but I felt the nudge to say yes! So she sent us pictures. I wasn't sure how long it would take to get the pictures since she was in Ethiopia at the time. All during first service I kept refreshing my inbox then. Suddenly during 2nd service I felt my phone buzz... I looked at Phillip and he gave me the OK to open it.

Immediately my eyes filled with tears!! I had a feeling and that feeling was an unexplainable love. She is not our official referral. We are waiting on her story to come together, medical reports and so on. All I know is she is between 2 1/2 and 3. She is stunning. She is from a remote village and is 1/2 orphan meaning she has 1 birth parent. Before she becomes our official referral we have to get her medical records and we sign a form saying that we accept her. But let me just tell you.... My heart has already accepted her. Phillip's heart has already accepted her. We are standing on our rock and in faith that her blood work comes back clean and she is healthy and ours. We love her and feel like she belongs with us. I am asking you all to pray with me that she has clean blood and that she is healthy. We are also praying for quick court submission. That all of her paper work is ready and that she is completely paper ready if not now then very soon. Also that our MOWA letter will be at court the first time we go. There are still many many letters missing at court and families are not passing the first time because of these letters. It has taken some families 3-4 court appointments to get cleared and be given guardianship of there children because of these letters. But there are some that are there the first time. We are praying that one of those is ours!!!

I cannot share her sweet little face until we pass court, which will be a few months but I can give you a glimpse. Believe me, she is BEAUTIFUL!

Will you please join us in this season of praying over our new daughter and over our process. My heart is aching for her to be here.

A Day My Heart Stood Still

There have been a handfull of times when my heart has stood still. The evening of March 28, 2006 was one of them. At 7:17 pm my little butter ball entered this world. All 9 lbs. 10 ozs. of him. He was the cutest fattest little thing. He stole my heart the moment I laid eyes on him. Being 19 and knowing you are completely responsible for this little being was scary but I was ready and knew we could make it. And we have!!!

March 28, 2006
first time to hold my baby

Me and my butterball


March 2007 - 1 yr. old




March 2008- 2 Yrs. Old


March 2009 - 3 Yrs. Old



March 2010 - 4 Yrs Old



March 2011 - 5 Yrs. Old



HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARKER!!! I LOVE YOU!!! YOU HAVE HELPED MAKE ME WHO I AM TODAY!!! WITH OUT YOU I WOULDN'T BE WHO I AM!!!!

Bedroom Redo...

I have finally decided to work on our master bedroom... My dear friend Lana tells me I am nesting because I have at all times 5,000 house projects going at once here lately. I guess I am. I just know that when we get our little girl home with us life will be different and I probably wont have much time for painting bedrooms over and over. LOL. I am so mad that I didn't take "before" pictures of my room. I am so bad about that. But, here is what we have going on right now...

These are the only pictures I have of the "before" Our bathroom has been very "boring" and dull since we moved in. 





This is what I have going on in there now...



The main wall color is called Stonecutter by Benjamin Moore. It is a dark Grey Blue color... maybe slateish... and the walls around the tube are a goldish color with big ivory flowers in a wall paper pattern... here is my inspiration for my bath tub walls...

We carried the Stonecutter into the bedroom and painted all the walls and ceiling this color. I don't have a completed picture of my room. I am still working on it. But here is a picture off of the website of my bedding...

I bought this bedding from Anthropologie back in Novemeber and I am just now painting my room. The wall color in this picture was my inspiration for the color I chose. But my color is a little dark. As soon as the room is complete I will post more pictures... In the meantime my room is a mess and we have no curtains or blinds over our windows......



After Party Fun

While Phillip and I cleaned up the party Phillip buddy Charley stayed behind to help with the kiddos. Parker had a little friend spend the night so Charley decided to entertain them by putting on the Darth Vadar costume once again. Phillip and I walked in the house and saw this....

PAUSE MY MUSIC BELOW!!!



The boys absolutely loved fighting off Darth Vadar. Beckham however....not so much.

Long ago...In a Galaxy Far Far Away...

My little Big boy turned 5 on Monday!! This past saturday we threw him his birthday party with all of his little friends. Upon Parkers request we threw him a Star Wars themed party! Let me just tell you.... Star Wars parties are a blast to plan!! If my budget were a little larger and I had all the time in the world I could have gone way, I mean WAY overboard with this theme. I started the week of the party off by making 17 Jedi Cloaks for all the little Padawans at the party. Thats right people 17!!! I am not much of a sewer but I thought it would be a cute idea so I winged it and came up with my version of a Jedi Cloak. I traced one of Parkers t-shirts and a hoodie, sewed the pieces together, tied a rope around the waist and VIOLA.... a Jedi Cloak! They were a hit with all the little kids.


I also made Light Sabers for all of the little kids. I was originally going to buy them all a cheap one as a party favor but since we were having Darth Vadar come to the party I thought he would appreciate something a little softer so he didn't return home with bruises everywhere. I searched some other party blogs and found the wonderful idea of making them out of pool noodles. So I went to Target and got pool noodles for $1.00, cut them in 1/2 and wrapped them in Duck tape. Easy as pie and once again the kids LOVED them.
I was trying to save money this year on the party since we are adopting and since we are at the top of the wait-list for our referral for our daughter and fees will be due soon I didn't want to blow through my budget. I decided to make the cake myself. It was cute for making it myself... I am by no means a cake decorator but Parker loved it. I baked and iced it the night before and while I was cleaning up my messes the next morning I discovered that some little fingers had found their to the icing. It's like they have a little sugar sensor that goes off when high levels of sugar our in our house and they start sniffing around like a dog on a bunny trail and once they find it they can't hep but lick....
So I had to re-ice my lovely little cake....
End Results...

We enjoyed Padawan Pizza... Wookie Cookies... and Yoda Sodas... It was great!!




Here are some fun shots of the party...

Little Jedis receiving their light sabers to fend off Darth Vadar


Darth VADAR!!!!

POW

WACK!!

SWOOSH!!



DEFEATED!!!

Cloak ceremony...


Jedi Parker Knight



Princess Leah and Obi Won

Yoda Sodas


Parker was thrilled about his party. He loved every minute of it.