Our Summer Fun

What a fun summer!!  We have been kind of lazy, staying home a lot after our oh-so-crazy spring.  But we have enjoyed these days so much and had lots of fun along the way.

A few highlights...

Brad took the boys to Nascar qualifying and they loved it!!

S'mores and a campfire with friends!

Playing at the park and marveling at how little they need me these days!!

Speech therapy and doctors appointments as usual, but so thankful that these kiddos are always so good in the waiting rooms.

Riding bikes, walks, playing outside...keeps them happy and me sane!

Working on canvases and loving coming up with new nursery designs :)

This guy swallowed a penny this week...or it might be a nickel...we are waiting to find out :/ Good times!

It's been a good summer, and a year to remember!!

A Plugged Up Brain

My brain feels full.

Life lately has felt so packed to the edges it is hard to find a moment to sit and write.  When I sit down during the day or lie in my bed at night my mind just races a hundred miles an hour as I think about all there is to do right now.

Thankfully, we have had one pressure relieved in a way we did not expect...we have been working so hard to get our house ready to put it on the market.  We really thought we would be moving soon, but it seems that is not to be.  The housing market here has not recovered as well as we expected and it just is not possible for us to move right now.

*Yes I did a big ugly cry after the realtor left*

Our house is....cozy.  We thought we would be getting more space soon, but we won't, and the more I think about it the more okay I am with that.  I am so thankful for the experiences I've had in life - seeing kids who live and work in a city garbage dump in Guatemala has certainly given me a different perspective on my own life and the blessings we have.  Our house is like a mansion to many people in the world!  I have nothing to complain about.

We will work on changing the basement, adding another bedroom, changing things around...it's all good.  And phew, I won't have to try to keep the house clean enough to show at any moment ;)  So that's a bonus!

I have struggled with balancing getting the house ready, doing adoption paperwork, and medical stuff going on with the kids these last few weeks.  I am actually really relieved that selling the house is off the table because now I can hit the adoption paperwork hard!  We made good progress on stuff the last few days and I am getting ready to kick it into high gear with the dossier soon.  Our little girl is waiting and I want her home!!!

An Exciting New Opportunity {OneLittleCanvas}

When we attended our first adoption meeting in 2008 and learned that international adoption would cost $25,000+, I cried all the way home. That is a crazy amount of money...it didn't seem possible. But that was where God kept leading us, so that is where we went. I have learned something along the way: nothing is impossible with God! We have completed not one, but three international adoptions in the last 6 years and God has provided everything we have needed in ways we never expected.

And now we begin the journey again, and we are excited to see how this story unfolds! We are looking forward to a new opportunity as I open an Etsy store with the hopes of raising funds that will help us bring Olivia home. Would you consider being part of our story - part of HER story - by purchasing a canvas print from my store? This is a whole new adventure for me and I'm enjoying exploring my "crafty" side a little bit more  I'm no professional, that's for sure, but every piece is made with love and prayers and excitement about what God is doing in our family.

My store is named One Little Canvas - because each person who purchases one little canvas is making a big difference to us!  You can find my store by clicking here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/OneLittleCanvas.

If you are interested in supporting our family as we adopt Olivia, please visit the link to the store that I will be posting separately in a minute. Or if you live near me or my parents you can send me a message to have one hand delivered and avoid shipping costs! I am attaching photos of a few of the prints to give you an idea of what I am making. Custom orders for specific colors are welcome and you can order this through the Etsy site (look under the photo of one of the already created pieces and you will see a link that says "Request a Custom Order").

A few of the canvases already listed on the shop:

Thank you for loving our family and joining with us on this journey!

Our Newest Little One

It has been a few weeks since we said "yes" to our next little one and truly we could not be more thrilled!  I wish I could show you a picture of her...we must wait until we receive our LOA, which I believe is when China officially considers us matched with our daughter.  It is so fun that the boys understand now what it means that we will adopt her and that they really grasp the idea that we will be her family forever.  Starting this journey again has opened up lots of conversations about adoption and our family and it has been so good for the boys, especially Nathan.  He remembers Hannah coming home and this time it was just so obvious that he gets it.

A few days after we looked at our little girl's file and medical information we were still struggling to find a doctor to review her CT scans.  Our little peanut, who we are naming Olivia, had brain surgery at 6 months old and at that time had CT scans and an MRI done.  This was the basis for her "brain tumor" diagnosis.  We obviously wanted more information and needed to know more to make a good, informed decision for her and for our family.  The crazy part - we were both ready to say yes anyway.

We tried to contact a neurosurgeon that Nathan recently saw at the nearby Children's hospital, but I could not get past the nurse to ask him :)  And she said he "might look at it or he might not, but we were welcome to send the scans".  We did not want to take scans somewhere not knowing if they would be looked at or if we could get them back.  Our agency was amazing and managed to get pictures of the scans and email them to us.  We thought and thought about what we could do, wondering if our pediatrician would help, wondering who else we knew with connections, when all of a sudden it occurred to me that we know a radiologist!  We are still in touch with a dear couple who traveled to China to meet their daughter at the same time we were meeting Hannah, and the husband is a radiologist!  I quickly emailed my friend and asked if she thought her husband would look at them for us.  She said YES! She told me to email him because he was at a conference.  I sent off an email and wondered what we would learn about our little girl.

I heard back from him very soon and he said he would be happy to look at the scans, and that he was in fact staying at the conference with a neuroradiologist (who specializes in reading brain scans!).  Amazing and such a gift from God.  They looked at the scans for us and shared that they did not believe it was a brain mass but rather fluid, and that she has a repaired meningocele.  We are just beginning to learn more about this but from what we have read it seems that this is a type of Spina Bifida.  Meningocele is a protrusion of the membranes that cover the spine and part of the spinal cord through a bone defect in the vertebral column.  Olivia had surgery to repair this and seems to be doing well.

We were also blessed to be directed by another adopting couple to the information for contacting the head of neurosurgery at the Children's Hospital!  I was so thrilled to be able to email her directly and was shocked when she responded within a couple of hours.  She looked over the scans and agreed with the previous information given to us.  She also added that she would guess we are looking at normal intelligence with Olivia.  We were thankful to have three people who all agreed on the diagnosis from the scans.

Here is the truth: we do not know much more about the medical condition of our precious little girl, and there are many unknowns ahead.  We are okay with that.  She may have delays, need therapy, face challenges we don't know about yet.  We are okay with that.  We love her, we want her, and we want to face any challenges she may face with her and help her as much as we possibly can, just as we do with all our kids.  We have seen a video of our little sweetie and she is able to stand, sit, reach for toys, and interact with people.  She is just so darling!  I wish she could come home tomorrow!

It amazes me that we get to bring home another treasure.  The three we have now are the absolute joy of my life and I think we are so blessed to be able to grow our family again.  God has truly blessed up beyond our wildest dreams!

I Can't Believe He Said Yes!

So I have this husband, Brad.  He's fabulous.  He's silly and goofy, he's hardworking and talented and able to fix just about anything, he's funny and caring and kind.  Yep, he's awesome.

He's also sensible and makes good solid decisions for our family.  After Hannah came home, he was very clear that that was it for a while.  There were things we needed to do before we could even think about adding another child.  Finish paying off school loans.  Move house.  Survive the toddler years :)  It was a subject we talked about in passing every few months, but I knew where he stood and I agreed that he was right.  We settled in with our three and that was that.

Until the day it wasn't.

I shouldn't even have looked.  I shouldn't even have looked.  But I did.  I found myself looking at the waiting children on our agency's website.  I don't know why.  I wasn't looking for a child for us, really!  I was just looking :)  

And there she was.

Oh my heart.  This little 20-month-old girl, I kid you not...beautiful.  Just the sweetest little sweet pea with these sad eyes and these cheeks that begged to be kissed.

And beside her picture was a short description sharing her special need.  This sweet little darling had a brain mass.  A brain tumor.  Oh, how my heart ached.

But I knew where Brad was at and I knew we were tired and busy and that we still lived in a two bedroom house.  

We did pay off those school loans though...

And we were getting the house ready so that we could hopefully move soon...

Could we???

I was pretty sure Brad would say "no way" to even looking at her file with such a serious special need.  Our hearts have been changed and opened in ways we never dreamed over the last few years towards children with special needs, but still...this was a whole different ballgame.

So with a sigh I closed my computer and tried to put her out of my mind.  I didn't mention her to Brad, but I went back to the website every now and then to see if she had found a family.  I showed her to my mom and told her, "I love her!".  But that was it.

Until one day a few weeks ago when I texted Brad to ask him if he wanted to take a trip next summer.  I just had the bug to travel, to plan a trip, to see somewhere new...he said yes right away!  I told him that I loved how he is always up for an adventure.  Then, on a whim (or rather a prompting from the Lord!) I texted back...

"Or of course there's always this adventure!"

And I sent him her picture.

I did not expect anything except a "ha ha" or something similar.  It was a good thing I was sitting down because the text that came back would have made me fall over!

"Well...who said no?"

Um, you honey!  You every single time we talked about it up until this moment!

I could not believe it.  We texted back and forth, I told him what it said her need was, he shocked me again and said let's ask for her file!

At this point I started freaking out!  Could we really do it?  Two bedrooms?!!?  Oh, the money!  Four children under 6????  How much coffee would I have to drink to survive that?!?!  A brain tumor...what did that mean? What would happen to her?  What would we do if something happened to her?  So many questions.  So many reasons to say no.  And yet, as the days went on, we knew God was telling us to say yes.

I will share the rest of the story tomorrow, but I will not keep you in too much suspense.

She is going to be our daughter!

And we do not believe (after having her medical info reviewed by a radiologist, neuroradiologist and head neurosurgeon) that she has a brain tumor!  Praise God!

We are blessed beyond words and we give God the glory for all He has done for us!

{Here}

We're still here!

Life is good -so good!

We are busy doing nothing, and it is wonderful.

Our minds are hearts are full and God is at work in our family.

I can't wait to share what He has been up to!

In the meantime, a few pictures of life these days.