The kiddos went back to school today! Griffin is in 8th grade, Peyton is in 7th grade and Reece is in 3rd grade! She's all, "When I'm in 5th grade, Brooks will be in Kindergarten!" STOP IT!
Thursday, August 11, 2016
But, I'm all 
I used to be in that other mom club. But every year I love summer more and more. It's those couple of months that we get to hog our kids all to ourselves and not have to share them with school. We do what we want and we don't have to be responsible! 
Plus, this is Griff's last year of middle school. Boo to THAT! My kids are the b
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
USCIS Fingerprints
Josh and I had our fingerprint appointment with USCIS this morning! We had to be in Birmingham at 8:00AM! Yes, that's alot. Up, dressed, kids disbursed and out of Tuscaloosa by 6:30! But, we made it with 10 minutes to spare!
USCIS stands for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. In a nutshell, families who are adopting internationally have to fill out an application and send it to USCIS to be approved to adopt internationally. There's a lot that goes into it but the fingerprints were to conduct FBI background checks. We should be assigned an officer soon that will eventually send us our approval letter!
THIS IS THE LAST PIECE OF PAPER WE NEED FOR OUR DOSSIER TO BE SENT TO CHINA!!!!!
As you can imagine, we are very anxious for this to go smooth and FAST!
Other than today, we are just basically sitting around waiting on other people. That's not much fun, for it to be completely out of our hands.
BUT, WE COULD WORK ON NAMING HER! Yes, please!
We received an email from our agency yesterday and in that email it mentioned that we need to have her named by the time we accept a match! Which could happen at any time...so, yea, a name would be good.
USCIS stands for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. In a nutshell, families who are adopting internationally have to fill out an application and send it to USCIS to be approved to adopt internationally. There's a lot that goes into it but the fingerprints were to conduct FBI background checks. We should be assigned an officer soon that will eventually send us our approval letter!
THIS IS THE LAST PIECE OF PAPER WE NEED FOR OUR DOSSIER TO BE SENT TO CHINA!!!!!
As you can imagine, we are very anxious for this to go smooth and FAST!
Other than today, we are just basically sitting around waiting on other people. That's not much fun, for it to be completely out of our hands.
BUT, WE COULD WORK ON NAMING HER! Yes, please!
We received an email from our agency yesterday and in that email it mentioned that we need to have her named by the time we accept a match! Which could happen at any time...so, yea, a name would be good.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Moving on up!
Our sweet Brooks baby moved up to a new class at school today!! It makes me so sad that he will turn four in this class!
He is such a big boy! He doesn't need our help much anymore with anything, "I super skrong, I do it!" is what we hear all the time!
I have a recent little story to share about him. On this past Friday, his teacher called me. She said that they were out on the playground and he had stuffed his ears with this rubber stuff that the playground is made out of! UGH. They weren't sure if they got it all out and since that would potentially cause big problems if they didn't...off to the doctor we went. His doctor walked in the room with a HUGE smile on her face. This was not a surprise to her! HAHA! Such a little boy thing to do! His ears were fine.
I'm pretty sure he's super man!
I have a recent little story to share about him. On this past Friday, his teacher called me. She said that they were out on the playground and he had stuffed his ears with this rubber stuff that the playground is made out of! UGH. They weren't sure if they got it all out and since that would potentially cause big problems if they didn't...off to the doctor we went. His doctor walked in the room with a HUGE smile on her face. This was not a surprise to her! HAHA! Such a little boy thing to do! His ears were fine.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
150 Million
Know what makes me even more sad?
It amazes me that a few years ago this wasn't even on my radar. I was SO happy with my four beautiful kids that I had always dreamed of. I didn't want another child. When I felt the tug on my heart to adopt, selfish me tried every way to ignore it. When I finally caved and started praying about it I watched the Lord completely change my heart right in front of my eyes. I went from that selfish, "I don't think we can raise anymore children." to "Can we adopt 50?!" haha! Pretty sure if you asked Josh he would tell you the same thing.
I remember the moment, actually. I was feeling more obligated that we needed to adopt more so than a "want to". It was a Saturday in early 2015. The kids were all playing in the floor in the living room and I was just hanging with them. Then it hit me and I felt the NEED to have another. (No, I don't care if you think I'm crazy.)
The Lord took something that I LOVE-children-and used it to draw me closer to Him.
I am not in any way, shape, form or fashion worthy of THAT. But, I am so thankful He has chosen us!
My heart is broken for the orphans in this world. These babies that grow up without the love of a family.
Can I just say that if you feel that little tug....just think a little more about it. And pray about it starting right now! :)
Monday, July 11, 2016
Is this thing on?
More than once this weekend I heard, "Have you just abandoned the blog?" So, here I am! haha! I always have good intentions with this space but life is busy right now! Once again I will say that I will try to keep up!
Well, we finished up our home study in record time! It was supposed to take 4-6 months and it only took 2! We love our social worker and are very thankful for her! She will be a part of our lives for the next several years and honestly that will probably turn into forever! :)
We are on the list to be matched with our daughter and that could happen at any moment now! EEKKSSSS!!! Very anxious for this to happen! Our dossier is almost ready to be sent to China and in all likelihood we probably won't be matched until it's there...but, that's ok!
Meanwhile, it's been life as usual around here!
This was the morning that I didn't realize I hadn't put his shoes on until we were pulling up to his school!!! We detoured to the office until Daddy could save the day! haha!
Field trip to the zoo!
My G and P like to drag me out on the go carts and sling me around!
We spent the entire day learning ALL about the International Adoption Clinic at UAB! So thankful we have them!
Field trip to Shark Tooth Creek!
Mother's Day! This is one of my favorite things I have from each of my kids!! It makes me laugh out loud! He thinks I work at the gym but he nailed it with coffee and strawberries!
I have no words for this...melt me!
One day when I showed up to work out at the gym Big Mama was there...and we matched!!
Reece had a color run at her school!
Property Queens at West Alabama Aids Outreach event!
My Lover Love! We celebrated 14 years of marriage in May!
I can't even.
We went to Tannehill...and tried to take a picture..and this random dude hopped in! I felt like I was 12. HAHAHA!
This is Miss Jennifer...she was one of Brooks' teachers this year. She is spending her ENTIRE summer in Uganda working with children! She has also worked in an orphanage in China. So, we basically love her forever! :)
Time for your check up!
Uncle D got a job in NEW YORK CITY and moved way too far away from us!
The kid's passports came in!!!!!
Daddy/Daughter Date night at Chick-fil-A!
Father's Day!
So we have this marriage goal that we have had for a while...
4th of July at no other place than the beach!
Our babies are growing so fast! Time, slow down, but speed up and get us to China! ;)
Monday, May 16, 2016
Adoption Q & A!
I feel like I left everyone kind of hanging after we announced that we are adopting! It wasn't intentional AT ALL, we've just been super busy preparing for things and well, the blog was neglected.
People are stopping me everywhere I go asking questions about the adoption...which makes me SO EXCITED! I decided I should do a post with some of the main questions that we get asked A LOT!
The number one question is ALWAYS:
WHY did we decide to adopt?
So, I've had adoption on my brain for years. Years and years. Hubs and I had talked about it briefly and thought that maybe one day we would adopt. But that's all the conversation was. We have our four beautiful biological children and thought our family was complete.We took measures to not have any more biological children.
In the fall of 2014 I started really thinking more and more about adopting. I didn't really talk about it with anyone seriously but things just kept popping up and reminding me that maybe we are supposed to adopt. Things like random radio commercials about adopting. One day I was riding down the road with Reece and she just blurted out, "Can we have a foster child?" Um what? There are other random things that I will have to go back and add...can't think of them at the moment.
I kind of blocked out adoption at this point because I really thought maybe it was not the right time. Brooks was only a year old at the time and I guess I just thought the kids should be more grown before we pursue it? I don't know why I thought this.
Fast forward a few months and the random things started getting me thinking about it again so I started praying about it. This is when things started coming at me out of control! Everywhere I turn it's in my face. One of the main things was that I was thinking about was how much it would cost...and almost the very same day my sister and I got TWO full price offers on a flip house that we had for sale! TWO FULL PRICE! At this point I feel like the Lord is like "HELLO!!! I can't BE anymore CLEAR APRIL! I've got this, you just have to say yes!"
When this happened I decided that I better talk to the hubs. I filled him in on everything that was going on and I thought that maybe he would need a few days to process but no. At first I really didn't have to say much of anything, he already knew. He briefly said, "Do we really have room?"(We have 5 bedrooms) to which I responded, "THEY DON'T HAVE ANYTHING! No Mom or Dad, no ROOM AT ALL. They ALL sleep in one room and play in another, that's IT!" He looked at me like, "Ok, you have a point there." and said, "Let's do it."
I love that man.
That's a very condensed version of why, but you mostly get it...right?
How long before we get her?
Ah. I wish I had the magic answer. When we started the process our adoption agency told us we would be in China in about 18 months. But, really, it's all up in the air.
How old will she be?
We are in the middle of our home study right now so it depends on how that goes. We would prefer to keep our birth order and feel like the younger she is, the better. She will probably be around 2!
How much will the adoption cost?
An arm and a leg! Surprisingly this has been the least of my worries! You would think it would be a big stress but it really hasn't. It will cost around $50,000 or so, if you just HAVE to know a number. It will probably be more than that for us since we are taking the kids and plan on making a pit stop in Japan! :) Because, why not?
Do we have a name for her and will we keep her Chinese name?
We have not named her yet. We have some ideas but nothing is final. We will probably keep her Chinese name as an extra middle name or something? Maybe, I don't know.
Why China?
Because we like Chinese food.
HA! No, because we feel called to China just like we feel called to adopt!
We had our first home visit with our social worker yesterday! It went really well! We have two more visits with her and then we are done with our home study! One step closer...
People are stopping me everywhere I go asking questions about the adoption...which makes me SO EXCITED! I decided I should do a post with some of the main questions that we get asked A LOT!
The number one question is ALWAYS:
WHY did we decide to adopt?
So, I've had adoption on my brain for years. Years and years. Hubs and I had talked about it briefly and thought that maybe one day we would adopt. But that's all the conversation was. We have our four beautiful biological children and thought our family was complete.We took measures to not have any more biological children.
In the fall of 2014 I started really thinking more and more about adopting. I didn't really talk about it with anyone seriously but things just kept popping up and reminding me that maybe we are supposed to adopt. Things like random radio commercials about adopting. One day I was riding down the road with Reece and she just blurted out, "Can we have a foster child?" Um what? There are other random things that I will have to go back and add...can't think of them at the moment.
I kind of blocked out adoption at this point because I really thought maybe it was not the right time. Brooks was only a year old at the time and I guess I just thought the kids should be more grown before we pursue it? I don't know why I thought this.
Fast forward a few months and the random things started getting me thinking about it again so I started praying about it. This is when things started coming at me out of control! Everywhere I turn it's in my face. One of the main things was that I was thinking about was how much it would cost...and almost the very same day my sister and I got TWO full price offers on a flip house that we had for sale! TWO FULL PRICE! At this point I feel like the Lord is like "HELLO!!! I can't BE anymore CLEAR APRIL! I've got this, you just have to say yes!"
When this happened I decided that I better talk to the hubs. I filled him in on everything that was going on and I thought that maybe he would need a few days to process but no. At first I really didn't have to say much of anything, he already knew. He briefly said, "Do we really have room?"(We have 5 bedrooms) to which I responded, "THEY DON'T HAVE ANYTHING! No Mom or Dad, no ROOM AT ALL. They ALL sleep in one room and play in another, that's IT!" He looked at me like, "Ok, you have a point there." and said, "Let's do it."
I love that man.
That's a very condensed version of why, but you mostly get it...right?
How long before we get her?
Ah. I wish I had the magic answer. When we started the process our adoption agency told us we would be in China in about 18 months. But, really, it's all up in the air.
How old will she be?
We are in the middle of our home study right now so it depends on how that goes. We would prefer to keep our birth order and feel like the younger she is, the better. She will probably be around 2!
How much will the adoption cost?
An arm and a leg! Surprisingly this has been the least of my worries! You would think it would be a big stress but it really hasn't. It will cost around $50,000 or so, if you just HAVE to know a number. It will probably be more than that for us since we are taking the kids and plan on making a pit stop in Japan! :) Because, why not?
Do we have a name for her and will we keep her Chinese name?
We have not named her yet. We have some ideas but nothing is final. We will probably keep her Chinese name as an extra middle name or something? Maybe, I don't know.
Why China?
Because we like Chinese food.
HA! No, because we feel called to China just like we feel called to adopt!
We had our first home visit with our social worker yesterday! It went really well! We have two more visits with her and then we are done with our home study! One step closer...
