It's not a passion... It's an obsession

Five plus Five

2010-11-18T05:10:00.000-05:00

A beautiful family of SEVEN from our church is adopting FIVE more children!!! They are leaving in a couple of weeks to go pick up their new family members and they need prayer... that's it...simple prayer. Please read their story here and say a sweet little prayer for the listed prayer requests on their latest blog post. I can't wait to meet their new kids. I am SO EXCITED for them!

1 Month

2010-11-04T01:04:00.000-04:00

Jayden,

You turned one month old last week and Monday you had your one month check up. You weighed 10 pounds 7.5 ounces (70%) and were 22" long (40%). (I don't know if I've posted this before, but at birth you weighed 7lbs 1 ounce and were 19 3/4" long.) It's absolutely amazing how fast you are growing! Everyone has been telling me that babies grow up so fast and I already believe them after just one month of having you. I love you more than I ever thought possible and after a single month I can't imagine life without you. Although you still don't interact much, I don't think it will be too long before you are laughing and smiling when we talk to you. You love to keep eye contact with us when we are talking to you, but you also still go cross-eyed occasionally and we think it is really funny. You seem to have a really strong neck, but the doctor said to put you on your tummy more to strengthen your back. Within the last couple of weeks you have developed eczema, which breaks my heart because it looks like your skin is so irritated, but I think it hurts me more than it does you. We have had to switch you to soy formula, we can only give you a bath (which you absolutely love) every other day, and we have to keep you lubed up with all sorts of Vaseline and lotions, but it all seems to be working!! I always swore that my children would never sleep in the bed with me, but I have broken that several times. I know, I know.... we are working on it. Right now you are sound asleep. in. YOUR. crib! Yay! Here are some pictures from your first month of life:

Still at the Hospital

Your First Couple Days Home

First Doctors Appointment and First Walk Around the Block

First Camo Hat!!!

First Bath

And... Your Very First Halloween (and you were a Tiger thanks to cousin Landen)

And, just because you appear calm and sleeping in this few captured moments, don't think for a second that you were always this peaceful, these are just the only times I could grab my camera :) Just kidding, you are a pretty good baby! We love you! Can't wait to see what you can do by 2 months old.

Being a Mom... is Hard!!!

2010-10-21T03:18:00.000-04:00

So, I officially have no idea how you moms out there in the blog world have time to blog. I've been a mom for three weeks now and I've managed to write one post... and that's just with one baby. Most of you guys have three or more kids... I don't know how you do it.

Here goes post number 2 after bringing Jayden home (which will mostly be pictures because it's late - or early... however you want to look at it - and I have to be at work at 8:30 in the morning). Which also stinks!!! I didn't know I would be going back to work so soon, but I started back this past Monday. All I can say about working and having a newborn is that it is HARD! I'm not a morning person anyways, and now mornings are AWFUL! I'm tired from waking up throughout the night, I'm in an ill mood because the last thing in the entire world that I want to do is drop my baby off with someone else (even though I know he is very well taken care of... we love you A and thank you SO much for watching him), and well, I'm too tired to think of any more reasons why the mornings are awful, but I bet in about four hours I will be shouting lots more reasons while rushing to get out of the house :)

I have so many posts to write from different things that happened during our adoption process, but I feel like if I wait until I have time to write them, then nothing will ever get posted, so I'm just going to post what we have been up to lately. Then, when I do get time I will post about the last few weeks... including how we had a completed nursery before we even got back into town with our new little guy.

For now... here are a few pics:

Leaving the hospital with Jayden on Thursday night, September 30th!!!

The first night after leaving the hospital we spent the night at my mom's house. At three o'clock in the morning Jayden was screaming uncontrollably and I was just praying that if God blessed me with this beautiful baby that he would equip me with everything I needed to take care of him. We remembered the nurse had told us to give him some infant Tylenol for his circumcision, and realized we forgot to pick some up... so me and my sister went to CVS. There was absolutely NO ONE on the roads, except for a cop who happened to do a u-turn in the middle of the empty highway to get behind me and follow me to CVS. Once I arrived at the store I turned in, and well, the cop followed... and turned his lights on. He walked up to my window and I gave him my license and he asked if I knew why he had pulled me over. I told him I had absolutely no idea, and that's when he shined is flashlight across the parking lot to a sign that said no left turn into the CVS. So, apparently it is okay to do a u-turn in the middle of a 5 lane highway to get behind me to follow me until I do something wrong, then pull me over, and act like you don't believe me when I stumble to tell you (because I was a little nervous :) that I was in Loganville, although I live in Macon (1 1/2 hours away) to buy infant Tylenol for a baby that I just found out the day before that I was adopting and he was at my mom's house with his daddy screaming because he just got circumcised... hmmm... I have no idea why that sounds so unbelievable at 3:00 in the morning. However, thank you for doing your job Mr. policeman and I'm just going to assume that you were looking for drunks... so I really do appreciate you... just maybe not at that particular moment. By the time I got in CVS I was fighting back tears. Not only did I feel like the worst mom ever for not remembering the Tylenol in the first place, but the nervous emotions of being pulled over got to me. Then, like a normal emotionally drained lady, I started laughing at the thought of the memories I would have of the first night I was at home with my first baby :)

Here's a picture from the next day with two of Jayden's cousins:

Jayden's first picnic (even though he slept through the whole thing):

Our house, decorated the morning after our 10 day waiting period was up (thanks W & C!!!), and yes that is an awesome deer bib in case you can't see it in the picture :) And thank you Elijah and Asa for sharing your toys with baby Jayden... I can't wait until he is old enough to play with you guys!

Jayden's first pumpkin patch:

Here he is with is first pumpkin... just the right size, thanks to the Strange's... but he was letting me know that he was done taking pictures and it was time to eat:

More visits from cousins!

How do you guys think I look with twins??? Hahaha... I'm just sayin... it would be fun :)

And, last but not least, this is one of our best friends -

Her and her sister are both teachers and have a photography business on the side, Bloom Photography so last weekend her and her husband came down to visit for a couple days and she set up a mini studio in Jayden's nursery. Below are a few pictures she took and I LOVE them!

If You Want to Hear God Laugh… Tell Him Your Plans (Part I)

2010-10-13T23:30:00.000-04:00

Sorry it has been so long since we have updated the blog. We’ve been extremely busy lately… with our new baby Jayden!!!! I can’t believe I’m typing this, and I sure can’t believe it’s been two weeks since he was born and I kept it quiet for this long. In Georgia the birth parents have ten days to change their mind about the adoption, so we tried to keep it as quiet as possible… until now… the ten days are up!!! Thank you God for our precious son!
Now that I got that out, I want to share our story in detail, but it is probably going to take a few posts, so here I go…

… two Wednesday mornings ago I was working in a board room at a bank in Atlanta, Georgia when I got a phone call from my friend Julie. I used to work for Julie at a wallpaper store when I was in high school. When I was 17 and she was in her mid twenty’s she was someone I really looked up to and respected. She taught me a lot about self respect and self confidence, she helped me mentally prepare for college, and she even used to send me packages in the mail my freshman year of college with all sorts of little goodies. We’ve kept in touch over the last few years with a few phone calls, lunches, and events. Julie and Joel’s first, biological daughter was born with cystic fibrosis (you can read Elena's blog here or Julie's blog here to learn more about their story), but as a result has adopted two children since. When Julie saw my blog and found out Jason and I were trying to adopt we began emailing and talking again; and again she acted as a mentor in giving me advice about her experience with adoption. Anyways, at 8:30 on Wednesday morning she called me and told me about a little boy who had been born the night before; she said the birth mom wanted to give him up for adoption and Julie was asking me if we would be interested. Just three days before Julie had found out she is pregnant which is why they couldn’t adopt him (God’s timing is so amazing… just three days before she would have adopted him). She said the birth mom just specified she wanted a young, educated, outdoorsy couple to adopt her baby. I immediately started shaking like a leaf and my heart was about to come out of my chest. All I could say was, “Can I call Jason and talk to him?” When I called Jason I was so nervous and excited all I told him was that there was a baby born and Julie wanted to know if we were interested in adopting it (he later messaged me asking if it was a boy or a girl… oops forgot to tell him it was a boy!) He wanted to call our pastor and then he said he would call me back. Our pastor didn’t answer, so Jason called me back and all I heard through his very “manly” tears was, “My gut’s just telling me we should do it.” I called Julie back and told her we were interested in adopting and she very excitedly gave me the number to the hospital. I talked to a nurse who just got my name, phone number, and a few facts about us and said she would call me back. In what seemed like a century, but was really only a few hours I got a call. I answered the phone thinking it was the nurse, but it was the birth mom’s dad. He just wanted to talk to me a little bit to find out some information about me and Jason and he told us a little about his daughter; they had adopted her as an infant from Columbia, which was why she was so comfortable with giving her baby up for adoption. After talking to him for a few minutes he said he had a few more families to talk to and that he would let me know something by early afternoon. So, I tried as hard as I could to start working again, but my mind was definitely not where it needed to be as far as work was concerned, but I knew I needed to keep working to help time go by faster (although it didn’t really help). I called Jason to fill him in about my conversation with the birth grandfather, and Jason had already left work, came home, packed, and was ready to head to the hospital if he needed to :) It was less than an hour later, the birth grandfather called us back and told us that his daughter wanted us to adopt the baby!!! I was completely in shock. The whole time I was waiting I was telling myself over and over again, “don’t get your hopes up, don’t get your hopes up.” And then, all of a sudden, I could let my emotions out… I could be excited… ecstatic… I felt like I was dreaming. When I called Jason to tell him he was already outside talking to the neighbor while he waited to jump in the car and head to the attorney’s office. His mom had contacted an attorney in the same city where the hospital is located. She is a real estate attorney who does adoptions on the side as a passion. She had a huge real estate closing planned for that afternoon, and a couple of hours before Jason’s mom had contacted her about our situation, she had been pulled from the closing. She said we made her day with our story because she had been so upset about loosing the closing. God has perfect timing!!! Her whole afternoon had freed up so that she could handle our adoption! And, her office was only a couple of miles from the hospital, so she could go talk to the birth mom and handle all of the paperwork right away.

In the mean time, I had to go get my car from the hotel (I happened to drive separately to Atlanta from my coworkers because I had planned to stay in Atlanta and meet Jason to eat Ethiopian food for dinner that Friday night). Once I got back to the hotel, packed, checked out, and got my car, I had to go back to the client’s office and wrap up a few things, and then I headed to the hospital to meet my baby boy for the first time!!! Here are a few pictures from that first special meeting!!!

Now that our ten day wait is over, it is like a huge weight has been lifted; however, this also means that we have to call our Ethiopian agency and let them know what all has taken place, so please pray for us as we call them tomorrow. We aren't real sure what this means for our Ethiopian adoption, or if we should even continue with that adoption process. I feel like God put Ethiopia on my heart for some reason, even if it isn't meant for us to adopt from there right now, but PLEASE be praying that we make the right decision and that God's hand is in it 100%. I would love to continue with our Ethiopian adoption, but I don't even know if the agency will allow it. The wait is currently long enough that the age difference between Jayden and our Ethiopian baby wouldn't be an issue; however, we are pretty sure that it is not financially possible. Now that we have baby Jayden, I cannot travel with work anymore, and therefore am only going to be working part time when needed. As much as my heart hurts to think about not continuing with our Ethiopian adoption, I have a peace knowing that if it wasn't for us pursuing that adoption, I wouldn't have started blogging, and my friend Julie would have never called me about adopting Jayden. So whatever your plans are for our family God, help me to trust you and know that you have it all planned out from start to finish, please help me to have faith in you and be confident that you will lead us.

Adoption Update... (By Jason)

2010-09-25T19:38:00.000-04:00

I want to take a few minutes and catch everyone up on where we stand in the adoption process. I realized over the last few days as I have received more and more questions about the adoption that we have done a poor job of relaying information to family and friends as it has come along. While we have had plenty to write about, Britney and I simply haven’t really had time to slow down and get it all down on paper. So here we go.

The last several weeks, although productive, have been quite frustrating at times. The primary frustration relates to a miscommunication (for lack of better words) from our adoption agency. The long and short of it is that they (the agency) suggested we go ahead and start our home study process a couple months back, which we worked very hard on, only to find out that we have to re-do a good bit of the paperwork to comply with our adoption agency’s requirements, which they didn’t send us until later. That was really a bubble buster to say the least, to think you have completed a step and put a check in the box only to have a new box drawn right below it… Luckily, only a couple of the items directly impacted our home study agent’s report, so it only slightly set her back. She has been great in this process and has been a great motivator for Britney and I. She has helped us set deadlines to aid us in finishing this stage of the process so we can focus on the next. We had a follow up visit with her a week or so ago, which went extremely well (that was another sideline change – have to have four in home visits with her, not three as we had originally planned). I think it makes it a little more difficult that we are using a different agency from Georgia to do our home study, and Georgia’s requirements are slightly different than Oregon’s. We are not saying this to talk down about our agency at all because other than this one thing they have been WONDERFUL at communicating and answering ANY questions we have.

One big thing we are currently working on is a great deal of adoption parenting education, online courses and a GIANT booklet. Some of the education has been extremely helpful, while other parts…. not…so….helpful….. We feel like some of the exercises we are asked to complete are a little silly, but I’m sure they have their purpose. Most of it has been great, and will be beneficial down the road as it covers the full spectrum of ages and potential problems we will face. As a matter of fact, one of the online courses, related to adopting/fostering older children, was really useful, so if anyone is looking for a course on older children we can point you in the right direction.

All in all, we are ~~probably~~ hopefully a month away from having our dossier completed and getting onto the wait list!! We both have doctor’s visits and drug screens to complete, as well as finishing up the remaining education, both of which are holding up our home study report. So as we are able to finish these documents/visits up in the next couple of weeks we will be that much closer to bringing Baby Cannon home!! Pretty exciting times around the Cannon Household!!! Just for reference, the waiting list as of last week included 92 families waiting for referrals for a girl and 64 for a boy. We are not specifying a gender, so we will probably be adopting a boy... but only God knows for sure).

A few prayer requests for the coming weeks:

1. For God’s continued blessings and support. That he would go before us and prepare the way.

2. For Patience with this process as well as with the people we encounter as we move forward.

3. Please be praying for our child and his/her birth mother, especially considering that the birth mother is probably somewhere in the time frame of mid pregnancy. Be praying that they would both be healthy and find the nourishment that they need and that the birth mother would simply make good, sound, wholesome decisions in the coming months.

4. That our home study and dossier progress would be swift and smooth and that everyone communicates exactly what is needed to eliminate duplication of work/effort.

5. Lastly, simply for rest and peace of mind as this process can and has been tiring/frustrating/and time consuming. Pray that we would find the time and energy to complete the tasks at hand.

Thank you all for you continued prayers and support!!

Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. ~Hebrews 10:36~

I love SEEING adoption happen!!!

2010-09-21T21:35:00.002-04:00

One of my best friends from college has had a very trying last couple of years with infertility. We have had lunch several times during this time to discuss everything that goes along with this struggle. Jason and I have prayed and prayed… AND prayed for her and her husband. Up until recently we prayed for God to allow a baby to grow in her womb, but he had very different plans. I don’t even think I have told her this, because I would imagine the last thing someone wants to hear while they are trying everything possible to get pregnant is, “why not adopt?”, but for the last few months our prayer changed to, “God, please change her heart to be open to adoption.” I can’t imagine what it is like to go through what Carlie and her husband have gone through, all I know is that my heart broke every time I heard about their struggles. The last time we ate lunch together I cried out in prayer after I got back to my office (in case you are wondering…my office at my old job was far away from everyone else) because I can’t imagine the pain of wanting a baby so bad and getting upset over and over again. I can’t imagine being as emotionally and as physically tired as Carlie seemed.

Well… guess what?!?!? Carlie and Lee are now the proud parents to little Brooklyn Grace!!! In the wonderful words of Carlie’s grandpa (while smiling ear to ear), “have you ever heard of a 30 minute pregnancy? That’s how long Carlie’s pregnancy lasted. Did you know the baby’s middle name is Grace? That fits her perfectly because it’s only by the grace of God that she is here today.” Boy did his comment make me grin from ear to ear right along with him. He was SO excited about his new great-grandbaby!

On a Friday night about a month ago Carlie received a call from her OBGYN saying that he had just delivered a baby girl and the mother didn’t want the child. He gave Carlie and Lee 10 minutes to make a decision and call him back. Very excitedly Carlie called her parents and Lee called his parents, and then they called the doctor back and said they wanted her. I don’t know all of the details of this first weekend with little Brooklyn, but I’m sure it was one of the most exciting weekends of their lives. GOD CHANGED HER HEART in such a BIG way!!! We love you Lee, Carlie, and Brooklyn. Congratulations!

The Williamson Family

Congrats Monkey!!!

2010-09-19T23:22:00.000-04:00

"Monkey" is one of Jason's best friends that he grew up with and has hunted with since they were little boys. His real name is Jason also, and when they were younger the guys at the hunting camp gave them all nicknames, and well... "monkey" just stuck. Anyways, last Sunday night, opening weekend of bow season, Monkey killed a ridiculously huge deer, so of course I want to blog about it. Those of you who don't hunt... this is what Georgia hunters are trying to harvest everytime they step into the woods:

And, if anyone was wondering... he is SINGLE, and he does clean up well :) And, I don't even care if he kicks my butt for posting this on here hehehe.

Here are some pictures of him from our wedding... and he is good with kids hahahaha... this is his little huntin' buddy Cole

Now I'm just praying that he talks to me ever again after I post this... because I know someone is going to tell him it is on here. Just for Jason's sake - he had NOTHING to do with this, so it's not his fault :)

We love you Monkey... and congratulations on the deer!!!

Welcome Baby Kendall!!!

2010-09-15T00:32:00.000-04:00

My super, super, super beautiful little niece was born yesterday... yay!!! Here are a few pics:

I wasn’t sure if I should post this, but once again, I want to be completely honest with myself, and with those who read this (whoever you may be); therefore, I decide to go for it. The first reason I didn’t want to post this is because I don’t want to take anything away from the special day that my niece was born… it will be a day to celebrate her life as long as I live. Another reason is because I don’t want my adopted child to ever read my posts and get their feelings hurt or think for a second that I missed out on something because they are adopted; and last, I wasn’t sure if I should post this because God has given me such a beautiful gift by changing my heart and opening my eyes to adoption, that I don’t want to, and I try so hard not to see the negatives involved with the process, although I definitely know it will be difficult at times. But… last night while I was sitting at the hospital holding little baby Kendall, only a few hours after she was born, I couldn’t help but think about what I will be missing in the first few seconds, hours, and even months that my baby will live without me. I know that God has already picked out the perfect child for our family, and that even with missing the first few months of that child’s life, this is God’s plan… and I will obediently trust and follow Him. I also know that once we see our child, I will definitely not be thinking about the time I missed, but will ONLY be thinking about the lifetime I have to be with my baby and all of the exciting times the future holds with our little one from Ethiopia. So, although I was delighted last night to finally be sitting at the hospital holding my 6lb 5oz baby niece, I couldn’t help but think about the 3-9 months I will miss with our baby… my heart breaks thinking about it… but deep down I know that God will more than make up for this lost time! I know that our baby will be so special that it will be SO worth this small, itsy bitsy, teeny weenie amount of time we will not have with him or her… and I absolutely cannot wait for our baby to be able to play with their cousin Kendall J

Successful Labor Day Weekend Hunt

2010-09-07T19:51:00.000-04:00

Bad news is Jason and I got back from Kentucky last night around midnight and still had to unload the absolutely packed car, AND I started a new job this morning (well sort of new, I worked there a little over a year ago and now I'm back). Good news is the reason we were so late getting back to Georgia is because I shot my first deer with my bow!!! AND Jason shot his first buck with a bow (and he shot a doe too)!!! Therefore, we had to make a couple pit stops at the taxidermist and the processor on the way home. Getting home late is a good problem to have when coming back from a hunt : ) I also just want to say I LOVE Kentucky... and not just because I shot a deer with my bow there. The farm we were on was absolutely beautiful and the weather was perfect... much cooler there than in GA. Thanks J.H. and Sandy for letting us hunt your property! We loved it!!! Here are a few pictures from the weekend.... sorry if this grosses anyone out.

Just for kicks... this is me goofing off in the deer stand...I get a little bored sometimes : )

Jason's Buck... Woowhoo!!!

(sorry my camera doesn't take night pictures very well)

My Doe

Hopefully we will post a more detailed post of our trip and our hunts later this week. For now, we've got to get some of our adoption education paperwork done. Have a good short week!!!

Off to Kentucky for our First Whitetail Hunt of 2010!!!

2010-09-03T10:43:00.000-04:00

Jason and I are headed to Kentucky for the weekend... for a much anticipated deer hunt! Wooowhooo!!! Can you tell I am excited? Georgia's bow season doesn't open for one more weekend, so it works out perfect for us to go there this weekend to try and harvest a whitetail, or maybe even two :) I can't wait!! Also in Kentucky you can bait, where as in Georgia baiting is illegal. Jason's parents are friends with a couple who bought a farm in Kentucky and moved their to retire, and they are letting us hunt their property for free!! They have also been putting corn out for us and emailing us trail camera pictures of the deer... I haven't met them yet, but just from hearing Jason talk about them they seem like they are super sweet people. I can't wait to meet them tonight. Hopefully I will have some good pictures to post when we get back (sorry to all of you animal lovers out there). Those of you who are against hunting, just think about how many deer get hit by cars every year, think about car insurance rates increasing if the deer population gets out of control, and just know that everything we do is extremely ethical and much less disturbing than the way they kill the cows, pigs, and chickens you eat everyday. Sorry for the pro-hunting spill, but I just don't want people to think that hunting is a bad thing, even if you can't see yourself killing a deer (because I completely understand that). Have a good weekend!!!

P.S. I just watched a video on my friend Andrea's blog here. Her and her husband are part of an incredible organization called Wiphan, and they are starting a project called Operation Silent Night. Go to her blog post to read more, or go to http://www.wiphan.org/shop/operation-silent-night. Here is the video:

Operation Silent Night - Wiphan Care Ministries from Wiphan Care Ministries on Vimeo.

A New Gotcha Day Video

2010-09-02T10:49:00.000-04:00

This is a new gotcha day video from filledwithpraise.blogspot.com. This family adopted their little Elijah from the same agency and orphanage we will be getting our little baby from! Everytime I see one of these vidoes it makes me that much more excited about meeting the baby that God already has picked out for us.

Our Journey to Elijah Mihretu - Ethiopia Adoption from http://vimeo.com/filledwithpraise on Vimeo.

Yard Sale Results :)

2010-08-30T00:37:00.000-04:00

Tonight Jason said, "I think Jesus must of slipped some cash into our yard sale money, because did you see all of the junk we sold; I just don't see how it could have added up to that much." Hahaha... now I'm not saying that it's impossible for God to "slip" us some money, I mean he is God and all, but I do think He gave us the donors, the helpers, and the shoppers to help us raise WAY more than I expected. So, just how much did we make??? We raised a little over $3,500 in one and a half days of yard selling!!! C.R.A.Z.Y.!! ! God does provide, oh my goodness, how quickly we are learning! Friday night we started organizing and setting up all of the yard sale stuff and it started raining (the wheather man said there was only a 20% chance of rain :( We had trailors to unload, and people were still dropping stuff off. A few of the neighbors who knew about the adoption sale started running over bringing tarps... thank you Jesus. We called it a night, and we all went home with the intentions of getting back over at Mrs.Kim's house around 5:30 to finish setting up. Well... I didn't end up going to bed until around 2:30 because I stayed up talking and goofing off with my sister who came to help... and, I'm definitely NOT a morning person. Therefore, I didn't make it back in the morning until about 6:30am, and there were already a few people shopping (with flashlights). That is nuts!! There was a steady stream of shoppers until a little after noon, and around 3 we started cleaning up. We had just finished putting the tarps back on everything and moving the nicer furniture back into the garage when it started raining, perfect timing. I don't think I've ever been so relieved as I was when my head hit my pillow last night. And, I'm pretty sure I've never slept so hard... I was exhausted to say the least, but it was so worth it. Today Mrs. Kim talked us into continuing the yard sale after church, and again, I am so glad we did! We made a little over $300 today just from 1:00-5:00. We straightened everying up (I think we are going to call the Macon Mission to come get the items that didn't sell), then headed to a friend's house for a fish fry... great way to end the weekend!!! Here are some pictures from the sale... look at all of the stuff... every bit of it donated! AMAZING! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED THIS WEEKEND!!!

Rainy Friday Night:

Saturday (look at ALL of the donations):

She isn't really for sale... at least not for $50. She is worth way more than that. Thanks Court for helping (she was trying to study -see the book- but, I'm pretty sure she was unproductive as far as that went)

Mrs.Kim has a salon in her basement where she cuts hair for a living (she cut mine not too long ago and I love it), so she decided to set up a hair cutting chair to help raise money for our adoption :) She gave the cuttest baby ever, Lane, his very 1st haircut... yes... at a yard sale. But, his momma will have a great story to tell him when he gets older. And, him and our Ethiopian baby can be buddys. I met Amy and Chris, Lane's mom and dad, while I was in college in Milledgeville, and now we live about 5 minutes apart!

The most played with toy of the day... the pogo stick... and I'm pretty sure we ended up selling it because I didn't see it today when we were cleaning up.

And, last but not least, we made a "prize" item (we got the idea off of a t.v. show, but I can't remember the name of it) where whoever buys this certain, off the wall, crazy item gets a special gift. Our prize item, decided on first thing Saturday morning, was a New Kids on the Block record. The gift... a free hair cut by Mrs. Kim. So who was the lucky winner???

Congratulations Amy! Hahaha. I think Mrs. Kim was just glad it was someone she already knew :)

This picture was taken before she knew she had won.

Okay, so you get a little loopy with 2 hours of sleep, but it was still really funny!

Thanks again to everyone who helped us raise such a huge amount of money! We love you guys!

Running out of time before the YARD SALE of the year!!!

2010-08-26T18:26:00.001-04:00

Hey Folks,

We are running out of time before the YARD SALE OF THE YEAR!! If anyone has offered to donate items and we have not hooked up with you yet, please let us know. For the past couple of days we have been taking things by Kim's house and it would be great if you are able to take things there directly as we are running out of hours in the day. If there are items that need to be transported by trailer or truck and you have no means to do so, please let us know so that we can schedule you on our 'donations route'. We are SOO greatful for all of the wonderful things that have been donated so far and can't wait to see what else God has in store!!

Please be praying for good weather (mild and not raining) for tomorrow night and Saturday! Thank you all very much.

J&B

Having Faith in an Invisible God (Jason)

2010-08-24T23:37:00.001-04:00

Proverbs 16:9

In his heart a man plans his course,
but the Lord determines his steps. (NIV)

Tonight in our MC meeting (small group) this question was posed related to the above passage of scripture: have you ever made plans and God made things work out differently than you had envisioned? I paraphrased a little b/c I cannot remember exactly how it was worded, but you get the idea. I thought of a few examples (internally) and several others shared their experiences with the group. Well, now I am going to share with all of you a circumstance where God did that very thing tonight after we left our meeting!!

Take a look back at Britney’s last post (here) about the wonderful family who sold their house and VERY generously offered to donate several items to our yard sale to support our adoption efforts. This family was literally friends of friends whom we had never seen nor heard of (we never even heard their names). Turns out, that with all of their chaos going on with trying to move out of their house in a very short amount of time, that they were unable to deliver the items that they wanted to donate. We found this information out this afternoon. Well, on to plan B, we were going to pick everything up after small group. We are so grateful for people to be donating that we are doing any and everything within our power to make it come together (we have the will if He will just show us the way!).

So, after small group, we follow Mrs. Kim ALL around Wesleyan Woods (I think there are about 1,000 entrances to that neighborhood) and finally end up at this family’s house. Here is where the Lord decided to show off. Come to find out, I have been doing this family’s tax return for the last several years and have even met with the husband on several occasions on various business related items. More interesting than that, they also adopted internationally (twice from Bulgaria) which was why they were so eager and willing to donate to our cause. It is truly an amazing thing to have God shining his light on our path. I am SOOO glad that they were unable to deliver the donated items to Mrs. Kim’s house yesterday, because it was so much more special to receive this blessing in the way that God orchestrated it tonight. God truly is amazing!! I am so very glad to have Him going ahead of us, preparing the path for our family. It was also awesome to be able to discuss the wonderful works that God was doing in this family as well. This family felt led to move out of state and stand on faith for God to provide and in a matter of just two days they had a contract on their house. I don’t know if any of you have been outside in the past two years or have noticed the ‘decline’ in the housing market, but if selling your house in this market isn’t a faith builder, I don’t know what is.

To the family I am referring to above, I wish you all the very, very best on your journey!! Britney and I will remember the discussions tonight for a long time to come, and we will be praying for you all. To everyone else that is praying alongside us, and to those donating your time and resources to helping us bring this adoption to fruition, we thank God for each of you every day. I cannot express what it means to have the type of support we have received thus far, except to say that God is good on his promises and that His Word NEVER fails!!! Praise Jesus!!

Do people like this really exist?

2010-08-22T23:45:00.000-04:00

Can I just start out by saying that we aren't even on the waiting list for a baby yet and my relationship with God has grown SO much through this process?!?!?! I have learned to trust Him and have faith in Him more than ever! I like to plan, I like to play it safe, I like to be independent... and let me tell you, this adoption process definitely requires me to step outside of my comfort zone.

I'm not a very emotional person, I don't really cry a lot, and I have a hard time expressing my feelings. I have five siblings, four of which are younger than me, so I always tried to be the sibling that held it together during sad times in order to help comfort everyone. My brothers and sisters always knew that I would try to make them laugh during difficult times in order to ease the pain. Now I find it hard to let myself cry in front of others, or even alone for that matter. In the last couple of months there have been several times that I have just wanted to have a good cry. Thinking about our baby that isn't born yet, thinking about all of the children in Africa who need a family, thinking of all of the families in Africa who could stay together if they just had a little bit of money and access to proper medical care, thinking about the stressfulness of my life here, work, getting adoption paperwork completed, making time to get in the Word, making time to hang out with friends and family, all of the prayer requests of friends, getting ready for deer season that opens in a couple of weeks, getting ready for our adoption yard sale, and the list goes on and on... So, I prayed that God would make me more in tune with my feelings, that he would allow me to let go sometimes and let it all out, that he would let me accept that the problems in Africa are real, and that, although seemingly insignificant compared to those problems, my every day struggles are real... and need prayer... passionate prayer.

Oh boy! I don't think a full 24 hours passed before God released the flood gates. I've been averaging between 5 and 6 hours of sleep a night which sometimes just makes me cranky and irritable, but the last two weeks I think it led to me being a crazy, emotional mess. But, I can tell you it felt so good!!! I laid my problems at the feet of Jesus, my King... and He answered. I will blog about the main reason for my craziness later this week, but seeing God's hand in our adoption is such a blessing! Being able to feel so much more connected to this process and see God at work is amazing! Jason blogged about us being able to mail in our first large payment to our agency last week... six weeks ahead of schedule!!! We are having our yard sale this Saturday, August 28th, and we have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to collect everything people have so generously donated. Well, this morning at church Mrs. Kim (who has offered her yard for the sale) said she had a friend who placed her house on the market and it just sold... in 2 days... in the worst housing market in decades. So why is this important??? This family said they have a ton of stuff that they don't want to take with them because they are moving out of state, and they are donating all of it...to us... for our yard sale... for our adoption... that will take place this weekend... one week after they sold their house. And get this.... this family has two adopted children!!! Okay, so it gets better... tonight we had planned to go get all of the stuff and take it to Mrs. Kim's house, but the lady, who I have never met (I don't even know her name) didn't call when she said she would. So, we just figured she got tied up doing something and that we would go another night this week. Then Mrs. Kim called me back and said that this family already had a Uhaul truck rented and they planned to move the stuff tomorrow during the day and take it all to her house for us. They said since they already had the truck rented they didn't mind moving the yard sale stuff before they loaded the truck up with their stuff to head out of state. Wow!!! Do people like this really exist? God you are good... how can we ever deny you?!? Your timing is perfect!! We love you and praise you!!

Steps in the Right Direction (Jason)

2010-08-19T18:10:00.002-04:00

So this week has been a bit hectic, but VERY productive. Monday, we met with our new social worker (SW) from the home study agency (she is #2 as our first SW was pulled from all her cases for personal reasons). Let me tell you, our new SW is a prayer answered!! The meeting went a bit over schedule, which is the result of her playing catch-up from not having been the one who came for the first visit, but Britney and I both are extremely comfortable with this new addition to our journey. Both ladies we met with have been extremely nice, and it is very obvious from talking with them that their #1 priority is the children whom they effectively serve, but we just seem to click a little better with our new SW. Both were Christian ladies that seem well grounded, so that gives me a lot of confidence in their ability to make objective determinations about our family. The interesting thing about the home study is not so much the things that a SW learns about you, your life, and your family; it’s the things that YOU learn about YOU, YOUR life, and YOUR family. We have answered so many hard questions about who and what we really believe that it has really been an eye opener for both Britney and I not to mention good bonding time for us as well. Any of you reading this who have been thru this process should be able to relate. The more I go through this process, the more real the adoption becomes, as I see the passion and compassion in these women’s eyes for the children that they want to unite with their families.
We also mailed out our orientation packet to the agency yesterday!!! If you could see me right now you would see a fat boy jumping up and down in his chair like a 3 year old jumping on his parent’s bed!! We hadn’t planned on sending off this first payment (also didn’t think it would be an option) until the last week of September but apparently God had other plans, because he has made it all come together! We also didn’t know that it would be necessary to have this payment made in order for us to complete home study. This payment was necessary for the adoption agency to give us access to online course materials that will be necessary before our home study can been finalized. So God has provided for us to take the classes six weeks earlier than anticipated which puts us six weeks closer to meeting and bringing our child home! These are very exciting times to say the least, and thank you ALL for your continued prayer and support. We really couldn’t do it without you.

We are also growing ever closer to the yard sale of the year and we have gotten some really great items from people to sell. Please be praying that the weather is perfect (or at least not a torrential down poor). Thanks to all of you who have donated items to sell, or have offered your time and energy to make this thing happen. We will need some help setting up and getting everything to Mrs. Kim’s house that Friday, so anyone that is available to help we could certainly use it. Also, anyone that is interested, we will also be selling our shirts at the yard sale so that may be a good time to pick one up if you haven’t already. We have had pretty good success thus far with the shirts and really appreciate all of your contributions.

Babe of My Heart - Adopting First

2010-08-15T21:59:00.000-04:00

Last week our friend Andrea posted about us on her blog Babe of My Heart. She brought her baby Isaac Temesgen home from Ethiopia a little over a month ago. His Gotcha day video is at the bottom of our blog, so if you haven't watched it yet you should definitely scroll to the bottom of our blog and check it out. Hop on over here to see Andrea's post about couples deciding to adopt first, which by the way has to totally be God's plan for us, because when we really think about it, it doesn't seem like the natural thing to do, but God has laid it on our hearts, and we are just trying to follow His plan. This time last year, we never would have imagined adopting before having biological children, but now, after beginning this process, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Jason's First Sprint Triathlon... and He is Still Alive :-)

2010-08-14T14:23:00.000-04:00

Can I just say that I am so proud of my husband! He decided to participate in a sprint triathlon a couple of weeks ago, and with only two weeks of training he completed a 400 yd swim, 13.6 mile bike ride, and then a 5K run! We woke up this morning at 4:00am to head down to Cordele, GA for the race. I felt like I was just doing good to wake up that early... I can't even imagine doing something active after waking up at 4:00am. Did I mention that we woke up at 4:00am?!? We rode down to South Georgia with Jenn and Andy, they were the ones who encouraged Jason to sign up for the race. It was also Jenn's first sprint triathlon, and I am also so so so excited for her for finishing the race!!! And, the cutest part was that Andy treaded in the water during the swim for about six minutes waiting on Jenn's wave of racers to start. He stayed right by her side the entire race to encourage her to never stop... she didn't even walk during the 5K... she ran the entire leg of the race.

The Start of the Race

Annabelle and Judah cheering on their daddy... so cute!

After the 400 Yard Swim

Coming in to Complete the Bike Ride

Starting the 5K

Almost to the Finish Line

Yay!!! The Finish!!!

T-Shirts Finally!!!

2010-08-12T13:04:00.000-04:00

As crazy and frustrating as it has been to get our adoption t-shirts... it was worth it. I picked them up today! Yay! Here are some pictures... if you want to order one please contact us! We haven't gone to the post office to see how much it costs to mail one, but for now they are $20 if we can bring it to you, or $25 if we mail them. Hopefully we will get a pay pal button soon, so all money can go through them. Until then, just let us know what size you want and we will figure the rest out asap. We also have the same design on a grey t-shirt (I don't think it looks quite as good, but I like grey shirts because they aren't as hot). Now I'm off to Loganville to meet my sister and help her move as well as help my crying mom let her little baby girl go off to college :-) I love you mom.

Got Junk?

2010-08-12T00:02:00.000-04:00

We'll Come Get It!!!
We already posted our yard sale date, but just in case you missed it, it will be Saturday, August 28th beginning at 7:00am!!! Jason and I took off work this Friday to ride all around Georgia to pick up donated yard sale items from lots and lots of really nice friends. If anyone has anything they would like to donate please give us a call tomorrow so we can figure out our plans for the Tour de Georgia on Friday. I am headed to Loganville in the morning to help my little sister, Courtney, pack for college, and then we are headed to Kennesaw to help her move into the dorms! I am so excited and proud of her for going to college, and I hope she has as much fun her freshman year as I did. If anyone in either of these areas wants to get rid of some junk then you can contact us in the morning, and if it's at all possible I will come pick it up. So far, Friday we will be going to Gainesville and possibly Doraville, so just let us know what ya got... and we'll come get it. Hahaha... how redneck does that sound? But, if it will help us get our baby home, then I don't care what it sounds like :-) Jason's cell is 678-222-8582, or you can leave us a message on Facebook or on here. Thanks!!!

I dare you to....

2010-08-09T21:42:00.000-04:00

... try and watch this video without crying.

(Thanks Kim for posting this on Facebook... I had to steal it for the blog.)

What a Crazy Week...

2010-08-08T23:42:00.000-04:00

Oh my goodness... we have been busy, busy, busy. We just got back in town so I'm exhausted, so sorry if there are a ton of errors in this post (I'll be doing good if it just makes sense). Before I post about our week, we have new adoption news. Apparently something happened with our home study agency and they had to switch social workers on us. I received a call on my work phone Friday, which never happens... I'm not really a big deal at work, so I don't really get many phone calls :-), so when our secretary told me I had a call I felt kind of excited and important, lol. It was our home study agency, and they were informing me they were changing our social worker (s.w.). My first thought was, "oh no, what the heck did we do?" She then explained that it had nothing to do with us, but something had come up and they needed to assign us someone else. She was extremely professional about it and apologized several times. She said our first meeting would still count and we would just have our second two meetings with the new s.w. Of course I didn't mind, the only difference to us was that we would have to reschedule our next meeting, which was suppose to be today (no big deal at all). She told us our new s.w. was out of town and wouldn't be back until Monday (tomorrow)... well, within a few hours the new s.w. had already emailed us about the situation, her contact information, and a couple tentative dates for our next meeting. Geez, I'd say they are pretty on top of things! So, I am completely comfortable with this new change, and I am exited to meet with our new s.w. and get this process completed!

Now onto why we have been so busy, and why it has taken so long to write a blog post:

The number one reason for me should be because of this:

However, I can't honestly say that is the real reason... for those of you who don't know... this is my study book for the financial section of the CPA exam. I am required by work to sit for this exam, and I have signed up to take it October 1st-Please pray for me!!! hahaha.... I have to admit, I've already failed it once. On a positive note, that means I've already studied the material before... on a negative note, that was about a year ago (and I have a terrible memory). There are four parts of the CPA exam and you have pass all four within 18 months of each other. I passed the auditing section in July of last year, therefore I have until January of this year to pass the other three. And to think, I made fun of Jason for waiting till the last minute to sit for his final part :-(

So the real reasons we have been so busy...
Monday I went to a Discovery Toys party. I mainly went to hang out with moms from our church and to learn about educational toys for little ones. I had no intentions of ordering anything, but you know how those parties work :-) There are three books sold together, "Wiggle & Move", "Touch & Tickle", and "Calm & Soothe"; and the description says, "This trio of board books offers read-along ideas for boosting baby's physical development while deepening parent-child bonds." How perfect for an adopted child!!! I was so excited, I couldn't help but order them... and it was only $15 for the set. So, after our child is home and I try some of these exercises I'll blog about them and let you guys know if I like them or not (even though that may be a while). If you want more information about Discovery Toys you can go here.

Tuesday we just hung around the house... Thanks James! (hahaha... by the way I already think it is funny!)... sorry other blog readers-inside joke.

Wednesday we drove to Atlanta for this:

With these amazing friends:

It was an awesome game...Go Braves!!!

(Thanks again Casey and Marianne-I'm pretty sure we will never be able to repay you!)

Thursday... more baseball... but, this time we only had to go a few miles to watch the game. We got tickets through Jason's firm to see the local semi-pro team, the Macon Pinetoppers:

Friday I had to be at my cousin's wedding rehearsal at 6:00 to help out a little. Right after the rehearsal I ran home changed and headed to the gym for some much needed treadmill time. Our friends Andy and Jenn talked Jason into doing his first sprint triathlon, which will be August 14th, and he began training for it this past Monday... he is crazy! I'm pretty sure I would be doing good to run one mile, but I can say one thing... I will be the best cheerleader wife he has ever had :-) hahaha. After the gym (at 9:00pm) we went to Bass Pro Shops, one of our favorite stores. They had a bow give away at 9:30 and you had to be present to win (which, by the way, we didn't). We walked around, ran into some old friends and talked for a little while, and then decided (at 10:00) to go to Waffle House for dinner, so much for working out. We had a wonderful W.H. dinner with good conversation!! I love how God randomly puts good Christian friends in your life (and thanks John Drew tennis classes).

Saturday my family came into town for my cousin's wedding (yay for having family living in the same city!!!) For once, I didn't have to leave Macon for a family event!

The Beautiful Bride

My Mom

Thanks mom for the dress!! I loved it! Maybe you can just become my personal shopper, because you know if it was up to me I would wear sweat pants and t-shirts everywhere! But hey, you were the one who raised me and allowed me to be a tomboy my whole life :-)

Sisters

One of My Brothers

Sunday was kind of crazy. I went to church with my sister who stayed with us after the wedding, and Jason went to church with is Dad. I then met Jason in Conyers for his great uncle's 80th birthday party. Look how cute he is!!!

Now, it's off to bed to rest up for work bright and early in the morning!

Have a good week!!

Adoption Is Greater Than The Universe - John Piper

2010-08-06T17:42:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't blogged in forever... but we have been really busy this week. I promise I will post an update on everything we have been up to as well as an update on our adoption soon! For now watch this video (it's not a new video, but a friend posted it on Facebook and I think it is wonderful!)

Home Study & Yard Sale

2010-08-01T23:02:00.000-04:00

We had our first home study meeting yesterday and everything went great! She just asked us some basic questions about our adoption and how we plan to help our child adjust to our culture as well as inform them about their birth culture. The funniest part of the whole meeting was when she recommended we watch the movie Soul Food to learn more about African American culture… really?!?! She said that more than likely our child will be perceived as African American and will need to know how to assimilate that culture if they go to a black friend's house for dinner. Is it bad that I'm not that worried about the physical differences between me and my child? I know there will be questions and issues I will need to handle regarding our physical differences, and cultures related to those differences, at some point, and I definitely want to be prepared for those times before they happen, but right now I am much more worried about becoming a parent to an adopted baby from an orphanage who will need a ton of love and constant care once he/she is home. I’ve been reading books about parenting adopted children and I've ordered some that deal with transracial adoptions, so I am hoping I will be as prepared as possible to help my child adjust to the social norms in their everyday life, no matter how people perceive them. I may be naive, but I'm pretty sure with the educational material our agency requires, reading several adoption books, talking to other families who have adopted outside of their race, and relying on God, we can handle any situation that comes our way. I'm not saying it will always be easy and that it won't break my heart when I don't know everything about another culture to help my child "fit in" and understand the differences between our family and someone else's, but I know that we can handle it... by relying on God's strength.

Jason and I have been talking about how nervous and scared we are about becoming parents for the first time (which after child proofing the house with cabinet locks, outlet covers, putting cleaners out of a child's reach, etc. for our home study, has been a lot lately.) However, the further we get in our adoption process, the more excited we get! Man, I really, really can't imagine how excited we are going to be when we get our referral, when we get on a plane to head to Ethiopia, or when we pull up to the orphanage to meet our baby for the first time... it has to be an unexplainable feeling... and I absolutely cannot wait to experience it!!!
-------------
We have set a date for our yard sale! August 28th!!! (Yes, we know it will be HOT!! but it is the only date that works for us before our first agency fee is due.) So, if anyone has anything that is yard sell-able that they don’t want anymore please let us know and we will come pick it up. We hope everyone has a great week!

Full Moon (By Jason)

2010-07-31T00:35:00.000-04:00

Heard a new song on the radio today by Chris August, Starry Night, and it got me thinking. One of the lyrics says ‘I’m giving my life to the only One who makes the moon reflect the sun, on that Starry Night, He changed my life’. For whatever reason, picturing the moon in the sky at night made me think about our call as Christians and how I long to be a FULL MOON.

Think about the moon for a minute. While the moon is beautiful, it can only be truly appreciated when the light of the sun is reflected off of its surface. Also while the moon remains constant: it constantly rotates the earth, it has a consistent surface, it is always present, it is only when the sun shines on its face that the moon is used to its full potential. So while the moon may always be constantly around, it is not always as useful.

I think that we as Christians are moons in the sky of the world. Only when we are present in darkness can we make a real difference as this is when our ‘light’ is noticeable. While we can be seen in the sky during the day, we are merely another light that can be seen and we make little difference. The moon in the sky during the day is the picture that I see of Christians today that refuse to go out into the world. When Christians live within the confines of their church body and refuse to interact with non-believers, we are mere lights in a room of lights. God calls us to help shed His light on the rest of the world, so as ‘moons’ the best way to do that is to Reflect His Light in the darkness while at the same time trying with all of our power not to become part of the world.

Also, the moon cycles constantly, the same way we as Christians do (at least I do). Have you ever said to yourself ‘Man I had a great week/day with the Lord; I sure hope I can keep this hunger for his Word all the time’? And the next week your saying ‘how the heck did I get here, I haven’t prayed to God about this difficult decision at all?’ the list goes on and on. If not, maybe I’m the only one…... We cycle in and out of His light, all the while His light remains constant. All the while, he is waiting for us to peak around the corner of the world to be engulfed in His glorious light. That is why I Long to be a FULL MOON in the darkness. I long to shed His light on the sleeping world just to tell them ‘God is here, He loves you, just follow the light and find your Father waiting to bring you into His home once and for all.’

The other part of the lyric that struck me is the last part that says ‘on that starry night, HE changed my life’. This is the core of Christianity. God is The Light, and HE is the one that changes us. It is by his Grace and His love alone that we are saved and pulled out of darkness. I thank God for his Love, and I also thank God for the many, many moons he placed in my darkest nights to show me the way. I thank Him for seeking after me, even in my darkest moments. I pray for each of you reading this, that you would be the FULL MOON in someone’s night, and that they would see the One True God’s light reflected in your life.

Hope you all have a great/safe weekend. Please continue to pray for us as we have our first home study visit tomorrow. Pray not only that our inspection would go well, but also that any real safety concerns for a child would come to light during the visit tomorrow and that we can appropriately address those concerns to provide the safest home environment possible for our child. Thank you all for following along with our family on this journey that God has placed in our hearts!

We're Famous! :-)

2010-07-26T21:17:00.002-04:00

Some of you may remember when I won a bunch of adoption t-shirts and an Ethiopia necklace a few months ago in a raffle... and I was SO excited! (I never blogged about winning because it was before I even decided to start a blog... I actually found her blog while researching adoption agencies, countries, etc.) Well, Kim is doing another raffle here on her blog. They are raffling some really, really cute adoption shirts and since I won last time she included me and Jason in her blog post (hence my blog title "We're Famous"). Last time Kim did the raffle all of the proceeds went to her adoption, but this time there is more... this time some of the funds will be going to Korah, described below from an exert from Kim's blog, but you should go check it out yourself for ALL of the details (and of course to enter the raffle to win some awesome shirts!!!)

For those of you that don't know, much like myself a few months ago, "Korah" in Amharic means "cursed". Around 75 years ago, the Ethiopian government moved everyone with leprosy to this area of Addis Ababa . There are now approximately 100,000 people that live in the slums of Korah and are considered the "outcasts" The other thing that is located in Korah is the city dump. I have had friends say they could see parts of the dump moving and then realized it was people moving. People searching for food to eat and scrap metal to sell.

Please head over to Embracing the Least of These to read more!

On another note: last week, I took half a day Thursday and all day Friday off from work to get some painting done around the house. My friend Julie came down to help (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!) I don't think I would have ever finished if it wasn't for her. Jason left Friday to go to Kentucky with his dad to look at some property we plan to hunt in the fall. With saving for our adoption, we were unable to schedule any out of state hunts this year, but we are learning that God will always provide (yes, even hunting opportunities). Not long after deciding to adopt and deciding to not go on any hunting trips this year, one of Jason's parent's friend's called him and insisted he come hunt his property because there are deer everywhere. Wooo whooo!! Anyways, while they were busy driving, hanging deer stands, putting corn out, setting up cameras, and more driving... me and Julie were working hard. Here are some before and after pictures... (the "before" pictures are from when we first bought the house, so they aren't great pics... also, ignore the bathroom rug under the armoire in the "after" pictures - we had to use it to scoot the furniture and Jason hasn't been home long enough to help me get it out :-)

Our home study agency called Saturday morning to schedule our first in-home visit and she asked if that afternoon would work. Hahaha... umm... all of our furniture was sitting in the middle of the room, our downstairs bath hasn't been put back together since painting a couple weeks ago, and Jason was out of the state. My stomach dropped, and I said, "Well, my husband is out of town, can we reschedule sometime next week?" Thank goodness she agreed :) So, now we have our first visit scheduled for this coming Saturday! Hopefully everything will go well, and I'm sure we will learn a lot about being parents... yay! Now I have to go finish the bathroom we started painting a couple weeks ago... ugh... it's never ending, but will be worth it once it is done... huh, sounds kind of the same way I feel about adoption right now.

Delayed Weekend Post

2010-07-22T02:22:00.002-04:00

Not that anyone cares (and not much of this post has to do with our adoption), but when deciding to blog I told myself this would be a good way to keep a journal, so this post is just for me to document how busy I think my life is now, so that once I have children I can look back and laugh :-)

I get off work at 1pm on Fridays which is great because I usually use the afternoon to run most of my weekly errands. This Friday I was on a tight time constraint because Jason made me promise I would be ready to leave the house at 5:40 to head out of town. I'm terrible at being ready to leave on time... so that is why he made me repeatedly promise. Well, I got off work at 1, went to the bank, then to the print shop that is printing our adoption t-shirts, next I went to Joann's fabric store (it opened Friday... and was so unbelievably packed it made me nervous, but besides that, it quickly became my new favorite store), next I went to Dick's sporting goods to see if they had corn because Jason asked me to go grab the memory card out of the trail camera and put some more corn out for the deer, but of course, my luck, they were sold out of bags of corn. After leaving Dick's I realized my gas light was on, so I had to stop and fill up, during the time it took to fill up my car, I realized it was way past lunch time so I made a quick run through the Micky D's drive through (gotta love a $2.99 value meal). Then it was onto Ace Hardware, because I knew they would have corn. I ran in quickly, asked the ladies at the front where to find the corn and they pointed me in the right direction. Well... I grabbed the 50lb bag of corn and threw it over my shoulder, after deciding to be stubborn and refuse the help that was offered (remember I'm still in my nice work clothes). I was just thinking about how far I have carried bags of corn in the woods before in order to fill up feeders, so I just knew I could make it to the check out counter. When I leaned over to put the corn down on the counter to be checked out, the bag tore open and corn went all over the counter and floor :-( thank goodness the ladies were laughing rather than getting mad at me. They were trying to help me pick it all up, and they were worried about getting me another bag of corn. When I refused because I was the stubborn one who tore the bag in the first place, they insisted on picking up as much corn as possible and putting it in a little paper sack so I could take it with me. Little did they know, I was way more worried about being ready to leave by the time Jason got off work than I was about collecting a small fraction of the corn I had just purchased. Everyone then joked when I refused help again when asked if I needed help carrying the bag out to my car. Well, I made it to my car without any more corn casualties. I then ate my hamburger and french fries while headed to my next stop... the toy store. I went to the cutest little toy store on Ingleside to grab a present for my newphew who was turning one on Saturday. Finally, I was headed home. It was now about 4:30, so I had one hour to do a load of laundry, change, pack, and get everything together to head out the door. Needless to say, when Jason got home at 5:30, I still wasn't ready... but, he was very patient and understanding. We left the house around 6:00 to head to Gainesville for a much needed trip to visit some of our best friends that we have gone way too long without seeing. On our way out of Macon, we stopped to check the trail camera pictures and to put the corn out. Jason can't help it... he loves checking out the deer pictures. About half way to Gainesville, we drove through a drive through for dinner, McDonald's again, haha, I'm probably the least healthy person alive... two meals from McDonald's in less than 5 hours :-) ... I'm lovin it... get it... haha... okay, sorry... once we finally made it to Gainesville we stayed up talking and making this for my nephew (I got directions on how to make it on Andrea's blog here):

The next morning we woke up just to hit the road again to help my sister get ready for Landen's first birthday party. We didn't leave as early as we wanted, but that's okay, we got some much needed visiting time with great friends! Here are some pictures of Landen's birthday party which turned out wonderful (great job Chelsie!). I have never seen so many people at a one year old's birthday party, but I do know that Landen loved it.

The Birthday Boy!

Check out his cute birthday shirt

His yummy Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake

Landen eating his very own smaller version of the Mickey cake

My favorite part of the party was how happy he got when we started singing Happy Birthday to him-I'd have to say he loved the attention!!!

Some help from Mommy and Daddy to blow out the candle

Happy 1st Birthday Landen! We love you!!

Now, a cute story about trying to explain our adoption plan to my seven year old nephew Taylor. Here he is with a ring pop from Landen's party

I showed Taylor the little onesie I made Landen and I asked him if he knew what was on the shirt... he said, "America?" I then, in my head of course, questioned the Georgia public school system...j/k, I corrected him and told him it was Africa. (Keep in mind this is my first time trying to explain adoption to a child.) I told him there are a lot of babies and children in Africa who do not have a mommy or a daddy, and they are called orphans. The completely devastated look on his face was so touching when he asked, "Why don't they have a mom or a dad?" I told him that some people in Africa don't have much money and when they get sick they can't get to a hospital as easy as we can here, so the mom's and dad's get sick and can't always take care of their kids; then the children need someone to be their new mommy and daddy to love them and take care of them. I told him that Jason and I are going to be one of those baby's new mommy and daddy. His eyes got really big and he excitedly asked, "So... am I going to get another baby cousin?" I told him yes, but that it would probably be a little while. He said, "Well, if they need a mommy and daddy now, then why does it take so long?" I explained to him that Jason and I have to talk to someone that will make sure we will be a good mommy and daddy, that we can take proper care of a baby, and that we have a safe house. And then, he melted my heart. He said, "But, I know you and Jason will be a good mom and dad!" Oh man, if only I could use him as a reference on our home study paper work :-)

After the party we headed home. Spur of the moment, Jason decided to stop by his parent's house to talk to his dad for a minute. While we were there it started storming so we decided to spend the night. We woke up early Sunday morning to get home, get ready for church, and we were out the door again. We had nursery duty at church, then went and ate lunch with some awesome NCCd folks. When we got home we decided to work on painting our bathroom. I painted until 6:30, then rushed to get all the paint cleaned up (Jason had already left with a friend), changed, and literally ran out the door to meet some girls for my friend Shelby's birthday dinner.

Then, I came home and crashed on the couch until Jason got home.

Sometimes it feels like all we do is drive, but weekends like this past one make it all so worth it!

So... what did you do this past weekend? ;-)

An adoption update: We mailed our initial home study packet on Tuesday, so we should hear back about that soon. I don't exactly know what all is involved with a home study, but I am excited to learn. The sooner we get that done, the sooner we can move along in the process!

Curve Ball (By Jason)

2010-07-18T18:56:00.000-04:00

I intended to post a couple of days ago, but we have had an extremely busy weekend and sitting in front of a computer simply has not been an option.

It is funny sometimes how we see our lives playing out based on certain decisions that we make. Have you ever had an impending conflict and you sat around having the confrontation in your head: what you would say, what the other person would say, whether it would or wouldn’t escalate, etc., etc., etc.,? And when the conflict came to fruition, how many times has it actually worked out as you had envisioned? For me, things never seem to work out as I anticipate them working out.

I have, in many ways over my life, envisioned a particular dream working out in a particular way based on my own understanding and expectations at the time. I had expectations of how college would be, then working in the real world, then marriage, and most recently this adoption that Britney and I are pursuing. The funny thing is that every time I head in a direction I have expectations of how things will be and I am, for whatever reason, surprised when things don’t work out the way I had planned. Well just a few days ago I was surprised yet again when my ‘adoption situation’ took a turn that I hadn’t expected.

A friend of mine came to visit me the other day that I don’t get a chance to talk to very often. He said that he had heard we were looking to adopt and that he was 100% behind everything we were doing and everything that the adoption represented. I have know him for quite a few years now and he has seen me at my worst and now he sees me moving in a ‘good direction’ and he was glad to see the transformation that was taking place in my life. He is so much in support of our adoption that he actually made a contribution to what we are doing (for that I am extremely grateful!!). Up to this point in the conversation with my friend I was comfortable and the discussion sounded somewhat how I would have maybe scripted it. Then came the curve ball.

We began talking about the implications of the adoption and somehow the conversation turned to how I expected people to react to our decision. Let’s be honest, I didn’t expect everyone I know to be 100% supportive of our decision, in fact I expect some people to tell me that I have lost my mind. Honestly, a few years ago I would have thought someone was crazy for doing what we are doing, so I can understand why people may feel the way they do. The curve ball came when my friend shattered a lot of my preconceived notions about certain people around me. I hadn’t (up to that point) considered the fact that maybe, just maybe, people are better than I give them credit for. Sounds crazy right? But, how many times have you been blindsided with kindness from the most unexpected places? How many times have you been wrong about someone and realized that you were the one that needed to change or that you need to change your way of thinking?

Time and time again I am humbled and realize that I am the one whose eyes need to be opened. You see, up until this point the only thing that I have considered is the impact that my decisions may have on others, not the impact it would have on me. I have considered things such as: how will our adoption depict the gospel in the world, or how will adopting this child into our home and family change people’s view of interracial/multicultural families, or how many conversations will this adoption spark with people about Christ? Never for a minute did I question how I would be changed or impacted. My questions are quickly changing from: what am I doing right, to what have I been doing wrong this whole time, or who’s eyes will be opened by my actions to how will my eyes be opened by the goodness and generosity of another. These are all questions that I have been asking myself a lot over the past couple of days, and what I am realizing is that I have a long way to go (a work in progress to say the least).

I have continually had my world turned upside down over the last six months and this was just another on an ever growing list of twists and turns. One thing that I can say is that through it all I am simply more grateful for the friends and family that I have. I am more grateful of the God whom I serve on a daily basis, and more assured of my need for His Grace in my life. I simply could not do this thing called life without Him. I wish you all a wonderful week and we THANK YOU ALL for your continued prayers and support.

Miraculous Conception

2010-07-13T23:18:00.000-04:00

Not immaculate… miraculous :-)

One night last week while lying in bed I began thinking of our adoption, which got me pondering how remarkable God really is: a thought which I cannot let go of… that I don’t ever want to let go of. I started praying for my child’s birth mom just like I have been doing for the last few months. I know our child is not born yet, maybe not even conceived yet, but that is my point. God knows exactly which child He will place in our family. He knows the exact, PERFECT timing for that baby to be conceived, and He knows the exact day the baby will be born in order for us to be able to be that specific child’s forever family. He has already picked out a birthmother for our baby, He knows the struggles the birth family will face while deciding to place that baby in an orphanage. He knows whether or not the birthmother will have enough food to eat while pregnant, how she will be treated by our baby’s birth father, her health throughout her pregnancy and after child birth. He knows ALL of these things… and it is simply amazing. So even though we don’t have a picture or a name for our child yet, we will be praying diligently for him or her and for the birth family God has selected for our baby, because that is the family that will love our child before we even know our baby has been born.

Keeping Things in Perspective & Prayer Needed!! (by Jason)

2010-07-11T10:11:00.000-04:00

We are at the lake this weekend helping my parents look after my brother’s four children, getting a little taste of what he and his wife’s lives look like every day. I am steadily gaining a new respect for the responsibilities parents have on a daily basis. On top of the endless activity related to the ‘babysitting’ we are doing my mom asked me to help her ‘move’ a sand box. Great idea, right? Well, I shoveled the sand out of the box, got ready to move it and that’s when she tells me that the sand box is going ON the porch. 300lbs of sand in a trash can, up those steps??? How does that sound like a good idea? About two buckets full onto the porch it hit me and I remembered an email I got the other day. See below.

That got me to thinking about just how good we all have it. I wasn’t real thrilled to be ‘moving’ a sand box (I mean who moves a sand box anyways), but just how often do we lose sight of how good we as American’s really have it? On the same note, how often do we lose sight of how good we have it as citizens of God’s Kingdom? How nice is it to know that Jesus has already done ALL the work for each and every one of us and all that we have to do is accept it? Just how often do we REALLY keep things in perspective? If you are anything like I am, it is probably not very often (or at least not as often as it should be).

For me, as you can well imagine, my ‘perspectives’ on life are changing by the day. My perspectives on family life, finances, sleepless nights, sand shoveling, and what it means to be a Christian husband, son, employee, and father (someday). To say the least my world has been rocked the last few months, but Good Lord willing I will continue shoveling my way through this life I have been given; prayerfully anticipating the Revelation of Christ.

I wrote the above post late last night and don’t really know how the internet part of the Blog works so I didn’t post it (Britney usually handles that). We went to bed, and around 11:45 we got a call confirming the fact that one of Britney’s friends Mathew Elliot from GC&SU was in a bad car accident Friday and is in Critical Care at the Med Center. Mathew is a 25 year old accountant that works for another local accounting firm here in Macon, so I can relate to him personally to say the least. That call got me to thinking about what I had just written. Talk about keeping things in perspective. We take life for granted each and every day, acting like we are invincible. We move along through life with the thought that everything we have planned will work out like we want it to without regard to the reality that we are all mere mortals who live only for a short time. So PLEASE, each of you reading this take a few minutes to pray for Mathew and his recovery and also for his entire family. If you have time right now, please pray now! There is never any time to lose when someone needs prayers.

God IS good!! (by Jason)

2010-07-08T23:31:00.001-04:00

I know that a lot of you are probably singing in your head ‘God is Good, All the Time. All the time, God is Good’… Every time I hear ‘God is Good’ I can’t help but finish that line out. Well today God has been very good to our family. I want to start this post by giving a little look inside our lives to set the stage, and then I will get into today’s blessing.

As many of you know, we had our first ‘Orientation Call’ with the agency yesterday evening which went well. We discussed time frames, money deadlines, background checks, home studies, child referrals, visits to Ethiopia, the whole works. We also nailed down the date that the orientation paperwork, home-study, etc. is due which is September 29th. This means that we have approximately 80 days to do quite a lot of paperwork and get together a great deal of money (roughly about $9,000 between our agency’s orientation fees, home-study agency fee, federal background checks, etc.).

While all of this information is good to know, and while I am very used to deadlines from the line of work I am in (I am an Accountant – April 15th holds a special place in my heart), all of this information definitely puts some stress on me and Britney both. We have a plan of how we are going to raise the money, but we continually fall back on the realization that we will HAVE to have faith that God will provide as the numbers just don’t add up for us doing this adoption on our own.

We are planning to have a Yard Sale some time in September (probably early September) to raise money. A good number of people who have heard that we are having the sale have already given us some really great items to sell and we REALLY appreciate all that people are doing to lend us a hand. We have gotten a four wheeler, refrigerators, a washer dryer set, freezer, speakers, etc. from a number of people and we appreciate all that everyone is doing. Without a doubt we have some of the best friends and family on the planet! You guys rock.

Well, today I got a call after work from a friend; we will call my friend ‘Carl’. Well, Carl called and we made small talk for a few minutes. Normal guy stuff you know: the weather, trucks, work, the list goes on and on. Then he hit me with ‘So if someone was to want to help you guys out, just who would he make the check out too?’ A little speechless and not quite sure if he was serious or not, I explained that we have not worked anything out where someone could make donations through the Church etc. so any funds someone was to give would have to come through us personally (seems a little awkward to say the least). After explaining all of that he said ‘well if your free RIGHT NOW, you might should swing by my house and get this check, before I change my mind….’. I stopped what I was doing and managed to get to his house before he changed his mind. Let me just tell you, Carl and Carl-ette (his wife) are two of the most generous people I have ever met.

Turns out that God really laid on their hearts to lend us a hand. He explained that generally speaking, he doesn’t consider himself to be a very giving person and is anything but generous. But God really impressed upon he and his wife to give us some money to help with our process. I didn’t look at the check until after I had left his house, but those Crazy folks gave us $500 towards our adoption!!! I nearly ran off the road. The only request was that we use it towards our adoption and that they would get the first two Cannon adoption shirts when they came available. By the time I got home to tell Britney, I was pushing back tears (much like I am at this moment).

Anyone reading this that has ever felt led to do something risky for God, or has ever tried even for a minute to live on a little faith will know what a struggle it really is to try and REALLY rely on God to provide. Well ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that God DOES provide. He makes good on his promises even when we do not. He is always faithful, always strong and steadfast in his love for each and every one of his chosen people. Today, through the generosity of a friend, I have felt the love of the Lord and have gotten that extra little nudge of encouragement that God wants this adoption to go through and that he is behind us 100%. I want to encourage each of you reading this to hold fast to God’s word, to Love Jesus with all of your hearts, to try and love each other as Christ loves us, and to hold on tightly to the calling that the Lord has put on your heart because as they say ‘God is Good, All the Time; and All the Time, God is Good.’

Deon's Birthday and Our Day Off

2010-07-07T13:01:00.001-04:00

A quick post... I'm on my lunch break :-)
What were we up to on the beautiful July 4th weekend? Well, I told Jason Saturday night, "Let's not make plans since we seem to always be SO busy, and this is the first holiday we have had in a while where we can just sit relax and enjoy our time alone." Hahaha... who was I kidding? We cannot stay home if our lives depended on it. We just love being around people!! So, Sunday after church we were sitting on the couch getting antsy because we didn't have plans, when... I got a message from a friend asking if we wanted to come over and grill out with a few other families. Boy were we excited... so we rushed to the grocery store to grab a few items needed for the cookout and we were on our way to enjoy our 4th of July evening with some great New City people! We stayed up talking until the wee hours of the morning, then went to Wal-Mart and then to see a friends new house.... we didn't go to bed until 4:00 AM. I felt like I was in college again... until the next day :-)
Monday we enjoyed a day at the lake for Jason's mom's birthday! Here are some pictures, mainly of Jason's brother's beautiful family (they have four kids under five!)

Opening presents with a little help:

And... multitasking at its finest! Yes, she has a fish on each line while Ryan went to get pliers :-)

The cuttest family fishing picture I've EVER seen:

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Ugh, Which way do we go George, Which way do we go???? (By Jason)

2010-07-04T16:09:00.001-04:00

We made our decision to adopt, chose an agency, applied to and were ACCEPTED by the agency of our choice!! So what now? Which way do we go George?

What now = prayer + paper work + saving + prayer + more paper work + … you get the idea. As it stands right now, we have received our orientation packet which includes paperwork that will make us official ‘clients’ of the agency. It spells out the terms and conditions of our adoption process including: their duties and responsibilities, our duties and responsibilities, time line for each step in the process, the list goes on and on. We are in the process of reading through the packet and we have our very first conference call with the agency on Wednesday!! Please everyone be praying for our teleconference to go well and that we will ask the right questions. Thus far, all of our contact with the agency has been very professional and gives me great confidence in our decision to move forward with All God’s Children International. I am confident in our partnership with them and in their ability to safely see our child home when the time comes.

We are also filling out a great deal of paperwork for our home-study that must be done within the next 90 days (make that 85). Home-studies are a big deal, they will evaluate not only the living conditions of our home, but also make an evaluation of us individually to determine whether or not they consider us to be ‘fit parents’. It is quite a remarkable process that one must go through ‘just’ to adopt, but highly understandable. We will be parenting this child for the rest of our lives, so it is important to want to get to know us up front. I would certainly want to have confidence in the home where I was sending my child to grow up, and the agency feels the same way. The home-study company will be making house visits, asking questions, conducting interviews, basically getting to know every minute detail about us. To be honest, many of the questions on the paperwork really make one evaluate the way that they grew up, how their relationships have been with family and friends, what one really believes about their religion, and on and on. It makes me very grateful for the loving environment in which I was raised. An environment, I hope in many ways, I will be able to mimic as a parent.

On top of all this, we are also in the process designing a couple ‘must-have’ adoption shirts. We should hopefully (fingers crossed) have our shirts available within the next two weeks for anyone who may be interested. Once we finalize our design we will be sure and post it on here to give you guys a sneak peak of this year’s HOTTEST summer shirt on the market…….

As always, for anyone that is following along, we very much appreciate all of the support and prayers. We have gotten SO many words of encouragement from family and friends that have been able to follow along so far and it means a great deal to Britney and me both that you take your time to read about our journey. I hope that everyone has a safe and joyous July 4th!

Tomorrow is my Mom’s birthday, so Happy 21st Birthday Mom!!! I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

First Friday!

2010-07-02T23:24:00.000-04:00

First Friday in Macon means a party in the downtown area. Lots of bands play at all of the downtown restaurants, and some even start playing in the streets. Its just a fun event to get people downtown which helps the businesses in that area. So, we joined in tonight for our first First Friday. Our friends Josh and Justin were playing at the Greek Corner Deli so we went to watch, listen and just hang out. I'm now extremely tired, but it was worth it... I had fun with some of my best Macon friends!

Josh and Justin jamin' out

Elijah thriving on the attention received after making ridiculously funny faces after eating a lemon

And Robby hanging out with the Keno man... hilarious!!!

Now we have some weekend reading to do because we received this... in the mail today!

A Powerful Post... Not Mine, but the One I Mention Below:

2010-06-30T21:35:00.002-04:00

I just want to share a link to Andrea's blog, it has been so inspiring to me during our decision to adopt. A family in our small group told me about the blog in February when we first started talking about adopting. Our friend's brother was Andrea's husband's college roommate... got that? If not, it's not that important. The important thing is that Andrea is in Ethiopia RIGHT NOW picking up her son Isaac. Every time things get difficult during our adoption, every time we have to sacrifice to be able to afford this adoption, I really, really hope that I think about her story today, about meeting Isaac's birthmother. It has given me so much drive to fulfill God's plan for our adoption! Anyone who is reading our blog that is questioning why we are adopting please read Andrea's last few posts. Then, if you still question why we have chosen to adopt an orphan from Ethiopia, then I can't help you... and you need to pray :-) ...but for real... I don't know how anyone can question our decision after visiting this blog. I had the priviledge of meeting Andrea and her family a few weeks ago, and I hope that after our adoption we can hang out again and have Ethiopian play dates! Reading her blog has been such a blessing to me and Jason (yes, he reads her blog too). Please pray they have a safe trip home and pray for Isaac to get adjusted to his forever family!

Also... I posted a video at the bottom of my blog. It's the video that got Andrea started in her adoption process, and it's a must see. Again... after watching the video, if you question our decision to adopt then there is something wrong with you :-)

I'm Finally Done... and We Were Accepted!

2010-06-29T20:01:00.003-04:00

Adoption Update: While typing the post below I got a call from our adoption agency saying they reviewed our application today and..................

We were accepted into their Ethiopia program!!! Yay!!! Man, if I think this is exciting I can't imagine what lies ahead! Thank you God for placing this in our hearts!

Okay... so, I bought a dresser from the Salvation Army when we bought our house last January... a...year...and...a...half...ago. I had this great idea to save money by buying a second hand dresser, sand it, refinish it, and antique it. Little did I know I am not a very dedicated furniture refinisher and lacked a lot of motivation, therefore it took me way longer than intended to turn this...

into this...

But... as of last night... it is complete!!!

And, I actually like it... I wouldn't say I love it, but for the cost... I would definitely do it again.

Ahhh... my first piece of refinished furniture, done! Now our next project, that I might be blogging about in the year 2024 (hopefully just kidding) is to paint our downstairs bathroom. We already bought paint, and it is definitely going to be outside of our not-so-creative accounting mind set... but I will let it be a surprise.

A little funny story from last night:

The little hardware pieces on the two doors on the dresser are held into place by little pins/nails and when I had some trouble hammering it into place I thought I would pry it back out and try again. Well, when I pried the little, tiny, itty bitty nail back out I lost it.

I searched everywhere for it, then called Jason to search, but it was no where to be found. After about 30 minutes of searching the floor on my hands and knees I had to use the restroom... so I gave up on my search. When I went to wash my hands I saw this in the mirror...

When I came downstairs to show Jason, the first thing he said was, "Let me take a picture. You have to include this on your blog." Hahaha... what have I gotten myself into with blogging... even Jason is thinking of our lives in "bloggable" moments. Gotta love it!

Fun-filled Sunday

2010-06-27T22:42:00.000-04:00

What a way to start of our week!! Our church had an awesome first service in our new building downtown... I know a lot of people worked a ton to get this building up and running... and it was soooo worth it! What a great place to worship, in the heart of a broken city, where no one else seems willing to go. In a building that has been vacant for years, now a church can reach out to so many in need of the Gospel, what a BEAUTIFUL picture.

Then it was off to lunch for Jessica... we will miss you!!! But I know you will have such amazing opportunities for God to use you to help so many people in Haiti. We will continue praying for you and can't wait to hear stories and experiences you go through while away.

Next, it was off to the bowling alley for a little missional community (MC) competition. Our MC definitely won for attendance... Go Josh and Meghan's MC! Wooowhooo! I'm glad attendance was all that mattered, because if we had to rely on my bowling skills we would have been in trouble :-)

Here was the oh so great girls team!!!

And the boys team with their crazy bowling names: Can you guess who goes with each nickname???

And our cheerleader who liked to play in the fan on the ball return :-)

And after bowling... back to the awesome new church building to hear a few bands play.

Cory Watkins

And

Stribling

(We love you Devon!!! Sweet sound of success!)

Now off to bed... after such a long day we need some rest! We have a LONG week ahead with lots of home study paperwork to fill out and fundraiser planning. Please be praying for us, our adoption agency will be reviewing our application this week!

Our Application has been SENT!!!

2010-06-25T17:12:00.000-04:00

It’s official… today we mailed our adoption application to our agency, All God’s Children. Yay! Now we just wait to be approved (which hopefully there isn’t any reason we won’t be). Here are a couple of pictures of us filing out the application and other paperwork… (I’m still getting used to taking “blog” pictures… I’ve never really been a picture person).

Along with our application we had to send a picture of our family. Thanks Sterling for taking the time to sort through your pics and find a good one of me and Jason… while trying to pack and prepare for your missions trip to Romania. As I am typing this you are on a plane flying across the world, and I am praying you have a safe and life changing trip. (If anyone is looking for a great photographer in the East Atlanta area, look up Andrew Sterling Photography on Facebook! He is a beginner, so he doesn't charge a ton, but he is very artistic and does awesome work, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his sister!) Here is the family picture we sent with our application:

We also had to send a picture of our house with our application… so… my wonderful, amazing, lovely, oh so awesome husband woke up early this morning to mow the grass before work, so that I could snap a pic before I headed off to the office today. Thanks Jason!!! I love you!

Finally…. Thanks Rhonda for FedEx-ing our package for us!!! We are so excited to officially begin the adoption process. Now we have a ton of paperwork to fill out for our home study agency and lots and lots of fundraising to do!!!

http://www.simplytoimpress.com/photo-contest/6183.html

2010-06-21T11:28:00.000-04:00

http://www.simplytoimpress.com/photo-contest/6183.html

Happy Father's Day!!!

2010-06-20T23:33:00.000-04:00

I had an awesome weekend... celebrating Father's Day with two amazing men that I am very thankful for - my dad and Jason's dad. Saturday night we went to the Braves game, one of my favorite things to do in the whole world, with three of my favorite people... my husband, my dad, and one of my little nephews. We had the best seats I've ever had, and it was such a blast!!! Thanks Casey for the tickets (just in case you or Marianne ever happen to read this) we loved it. Below are a few of the pictures from the night:

Me and My Dad

Jason and Taylor hanging out & eating some of the good 'ole ballpark food.

A view from our great seats... Taylor wanted a picture with his favorite player, Brian McCann, catching in the background.

And this afternoon we hung out with the wisest man I have ever known. ("You may want to shake it first." & "You may want to pour the juice out of the can." Hahaha, I always appreciate a little advice... or shall we say... wisdom from a grey beard). We loved hanging out, eating some great food, playing cards, and watching golf for Father's Day.

I love these two guys!!!

Jason and I also want to say Happy First Father's Day to Ryan... you have become an amazing dad to four beautiful children! Josh, Landen is so lucky to have you as a dad. I wish both of you many more wonderful father's days!

Happy Father's Day to you too Brannon... I hope it was a good one. Thanks for letting us hang out with Taylor Saturday. Congrats on being a dad again, even though she isn't quite ready to celebrate yet... she'll be here before you know it.

We love all of you guys!!!

Why Not Have Your Own Kids First???

2010-06-16T00:45:00.000-04:00

I (Jason) am sure this is a question that many of you are asking, so for clarity I have decided to break down the thought processes behind our decision. PLEASE understand that this has not been an easy decision for either of us, but it is definitely what we feel is in the best interest of our family for the long run. So, why not have our own kids first?

For starters, we long greatly to have biological children and Good Lord willing that will happen for our family sometime in the not-so-distant future. For now however, that is not exactly what the Lord has placed on our hearts. It is easy to sit and dream of a day when it will be more convenient to reach out to a child in need and provide a loving forever home for that child. It is another thing all together to actually put the rubber to the road and take steps in the direction of adopting a child. Britney and I have simply decided, with a little spiritual prodding, that the time for us to adopt is now. For the logical thinkers out there I have compiled a list below of several factors that have also coaxed us in the direction of seeing this process through at this particular time in our lives.

1. Financing – As some of you may already know, international adoptions cost, on average, somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000. With both of us having steady full time jobs (Thank God!) and not having other children to provide for currently, we feel that now seems like a better time than ever to pursue an international adoption. We can save, fund raise, and run around like the crazy people we will have to be in order to complete the adoption. If we already had children, it would make these things more difficult… definitely NOT impossible, but just a little tougher with time and finances.

2. Traveling – International adoptions can require the adoptive parents to visit the country on a couple of occasions, once for a court date and again to pick up your child. This will be much easier to do while only thinking about our travel arrangements, whereas if we already had children, we would have to make plans for them as well.

3. The World’s Perspective on Adoption – So often, adoption is seen as a last resort or even a burden when instead it should be seen as an amazing opportunity!! God commands us to love and care for Widows AND Orphans, he calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and he commands all of this only AFTER having done just that for all of those who are in Christ!! We have all been orphans outside the mercy of the Lord God Almighty, but He adopted us through the life and death (substitutionary atonement (shout out to KW at NCCd)) of his Son Jesus Christ. Christ’s adoption of us cost Him greatly, but the reward far outweighed the sacrifice. We see the adoption of a child for our family having a similar reward. We want the world to see how our love for an adopted child, in some small way, mirrors the love that Christ has for each of us every day of our lives. While we can never love as perfectly as Christ, we sure can give it a shot.

All of that said, having biological children, we hope, is simply a matter of time. What is interesting to me, however, is how often it is assumed that everyone can get pregnant whenever they would like, which is simply not the case. We have lots of friends and family that cannot have children and we know plenty more that have more complications than we could cover in a month of blog posts. So, before you ask “why don’t you just have your “own” children?”… please think about what you are really asking. We understand this is a question on several people’s minds, and we are obviously okay with answering it, just check your intentions before asking. Currently, we have no reason to believe that we are unable to have biological children, but that chapter of our lives will have to wait a brief period until God can bring our international baby home to rest. We are all people born in the image of the One True God, and biology and genes are simply the mechanism God chose to use to bring it all together.

Now What?!?!?

2010-06-07T20:40:00.000-04:00

Once we realized adopting from Haiti wasn’t a viable option for our family we decided to take a few months to regroup. We were asking ourselves so many questions… Was God closing the doors in the adoption process because it wasn’t His plan for our family? Should we look into adopting from a different country? Should we look into adopting domestically? Should we wait until we have biological children and have been married longer? So many questions!!!

We were in the middle of tax season, both working six days a week, and were completely overwhelmed. Jason doesn’t like to be pestered about things, especially when he is tired, so I had to be very careful not to overdue it with the adoption discussions. He told me we would start talking again about adopting after April 15th, and that we shouldn’t pursue it any further until we had saved a good chunk of money in order to cover the adoption costs. My heart sank… I knew it would take us several months to a year (which seems like F.O.R.E.V.E.R.) to save as much as he wanted to. It also takes about a year to actually adopt once you begin the process, so that would put us at a minimum of two years before we would adopt. I am continuously trying… key word “trying”… to be a submissive wife, let Jason call the shots, and trust that God will lead us as a family; so I agreed with Jason’s plan. I prayed like CRAZY that God would either change his heart, to make him long for adoption, or to change my heart to be at ease with his decisions and trust him. I did occasionally send Jason a link to a blog with a cute adoption story, email him bible versus about orphans, tell him sad statistics about third world countries, and did other not so subtle things to let him know I was still thinking about adopting.

Well, Jason stuck to his word, and after April 15th we began to talk about adopting again. We had Friday, April 16th off, so we used the long weekend to talk in detail about what we were feeling as far as the adoption was concerned. We went turkey hunting… and I absolutely loved it! I loved being in the woods for the first time since December…and loved how relaxed it made me. Sitting against a tree, watching the sun come up over a field, watching the fog lift, and listening to the day begin… what an amazing time to pray and think… it doesn’t get much better!!! After our long weekend Jason agreed to pursue adoption without having saved the money originally intended!!! Requiring us to rely on God’s provision. That is not to say that we do not intend to take responsibility for our decision and that God will simply mail us a check. More-so (I like to make up words) that thru our faith and discipline thru his Word, that God will be sovereign to see the adoption process thru if that is His will. So, welcome to our walk in FAITH!!!

“You’re being serious aren’t you?”

2010-06-03T23:53:00.000-04:00

Sorry this post is so long, we are just trying to catch everyone up on where we're at. Hopefully they will get shorter going forward.

In February, Jason and I were hanging out with our Missional Community (small group from church) when a couple we are very close to began talking about adopting a child from Haiti. They know a friend of a friend who goes to a church with a Hatian-American man whose family operates an orphanage and school in Haiti. They were explaining that as a result of the January earthquake, this orphanage was urgently trying to find families interested in adopting the pre-quake orphans in order to accommodate the thousands of newly orphaned children.

After we left that night, Jason and I were joking about adopting a child from Haiti. Talking about how neat it would be, how cute the dark skinned child would be (okay… that is what I was thinking about, not Jason), and what a testimony it would be… and at the same time we realized it wasn’t really a joke anymore… we both looked at each other and said, “you’re being serious aren’t you?” Well…. From that point on our hearts have been opened to something we couldn’t turn away from. " ... Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act ..." Proverbs 24:12.

For the next couple of weeks we began researching Haitian adoptions, gathering documents, and trying to get in touch with the extremely busy orphanage. We found out very quickly the difficulties of trying to adopt from an independent orphanage rather than through an agency; the primary obstacle being communication. We communicated mostly through e-mail which was done on their end with generator power only and was sporadic at best. In one email we were told some days they did not even have money to purchase gas to run the generator.

We were given a list of documents needed to create our dossier, so we began to obtain medical exams, criminal history reports, employer letters, birth certificates, marriage license, etc. We received profiles of the children available for adoption from the orphanage, and once Jason and I agreed on one of the children I emailed the orphanage to let them know. (Thank you to everyone who prayed, and continues to pray, for this little guy). We waited about a week and had not heard anything in return, so I emailed again, called and called, and still didn’t hear anything. I finally got in touch with the orphanage director’s wife, who lives in Miami, and she said her husband, who was still in Haiti, must not have received our email so she would send it to him again.

The following day we received an email from the orphanage director inviting us to visit the orphanage for a week in order to get to know not only him and the other staff members, but also to develop a relationship with the children. As we began to plan our trip, we got on the CDC website and realized there were quite a few immunizations we would need before our trip; including Hepatitis A and B, Tetanus, H1N1, and Typhoid. We rushed to get these from the travel health clinic in order to be ready for travel to Haiti. In the mean time, I did a lot of reading about Haitian adoptions and found on several websites, and in several books, that in order to adopt from Haiti, you have to be at least 30 years old and have to have been married for at least 10 years.

Ummmm…..according to both of these regulations, Jason and I aren’t even eligible to legally adopt from Haiti. I immediately called the orphanage, and her voicemail box was full, I emailed… and got no response. I finally called the orphanage director’s son, who lives in Macon, and asked him about the two requirements I had found. He said he wasn’t sure about the requirements but he would call his dad and ask and then call me back… I never heard anything in return. I wanted to scream, cry, throw up…. I felt like a complete idiot for getting as far as we had in the process without looking at the simplest requirements. I wanted so badly to meet the little boy we had only seen one picture of. I wanted him to be a part of our family. I wanted him to have three meals to eat every day. I wanted him to have the love that only a mom and dad can give. But, all I could do was pray… trust that God has a purpose for everything we go through… and have faith that He has perfect timing.

It's not a passion... It's an obsession

2010-05-31T13:20:00.000-04:00

My very first blog post... so exciting... now if I can just keep it updated I will be doing good.

The reason for the blog title????

I hope it doesn't violate any copyright laws, but Jason, my husband, gave me the idea from the Mossy Oak slogan "It's not a passion. It's an obsession". I began writing my first blog post based on a chapter in Crazy Love by Francis Chan that discusses what it truly means to live a life completely obsessed with Jesus. While my husband was reading what I had written, I told him I wanted a blog title that would incorporate my ultimate desire to live an obsessed life with God, our adoption story which is just beginning, and my obsession with hunting (yes... I absolutely love to hunt)... and asked if he had any ideas... so that is where the (not so original) blog name came from.

So on to my first post:

I was reading Francis Chan's awesome book (http://www.crazylovebook.com/) with my girls group when my husband and I began discussing adoption... (I don't think this was a coincidence). This book planted a desire in me to step outside of my comfort zone to worship and glorify the One who gave me life.

Below are a few quotes in Chan's chapter "Profile of the Obsessed" that made me think about my life:

"People who are obsessed with Jesus live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another. Obsessed people believe that Jesus talked about money and the poor so often because it was really important to Him."

"Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo. A person who is obsessed with Jesus will do things that don't always make sense in terms of success or wealth on this earth."

"People who are obsessed with Jesus do not consider service a burden. Obsessed people take joy in loving God by loving His people."

"People who are obsessed with God are known as givers, not takers. Obsessed people genuinely think that others matter as much as they do, and they are particularly aware of those who are poor around the world."

"A person who is obsessed is characterized by committed, settled, passionate love for God above and before every other thing and every other being."

I'm sick of living in a safe, monotonous, comfortable world where little faith is required of me. I desire to live a life that will make people question my actions. I don't want my decisions to make sense to others, as long as I feel those decisions are leading me closer to Him and are fulfilling His calling for me. I don't want my life to be safe or easy anymore; I want to have to rely on Jesus and His grace to provide. I am so blessed for the life and skills He has given me, and I never want to lose sight of that in my attempt to seek suffering for Him, I just want to use those things to glorify Him. I am not bold enough yet to pray for suffering, but if it will bring me closer to Him, then that is ultimately what I desire.

So... in my attempt to live a life according to His plan... God has placed it on mine and my husband’s hearts to seek adoption!!! I plan to use my blog to document every detail about our adoption story, and I can only hope and pray that God will use my blog to change the heart of one person who reads our story... to plant in them a seed that will give them the desire to help the widows and orphans.