staging

thank you so much for the welcome back comments.

for those of you who don't know, there is no adoption news to report. We are waiting and watching and hoping and praying.

in light of the decision to move in the direction of listing our house on the market sooner rather than later, we had a stager come to our home yesterday to give us some tips.

what is a stager? well, according to the movie leap year (which I haven't seen but heard about when I told a friend that a stager was coming to my house),
it is a con-artist.
a person who gives ideas about how to make your home sell faster by giving potential buyers the impression that your home is spacious, clean, and well organized. what paint colors to use, what accessories to add, what furniture to delete.

sounds great, right?

she walked around each room, making comments along the way, balancing nice things and well, reality. she walked in every closet. she took pictures.

there are so many things you don't see until somebody else sees them.

did I tell you she took pictures? of my closet?

The nerve.

Seeing our closet in pictures is much worse than seeing it in person each morning and evening.

Ouch.

Let's just say we have our work cut out for us. We have "the list", a detailed, room by room analysis and job descriptions. So needless to say, Joel is currently painting, and I took it upon myself to go from store to store buying "prettiness" for our "space".

I'll keep you posted.

but I probably won't share the pictures.

yoooo-hoooo

Yes, I am alive!
I am here!

Once you get really far behind in blogging, it is so hard to catch up. Just like journaling, I guess. How in the world do you say all that has been going on since May, when I last posted?

I knew it was time to post when I realized my mom knew more about the lives of the kids in the blogs on my side bar than she knew about mine. oops.

time to post.

Since May, we have
1. waited
2. finished school
3. enjoyed the beach
4. waited
5. decluttered
5. traveled to visit family
6. waited
7. started back to school
8. played soccer
9. waited.

Here are the blessings this afternoon:


It is football season. We are happy people.

I'm thinkin' Cracker Barrel

Tonight we are having friends over for dinner. I was trying to figure out what to serve when all of a sudden it hit me...why, Cracker Barrel of course!

No, we aren't going out to eat, but I thought, why not just make some of our favorite food from there?

So on the menu for tonight, we have:
Chicken Pot Pie
Biscuits (of course!)
Asparagus
Fried Apples
Strawberry Spinach Salad (not Cracker Barrel, just because!)

and, Joel's personal favorite,
Blackberry Cobbler and vanilla ice cream

Want to come?

will this be funny one day?

Ezra, my beloved two year old,


who loves to be with Daddy

and work with power tools of any kind



watched the girls and I paint our toenails. He wanted me to do his. I tried to explain that boys don't paint their toenails.

So, after I put him down for his nap, which is typically taken in my closet, which is attached to my bathroom, where the nail polish is,



I knew I was in trouble when I could smell the nail polish in the kitchen.



I'm sure one day I will laugh.

Fireproof

So we watched the movie Fireproof the other night. We have been meaning to watch it forever, but just never did.

Seems like when the kids are down (we had been told it wasn't kid friendly like Facing the Giants is) all we want to do is SLEEP, or read all these awesome books, but not watch movies.

Well, several weeks ago, a friend who owns the movie loaned it to us.

And we watched it.

And we cried.

It was so good. We just loved it and wished we had watched it sooner.





Do you need a date night with your husband? It makes me want to go and buy all the cool gear that came out after the movie did.

walking with others

tonight my heart is heavy.

I have just returned from visiting my friend whose baby is in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

The baby has been in the ICU for two weeks, and will likely be there many months unless God intervenes.

tonight we prayed, and cried, and sang.

she said to me, "i just want my life back."

she has a two year old son as well, and he is going back and forth between the homes of friends, but her mommy heart wants to be with him, and the baby...like before. but she can't.

this is her new normal.

the two year old is either with daddy or mommy or random friends taking care of him, but never mommy and daddy and brother all together.

my friend said she just misses life, you know, being at home, reading books, doing laundry.

God, thank You for my life. Thank You for our laundry. Thank You for my dirty dishes. Thank You for our messy, sticky life. Thank You for the gift of things being normal, expected, routine.

what a gift!

One Year

One year ago tonight, Joel and I sat filling out the online application for our adoption agency. We anxiously hit the "submit" button, fulfilling a dream we'd had since before we got married. We were officially on our way. We were diving in. We thought that by this time next year, we'd have a sweet addition to our family.

But we continue to wait. We mark this day with remembrance and love. We thank God for the wait. For all He is teaching us. For all He has done.

We have always tried to remember significant days in our marriage and in our family, in an effort to "Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take." from Jeremiah 31.

And while eventually this day may be overshadowed by other important days (the day we get our referral, the day we pass court, the DAY WE MEET, the day we get to bring you home), we mark today as something special.

The day we began our journey to you.