Waiting!!!!

I'd like to introduce you to one of my dearest friends, Jill. She is pictured here with Andrew and Natasha. Jill and her husband Chris and their son Christian have been in the process of adopting the twins for over a year.

They have been waiting and waiting and waiting. What continues to amaze me is how Jill continues to exude joy in the midst of this difficulty. Please pray that God would move on their behalf and these precious children would be placed in their home.

Diaper Diaries - Final Post

Okay so this is the last installment. I'm sure there's a limit on poop discussion in one week . Friday morning I woke up pretty tired. I was sitting on the couch chatting with my husband when I said, "Man, I'm pooped".

My three year-old son, Elijah ran into room and said "Did you poop?"

I answered, "No, I didn't poop".

He asked, "Who pooped?"

Before I had a chance to reply, He said, "Well, I didn't poop!!"

I'm grateful that he's becoming aware of poop, maybe we are on the verge of being done with diapers soon. That makes me want to shout with glee!!!

It also makes me want break down crying. Before you think I should be admitted to the funny farm, let me explain. That means I am moving into a new phase of my life. After all the past thirteen years have been spent changing diapers. We're moving out of the diaper era and into the teenage era. Holy Poo Poo!! (It's okay to say that...God did create poop!!)

The teenage era....That REALLY makes me want to cry. Babies are cute and cuddly. Teenagers are pimply, hormonal and nutso.

And, yet, I am excited about the years ahead. Again, before you admit me to the funny farm let me explain. Teenagers are full of insight, responsible when given the opportunity, striving for independence, energetic, committed to friendships, enthusiastic. Teenagers look at life from a different perspective. They are fearless. We have much to learn from them.

Over the next thirteen years we will begin to see God's plan for our children's lives unfolding. They will grow into who God created them to be. We pray earnestly that they will choose to follow God's path.

I really need to be like the woman in Proverbs 31..."she can laugh at the days to come"

Diaper Diaries - Part Two

This something Elijah says EVERY time we change his diaper. It's hard to get him to be still. So, we say to him. "Be still Elijah!!" He always has the same response.

"Can I move my mouth?" We always say, "Yes, you can move your mouth!" It's a little idosyncracy unique to Elijah. We're still trying to analyze what that might mean for his future.

Diaper Diaries

We really are going to potty train our son, really. But for now, he is providing so much entertainment. Yesterday when I was changing his diaper, which was FULL-er and STINKY-er than humanly possible he said....

"I ate alot so I pooped alot."

Hey, that's a pretty good awareness for a three year old!!

...That spells Tornado

I know I don't really post things on the blog, but this is Hannah writing. This Saturday, my friend and I were outside with Noah and Elijah. It was slightly sprinkling. Noah decidedto show us how smart he is. He was spelling everything he could think of. He said "R-A-I-N, that spells rain. My friend said he was very smart. That was when Elijah decided to join in and show off how smart he was. He wanted to be just like his brother and spell words about things that happen outside. "B-R-A that spells tornado," he said. me and my friend just about died laughing. When I went inside to tell the rest of the family about it they laughed just about as hard. Hopefully we can teach him soon how you really spell tornado.

Ambition

This morning while I was changing Elijah's diaper (I know, I know he needs to be potty trained...we're working on it), I asked him if he was a sweet boy. Here's his response. "Uh huh, and then, I'm gonna be a rock star. Seriously, tomorrow I'm gonna be a rock star."

Laughter is the Best Medicine!!

This morning our 13 yo is in rare form. She woke upon the wrong side of the bed. She really wants to do her homeschool at work with her daddy this morning. But our answer was no. We're therefore walking a wide berth around her and laughing a little under our breath.

She just asked what's for lunch (keep in mind she hasn't even had breakfast yet). My husband said, "That's step #27 on how to annoy your mother." Without missing a beat she said, "What's step # 1 on how to guilt your dad into taking you to work."

Okay I admit I laughed out loud for quite a while. Her tone was not disrespectful. You have to give her an "E" for effort. And, what a quick, witty comeback.

She just came downstairs, dressed and ready for the day ahead. Her little brother who is three said and I quote "Hannah, you look Cool." Now, she is laughing and suddenly her day has turned around. Laughter is a great cure!!

Ordination

Yesterday was a perfect day!!!

Our family photographer Ari has already posted ordination pics on her blog. She did a great job taking pictures of a truly special day in our life. Thank you to all the friends who shared the day with us. Thank you to those who couldn't be there, but we know you were praying and with us in Spirit. You've all touched our lives in so many ways.

A special thanks to Amanda for making the trek to Memphis as a surprise. She also brought a surprise from Dayton, a video suprise to David from Brian and Phil. Thank you Brian and Phil for your kind words. Thank you also to Ralph Helm for shooting the video, even though your lovely wife Stacie is going to have a baby at any moment.

Scott and Susan, what can we say? You two mean the world to us. When we lived in Dayton, you walked the road with us and made it just plain fun. We truly had a blast hanging out with you. I'm just glad it wasn't the weekend that Alabama played Georgia (that would have stunk). Scott, thank you for sharing truth and for challenging us with God's word. We love you guys and realize how much we miss you!!!!

To our church family...we really are excited to be a part of New Hope and are thrilled to live life with you.

I'm feeling like I'm getting an Academy Award or something....so I'll stop now.

PG-13 Rated Post

In our home we really do try to teach our kids what is appropriate to say and what is not appropriate to say. In our efforts, they've taken it upon themselves to label these words. For example, the "s" word is stupid, the "b" word is bored, the "f" word is fat...you get the picture. It's a little embarassing when we are in public and they say to me...."ooohhh, you said the s word"....which of course was stupid.

Anyway this morning I've been thinking about a certain "f" word. Get your minds out of the gutter people. This word is a word we avoid like plague. We seriously do not want to use it. We don't want to get near it. We don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. Especially if we are followers of Christ. The word is failure.

We go to great lengths to hide our failures. The annual Christmas letter never highlights our abject failures for the year. We don't hang out in the neighborhood talking about our failures. We don't write blog entries about our mess-ups. We certainly don't write in our status that we blew up at our husband or kids. We don't twitter about how we were selfish. You get the picture. Our failures are NOT high on our list of things to chat about.

I wonder though how high our failures are on our list of things to think about. How much time do we spend thinking about our failures inside our minds. How many resolutions do we make? How many "do better" cards do we have? For all the effort we make publicly to avoid talking about our failures, privately they keep coming up over and over again.

What if we changed our perspective on failure? What if we realized, truly realized that our failures are vital to our growth as believers in Christ. This morning I was reading "The Complete Greeen Letters" by Miles Stanford and this quote really struck a chord with me.

"The believer who is going through struggle and failure is the Christian who is being carefully and lovingly handled by his Lord in a very personal way. He is being taken through the experience (years in extent) or self-revelation and into death, the only basis upon which to 'know him, and the power of his resurrection, and into fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.' God works by paradox. Success comes via failure; life springs out of death, etc"

My pesky little self is always saying "pick me! pick me!". "I" am concerned about failure because it is a poor reflection on "me" God is concerned about "my" failure because when I fail it leads me to die to self. Only then can Christ live in me.

Failing leads to falling on my knees before Christ and being filled by Him which leads to FREEDOM.

Renovation

There is something about renovating a room that is fun and the initial excitement is quite a rush...picking out paint colors, deciding on furniture and accessories. It also takes hard work. And, in our family it always takes longer than we think...especially that first step of cleaning out the room. How do we accumulate so much stuff?

Anyway I'm thinking about this today because we are painting our daughter's room while she is away on a retreat. And, we have a couple of friends who are expecting little ones into their home and they are getting nurseries ready for their precious children.

Why do we renovate our homes? Things change. We need the space to function in a different way. To welcome a new member of the family. To fill a void in our lives. To keep up with the Jone's. There's many reasons we renovate. Sometimes our renovation projects simply boil down to the fact that we have love spilling over in our hearts.

I'm starting to read a book called "Renovation of the Heart". So, this theme of renovation is heavy on my mind. What if I put the same care, the same energy, the same amount of time into allowing God to renovate my heart. There's a lot of clutter that needs to be cleaned out. The truth is His love is splashing out drenching me. He wants to change my heart of stone into a heart of flesh.

If God were to renovate my heart, what would He eliminate from my heart? What would He add to my heart? What needs a new coat of paint? What needs to be dusted off and actually used? What would he rearrange?

Pics from Halloween

Man in Motion

Our friend Ari took this great pic of Elijah Halloween night. He was actually playing hide and seek with her. It captures my little man in motion. He is a bundle of energy!!!

What do you do when you have a flat tire?

Since I'm still trying to determine what kind of camera we are going to buy, there's not been many pics on the blog. So, I'm going through the library to find some that have been overlooked. This past year on a trip home from my parents we did have a flat tire. The kids found lots of things to do while waiting for Daddy to change the tire.

Elijah sees a...

This week Elijah and I were in the car driving out of our neighborhood when we saw a deer running by a patch of woods. He was so excited and wanted to tell his daddy about it. A few days later our whole family was in the car driving when I remembered the deer. Here's the conversation.

Mommy - "Elijah, tell your daddy what you saw this week"

(As I was looking at him...at first it didn't register, but then he remembered and his eyes lit up).

Elijah - "I saw a (crescendo-ing excitement)....A....A....KANGAROO.

(The whole family laughed a lot and I mean a lot)

Daddy (while laughing)- "Really"

Elijah (Not laughing, deadpan serious) - "Yeah, it was so cool".

For those of you who didn't know...we moved to Australia!!