Gonna Run 2.14.10

I've been avoiding this post until I knew for sure that I would actually plan on going through with it but here it is. I know if I put it out there then I have to follow through with it (however, who's going to remember this post 3 1/2 months from now!!!???) Josh has been training for the January Houston marathon for some time now (and studying for his CPA exams...there honey...I put that out there as well...same rules apply about putting it out there and having to finish!!! HA!) and this past weekend he ran his first half marathon. The boys and I and my mom went downtown to see him finish...apparently I got bitten by the running bug and my mom began talking about how much fun it would be to take a weekend trip to Austin and watch Josh run that half marathon. Somehow this transformed into me thinking that I could train and ALSO run that half marathon! Josh did awesome in his first half marathon and had a goal to finish in under two hours. His official race time was 1:53...NICE! Good job Joshy! So I had to ask him to sign up for the half with me and run my much, much slower race pace as my Valentines gift! So I will be training the next 10 weeks to get ready. I equate it to him studying for his test (which he hates!) because even though I LOVE my daily workouts at the gym I pretty much do anything to avoid running as exercise! Super step...no problem, hour long muscle blast classes...sign me up. But run miles as in with an S on the end as in multiple miles and I'd rather sit at home on a rainy day with no TV and two crazy boys! Ok...it's not that bad and I will admit I enjoyed my first run a little so we'll see where this goes! If I can think of a good way I will definitely try to find a way to turn this into some kind of small fundraising opportunity for our adoption or another fantastic cause so stay tuned! Now before this turns into a running blog I'll turn in for the night. Here's to 4 more miles tomorrow!

Waiting on a letter...

Just wanted to give a little update on our journey. We are currently waiting on a piece of mail from USCIS to tell us when our finger print appointments will be. This will basically conclude the last step of our paper chasing process. However this step could possibly take a while. They recently changed the procedure for mailing in this application and supporting documents (home study, birth certificates, marriage license, copies of drivers license, big check) and now require the entire US to mail this to an office in Lewisville, TX instead of your local USCIS office so I'm not sure how that will affect us right now. I will tell you that the boys now know our routine of checking the mail REGULARLY for this letter! We check the mail ALL THE TIME now! Josh used to have to do it before coming in the house in the afternoons but he knows that more than likely I've already done it. Before all of this adoption excitement I wasn't really all that concerned with what came in that mailbox. Now it is quite the adventure!

I will tell you that we've been using this time to really get on our knees about what age and gender we request when we send off our dossier to Ethiopia. I think we've finally learned after 32 years that many times all God wants us to do is surrender our plans to Him and let Him lead us instead of choosing our own path and that is a lesson that I'm sure we'll continue to learn over and over. By requesting "either" gender we're pretty confident that would mean boy since the wait time for a boy is considerably less right now. I WOULD LOVE A BOY and would also LOVE A SHORTER WAIT TIME!! However, I also know that Josh would love to have a daughter (as would I of course...I guess spending all day every day with two boys leaves me leaning towards boys) and recently after both of us discussing this issue and finally coming to the conclusion that we just needed to put it in God's hands I've just kinda been having visions of a little sister joining our family next. I don't know where we're headed after this adoption as far as more kiddos (we'll be running out of car space and bedrooms!) so I think we'll be requesting a female infant 0-12 months. Our home study requires us to adopt a child at least 12 months younger than Wyatt right now so adopting an older child is not doable at the moment. I will say that I don't believe that chance is involved when it comes to the child that is born to you...down to the gender. I believe that God knowingly gave us two boys with two very different personalities as He gives to everyone. So being able to "choose" the gender has always bothered me a bit. However, I feel that we finally have a peace about requesting a gender and I couldn't be more thrilled to delve into the world of all things a little girl will bring! Oliver often refers to the child we'll be adopting as "she" or "sister" so maybe I should've known all along it would be a girl...

All that to say that this journey is a blind one and you never know...we might end up with a sibling group of 4 between the ages of 2 and 14! HA! Guess there is always our second adoption to accomplish that...anyone know of a good used mini-van we can buy???

F.F.A.

Here are the pics of our trip to Dewberry Farms last weekend. Weather was overcast, windy, and very chilly! THIS WEEKEND would have been absolutely perfect...sunny, cool, calm! Oh well...enjoy the pics of our future farmers of America!


A lover of swings...Two little pumpkins!

Our weekend: One finalized home study, two birthday celebrations, and one day at the farm!

Yippeee! We got an e-mail on Friday afternoon saying our home study was finalized and notarized and in the mail! We were told that we may be waiting a "few more weeks" and were very pleasantly surprised when the e-mail came at 4:58 on Friday afternoon! We should have it in our hands on Monday and then can send it in to USCIS and wait for them to give us an appointment for our fingerprints. Then we wait for our official document saying we can bring over an "immigrant" from Ethiopia and then we are closer to having all of our documents sent to Ethiopia and we'll officially be on the waiting list. One step closer!

We had a fantastic weekend celebrating birthdays! Josh's birthday was last Wednesday...and I spent the ENTIRE day making Boeuf Bourguignon ala Julia Child! It was pretty good if I do say so myself. My birthday is Monday so we had a babysitter both Friday and Saturday night and went and enjoyed some incredible dinners without rushing through and feeling bad about leaving an entire meal under a certain someone's highchair! It was divine! We also took the boys and went out Dewberry Farms on Saturday where they got to go on a hay ride to pick a pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, ride a barrel train, tour the petting zoo, play on multiple playgrounds, sit on a tractor, and eat homemade fudge! Not bad for a Saturday! I'll post pictures soon...it was very chilly for south Texas and being from Houston I just knew it would warm up and didn't dress the boys accordingly! They at least wore long sleeves but would've done better with sweatshirts or windbreakers! Who would've thought?? Houston in October?? HA! Happy Fall Ya'll!

Still waiting...

So we're still waiting to get an official copy of our recent home study. We've approved it and I believe our case workers supervisor has approved it and now we're waiting on AWAA (our agency) to approve it which should hopefully be this week?? Ordinarily waiting this long for something would drive me batty but with the start of preschool, trying to coax an 18 month old to give up his paci, and potty training a stubborn 3 year old (who is GREAT at telling us he has to go potty at bedtime to get out of bed but NOT SO GREAT the rest of the day) the last two or so weeks have flown by. However, we are ready to move on to the next step which is...you guessed it...more waiting! We'll mail our home study to USCIS (Department of Homeland Security basically) and then wait for our fingerprint appointment to be cleared by the FBI and then when that is done we will wait for the government to send us an approval form to bring home an immigrant or OUR CHILD (as we like to say)! So right now we wait...

Which is ok...Josh's birthday is on Wednesday of this week and mine is next Monday so we'll be celebrating this weekend. We have a babysitter both Friday and Saturday and by that I mean the kind we pay for. And the real treat in that is that we can just head home after our "date" and the kids are already fast asleep in bed! We do love free family babysitters but we figure you only turn 32 once so might as well go all out! HA! This should help pass the time a little easier...yippee for birthday celebrations! We'll share more soon hopefully...God has been working heavily in our lives lately. More on that later..