One Year Ago

Today officially makes it one year since we started the adoption process! This is the day we signed with our Agency!This however does not include several months of prayer before we started. Has it been easy? No ! Did I think the process would be faster? Yes ! Am I grateful to be where we are at? Yes ! Did I realize we would get caught up will all the country changes regarding adoptions? No ! Despite all the changes,delays, unknowns, and waiting I am totally O.K. with it. I totally know the lord is in charge here. In my heart I also strongly feel things will be moving soon.I have had this very strong feeling of just needing to be prepared. Not just shopping for cute clothes but, preparing our family for some changes and even some unknown challenges.I know the lord is preparing my heart.I know he is preparing our family.I am grateful we have had this year to learn and grow more together as a family .

On another note,I have found it a great honor to be able to voice our opinions. morals and values this week. As a naturalized citizen I especially find it a great honor to be able to vote.Despite the fact that I did not vote for our president elect I pray he will have wisdom in guiding our country. I am however happy that our church put in much effort to help with the passing with proposition 8 here in California. Our traditional values are not always accepted but,it is such a gift to be able voice our opinions and beliefs.

Family Night Fun!

For family night this week we had a fun and messy time carving pumpkins!
Even Caroline allowed herself to get her hands dirty. Wow!
While the kids were busy with pumpkins their dad was busy cooking us all some healthy sauteed veggies!
Bryce and Victoria wanted to make sure we plant ALL of these pumpkins seeds in the backyard.I had to gently explain that we live in a suburb in California and not on a farm.
They were all really getting into things and getting all the slimmy stuff out before
the carving began.It is just always fun to "play together'' as a family.

Gratitude!

These past couple weeks there is just so much to be grateful for.I feel so thankful and humble to watch the Lords hands in our lives!It is just amazing!I feel his love,protection and guidance and it is such a blessing.I just always want to make sure I am thankful and never forget the wonderful blessings our family recieves. One of those blessings is that our adoption process has moved along swiftly and efficiently and we are getting really exited.Even though we do not know when we will recieve our referral I know it will be the perfect time.For now we just try to be productive and Wait patiently!

WIND FIRE SMOKE

Here are a few pics of the smoke that covered our neighborhood due to the wildfires nearby.

This is what it looked like in our backyard a couple days ago. Wildfires are not uncommon here so we always need to be prepared! Every year people lose their homes here in the land of wildfires( and earthquakes too!)

MOM DID IT !

So, yesterday after I dropped off the last kiddo at school I was leaving the parking lot and was turning right when this other car was flying towards me in my lane. I took a very quick and sharp turn and ended up hitting the high curb next to the street.I knew the second I heard the metal rearranging itself that it was not going to be a pretty sight.I called hubby and told him I had a" little" whole in the car.Well, maybe it was not that little.I am the mom who ALWAYS tells hubby and my two teenage drivers to be very careful and not to take any unnecessary risk.OK I shall eat my words!I ended up spending the morning getting a couple estimates.OUCH!!

I Wonder...

I have been doing a great deal of wondering what the next year will bring to our family.Will we have another son or daughter? Will they have brown eyes or possibly blue?I wonder if they will have a special need or two? Will our child be tiny or already a year or two or three? Will it be one child or possibly even two?I think my heart already knows the answer to some of these questions and I just need a little more patience until it is revealed.It is like Christmas waiting for a gift to see what is really in it.So far,the vote in our family has been pretty split between a girl or boy.What does everyone else think?

Good News Update!

Our agency has informed us that our Dossier has been submitted to the Kyrgyz Embassy. We are so exited!