Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm sitting in a very quiet house on the eve of my 29th birthday.  I can't believe all that has happened in the last 6 days.  I have been pushed to my limits every day and reminded just how small I really am.  At the same time I've experienced an excitement as I have begun to prepare our house for the sweet littles God is bringing.  

Last Friday Steve headed off to New Orleans to help lead worship for several different events.  This was a trip that had been planned since the beginning of the year and there was no way we could have known what would happen this week... but it has been SO HARD.  

Months ago we scheduled some time to have our friends take out a wall in our house.  When we scheduled that we couldn't imagine we would have any movement on the adoption front any time soon.  We were expecting 3 to 6 months before we even got called for training.  

BUT thanks to the power of prayer and our God's perfect timing, training was moved up and just happened to begin RIGHT in the MIDDLE of all of the construction.  We decided to embrace it and move forward but there have been a lot of moments where I've just about lost it.  

RIGHT after Steve left we found out we had bought the wrong flooring for the house, Steve's truck went on the fritz and I was in the middle of the most painting I've ever done in a 2 day period.  It was crazy!!  If it hadn't been for the help of Mya, Erin, Jenna and Melissa B. over the last week I honestly think I would just be sitting in a random, empty bedroom in my house crying... ok maybe not but that's what it's felt like!

BTW if any of this is disjointed please have pity.. it's been a week :)

On Sunday my dear friends Mya and Jenna took a day trip to IKEA with me.  The intention was to buy a house full of furniture and we pretty much succeeded.  I now have 2 sets of bunk beds, 2 full beds, 1 crib, numerous dressers, storage galor, lighting, dishes, sheets, comforters... basically if kids were dropped on my doorstep next week they would at least have somewhere to put their things and sleep.  

The Ikea trip was nuts.  I in my nuttiness thought we could go and get everything done in 2 hours.  Well after driving two hours to get there we then took 6 hours to find most of what we needed... 90% of this was mine.  The "little" day trip turned into a 12 hour adventure that had us all crawling to our beds that night... but we laughed a lot and shared a lot and I will forever treasure that day!

The rest of this week has been meetings, frantic cleaning, doctor's appointments, beginning our home study and just trying to keep moving forward while Steve is gone.  I really, really miss that man.  

And now... a few prayer requests and requests in general. 

We really need prayer about what to do for a vehicle.  We quickly realized this week that we need something bigger that what we currently drive.  My car will only hold two children at this point and we honestly believe we're getting more than that.  Please pray that we can figure out and find a van that will meet our needs but not be so huge that I am not comfortable driving it.  

 

I was sorting clothes tonight and I realized that there are some needs we are going to very quickly run into.  We do not know the ages or sex of the kids that will be coming to us and so we need to begin preparing for them all.  Right now I have tons of clothes for 2 year old girls but what about the others?  If you or anyone you know has gently used clothing for boys or girls ages 0-11 I would gladly take it off your hands.  We can't take a ton but we do need to try and have some here so that we can meet needs as they arise.

My last prayer request is just for the fears I've been facing about parenting.  I know this is what we're called to and I am excited but I also know this is the hardest thing we've ever done and it will only get harder... that scares me.  Please pray for peace, guidance and people to come along side our family and love these kids... Steve and I truly cannot do this on our own strength.  

So there you have it!  We're super excited about where we are but there is a lot to do in the next week.  We still have 4 rooms to paint, a couch to assemble, 5 beds to put together, 3 dressers to assemble, 5 lights to install and a myriad of other things... and this all has to be completed by next Friday... it's gonna be nuts but it'll get done.

Be Blessed Friends!