A Christmas Smile!

Whew!!! So much going on so fast this time of year... Especially with a new baby! But I wanted to share this smile with you all!! Hope you are have a wonderful Christmas!!! 

An Exciting Update!!!

This post is going to be a little hard to write... not because I have anything sad to share, but because it is hard to type with an almost 8 point bundle of love tying down one arm! ;)

Our baby girl was born last Thursday morning shortly after six!! We didn't quite make it to the hospital for her birth, but got there shortly after. She is a precious bundle of love!! She is so sweet and hardly cries! (I guess she doesn't have much chance to cry with both mommy and daddy at her beck and call!)

She is such a joy!! In fact, "Joy" will be her name on my blog. I wouldn't mind a bit, you regular readers knowing her name, but since this is a public blog, I'd rather not share her name with those we don't know. I know you will understand! :) This is a short post (partially because it takes a while to type one handed.) but I will post more later - some of the details I will probably share once this busy Christmas season is over. I hope to share a bit of Christmas Days from Joy's perspective. ;) I did want you all to know that she has arrived safely and we are enjoying this time of getting to know her! :)

Days of Christmas

Christmas program practice. King Herod sure is a popular guy... :) 

"Love is Patient..."

The past few weeks have seemed very long... each night making sure we have our phones near at hand for "the call," bags have been packed for several weeks (in fact, I have switched tops out several times because the weather keeps changing...), I have the one going home outfit that I really wanted - in two sizes, the carseat is installed... Weeks on pins and needles isn't exactly fun and I know baby's sweet birth mom is eager for her arrival as well! (After all, she's doing the hard work!) ;)

I was reading this post over on (in)Courage just now and it got me thinking. Love is patient. God's love and His plan are perfect. His timing is impeccable. Even when we can't understand "what is the holdup?"

And I was thinking, as long as it seems that we have been waiting, God's chosen people waited for hundreds of years for the coming Messiah. Each expectant mother hoped that she would be the one to carry this Messiah. The Hope of the world. That's some intense waiting! I'm sure sometimes they wondered if He was ever going to come.

Yet... in the "Fullness of time, God sent His Son..." God had everything all lined up and ready for His perfect Son to be born into the world. I don't know what God has to get "lined up" for our little one to get here. And I sure don'
t understand His timing right now... and sometimes it seems that this little one will never come. But she will... (I've yet to see a mom walking around pregnant for 18 years...) ;) And her arrival will all be in God's perfect plan.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A note on our adoption process: I have gone over it a bit here, but I thought I would tell a little about how we think things will happen... the plan is for us to be at the hospital when the baby is born. After the time required, the birth mother can then sign the relinquishment papers. (Until then, nothing is legally binding.) After a bit more paperwork, we will be heading home with baby.

We will try to keep things low key around here for a little while - hard to do this time of year! :) I also won't be sharing a lot of details - on my blog or in person. I know I am not the only adoptive mom to say this, but our child's story will be just that - her story. We want to protect her privacy as well as the privacy of others involved.

But mostly I wanted to thank you all for your wonderful support for us along every step of the journey that we have shared. Bloggers are a wonderful community!! Thank you for you encouragement and prayers!!

Days of Christmas

The past few Decembers I have enjoyed getting a picture up each day leading up to Christmas. This is turning out to be a very eventful year for our little family (and no, still no baby yet... She seems to be quite satisfied with her spot at the moment..) ;) So I'm not sure I'll get pics up each day - I'm already a day behind - but I will try to share a bit of our celebrating.

My decorating is more simple than usual. While I do miss our full sized tree, it was nice to get the decorating done so quickly. I do have our small tree up. 

I had to take a trip to Hobby Lobby for some garland for the mantle. Most of my Christmas boxes are rather buried in storage (including some I thought I had seperated... So much for Christmas mugs.) I did decorate a little differently on the mantle. I bought a few things to match our little Coca-Cola tree. I love this little snowflake owl!!

Hope everyone's December is off to a great start!! 

Checking in and a Quick book Review

Well, I feel like I kind of left everyone hanging over here. Sorry about that! My brain has been very full... getting ready to bring a little one into our home! What a big job, and most couples have a bit more time to prepare. Mark and I are so very grateful for God's provisions in the last few weeks! So many blessings! And now we are eagerly waiting for baby's arrival!

So, yes, with everything going on, my blog has taken the back burner. (including Finished Object Friday... sorry about that!) Not sure I'll be really back on track for a while, but I'm sure you understand. I will be posting an adoption update, hopefully rather soon! :)

I do have a couple of books waiting for me to review them, and I want to get caught up on that before things get really busy... :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When picking books for review, I usually stick with authors that I know, just because I want to be sure that I will enjoy the book that I am reading as well as making sure I actually get it read! :) I am glad that I branched out in reading "The Governess of Highland Hall." I really enjoyed reading this book! I love the setting - an English manor about the turn of the century and the characters were all well done. Julia has recently returned to England after serving with her family as a missionary to India. She does all she can to serve the family at the manor including helping save the estate from financial ruin. Her efforts are not in vain and she wins over the heart of the widowed master of the estate, Sir William Ramsey.

I thought that the author did a wonderful job with the setting. I also liked that all the characters were believable (I don't like it when fictional children are portrayed as little adults) and each character was dynamic - they all changed and grew as the story progressed. I thought it would take me a while to get through this book, but frankly I had a hard time putting it down!

Thanks to Blogging for Books for this review copy. My opinions are my own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One more quick review: "Messiah: Origin" is an illustrated telling of the first part of Jesus's life. It starts with the first chapter of John in the Prologue and continues telling the story of Jesus's first years on earth until his baptism and the beginning of His ministry.

I saw this book in a store a while back and was interested to take a closer look. I was very pleased. I like the fact that there are so many ways now that get the Bible story out there... this book is more of a graphic novel than a regular Bible story book and as such would appeal to a bit older children - preteen and on up to teens. I do recommend it to an older age group and would also recommend for a parent to look it over first. There was one illustration that I have a bit of a concern about - a slight modesty issue and probably not a problem for most people. I just feel the need to mention it to be a totally honest review. In all, it is a different way to present the story of Christ's coming to earth and I enjoyed reading it.

Thanks to Booksneeze for the review copy. My opinions are my own.

31 Days of Settling: A place to live

Our main living area is getting quite the work out! In this one small space, we have had to combine three spaces from our other home: the living room, family room and office! So far it seems to be working rather well! Cozy, but it works!

Here's the overview:

Yes! The bar area looks a lot better! (And the vintage baskets and suitcase serve an important function: storage!) 

You've already seen the mantle, but here is another picture of my "cozy spot!" 

(That tall lamp is just temporary... A little redundant. It will probably just go to storage.) 

Oh, and since you already caught a glimpse of it, here is the little bookshelf in the mini hallway: 

And that's it for today! Just a couple more rooms to share tomorrow!!! 

31 Days of Settling: An (almost) finished bedroom

Tonight was our home study update!! Whew! We tried our best to have our place looking spiffy, buuuut.... I was actually vacuuming when she arrived (hey, she was a few minutes early!!) ;) so we did our home study update with the vacuum cleaner on center stage in the living room! We have a super sweet social worker, and she didn't mind a bit, fortunately! :)

With all the work getting ready for the update, I figured this room was the best it's ever looked, so I grabbed some quick pictures! 

We live this room! As I think I've said before, this is the biggest master bedroom we've ever had! We are really enjoying the space! (And glad there is room for a baby in there too!) here's the overall view:

(Somehow in bedroom pics, the bed always looks huge!! It's really just a queen!) 

How do you like my new (well, new to me) rocker in the corner? I love it!!

I actually bought it at a thrift store the Friday just before we found out that we had been selected by a birth mother! The arms are worn super smooth with use. :)

This is Mark's corner:

(And yes, I DO have a "thing" for unique chairs...) ;) 

And here's the "almost" part of this room: 

The armoir is decorated, but the bookshelf ends up being a catch all... Gotta work on that! I also have a few more things that I may hang in my corner, but I'm not set on it. I might just wait and see. 

And that is our room tour! I'll try to share the rest of our little place in the next couple of days. It is, after all, almost the end of the 31 days! :) 

Days of Settling: Day 24

I'm not sure that putting the date in the title is still the best idea... Cause I don't always get the pictures up here the day that I work on an area... Oh well... :)

Soo... Tuesday, I got some things hung up in our bedroom! It's feeling a bit more homey in there!

I also did some work in our other bedroom! (I eventually need to get a dresser in there for the baby! Right now all the clean clothes are hanging out in a laundry basket.) I made a path!!! Want to see???

Before: 

After:

Hooray for paths!!!! ;) 

Actually what helped the most is putting our shelves in the closet: 

Now all those random things laying everywhere in that room have a home!! It helps to be able to organize a bit! We should be getting a lot more done this weekend... We have a home study update next week!!! 

Book Review: The Beauty of Broken

The tag line to this book says "There is no such thing as a perfect family." So very true. We live in a broken fallen world, so many families are broken in one way or another. This book chronicles the family life of Elisa Morgan, former CEO of MOPS International for several years. In each chapter, Elisa shares a bit more of her story and how she tried to fix the brokenness in her family, but how God has taken that brokenness and made something beautiful from it.

I don't know even where to start telling you about all the things I have marked to remember in this book. One of the things that stood out to me the most is that Elisa is an adoptive parent. One thing she said really hit home to me: "I heard God's gentle prodding, Elisa by the time you receive your child, he or she will already have experienced the greatest wound of his or her life." This may be hard for some to understand if they don't understand adoption. Adoption comes out of brokenness.

But what I love the most is the hope she gives for brokenness and broken families: "God loves you and your family, and He will re-form you and your family through brokenness." She points out how God will use the broken - how so much in Scripture was broken to be used: Gideon's pitchers, a broken roof for healing the cripple lowered by his friends, broken loaves to feed 5,000, and a broken body pierced for our sins. I'm so glad that the broken can be redeemed and used!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you to BookSneeze for the review copy. My opinions are my own. 

Days of Settling: Update

Thank you all so much for your kind comments!! I'm so excited to be able to share our news with you!! It is wonderful to have the support of so many friends!

While we have been busy with getting ready for baby, part of that getting ready has been to continue to get settled into our little place here. And yes, I have made some progress in that department! 

One of my main areas of focus has been our bedroom. My parents came over for a bit last week and helped hang a few things!

Thanks to them, my curtains are hung as well as my mirror! 

The reality is, I still have a bit of a box issue going on in there, but hopefully we can get those moved to storage soon! (And make room for baby!!) :)

I'm enjoying the curtains! This is the first curtains I've hung in our bedroom since we've been married!! Crazy, huh?? I guess curtains seemed so hard because I wasn't sure what worked. 

I also got my pantry better organized! And I love having this hook for my aprons and my shopping bag storage. 

My dad also helped me hang this picture in our living room: 

And to get the full perspective, allow me to take a few steps back: 

Yipes!!! Ok, maybe that wasn't such a great idea... But, that picture was taken a few days ago and the top of the bar is a little clearer now, thankfully!! 

I've also done some more organizing as well as decorating, but I think I'll save that for next time! ;) A big thank you to my parents for their help!!! 

Exciting news!

We have an exciting announcement to make!!! 

Last week, we were selected by a birth mom to be the parents of her baby girl!!! Little one is due at the end of November, so we may even have a baby by Thanksgiving! (What a wonderful blessing to be thankful for!!) Please pray for us as we make preparations. Most parents have about nine months, but we have a few short weeks. Of course, we do have several necessary items, but as adoptive parents there is other prep such as finishing a homestudy update for our apartment and gathering the funding we will need to have at placement. This post explains what happens next in our adoption story (starting about the 3rd paragraph.) You all have been so supportive in our adoption journey, we are excited to finally have this news to share with you all!

My "settling in" has understandable been derailed just a bit... well, that and refocused! While we have made some progress in that department, I've also been doing some sorting and washing!! 

31 Days of Settling: Day 17

Ok... So I'm a night owl. Aaand sometimes I have to change the publishing time to get my posts to show the right date! Whew!! It feels really good to get that confession out of the way!

Here is a picture of me reading to some cute kids:

I love that picture!!!

Why the cute picture?? Well, because today we (once again) moved some stuff around! And since a pictures of my parents garage that is now devoid of our clutter OR of our stuffed storage unit are not very pleasing to the eye, I am sharing the above picture. So yes, we made some settling progress today, but I'm sparing you having to look at it! You're welcome! ;) 

31 Days of Settling: Day 16

Well, I didn't get before pictures today, and I didn't feel like reconstructing a before picture this time. I guess you all will just have to use your imagination. :) 

I finally cleared off the whole dining room table (instead of just an end for eating)! And I put on a pretty fall arrangement (which was mostly already arranged, so that part was easy!)

I also put the finishing touches on the top of the piano. I hung the mirror Monday and put on a few things. Today I added just a bit more to make it more welcoming and pretty. :) 

I love having this hymn picture here. So perfect for the season!! 

31 Days of Settling: Day 15

Or maybe I should call this day 14 1/2, since I did this Monday... :)

Here's our fireplace before:

And after:

I'm glad to have a few of my fall decorations out! Yes, the curtain rods are still out, but hopefully soon they'll actually have curtains on them!! :) I love the cozy glow of my lights. It was interesting decorating this mantel because it is much longer than the one at our house (although not any deeper). It's not perfect, but it's fun and inviting! 

31 Days of Settling: Day 14

Whew!! A very busy day today! I got quite a bit accomplished, but don't have all the pictures taken yet, so I'll show more tomorrow!

For now though, I found something fun to go in our kitchen! I knew I wanted to hang this, but I was really starting to wonder where it was hiding! Glad I found it though, and it will be fun to change around.

This board was actually in our family room in the old house, but I know it will get a lot more use in the kitchen, and I will have a lot more fun with it here! 

31 Days of settling: Day 12

Well, I guess this should technically be day 11, since we did it yesterday... But anyway... :)

My next main goal has been to get our bedroom looking more livable. Big thanks to my mom for coming over and helping me with this corner yesterday!! Here's a before (well... Restaged before actually... We had started organizing before I remembered to take a picture! Oops!)

That sure doesn't look very cozy!! 

Much better!!!! :) a little bare, maybe, but still a nice reprieve from all the clutter there was before! :) 

Finished Object Friday: A Little "1"

It is very hard to believe, but one little sweetheart turned one a couple of weeks ago!! And believe it or not, I had a little time to sew something fun up! (I actually did most of the sewing while we were still staying with my parents. I had a lot more extra time then as well as crafty energy.)

What I didn't take the time for, unfortunately, was to get out my actual camera... You may have noticed that most of my blog posts recently have been with mobile pictures. It is just so much easier to post straight from my phone! (And I actually get blog posts up!).  But I still have pictures!

Here's the super fun outfit! The whole thing was so easy and fast to put together! So fun! Just a quick basic bow with a flower button to match the skirt, and a "1" ironed on with Heat 'n Bond. I used this tutorial for the skirt. 

Here are a few pictures from her birthday celebration showing the outfit in action:

First cupcake!! 

Yep, that was pretty good alright!! 

Opening presents: 

Of course, the paper is the best part! 

The skirt seems to look super long in these pictures, but it really isn't to her ankles. I did make it a tad long for her age so that she can hopefully wear it on into next spring. Here's a baby toes shot!! 

Such a sweetie!!! I'll be back tomorrow with more settling in. My mom came over for a little while today and helped me. It's wonderful to have someone to help me get in there and get something done! 

But now it's your turn to share what you have been up to!! :) Maybe you all have had more time than I have for fun fall projects. 

31 days of Settling: Day 9

Hmmm.... Maybe I should change the name of this little series of posts, since I'm obviously not going to get 31 posts done. I've been a little under the weather the past couple if days, but I'm feeling better now. So I'll try to get back on track.

One of the main rooms I focused on today was our bedroom, but the work I did get done (mainly putting away winter clothes) really has nothing to show for it. 

However, I do have something to share! Due to a dire lack of cabinet space, we needed to improvise! Open shelving is so popular now days, so we came up with our own interpretation:

It is still a work in progress!! I want to put a basket with my table top potholders etc... Whenever I find them... 

Progress feels frustratingly slow, but it seems we are moving in the right direction. Thank you all for your encouragement!! 

31 Days of settling: Day 5

Whew!!! What a busy and tiring day!! I do have a bit of progress to report this weekend!

Our master bath now has a pretty curtain to help finish it off:

So much better!! 

And... We now have our dresser back!! We were rather tired of living out of laundry baskets! 

(After evicting a little house gecko who had made herself quite at home in my drawer! Don't worry, she now happily resides in the ground cover outside our door with lots of new friends!!) ;)

But lest you think I've almost got us settled in here: 

That's our guest bedroom!! (And YES, there is a bed under there!!) oh my... Now you know.... Sigh... Now to sort this mess and decide what I don't need often enough to rate keeping it here... But not tonight!!! :) I hope everyone has a blessed Sunday tomorrow!! 

31 Days of Settling: Day 4

Another kitchen corner... And there just aren't too many of those in this tiny kitchen!! This section really needed some help:

Yipes!! What a mess! I spent a little while this morning straightening and rearranging. (I don't use my blender very often so it will be stored elsewhere - in a closet, most likely... I really don't have much room to store my kitchen gadgets!) 

But you're waiting to see the after, right?? 

A bit better, right? My hubby was happy - it was the first thing he noticed when he came in! :) 

Here's a shot of that side of the kitchen:

Funny thing, I really didn't think that my red accents would go to well in this brownish kitchen, but it seems to work somehow! 

Thank you all for your encouragement! It really does help me to think, "What am I going to show for today?" :)