CHRISTMAS TIME!

So much exciting things have happened since my last post!  God knew how heart broken I was at Thanksgiving and he has calmed my  fears and let me know my baby is ok! Not long after I wrote that post I found a group on yahoo for families that are in process and families who have already adopted from Reece's orphanage. How exciting! As I started going through albums these people had posted I found several pictures of Reece! Oh I was just beside myself looking at them all!  I also got in touch with three ladies, all different families who told me about his orphanage and about Reece! Even more exciting. My fears were laid to rest. Not only was I informed that the people in his orphanage CARE for these precious children they are taking care of, but they are also excited that Reece has a family waiting!!  One sweet lady got in touch with me and said when they were there getting their son, they met Reece and she actually went to get info on him, for he had such an impression on them but they were told he had been matched. That would be US! I'm so happy and thrilled that he had that impression on them! He worked his charm! I'm so thankful for all the new information I've received and so thankful God showed me that he IS in fact ok. He's taking care of him.

Just  wanted to update everyone and share my heart as we go into the holidays. We FINALLY sent immigration off TODAY! Praise the LORD!!  That was a little more drug out than I expected and honestly a month later than I expected but I know God has a reason. Glad it's gone right before Thanksgiving.  Now we wait to hear for our approval and all paper work then gets sent to China.

    As we get closer and closer to the holidays, my heart is so heavy , saddened and happy at all once. I never knew how emotional this process would be when we get to Thanksgiving and Christmas. I knew the process was going to be difficult.  I was warned it would be a emotional roller coaster but you honestly can not get the full grasp of it until your right smack in the middle of it. I mean, when Wes and I were going through invitro, yes it was a draining emotional roller coaster for 6 years!  After having multiple miscarriages you get very anxious, tired and to the point where you just want to call it quits.. God had a different plan. The emotions you go through is life changing and God has taught me many many lessons from that chapter in our life. Well, here we are again. A new chapter.It's exciting, scary, very emotional. I can't  find the right words to explain the feelings that are there.  We have been so incredibly busy trying to do every kind of fund raiser we can think of to raise money. I'm so committed to do whatever it takes but as I get closer to the holidays I can't help but to cry almost daily. My heart aches for Reece so much right now. I wake up thinking about him, praying for him and shedding many tears. I often look at the clock and think 13 hours ahead and imagine what he would be doing at that moment and he has not a clue he has a mama wondering and dreaming about him. Longing to hold him. I'm so saddened at the thought that we are here, carrying on a normal life fixing to celebrate with family and friends the best part of the year and my baby, my Reece is alone, in a orphanage. I have no clue if anyone loves on him,  no clue if he's hungry or is he being fed regularly, no clue if anyone is striking him because he's making too much noise. I'm so longing to hold him and protect him and give him everything he so much deserves. My heart hurts that he is alone. His heart does not know he has a mama and daddy who are desperately trying to get to him by next summer. The emotions are overwhelming. This is all things I didn't expect to feel an go through really. I knew we'd be anxious but my goodness it's a lot to take in.  God is once again teaching me many many many lessons.  I have no choice  but to totally lean and depend on God because he's the one in control. This is a area that even if I wanted to take the reigns... I can't. That's very hard. I can not protect Reece right now. Only God can. I pray constantly for God to wrap his arms around Reece and give him peace where he is. To protect him from harm until we arrive safely to get him. Everything in this journey is a total faith building process and I have to admit it's very hard lessons. But I'm defiantly up to the challenge. There is nothing that God can't handle, there is nothing too big for God. I am comforted in the fact that this is Reece's LAST Thanksgiving and Christmas without a family. That is the most wonderful thought for me! That this time next year.. he will be here with us. He will not be stuck in a orphanage and age out at 14 with no hope for his future. He has a family!!  So for now, I cling to God as I'm suppose to. Knowing that he has set us on this journey and knowing that God never gives us more than we can handle. Knowing God is protecting my sweet baby, knowing that God has this!  Please continue to pray for us and to pray for Reece too. We love you all an are continually grateful for those who have been supporting us. So glad to know such wonderful people!  Hope you all have a very blessed Thanksgiving!

Want to help?

Wes and I have actually been entertaining the thought of taking Courtney and Hannah with us to China. In order to do this, yes it will cost us MORE MONEY!  But I keep thinking about how we talk to these girls about  God's wonderful works and how awesome would it be for them to go and experience this with us?  Not only to witness God first hand in the middle of China with Reece, but they will also be seeing other families all at the same time going through the same thing we are. They get to go and witness what the orphanage is like for themselves and see what it all means. I know it would touch their heart just like ours. So please be in prayer with us that God leads us in HIS direction. We want to follow the Lord's path, not our own.
   A thought for someone out there that may want to help us and really just don't know how besides praying. We want your prayers for our family and for Reece first before anything! We thank you for them and beg you to keep praying. We need the prayer  tremendously. If there is anyone out there that has  "flyer miles" with their credit card and they are just adding up and you really have no plan for them.... we will need tickets to fly to China!  Round trip we're looking at $3500-4000 PER PERSON. We don't own credit cards or we'd be trying to do it ourselves. SOOO if any of you out there would be willing to help in that area  for a ticket and feel led to do so.. that would be awesome!  We will not travel until June or July so there is plenty of time to rack up on points with Christmas coming! ha ha  Just wanted to throw that out your way just in case of the chance that anyone is willing to do that. Never know till you try. Thank you all for your on going support for us. We value each and every person that is praying and that has helped us thus far. We are truly grateful for everything! Words just can't express!

NO COMPLAINING

Today has really just been one of those days for me.. you know the days you WAKE UP TIRED!  Today is Hannah's first football game for mascot ,  i have tons of cake stuff to get done for the weekend, trying to get paper work from doctor's office stating my bio  kids don't have diseases (for the adoption), and having to make a wal-mart trip with the twins just not cooperating with me at all, and still have to go to game tonight  just seemed to kind of overwhelm me . Then I starting thinking.... I have no room what so ever to complain today.  I'm alive, I'm healthy, my children are healthy and I have a sweet baby boy waiting for me in China. Life is actually good. Among all the things that are frustrating for me today I'm truly one blessed lady. I read on someone Else's post on facebook that they were fixing to have a birthday next month and for every year they have been alive they will do a act of random kindness. Wow!  That really sunk in with me. How awesome is that to give God glory for the years he's let you live by doing acts of kindness. I decided i too shall follow that same path. When April rolls around I'll be doing 35 acts of random kindness. Sounds awesome, huh? Don't get me wrong.. I do acts of kindness just not 35 in one week. So I've been praying the rest of the day for God to help my patience and telling him  how truly thankful for everything I have. Even in the choas of my days God still reminds me there are more things to be thankful for than to complain about. Someone also decided to do a act of kindness for me today. I'm not sure if I even know them.If I do,my mind is just old.   But this person chose to bless us today without warning and I'm so humbled and thankful. I can't express the words for that. God is opening my eyes in so many ways all because we decided to obey him. God is so good.

SO MUCH FUN DOING BUNKO!!

So the second fund raiser  was so much fun! The first one was selling raffles for cakes. No that was not fun. My sweet Hannah and I went door to door selling those things in the 100 degree weather  BUT it was totally worth it!  We were able to raise money. Great success!  Time for the second. BUNKO... when I decided to plan it the only thing on my mind was it was the first weekend I had before Hannah started football. (mascot)  Not realizing it was Labor Day weekend. Oh good grief!  I seem to have a habit of doing things at special times. But oh well, I was staying with it. It's all I got. SOOOO here I was trying to plan it all out in my head. Really couldn't get a lot done ahead of time considering I have 4 kids to tend to and I had to take care of the biz. I was worried to death that no one would come considering the holiday. Then of course doubt really digs in when everyone starts letting you know they're going out of town.. they gotta cook for the game that night.... yadda yadda.  I just kept praying and telling God "I trust you", "I know you have this". Whatever was going to happen it was going to be ok. God knows our needs, he knows what we have coming up ahead in our fiances. Finally the night before. My mom came over to help me buy food, set up our tables at church and so we set out to get it done. Up till 3 a.m. that night because I thought it was a brilliant idea to make fortune cookies and put scriptures in them.. then I decided the cupcakes needed Chinese symbols.. I was on a roll for the whole china thing.;)  Went to sleep for 3 hours and let me tell you. ..,MY BODY DID NOT WANT TO MOVE!!!!   But I slowly drug myself out of the bed  and got rolling. I'm still praying the whole time. God I know you know what we need. I know you have this and thank you for your promises and I'm so grateful for whatever happens.  Of course I was running a little behind. You'd think since waking up so early i"d have it under control. I was running around much like I do when it's my kids birthday times!!  Except my husband was not here. He had taken the twins to his moms and at one point I was really wishing he was here. Then reality hit me and I knew he'd really be snoring in the bed  anyway.  LOL  So oh well, I sucked it up and moved on. Finally got to the church.  In total including me and my two older girls we had 20. Thank the Lord for my friend Lisa who was Bunko queen and helped me rearrange the tables to accommodate what we needed. She was awesome!!!  I didn't even question anything at that point. We ate, we laughed, we talked, we played. Just a fun day with the ladies. Something that really touched my heart was that among these wonderful ladies.. two of them are adopting as well and one other is raising money for missions to move to Mexico and they were there. To support OUR FAMILY. My heart was so touched and blessed for that.  At the end of everything I finally get home and pull money out of my pocket. Jesus quickly reminded me that it doesn't matter the number of people that are there.. he still had the situation. Not only did we receive money from everyone that played but people gave over and beyond what they shouldve and then I pull out a card from a bag that was for me and my very first card for our son was in it which just brought me to tears and there was a extra check for our adoption. All I could do is cry and thank Jesus for what he had done. God has just been teaching me so many lessons lately that it's unreal. I'm thankful, I'm humbled beyond belief. Just this morning before church I was praying and thanking Jesus for all he's doing and I told God I didn't understand WHY he would choose to bless me when I know  ME, and I'm not deserving and I've let him down so many times and have failed repeatedly  and very quickly he reminded me again  that he loves me and if I let him, he will use me to his glory ... if i just trust in him and live for him. Wow... God is breaking me down ... remolding me into what he needs me to be, totally changing my life , and I'm so thankful and humbled, words can't express enough.  We still have such a LONG WAY financially BUT I know God will provide.  No matter what the day or what the situation. He's got it under control.

When God first layed adoption on my heart, our twins who are now 4 were new born. I knew that's what God had for us in the future. When I first mentioned it to Wes, he probably thought I was nuts. I mean here we are with 4 girls, two of which are twin infants and I'm talking about adopting a child??  He really didn't say much. In fact, everytime I brought it up, Wes really didn't say much. He would agree with me on some things but didn't have a whole lot to say about it. I of course started feeling a little defeated. I mean how will we every adopt a child if my husband isn't willing to even entertain the idea with me?  Can I just say that God has a way of dealing with hearts and setting the scene for his timing! I knew it wasn't the time yet but God also knew! God still had issues to work out with me. He needed to prepare me to be in the place that i needed to be spiritually and I wasn't. In the past year, God has once again opened my eyes and really just changed my life for him. Not that I was out of church , but I was not 100 percent living for my Lord in the way he has called me to. I thank God everyday for changing me. Pulling me back to him. Praying everyday that he just humbles me and uses me for his glory and not let me be selfish for my own reasons. God has proven faithful to me and my family time and time again and has NEVER give up on us. NEVER let us down.  I decided one day just to bring up the subject of adopting a little boy and it was like  a switch clicked. Wes was totally on board. No reservations. He was there 100 percent with me. Wow!! Had to be a God thing. I of course did NOT waste time to start trying to figure out what to do. I asked our Pastor's wife who they used for their adoption and we decided the agency they used would be great for us as well. They are a Christian based agency and they are here local. We ultimately were lead to China for our son. After a couple of months I decided to get on the site again and look at these precious children. Well, there were updates for new children that were available. I quickly skimmed through. Got up and came back a little while later to look one more time and BOOM out of nowhere there he was. I missed him the first time because he was dressed like a girl. OR at least I thought so. I quickly became all excited and couldn't type the email to our agency fast enough to get files on him. He was the one! This of course started our journey to adopting Reece. Reece is currently two years old. He is absolutely beautiful and Wes and I are thrilled at the thought of being his parents. Our children are just as excited as we are. Yes the twins are too! They can't wait to get their brother!! Please continue to pray for not just us but Reece as well. He doesn't know Jesus yet but Jesus knows HIM!  We are drawing toward the end of our home study and hopefully will be sending out for immigration by the mid to end of September. Will keep you updated every step of the way. Loves  and Hugs!!!