Crazy Busy

I am so sorry that it has been a while since I have blogged. It has been crazy busy the last week or so. With trying to get ready for little man to come home and with the holidays it seems like we have been constantly going. TJ and I have been working really hard on getting our little guys room ready. He is going to have a western room and I have to tell you that I think that it is the cutest thing ever! I will post pics once we are done with it. We completed and mailed off our family book. LM (little man) foster family will show him the pictures and help to prepare him to join our family! Right now our son is relatively nameless. I know that I posted it in the last blog but that is not what he is going to go by. We may post it at a later date but right now it is still under wraps from everyone but a select few. Anyway, back to the book. I had so much fun creating it. There are pictures of most of our family members in the book and a short little bit written about each of them. We will work with LM when he gets here too with who everyone is. We have actually gotten to talk to him twice now! We, including LM, are very blessed with his foster family. They are amazing people and I have no doubt that God placed our son in that house so that they can help him to transition. They have allowed us to speak with him and are already telling him about us. He has the cutest little boy voice! He is just adorable in general. We are so happy that he is a normal all around boy. He loves everything boy. From running and climbing to wrestling. No girly boy here!! He is fearless and loves animals and to be outside. Hmm sound much like me and TJ?! TJ and I got to share our adoption news with my family over two different Christmas. Let me tell you how excited they are! I think my aunt and uncle are just as excited as TJ and I! I love it! Don and Tami have been awesome through the whole thing. They have been through adoption before and have been such an encouragement to us as we have been through so much. It was a tough Christmas for them but they were still so excited for us. My uncle had to have some major surgery on the 23rd. He is doing awesome and now they are planning a huge family party once little man gets home! LM got so spoiled this Christmas. His room is already overflowing with toys and clothes! This little guy is going to be so loved and spoiled! Now we just pray that the paperwork can hurry up and go through, that there are no problems with the ICPC or ICWA stuff. That is what we are waiting on now. If everything goes as it should than in about 3 weeks we will be off to meet and bring home our son! How absolutely crazy is that?! God works in such awesome ways. TJ and I were both about to give up and had little hope left when we got that call. I mean read just a couple posts back and you can see where we were. But God really did have a plan and it was this little man. And he is perfect and we are so excited to add him to our family. He is already loved. He has been prayed over for many years and now he has a real family that is so ready to meet him!

We are going to be parents!

It has been a while since I have posted and I have some news! We got a call from SD on December 14. We were the family selected to adopt an adorable little 3 year old boy named Jerrell. What an amazing Christmas miricle. TJ and I are now crazy busy not just with Christmas but also with getting everything set up for Jerrell to come home. If everything goes well than we should travel up to SD the last week of January to meet our son! There are still some things that could slow up the process if not halt it all the way. So many prayers are being said that things will go smoothly. We can totally see God in this though. We have come into quite a bit of money unexpectantly that will help a lot in the travel and preperation for bringing Jerrell home. We are so excited. I am going to be able to be a stay at home mom and so I am extremly excited about that. It will be a totally new world for me and TJ. We are used to having 2 full time pay checks and I make almost as much as he does! To go from making that much and having a nicely padded account and savings account to only having one income will be an adjustment. It will be odd to actually have to budget! My husband is awesome and works so hard to support us and has a pretty good job so money is no really a worry but it will still be an adjustment! Right now we are having so much fun getting prepared to bring him home. J will be one spoiled little boy. He is the first grandkid on my side of the family. I am not sure who is more excited, me and TJ or my brothers. They are going to have a blast teaching him all sorts of things and buying him the most annoying toys there are! Our friends' little girl is already asking for him to come over and play. This little boy is so loved and we just pray that things continue to go smoothly and in about a month we will get to meet our little boy!

Christmas Cheer

After my depressing last post, I thought that I would lighten it up some. I really am not doom and gloom all the time. I just tend to find writing therapeutic so often times my blog takes the brunt of my moods! I would rather get it in writing than to burden another person with my whining!

So anyway, here are a couple pictures of our house all decorated for Christmas. Our mantle which I love. I really am a minimalist. I think the less the better in some cases. And our poor little Christmas tree. TJ and I always get a real tree. You just cannot beat the smell of a real tree. I love walking in the front door and being greeted by the smell of pine and spices! This year we bought a real tree that was bound so we did not get to see really what it looked like until we got it home. It turned out to be a little lop sided!!! Oh well. We had fun decorating it and I think that it looks great! After this weekend, there are MANY more gifts under the tree. We have such a large family so it is always fun to go and buy for everyone. Its always fun. I know that gift giving is not the reason for Christmas. We do not make a huge deal out of this part of Christmas. But I have to say that I love giving gifts more than I like to get them! I love to really think about what a person would like. It makes me happy to make other people happy. TJ and I usually start shopping for gifts right after Christmas so that we do not have to do it all at once right before Christmas. With the chaos of this year, we did not get started as soon as we usually do.

We leave on Friday to head to my parents. When my brothers and I reached college age and moved out of the house, my parents decided that we would do our Christmas the weekend before the real holiday so that once we have our own families we would not have to worry about where we would go or anything. So off we are to Christmas with Mom, Dad and the boys this weekend. It ought to be a blast. Mom is cooking a big meal and we will just hang out and relax for the whole weekend. Our plans for the actual holiday are pretty exciting for us too. We are leaving home on the Thursday before Christmas. We are headed to my hometown and where TJ and I went to college. We are staying in a hotel that night and getting to see all of our friends. I am so excited. My best friend had a baby almost 5 months ago and I have yet to see him. I am so ready to hug on and love little Gavin Kai!!! We will hang out there until around 4:00 on Christmas Eve when we will head to my Granny's house about 45 minutes away. There all of my family will gather for a huge country Christmas. When I say all I mean all. 6 aunts and uncles, my parents and brothers, and too many cousins to count. It is always so much fun to all get together. We have done it every year since I was tiny. What is even more fun is that there are usually several unexpected people that just drop in to see everyone. It is loud and crazy with a ton of awesome food. My Granny's house is not a big house by any means and so it is crammed with people of all sizes. The little kids run and play inside and out. She lives on a ranch and so there is tons of room to run and play.

Christmas Day is spent at my Grandma's house an hour away. This is a little more calm and collected. It will be my family and my uncle, aunt, and cousin. Not too many of us but fun all the same. This year I think that the guys are planning to go and shoot skeet. I am going to laugh when my little bitty momma can out shoot them all. She really is a great shot! Yeah, I know that is not a traditional Christmas activity but it is my family. We are just different. And we have a ton of fun together.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone and I am sure that there will be a ton of pictures following!

Tired

***Warning*** This post is going to be pretty much just a vent session. Feel free to skip it.


So this has not been my week. And today is not really helping anything. A couple that we know are adopting twin boys. And they found out that their adoption will be finalized on Friday. That is great news for them and I want to be happy for them. The thing is that they only started this process in June. Like literally started it then. Their home study was approved in June got a call about twin newborns in July. They didn't even have to pay the agency fees because the agency could not find anyone else that wanted these two little boys. Now I am happy for this family. I really am. They wanted another child for a long time. But really? TJ and I have been trying to adopt for ages now. I know that we are not supposed to covet what our neighbors have. But it is so hard not to get upset. I know that God has called TJ and I to be parents and yet we continue to struggle. What seems so easy for other people is not for us and it is getting really old. I DO have faith that God is in control but truthfully I am angry with Him. And that makes me feel bad. But honestly that is how I feel. I don't understand why it has gone on this long and why God won't bless us with a child. Why give us the desire and the calling and then not allow us to become parents? God's first commandment to man was to go forth and be fruitful. For a couple that really tries to live our lives obeying ALL of God's commandments, this is tough. No matter how hard we try to fulfill this commandment, we cannot do it on our own. Trust me, we have tried. I know that part of the reason that I am so emotional this time of year is the fact that we lost our second baby on Christmas Eve. Every year we think that this will be the year that we will bring home our own child to have Christmas with and yet another year is drawing to a close without the hope of fulfilling this commandment. I know that I sound pathetic and whiny but unless you have been through it than you don't know what it is like. Most days I can overcome the anger and just keep moving but for some reason this week has just been really rough. Next week may not shape up to be much better either. The three kids that we may be interested in all have court dates next week. TJ is telling me to stop being so negative but I am not really seeing anything great coming out of these calls and court appearances either. It is like I have just come to expect the worst. The little girl that has a date is one that we learned about more than 6 months ago. We have been through so much with this child. Ups and downs and court dates moved and uncooperative workers. You name it. We would love to have this little girl. But what we are facing seems huge. Her foster family wants to adopt her and her case worker wants that to happen as well. The problem being ICWA laws. She is NA and the foster family is not. That means that legally they should not be able to adopt her. The little girls tribe also has stated several times that they do not want her foster family to adopt her. The only way around the law is to prove that it is in the best interest of the child to stay where she is. Well by putting off the court dates and leaving her in the home etc, they are going to claim that she is bonded with her foster family and that it would be traumatizing to move her. And it will be. I can understand and feel for the family. They love her and want her but at the same time a law is a law and TJ and I would also love to have her be a part of our family. most of all we want what is best for that little girl. It just seems like such a huge thing to have to overcome. I know that God can crumble any obstacle in the way but from past experience it just seems like our reality is that it won't happen. One of the other children that we are interested in is a little boy that actually has a placement call. We made it to the final three that will be presented to a board for selection. You would think that is a good thing. It really is but we have been there so many times before and with this same state! I think that all the workers know us by name! They don't even ask for our home study even more because everyone has a copy! So that call is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday. We will see. This state has on more than one occasion told us that we were the choice for a specific child and then at the last minute chosen someone else. The final child is a little boy here in our state. This would be an ideal situation for us. He is not local but at least it is the same state and there would be no interstate compact to worry about or anything. His court date is about visitation with his birth mother. Currently she has been deemed unfit for even visitation. Her rights on this little boy have not been terminated yet but it seems like just a matter of time until they are. She has already lost custody of her other 2 children. We know that his current foster family has no interest in adopting him. What we are hoping and what our worker is trying to do is arrange with his case worker for us to have a legal risk placement. Which means that we would technically foster him until mom's rights have been terminated. If she regains her visitation rights on Tuesday than that won't happen since we live on the other side of the state. Ideally the mother will have gotten her stuff together and cleaned up her act so that she can be a mother to this child. But if not than we really hope that the worker will want to work with us!
So now that I have vented and gotten some of my frustration out, I feel a little better. I am a writer by nature and so just getting my thoughts down help out a lot. I really am not a negative person or someone who is always down. I am actually just the opposite. It is just the adoption stuff is so hard. It is something that we want so badly but no matter what we do or how badly we want it, there is nothing that we can do. We try. We are on our knees daily. If someone is reading this, please remember TJ and I in your prayers this holiday season. We really could use them.

One of those days

Do you ever have "just one of those days"? I try not to have too many of them but today is definitely one. I would give anything to just go back to bed and start over again. It started when I messed up financial reports not once but twice this morning. Not a big deal? Well it is when it takes so long to do them! And then I find a loose thread on my tank top. Come to find out I have been losing sequins off my top all day! So not a big deal. Well it is the first time that I have even worn this shirt! I am just tired and cranky. Poor TJ is going to have to deal with it tonight! He has already offered to cook dinner and get me a nice hot bubble bath though. He knows me all too well. I don't think I can say it enough, I have a pretty good husband.

An adoption update. Well there is no real update. We are waiting on TPRs and placement calls. The story of our lives. I just seem to be a Scrooge this year. I had a dream earlier this year that we would have a child by Christmas. As it keeps drawing nearer and nearer it just doesn't seem like it will come true. This will be the 3rd Christmas since the miscarriages and the second since we started the adoption process. It just seems to drag on and on. These past 3 years have been pretty tough around the holidays. That first one not only did we lose our babies but TJ's grandmother also passed away. Last year, it snowed so much that TJ and I could not travel to go see family as planned. We were snowed in with nothing to eat but Ramon noodles. This year my uncle passed away and I have another uncle that is really sick and may not make it to Christmas. I am trying to keep my spirits up because this is the time of year to give thanks and to remember that the whole point of Christmas is the birth of my Savior. That is such a great thing that it should out weigh all of the bad. I really am trying to be more upbeat. Maybe after a nap, dinner cooked and a nice hot bath, I will feel more like myself!

Nothing

So I really don't have anything to say today. Just a couple pictures of what we have been doing. Its been a pretty busy last week or so. We had a great Thanksgiving and are now in full Christmas mode. I did have some pretty bad news this week. My great uncle Richard past away this past week. No one even knew that he was sick. It was really sudden and unexpected. Most of my cousins live in CA and so they have had to travel back this way for the funeral. The funeral is tomorrow. It is always so hard to lose some one you love. I will always remember Uncle Richard's love for my granny's pecan pie. That used to be all that he wanted for his birthday. He was a great man with a ready smile and laugh. He loved his wife and they were together since they were teenagers. He is going to be missed and remembered as a wonderful man. We love you Uncle Richard!