An Update... bit overdue

Adoption is hard. Adoption is a huge sacrifice. The truth of those two statements, because we've experienced them for well over a year, make me humbly sit in awe of the gospel. With Easter around the corner, we are reminded of just a hint of the hardness and sacrifice that Jesus went through all because He loved us so much and wanted us (no matter how risky we are) to be adopted into His family.

What a Savior!! We have been, as many of you know, at a standstill in our adoption process. Well things are not at a standstill anymore. A few weeks ago we were made aware of the fact that there was a different agency that had waiting children in the DRC. We called-asked a million questions-and found out that they had a little girl in our age range waiting for a family. We prayed-fasted-cried-sought council-asked more questions-and decided to switch agencies and move forward in hopes of getting a referral for that little girl. This was a huge step of faith for us. It meant that we would loose money that had been paid to our former agency and we were not guaranteed to get that referral. Our goal however has always been to get our daughter home and the timeline with our other agency was not promising-we had faith that the little girl ,with this new agency, waiting for a family was Lydia. About a week later we gathered around our computer as a family and had our first look at Lydia. Yes, you read that right folks, we have accepted a referral.

Now, we are thrilled, but we are also guarded. We now are working on getting our dossier back in line (this agency's requirements are a bit different) so that it can head over to Africa and in so doing begin the process of adopting Lydia into our family. This new agency's timeline is different because they work with multiple orphanages. There is now a chance that our second daughter will be home with us in time to celebrate Jesus' birth!! Sooooo, my guarded self debated even sharing this, but we need you all now more than ever. We need your prayers. Lydia needs your prayers. Pray that we would be able to gather our paper work in a timely manner so that it can move along to DRC. Pray against frustration and discouragement. Pray that we will cling to Jesus. Pray that the process from there moves smoothly and that we will wait well. Pray that Lydia would be protected and provided for while she is far away from us. Begin praying for the transition for all of us. Most of all pray that the gospel will be made known through this process. Hopefully more updates will come soon! I will not be posting a picture here, but I will share a picture of her very proud sister!!

Lylah has told us that she is going to "protect Lydia from falling down the stairs" and that she wants to "hold her in my lap". She is also going to "teach her to swing". I do think she will be the greatest sister ever!!!

Just a few things.

Here are just a few things I've meant to blog about lately :)

We went to an awesome children's museum in Evansville!! We all loved it! According to Lylah her favorite part was throwing balls in the water and wearing rain boots!

Lylah got a doll house for Christmas. We play doll house EVERY day. The doll's have a very diverse extended family.

I especially like that a rock made it into the picture. If you know Lylah well you can appreciate this (one day last week she pushed her daughter (a rock) on the swing for 30 minutes!) it was actually Lylah's idea for them to all stand together and take a picture! So funny! Today her mommy doll told the little girl doll "I'm too wimpy to carry you up the stairs sweetie.". Can you guess where she may have heard this?!

We also attended our first Burmese wedding. Lylah sat super well. The girls loves weddings!!! Afterwards she also proceeded to eat a whole plate of Burmese food. Seriously?!

Lylah has learned how to write a couple of letters as well!!

I have been giving away lots of free books!! Wants some?! www.myubam.com/P3244

Lylah also got a block table and blocks for Christmas. This is the other toy we play with all the time!!!

Have I mentioned my daughter's unique fashion?!

We have been getting to play with our best buddy lots!!

And sometimes when I'm not looking....this happens!

Of course there is never a dull moment with our silly girl!!!

Oobleck!!

When I was teaching, making "oobleck" was always one of my favorite things to do with my class during Dr. Seuss week!! Well this year I thought I would try it with Lylah....huge success!!!! She studied it, and just really loved it!! She was really quiet during the whole experience, but when one batch was pretty well played to crumbs, we had to make another batch!! Then later Lylah was playing with a rock pretending it was her daughter. Her daughter's name? Why, Oobleck of course!! Love my quirky girl and her crazy imagination!!!

It Never Gets Old

I have posted several times about our flower field here in The Grove, well guess what?! All this spring like weather has brought our field back to it's full blooming beauty!! Lylah and I happened upon it today while walking to the "big huge" playground. Needless to say we went on over. Now I think I need to give you a back story, the year we were trying to get pregnant I went to the field alone once (I would always go with my neighbors back then) and just cried hoping to one day make this a tradition with my own children. So needless to say, after three years of sharing the field with Lylah it never does get old!!! It may just get sweeter!! Today she ran around going to different "bunches" of flowers. She kept saying "isn't this a wonderful flower field". We even took time to pray and thank Jesus for our flower field. We laid in the grass together pretending to sleep while she held onto her 4 little flowers the whole time. I was even able to get a few sweet pictures with my phone (we'll have to go back with the real camera).

It did occur to me on the way home that last year when I posted about our time in the flower field I was excited about the possibility of taking pictures of two sweeties this year. Obviously that was not God's plan for us which got me a little upset on the way home, but I was reminded that His ways are perfect so Lylah and I just started singing praises for His beautiful creation instead. Of course we would appreciate your prayers that Lydia would be home for next years trip to "our wonderful flower field".

Flower girl fun

Last month Lylah got to be the flower girl in Nathan's cousins wedding. I'm not going to lie, when we first accepted this role I was a little nervous. Lylah tends to take a while to really warm up to a crowd or a new situation. This would fall into both. The days leading up to the wedding we really talked it up. She was so excited!! Her excitement kept building as we got the dress and then the shoes!! She kept telling everyone about "her wedding dress".

The night of the rehearsal Lylah was like a different little girl!! She was talking to everyone and loving her spot light!!

Ashton and Jarod gave her a sweet little doll baby as a gift Friday night. She toted it around the whole weekend!!!

The day of the wedding was so sweet!! Lylah was such a big girl!! I think one reason it went so well was because she really hit it off with Ben, the ring bearer. I wish I could explain how much fun they had!! They both just played and played in between pictures the whole afternoon!!! They were playing with his Cars toys and they kept getting further and further away. When I went to check on them Ben said, "I'm 5, I can protect her." They didn't want to do anything apart! So stinkin' sweet!!!!!

After Lylah did her job at the wedding (she actually rang a little bell), she got to come back and sit with me. I just knew we would have to leave the wedding service. I was wrong again!!! We sat next to Ben and his mom. He shared his gummies with Lylah!! Little did he know, that is apparently the way to her heart. At one point during the service she reached over and patted his neck, then gave him a little kiss on the cheek!!! After the service there were more pictures. She took time to give her main man a kiss too!

The reception was by far Lylah's favorite part!! After the dinner Ben came to find her so they could dance, and boy did they dance!!! At one point there was a whole circle of people around them clapping!!! Seriously, my daughter used to be shy!!!?? Nathan kept asking her to dance and she kept saying "no daddy, you go over there". I think she danced with everyone except for us!!! It was so sweet though watching every moment and thinking how much Lylah has grown up!!!

We ended up leaving the reception after 10:00 and Lylah still cried because she wanted to stay!!! She still asks about Ben at least every couple of days and talks about Ashton and Jarod's wedding and how she wants to have a wedding when she gets bigger. I think she enjoyed the weekend, and so did we!!!

There is "snow" weather like KY weather

We had our first snowy day in the area last week which worked out perfectly with our snowy learning time then this week we started off the week with 60 degrees and thunderstorms!! Oh Kentucky weather you have a way of changing the way one understands seasons!

Seriously though. We just kept moving right along with our winter topic and have been having big fun with it. We will continue this with some polar bear and penguin stuff coming up and probably some more snow and snowman stuff too. Here is a quick look at what we've done so far.

I can't believe we haven't done this before as it was one of my go to's when I was teaching in a public school classroom. First my lil lady painted a snowy scene with shaving cream and then we just had fun exploring it some more. Every once in a while I would draw a shape or make a letter in it, but mostly she just had fun! By the way, while we were doing this it actually started snowing! Just flurries, but it was still sort of magical ;)

We painted with ice which was really fun, but really messy!! Next time I won't be lazy and will go upstairs and get some popsicle sticks to make it less mess :)

It wouldn't be winter in KY without a random almost 60 degree day looking for interesting rocks at the lake and then some smiley swing time!

We had snowman ice cream sundaes.

We also made egg carton snowmen. Lylah likes these so much that we had to make two!! And I couldn't pass up the sweet footprint snowman!!

One morning Nathan was home and I needed to run to town. There were a few activities that we hadn't gotten to so daddy filled in as my sub!!! They made this sweet toilet paper snowman!!!

That same night it snowed!!! So the next morning we went out for some super cold snowy fun!!

Lylah thought that Ezra needed to be cozy so she covered her up and read her "A Snowy Day"!

The best way to play in the snow....in a sensory bin!!!!

A few short days later, the snow was melted and it was 60 degrees and stormy!! That didn't stop us from doing a counting buttons on a snowman activity!!

And building an indoor snowman! Lylah LOVED it!!! She just kept giving it one more hug all during lunch!!

And we finished tonight with some snowman milkshakes!! Yummmmy!!

We also have been doing some letter, math, and Bible activities but I shall blog about that later :)

Thank You Pinterest for helping me get organized (a bit)!

I've been trying to organize and get rid of some clutter this new year. Enter pinterest! Such a useful little tool for someone like me!!! Here are a few projects I've been up to!!

Cleaning and Menu Planning dry erase.

Remote control caddy.

And my favorite, a mail sorter made out of a cereal box!!! Yay for working on projects I pin!!!