Round Rock Express Baseball Game

We have a college couple (boyfriend and girlfriend) that help out with Free Chapel Kids and they babysit for Jeremy and I. They had 6 extra tickets to a Round Rock Express baseball game at the Dell Diamond. We had the best time. It was extremely hot at first, like sweat rolling down my back, but then as the sun went down it felt great outside. The stadium has two playgrounds, a pool, a rock climbing wall, and plenty of grassy areas. The boys sat in their seats until the 5th inning, which I thought was pretty impressive. It was also Kids Eat Free night, so the boys had a 2nd dinner. We stayed the entire time and it was a blast. We will be doing this again!!

Thanks Tori and Nolan!!

The boys stalked the pitchers and catchers in the bullpen until they graciously gave them two balls.

They give out glow sticks and paper fans.

How nice is it to lay in the grass and eat a hot dog at 10:00 at night?

Sorry

I had my Summer reading list in the previous post. One of the books I had to delete. I was in the middle of reading it and it has some very inappropriate things in it. I am sorry for even recommending it. The others are very good! :)

Summer Reading

Adoption Update

Please be praying for a very important meeting on Monday August 22nd. Jeremy will be landing in Haiti that day. He will be meeting with the orphanage director, our contact Ruben, someone hopefully from our adoption agency, and hopefully A's dad. This is a pretty strategic meeting with finding out what we do next. We need either A's dad to release parental rights or the pastor to go file abandonment papers for the Mom and Dad. Then we can start the process of moving her over to a different orphanage that is set up for adoptions. We pray that God would swing the doors WIDE OPEN if this is His will.

This week Jeremy and I did 8hrs of training with our agency. We went through The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis. What is crazy is that just the day before Jeremy sent me a link that Dr. Purvis had done. We were honestly looking at it about something going on with one of our boys. Dr. Purvis is a great communicator and she is an advocate for children from hard places. It was really good.

Here are some blogs I read and I love:

Jen Hatmaker: She lives here in Austin and just brought her daughter home from Ethiopia. She also will go and pick up her son in about a month.

The Livesay's Blog: They are missionaries in Haiti. They are living Isaiah 1:17.

Katie: Every time I read this I am inspired to action. Wow!!

Training

Jeremy and I are running the half Marathon for Adoption in October. We are trying to get a bunch of friends to do it with us. Our training doesn't actually start until the end of August, but we both want to stay up on our running so we don't have to start over. Last Saturday and this Saturday we ran 5 miles, but during the week we run anywhere from 2.5 miles to 4 miles depending on the day.

Anyway, here are a few things I have learned on my long....er runs:

1. I have to get up at 5:00 a.m. to be ready to run at 5:45. I am not a morning person and it takes a while for me to wake up.

2. I need coffee and at least half a protein bar or half a banana before I go.

3. I need a great fast paced playlist.

4. It is best for me to wear a hat because I sweat like a crazy person. Sweat dripping down my face annoys me to no end. It's either a hat or a Richard Simmons headband.

5. We ran on Hwy 620 for the fist time today. I love and hate it. I hate that I fear for my life, but I love the long stretch of road. I think I need a neon vest.

6. Jeremy runs faster than me, so I don't even try to compete with him. Whatever!!

Grace

I was thinking about my husband Jeremy yesterday while he drove a boat across the Lake to teach our four small boys how to wake board. It isn't Father's Day, his birthday, or even our anniversary. I was just thinking about how he loves me more today than he did 14 years ago when we met. I know it is a choice he has made, not a feeling, but a choice and probably not an easy one at that. I was reflecting on all that we have been through, nothing tragic or even close to it, but just the normal married life stuff. The stuff that easily creeps in and pushes spouses farther and farther apart. The stuff that when you ask someone "What happened?" they actually can't put a finger on it.

I am incredibly thankful for God's grace, because we both know that it is only because of His grace that we are able to love each other on a daily basis. It is only by God's grace that we are able to become a united front in parenting our boys. It is only by God's grace that we started Free Chapel and by His grace that we haven't screwed it up.

grace, grace, God's grace,

grace that will pardon and cleanse within;

grace, grace, God's grace,

grace that is greater than all our sin!

Cow Appreciation Day!!

Who doesn't LOVE Chick-fil-a?
Cow Appreciation Day is super fun for the kids and its FREE!!!

How Cute is Micah?

The Mills and the Self's (minus Ty and Blake)

Gray and Sam

Product Review

I love to share a product when I find something I really like.

Here is the background:

I had all my boys by the time I was 29 and around 30 I started having acne. It was so weird for me, because honestly I dealt with the occasional break out when I was a teenager, but nothing like I have had the last three years. My OBGYN said it was probably hormones and women do experience break outs in their 30's. I also went to my Dermotologist to see what she thought. So over the course of about a year and half I have been on antibiotics, prescription topical medicine, the birth control pill, proactive, skin medica, and many other over the counter face wash lines. The antibiotic worked the best, but it is a short term thing and it can't be good for your health to be on antibiotics for very long.

I also tried the pill for about six months, but recently went off of it because I don't need it and I couldn't tell that big of difference in my break outs. I also started using this:

It is Go 360 Clean and I use the orange one, which is for acne. It comes with a scrub brush that you apply it with. I have seen a huge difference in my complexion! Jeremy and my sister have even noticed the difference.

Where we live!!

First of all, my pictures are out of order, so sorry about that!

We LOVE where we live. Two things we have enjoyed this week are the lake and the Lakeway 4th of July parade. The parade is one of my favorite things we participate in as a church. This year we partnered with Greenscapes Landscaping who pulled our trailer. We gave out cold water bottles, candy, and doggy treats. People especially love the doggy treats!

The Greenscapes Truck

Tyler and Hudson

Johnny, Me, Dad, and Derek waiting to go!

On Friday evening we went to our friends dock and rode the Jet Ski and of course we love the trapeze!

Tyler

Blake

Jeremy and Sam on the Jet Ski

Back to the parade! Grayson all decked out in red, white, and blue..and green!

All the kiddos in the back of the truck!

Finally...

...I got my lamps. Woohoo!!! Love them!!

Remember this post about the collage? I originally wanted turquoise lamps. Right away I started searching and I totally found numerous lamps that I loved, but they didn't quite fit in the budget. Since we started our adoption process, all house stuff kind of came to a halt, so for my birthday I asked for lamps. You know Donna totally delivered!!! My mom bought these lamps, painted them, and put new shades on them. How awesome is that? To keep true to my turquoise, I spray painted a tray that I had. Love, love, love!!!

Crazy Hair Day at VBS

The three oldest boys attended VBS at a local church this week. It was awesome. This church hits it out of the ballpark with VBS. My boys loved it. This day was crazy hair day.

I absolutely love seeing kids worship and learn about God all week.

Alexandra

We talked with our contact yesterday in Haiti. I am not sure if we have said yet, but we found out recently that Alexandra has a biological mom and as of yesterday we found out she has a biological dad. The pastor of the orphanage has been trying to find the mom for a couple of weeks and apparently found the dad. The good news is that he said he is okay with Alexandra being adopted. He asked that he would be updated periodically on how she is doing. It is such a bittersweet thing for Jeremy and I. The sweet part is we feel attached to this little girl already and we want her with everything in us. The bitter part is that I am so sad that she has a mom and a dad that can't take care of her. I just cannot imagine being in their position and I cannot imagine saying "yes I am okay with another family taking my child to another country forever." Jeremy tries to reassure me that the culture is different there and I will probably never understand it. Ruben (our missionary contact) told us that they are like a lot of Haitian couples that keep having babies, but have no plan as to how to take care of them. Next week the pastor and Ruben are meeting with the mom and dad to talk about the adoption. Please keep us in your prayers as our adoption journey continues.

Proverbs 3:5

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;

Happy Birthday to....Us!

Wade, Lindsey, and I all have our birthdays in the same week of June. How crazy is that? Honestly, I don't really like to think about why that is or even broach that subject with my Mom. Let's just say that I have heard her "joke" about it with her friends and I was very embarrassed at the tender age of 12.

Moving on. So we decided to take it old school, circa 1992 to be exact, and just us five went to the movies and Outback. Can anyone say "Cheese Fries"? We had a great time and laughed a lot! We did miss Kimberly, Derek, and Jeremy.

On my actual birthday, we went to Schlitterbahn. No kids were invited, which is ironic because we talked about how much our kids would love it the whole time. I felt kind of bad, but just kind of. All in all it was fabulous.

*You will never see any pictures of us at Schlitterbahn or me in a bathing suit for that matter. You are welcome :)

Why?

Why in the world do I let my boys use my camera?

(Action shots on the trampoline taken by Tyler)

Caught

I have been up since 3:55 and I couldn't go back to sleep. I have had no problem sleeping the last 3 weeks, mainly because I have been emotionally exhausted. I feel caught. What I mean is that I feel caught between my everyday life and the future.

Three weeks ago Jeremy came home from a missions trip to Haiti and the rest of my life will never be the same. He showed me a picture of a beautiful 5 year old girl and said "I think she should be in our family". I honestly had to ask him if he was serious a million times over. It turns out he was.

Jeremy and I went to a conference about a year and half ago and that is where I first started feeling God opening up my heart to adoption. I have always thought adoption was so amazing for someone else to do, but not me! I knew I wanted four or five kids since I was young. I have four, stair step, beautiful, blonde boys. We were good. Our plate was full and overflowing! I looked at Jeremy at that conference with tears rolling down my face and said "You need to get me one of those babies from Haiti!" Guess what he said? "No!" He wasn't being mean, but I know at that moment he was seeing dollar signs. He's logical, I am emotional. I get it.

God's timing is perfect and He is showing me this everyday because He knows I need to be reminded. For two years now we have been digging our way out of debt. We are huge Dave Ramsey fans, not because we love his financial knowledge (even though we do), but because his principles which are God's principles on money have CHANGED our lives. This Fall we will be debt free. My point is that we weren't ready a year and a half ago when I was all for it.

Jeremy and I have talked about it every few months since that conference. He struggled with it. He full heartily wanted to be an advocate for the orphan and the widow and he wants our church to be advocates for the orphan and the widow, but actually being on the front lines of that was hard for him. He told his story at Free Chapel a few weeks ago and you can listen to it here: www.freechapelaustin.com.

In January our church does 21 days of prayer and fasting and Jeremy prayed about adoption everyday during that time. At the end of that he still didn't know. I honestly kind of thought adoption for us was a door that closed. Our youngest was turning four and I just felt that we were coming into a new stage of our life with our boys. For some reason I never pushed Jeremy about adopting. I can be pushy about stuff, but not this. I have learned over the last 12 years of being married that if we both aren't on board, then it isn't going to work. Having a child or adopting a child is way too big of a decision to be trying to rope my spouse into.

Back to being caught.

The morning after Jeremy and Tyler got back from Haiti he shows me her picture. He also didn't know her name or anything about her.

Let's pause right there. Does my husband even know me?!? I love details. I asked him a million questions which he had no answer to. Just a picture. (Oh, by the way, the little boy in the picture above is from the same orphanage Alexandra is in. For now, we aren't posting any pictures of her online).

Ok...Now, the whole week after that all we did was try to find out more information about her, tell my family, find an adoption agency, and research more information than I ever thought I wanted to know about adoption and the country of Haiti. I have never seen Jeremy like this. I keep looking at him like "What did you do with my husband?" I say that just because I can't believe how his heart has changed specifically about adopting. God has changed it! I have no other explanation.

It is so cool how God uses the body of Christ to do His work for His glory. We have some close connections to the orphanage that Alexandra (that is her name by the way) is at. I am really jealous that Jeremy and Tyler have both gotten to meet her, but I am thankful for that as well. Anyway, we have a friend that is a missionary in Haiti that has been helping us communicate with the pastor that runs the orphanage. The pastor only speaks Creole and our friend speaks English and Creole and several other languages. Slowly, but surely we are finding out more information about her.

In the mean time, we have started our journey with an adoption agency. Again, God is so good. We had no idea how to go about picking an adoption agency. I follow a girl's blog that has adopted from Haiti and I emailed her and she referred me to another girl that is in the middle of getting her son from Haiti. We are using the same adoption agency. This agency only does adoptions for Texas families who are adopting in Texas or from Haiti. How awesome is that? And, they just started the agency in October (remember God's timing). We love them already. They have been so encouraging, sweet, and helpful.

Jeremy and I feel like it is Christmas morning everyday. I personally have been an emotional wreck. If you know me at all, I am not a crier, but I will cry over just about anything lately. It's all good, happy, thankful tears. The support of our family, friends, and church family has been undeserved. Our boys are excited to say the least. When we found out Alexandra is 5 years old, Sam said "We will be twins!!" with every ounce of excitement he could muster. It was hilarious and sweet!

We are pursing Alexandra with everything in us and we hope and pray that she will be ours one day, but she isn't ours right now. I am anxious to get to the point in our adoption that she is ours, even if that means having to wait to bring her home. And of course, we are praying-praying-praying that she will be able to come home quickly. The adoption process in Haiti can take from 24-30 months. I pray for Haiti's new President everyday. He has the ability to make adopting from Haiti shorter. There are many families that are waiting to bring their children home. I will never understand why it takes two years to adopt children from one of the poorest countries in the world.

I hope you can understand a little bit by what I mean by feeling caught. I am actually okay with it. I know God has so many things he is going to show us through this faith walk.

James 1:27

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:

to look after orphans and windows in their distress."

*This is by far the longest post I have ever done on my blog and I am sure I forgot a lot of things. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me. I will be trying to update the blog through our adoption journey.

**Please excuse my grammar and how I write. I am not a writer, but I did want to share our story so far.

***This post is dedicated to Kelly. Thanks for being such an amazing friend and for encouraging me to write the beginning of our adoption story on this blog. I love you.

Tylerman

Tyler and Gray at Tyler's 4th Grade awards ceremony. Tyler was voted by his classmates as "Most Musical". Tyler is an excellent student and the boy loves school. We are so proud of him!

Doesn't Gray look happy to be there? Well, you should have seen my face! Gray was terrible. So terrible I had to get up and go in the back with him. So terrible I had to threaten him that he wasn't going to his own family birthday celebration. Proud parenting moments!

Little Sneak

This would be Grayson. This would be Grayson sneaking into my purse and getting my camera. This would be Grayson taking 25 pictures in the changing room at Old Navy.

Yes I let him. He was totally preoccupied. You can thank me later for sparing you from the other 24 pictures.

Blakester

This week Blake had his 2nd grade awards ceremony. We are so proud of him!

Copy Clown

We love our boys' elementary school. They do a little program called the Kindergarten Circus. It is the cutest thing ever. Sam was the "Copy Clown". Blake was also the "Copy Clown" when he was in Kinder. His role was to come out after every act (all 26 of them) and do something funny while they set up for the next one. For example, after the horse act he came out with a pooper scooper to clean up after them. Then after the elephant act he came out with a HUGE pooper scooper. He did a great job!

Waiting to start the show!

The HUGE pooper scooper!

The End!

Mema

My Mema and my aunt came to visit us in Austin for a week. It was so fun. My Mema is 77 years old. She was super nervous to fly, but it all turned out great. I think she was probably exhausted when she got home. She is hilarious and such a trooper to hang out with our whole crew.

This is her with all the kids except my niece Ann Marie who was napping.