Warning...Whining

I feel so selfish for what I am about to do to all my fellow bloggers. I know that there are so many more people deserving of what I am about to request. I really do.  Ya'll have shown me so much love throughout the year and here I am about to request more from you...more more...give me more.

I am going to be honest here.  Tonight I am lacking faith. I am struggling. I promised myself that I would never be in this spot again. That after all that Heavenly Father has blessed me with this past year that I would never doubt him, never ask why, that I would always remember the abundance of blessings that he has poured out upon my family and I.  However as much as I have made that vow, I am really struggling tonight to keep it.  Everyone is asking us for an update for the adoption.  So here is the update...I don't know.  I know you are asking "How can you not know Amanda?" The answer...It is simple yet complicated. In adoption there is a bunch of hurdles and hoops you jump through. First you get the kids, then you have to see how the case goes, then if lucky parental rights are terminated, then you have to wait 90 days before adoption can be finalized but you also have to have the kids living with you 6 months before you can adopt.  Rules, regulations, and sometimes ridiculousness.  Don't get me wrong.  I am a social worker by profession. I get why rules are there. It can just be frustrating. So here we are. We have jumped through all these hurdles, and loops, and hoops, and you name it and we have jumped through them.  We just have one little step to get through and then we can go to court immediately...well sort of ....kind of.

Since we have jumped through all the hoops our paperwork to be approved for adoption is sitting and being reviewed by an adoption worker. She has had the paperwork since September 15 but refused to look at it until the 90 days were up (CPS rule). The 90 days were up on November 29. So now she has had it 9 days. Our adoption was suppose to be November 30 then December 7 and now December 14 which looks like it will be moved again.  I am not trying to point fingers but it is literally this one worker holding us up.

Here is the tricky part. If the adoption is not approved by the December 14 court date we run into some problems.  It will push us into the December 21 court date which is difficult to get onto because judges start going out of town for the holidays.  So that means that we potentially could not have the adoption finalized until the first of the year. We were basically promised that our adoption would be done by Christmas. We are flying out Christmas eve to Colorado. When I asked should I purchase the tickets in the kids names now or their adoptive names, we were told the adoptive names because the adoption would be long and done. So we are running into that problem if the adoption does not take place until the first of the year. A lot of people have told me that they do not even id for children. I have heard that too. I think that one I am nervous because what if we are the one time they do ID...I will have nothing to show and two...well I am whining. I really wanted to be a family by Christmas.  I wanted this to be done. I have been waiting 8 months.  I am tired.

Want to hear more whining? okay good.....This Saturday is our first visit with the birth mother.  Now we have not heard from her for 4 months.  She was suppose to write and send letters but nothing.  We agreed to visits twice a year if the birthmother would relinquish her own rights. For selfish reasons and maybe not so selfish reasons I am hoping she does not show up.  Part of me does not want to see her.  I don't want to deal with all that encompassed that situation.  Part of me does not know if it is good for Millie. She is starting to do really good and every time she saw her mother in the past it would just set her back a lot.

So here is where I get selfish.  I am begging for prayers. I mean really asking you to pray, not just say that you are but really do it.  Obviously I am not the most faithful here and I am starting to feel really dark and down about all this.  So pray for whatever you think is best. My pleadings go something like this "please please please give me what I think is best and what I want!" However I don't think that is necessarily the best.

Thanks friends. I really am not this needy of a person. Just a lot going on. Also for all you English fanatics out there...ignore all the grammatical mistakes that I made in this posting. I wrote it in a very hurried state.

Giving Thanksgiving

(taken on my drive to see family in Missouri. I am grateful for such a beautiful view)

We just got home from a 9 day trip. I am sitting in my bed after a very long drive home, warm after a hot bath and snuggled under the covers next to my hubby and typing this blog.  I have this feeling of nostalgia as my children lay in their beds ,warm and belly full, sleeping and dreaming away.  I did not do the whole facebook november thanksgiving thing.  However, I can not help but sit here in my home, under my blankets, with my children safe and sound and not be thankful for all that I have in this world. This is on where near a complete list. It is just what I noticed tonight! I just wanted to list a few things that I was thankful for.

I am thankful for....

the ability to go to see my family for 9 days.  I drove all the way up there all by myself with 3 kids under age 6 and a very clinging dog.  I am grateful for a husband that provided the mini van to get us there.

all the family I was able to see. Total I saw 40 members of my family.  They alone are enough to be grateful for. They showered my children with so much love and gifts.  My heart overflowed as I watch my children, my children who have been ushered house to house throughout their life, receive so much unconditional love and attention from a family that prayed and begged from them.  Their eyes lit up as everyone fused and oh and awed over them.  The miracle of witnessing such love for these children eased so much of the heartache my empty arms experienced all those years.  I truly am blessed with a wonderful family. 

my hubby's neat freak tendencies.  Most of the time they drive me crazy but tonight as we walked in the house from our long drive I was grateful for how clean our home was.  It smelled so wonderful and everything was right where it was suppose to be and clean.  It was truly a blessing for this tired momma who has suitcases to unpack and laundry to do.

my mini van.  For the past 10 years that I have been married, I have taken road trips in a tiny, beat up, old car, packed to the brim. It was so nice to able to comfortable sit 6 people on such a long drive.  

laughing.  We seemed to do that a lot this week. I have some wonderful memories. I laughed til I hurt and cried.  I am grateful I was able to do that this week. There were times this year when I wondered if I would ever laugh again.

a husband who is willing to get the wiggles out. As we came home, we all quickly unloaded the van and cleaned it out. Next was bath time and pjs. As we were wrapping up, my husband looked at me and said "order some pizza, I am going to take the kids on a walk to get the wiggles out from a long road trip."  The kids were estactic. They ran quickly and got their coats, hats, and gloves! He even took the dog. As I watched them walk away I could not help but get misty eyed as I saw how happy they were.

pizza!! Nothing taste better after a warm bath, a walk to get the wiggles out, warm pjs, than to sit around your dining room table eating a pepperoni and pineapple pizza and talk about the wonderful time you had with wonderful people!!

warm baths.  It was so wonderful to wash all the grodiness of the road trip off in a warm bath and makes you oh so sleepy.

bed.  Need I say more!

Good night....Heading off to dreamland!

missing out

Sometimes it stinks that I can not document all the cute stuff that is going on in our house.  I mean I know I can write about them but writing about it just does not do it justice.  Pictures!!! Pictures!!! Pictures!!! That is what I love to see. Trust me I am taking tons.  I just can not post them.  Soon though. Very soon.  Adoption date is set for November 30, 2011 for two of our 3 kids at 8:30 a.m. Keep the prayers coming that we will be a forever family officially.  No matter what happens these kids will be ours in my heart.  I love them.  They are mine.  I see it, feel it, and know it.

I don't have any pictures I can post.  Well maybe just one of milton and I.  It was when we went to a local pumpkin patch here.  It was one of the best I have ever been to. Pumpkins galore, yummy food like sausage on a stick, fresh lemonade, old fashion soda wagon, fried taters, carnival rides, hayride, pony rides, pig races, pumpkin launcher, and so much more fun!!  I took tons of pictures of the kids and we played so much we wore them slap out.  Our niece came in and she was able to go with us. This picture was from when Milton and I were in the corn maze together lost.  So much fun. The only thing that could have made it better was if it was cooler.  I am sorry but shorts and flip flops in 85 degree weather does not scream fall.

The last thing I will leave you with is close to my heart. I had the opportunity to scare the crude out of some teenagers.  Oh the joy.  In a neighborhood close to ours they do a haunted trail every year.  It is a small one and serves as a fundraisers as the price of admission is a can food.  So I took my niece and I to it.   We had to park a little ways from the entrance as it was already crowded. As we are walking to the entrance of the haunted trail, I notice that we are coming on the exit.  I crotch down behind a bush as a group of teenage boys are running out of the trail yelling.  Just when they get close to me I come running out yelling.  Scared the living daylights out of them. Something you had to be there for. I hope everyone is enjoying their halloween festivities. I will be posting my annual halloween decorations post soon.  And my first year to post about our trick or treating adventures.  So excited. The girls picked our theme and I must say it is pretty cute.  stayed tuned!

Moi

Moi.....That is me in french... or at least I think it is.  I googled it. A lot of the blog lately seems to be dedicated to my kids and or what has been going on with the whole adoption/foster situation.   I am not complaining!! Trust me. I am happy that my blog is finally about something besides me, myself, and I.  However I know with the blogs that I read I sometimes think... Okay I like your kids but I am friends with you not your kids.  What is going on with you!  So I decided to list a few random facts about me right now.

1.  Lately I have been starting every morning with a smoothie.  They use to make me kind of gag but now I crave them and love them.  It is a great way to get some of my fruit serving in.

2.  After starting to redecorate my house I have realized that everyone of my rooms has blue in it as one of the main colors.  I guess I am really drawn to the color because I did not do it on purpose.

3.  I could never understand how people use to drink milk with dinner or lunch but lately I have been drinking milk with dinner.  I guess my body is craving it.

4.  Speaking of milk... I always drink ice in my milk.  I like my drinks really really cold and milk never seems to be cold enough.

5.  It has been hard because I am not a huge pink lover and I find that "all things little girl" come in pink pretty much. However I am becoming more in love with it when you see it on cute little girls.  Nothing looks bad on them.

6.  I love jewerly but rarely wear it.  I always see someone wearing it and think "man that just really makes their outfit" So I will go and buy some.  By the time I wear it, I feel like it is strangling me.  It gets caught in my hair or gets all twisted around.   So for special occasions I can wear a necklace or earrings but never a bracelet. It makes me feel to claustrophobic.

7.  Since I do not wear a lot of jewelry I usually accessorize with hair accents like headbands or flowers.

8.  I would describe my style as a vintage bohemian feel.

9.  The only vegetable that I can not choke down is a carrot (at least out of the ones that I have tried.) They just make me gag.  However, I always think they look fun to eat because of how crunchy they are. So I try them over and over again thinking that maybe my adult taste buds have evolved, but NOPE!!!!

10.  I just realized a lot of my random facts revolve around food and that kind of makes me sick.  On to think of more random facts.

11.  I use to think it was fun to have a unique samoan name as my last name when I got married.  Now I just find it annoying because I have to spell it a million times and pronounce it for everyone even more than that and then everyone just wants to debate if that is really how I pronounce my last name.

12.  I am obsessed with taking last names and making them first names. Like when we had Smith.  I wanted to name our little boy Jones instead of Reeve but Milton vetoed it.  Maybe for our next boy I can convince him.  None of my readers better steal that name. LOL

13.  When people talk about where they want to settle down and stay.  I have no clue where that is for me.  We have family all over the place.

14.  I want to try to live on the East coast one time in my life because no one in my family has ever done it.

15.  When people ask me what is your favorite holiday.  I always want to say Halloween because I really  really love it and get into it. However I always say Christmas because that is when I get to see my family and that tops everything. Plus Christmas represent Christ.

16.  I acknowledge that I am a horrible writer and that is why my blog is not very popular. However I can rock people's sock off in Math.

17.  I wish I have a hobby that I still do. I use to be really involved in theater but since being married I have always had something that I have to do at night....hence no theater.

18.  I am not big on paper products. What I mean by this...if I get someone a present I rarely get a card.  I just let them know it is from me and if I have something sentimental to say I try to write it in a letter. People throw cards away but they do not throw heart felt letters. For the same reason I do not do handouts with my yw lessons.  They throw them away and all I can think is wasted ink and wasted paper.

19.  With new age technology I am horrible about printing off pictures.  All my pictures are saved on a external hard drive. I always promise myself that I will print them one day.  Well that one day in 10 years has not happened.  Not looking forward to it when it does because I will be picking up like 1001 pictures and paying around that much for them.

20.  I use to be a morning person (probably a little too much) but since my thyroid problems I am really grumpy in the morning. It takes all I can to say hello to the kids in the morning in a nice voice.  After an hour of waking up though I am good.

That is all I can think of for now.  So until my next post about me, myself, and I.....I would really like to hear random facts about other people. I think it really lets you get to know a person.  So if you are reading this and you have a blog....please do one.

Alive

We are alive and kicking.....well barely kicking due to how busy we are.  So where did I leave off. Oh yeah...I remember.....we now have 3 kids. 3KIDS!!!! You heard right. On August 1st, 2011, Milton returned from a family reunion bringing our third child with him.  They were suppose to get at our house at 2 a.m that morning so you can imagine my panic when by 4 a.m Milton and said new child was not at my house yet and he was not answering either one of his cells phones (he had 2 at one point)  I finally can not take it anymore.  I am pacing and praying. I finally just go out and sit in my front yard looking for any form of a car.  FINALLY I SEE his little car zooming down our road.  His plane arrived late, one of his cell phones died, and the other one he left on the plane because he was trying to make sure our girl was okay.   So as he is getting out of the car I can see a little figure in the back.  I am so anxious to meet our 3rd child.  I have dreamt of her, hoped for her, prayed for you, tried to imagined exactly what she was like and who she looked like...and here she is sitting in a little tiny car in the dark and I cannot wait to meet her.  I am nervous for her, for me, for the changes it brings but all the nervous is overtaken by my great sense of excitement and joy knowing that a loving Heavenly Father brought her to us.  So as I rush to open the car door out steps this little sweet spirit of a beautiful girl...

Introducing Tesi Timoteo!!!!   Soon after that Milton tried to run us over with the car...not really....but kind of. Let's just say if Tesi would not have had a big luggage for the car to run over instead of us, Milton would have a very handicapped wife and daughter.  Thank heaven for watching out for us.

She is so much more than I could have ever imagined.  Her first week was kind of rough for her.  She was tearful and I could tell it was hard to be in a new place.  Thanks goodness I have been through this once before and knew that it just takes time and everything will be alright.  She is fitting in really well here and you can tell she loves being in a family with younger siblings. This does not mean that my children don't fight. I just think they are grateful to have 2 more people to blame on when something breaks. I jest.  She has such a people pleasing personality.  she is constantly offering to help anyone and everyone with everyday tasks.  She has a goofy side to her that loves to giggle and being silly but she is very tenderhearted.  I have to gentle tell her corrections or discipline throughout the day as to not offend her sweet spirit.  She is smart and can already read even though she came to our country not knowing any English and is only in the first grade this year.  She is the best hula hooper I know and can go on forever.  She likes all things that glitter and her favorite color goes from red to blue.  She listens very well.  She loves to sing and loves school. To be honest, she very much reminds me of a little me.  There are times that I wonder how I went throughout the day without her before she came. She is such a great little helper. She is so beautiful and her skin has such a glow to it.  My favorite thing to do is brush her black silky raven hair.  Her dad says she is humble, as looking to help, eager to learn, and such a little princess.

My next blog will have an update on all the kids but I know that I needed to at least document this monumental occasion in our family.  This is a huge event and one that we are grateful Heavenly Father and family felt that we were worthy enough to be apart of.

That's just Sick

Our family has been under the weather lately.  Nothing huge!  Just a little stomach problems and ear infections.   Two weeks ago Millie and I woke up with our tummies hurting.  We both just laid in bed while Reeve played with his toys.  Milton came home and convinced us to get up to head to lunch.  So out we went to lunch. I was feeling awful...no makeup...clothes wrinkled.  Milton seemed to think that if we got some food in our belly we would feel better. Although it was hard I was able to eat something and actually felt better.  Millie on the other hand kept feeling worse and worse. We had to stop by Costco to get some toilet paper.  Millie just laid her head on my hand as I just pushed the cart. I knew she was not feeling well.  We head home and she proceeds just lay on the couch. Meanwhile, I am on the phone with the insurance company chewing them out and Milton comes running in the room, throwing his hands up, saying get off the phone.....she is throwing up.  I proceed to go to the kitchen where I first see one of my worse nightmares as a new mother.  My baby sick and her sick on the floor.  Somehow I drew the short straw and got volunteered to clean it up. Also I guess someone felt that I needed more experience cleaning sick up off of stuff because I got to do it two more times after that.  Afterwards I did what my mom did. Put Millie in a cold dark room, with nice clean sheet, after a bath with fresh new pajamas, and a little glass of sprite.  I then dug out our little ancient tv and put on a movie for her. She requested a popsicle a little while later.

Then my little Reeve the next day started running a 102 fever and was really grumpy. I decided to take him to the after hours clinic at his pediatricians office. Now I know that you pro moms out there are like "102 fever that is small fries.  I don't take me kids in unless they are running 106 fever and their arm is falling off" I exaggerate.  However I am a new mom and I with my luck I would have kept him home and his arm would have started falling off and he would have ran a 106 fever at 3 am and I would have been in my ER all night. (like my run on sentence. My english teacher is probably fainting right now) So I decided to take him in since no one was at the clinic.  I really just wanted to give them a little business. He had an ear infection and they gave him some antibiotics and we were sent home. We are now all on the mend (cross my fingers, knock on wood) and ready for more summer fun activities.

Cultivate a Soft Answer

I suck as a person and a mother.  So this transition as a mother is harder than I thought it was going to be.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE these kids.  They are so adorable and I often find myself telling Reeve I am going to eat his face or sneaking Millie in another toy that she does not need.  They def make my days brighter and I love all the trips to the pool, splash park, library, wal-mart, and so on.  We pray everyday to make them a member of our forever family. I am not complaining about them. It is more me as a person.

Tonight while I was at Young Women's (that is a program in our church for girls ages 12-18) we were talking about Personal Progress ( a program that the girls do to develop themselves and they have to do projects under certain values). We were discussing something that the young women can do with their mother and how it can be a really neat experience.  I was looking around at the young women with their mothers and could see the love that existed between them.

Then it made me think of my mother.   I LOVE my mother.  I don't know if love is strong enough word. She is one of my best friends. I talk to her probably a thousand times a day. Anytime she comes to visit me or I go to visit her I count down the days and I relish very day I am with her. My dream is for her to live near me. There is nothing that I can not talk to her about. She is one of my greatest blessings in life.

I want that with my daughter. I try to think what did my mother do to make me feel loved, to make me feel like I could come to her with anything. I knew growing up that I had one of the coolest mothers ever, even though we make fun of her quite a bit. I want that with Millie. I want her to think of me and have the warm feelings that I have for my mother.

However, part of me feels like maybe I am not creating an environment to cultivate that. I remember one family home evening my mother read an article that was titled "Cultivating a Soft Answer." She talked to us about that we are too loud, and yell too much, and how dramatic we are, and how we need to "cultivate a soft answer" Us being Us just laughed at her and rolled our eyes.  We still make fun of her to this day about "cultivating a soft Answer".

However now that I am mother. I am seeing that their is something to this.  I am def to quick to yell, grit my teeth, jump on my kids cases, and have found that I am strict mother.  I will see Millie yelling a Reeve and think "OMG she is imitating me. Do I really sound like that to her?" And in this case imitation is not the best form of flattery. It is def a mirror.

So why am I writing this?  Why am I boring you with these details?  I wanted to put it out there in the universe and to keep myself accountable. I wanted this post to serve as a reminder to let go and LOVE my kids instead of trying to teach all day long.  If I am trying to teach I need to remember that the great teacher of all (Jesus) did not teach in anger.

so here is to cultivating a soft answer (in my whisper voice)

Splish Splash

I obviously can not show pictures of the kids where you can see them and who they are yet but I was able to snap some pictures of them at the splash park the other day of their feet, toes, or from behind.  So I hope you enjoy the pictures. They are from when we went to a splash park and then playing doctor at home. Millie is obsessed with playing doctor and doctor shows and anyone who has anything broken.  It is also fun to see  Reeve run around and wave his hands in excitement at the splash park. Millie is too cute and she makes sure her little brother is protected but tries to run through the sprinklers at the same time. 

Both kids came to our house terrified of water and we have been working all summer on this. They are doing so much better and now it is opposite. They pretty much have no fear and I have to constantly make sure they are making safe.  It is HOTT here so we go to the splash park or pool a lot.  You know I got to work on the kids' tans.  We can not have a bunch of whities up in here. Just kidding y'all.  I lather the kids in sunscreen. I feel so privileged to be able to spend the day doing fun stuff like picnics, splash parks, pools, playgrounds, shopping, movies, science museums, shopping, ice cream, popsicles, walks, and all things summer.  It makes me happy when we are all out as a family and to see them run around happy.

 

Hello World

I feel like I apologize a lot on this blog for my lack of blogs. So once again I am sorry for the lack of blogs. I am doing the very thing that irritates me.  I blog hop at night and I get so annoyed when one of my favorite blogs have not updated for a week and here I am going on months.  I mean honestly not a lot of people read my blog but I am not doing it just for that. I am doing it as a way to journal what is going on in our family.

As many of you know, we have face a lot of heartache in our family the past couple of months with the loss of our son Smith.  I am not ready to completely discuss it on here yet or give a lot of the details of how it all ended.  It just too hard and still too fresh. I know many of you have expressed your concern to my mother that I am not the same Amanda.  I 100% agree with you. I am trying to get back to that person. I have my good days and bad days and I do try hard to be sad when I am by myself. However, sometimes I can not help it. There is the underlying sadness of missing my son. It is a weird place to be. Losing him was like a death but it was not like a death at the same time. I will never see him again but yet I know he is still alive in this world somewhere. I have no grave to go mourn to but yet I still mourn. I still count him apart of our family but yet he is apart of someone else now.  Anyways, I can save this for maybe my more personal journal or another post when I am ready to discuss it.  I still cry.  I still think of him every day.

A couple weeks after losing Smith we got a phone call from our agency asking us to take two kids into foster care that they are going to try to terminate parents rights.  At first I said I needed to talk to my husband and I would get back to them. I wanted to say no because I thought our family needed to mourn before bringing kids in our home again especially ones that we might not keep. However as I hung up the phone I just heard this voice saying say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So I just did that. I called the agency back and said yes and .....now we have two kids in our home. They are ages 4 and 17 months. The girl is 4 and the boy is 17 months.  Unfortunately while they are still classified at foster kids I am not allowed to post pictures or give their real names.  Once they are in adoption mode (meaning parents rights are terminated and we are going towards adoption I do not have as any restrictions) I can post pictures and all that jazz. We have a lot of fun together and I can not wait to show you how cute they are. Everyone tells us they look like Milton and Me.

For now we will call the girl Millie because that is what we will change her name to when we adopt her if we get to and the boy we will call Reeve. At least that is what we will call them on our blog. In real life we have to call them by their names until we get to adopt them. I know a lot of you are wondering how likely is it that we get to adopt them. The answer....I have no clue. We will not know until probably September. We are just going forward on faith of the original answer we got.

A wonderful day!

Whewwww if you knew my day....lion, tigers, and bears oh my! Dinosaurs and pizza, ice cream faces, playing doctor with shredded newspapers ( all over the living room floor) big bellies and pigtails, girlie bandages on grown men and red balls bouncing in a whirl wind. I would not change it for the world

I can't do this

How do you say goodbye to your child forever?

Keep It Coming

Our family definitely needs your prayers. Just pray that Heavenly Father keeps sustaining us and brings us peace in our difficult journey ahead. We thank each one of you that celebrated our family blessing and we know that so many of you are mourning with us now. Milton is a lot stronger than me in all this. I wish I could be like that. Many of you will probably not see me for a while. I just don't want to talk about it. What's done is done. I am doing everything I can to hold it together and stay strong in faith and talking about it is just too hard. I know many of you want to know the details. There are not many. The birth father wants the baby and as we all know if he wants it he gets it and now the birth mother will be getting her rights back. Sometimes there is no justice in this world.

I know many of you want to bring us dinner. I am so thankful for the gesture but I honestly do not want dinner. We have had so many people buy us baby gifts and do so much for us.  I already feel indebted and dinner would just make me feel more indebted. One day when I can talk about it I will tell you the story of the two glorious months that I had the privileged to be called a mom. I hope my story helps everyone that reads this blog know what a divine and special calling it is to be called mother. How lucky you are that Heavenly Father found you worthy enough to bestow that blessing on you. Cherish every moment of it. Even the hard times. I would give the best day of my life for the hardest day of yours of being a mother.  I would give it all just to experience the chaotic hectic and bone tired days just to be able to be given that opportunity to have that most sacred roll.

I won't lie. I am a little broken. I will never be the same again. I can't! I think when you open your heart up over and over again and to have it crushed over and over again that you can not be the same person. Trials change you. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  I use to have such faith in people.  That most people will do the right thing, that they honestly do not mean to hurt you. I know longer have that faith.  I now recognize that everyone in this world will run you over to get what they want and then reverse right over just to make sure your good and crushed.

Thanks for all the pep talks, prayers, fasting, well wishes, sympathy, and so much more.  for now this girl is done!

I'll Say A Little Prayer For You

That is essentially what I am asking everyone! Please pray for our family. Long story short but birthmother got upset at us and basically told us well since we will not do what she wants that she knows who the birth father is and is going to tell him about the baby.  Our hearts are of course worried. However, we still see Heavenly Father in all of this and our putting our trust in him! It is our testimony that he will sustain us and that what is meant to happen will.

Like my grandmother always said "God is never later, and He is never early. He is always right on time."

We are still requesting prayers. We need them. I have my moments where my faith is strong and is getting me through all this and I have the other momemts where I am not so good. What can I say? I am human.

Please remember that to not leave comments about this situation on my facebook. you can send a private message to me on facebook or comment here but not on my wall. That is not to say that you can never comment on my wall.  Just not regarding this situation since it is being monitored.

Coming Soon!

I know most of your are dying to know the story of our new little blessing and are probably wondering why I have not blasted pictures of him all over facebook and shouted from the rooftops. The answer.....I was being kept from doing that and let's just say monitored.  It was so hard to keep it as secret as long as we did! so I needed a venue where I could tell everyone the story and post as many pictures as I wanted and not be told what to do or what to delete and so on. So that is why my blog is private. 

So I am adding everyone that requested to be added and as soon as I get there I will be telling everyone the story of Smith (because it is his story and important to document) and blasting his pictures until everyone is sick of it and their eyes go cross because of all the pictures I post.  So look for it real soon!