Weekend Excitement

This weekend my mom and my brother's family all came up to spend some time with us.  Robert and I have several projects around the house that we would like to get done before summertime and one of those is to build and organize a shed in our backyard.  Right now 1/2 of our garage serves as our shed, but we really need that room to move our gym equipment out of the house.  We are working towards creating more room inside our home for when we adopt.  My brother is very good at carpentry stuff and he volunteered to come up and help with the shed.  They got the base constructed which is the hardest part and now (if it will ever stop raining) Robert can do the rest (we bought a building kit that you just have to put it together).

The shed is going in the back corner of our yard....can't tell you how excited I am to finally be getting a shed!
I have wanted one for quite some time.

Luckily, the rain held off and the guys were able to finish the floor.  By dark on Saturday night they were ready to begin assembling the actual building.  They had said that they wanted to keep working until they finished it.  So, around 8:00 pm  they had just gotten flood lights set up, so they could see what they were doing when the unplanned happened.......

You see, inside the house, the ladies were watching the Royal Wedding on DVR while the kiddos were playing around in the playroom.  Everything was happy and bliss until we heard a loud shriek and cry coming from Carson.  So, I ran in there and picked him up off the floor.............he kept crying and crying and once we sat him down on the couch we realized that he could not move his arm and he was in a lot of pain.  Once he calmed down he told us that he had jumped off the computer desk chair onto the carpeted floor head (and arm) first.  Not exactly sure what he was trying to accomplish by that, but his arm did not like it.

I ran outside and got the guys.  My brother used to work at a vet clinic and Robert's friend who was helping is a pharmacist.  So, we immediately gave him Tylenol and my brother splinted it.  Then Robert and I rushed him to the emergency room.  It is horrible to see your child in pain and there is no way that you can help them.  Sure enough, his arm was broken!!

He got a temporary cast at the ER and then they scheduled us an appointment for today to get the real cast.

This was our first experience with broken bones in either of our children.  It was amazing that once they secured his arm, he didn't hurt anymore and was even joking around with the doctor and nurse.  He was excited to be getting a sling and immediately said that he wanted a green cast!!  On Sunday at church he showed it off very proudly!! :) 

My mom, brother, and his family went to church with us on Sunday morning.

Sunday night the kids were in a musical at church.  Carson looked so pitiful in his sling.  :(
They did a great job singing, though.

Today he got the real cast.  He will have to wear it for 4 weeks probably.  He turns five years old on Wednesday, so I keep telling people that he almost made it to five with no broken bones.  That would have been quite an accomplishment, because he is always climbing on things and jumping off things.  So it would have been a miracle if he had made it all the way to five; he missed it by only four days!  Ha,ha!

One last picture with the temporary cast before getting the permanent one.

This is the nurse putting the cast on him.

Yeah!  A green cast!  The doctor said that he would heal up just fine; it would just take a few weeks.

Needless to say, the shed project got put on hold with the other excitement of the night.  And it rained all day on Sunday, so they didn't get to work on the shed then.  Hopefully Robert can work on it this week once it dries up a little.  I will try to remember to post a picture of the finished project.  :)

Baby Steps

I haven't talked about our adoption journey lately here on my blog, but it is very much a part of my daily thoughts and prayers.  We also pray about it as a family everyday.  We still do not have any foster children in our home, but we are waiting and hoping.  I know that God has a plan for our family and He is showing me that if I will trust Him and take baby steps of obedience, He will lead us.  He knows where we are going, I just have to hold on to His hand and trust His lead. 

I've heard people say over the years, that once you step out in faith, God does the rest.  I have seen this played out in my own life over and over the past few months.  We have never done this before and are walking blindly most of the time.  God continues to lead us ahead little by little.  I hope that the point will come that I can openly share all the crazy ways that God is working and what He's doing in our life, but let it suffice to say He has already begun to work out all the details. 

When we began this process of fostering to adopt, I would tell people that we were not going to bring any child into our home unless God had given us a definite peace and even a sign.  I jokingly said that they would practically have to have JESUS written on their forehead and that I would need to feel such a peace about bringing them into our home that it would be as if I was leaving my own child out in the weather.  An unexplainable love is already growing inside of me for these babies, just as my love for my first two babies started while they were still in my womb and I did not know them yet.  God has showed up in so many ways, and in each instance that I realize He is working, I see the etching of JESUS become darker and darker.  He promised me at the beginning of this process that He would not leave me.  He is keeping that promise. 

I wrestled with God for almost a year as I began to feel His calling toward adoption.  I told Him every reason why it was not a good idea and why it was too risky.  There is one day in particular that stands out in my mind.  I was putting away laundry in Carson's room as my children were playing together in a different room.  I could hear their sweet little voices as they played (they do occasional play together nicely--ha!) and unknown to anyone else a struggle was going on inside of me between me and God.  As I quietly folded and put away laundry, I told Him how much I love my children and that there was no way that I could love a child that I did not birth as much as them.  I concluded that it would be unfair to a child to bring them into our family, because Tori and Carson would always be my favorites.  I remember shutting the dresser drawer, in my mind shutting the doors to that idea.  The problem was that God just kept opening that drawer back up! :)

Awhile back a friend who has also adopted through foster care was sharing with me a little of her story.  She and her husband have three biological sons and then their youngest is adopted.  She told me how the love for her adopted son is so strong that she sometimes feels it is stronger than that of the three that she birthed.  She often wondered how that could be and then someone told her that it was simply because she had been obedient and God had blessed with her an unexplainable love for her new son.

One morning as I was praying I began to be concerned that I would love my new children more than my biological children.  I began asking God to please allow me to keep the strong bond and love that I have with my first two as our family continues to grow.  That's when it hit me-----wow, what a long way God has brought me in one year.  I went from assuring God that I could not love a child as much as my own to pleading with Him to not allow me to forget my existing children as I feel this new love grow.  God has been busy doing some serious changing in my heart!!

I know that even once we bring children into our home I will not be able to share openly about them here, for safety reasons.  I hope though, that someone will be able to take my generalizations and use them for good in their own life.  God may not be calling you to adopt, but whatever He is calling you to do, if you are willing to take the risk and step out on faith, He will catch you.  Once we hand over the reins, God has control of the ride.....and man, it's going to be exciting!!

Easter Sunday

We had a good day yesterday as we celebrated the fact that we serve a risen, living Savior!  I love our church and love being there to worship, especially on Easter.  But since we live almost two hours away from our families, there's no way that we can go to our church and then also be with family for lunch and for the rest of the day.  We did have a great day, but I wished that I could wiggle my nose and be in our hometown for a few hours and then wiggle my nose and be back here.

Our whole family

Tori took our picture.....I thought she did a pretty good job!

How cute is that?!  She told her daddy to pose.  :)

After church we ate at one of our favorite restaurants and then came home and hunted Easter eggs.  The kids wanted to keep hiding them over and over.  They even hid them, so that Robert and I could find them.  :)

Silly girl!  Wow, she found one with money!!!!

Easter Cookies

Since Tori didn't have to go to school yesterday, we decided it would be fun to make Easter sugar cookies.  We've done it at Christmas time before, but never at Easter.  So, we thought it would be a fun Good Friday project. 

In the morning, we made the sugar cookies.  I was given a great sugar cookie recipe that is very simple, but taste great!  The kids always love helping me measure out ingredients and pour them in the bowl.  We had gotten everything out and had started mixing the ingredients when I realized that I was out of stick butter.  I was afraid that using tub butter would mess up the cookies, since we were rolling and cutting them into shapes.  If we were going to go to all that trouble, I wanted to make sure something stupid like using the wrong type of butter didn't mess them up.  Anyway, so I called my neighbor down the street who is super sweet and asked her if she had any unsalted stick butter.  I promised her some of the finished product if I could have some butter. Ha!  One of her sons rode his bike down to our house and delivered two sticks of butter!  Now that's a great neighbor! :)

After the cookie dough was made, it had to go in the refrigerator for at least an hour to get firm.

Then the rolling and the cutting began!  We made flowers, lilies, bunnies, butterflies, and crosses.  Once we got them all cut out, it was time for baking.  I didn't take a picture of them cooling, but of course, they had to sit on the cooling racks for awhile until they weren't hot anymore.  Then last night, the decorating finally happened!

They turned out really cute!  Making cookies also taught my children patience.  They didn't realize there was so much waiting involved in making cookies!  :)  Here's our finished products:

Disney on Ice

Last night my friend, Devon, and I took our kids to see Disney on Ice.  It was so much fun!  I loved it as much as the kids and I was ready to come home and watch all the Disney movies!  :)  Another friend told me about a deal where I could get my tickets for 50% off.  It was a great deal!  The three of us were able to go for less than $25.00.  You just can't beat that for the entertainment we received!

Can't wait until it comes to town again!! 

Living Proof Live

This past weekend I got to hear Beth Moore teach live!  I have done several of her Bible studies and I feel like I know her personally, because she is so down to earth and she has walked along beside me as I studied God's word through her Bible studies. There is no doubt in my mind that God has anointed her and I would encourage anyone who is interested in growing in their relationship with God to seek out any of the studies that she has written.

God blessed me this weekend by allowing me to be surrounded by some of my dearest friends while we worshipped God together and grew closer to Him.  Can't tell you how much I love these girls and what they mean to me.  God put each of them in my life for a reason.

Since I don't have any sisters of my own, God gave me Brandi.  This is me, her, and her mom.  We don't live in the same town anymore, so we had the best time going out to eat Friday night and catching up.

These are two of my other dear friends who God has blessed me with to "do life" with.  We go to church together, we volunteer in the children's ministry together, our kids are in the same preschool class, our husbands are good friends, it goes on and on.   Only God could orchestrate the amazing connections that He has made for me with these women.  We enjoyed going out to eat on Saturday when the conference was over and sharing what God had showed us.

The second day we got to sit up fairly close.  The pictures that I took of Beth did not turn out very well.  The pictures are dark and she looks a little scary.....she really is a very pretty lady.

It doesn't help that I caught her in mid-word. :)

The icing on the cake was that I got to meet Kelly at Kelly's Korner's best friend, Laurie.  You would have thought I had met the president I was so excited!!  :)  She was probably surprised I didn't go ahead and ask for her autograph!!  LOL!  It's just so much fun to meet some one in person who you have read about for over two years.

Fun Friday Favorites

I thought it might be fun on Friday to share a few of my favorite things.

Favorite places to shop for clothes:  Maurices, CATO, Rue 21

Favorite places to browse:  Hobby Lobby, Kirkland's, Garden Ridge, and any Hallmark store

Favorite places to eat:  Most any Mexican Restaurant (as long as they have good salsa), Chili's

Favorite Fast Food:  Zaxby's and Arby's

Favorite Movies:  Fools Rush In, Dance with Me, Selena, The Notebook

Favorite Ingredient to Cook With:  Worshiture sauce (I could put this on everything)

Favorite Drink:  I used to LOVE sweet tea, but I'm trying to reduce the sugar in my diet, so now I drink mostly water with lemon or unsweet tea with lemon.  I LOVE putting fresh lemon or lime juice in whatever I am drinking.

Favorite Snack:  ro-tel cheese dip and chips, hands down!

Favorite People:

Ok, ok, I know that it's Sunday night (not Friday), but this post has been sitting on my computer all weekend and I never sent it.  So, I'm posting it anyway.  Hopefully you enjoyed learning a little about me you didn't know.

Manna Muffins

I wanted to share a great breakfast muffin recipe that I have.  They are very easy to make and they taste great!  Plus my kids love them because they get to dip them in the butter and cinnamon/sugar mixture all by themselves.
Dry ingredients--1 3/4 cup flour
                          1/4 cup sugar
                          2 tsp baking powder
                          1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients--1 egg (beaten)
                           3/4 cup milk
                           1/3 cup oil
                           1 tsp vanilla (this is not in the original recipe, but I decided a little vanilla couldn't hurt it)

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  In a smaller bowl, stir together all the wet ingredients and then pour into the larger bowl.  Stir just until moistened.  Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.

In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup sugar with 3 tsp cinnamon (those are the measurements that the origianl recipe gives, but you can't really mess this up.  I never measure exactly).   Also melt 1/2 stick of butter in another small bowl.

Bake muffins for 10-15 minutes.  Once done, let them cool enough to be handled without burning your hand.  Then dip each muffin into the bowl with the butter mixture and then into the bowl with the cinnamon mixture.

The original recipe described them like this:
These muffins are hearty and taste almost like biscuits.  They are not super-sweet desert-style muffins, but once you taste them you'll probably call them a little slice of heaven on earth.

That comment got me to thinking about the manna that God provided the Israelites when they were in the desert (Exodus 16).  It made me wonder what the manna tasted like and I was reminded of the story of God keeping His promise to provide for His poeple. 

Robert and I have been going through a training at our church that is teaching us how to incorporate more faith interactions in our day to day life at home with our children.  This gave me the best idea.........why not name different foods after stories in the Bible so that whenever we cook that food we can tell the story that goes along with it and be reminded of what God was wanting us to learn from each story.

So, I decided that our Cinnamon Muffins would from now on be called Manna Muffins.  The name will be a great conversation starter in the future to talk about the story of the Isrealites with our kids.  Hadn't come up with any more yet.  If anyone has any great ideas, please do share.......I can think of great stories that have to do with lambs, but unfortunately we never cook lamb at our house.  :)

Here's Carson dipping

Here's Carson, well, just being Carson

Here's the finished product....at least what was left.  One batch makes twelve and we were able to make
six of them disappear very quickly.