Adoption Fundraiser Part 1

Here we go again! Three years ago we began the process of adoption to bring home our sweet little Natalie Jade.  We have been so blessed the past two years with her and we can’t imagine a single day without her in our lives!  And now we are ready to expand our family and bring home another precious baby; a sibling for Natalie.

With our first adoption Brian and I were blessed to have wonderful jobs and some sweet friends and family members to help offset the cost of adoption.  The Lord provided so we weren’t in debt nor did we have to worry about taking out a loan.  For that, we are grateful!

For those of you who don’t know, at the end of the 2011-2012 school year I resigned my position as a classroom teacher in order to be home with Natalie and to prepare to bring home our next child.  This is a decision I never thought I would make, but I am more than excited about it!  I felt like the Lord was telling me it was time to take care of my family.

We are working again with Generations Adoptions Agency out of Waco, Texas. The ladies who work here are incredible at what they do to support both birth families and adoptive families.  More importantly is their love for the Lord and how He works in the lives of families.  We have been blessed beyond belief with this agency.  Generations, as we have found, is not only the best agency but the most cost effective one.  With that being said, there is still a considerable cost associated with adoption.

Piecing together puzzles can be tedious, time consuming, frustrating, overwhelming, and joyful all at the same time.  But the finished product always makes you smile; mostly because of the effort it took to complete the puzzle!  The same goes for adoption.  “God has ordained this waiting period for us, however long, tedious and overwhelming it may be.”

If you feel called, here’s where you can help.  We have created a special puzzle to remember this time of waiting for our family.  We are asking that you help us piece together the puzzle in support of our adoption. For each piece we are asking you to donate $10, and we will write your name (or your family’s name) on the back. Once the puzzle is complete, we will frame it and hang it in the nursery to be a reminder of all those that donated and prayed for us in helping bring our baby home.

If you do not feel called to give, here’s how we would like you to pray for us.

1.       That our birth mom will be surrounded by friends and family that will encourage her to choose adoption, not abortion.

2.       That our birth mom will make wise choices for her body as she carries the baby

3.       That we will grow to have a relationship with our birth mom

4.       A safe delivery for both birth mom and baby

5.       A healthy baby

Thank you for loving and supporting our family during this time as we grow our family God’s way!

Brian, Whitney, and Natalie

**I will periodically post updates as our puzzle grows!

4 Generations: a picture I always wanted.

Thank you, Lord.

Adoption Ministry

For about a year now, Brian and I have felt the Lord tugging at our hearts to get an adoption ministry started in our church. With the size of our church, there is no reason why there shouldn't already be a ministry. I guess the Lord is waiting on us, huh?! Some friends of ours who brought home a precious little girl from China the same year we brought Natalie home have felt the same calling.  After a crazy busy year in both of our lives, we have teamed up again to put our calling into action.  Today my friend, Susan and I met to get our thoughts and ideas together.  We quickly realized our long term vision is quite large!  We managed to settle on a proposal for our church leadership that outlined a couple of different short term goals for this ministry.  I am excited to see how God leads us, and what he can do with this ministry. All great ideas begin with someone's passion. And passion for adoption and orphan care is definitely what we have!

On a side note: One week until our home study!

On the other side note: Look forward to hearing more about our adoption fundraiser!

And just because these posts are always more fun with pictures:

The back yard is blazing hot in the evenings so we took our fun to the front yard with water balloons and a water bucket!

Well I had others but this stupid thing won't rotate it. Blah!

Swim Day

Thanks to the Royse City splash park being shut down this week we ended up in Wylie at my friend, Liz's neighborhood pool. I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled about going to Wylie again this week (I'm trying really hard to stay on budget), but I'm SO glad we did. We had a blast. Her pool was huge, but it also had a mini splash pad, as well as a kiddie pool that was NOT a hot tub like ours. It was a perfect place!

The splash pad had sprayers that were much calmer than the ones at our park so Natalie actually played in them without me having to be there carrying her around. It was so fun!

On a random other note....

I walked outside my front door this afternoon to get the mail and discovered this beauty on my flowers!

It was the biggest butterfly I have seen in awhile, and especially on our flowers.

I was enthralled by it.

Family Fun Night

Friday night I declared it 'Make a tent in your living room' night at our house! I grew up making these tents and for some reason it is just plain fun. So of course I need to pass this love on to Natalie.

Here are a few good things needed to make a successful tent in your house.

clothespins, sheets (both fitted and flat) and a cute little kid like this one to enjoy it!

Daddy wasn't home in time to help us construct the tent so I needed to tap into my inner engineer. I will say this is our second time to make a tent, and I did much better this time around! One chair in the middle was the basis for every sheet I used. This is why fitted sheets are so great! They hook right on the tops of our chairs.

We made sure we ate dinner in our tent. Brian is such a good sport!

Natalie did a little bit of reading in our tent, but the highlight of the tent family fun was snuggling down to watch Tangled! This is the only movie that she will remotely sit still in. She laughs when we laugh, and covers how mouth while bending over like it is the funniest thing in the world. Precious.





We grabbed all the pillows off our bed, and her special lamb pillow and cozied up to our movie. We watched about half of the movie before it was NJ's bedtime. The tent was so much fun we decided to leave it up all day Saturday. She crawled back in it to eat lunch and play on her own. I would call this evening a success and one I will have to remember. Maybe a once a month kind of tradition, who knows!

Under Construction

My friend, Susan, came over today to help me learn a little more about this blog and how to change it up without really messing things up.  You know me and technology haven't gotten along lately! So, hopefully you can see the new changes on my blog. AND hopefully they are good changes.

I told myself I was not going to stay up really late tonight, and it is currently 11:15pm. Darn! I still haven't posted my tent pictures for the evening. Oh well! There's always tomorrow right?

See you then......

Granny comes to town

We had a mid-week treat for lunch today! Granny came to town. My mom and dad are taking my Granny to see her sister in New Mexico for a few days. What a road trip that will be, right?! My poor dad=) Trapped in a car with his wife and her mother, equally as bossy and stubborn! And guess what......I'm just like them! And I couldn't be more proud.

They stopped for lunch as they were passing through so Granny could see the house and see Natalie! It has been since Christmas if I remember correctly (and that is just sad!).  NJ sure has changed since then! Mom keeps her posted with pictures, but that's just not the same. I'm glad Granny got a chance to hear her chatter and laugh. Sweet, priceless memories. I hope Natalie will somehow recall these memories when she is older. It breaks my heart that she won't truly know or remember her Papa. He and Granny together are the family example for how to build a strong, Christian marriage. 67 years to be exact.

Granny took Nat on a ride on her walker and Natalie loved it! The funniest part was watching Granny (who obviously is not a quick mover) take off like she was racing to the door with Natalie making truck noises! I nearly got tickled seeing her move so quickly (relatively speaking). =)

I love this one.  One of the new phrases we have taught Natalie when we are joking around is, "I'm gonna bust you up!" We wave our fist around and act like we are going to take her out. She thinks this is hilarious, and always says whilst giggling,  'gin' wanting us to do it again.  Natalie's version sounds more like, "I bus you up!"  This picture capture Mimi saying it to her and NJ laughing hysterically. Love that smile.

And this one speaks for itself. "I wud you, Ganny."

This is what Natalie does when something is "oh so funny!"

Our time with family was super short but we take what we can get! They will be passing back through next week so hopefully we will get them for a short bit again. Thanks for stopping by! We love you Mimi, Poppi, and Granny!

                                                                             Bye!