Journey 2 Silas' Sister

This & That

2012-01-18T21:07:00.001-06:00

Last Friday, we got a dusting of snow, but where we live you would think it was at least 12 inches!:) I think it’s because I grew up in the North where they rarely called school off for anything that I find it so comical that they will call school off even at the prediction of snow here. Nonetheless, I am sure the teachers love it, and Silas is thrilled to have snow…regardless of the amount. I am glad he got to play in it a bit that morning because it had all melted by the afternoon.

He had already tossed the gloves here because he couldn’t eat the snow as well with them!

The next day Troy spent 1/2 the day taking apart Silas’ toddler bed and the bed in our guest bedroom. We then switched them and converted Silas’ bed back to a crib for our daughter. Silas got to sleep in his big boy bed for the 1st time at nap that day. He has done great with the transition, and he seems to be more comfortable with the extra room so I think it was perfect timing!

One last picture(posed) in his toddler bed

Our big boy that looks so small in this bed:)

The sneak peek at the nursery. Actually, this is all that is completed, but I think it’s a good start. Troy helped me put up the wall words and my mom sewed the bedding. I love it so far. We just need our beautiful daughter to make it complete!

Silas got the opportunity to play with one of his good friends when I had a Thirty-One party at my house this week. I just thought this picture that Troy captured was too sweet, and it just so happened to be on Martin Luther King Day. On Facebook, Troy posted the picture with this phrase by Dr. King, and it made me smile to think that at least part of his dream was coming true. "I have a dream . . . that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sister and brothers." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Finally, it was 9 years ago today that Troy proposed to me at Indiana University(where I received my undergraduate degree), and of course, I said “yes”. So, I have to share the legend about the gazebo where he proposed. “One popular belief is the promise of matrimony for Indiana sweethearts, as long as they kiss under the gazebo outside of Maxwell Hall at exactly midnight. A fairy tale-esque tradition, this legend inspires many proposals and romantic evenings under the gazebo. It’s kind of hard to refuse your man when IU has destined you together for all eternity.” No, he didn’t propose at midnight, but I do believe we’re destined together for all of eternity! I am blessed!

Birthday Fun & Thirty-One

2012-01-10T21:55:00.001-06:00

We got to attend two different birthday parties for some of Silas’ buddies this past weekend. I love birthdays at this age, and it is always great to celebrate the miracle of life! I honestly think Silas’ favorite part at both parties was the cupcakes. We do give him sweets(monitored of course), but he ate cupcakes like they were going out of style. I think he gets that from me:)

First up was a monster themed party for these good friends, Bates and Harrison, who turned 3!

Bates is ready to dive in!

Silas gets overwhelmed in larger crowds so he stuck pretty close to Troy and I for the majority of the party

Everyone coloring their monsters!

Next up was the pirate and the princess party for Silas’ friends, Elijah and Ryann. Silas loved the eye patch!

Silas with the birthday boy, Elijah!

Birthday Princess, Ryann

Silas and Lucy Lane. Doesn’t she look thrilled to have her picture taken:)

All the kids got to participate in a ‘treasure’ hunt as part of the party, and then they got to spend the afternoon playing(the party was held at a local children’s museum). All in all, we had a blessed weekend enjoying time as a family and celebrating good friends turning one year older!

I also wanted to share with you about a recent opportunity we have been presented with to help raise funds for our adoption. We are at the point where we are currently saving for our travel expenses, and we were so blessed that our friend, Dovota Courtoy, said she would be willing to share a portion of her proceeds(~25%) from her next Thirty-One Sale. I don’t know if you are familiar with Thirty-One products but they have super cute bags as well as numerous things to help ‘organize’ your life. I love to organize so this got me excited! For my local friends, we have a few house parties being hosted around town; however, I didn’t want to leave my non-local friends out so we are having an online sale as well. The orders for the online sale need to be placed by 1/27/12 if you are interested in helping us bring our daughter home. You can go here:

www.mythirtyone.com/dovota and click “Place an Order”;then choose Shop Now for Amber Lucht’s Thirty-One Party

Please feel free to share the link with family and friends. Thanks!

Melkam Gena and New ‘Do’

2012-01-07T20:41:00.001-06:00

In America, we celebrate Christmas on December 25; however, in Ethiopia the celebration is held on January 7 and we are delighted to celebrate Christmas on both of these dates in our home. We started our celebration last night by inviting some friends from church to try out a relatively new, local Ethiopian restaurant. It was our first time to try this one out, and we loved it! I didn’t get any pictures at the restaurant, but I did manage to get one of Silas once we got home; however, the pictures reveal that he was less than thrilled about getting his picture taken. Also, check out his new ‘do’! I had planned to have someone else do his hair, but she had to go out of town SO…I watched a YouTube tutorial on finger coils and I didn’t think it turned out too bad for my 1st real attempt. It took me about an hour and a half(Silas watched a movie and required some bribery with a candy cane), and my client was a little on the squirmy side at times:) I included a few pictures of the top and back.

Today we continued our little celebration by making an Ethiopian ‘snack’. I was looking for something simple since Silas would be helping me, and these little Ethiopian fried snacks were pretty easy.

This is the official name for what we made

Ready to put in the pan

Ready to eat! Silas liked them so that was a plus(he has a ways to go with developing a taste for Ethiopian food….right now he primarily sticks to injera and chickpeas based dishes!)

We can’t wait until our daughter is home to join in some of these little celebrations with us. Melkam Gena!

Christmas 2011 & Official December #

2012-01-03T22:21:00.001-06:00

Wow! It is hard to believe that 2012 is already here. I don’t know where the last half of December went, but it seemed like a bit of a whirlwind. We spent the majority of our Holidays traveling, and we were able to visit both of our families even though they live in two different states. We really desire to start some of our own Christmas Eve/Day traditions at our house, and we’re praying about the best way to accomplish this. Overall, we had a very blessed Christmas despite our entire family getting hit by the dreaded stomach virus. I didn’t get nearly as many pictures as I would have liked to due to our being out of commission for a few days, but I have a few to share below.

All smiles on Christmas Eve

Silas with his forced smile…all ready for Christmas Day Service

Quick family photo at Grandpa and Grandma Lucht’s house

Grandma Lucht opening one of her favorite gifts…jewelry!

Ready to play with some of his new gifts

Not sure about this smile! It looks like he is in pain. He loved his new monkey hat he got from Aunt Connie!

Silas was thrilled that it snowed at Grandpa and Grandma Lucht’s house, and the snow passed his taste test!

It wasn’t too deep so he enjoyed running through it..

Grandpa Lucht assisted with finding more snow to eat:)

Car entertainment as we traveled from Troy’s parents back down to see my family

Sadly, this is the only picture I have from visiting my family. It was mid 50s and sunny one day so we decided to take advantage of the weather and go to the park. Silas loves swinging and his Mamaw was happy to oblige his request to be pushed.

More car pictures as we traveled back home….we always get creative in finding ways to pass the time( yes we’re probably the only family that doesn’t have a portable DVD player for the car)

Silas was happy to discover that Santa had indeed made it to our house when we got back home

As you can see, our family and friends did not forget our daughter this Christmas either. We were so touched by their generosity.

This was a good Christmas but also a difficult one for me personally. I think both Troy and I had in our minds that our daughter would be spending Christmas with us this year, and I am confident God’s timing is perfect;however, it doesn’t always mean it’s easy from a human standpoint. As I lay there recovering from the stomach flu, I kept looking over to a picture that my mom has hung in her guest bedroom which says “ Thank God for what you have. Trust God for what you need.” This was a good reminder for me that I am so blessed, and it will not produce any fruit to dwell on something that is out of my control. So, I vowed once again that I will continue to trust God to reveal our daughter to us at exactly the right time. With that being said, I am excited to say that we had some movement in December, and our new official number is:

We are thrilled to see what 2012 has in store for us, and rejoicing that we serve a God who is faithful!

God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. 1 Corinthians 1:9

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2011-12-21T22:20:00.001-06:00

TIS THE SEASON

2011-12-11T21:47:00.001-06:00

It’s hard to believe that it is almost the middle of December! It has been a fun Christmas season for us so far, and I thought I would share with you what we have been up to through pictures.

Getting out the lights and Christmas decorations

Making sure the lights work(and yes he was supervised)

Preparing to put the star on top of the tree

Daddy provided some assistance to complete the job

Adding the ornaments

Cookie making time!

Carefully cutting them out….often with the sharper side of the cookie cutter facing up!

Ready for icing

We had to have a few Africa cookies in honor of Silas’ sister

Finished product

Finally time to eat one!

They are a hit!

This past weekend we did a Christmas outing with our LifeGroup at church. We got a quick family picture in front of the huge Christmas tree!

These are some good friends of ours from our LifeGroup. They have a beautiful family!

Silas and daddy

A quick picture in front of the beautiful landscaping

Our water loving boy.

Ethan working off some of his energy

Aslen enjoyed taking it all in as well

He’s worn out and ready for bed

Finally, tonight we had a dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant with a local African Adoption Fellowship Group. This is one of Silas’ buddies, Ryann. She has the best smile!

Lucy Lane

I will end with this one. This is SO indicative of the relationship Silas and Lucy Lane have had ever since they came home from Hannah’s Hope together. Lucy has always been miss personality full of smiles and giggles ever since she was a baby. Silas, on the other hand, has always been more timid and reserved. It looks like that is still the case! I just love that these two will always have the unique bond of coming home together, and I pray they will be lifelong friends!

I pray that this Christmas Season is a peaceful one for each of you. May the love of Jesus Christ fill each of your homes as we celebrate this season that is all about Him!

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." Matthew 1:23

Top 10 ( or maybe eleven) Three Year Pictures

2011-12-05T22:33:00.001-06:00

We were blessed to have our sweet friend, Kelsey Bufkin(who does amazing wedding filmmaking along with her husband, Jon), take Silas’ pictures once again. I cannot believe another year has gone by, but we loved how these photos turned out. I tried to pick out my top ten favorites for you below, but I just had to sneak in an extra.

As Troy and I looked at these in comparison to previous years, we were amazed at how much he has grown and changed. We thought it would be fun to show you a little collage from referral to now.

Our cup has certainly overflowed!

Official November Number

2011-11-28T21:31:00.001-06:00

Yes we are still #5, but we take comfort in knowing that God will watch over our daughter with His PERFECT protection until she is ready to come home. The best Christmas present we could get this year would be to see her sweet face!

Give Thanks

2011-11-21T23:25:00.001-06:00

thanks – 1.grateful feelings or thoughts; gratitude 2. an expression of gratitude

As this Thanksgiving Day approaches, I want to make an intentional effort to stop and express my gratitude to God for the thousands of blessings He has filled my life with. I think it is unfortunate that in our society this holiday is now often seen simply as a day for great football games, a precursor to great shopping deals on Black Friday, or even a hurdle to cross over to the Christmas season. America is the land of opportunity and a nation that was founded upon Christian principles(one of the reasons why, in my opinion, this nation is so abundantly blessed), and I think we do a disservice to gloss over this day to humble ourselves with gratitude towards our Creator. So, with that being said, I am going to take a moment to highlight a handful of the many, many things in my life I am thankful for.

1. Jesus Christ - I cannot even wrap my brain around the fact that He paid the ultimate sacrifice on my behalf. Time and again I have turned away from Him and yet He repeatedly takes me back. I am forever changed because of Him, and oh how I look forward to spending eternity with Him.

2. My husband, Troy – It’s hard to believe it has been 10 years since God brought Troy into my life. He is a Christ follower, Spiritual Leader, loving husband, amazing dad, great provider, has a huge heart for the orphan, and I wouldn’t want to journey this path of life with anyone else. I am blessed!

3. My children – I don’t know where to begin..God has been so good to me. Troy and I have a beautiful three year old son who is healthy, all boy, and completely full of life. We also have a beautiful daughter in Ethiopia that God is going to introduce us to in His perfect timing. Both our son and our daughter have completely captured our hearts and we are eternally grateful that God chose us to be their parents.

4. Family – Yes, I know that #2 and # 3 are family too, but I am referring to my siblings, parents, and in-laws here. Even though all of our family lives out of state, we keep in close contact and they have been so supportive of Troy and I in every area of our lives. A highlight of the Holidays for me is reconnecting, in person, with family.

5. Friends – I can’t say enough about the friends God has placed in my life. Some are lifelong and some are only for a season, but nonetheless, I am grateful for each and every one of them.

6. Church – During 2010, Troy and I felt that God was leading us in a different direction than our current church was going in. We prayed a lot about it, and we ultimately made the decision to begin seeking out a new church at the beginning of 2011. We found our new church home in March, and God has confirmed over and over that it is where we are meant to be at this season of our lives. We have been loved, strengthened, encouraged, and supported in this new church and I am so grateful we were obedient to God’s calling.

7. Military – I don’t have enough words to express my thanks for the many lives that have been lost on behalf of my freedom. I do not take for granted the many sacrifices that continue to be made on a daily basis by our men and women in uniform. I pray that future generations will never to cease to remember that the freedoms we have here in America did not come without a great cost.

8. Ethiopia – God has placed a great love for this country in my heart. It is the birthplace of my children, but it is also a place filled with beautiful people. I pray that daily that God will pour out His richest blessings upon Ethiopia

9. My job(s) – I am so blessed to have a job that I love doing so that it doesn’t even feel like work. I get to work with precious children every day, and I have great co-workers. I do my ‘career’ job two days a week and my other job is staying home with Silas. I am so grateful that we are in a position for me to be able to do that as I wouldn’t trade the precious days I get to spend with my boy for anything.

10. Good health – As I get older, I appreciate more and more the blessing of good health…not only for me but also for my family. I have various friends whose children have had serious health concerns lately, and I have friends my age who are battling serious illnesses. I take comfort in knowing that God is in control, but I am grateful for His mercies in this area of my life.

That sums up my top ten for now. God has been so very good to me, and I am humbled that he continues to pour out His blessings upon me. I pray that each of you will take a moment this Thanksgiving to thank Him for all He has done in your life. May you have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks! For Your wondrous works declare that Your name is near. Psalm 75:1

November Fun

2011-11-19T21:35:00.001-06:00

It was warm and sunny for mid-November here today. Silas’ buddy had a birthday party that we attended in the early part of the afternoon, but we still had some time to squeeze in play at the park before it got dark. Our entire family loves being outdoors so we are trying to take advantage of it as long as we can before winter gets here!

Here is my silly boy going up the slide the wrong way….he is definitely adventurous these days!

I just love his little feet, and I pray that he will use them to follow where God is leading him as he grows..

He and daddy had a serious game of chasing each other going on…this was taken in the midst of it

Serious concentration on the monkey bars

Tickle attack from daddy:)

Smiles at sunset. Oh how this boy fills our lives with joy!

We had a great day, and I never want to forget to thank God for the memories to be made from the simple joys in life!

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus – 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Blessed by HIS little feet

2011-11-12T21:40:00.001-06:00

Wow! It has been a whirlwind of a week, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We were blessed to be able to host two amazing Ethiopian boys, Eyob and Yohannes, and a staff member, Kourtney, in our home this week. Eyob and Yohannes are members of the HIS little feet International Children’s Choir which is comprised of 14 children, ages 6-12, from Ethiopia and Honduras. The choir travels the United States being the voice for orphaned and vulnerable children worldwide. We were so humbled to have them perform at our church this past week. We had SO many families moved by their performance, and it was amazing to witness God at work. Troy and I have been contacted by a handful of friends that are now considering adoption after hosting and/or attending the performance. My heart is FILLED with joy to see the hearts of Christians being stirred to answer God’s call to care for the orphan.

Back to our ‘friends’ as Silas kept calling them all week, Eyob and Yohannes were such a joy to have in our home. They are 12 and 10 years old respectively, and they are biological brothers. They speak limited English, but we always managed to communicate(often with the help of the staff member). They had the sweetest accents, and I LOVED when they would pray before our meals in Amharic. They interacted well with Silas, and Silas was so intrigued by them. Troy had a great idea to pick up lots of injera for them at a local Ethiopian market, and I already had berbere so meal times were a hit! Let me just say those boys can put away some injera, berbere, hot sauce, and ketchup! I also loved watching them play with toys they have probably never seen before(a favorite was Silas’ Leap Frog Tag Junior reading system) as well playing multiple games of foosball. Finally, the hugs I got multiple times a day just melted my heart!

Silas & Eyob

Yohannes enjoying the treadmill…he even worked up a sweat but was smiling the entire time!

This is the only picture we got of Kourtney and Silas took it so it’s a bit blurry. She was so sweet, and she was so mature in her faith to be so young. She comes from a family of 10 children, 4 of whom are adopted. I just love that!

Eyob pushing Silas. Too sweet!

The foosball table was a definite favorite. They played it A LOT!

They also enjoyed the elliptical machine. I just wish I enjoyed exercising that much:)

One final picture of Silas & Eyob. I am so glad Silas got to have this experience, and I couldn’t help but think a few times over the course of the week that he could be like one of the children in the choir waiting for a Christ centered family had we not been obedient to God’s call to adopt. It was very humbling to think about. Each one of those fourteen children is beautiful and perfectly created in God’s image. They have left a permanent imprint on my heart, and I will continue to pray that their family will step forward soon! You can check out the choir’s schedule here(http://www.hislittlefeet.org/Tour_Schedule_November_2011.html ), and I would strongly recommend you attend their performance and possibly host some of these sweet children if they are going to be in your area. My only warning is to prepare to have your socks blessed off!

Orphan Sunday 2011

2011-11-06T23:18:00.001-06:00

Today is Orphan Sunday, and despite the fact that we live in a fallen world that has failed so many children, I am so glad we serve a Creator that sees each and every child created perfectly in His image. As I thought about the millions of orphans around the world today, I kept thinking of the childhood song “Jesus Loves The Little Children”…..ALL of the children. It is such a beautiful reminder that no child is an oversight of our God. Each and every one is precious, and I pray that we as Christians would move to act on behalf of these beautiful kids.

JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Black and yellow, red and white
They're all precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world

Whether you're rich or whether you're poor
It matters not to Him
He remembers where you're going
Not where you've been

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Black and yellow, red and white
They're all precious in His sight

Jesus loves the little children of the world
If your heart is troubled
Don't worry, don't you fret
He knows that you have heard His call
And he won't forget

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Black and yellow, red and white
They're all precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world

All around the world tonight
His children rest assured
That He will watch and He will keep us
Safe and secure

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Black and yellow, red and white
They're all precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world

FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STING LIKE A BEE…

2011-10-31T20:38:00.001-05:00

Introducing, Silas ‘Ali’. He has his match face on, and he is ready to do some serious boxing for candy!

Pre-match photo

Serious concentration people!

Warming up!

Ready for action

Its a WIN! The prize was too much candy and a treat bag for the most unique costume!

I just had to end with this! We went to a ‘trunk or treat’ at a local church tonight. Each ‘trunk’ was decorated with some sort of Biblical theme or story. I saw this and I just loved it! Just as the members of that church freely gave candy to each child that came, Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could have the free gift of Salvation. If any of you have not received this wonderful gift of Salvation, I would love to tell you more about it. It is the best gift you will ever receive, and I promise you it will forever change your life for the better. I hope each of you has a blessed week!

Shop with a Purpose

2011-10-28T22:00:00.001-05:00

It is hard to believe that Christmas is less than two months away, and now is a great time to begin knocking those gifts off your list! Ever since we traveled to Ethiopia for Silas’ adoption, Troy and I have a completely different perspective on Christmas shopping and the commercialism that surrounds Christmas in America. We vowed that we would do our best to keep Christ at the center of any traditions we establish with our children, and that we would try to make as many of the Christmas gifts that we give benefit more than just the recipient of the gift. This year I would like to invite you to do the same with your shopping, and I have a great way to assist you with that!

A little over a year ago, my husband,Troy, had been praying about a way to combine his passion for adoption/orphan care with the skill set God gave him(computer programming), and God faithfully answered that prayer. It was soon thereafter that the concept of Olive Tree Promise was born. For the next nine months,Troy spent many, many late nights developing this website to help adoptive families bring their children home. The website was officially launched in July 2011, and multiple adoptive families have been blessed through it. A unique feature on the sight is that you can search for families adopting from a specific country God has laid on your heart(click here to see that feature). The site has a good variety of products available or you can make a donation for items such as mosquito nets or baby formula in someone’s honor. That would make your gift have a triple purpose! I think the donation gifts are great for those people that are especially difficult to buy for because there aren’t too many people that wouldn’t appreciate a gift that is helping someone else. Also, one of my favorite products are these Hope Ornaments that I plan to purchase in honor of our daughter. It will be a tangible reminder that she is with us in spirit this Christmas season!

So that is it. It is really quite easy to make your shopping count this Christmas. Please visit Olive Tree Promise to get your shopping done early AND help adoptive families bring their children home from as many as eight different countries. I can’t think of a better way to spend your dollars than through answering God’s mandate to care for the orphan. Blessings to you and your families during this upcoming wonderful time of year!

Official October Number

2011-10-27T23:12:00.001-05:00

We received an email earlier this week, and our official October number is:

It feels great to finally be in the top 5! I’m praying November will bring lots of movement now that rainy season has come to an end. Regardless, we will continue to praise God for His faithfulness on this amazing journey to our daughter.

God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. 1 Corinthians 1:9

Pumpkin Farm & Fellowship

2011-10-24T20:38:00.001-05:00

Summer is my favorite season; however, fall is a close second and I love all the activities associated with this time of year. One of my favorite things to do in the fall is visit a pumpkin farm. We have been to a handful of local farms that have fall activities, but last year we discovered our favorite one yet! So, this past weekend we decided to return to that specific one, and the weather was perfect! Silas enjoyed it last year, but I think he was able to appreciate it even more this year as is depicted in the pictures below.

Trying his hand at milking a cow!

He had to have his picture on this ‘horse’

Feeding the llama that he repeatedly asked “Is it mad at mama?(from the Llama Llama book series for those of you that aren’t familiar)”

Brushing the animals

After about 5 attempts, he finally sat still long enough for a photo with the pumpkins. He is FULL of energy these days:)

Picture with mama on top of the stacked tires

Testing out the swings

Driving a tractor with daddy

Riding the ‘train’

Playing in the corn box and he eventually decided to lay down in it. He always picks fun things for me to wash out of his hair:)

Braving the slide by himself. He did this many, many times!

He had to get in a few quick bounces on the ball

Juice time! He liked the pumpkin more than what was actually in it.

One final snapshot to wrap up a fun day. This picture cracks me up because he insisted on posing with the gourd in his hand.(yes, that would be our strong willed son!)

THEN…on Sunday we had our LifeGroup over from church for hot dogs, s’mores, and a mini-hayride Troy rigged up for the kids. We had a great time, and it is always a blessing to hang out with these beautiful people.

Here are some of the kids on the ‘hayride’.

Molly and Cristina

Fellowship time around the fire

Sweet E.

How about this marshmallow stuffed face! I love social gatherings, but it is a challenge to keep this little guy away from the food table. Needless to say he was on a bit of a sugar high that night!

So, that sums up our weekend! It went by entirely too fast, but it was filled with lots of great memories. On the adoption front, we still haven’t received our official number for October. Hopefully, we’ll have it by the end of this week! We’ll keep you posted:)

All Aboard the Birthday Train!

2011-10-19T21:01:00.001-05:00

Silas turned three years old last week, and I am still processing it. It seems like yesterday that we were walking through the gates of Hannah’s Hope to lay eyes on our sweet boy for the 1st time. We had his three year well baby visit last week, and he has grown 4 inches during this past year. He’s also had a language explosion, and he is definitely testing his limits these days. Nevertheless, we are certainly blessed by this boy of ours, and we had so much fun celebrating his 3rd birthday with him.

His actual birthday was a weeknight so we gave him a few restaurant options or else his favorite meal at home, and he chose to go to Red Robin. I think it was more for the fries than the burgers, and he definitely enjoyed it as you can see from the picture above.

Our waiter was so kind to do a little birthday surprise for Silas complete with an ice cream sundae. You should have seen how quickly he finished his meal when they brought the sundae out! He initially decided to bypass the spoon and dive head first into it:)

Daddy with his birthday boy!

Troy and I both have water bottles that Silas is constantly asking to drink out of so we thought it was fitting to get him his own for his birthday. He loves it..especially because it has a little button to push to pop the spout up.

Testing it out. I think it’s a winner!

My mom (Silas’ Mamaw) is a school teacher, and she had her fall break this past weekend so she was able to come down to help celebrate too! She knew that Silas loves monkeys so she got another one to add to his collection. This one laughs loudly and Silas loved it!

Mamaw also does embroidery so she gave Silas a new shirt as an early Halloween present. She also made him a shirt to wear for his birthday party.

This past Saturday we had a small party for him. He requested a train birthday party so that is the theme we went with. Above you can see a picture of the food table.

Here is a picture of his requested chocolate birthday cake, and I added a few cupcakes for the kids!

Our birthday boy! He was so excited to have his friends coming over.

This little guy enjoyed the ride on toys.

Sweet E. was looking adorable in her new glasses

M. enjoyed the roller coaster

This precious girl’s mom babysits Silas for us on the days I work. We are truly blessed by their family.

My Aunt Darlene(on the left) traveled over for the weekend. She and my mom(on the right) are sisters and enjoy getting together whenever they can!

Pinata time! Silas took the 1st swing.

This girl put some great effort into it, but it just wouldn’t break.

We resorted to having a few of the dads take a crack at it!

He managed to knock it down and then we just ended up tearing it open. The kids just wanted their candy!

Finally!

Love this picture of M. hiding behind the pretend ice cream

All smiles! Also, note the donations of baby wipes and formula in the background. In lieu of birthday gifts, we requested donations for Hannah’s Hope and our friends were so generous to help us out with this. I can’t wait to pack them up for our 1st trip to see our daughter!

Later that evening, Silas talked Mamaw into hiding under all the couch cushions, and she was happy to oblige his request. I just had to get a picture of it:)

Silas, I can’t believe you are three years old. Mama and Daddy love you more than words can ever express, and we are forever grateful to God that he chose you to be part of our family. We have enjoyed spending your first years of life with you, and we look forward to many more. Our prayer is that God will continue to impart his wisdom and favor on you all the days of your life, and that your life will be used for His glory alone. Happy 3rd Birthday!!

Grandpa & Grandma Come to Town

2011-10-10T20:49:00.001-05:00

Troy’s parents called a few weeks ago and said they were thinking about making a trip to our area in the near future. We knew that Silas would love this since they live seven hours away and we don’t get to see them often. We were happy to rearrange our schedules a bit, and this past weekend we enjoyed a great time visiting them. Silas got spoiled just a tad, but I guess that is what grandparents are for:)

We started off the weekend by seeing an amazing train display at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. A co-worker of mine recommended that we take Silas since she knew his love for trains, and I am so glad we went.

The pictures we took don’t really do justice for the exhibit. We were told it took twenty men six months to build it.

One of the many bridges that were part of the display.

My dad used to be an engineer for Norfolk Southern railway so I took this one for him:)

Silas and daddy. I think we enjoyed this exhibit for about 45 minutes which is a long time for a 2 year old!

A snapshot with Grandma and Grandpa

It was a bit of a struggle to keep this boy out of the water!

Family picture(can’t wait until we have a beautiful baby girl in these pictures!)

After Cheekwood, we went home for naps before we ventured out again. We definitely kept Grandpa and Grandma running. We went to a local home and gardens store to get pumpkins, to the park to play, and then Silas had his first visit to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate his upcoming 3rd birthday. As you can see above, he was getting into the games and rides.

Chatting with Chuck E.

He couldn’t bypass the opportunity to ride on a bulldozer!

On Sunday, we went to church and then a tailgate party hosted by our church. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures at that event, but Silas had a blast on the inflatables. Later that evening, we decided to carve one of the pumpkins Grandpa and Grandma bought us!

Hard at work while Grandpa and Grandma take it all in

Our finished product. We asked Silas if he wanted a face or a cross(we had to keep it simple as we know the limits of our abilities:)) He chose cross…it didn’t come out too bad.

All three of our pumpkins on our front porch…..as Troy reminded me tonight, I should have gotten one for our daughter. I may just have to go back and do that!

Just had to include this picture. Troy found these glasses with no lenses while mowing one day. They have become one of Silas’ new favorite toys. We have no idea who they belong to but the kid loves them!

One of many hugs for the many quarters that Silas got from Grandpa over the weekend.

Grandma wouldn’t let him get away with just giving Grandpa a hug

After supper, Silas got to open his birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa.

I’ll end with this great picture. Thanks for a fun weekend filled with lots of good memories Grandpa and Grandma! Even though we are separated by distance, you are never far from our hearts!

Surely, two of the most satisfying experiences in life must be those of being a grandchild or a grandparent. ~Donald A. Norberg

Football & Fellowship

2011-10-03T20:57:00.001-05:00

Troy and I are blessed to be part of a local orphan care ministry, The 1:27 Call, which hosts Forever Families Fellowships about four times a year for anyone interested in or that has foster parented or adopted This past Saturday, The 1:27 Call hosted a tailgate tent prior to the Homecoming football game of our local University, and then the majority of us in attendance went to the game. It was so fun to see all the beautiful children adopted from various countries running around. I always feel like I get a small glimpse of what heaven will be like when we attend these events. I also love that Silas has a unique bond with the children that I hope he’ll grow to appreciate as he gets older. Below, you can enjoy some of the cuteness I got to witness at the Fellowship:)

Mary Leigh with her cutie boys, Bates and Brodie

Sweet Jordyn and Layla

One of many attempts to get a picture of all the children of the core group of members of The 1:27 Call

Benjamin recently came home from Rwanda and he is adjusting amazingly well. I love to witness the transformation of children who were once orphans to thriving once they are placed in a family.

Silas’ good buddy, Elijah. He was not letting go of his football!

Silas and Haven(who was also adopted from Ethiopia)

Davis was so kind to give me a good smile

I really think Silas is going through a growth spurt(Troy gets tired of hearing me say it), but he is constantly saying “I am still hungry”. He was enjoying his 2nd hot dog of the night followed by some popcorn that he talked daddy into buying him

This sweet girl had her parents camera and took lots of pictures of us throughout the course of the night(and sadly, they were better than half the pictures I take!)

Love these two boys!!

I’ll end with a picture of me with my precious son. We had a great day and I definitely think the event was a success. AND..to top if off, our team won a very close game! I am so glad God opened our hearts to adoption and orphan care in the summer of 2008 because our lives have been completely changed for the better because of it!

Empowered To Connect

2011-09-24T23:16:00.001-05:00

Troy and I had the opportunity to attend the Empowered to Connect Conference that was held in our area yesterday and today. I am always excited to learn more in regards to adoption and parenting, and I was blown away by the information that was presented at this conference. Dr. Karyn Purvis, the director of the TCU Institute of Child Development, was the primary speaker, and I can’t put into words the amazing impact she has had on hundreds of children’s lives. Her love for children and the Lord radiates out of her, and she is one of those women people are just naturally drawn to.

Troy and I had our eyes opened in regards to our parenting style, and we learned some practical strategies that we can start implementing right away. My undergraduate degree is in Biology so I was also intrigued by the fact that everything that was presented is supported by scientific research:) Dr. Purvis has authored a book, The Connected Child, which has helped numerous families that have brought home children from hard places. I haven’t read it yet, but it has been added to my growing list of books to read. If you are considering or have foster parented or adopted, the recommended resources from the conference website may be helpful to you. They are available at this link: http://empoweredtoconnect.org/resources/ I am hoping they will bless you as much as we have been blessed these past two days!

Silas breaking it down

2011-09-22T21:38:00.001-05:00

On our vacation, we visited Charleston and stopped into a frozen yogurt shop. After a few bites of candy toppings and yogurt, Silas got the itch to start with the moves. Thank God he doesn’t take after his dad. Funnier is that we were right by the window on the street and as people walked by, they were looking and smiling at Silas. I recorded it on my phone so it’s not great quality … enjoy!

A Time For Rest & Official September Number

2011-09-19T20:58:00.001-05:00

Troy and I have been saying that we would like to take Silas to the beach for the past year. We finally made the decision to go and last week we spent a wonderful week together in Seabrook Island, SC. It was great to get away for some much needed rest(especially for Troy), and a good distraction as we wait for our referral for our daughter. We also managed to keep it low cost by going in September(when they significantly reduce the rates), driving(versus flying), and taking our own groceries to prepare the majority of our meals. It was definitely a blessing to have extended time together as a family of three before our family grows to four. Below are a few of my favorite pictures from the week:

Silas sitting on an ‘alligator’ at Freshfields Village

We spent a lot of time biking around the island(Silas got the pleasure of riding in the trailer), and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the various wildlife everywhere we went

Troy and Silas back at our rental after our family photo shoot that we did at the beach(Troy did all the picture taking with setting the timer, etc…so he got a work out:)

My sweet, sweet boy!

We were able to meet up with an old friend and her son during a visit to the North Charleston Fire Museum

Silas and daddy with their lake and castles:)

I got to enjoy reading a great book while Troy and Silas played. Every now and then I would get a short visit from Silas:)

This is typical Silas…the dirtier the better!

Love this one! This was our last day there and the weather was a little cooler and overcast so we decided to just search for seashells. Silas loved running along the boardwalk!

Family footprints. Can’t wait until we have another sweet little foot on there:)

They had a great saltwater pool that we took advantage of as well.

Silas and daddy looking for turtles at the lake

I think vacation caught up with him by this point!

On the way back, we stopped to see Silas’ buddy, Will. These two were at Hannah’s Hope together, and they came home at the same time. Will is only two weeks younger than Silas and they live less than three hours from us. I love anytime we can get together with Will’s family, and this time I especially enjoyed the interaction between Silas and Will. Definitely a God story.

Finally, we received an email with our official number for September while we were on vacation. We were pleased with our number as it was one lower than we thought it would be. So we are now officially #:

Can’t wait to see what the next couple of months holds in store for us! Have a blessed week!

August Number

2011-08-18T22:16:00.001-05:00

We received a call from our caseworker today, and our official number for August is :

We are knocking on the door of single digits! This coming Monday, August 22 will mark 13 months on the waiting list for us. It seems to have flown by in some ways, but in other ways not so much. Regardless, God is in control and He will faithfully reveal our daughter to us in His perfect timing.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens" Ecclesiastes 3:1

Gymnast In The Making(and a fun family visit)

2011-08-15T20:51:00.001-05:00

For the past 6+months, it has not been uncommon for Troy and I to catch Silas walking his feet up the wall in attempt to stand on his hands, doing forward rolls, or jumping down from anything he can find that is elevated. So, we decided that a weekly gymnastics class might be a great outlet for some of his energy! I did a little research and found a gymnastics place that is close to our house,Christ centered, and one of the main guys that runs the place has a heart for orphan care/adoption! We did a free trial class and Silas loved it so we decided to enroll him. I have enjoyed watching him in a different context and seeing how he attends/responds to other adults. I also love the fact that they pray at the beginning of each class. It warms my heart to witness the innocence of each child as his/her prayer request is spoken. It is a weekly reminder that I never want to cease in striving to have a child like faith. My sister, niece, and nephew came to visit during this past week, and my sister tried out her new camera at Silas’ gymnastics class. You can see a few pictures below:

Silas sitting on his ‘shape’ as he waits for his turn

Not sure what he’s looking at here

Getting instruction from his teacher

Jump time!

Moving through the obstacle course

After the class, we went to a local park to continue visiting with Aunt Amy, Kennedy, and Ross. The one thing I miss with living in this area is not having family close by; however, I am thankful for technology in that regards because it makes it easy to keep in touch! We always enjoy when family comes to town.

My nephew, Ross

Silas stealing some of Kennedy’s gatorade

Ross was so proud that he conquered the monkey bars!

I’ll end with this of picture my sweet boy! I can’t believe he’ll be 3 in less than 2 months! God has been good to us!

We have a preacher in the making!

2011-08-02T20:41:00.001-05:00

Amber does a GREAT job working on a weekly Bible verse during meal times. We have a book that does a Bible verse for each letter in the alphabet. Silas just started working on ‘F’ and here is his progress so far. He’s doing AMAZING memorizing them! And yes, it’s a little hard to understand but hopefully you can appreciate as much as we do :)

Raising Funds: Adoptive family website like no other…

2011-07-27T22:08:00.001-05:00

Hey all - this is a message I've wanted to post for months (no, not a referral post yet .. WE WISH! :) ... I’ve said time and time again on here that I would tell you “soon” about the project I’ve been working on … well soon finally got here!! it's a project God has had me on since we pretty much got on the waitlist. And I'm going to apologize now as I can already see this being a long post...

Since we brought our son Silas home 2+ years ago, I've been praying for direction. As many of you who have traveled to bring your child home, my life was forever changed when we traveled to Ethiopia. And I felt a void. My prayer was that God would match the talents He's given me with the passion (orphan care & adoption) He put in my heart. He revealed part of that plan about a year ago and I've been working nights/weekends on it ever since.

The idea is a website that will that will be a one-stop shop (Amazon/etsy-like) site for raising funds for families adopting . The idea of the site is to bring vendors who are willing to "wholesale" their products and let the family have the proceeds. I am asking vendors to consider giving 30-50% to the families (eg: Item retails for $20 - asking vendor to donate $6-$10). The family does not have to buy or purchase anything – the orders goes directly to the vendors to fulfill and ship the products.

It will also allow adoptive families who are selling product to sell your shirts/products/etc on there. You can still make money for your adoption but it allows other adoptive families to make money from them as well. Families helping families. I will continue to connect with missionaries to get products from their countries back to the USA to sell so it's a win/win by helping their country’s economy and helping adoptive families. Also, we have 'donation' items so someone could buy chickens, mosquito nets, baby formula, etc, etc that would be sent to the specific country mentioned.

So ... vendors can be...

Just a regular vendor who has product to sell and a heart for adoption/orphans
Adoptive families who are selling product
Missionaries who can get products back to the USA
Organizations working in other countries that need product donated

The name of the site is Olive Tree Promise (after Deuteronomy: 24:20) because vendors are leaving some behind for the orphan. The site is http://www.olivetreepromise.com. Some of you may recognize the “old” AGCI family that it is loading – they are stepping out in faith again - amazing. The site is set to load a 'featured' family when someone hits just www.olivetreepromise.com because we want the site to be all about our families. Future featured families will be changed out every so often (eg: family about to travel that need funds as being on the main site will give them more exposure).

Families will have their own URL to give people so those sales goes toward the family. (eg: http://alexanderfamily.olivetreepromise.com).

(As an aside, once this site is up and running with all the kinks worked out, the next site that will launch will be Olive Tree Faith. Instead of adoptive families receiving the proceeds from the vendors, it will be missionaries (short term and long term). This site will hopefully be launched this winter. And the 3rd site will be Olive Tree Hope. If someone is not an adoptive family or a missionary but wants to help an orphan care ministry, they can create a site and the proceeds would go to the orphan care ministry of their choice. Orphan care ministries can also sign up for an Olive Tree Hope site for the proceeds to go to their ministry.)

I hope some of this made sense :) I know that many of us are raising funds and have different sites where we are doing that. The thought with this site is that 1) we can help vendors who want to follow God's Word to care for orphans and 2) a site for families to have many different types of products available to attract multiple different circles of family/friends.

In saying all that, I need your help!!

1) If you know any vendor (yourself included) that would be interested in selling products on the site, please have them sign-up on the site (under the vendors section) or contact me for questions/more information. You can email vendors AT olivetreepromise DOT com. The site will only be as good as the products on it. We currently have 45+ products and hope to have over 100 by the end of the year.

2) If you're interested in signing up as a family, please fill out the information requested on the site (sign up is under the families section). As we are trying to go slow on this, I will work with the first 10 families that sign up and then the next 10, etc.

We have a facebook page set up as well at https://www.facebook.com/OliveTreePromise. Go like us :)

I would love your feedback. Especially, if you do sign up, I will definitely ask you for it ... the good, bad and ugly. I want to make it easy, intuitive and fun for the vendor, family, and people buying products.

I can't wait to see how the LORD uses this site to make known His heart for the orphan.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

THANK YOU! (and thanks for reading - I told you it'd be long :)

-Troy

http://www.OliveTreePromise.com

ONE YEAR(and a day)

2011-07-23T22:14:00.001-05:00

Yes..one year and one day is how long we have been on the waitlist for our precious daughter. I have been keeping a journal since the start of this adoption journey just like I did for Silas. I will give it to our daughter someday so she can see how God was orchestrating the events in our lives to unite us with her at just the right time. Here is my entry from a year ago today:

Another week has come and gone—unbelievable how time flies! We got some GREAT news yesterday, AGCI finally got all the correct documents they needed from us and we are now OFFICIALLY on the waiting list for YOU! Our number is 78 which is quite high compared to when we got on the list for Silas; however, the good thing about that is more orphans are coming to their forever homes. The down side is that daddy & I have to wait longer for you! We both know it’s all in God’s PERFECT timing and thus we are going to do our best to be patient(I am sure some days will be easier than others)! Regardless-being on the waitlist means we are one step closer to you! TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY!!

God has been faithful to us and we have moved 66 spots in a year that was filled with many ups, downs, and unknowns. We both know that God is in control so we have no doubt that the timing of our referral will be PERFECT (although Troy is praying that it will happen before my birthday at the end of September…that would by far be the best present I could ever receive:)! To those of you that still follow our blog, thanks for your continued prayers and support during this amazing journey God has us on! We look forward with anticipation to what the year ahead has in store for us!

“We wait for the LORD; He is our help and shield. For our hearts rejoice in HIM, because we trust in HIS Holy name. May Your faithful love rest on us, LORD, for we put our hope in YOU.” Psalm 30:20-22

Hoosier Time

2011-07-20T21:50:00.001-05:00

This past weekend, Troy was a great sport to accompany Silas and I to Indiana for what was originally going to be a reunion with some of my physical therapy school roommates, but turned into seeing high school, undergraduate, and adoptive friends as well. It was a very busy weekend, but there is nothing like catching up with great friends. I love how it’s so easy to pick up right where you left off with good friends you haven’t seen for some time. God has definitely blessed me with great friendships at each stage of my life.

We started off the weekend at the above cutie’s house! Her mom, Susan, and I were roommates where I completed my undergraduate degree. The cool thing about the cutie above is that she and Silas came home on the same plane together from Ethiopia. Talk about a God story. Yes, her parents were called to adopt from Ethiopia as well although they used a different agency. They got their referral months before we got ours for Silas, yet we traveled at the same time. So two girls who met in college, who ended up becoming roommates, who moved to separate cities after college, who both felt called to adopt from the same country, had their children come home at the exact same time. ONLY God above could have orchestrated that. I love it!

Next stop was to spend the night with two of my PT school roommates(in picture above) and their kiddos(Troy opted to stay at a hotel:). From left to right you have Silas and I, Nicole with her daughter & son(on far right in the orange shirt), and Maureen with her two boys on her lap. Maureen was a great hostess and we did lots of what we always did best in PT school, EAT! Let’s see, I think there was consumption of homemade bruschetta, homemade salsa/chips, monkey bread, cookies, etc… We definitely didn’t go hungry. This was the first time I have seen these girls since our wedding almost eight years ago. What a blessing to reconnect if only for a short time. I was able to capture a few pictures of the kids below:

We then headed over to the Alexander family’s house. They are a beautiful family that we met during our adoption of Silas. They used the same agency as us, and they brought their twin daughters home from Ethiopia shortly after we came home with Silas. They have three biological sons, their two adopted daughters from Ethiopia, and they are in the process of adopting again from Uganda. This couple is making some amazing sacrifices in order to bring more children into their home, and we are truly blessed to know them.

Beautiful girls!

Silas enjoyed the sno-cones AND the sandbox at the Alexander’s house. It was fun times washing his hair that night:)

She wanted me to capture a picture of her blue tongue!

Silas enjoyed the activities Tisha had for him to do!

We left the Alexander’s and spend the night in a hotel. On Sunday, we woke and headed to the Children’s Museum of Indianaopolis where we met up with one of my childhood friends and her family. We enjoyed the museum for about three hours before having lunch and heading back home. We could have easily stayed all day because the exhibits were wonderful. I captured a few pictures below:

So that wraps up our weekend. We got back home Sunday evening. Silas was pretty exhausted but he napped for much of the car ride home which was great! As I have reflected on the events of the weekend, I realize that I am one very blessed individual!

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Friends, Fellowship, & New Number

2011-07-13T21:58:00.001-05:00

This past weekend we had the amazing blessing of having Paul & DeeDee Aarseth & their children, Jackson and Olivia, stay with us. They are a beautiful family that we initially met through our adoption process with Silas because they used the same agency. We were just one stop on their ‘homeless tour’ this summer as they have sold their home because they are moving to Ethiopia as missionaries at the end of the month. It was quite amazing to hear about all of the training and preparations they have made as they answer God’s call for their lives. I am blessed to see how they are ‘walking the walk’, and I will be excited to see how God uses them to make an eternal impact in Ethiopia. Here are a few pictures from their visit:

Jackson posing for the camera

Sweet Olivia

Silas & Olivia holding hands at breakfast

I painted my toes so Olivia needed hers painted too. I love the color contrast on her beautiful brown skin!

Silas giving Olivia a kiss(with no prompting from us….starting a little too young for me:) )

Olivia attempting to return the love but Silas wasn’t having it!

On Saturday night, Kristi and her husband Will hosted us for dinner. They are the parents of Silas’ buddy, Lucy Lane who was also at Hannah’s Hope with Silas and Olivia. It was fun to catch up and visit. We also love to reunite Silas with his Hannah’s Hope buddies whenever we can. We managed to get a couple of pictures from the night.

The kids table.

The newest addition to the Johnson Family, Wes. Isn’t his smile just adorable? He is the 6th child in their family and Kristi and Will just take it all in stride. He came forever home from Ethiopia this past Spring.

One attempt to get the three Hannah’s Hope buddies picture

Another attempt….unsuccessful but at least they are all in the same picture!

Paul and DeeDee had to head back to Texas on Sunday morning, but we managed to squeeze in a breakfast at Cracker Barrel with them. Their family loves Cracker Barrel and apparently they don’t have an abundance of them in Texas like we do here. They have even made a game out of who can spot Cracker Barrel signs first when they travel…too funny:)

DeeDee & Silas

Success! Everyone is smiling and somewhat looking at the camera

Olivia and Silas testing out the rockers

The Aarseth Family. I am so glad God brought our two familiies together. Thanks for stopping Paul and DeeDee. We would love to have you back anytime!

Finally, I wanted to share our July numbers. We are officially #:

What a blessing to see how many children have been matched with their forever families and how many steps closer we are to meeting our daughter!

Father’s Day

2011-06-19T15:13:00.001-05:00

“Nothing has touched me more deeply than (this honor given to me) by the National Father’s Day Committee. By profession, I am a soldier and take great pride in that fact. But I am prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build. The father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentialities of death, the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle, but in the home.” excerpt from a speech given by General Douglas MacArthur in 1942 after receiving an award for being a good father

Today is the official Father’s Day holiday although I think to some degree, every day is Father’s Day. I loved the way God designed the family unit, and the importance he places on the role of a father. Research has shown the amazing and profound impact a father(or an absent one for that matter) can have on a child’s life. I would like to take a minute today to honor all Fathers today and specifically, three special ones in my life.

First, I want to honor my Heavenly Father. To Him be all Glory, Honor, and Praise. I am so glad I am grafted into the family tree of Jesus Christ, my life has been forever changed because of his love and mercy.

Ephesians 1:4-6 [4] For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love [5] he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will -- [6] to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Second, I want to honor my Earthly Father. He was the one who provided me with all my basic needs, introduced me(along with my mom) to Jesus Christ, and gave me unconditional love. He has taught me to persevere when all the odds are against you, and he has taught me to stand up for what I believe in regardless of what anyone else thinks. Love you dad!

Third, I want to honor my husband, Troy, who is an amazing father to our son, Silas. He is patient, loving, giving, and caring when it comes to Silas; however, most of all he is teaching Silas the importance of keeping Jesus Christ at the center of all aspects of his life. My love for Troy has grown even more as I have watched him fully embrace his role of being a father. I am so blessed to be able to share this journey of parenthood with him!

To all you amazing Fathers out there, have a Blessed and Happy Father’s Day!

Silas’ Gotcha Day

2011-06-15T22:51:00.002-05:00

In the middle of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2 years ago today, we met Silas for the first time. It is crazy to think it has been 2 years. It is unreal how time has flown. We look back at pictures of how tiny he was at 8 months and wonder where that little baby went!? He is such a little boy now with his own personality and preferences.

Here is the link of our day of meeting Silas and this is the link of our first Gotcha Day!

This is the first picture I ever took of Silas

He was so excited to meet us that he wore himself out! He was sleeping when we first met him.

First family photo :)

Look how tiny :)

A year later and so much different later, here is is after eating his Gotcha Day cake last year…

Today, Silas helped Amber make his brownies that we’d have after supper. The boy LOVES helping his momma in the kitchen. He usually does a good job unless we’re not giving him instructions and then his curiosity takes over and you don’t know what you’ll end up with :)

He also has started doing “faces” … it’s pretty comical to see how he does each one as they have changed and migrated over time. Here’s some still shots of them (you can see some video in a minute)

Show me your happy face.

Show me your surprise face.

What about your mean face? (it’s hard for him to do this sometimes as you can see a little smile in this pic)

Let’s see your sleeping face

Kid cracks me up.

Below is a video Amber did after lunch of him talking about his day and showing you what he can do now…

Tonight, we went to Chuy’s for supper (we went there last year so it may become a tradition). Silas LOVES their creamy jalapeño sauce and we usually end up getting him a bowl of his own as you can see below.

As we were leaving, we had a hostess snap a picture of us. There was one of those ‘funny’ mirrors that Silas died laughing looking at it. He did not want to stop to take his picture (hence the staredown).

We then came home for the brownies that Silas made earlier. As you can see in the video, he was a little excited for them!

And just to show how much he’s changed, here is the video from last year’s…his smile and look away always makes me smile :)

I still can’t believe it’s been 2 years. Thinking what 2 more years will be like … wow, he’ll be 4.5 years old. I better stop with those thoughts. Enjoy one day at a time. Cherish each moment. Build up and not tear down. Words to live by…

And we can’t look at all these pictures, especially the ones in Ethiopia, without thinking about our daughter. So much of me misses Ethiopia. We honestly haven’t focused much on the slowdown and delays in Ethiopia on here. It is SO easy to have a complaining heart and we fall into that trap often. And we KNOW with no doubt that God chose Silas to be our son. And we have no doubt that He is doing the same for our daughter. Waiting is tough. No doubt about that either. We can’t wait until we get to see her face, meet her, and bring her forever home to have another day of celebration in our house. Until then, we will trust. We will believe. And we will enjoy each day with Silas.

WE LOVE YOU SILAS!

DAYS OF SUMMER

2011-06-14T19:34:00.001-05:00

Summer…my favorite time of year! I love everything that comes with it…ball games, swimming, watermelon, HOMEMADE ICE CREAM, festivals, etc… I just love spending time outdoors and summer is very accomodating to that:) June is always a busy month for us because Troy’s birthday is June 4, Silas’ Gotcha Day is June 15, and we always have Father’s Day to celebrate somewhere in there too! So far this summer we have been to a Nashville Sounds game, spent lots of time tending to our garden, attended two airport homecomings for friends that brought home their children from Rwanda and South Korea, attended a church social,and a playdate with a lot of other Ethiopian adoptive families. We are certainly blessed! I have included a few pictures from the playdate we had with the adoptive families yesterday. It was at Silas’ buddy, Lucy Lane’s house, and it was partly in honor of Silas and Lucy Lane being forever home 2 years tomorrow. Kristi, Lucy Lane’s mom was so kind to host everyone. Silas loves going over there because they have the best toys! Hopefully, next summer our daughter will be in some of these pictures:)

Silas and Lucy. Don’t they look thrilled about having their picture taken together?

Silas was in heaven with all the ride on toys he could sit on and pretend to drive:)

Stealing a kiss from sweet Lucy!

The water slide and pool that provided hours of fun!

This precious boy just came forever home in February..

He has grown so much since his airport homecoming last year

Lucy’s older brother, Hal. He was so cooperative to smile for the camera!

Fun times on the slide

Elijah is another one of Silas’ good buddies. He’s been home almost a year!

Three Ethiopian cuties

Overall, it was amazing to see all these beautiful children now forever home and thriving! Here’s to a great rest of the summer!

“Superman was adopted” recap

2011-06-12T22:23:00.001-05:00

OK, I’ve owed you guys this post for a long time. By this point, I know you all know that I am on a BAD blogging schedule (and I keep telling you for good reason and I promise to tell you soon on WHY that reason is). Many of you have asked if you can still order shirts and the short answer is YES BUT NOT QUITE YET. They will be available soon (back to the reason on WHY the blogging delays). I will let you know here in the next week hopefully!

So, when we mailed out our shirts last month, we asked people to send in pictures of them wearing them … here are the pictures that we received (be ready for A LOT of cuteness!)

Our friends’ boys who are currently adopting from Ethiopia with our agency AGCI.

We traveled to Ethiopia with this family! How cute are these twins!?!?! I can’t believe how big they’ve gotten – they were so TINY when we saw them last time…

Another friend’s son whose family is also adopting from Ethiopia with our agency.

OK, on the next 2, we couldn’t decide which picture was cuter so I had to post both!

Our good friends here in town that have been SO supportive of our adoption of Silas and his baby sister. Their little boy is always ON THE MOVE – hence the blurriness :)

Local friends who have 2 adoptive daughters that are so sweet!

How adorable is this boy!?!

OK, good local friends who just got home from adopting their 2 children from Rwanda. What’s funny is that they thought they would get a referral of children who were a little older but were surprised (and thrilled!) of the referral of their younger kiddos. So, they got the shirts before their referral and that is why the shirts are SOOO BIG on them (especially little Hope!) :) Too funny and cute!

A family who adopted her little girl from Ethiopia with our same agency and travelled a few months before us…

And what’s crazy is that our friends who let us use their Superman design just got home a week ago today from South Korea with their son! How amazing was that homecoming! Here are a few pics from the airport of some of us sporting our shirts in support of their adoption…

They arrived at the airport right at Silas’ naptime – all-in-all, he did pretty good for a 20 minute power nap on the way to the airport

HERE IS THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THEIR FAMILY!

Happy and tired momma being greeted by Silas and Amber.

Proud big brother and daddy greeting everyone.

Airport homecomings are so incredible to me. It’s a small glimpse of what I think arriving in heaven will be like. So many of our family and friends who went before us waiting at the gates for us to arrive forever home and cheering us on and encouraging us. There are so many representations of the Gospel in the world of adoption. This is just one more to add to the list…

Finally, we want to THANK YOU for all the support with these shirts … you guys blessed us so much and blew our expectations out of the water. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Happy Belated Birthday!

2011-06-05T20:58:00.001-05:00

This is Amber, and I hijacked our blog to wish my husband a Happy Birthday( a day late..his Birthday was actually yesterday but I just didn’t get the post done)! There are so many things I love about my husband, but here are just a few: he puts Christ 1st in all that he does, he is a great Spiritual leader, he is the most generous person I know, and he is a great dad! I am so glad that God brought us together,and I am happy I get to celebrate another year of life with him!

Silas is ready to help me make daddy’s cake

The ingredients for our peanut butter oreo ice cream cake(so I made up the recipe but it actually turned out pretty good). Troy(and Silas) love the peanut/butter chocolate combination

The finished product! As you can tell, I was a biology major NOT art!:)

My 2 favorite guys!

Happy Birthday Troy!

Love,

Amber

P.S. My goal is actually to start doing some of the posts for our family since Troy is always busy with his various projects. We’ll see how well I keep up! Have a blessed week!

Superman Shirts are IN!

2011-05-16T21:10:00.001-05:00

Superman shirts are in! Orders are being sorted and packed as I type ... they will be going out tomorrow and probably Wednesday. If you're local, Silas will hand-deliver...thank you to everyone who helped bring our daughter home!

Sorry for the short post, but we have over 100 shirts to get packaged up… :)

Next post will be about the project I have been working on for the past 8 months … stay tuned!

AND THE WINNER IS…

2011-05-01T19:10:00.001-05:00

The winner of the Superman tshirt and Ugandan Bead Necklace is….

Giveaway is ON for tomorrow!

2011-04-30T21:57:00.001-05:00

We are at 85 shirts as of right now! So, the giveway drawing will be held tomorrow afternoon after we get home from church and Silas wakes up from his nap. All orders placed by noon central time will be entered into the drawing. We will have a Superman was adopted tshirt and the Ugandan Bead necklaces up for one lucky person. We will post tomorrow night who the winner is and hopefully contact him/her to get the size and color for their FREE shirt! Both the free shirt and necklace will be shipped when the shirt order is shipped.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BOUGHT SO FAR!!! We are closing in on our goal of 100 shirts! :)

2.5 year old pictures

2011-04-28T23:13:00.001-05:00

Wow, how is Silas 2 1/2?? That’ doesn’t seem possible! It’s downright unreal how much of a little man he is. As any parent whose boy is growing up way too fast, I often look at the pictures on my screensaver of him as a baby and try to think back to him being that small. He is such a blessing in my life. I know I have learned more about God the Father through Silas and my relationship with him than at any other time.

OK, I’ve held out long enough of pics of our boy. I’ve definitely short-changed you over the past few months. But before starting that, we’re only 25 shirts away from our goal! We need to be at 75 by end of day Saturday to do the drawing on Sunday. Thanks again to all who have bought to help us bring Silas’ sister home! Keep buying! :)

On Easter Sunday after celebrating the resurrection of our LORD, we went to the downtown area of town and took some shots. We try to do our own pictures for his half year and then have our professional friends do his yearly ones. Without further ado, here’s our favorites … but be ready, there are a lot but you’ll thank me later :) Let me know which one(s) are your favorite!

A couple shots before church…

Now off to downtown…

OK, daddy, I’m done. Otherwise, this finger is going into my nose.

Hopefully, that’ll give you your Silas fill for a while :)

One week left and Superman t-shirt + Ugandan necklace giveaway IF….

2011-04-25T21:22:00.001-05:00

Thanks to everyone who have preordered a shirt and/or bumper stickers. We have sold 29 shirts and 4 bumper stickers so far. Our hope is to sell 100 shirts before next Monday when the preorder sale ends. As you can see, we have a ways to go for that. So, to hopefully give some incentive to help us get to our goal, if we can have sold 75 shirts by end of day Saturday, April 30th, we will give away a tshirt and Ugandan bead necklace to one lucky person who has ordered a shirt … almost a $50 value! The drawing would be held on Sunday and the person would need to let us know the shirt they would want by end of day Monday when the sale is over. For every shirt you purchase, your name would be entered into the drawing. For example, if you buy 3 shirts, your name would be entered 3 times into the drawing.

Please spread the word to family, friends, church family, share the link on Facebook, Twitter, etc and help us bring our daughter home!

We will keep the counter on the right updated daily so you know how many shirts we have sold.

I hope that all makes sense! If not, let me know and I will clarify…

And to give a little more incentive for you to make a purchase to help bring Silas’ sister home, here is a sneak peek of the pics we did with Silas yesterday. He turned 2.5 years old on April 12th and we just do his half year pictures ourselves and we had a good time in the downtown area of our town. More pictures to come … maybe … if we hit the goal for the shirts :)

THANKS EVERYONE!

“Superman was adopted” tee and bumper sticker!!

2011-04-18T21:55:00.001-05:00

We are one blessed family. Our good friends are allowing us to use their latest fundraiser design for our next fundraiser. So, without further ado, here it is … with what I believe are the cutest models that we could have found…

(isn’t that picture hilarious! Silas’ ‘fake smile’ and Lucy Lane’s raspberry)

Many of you know that Silas and Lucy Lane were together in Ethiopia TOGETHER. And that we traveled at the same time as Kristi so that Silas and Lucy Lane came forever home TOGETHER. And now Silas and Lucy live about 30 minutes from each other. I love how God works.

So the details…

This is the zoomed in picture of the front of the shirt. The shirts are 100% pre-shrunk cotton in a regular t-shirt cut.

Here are the colors that are available…

So the colors available are royal blue, black, red, and pink. You will see 2 versions of pink. The darker pink is the infant and toddler pink and the lighter pink is for the youth and adults.

The shirts are $19.95 (adult 2XL and 3XL are $2.00 more).

OK, and here is the bumper sticker…

The bumper stickers are $5.00/each.

We are also doing FREE shipping in the continental US! If you are outside of the continental US, leave a comment with your email and city/state/country, and we will email you the shipping cost. This will be a pre-order sale meaning that we will not order them until the sale is over. We will be selling both the shirts and the bumper stickers through Monday, May 2nd. We expect it will take 7-10 days for us to receive them and then we will ship them right out! So, you should see them on your doorstep mid May…and if you’re local, Silas will hand-deliver them to you and tell you thank you in person … and you may even get a kiss blown your way … or a hug … or at least a high five or knuckles out of it! :)

To order, select your options on the right side of the blog. The shirts are divided into 3 categories: Infant/Toddlers, Youth, and Adult. Please select your size and your color and click ‘Add to Cart’. It’s that simple! Please confirm your color and size before submitting your order!

What a GREAT way to spend some of that tax refund you got, right!?

Thank you for helping us bring Silas’ sister home … and yes, we do have a name for her but not ready to divulge it yet … although, if you ask Silas, he’ll blurt it right out! :)

Please remember that this is a pre-order sale so shirts will be shipped in the middle of May!

Order many and order often! :)

Please share this link on Facebook, email, etc to help us bring our baby girl home! THANK YOU!

OK, being I have short-changed you over the past few months, here are a couple more pictures from Silas’ photoshoot today…

This is Silas’ fake smile again. It’s hard not to crack up when we ask him to smile and he pulls this one out.

Thanks again everyone … we really do appreciate it!

Few pictures from today

2011-03-20T21:40:00.001-05:00

OK, I know I have slacked on things in this world. That’s no secret. And there is really a good excuse. Really there is. I just can’t give it up yet. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I will be able to talk about the exciting news of what has consumed my last 5+ months of my life.

In any event, here are a few pics from today … it’s sad in looking at our camera that we have not taken any pictures on our ‘good’ camera in a month. We’ve done a few on our little point/shoot and our phone. But next month we’ll do our own little photo shoot for his 2.5 year pics … friends, that’s just crazy. Our boy will be 30 months old! He is such a little man now … unreal what he is saying these days. For example, at supper tonight, we were eating out on the deck (it’s been amazing here in TN the past few days). As our side item, we had some squash. I eat all mine and Silas nonchalantly picks up a piece of his, puts it on my plate and says "I'm borrowing you some daddy.” Amber and I look at each other and laugh. Yeah, it’s not the right word but what 2 year old gets that?! It is definitely fun stuff happening around our house all the time.

Oh, before the pics, I’ve been horrible in updating where we are with Silas’ sister. We are UNOFFICIALLY #24 on the list. Even with all the things going on in Ethiopia, there was good movement the past couple weeks. We still don’t know what will exactly happen in Ethiopia but it appears it won’t be the proposed 5 cases/day being processed. It appears it may be 20-25 which would be about 1/2 of what they were doing. However, before the changes, we know many families did not pass court due to MOWA documents not being there so would that mean they were really doing less than 50/day?? Who knows … we’re just praying for our daughter, for each child waiting for a family and that each child is truly an orphan and that any unethical processes would be dealt with immediately and those responsible be appropriately dealt with.

OK, with no further ado, here’s our boy :)

Before church …so big. Really don't think it gets much cuter. Just sayin'

Silas was all about modeling today – here is another shot of him and immediately after wanting to see his picture

Silas and his momma – my 2 favorite people in the world.

I’m glad Silas makes this picture look good.

I never knew how much fun a tape measure could be. Many of hours so far. I’m surprised the thing still actually works.

Disregard the highwaters … the boy sits with his feet crossed like this all the time :)

Silas has to mimic what we do EXACTLY these days. He had to get a pillow, lay down, and cover all the way up just like his momma.

Ethiopian Adoptions

2011-03-09T18:09:00.001-06:00

OK, most of you in the Ethiopian Adoption world are well in tune with these events. And I know I have been a stranger ‘round these parts … and there is good reason for that which will be explained at another time.

Today, I am asking for your help. I believe you know how God has busted open my heart for Ethiopia and her children. The Ethiopian government body Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) has announced they plan to CUT processing adoptions up to 90% starting this week. A notice just got posted to the State Department today. A little background can be found here - http://betheanswerforchildren.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/ethiopia/.

I am asking you to sign the petition at the link below asking them to reconsider this recommendation. This petition will be sent by the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (http://www.jcics.org/) to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. I am humbly asking you to share it with your friends, family, church, facebook, etc. There is a facebook event here that you can join and invite others to join as well.

And as much as I want to make this about me and my daughter in Ethiopia, I can’t. It is true that if this actually happens, our wait for our daughter would go from an estimated 5-6 months to 4-5 YEARS. Bigger than that though are the thousands of children that will continue to sit in orphanages waiting for their forever family. Children who are HIV+ that have parents waiting to bring them home and get them the care they need. Children pouring their hearts out to God that they may feel the love of a mom and a dad. Even bigger than that are the children that won’t be able to receive the care they need because there is no room for them. Living on the street or in dire conditions – vulnerable … hungry … no shelter … no hope. And let me be clear: corruption has NO place in the world of adoption. I am not advocating for corruption by advocating they reconsider this recommendation. I believe there are other ways without affecting thousands of innocent children.

Here is the petition: http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43714.html. Please take a minute and sign.

And the JCICS just posted this today on their blog:

In only 24-hours, over 11,000 concerned individuals have joined our Emergency Campaign for Ethiopian Children by signing our petition. We extend our thanks to all who have supported this initiative by signing the petition, distributing the campaign information and expressing your support of child protections and ethical adoption.

Today, we have continued our communication with the Ethiopian government and respectfully brought the outpouring of concern to them. We believe that there may have been positive developments and will provide further updates as information is confirmed.

There is NO DOUBT that I believe this is a spiritual war going on. It’s not a battle with MOWA, Ethiopian officials, or the courts. It’s not of this world. It’s against satan and his army. He loves orphans. He HATES adoption. He loves the lost. He hates that as Christ-followers, we are forever found and adopted into God’s family. He loves the broken hearted. He hates a joyful heart. Amber sent an email out to friends last night and one of our missionary friends responded today: Amber, I will be praying. I received an email this morning from one of our vice presidents who is from Ethiopia about heavy persecution of believers in the southwest of the country. Over 50 churches and 30 homes have been burned. Much to pray for.

We also know where God’s heart lies in regards to orphans and His children… it’s throughout Scripture. However, we also know that the majority of the time, He works through His people to accomplish things on the earth. So, we can’t idly sit by and watch and just say “God’s got this” and think He’ll actually do anything if His people aren’t doing anything.

PLEASE join me in praying for Ethiopia, the children in Ethiopia and the leaders who will be making decisions over the next few days. Pray that these leaders will see the face of Jesus every time they talk about their children. Also, praise Jesus’ name for who He is, for what He’s done for us, and His plans for our lives. Our lives may not play out how we thought they would or how we think they should, but it’s not really about us. It’s about a time on this earth in preparation for an eternity praising, glorifying and honoring the King of all kings and the LORD of all lords. As a baseball fan and with the season just around the corner, I think of our time on earth as the preseason – a time to work out all the kinks, to practice, to understand our role and responsibility on the team, and enjoy playing a game we love with a team that you’d die for.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

-Troy

TOO OLD!

2011-01-07T22:57:00.001-06:00

Before I get into the meat of the post, I want to give a quick update on our baby girl. We just got our official number yesterday and we are #40 for our girl. I was really hoping to be in the 30s for the New Year but we’re close, right? There are ALOT of families who are waiting to travel (either first or second trip) so we’re hoping in the next couple months to see some good movement. Once those families bring their kiddos forever home, it will open up more spaces in our transition home.

I think we’re going to go this weekend to pick out some color swatches for her room. We still need to talk about what we really want to do in there (to see how much work I have to do :) It will be a good amount of work no matter what as that room is a American-themed dark red room so it’ll take at least one coat of Kilz primer to block that color. That should be a good late winter/early spring project.

Also, today was Christmas in Ethiopia. Amber and Silas spent today making Ethiopian spiced honey bread and a stew for supper. Silas tried a couple bites which is normal on anything new with him. Hopefully, he’ll come to love his Ethiopian food. We had fun celebrating tonight! Tomorrow night will continue the celebrating as we’re going to an Ethiopian restaurant with a couple other families.

Silas helping his mama make the bread

The end result … well, part of it as the rest was in our bellies.

OK, so over the past couple days, I’ve really tried to figure out where the past 18 months have gone. Silas has gone from a tiny baby who was not able to roll over to a boy who is the epitome of a ball full of energy. His personality is so evident now. His wanting to have me play with him when I get home from work - “Daddy, Silas, play blocks.” “Hide and seek, daddy”, “Play chase, daddy” I know there will be a day when that won’t be the case so I’m trying to remember that this season will be gone in a blink of an eye.

Before Christmas, Amber and I discussed that we would convert Silas’ bed after the new year. The boy really doesn’t climb out of it (I say that even though he did this morning). But we wanted to get prepared for potty training and for him to not have too many things introduced at the same time. I can’t believe this day came today. We hyped it up with him about his “big boy” bed. And he seemed to really take to it. But the real question remains … when did my little boy get old enough for this!?!?!

The before picture

One last picture of our big boy in his crib

The front is off … Silas is reliving all the memories of singing and playing in his crib when he was ‘trapped’

OK, Daddy, let’s get this thing on!

The conversion is complete. Silas eyeing his new digs.

Seeing if he’s as comfortable in his new bed. He was most happy being able to get his monkey out of his bed by himself and not having to ask us to get it.

He and I did our normal bedtime routine tonight … Bible Story, books, singing a couple songs, praying over him. I laid him down in his bed and he stayed :) We haven’t heard from him so we think he’s still in there. Being that he sleeps upstairs and we’re downstairs, it’ll be interesting to see if there are any mornings where I wake up in bed, open my eyes and see him staring at me. Actually, that’s not him. He’d come into our room and yell, ‘DADDY, DADDY, DADDY … WHERE ARE YOU?!?!’ We had plenty of that experience when we traveled over Christmas as he stayed in his pack ‘n play in the same bedroom as us.

Alright, I need your thoughts … he’s 27 months and sleeps upstairs with us downstairs. What should be the “rules” of getting up in the morning and after naptime? He goes down our stairs on his own real well. Should we tell him after he wakes up, to stay in his room and play until we come get him? Should we let him come downstairs on his own? Any other thoughts? I’m leaning for him to stay in his room because he could wake up at the crack of dawn and I like my sleep :)

OK, here’s a couple other pics for ya…

To show you how much our boy has changed, here is a picture of him the first day we met him. It was a rough go when we arrived back at the hotel with him. We were in our room and he wouldn’t quit crying and these new parents didn’t know what else to do. So, we finally remembered to ask God to help us (sad) and we prayed over him, to release anything that wasn’t from Him, and I took him outside. The boy LOVED being outside and we sat on the steps for the majority of our time there … watching the trucks, vans, and life go by. I’ll never forget it.

This is a pic of Silas showing off his new hat that his Mammaw.made him for Christmas

Playing in the snow up at Grandma and Grandpa’s, The boy LOVES snow … he may enjoy eating it just as much as playing in it.

The eating snow was done on our deck after our first real snowfall this year. We’re always on the lookout to make sure it’s fresh and clean.

Have a great weekend! Melkam Ganna! Merry Christmas .... Ethiopian style!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2010-12-24T23:25:00.001-06:00

OK, I know I'm a horrible blogger. Even worse, I haven't even been on my own blog for weeks. So, I really have no idea what is going on with any of you. Sorry.

However, Silas wanted to wish y'all a MERRY CHRISTMAS and I wouldn't let him on my laptop so I finally had to blog...hopefully, 2011 will result in more posts and updates of all these crazy thoughts going through my head.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Silas 2 year pictures

2010-11-10T21:30:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post. And the marathon seems so far away. To tell the truth, I have not ran since the marathon. Not happy about that. The main reason has been work. Since the marathon, I have pretty much worked every night on a huge project/deadline. This culminated Halloween weekend when my Friday-Sunday nights consisted of a 2am, 3am, and midnight work nights. Nevertheless, I hit the deadline and am still playing catch-up at work and will be extremely busy through the new year…

However, in October, we did find time to do Silas 2 year pictures. Kelsey did Silas’ pictures again. She did his 1 year pictures last year and we loved them so we couldn’t think of anyone else we would want to do them. In looking back at those 1 year pics, I can’t believe how TINY Silas was! OK, If that wasn’t enough, Kelsey has decided to donate her photography services to help her brother-in-law/sister-in-law bring their daughter home from Ethiopia! How cool is that?! We got to meet Justin and Meredith when they were praying about their adoption. They are using our agency, AGCI, and we can’t wait to see the daughter God destined to be in their family since the beginning of time…

So, if you’re local to middle TN, contact Kelsey through her blog and get on her schedule. As you can see, she does great work and all proceeds go to Justin & Meredith’s adoption! A win-win situation!

Below are a few (ok, A LOT so be ready to scroll … you’ll thank me later) of our favorite pics from the photo shoot…thanks Kelsey!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

2010-10-17T23:37:00.001-05:00

OK, yesterday was the day that has been marked on the calendar for months. Since June 4th when I signed up for the half marathon, there has been an internal clock for October 16th. It honestly came much quicker than I thought it would. It seems like only yesterday when I was laughing about this “opportunity.” I knew running the 1/2 wasn’t my idea so when I’d jokingly talk about it with people, I knew it was a God invitation. But I would decline it over and over again. It wasn’t until Amber started telling others I *may* do it that I started to seriously consider it. Really, God? Me? Run a half marathon? The guy that hasn’t really ran in years except to get ice cream from Marble Slab. This guy? The guy who told Amber when she did a couple half marathons a few years ago that I would support her every way I could but would NEVER do one. Were you not listening? You got the wrong guy, God. To me, it was the same conversation that Moses had with God on 1/1000th the scale. Really God? Me? I stutter … I’m not a leader … I can’t lead these people out of Egypt. I feel your pain Mo.

Nonetheless, I accepted the invitation/challenge on my birthday of all days. And the training began. It wasn’t really training in the beginning. I had to get to a comfortable 3 miles even before thinking about training. So for the next few weeks, I worked out to being able to “comfortably” run 3 miles. I then found a 12 week training program for the half marathon so I had the plan. I sent letters out letting family & friends know about our adoption, the orphan crisis, and me running the marathon for our adoption. I asked people to pray for me and our daughter and if led, to sponsor me running the race. The goal for the sponsorship was $3000. Well, through His people, God met that before the race. He is faithful! Absolutely amazing! So humbling as I described a couple stories before and I could tell you more and more of those stories. We raised the goal to $3500 and I think we’ll hit that as well since we’re $100 from that and some people said they want to still sponsor me but haven’t gotten it to me yet.

Yesterday morning came way too early. I was up at 5am to get ready. The race started at 7am but we had to be parked before 6:30 as they were closing roads. Amber decided to get up with me to go cheer me on with Silas. We got Silas up at 5:40am as we wanted to leave the house by 6am. As I was putting him down Friday night, we talked about getting up early for the race for sister. (Side story but when we ask Silas who I ran for, he says ‘sister’ … LOVE IT). So I turned the light on in his room and he slowly pops up and says, ‘Race?’ “Yeah, buddy, we gotta get ready for daddy’s race”. ‘Yea Daddy!’ (what Amber and him had practiced for the race) “Thanks buddy!” … Wow, boy knows how to make his daddy smile :)

The drive to the race was uneventful. We actually got there quicker than I thought we would. We met up with my buddy Kris that ran the 10k with me. He and his wife just got back from Israel and he wasn’t sure if he was going to run. He ran over there but once they got home, he got sick. So he had only ran once in about 2 weeks but he decided to still give it a go.

It was pretty chilly Saturday morning but it was perfect running weather. But with that cold weather came one thing … having to pee. Kris said the same thing. This started the conversation of what he experience when he ran the Nashville half marathon last year. This is probably TMI but I couldn’t believe it. So, skip the rest of this paragraph if you want. :) Kris was about 5 miles in to the race last year when the guy in front of him actually poo’ed on himself. Down his leg and everything. I’ve heard of competitive runners doing that because their time actually matters. Kris is not a fast runner and for someone in the middle of the pack to do that was pretty hysterical/wrong/nasty/etc. Anyways, back to my story … it was a couple minutes before the start of the race and I figured that once I started moving, the feeling would pass.

Silas chugging his milk as we were hanging out before the race

Me and my boy pre-race.

Kris and I all smiles with no pain before the race

Silas stretching with me … his better stretches weren’t caught on camera but they were hilarious

The starting line…

Apparently Silas LOVED this pig. I guess the pig was talking to another adult who was trying to fix his arm in the pig suit. Silas just kept pulling on his leg yelling ‘pig, pig, pig’ until the pig finally turned around. Silas was so generous to offer up his little dinosaur to him…

The gun goes off and here we go. The moment that all that training had been for had begun. It didn’t take long for the crowd of runners to spread out and for me to get him my normal pace. I warmed up quickly and felt pretty good. Each mile always feel farther when it’s not on your own turf. Well, I get to mile 2 and still gotta pee. I see porta-johns but decide to keep going. The first 6 miles or so actually felt pretty good. My pace was about normal for me. I did the first 6.3 miles in 1:04:33 which is a 10:15 pace.

Amber and Silas met me right around the 6.5 mile mark.

Kris running by the same spot a couple minutes later. Interesting how he’s all smiling … I don’t think I had a smile anywhere after 5 miles.

So Amber had to entertain Silas for the race … pictures became one way of doing that along with eating breakfast, playing, etc. Here are a few of the pictures from the wait…

I love this picture!

Mama and Silas waiting for me to run by

Silas about to practice his running … on your mark, get set, GO!

Here he comes!

Look at the concentration and determination. We may have ourselves an athlete here. He’s definitely QUICK!

How can you not love that boy!?!

The next 6.8 miles were another story compared to the first 6.3. Especially the last 2 miles. I was really starting to wear down and still had to pee (sorry for all the pee talk). I decided at mile 11 to stop to go. BAD MOVE. By stopping my lower back and calves thought it was time to lock up. I could not get them loose again. I did a run/walk for the last 2 miles. I’d walk and try to stretch them out but it didn’t really work. There was definitely alot of praying and alot of thinking about my baby girl. As I said on Facebook, I was praying for the rapture those last 2 miles. Come now LORD JESUS! :)

About 1/4 mile to the finish line!

AHHHH … there it is!

All that matters is that I finished! That’s the main thing. And my goal was 2:20. Can you guess my time??? 2:19:39!! I’m telling ya … God is faithful!

My buddy Kris finished in 2:27:52 which was a personal best for him … which is incredible being that he had only ran once in 2 weeks.

After the race by the finish line

Kris and I after the race … yes, that is about as fake of a smile as you’ll see out of me.

How am I feeling today? Sore as you can imagine. My quads are pretty painful and stairs are my worst enemy. Nevertheless, I’m alive and well. And it’s fun to tell the God story … the marathon is just the instrument God used to see if I would be obedient to Him. It’s crazy to see how close I was to saying no … who am I kidding … I did say no many times … His grace let me finally say yes to Him.

So some things I learned from this race….

I hope to not see that much of the town on foot again
If I do ever do a race again and gotta pee, bite the bullet and go early on in the race
I already knew this but Africans can flat out fly (guy that won it is from Kenya and his time was 1:05:43 (that’s 5:01 miles!)
If God invites you into something that you have no real desire doing, He will carry you through it.

So here’s the real question– What is God inviting you to and you’ve been telling him He’s got the wrong person?? It’s funny that we think that the One who created us doesn’t know us or what is best for us. If I could suggest something to you … respond today with “Here I am Lord, send me!” He will guide you, direct you, lead you. I am living proof of that.

Thanks again to all you who have sponsored me, encouraged me, and prayed for me. I sincerely could not have done it without you. THANK YOU!

Humbled and Silas’ Birthday

2010-10-12T22:28:00.001-05:00

So a couple hours after my post last night, the goal was hit by the person who told me not to limit God with my goal. This person is the person who will be going to Ethiopia in a few days on her second mission trip in the last few months. Humbling. This past Sunday I had someone give me their last $30 cash they had for the entire following week as they didn’t get paid until this Friday. They also had to go out of town and didn’t know if they had enough gas for the trip there/back but thought they’d be ok. A half hour after giving me the $30, this same person received $32 from someone who had a yard sale that this person put a few items in that they were just going to get rid of. This same person also received an extra tip for some work they did for someone. Very humbling. Then tonight, I received a very generous check in the mail from someone who I know has the right to be struggling in so many ways. The note inside the card? “Enjoy the journey. May you reach your goals – cherish each day” So humbling.

I tell you these couple stories to tell you that God is faithful. It is very difficult for me to accept these donations for my race because that money could be used in Korah by Jody or by someone who needs it to survive for the week. However, I know these people prayed over this and it would be robbing them of the blessings from God. My prayer has been that God would multiply their gift tenfold back to them …whether that blessing is financial or another answered prayer is between them and Him.

The one thing I would say to you is to follow God’s direction in your life. He will not leave you high and dry, He will not leave you, He will honor HIs commitment to you. He loves you so much that He sent His Son to take the sin of the world upon Him. He loves you so much that He had to turn His back to His own Son. He loves you so much that He raised His Son back to life to be our intercessor. If we would actually accept God’s invitations in our lives, it would be so transforming that we would not be able to believe it with our own eyes.

So, I have increased my goal by $500 as you can see on the thermometer on the left side of the blog … so a new Project 10-40 is starting again to put me over my new goal :)

Switching gears real quick … there have been a couple referrals so we are UNOFFICIALLY #57 on the girl’s list now :) Movement is GOOD!

Also, today was Silas’ 2nd birthday. It is amazing how much you can love a little person. He has been looking forward to his birthday as we’ve been talking it up since Amber’s birthday late September. He really wanted birthday cake LAST NIGHT for some reason … he kept saying “HAPPY CAKE … HAPPY CAKE” Then as I was laying him down last night, I gave him a kiss, and said, “happy birthday, son … I love you.” Usually, he will respond to ‘son’ with ‘buddy?’ Like, I’m your buddy, too, right daddy? And I’ll respond, “Yeah, you’re my buddy". He’ll then respond with every person he knows … Momma? Yeah, you’re momma’s buddy. Pappaw? Yeah, you’re pappaw’s buddy. Etc. Etc. But this time, about 5 seconds later as I was shutting his door, I hear ‘Happy to you’ in his singing ‘happy birthday’ song voice :)

We went to Chuy’s tonight to celebrate and the kid put away some SERIOUS chips and creamy jalapeño ranch sauce. Was very impressive. Still need to do a true birthday post but still haven’t gotten through the videos yet … here’s a couple pics from tonight though…

The boy loved dipping his chips.

More dipping…

The waitress gave him a little thing of ice cream = happy boy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILAS! We love you, son!

THIS IS IT!

2010-10-11T21:53:00.001-05:00

The week has arrived … RACE WEEK! I really can’t believe it is here. Months of training has actually gone by real quick.. The days of 100+ temperatures and trying to run in that seem like a distant memory … kind of. We went up to Indiana this past weekend for Amber’s cousin’s wedding so my last long run before the race was going to be on unfamiliar turf. I ended up doing 8 miles on rural country roads. If you read the post below, I was hoping to do 12 but after a couple words of advice and listening to my body, 8 was definitely enough. I was still feeling some the effects of the 11 last Saturday so I didn’t want to be sore all this week going into the race. It’s amazing to think that in August we were up in Indiana for Amber’s class reunion and I struggled to do 5 miles.

Some things I got to experience on this rural run that I don’t on my normal route at home are…

Jumping over the bottom half of a deer leg … looked pretty fresh.
Running through the ‘dust bowls’ from corn fields. It is SO dry up in Indiana (brother-in-law told me they had half inch of rain all September). So anything being done in the fields creates so much dust.
With no shoulders on the country roads, it’s an adventure in watching/dodging cars. Especially when coming up over a hill.

I plan on doing 2 more runs this week … one tomorrow and one Thursday. I imagine instead of my usual 5 miles that I will probably do 3-4 tomorrow and 2-3 Thursday. And then raceday Saturday morning. It is really surreal that it’s about here. And over. There are a lot of things I will not miss but now is not the time to focus on those … the need is to focus on finishing … and finishing well. My goal is to finish in under 2:20. I still can’t believe I will be running for over 2 hours straight.

Project 10-40 has been successful as well. We are only $80 from hitting the goal. Thank you to everyone who has prayed and sponsored me to bring our daughter forever home. I am praying for each of you as well.

Also, tomorrow my boy turns 2… talk about time going by quick. It’s amazing how big of a boy he is now. He’s talking so much and understanding even more. His personality is fully coming out. While up in Indiana, Amber’s sister threw him a party … we have pictures/videos from it that I have to still get through.but let’s just say the boy was hilarious. I’ll try to get his birthday post done this week but I’m warning ya, it’s a crazy busy week so you may not see a post until after the race…so to hold you over, here are a couple pics from the wedding…

Silas and I playing outside. He is packing a pretzel in his cheek and has one in each hand. I really believe he could live on pretzels … or at least he thinks so.

Silas with his momma

Silas and I having fun at the reception

Official Number

2010-10-05T21:42:00.001-05:00

We got our official number email today and it was as we thought … 61. Then, tonight, we got an updated email from our case manager with a correction … we are actually…

How sweet is that! We’ve made it to the 50s! We’ve had some serious movement in the past 2.5 months … 19 spots since we initially got on the waitlist. We don’t expect that pace to continue but we’re happy for the movement so far…

Update on Project 10-40, we are 35% there … thank you for your support!

Noah, Counting, and Bible Verse

2010-10-04T22:09:00.001-05:00

Thought I’d share a couple videos we took tonight…it’s funny how we ‘torture’ him to do stuff on camera that he does normally just hanging out at the house…it’s crazy how much he’s soaking up these days … and I can’t believe he’ll be 2 in 9 days!

OK, every night, the first book I read Silas at bedtime is a Bible Story out of his children’s Bible. For the past few weeks, he ALWAYS wants to hear the story of Noah … well, I guess some of it has stuck with him :)

The boy is counting pretty good these days … Most times he needs prompted but will do it on his own sometimes. He will never repeat ‘one’ and always starts at two.

At church this past weekend, they gave us a little card about the stories they’d be teaching in Silas’ class this month… and it also had a Scripture for all of us to memorize :) You’ll see 2 tries at this … he is less distracted during dinner when we usually work on it. You will see him laugh when hearing Deuteronomy … similar to when we try to teach him Amharic. It’s hard not to laugh at him when he laughs. Also, you will see what I amtalking about with him not saying ‘one’ when we say the Scripture reference :)

Alright, think that hits my blog quota until after the marathon :) Speaking of which, we are 10% complete on Project 10-40. Thank you to those who have sponsored me! THANK YOU!!

Adoption, Marathon Updates and Project 10-40

2010-10-03T22:23:00.001-05:00

Alright, first things first. We believe we are unofficially 61 on the waiting list which is good movement for September. We should be getting our official numbers from AGCI in the next week or so. We also received our FDL letter from USCIS so the US government has given us permission to bring our daughter home from Ethiopia. That is officially the last piece of paperwork we needed so it is truly a waiting (and fundraising) game now. This wait will be much different than the wait for Silas. Silas is so much a little person now. He will be 2 on the 12th which is just nuts! It’s amazing how much he’s learning on a daily basis.

OK, the half marathon … it is less than 2 weeks away! That’s crazy. I did 11 miles yesterday morning in about 1:41. As I stated on my facebook status yesterday, those are words I never thought I would utter. I never thought I would run double digit miles at one time. I am going to try to do 12 miles this coming weekend and then the infamous 13.1 miles on the 16th. There are alot of praises to share…

My foot – I had xrays done early this summer when I first start running to show that I have bone-to-bone going on in my big toe’s joint. It was bothering me quite a bit. I have not had much pain at all in my toe/foot for quite a while. HUGE PRAISE
Overall health – besides a strained muscle in my back and a strained muscle in my neck, I have not had any major physical issues besides being sore. I was definitely feeling it today and my ankle is pretty sore today.
Time with God & daughter – the time I’ve had to spend with God and praying/thinking about our daughter has been priceless. When you’re out there for almost 2 hours, it definitely helps encourage me to know that I’m running for our daughter
Sponsorship – We are at $2600 which is amazing. We have had dozens of people sponsor me to run the marathon … this is such a humbling thing … especially for someone who has an issue with a little bit of pride. I am so thankful for so many people joining us to bring our daughter home and for her to be an orphan NO MORE!

The goal for the marathon was $3000 so we are just $400 away from that … so, if we can get 40 people to donate $10 or more, we will hit or exceed the goal. So, here we are with Project 10-40. $10 (or more) for 40 people = goal met. If you feel led to give, thank you! Every dollar is put into a separate account that is only used for our adoption expenses.

Alright, will leave you with some Silas pictures. Last weekend, we went to a pumpkin farm and Silas had a great time. He rode a little ride with Amber, did a hayride with me, fed some goats, gotta ‘drive’ an old tractor picked out a pumpkin,

Silas going through a hay maze all by himself … was proud of him :)

Momma and Silas riding the ‘train’ … he was yelling ‘CHOO-CHOO’ for this picture. He LOVES trains. The guy driving the tractor for this asked me if I wanted to ride with him. I asked him if he had any grease to get me out of the can. Let’s just say we chose Amber to ride with Silas….

In a typical fall picture setting…

In a sea of pumpkins…

Kid loved being out with the pumpkins

Boy loves tractors as well … pretty much anything with an engine and a steering wheel.

Alright, that’s all I got tonight :) … thanks for joining us on this journey!

Numbers, Fingerprints, 10k, and Ethiopian New Year

2010-09-15T21:11:00.001-05:00

Thought I better get a post out there since I’m getting called out by Dawn…

Last Thursday, we received our official wait list number from AGCI…

That’s only 3 spots in a month. A little disappointing with our number being so high. The logical side of me sees that being 23 months of wait at moving 3 spots a month. However, courts are closed in Ethiopia right now (rainy season) so movement in general is slow. We are praying that movement picks up this fall … so that more kiddos can be forever home and selfishly that we can move up the list quicker to know the daughter God has for our family. However, it tears me up thinking that so many families will have to make such a huge sacrifice in order for us to receive our referral.

Friday afternoon, we had our USCIS fingerprint appointment. It was interesting walking in there the second time around and seeing the same workers. The same security officer asking us the same pass-the-time questions (where you from, I’m a cheesehead, etc, etc). The worker who took our prints was very friendly and got us in and out pretty quickly. It’s funny to think back to the prints for Silas. We were remodeling our living room and I had been sanding drywall and didn’t even think about the impact on my prints. The USCIS lady told me that she couldn’t guarantee my prints would go through … but by the grace of God, they went through and we got our favorable letter. Praying these prints go through smoothly this time and we get our favorable letter in the near future.

Saturday morning was my 10k (6.2 mile) race in preparation for the 1/2 marathon next month. This is the first race I’ve ever attempted. Friday night I prepped with getting my time chip on my shoe, bib on my shirt, etc. Having to get up at 5:30am, I started second-guessing doing the race quickly. The race started at 7am and I met up with my buddy Kris I was going to run with. My goal was for 10 minute miles so that would have me finishing in one hour two minutes. What I didn’t plan on was the humidity … it was MUGGY. There was a chance of rain but it never did rain … felt like it should have with the heaviness of the air. The humidity definitely affected the race for me … I could feel it in my breathing from early on. And running on different course was so different … my training has been done on my own turf and I know my markers for how far I have gone. With the race, there was a marker every mile. Each mile sign felt like it was much farther away than what my familiar markers would show for that distance. Oh, and then there was some of the course on grass and chip-rock which I wasn’t used to either. Nevertheless, with all those differences and challenges …. I did finish! My time was 1:03:27 which was 10:14 mile pace. With it being my first race and the humidity, I was mostly happy with that time. The half marathon is less than 5 weeks away … the next month is going to be interesting … my long runs will consist of 8,9,10, and 11 miles with the half marathon (13.2 miles being 5 weeks from this past Saturday. My during-the-week runs are now 5-6 miles which is just tough to fit in during the week. If I go out to run after putting Silas down for bed, I’m not home until after 9:30pm. I honestly will be happy when the race will be over. I will want to keep running some but with distances around 3-4 miles.

The race was sponsored by Chik-fil-a so the cows were out. After the race, Silas was all about giving them high-fives.

Somewhere out on the course. Can’t be too far in as the hat isn’t too discolored yet.

My buddy Kris is bib 212. He and his wife are leaving Saturday to Israel for a couple weeks. They are feeling God’s call to be missionaries there and this is a “scope out” trip along with getting to participate in the Feast of Tabernacles. They have 3 little ones and are praying about adopting their 4th child. I’m blessed to call him a friend as he and his wife are definitely seeking God’s plan for their family. (For the record, I beat Kris by 14 seconds but who’s counting, right? :) He’s running the 1/2 as well so I better be careful because he’ll run over me then)

Silas hanging out in his stroller waiting for me to come by…

About to the finish line passing Amber and Silas

Just crossing the finish line

Getting a picture with Silas after getting home

Saying cheeeeeeze to the camera

It’s amazing how God throws his confirmations out there as well. While Amber and Silas was waiting for me to run by, a guy walked by and looked at Silas. A couple minutes later he walked by again, stopped, and asked where Silas was from. Amber told him Ethiopia and he said he thought so as he was from Ethiopia and had been here 30 years! He was at the race to support his daughter who was running her first 10k. Amber got to chat with him for a while and then God allowed our paths to cross after the race and I got to meet him and his daughter. I could have stood there all day to listen to him talk about Ethiopia and his love for her. He told us about a tour to do while in Ethiopia that would take you to the major sites … churches built into the side of mountains, the place Ethiopians believe the ark of the covenant is, etc, etc. I am so thankful we got his email address so that we can keep in touch.

Back to the race … it’s amazing how humbling one of those can be. Not just seeing/feeling how vulnerable our physical bodies are but also by looking at the results of the race. I got WHOOPED by a 72 year old man. He ran the race in 49:02 (7:54 mile). That is just NUTS! I just can’t comprehend seeing me run a single mile that fast let alone a 72 year old man run a 10k like that. I also was beat by 70, 67, and 60 year old men. Men twice my age beating me down. Humbling.

After the race, I had the mindset that I had accomplished all I needed for the day. Unfortunately, reality came quickly. We came home and hung out rest the morning, played, and did some chores around the house.

First, Silas had to show off his ‘splits’ skillz. We’re going to have to put him in gymnastics probably soon. Kid loves doing somersaults, jumping off about anything in our house, and doing ‘tricks’ off our step down into the living room.

Silas loves helping with the laundry

Well, he actually just likes chucking the laundry into the dryer … and pushing the dryer on button.

We ate lunch together and then Amber put Silas down for a nap since he was up all early to get to the race. She took his nap time to go exercise herself and I hung out working on things around the house. When she got home, I ran some trash to the dump and mowed most of the yard. Then it was off to church. After church we went to an Ethiopian restaurant to celebrate the Ethiopian New Year. We went to one that we have gone to a few times and the waitress couldn’t believe how much he’d grown since we were in last. And that’s no lie. I was looking through old pics a couple days and it’s crazy how tiny our boy was.

After enjoying our great meal

As you can see, we tore into it. We brought some dora wat and tibs home and of course, Amber ate the leftovers :(

Finally, go out and support Dawn & Tim as they are having a raffle for their sponsored child from the Korah dump in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Just don’t expect to win. That ipod touch is all mine!

Silas’ Prayer

2010-09-08T22:32:00.001-05:00

We are a family that prays before we eat. Silas is now usually the one who is saying ‘pray, pray’ before Amber and I have sat down. It hasn’t been always like that though … he went through a good period where he talked during the prayer. He also went through a period where I would start the prayer ‘Dear Jesus…’ and he would scream AMEN! right after that. Nevertheless, we’ve tried to be consistent with him and teach him to listen when someone else is praying, to say Amen after the person praying says it, etc, etc.

Recently, we have started having him repeat a prayer with us. For example, '”Dear Jesus, thank your for my food. I love you. In Jesus Name, Amen”. Well, Amber called me after lunch and said here’s how lunch went…

Amber: Silas, do you want to pray or Mama?

Silas: Mama

Amber: OK, I’ll pray

Silas: No, Sassy (Silas calls himself ‘Sassy’ … not a fan of that at all … it started when our babysitter’s little girl started calling him that because she couldn’t say ‘Silas’ and now it’s stuck.

Amber: OK, Silas will pray

(Amber paused for a couple seconds here and was about ready to have Silas repeat her when…)

Silas: Dear Jesus, I love you. Amen.

ALL BY HIMSELF! So proud of my boy … he’s growing up so fast … I can’t believe he will be 2 next month. That’s just crazy. How does that happen?!?!

OK, fast forward to supper tonight. Of course I want to see him pray again. So I set the camcorder on the table (if I hold it in my hand, he’s as quiet as a mouse). Check out the video below….

OK, his eyes back and forth CRACK ME UP. And yes, I had to prompt him with ‘Dear Jesus’ but he said everything else himself :) … To interpret the Silas-speak, he said “Dear Jesus, thank you. I love you. Amen'”

Every night when Silas and I get done lotioning up, reading a Bible Story and a couple books, I turn the light out, sing a couple songs to him, and pray over him. My nightly prayer is that Silas will come to know Jesus at a young age and will follow Him all his days. Lord Jesus, thank you for your work in Silas, for the health you’ve given him and his heart that is full of love. Continue to reveal yourself to Silas so he may understand who you are and follow Your plans for his life. Thank you LORD JESUS! AMEN!

Long overdue

2010-09-06T19:23:00.001-05:00

It’s amazing how fast 3+ weeks can go by. It should be no surprise for the 5 of you around this blog to know posts will be that far between. It has honestly been crazy around here … to show that I’m not ignoring you on purpose, here is the past week…

Monday – normal work day … up at 5:20am and home around 5pm after stopping by a rental house I’m trying to sell. Yes, it is absolutely the wrong time to sell houses. My mind knows that. However, we’ve been invited by God to get out of debt to do bigger and better things for Him and His Kingdom. I would prefer to hold onto the properties but that’s not His course. So, we are “strategically” trying to sell a couple properties … strategically meaning trying not to lose our shirts.

After I got home, we went to pick up our vehicle that was getting serviced and then go meet tenants of a rental house that are trying to buy the house from me. That meeting went three times longer than I thought it would. Home after 7pm and hang out with Silas and Amber for about 15 minutes and then go put Silas to bed. Now, it’s around 8pm and still haven’t eaten. However, still need to run because of the crazy week ahead of me. I can’t eat before running … it isn’t pretty with stomach cramps, etc. so I decide to forego eating and go run around 4.5 miles. Get home, shower, do some work, bed around 11:30.

Tuesday – normal work day. Then go pick up Silas at our babysitter after work. We had plans to go to Korah Night that Project 61 was hosting so I hurry up and get him changed into his pj’s, get dinner for him (easy since Amber fixed a crock-pot meal), eat, and then Amber gets home and eats herself. We drive up to our friends who were going to watch Silas and then off to Korah Night. Amazing night, got to see our friends Pat & Jody again, and got a letter from our sponsored boy! That’s right, we have a boy from Korah that I will have to write about soon … total God story there…night ends, pick up Silas, get home after 10pm and in bed around 11:30 again.

Wednesday – again, normal work day. Home for about 15 minutes before having to leave to go to an event for The 1:27 Call. We were invited to a local church to set up a table to let their members learn more about our ministry. Every couple/few months, in lieu of Wednesday night church, they invite ministries to come out they have a little ministry ‘fair’. I love that idea … the church living outside their 4 walls.

During the morning, Amber took Silas to his first program at a local wilderness station today ... It’s pretty cool that they do programs throughout the week and the wilderness station is literally down our road. Amber said he liked it pretty good and it was going well ... Amber met another mom who had adopted from Vietnam so they chatted it up. During that chat, she turned around to check on Silas and she caught him tap, tap, tapping another mom's prosthetic leg...gotta love the curiosity of a 22 month old!

Thursday – same work routine. Pick Silas up from the babysitter’s, get home, change him out of his play clothes and go pick up Amber from her work. We were going to the MTSU opening football game with our church. It was a great game … although you learn quickly that you don’t get to watch much of a game with a toddler. We left a little after 9pm … in the 4th quarter .… tied ballgame … as Silas was running on fumes. As we left the stadium, Silas spotted a fire truck sitting outside the stadium. We go up to it so Silas can check it out and Silas says 'Ride, ride, ride..." ... and the gracious firefighter let him sit inside ... Silas thought he was the biggest man on campus! He was all about giving the firefighter a high-five after he got out of the truck.

Friday – Same work, different day. Got home around 4:30 and being I had not ran since Monday, I had to get out there. Not really what I wanted to do after a l.o.n.g week but needed to be done. Run about 5 miles and get home a few minutes before Amber’s mom got here. She came to visit over the holiday weekend. We eat supper and just hang out rest of the night.

Saturday – So Silas LOVES trains … it doesn’t have to be Thomas just trains in general. And real-life sized ones are even better. He loves my parents’ house in Illinois because they live about 50 yards from train tracks and multiple trains go by a day. Well, Thomas was coming to the Train Museum in Nashville and we debated on going or not. The tickets were expensive for seeing Thomas and getting to ride in a train car but we decided to go. Silas loved seeing the trains and riding in the train operated by Thomas. Our train ride was at 11pm and lasted 25 minutes or so. It was overdramatic as we probably went 5 mph in one direction, stopped, and then went back to the station. I don’t think we even left the train yard. But, Silas liked it and that’s what matters. By the end, it was definitely nap time so we left around noon. We came home, ate lunch, Silas napped, and we went to church, to eat at Chuy’s, and ran to a couple stores to let the women shop … Silas and I had fun running through the stores :)

Sunday – I usually do my long runs on Saturdays but due to the crazy schedule this week, I moved it to Sunday. I ran 7 miles yesterday and felt ‘ok’ (legs are sore today)… I did learn not to eat tex-mex (Chuy’s) the night before a long run … I’ll just leave it at that. I average about 10 minute miles which I am totally fine with. My breathing at that pace is usually ok but my legs aren’t usually as happy. And running (well, jogging or scooting … depending on your perspective) is such a mental thing. About 3 miles in, my mind starts telling my body that we’ve done enough. It is a mental battle to continue. When that happens, I try to focus on Ethiopia, our daughter, the invitation God has me on vs. all the other mental games that can go on. So that means I’m thinking about our daughter and Ethiopia alot. And now that I’m running longer, I gotta add some music to my ipod playlist as I’m getting through the whole thing now … seems odd to run for over an hour’s worth of music.

I am signed up for a 10k in our town next Saturday … I figured I better do some sort of a race before the 1/2 marathon. I’m kinda excited for it but at the same time the unknown of how I’ll do when someone is officially keeping time is a little unnerving … plus, not looking forward to getting up all early on a Saturday to run nonetheless..

I’ve also been praying that God would open an invitation to marry the skills He’s given me with the passion He’s put in my heart. Well, an idea got planted in my heart in the last couple months which does exactly what I’ve been asking. It’s alot of work that has to happen in my ‘free’ time so please don’t get any hopes of alot of posts here soon … just sayin’. :) … as it’s appropriate, I will definitely fill you in on this endeavor.

OK, I know … here’s what you’ve been waiting for…some pictures over the past couple weeks…

Silas climbing on a train at a county fair … told you the boy loves trains

Silas on his first carney ride … kid loves steering wheels too so having 2 of them was pure joy for him.

Silas shaving with daddy

We got to welcome the Bonners home at the airport and Silas LOVED riding the pedway or whatever they’re called. We had to take a couple laps and he still wasn’t happy when we left…

Last Saturday, we met up with some of my college friends that I haven’t seen in about 8 years. We went down to the Wildhorse Saloon for lunch … Silas thought the horses were pretty cool.

At our church’s tailgate party before the MTSU football game.

Silas loves his sunglasses … unfortunately I broke them today :( … he was wearing them because the stadium lights were ‘bright’. And then he saw I had mine on my hat so he had to put his on his head too.

Silas and I riding the little train in the parking lot when we went to go see Thomas

Mama and Silas going down the big slide

Cool kid after going down the slide.

Mama, Mammaw, and Silas as we wait in line to get on our train car.

Silas intensely looking out the window of the train car

THOMAS!

The line to get your picture ‘with’ Thomas was so long … we just decided to take one kinda in front of it. As you can see, it was meltdown stage and Silas was ready to go.

It’s been SO nice the past couple of days that it was perfect to sit on the deck for dinner on Sunday night. You can see that we don’t have a patio table but the fold-up table worked just fine. We’re in the midst of the cheesecake dessert that Amber made that was so right it was wrong.

Silas looking like he hasn’t brushed his teeth … ever.

Hanging out and just having fun after dessert

Giving Mammaw hugs as she left today…

And kisses…

And smiles!

OK, hope that catches you up for the next couple weeks :)

Adoption Update, Counting & Fellowship

2010-08-16T21:25:00.001-05:00

We got our USCIS fingerprint time in the mail today … they are for Friday, September 10th … we were praying they would be on one of Amber’s off days from work and God’s grace allowed that to happen. So, one more step in the journey…

At church this weekend, a good friend told us he thought about us this past week … he was listening to Mercy Me’s new album and heard the second verse of this song. We were humbled that he thought of us. And even though I pray and think of our daughter every time I run and Amber and I pray together for her every night … that God would surround her, protect her, keep her safe and healthy … that He would open her heart to us and ours to hers (we don’t know if she’s born or even conceived yet but God does … He knows her name), it’s easy for me to be “distanced” from her with the large wait ahead of us. This song helps bring her down closer to me tonight. Thank you Tommy! What an amazing song. It is now on the ipod. Take a listen. Open your heart. Serve His people.

OK, now I know it’s because he’s my boy, but he’s the smartest.kid.ever. Don’t you agree?

We had a great time at The 1:27 Call’s fellowship picnic yesterday. Yes, it was hot but the kiddos didn’t seem to mind (water table helped greatly … Silas was soaked as usual when there is water within a mile radius) and it was great catching up with old friends and meeting new ones and their sweet kiddos. I stole some pictures from another family as I was weak and didn’t take any (even though Amber reminded me to). Thanks Rutledges!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

2010-08-15T21:32:00.002-05:00

And the winner is….

GIVEAWAY WEEK!

2010-08-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

We are almost 1/2 way to our sponsorship goal for my 1/2 marathon to bring Silas’ baby sister home. To celebrate this accomplishment, we are going to give away one of our Ugandan Magazine Necklaces! As a guy, it doesn’t come across very well when I say these necklaces are amazing, but they really are. Every person who has bought one has been amazed at the construction, color, and variation of each necklace.

So, all you need to do to enter the giveaway is to share our blog on facebook, your blog, and/or twitter … feel free to say a nice word or two about our family as well :). Then, leave a comment on this post about where you shared our blog and we will add you to the raffle. We will hold the drawing on Sunday night after our Forever Family Fellowship picnic hosted by The 1:27 Call (if you’re in Middle Tennessee, you should come out to the picnic. Let me know if you’re interested). All comments need to be in by 7pm Central, Sunday, August 15th. I will update the blog with the winner next Sunday night…

Let the games begin!

What a weekend!

2010-08-05T22:35:00.001-05:00

OK, it’s already Thursday and my story starts a week ago…

Our agency, AGCI, was in town this past weekend for an adoption seminar, benefit dinner, and picnic.

Thursday night was the seminar. Kristi and I had the opportunity to talk for a few minutes about our experience with AGCI. I brought Silas with me but Amber had to work late and wasn’t able to go. It did allow me to tell folks why we chose AGCI again. When I first got there, Silas was his typical self in a new environment – he clung to me for his life. If I sat him down, he would whine like there’s no tomorrow. Luckily, this lasted about 45 minutes and he got comfortable there and was running around on his own. He kept saying Lucy’s name on the drive there but when we got there, of course he didn’t want to play with her.

By the time Ashley from All God’s Children was in full mode of her presentation, Silas decided to start running through the crowd to play ‘keep away from daddy.’ Now, for those in the crowd interested in adoption, I’m sure it was cute seeing an adorable Ethiopian running around, but he was a distraction. So, the parent award of the year had to be used….We made about a dozen trips to the food table and I think Silas ate his weight in crackers and cookies. (Tangent – Amber weighed him yesterday and said he was 27 lbs … boy’s getting big!). By the time Ashley got done and I got up to speak, Silas was in full play mode … he did not want me to hold him so I put him down and he knew he could then get away with anything. Boy was into everything, climbing on everything, pushing buttons for electronics, etc … I had to stop numerous times in order to retrieve him from whatever he was in. In preparation for the talk, I did some Scripture studying and found something interesting that I didn’t know. It’s something I want to do a video on so stay tuned for that! Nevertheless, it gave me an opportunity to talk to the husbands as most adoption/orphan care seminars like this are women-focused. Overall, AGCI said the seminar went well … there were probably 50 people there and they said that was a great turnout for a Thursday night…

Friday night was the benefit dinner. As a family in the midst of another adoption, we could not afford it so we decided to host some families we’ve come to know through the blog world. We did a cookout at our house. It allowed some families to get to hang out more than just a couple hours at a picnic.

First, I picked up our first guests, Renee and Noah, at the airport as they were staying with us. We came home and I went to work on getting ready for the get-together. As I was walking in the door, Amber was heading out with Silas to where else … the airport! Our good friends Amy & Paul that live less than a mile from us were coming home from Ethiopia … we were so excited for them and it tore me up that I couldn’t be there to welcome them home. Go check out there amazing boy. He’s flat-out adorable.

So families started to arrive … it’s amazing to see them in person when you’ve seen countless pictures of them … we were blessed to have in our prescence…

The Beachy’s – They were the next family behind us on the waiting list when we got Silas’ referral. Matt & I became pretty good friends in cyberspace after they got a courtdate a month ahead of us and I struggled with that.

The Pelley’s – they get the award for traveling the farthest

The Knights – Charisa was the volunteer coordinator for our agency when we traveled. She has handed the reigns over and has started it for another agency that they are adopting an infant through!

The Prusts – they traveled about 6 weeks before us and were able to give us an update on Silas!

The Hilts – they traveled with the Prusts and also got updates from them. They gave us a picture of Silas in Ethiopia in a ladybug fleece Halloween costume. Poor kid had to been sweating rockets. No wonder he loves just being in his diaper or buck-naked.

The Harpers – We got to travel with Andi & Sean when they brought Will home. They live about 3 hours away and are “good people” … we will hopefully get to see them again this fall…

Paul & DeeDee – They traveled a few weeks after us to bring their daughter home. We were able to love on Olivia while in Ethiopia. They are in process of becoming missionaries to ETHIOPIA! They are in the fundraising cycle now … please be praying for them and pray about supporting them. They are living it out. Selling house, possessions, etc and moving to Ethiopia next summer. They told me they think they’re crazy every single day. To the world, they are. In God’s Kingdom, they’re leaders.

Silas happy that his friends from Ethiopia are coming!

Will with the lawnmower … the lawnmower was a point of contention throughout the night. It was the toy of the night

Silas with the Beachy brothers … can’t tell he’s loving being next to his water table. It didn’t take long for him to be sitting in it … diaper and all

An attempt to get most of the Ethiopian kiddos together. With 6 toddlers, not an easy task.

OK, she is just adorable! And had her pick of the men as you can see from the picture above

What a great night hanging out with families!

Saturday was the picnic … this drew families from all over the country … from Kansas to Texas to Connecticut to Georgia to Wisconsin to Maryland to Indiana to Virginia … you get the picture. It was amazing to see all the kids together. I was the picnic coordinator so I didn’t get to visit as much as I wanted with families but it was still great to be part of an amazing day. It was HOT … as in not-funny hot. The TN humidity and hot temps were in full force as it’s been all summer.

Silas having a ball on the playground

Lucy Lane, Jackson, and most other kids loved the water

Doesn’t it look like Jaxson is up to no good?

Silas had fun riding on the skateboard. Apparently while I was working the sno-cone machine, Amber pushed him around on one of those 3-wheel scooters and he loved it. We’ve come to see what Silas likes that is from Kristi’s and then go get that for him for birthday, etc. :)

I was so happy to see this family. We were supposed to travel with them and they got held up at the last minute. Last time I saw Mahlet was in Ethiopia. She has grown 7 inches in less than a year being home. Such a beautiful girl!

I got to meet the Pratt’s for just a minute as the sno-cone machine was calling my name … actually, I saw the kids eyeing it and knew they would start making them on their own if I didn’t jump in :)

Can you tell Olivia is happy with her snocone?

and Jackson? Blue mouth and all :)

Still boggles my mind that Lucy Lane and Silas were in Ethiopia hanging out together and now live 40 minutes from each other and we were able to bring them forever home at the same time

Saturday night, the Hull’s, Beachy’s, Paul/DeeDee, and Renee/Noah all hung out here at the house. It was great seeing the kids together in a smaller setting.

Forgot to take pics Saturday night but here’s one of Jeremiah…

Sunday morning, Paul/DeeDee were heading back to Texas so we joined them up at Cracker Barrel from breakfast. You can’t beat their breakfast! Last week was week one of my 12 week training plan for the 1/2 marathon. I did a couple errands and then ran 4 miles in the hottest part of the day. Good planning by me. We ate dinner and went to the park to let Silas play with Noah one last time. In the midst of lifting them up on monkey bars, etc, I strained a muscle in my back. Unfortunately, I haven’t ran at all this week because of it. I’m hoping to run 4 on Saturday so I don’t miss a long run. It should be an interesting run.

Bright and early Monday morning, I drove Renee/Noah over to the Hull’s hotel as they were going to ride back with Kim to TX for a few days of hanging out/vacation. I wish at that point I could have drove home and slept for 10 hours but alas I had to go into work. And it’s been a crazy busy ever since…

Finally, update on our adoption. We are mailing in our I600A form tomorrow … this is a form to the USCIS to grant us permission to bring our daughter into the country. We had all the paperwork a couple weeks ago but we were saving money for the $830 in fees and fingerprints. We figured that as long as the waitlist is, we have time :)

Have a great weekend … mine will consist of playing catch up on about a dozen things!