May Number

We received an email today with our waitlist number for May.  It was no surprise that we are number:

 

 

Tomorrow will be 10 weeks at number one.  This has definitely been the most difficult part of our journey so far, but we are so grateful for the many prayers that have been lifted up on our behalf.  This past week, I read the book, Heaven is for Real, which is a little boy’s astounding story of his trip to heaven and back.  God knew I needed to read this book because it was so encouraging to me as we wait for our referral.  It reminded me once again that God has a master plan, and He is working out every single detail of our lives according to that plan.  He is not phased one bit by this long wait for our daughter because He knows the end of this story.  I am so grateful that we serve a God whose ways and thoughts are far better than my own! 

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace”

May We Never Forget

I love this picture for so many reasons.  It is my brother at the Operation Iraqi Freedom Welcome Home Ceremony in Honor of the 101st Airborne Division(Air Assault) in February 2004.  He is hugging his niece, Kennedy, for the first time after being away for a year.  This picture is a simple reminder of the numerous sacrifices that were and continue to be made so that I can enjoy the many freedoms I have here in America. I pray that I will never take it for granted, and I pray I can instill this same gratitude towards our soldiers(and their families) past and present, in our children.  Please take time to lift up a prayer for all of those fighting on our behalf today. 

“The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten."
   - Calvin Coolidge

3 years ago today…

We passed court in Ethiopia, and Silas Abrham Lucht officially became our son!  In honor of this boy we love so much, I thought I would share a few things about him at this fun age of 3.5 years old:

1. He will randomly and unprompted tell Troy & I he loves us at least one time a day

2. He loves to sit and hear stories about people.  He especially enjoys hearing about the various adventures Pappaw had as a railroad engineer

3. We always have to test out at least 2 or 3 lawnmowers every time we visit Lowes.  He wants to know every detail about the mowers(where you turn the blades on, etc…).  Unfortunately, daddy does all the mowing at our house so I am not very helpful with answering his questions if daddy isn’t there

4.  Caillou is still his favorite cartoon

5. He still loves being outdoors, and he is really enjoying a swing set that some friends recently gave us

6. He loves going to the library every week, and Troy or I will often get a sore throat before he tires of us reading to him:)

7. He transitioned smoothly into the preschool class at church at the beginning of this year, and he is cruising along like a champ.  I love the fact that his little class at our small church has at least 3 or 4 adopted children in it.  He doesn’t realize it yet, but what a unique bond he’ll have with these kiddos!

8. He frequently talks about his sister, prays for her, and informs us of all the things he is going to teach her when she gets home

I could go on and on, but I will stop here.  Troy and I love this boy to pieces, and I am forever grateful God’s plan was for Silas to be our son.  We are blessed!

Mother’s Day Tradition

This year marks the 4th in a row that my sister and I have decided to give my mom a Mother’s Day ‘weekend’ in lieu of a traditional gift.  It has developed into a tradition,and my mom now looks forward to it every year. Since my sister and mom live in a separate state, we usually pick a place to meet in the middle.  We rent a furnished cabin or condominium, cook lots of unhealthy foods, visit the local (cheap) tourist attractions, and laugh A LOT!  This weekend is only for the girls in the family, and this year my sister brought along their exchange student, Tatjana, from Switzerland.  We thought it would be good to let her experience a little bit of our craziness:) 

This is a pretty good representation of what our meals look like….rich foods that often contain chocolate!  My sister made these chocolate waffles with strawberries for breakfast one morning.

This is where we stayed this year.  It is a very old cabin that is actually on the National Register of Historic Places.  Let me just say that there were bad storms Friday night.  A really old cabin with a metal roof is not my ideal place to be when there are tornado warnings.  Thankfully, God protected us all!

I love these ladies!  From left to right is my mom, niece, sister, and Tatjana

Then it was my turn to jump in for a quick picture.

We did a walking and boat tour of a local cave.  This was taken in front of the gift shop and visitor’s center.

The bridge to the start of the walking tour

This is the entrance to the cave.  It is kind of hard to see because of the trees, but it is one of the biggest entrances to a cave in the world.  They actually have a beautiful area where they hold weddings and proms. 

The weather was perfect, especially in the shade!

I love my sister.  We are so different in so many ways, but yet we get along amazingly well!

We stumbled upon this cute little place on the way back to our cabin.  They had antiques, produce, and anything you could need for your garden.  The best part was that it was all on a farm setting in the middle of the country.  You just don’t see that every day!

They had lots of these old radio flyer wagons.  It brought back great childhood memories!

Tatjana decided to test out the tree swing!

Tatjana leaves to go back to Switzerland at the end of this month so this was the last time I would see her.  I have only spent a short amount of time with her, and she is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet.  She is also very talented.  She plays the piano amazingly well,and she speaks 7 different languages! I know my sister’s family,and especially my niece, will miss her greatly!

One final picture before we head home.  Apparently I missed the memo on what color to wear!

So that sums up my weekend.  I love my family, and I hope we can continue this tradition for many years to come.  We are all in agreement that we would much rather have the quality time together than anything money could ever buy!  My sister prayed for our daughter at each meal over the course of the weekend, and we are all hoping she will be able to join us for our Mother’s Day Weekend next year! 

Spring Happenings at Our House

May is just around the corner which means Spring will soon be coming to an end. Despite the long wait for our daughter's referral, we have  enjoyed this time of year where all of God's creation comes back to life. I thought I would share what has been going on around our house lately.

We planted some flowers.  I do like to plant a few flowers each year, but I sure am thankful that God made perennials!

We enjoyed lots of vegetables from our very first garden last year so we decided to plant another one this year.  We are trying a few new vegetables this year so we will see what happens!

It never gets old to look out our back window and sees scenes like this one!  I love that Troy is such a good and patient daddy with Silas!

Silas has enjoyed the benefits of Sonic’s happy hour.  Mama has too because all drinks are 1/2 price!

We got to have the two cuties above on the left over for an evening as part of some date night bartering with their parents.

 

I am so glad Silas has lots of fellow adoptee friends. 

This is Brodie, a.k.a. Mr. Personality!  I love his sweet little s’more face:)

The picture is a bit blurry, but this is sweet, soft spoken Bates.  He is only 2 months younger than Silas.

You know this kid.  He was thrilled to have hot dogs and s’mores with his buddies!

One last picture of this adorable trio!  Thanks for letting us babysit Nick & Mary Leigh!

Yes, we are still trying to get rid of those Easter Peeps.  This is a Peeps s’more gone wrong.  Oh well, it did not deter Silas from eating it!

Finally, I wanted to thank everyone for your encouraging notes, kind words, and prayers as we wait for our daughter’s referral.  It has meant so much to know how many people care!  We continue to trust God and His timing, and we know without a doubt that our daughter is worth the wait. I hope and pray the month of May brings more than spring flowers this year! 

Wait for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:14

better late than never, right?…Silas’ Gotcha Day Video

During the past couple of months, Silas has frequently requested to watch this Gotcha Day Video.  Common sense would make you guess that it was his video, right?  Unfortunately, his mama and daddy weren’t on the ball, but thankfully his good friend, Lucy Lane’s, mama was on it and had her video done shortly after Lucy Lane came home.  As Silas watched Lucy’s video, he always wanted to see the parts where he is in it.  This begin to make Troy and I feel just a teensy bit guilty that our son didn’t have his own video; therefore, we have dedicated one night a week over the past couple of months towards getting his video done.  I have to admit that Troy spent quite a bit more time on the video than I did since my computer skills are quite limited.  Nonetheless, we have it finished and we wanted to share this wonderful time in our lives with you.  As you will see, the video is directed specifically towards Silas so that he can enjoy it as he grows.  We hope that you will be blessed by it as well!

1 month at #1

It just hurt my heart to type the title of this blog.  Yesterday marked 21 months at being on the waitlist, and today is 1 month at being #1 for the referral of our daughter.  I have to admit that this spot on the waitlist is by far the most exhausting.  Every weekday, I wake up and think “Could this be the day?”, and as the day progresses my hope of getting that call diminishes.  As much as I try to not let it consume my thoughts, my human flesh takes over and it does;however, I continue to hold steadfast to the truth I know which is that God’s timing is perfect.  Regardless of how I feel, He has a plan and a purpose that is far more perfect than anything I could ever imagine.  I know when we see our daughter’s face, all of this emotional angst will melt away.  Until then, I will cling to my Creator and trust in His perfect ways because He is truly all we need.

3.5 Year Pictures

I cannot believe Silas is already 3 1/2 years old.  We have a nightly routine where I read him a book and then he ‘flies’ from my arms to daddy’s arms where they read the Bible, pray, etc..  As he was ‘flying’ to daddy tonight, it hit me how those little baby legs have grown into little boy legs. Everyone who has older children warned me, but it never ceases to amaze me how quickly he is growing up!

It has sort of become our tradition that we get professional pictures done around his birthday, but then do our own photo shoot at the half year.  So, yesterday we headed to a local historic site to snap some pictures of our big boy!  It was a bit challenging as he is one VERY active little guy! We may or may not have resorted to some bribery to get this photo shoot done:) I have included a handful of my favorite pictures below, and they are just another reminder that my cup overflows!

 

The primary activity of the day….running!

He is off again!

He finally stopped for a minute to get a picture under this gazebo.

I love that smile!

My favorite picture of the day.  Those eyes say so much!

 

We had to sneak in a picture with Mama!

Testing out the tree stump!

Here is daddy tickling Silas with his goatee(Have I mentioned that he’s been growing his goatee since mid-January?  He isn’t shaving it off until we get our referral so we REALLY need that call to come for more reasons than knowing who our daughter is!).

 

Silas and Mama in sync

He’s probably dreaming about the ice cream we promised him!

I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. Ezekiel 34:26

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He is Risen!

We have had such a fun weekend celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord!  After obsessing over being number one on the list for our referral, it was great to have a weekend to truly put things back into perspective.  God revealed to me that anything, ANYTHING that is put before him is an idol and I think I have been guilty of doing that over the past couple of weeks.  I have really been praying that I would daily, intentionally allow Jesus to hold the preeminent place in my life.  Once I do this, everything else just falls into place.  So, we spent the past couple of days celebrating JESUS and the fact that He is Risen! 

We started off dying a few Easter eggs

So proud of himself!

Yesterday, we headed to a local farm that had an Easter celebration event for children.  We started off with a little egg hunt

Doesn’t Silas looked thrilled to have his picture taken?

He’s a little bit happier here with daddy

Silas feeding some of the animals

Some of the sheep got into the Easter Egg Dye;)

The barrel train was a hit once again.  We had to do this ride twice!

Silas did a few slides on his own, and then we did this one together.

 

Silas was mad about something here so daddy decided to have a mad face with him; however, Silas didn’t quite see the humor in it:)

He has always loved to swing, and a horse swing was right up his alley!

Love this one!  Pure joy!

We couldn’t leave without getting in a hug for the Easter Bunny!

He had to milk the cows too.

One last picture to wrap up a wonderful day.  The weather was perfect, and we had wonderful family time!

This morning, Silas awoke to find this on our kitchen table.  I had to chuckle because we don’t really talk about the Easter Bunny a whole lot at our house.  When he saw the basket, he said “ Did the Easter thing bring me that mama?”. 

He was happy!

All smiles!

 

Then it was off to church to celebrate our Risen Lord!  I don’t know what I was thinking, but I didn’t get any pictures of Silas dressed up for church.  Thankfully, Troy snapped one on his phone.  I think he looks way to grown up here!

After church, lunch, and a nap, we headed outside to hunt for eggs.

 

He didn’t care to much about hunting the eggs.  He just wanted to eat them.  They were real, hard-boiled eggs which he loves!

Success!

During the course of the weekend, we also added another ornament to our Lent Tree.  The Lent Tree was a new tradition we started this year.  I learned about it at my friend Andrea Young’s blog.  I have loved doing this with our family, and you can learn more about it here.

So, we had a whirlwind of a weekend, but I always love opportunities to celebrate what Jesus did for us!  He is Risen!  He is Risen Indeed!

6 He is not here; He has risen, just as He said.  Matthew 28:6