Our Beloved God Daughters

So tonight is our last night with our wonderful God daughters. Sophia is here with me playing and her older sister Chloe is in the toy room watching "Finding Nemo". She sure loves her fishies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am amazed at how well they do with their parents being gone for so long, and yet I also wonder if the last few temper tantrums were a result of missing their mom and dad.

The last two weeks have been filled with so much joy for us. Taking the girls on walks and playing in the park, taking the girls to see my sister and her little boy Tyson, taking the girls over to their auntie Mandy's to play with their cousin, taking them out for ice cream at DQ (man do they love their ice cream), and taking baths (they sure love their bath time).

So funny stories about bath times. The first night I put the girls in our bath tub I just got Sophie out of her diaper and as I was placing her in the bath tub she peed. Luckily not all over me, just in the bath tub. That was an easy clean up. A few nights laster when Chloe pooped in the bath tub, well that clean up took a lot more time and man did it stink. Jeral was watching the girls while I grabbed their blankies, sippie cups, jammies, and new diapers, and all of a sudden he is calling me to come quickly. I took my time thinking that he was okay and could handle the situation. However when I got there I understood what happened, and let me tell you that girlie sure can poop.

We also attempted to wean the girls off their soothers. Yeah in the end we decided that was their mom and dads responsibility.

There have been lots of snuggles, cuddles, songs (twinkle twinkle little star over and over and over again), laughs, tears, screams etc., in the past two weeks. We are going to miss having the girls here. Yet alas tomorrow morning their mom will come and pick them up and we will have to say good bye. Good thing they live a 4 minute drive away and we can go see them any time we want.

Home Study Date

So everyone we have a home study date! Yeah for finally hearing when we get to enter in to the next phase of this journey. So the date is March 31st at 12:45 pm. We would love it if you would all pray. We are both excited and nervous for this phase to start. We are not to worried about the home visit when she inspects the house. I am not to thrilled about all the personal questions that we have to answer. I think that is why we needed to wait the year that God asked us to wait because a year ago I would not have been okay with answering all those questions.

So yeah for the next phase of the journey starting!

Amazing Kids and Learning Patience

So on the adoption front, we are having to learn patience as we still have no idea when our home study will start. A little on the frustrating side of things, and yet we are trusting the God will teach us what we need to learn in the waiting. Hopefully we will have some news this week. If not then things will have to wait until the end of April as Jeral will be away for the 2nd and 3rd week of April on a motor cycle trip.

We have had the blessing of having out God daughters since Wednesday night. We have them until next Sunday, and what a blessing they are. Yes they are challenging and yet they bless our hearts day in and day out. We love them both so much, and feel honored that their parents would trust us with the girls for so long.

I also got a little present from their mom for taking care of the girls. On Wednesday night when I was trying to clean up the mess Chloe had made of her suitcase I stumbled across a partly open gift that Chloe had started to rip open. It was a 16 G Touch Ipod!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah I have been wanting one so much and now I have one. I am working on receiving things, and this is one gift I do not mind receiving! Needless to say I have been playing with my new toy a lot in the past couple of days and plan to play with it more!

Heart Broken

So today I was reading a book entitled "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew". Well by the middle of the second chapter I was heart broken, and filled with the desire to pray for my future children even more now.

This was my journal entry after reading what I read.

My heart was sad tonight as I was reading the adoption book. I was sad because I realized no matter how much I love my sons and daughters, my love will not be able to spare them the pain and loss of adoption. I was sad because my baby, my child who I have prayed for, cried for and longed for will not know me as his or her mother the first time I hold him or her. In fact they will be afraid of this strange woman, and no matter how much I love and cherish my baby there is nothing I can do to prevent that. My children will be wounded by being taken from or given up by their birth parents and I am helpless to prevent this wound from happening. I am sad because of the hurt that must take place for my child to be a part of my life and family.

I am not one to enjoy or embrace feeling helpless, and that is how I feel. I know it may sound crazy to feel such intense sadness and hurt for some one I do not yet know, yet the truth I have been praying for my children for a long time now, and love them without knowing them. I have gone from being angry that I have to undergo the scrutiny of my entire life, to being more than willing to go through whatever is a head of us, just so I can hold my baby and say "I love you, and I am so sorry that you have had to go through such loss at such a young age and being so tiny."

Adoption Stuff

So we have a social worker now! Whoot!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!! Umm still waiting to hear from her, and yet I will be patient. The adoption agency and I were able to clear up some miscommunications, in regards to us only needing them to do the home study, as we are not going to be their clients we are going to be clients of the Sunrise Adoption Agency. They are still sending out some paper work however it will be minimal paper work so that is great. Things are starting to happen.

I am learning to be thankful for the slowness of this process so far. I have really needed the past few weeks to snuggle into God and rest in the arms of my PAPAMAMMA, and let God bring more healing to a very wounded past. It seems that the adoption process is pushing my triggers and a lot of distorted thoughts about myself and about God are rising to the surface. In this limbo state PAPAMAMMA and I get to talk about this stuff, and it is good. Hard, yet good!

Pictures

Jeral and I took a little trip on Sunday to on of our favortie places, Margret Falls these are some of the pictures we took! Above is my husband being a goof ball! I love this man!

I am thinking that we will maybe use this one for our portfolio during the adoption process!

Okay so I like making faces, maybe I will use this one too! We will see! I want to use as many as I can of me at a lower weight! So we will see!

Mile Stone

Okay so back a few months ago. About 8 months ago to be exact I decided that it was time I begin to loose the weight that I had put on. Well in 8 months I have lost 66 pounds and I am officially under the 200 pound mark. My scale says 198!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am totally stoked and so stoked that my reward to myself will be going out and buying matching bedside tables for our bedroom. Yep not going to go buy food or anything like that. Talk about defeating the purpose of loosing weight if I were to reward myself with food.

Jeral and I were talking last night at dinner time, and he was saying that he is surprised that he has lost weight since we got married. I looked at him and said I am no longer cooking all the fatty Mennonite foods that we all love, and that is why he is loosing weight. However this is my sneaky trick - since my hubby has a six pack, my husband is hot!!!!! Anyways I give him double portions of the meat and other higher calorie foods that we eat and I eat more veggies, and smaller portions. I just spread the portions out on my plate to make it look like I am eating as much as him. I know I am so devious, and yet now I weigh less than my hubby!

Okay so with all this aside - we are not all about loosing weight. Our decision was to be healthy first and foremost and loosing weight has been a bonus from that. I figured that if I want this to be a life long change in my life I need to do this right, and slow and steady! Thus our life has changed and for the better!

So there you have my bragging post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rough Time

Just having a rough time. Both Jeral and I are struggling with the whole adoption process that we are embarking on. Things just seem to to be moving so slowly right now. We had hoped that the home study would be underway this week and yet we still have not heard from the agency. I guess I am going to have to learn patience.

For my birthday my sister - in - law got me the word patience and it is on our mantle as a reminder to me that I need more patience in my life. I just feel that 26 months is patient enough, and yet I know we have longer to wait. My heart breaks knowing the Jeral's heart is breaking to hold our child in his arms. So yeah rough go of it right now.

Yet I am so grateful for an amazing husband, who never makes me feel less for being unable to get pregnant. Jeral truly is the best part of my life, and my best friend! I love him more than I will ever be able to say.

We are getting away next week together. I have my sessions at the coast and Jeral is coming with me so we can spend some time together away from the farm by ourselves.