The Dodd Family

I was upstairs putting away laundrey today and the house seemed a little too quiet. I always have to worry when the house is quiet, so I yelled down to him to see what he was doing. A few minutes later I was greeted with this face...

That's chocolate. On his hands. On his face. On his clothes and in his hair. Chocolate that I had stashed at the back of the counter forgetting that Collin is getting taller and smarter by day.

I couldn't help but smile...at the fact that he was adorable (and edible)....and at his determination to find his own breakfast. After disguising the smile I looked at him with the best mom face I could pull out and asked him, "Collin did you eat that entire piece of chocolate before breakfast?" To which he responded, "no mom, Pete (the cat) had some too." I was no longer able to disguise my smile. Those are the clever answers I get these days. I kissed him and threw him into the tub.

It's been awhile since I've posted. We've had A LOT going on....been doing A LOT of praying!! This last week we started seeing some of our prayers answered in ways we could not have imagined.

Collin is doing great. He's talking A LOT. God's really given him the gift of speech and he's taken off with it. We've had to do very little to encourage it. It's cute to watch such a little guy speak with such clarity and thought. He often spits out full sentences with little effort and when he is hung up on which word he needs he'll stop mid sentence. You can see his little brain working it out. He's still a little fireball and probably always will be, but we have a blast with him! He's got this "awesomely sweet" side to his heart that just makes you melt. He'll walk into the room, wrap his arms around me and say, "I love you mom". If he has a potty accident he'll look up at me and say, "I sorry mom, I sorry". And that smile of his....man does it melt you.

Potty training is going excellent. We were struggling there for awhile, but finally found 2 forms of positive encouragement that worked for him (see photos below). He's staying dry all day now. We no longer need trainers for his nap time. We still put them on him at night, but most of the time he wakes up with them still dry. That is wonderful on the budget.

He gets to choose 1 piece of candy out of the candy bucket when we get home from the babysitters if he's been a big boy all day and hasn't had any accidents.

After a month we no accidents we brought Pete home from a graduation party with us. Pete is a character. He's just as onry as the rest of the men in my home. It's a darn good thing because he serves as a daily lesson on gentleness and empathy.

If you look closesly you can see Pete in the spaceship.

Not afraid of the dogs at all.

I am going part-time in late September! I wanted to go part-time a little early and spend some time loving on Collin in order to better prepare him for a new sibling. In preparation for my job change I've been taking 1 day off a week to try and use up some of my vacation time. Having that one extra day has been such a change. I've been amazed at what I can accomplish. In that single day I've found more time for God, my son and my household responsibilities as well as more energy for myself and my husband. That's not to say the Devil won't throw in new challenges to try and take my time away from me again, but I am excited for this new walk God is taking me on. I am praying that the Devil does not take hold and I will continue growing closer to God, my husband and my son with this extra time!

We were able to spend one morning together at the zoo.

In January Jason's work will begin offering an adoption grant!! We found out this week that Jason's company will now offer their employees $5000 per child. THAT IS IN ADDITION TO THE $5000 PER CHILD MY COMPANY OFFERS!!!

Those who are close to us know that we been hoping to find a new home. One that has enough property to allow us to build a "mother-in-law" home for our aunt and move her there with us. God's really worked through her in our lives. We are excited at the opportunity for God to use us now in her life. Jason and I have been praying for the financial ability to do this. The adoption grants from our two companies is the beginning of an answer to our prayers!

Now we just need God to show us where he wants us to live while we grow our family in him.

Another financial praise! We've been praying that God help Aunt Mary financially while she's been in the hospital and we've literally had cash showing up at our door from people we know and do not know from all over the US. God is really showing up in our lives! It is pretty cool to watch.

Adoption News! We are not sure right now where God is leading us. Our adoption agencies was leading us in the direction of Ethiopia. For whatever reason our hearts were not feeling like that was the path he had planned for us and we were seeing many road blocks as confirmation. For the time being we've asked our case worker to hold off on the completion of our homestudy while we await his direction. SO WE COULD USE SOME PRAYERS. I won't list out the different groups (yes groups) of children he is placing before us right now. JUST PRAY THAT HE MAKES HIS WILL CLEAR TO US.