Quiet House.....

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.

Happy Halloween!

We had a full house at halloween this year as is tradition! Take a look at some of the photos from that night...

Collin with Aunt Sam and Uncle Trever....with cousin Jasmine.
....with cousin Shane.

...with cousin Dominic.

Apple Blossom Farm

Jason took a day off of work a couple of weeks ago and we spent the day in Peoria visiting the Apple Blossom Farm, daddy's work and the zoo. We had a lot of fun together!

It's been awhile.....

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.

We failed to post these before

Last Thanksgiving we went to TX for a reunion with the Dahlers and Zane. Here are some of the pics from our trip.

Sorry to get your hopes up...

We think we probably lost Tamara to another family. We found out last week that the Phillipines allows multiple agencies to look at their children at once to help the children get adopted. There was another family at another agency interested in Tamara also. They are farther along in the paperwork process than we are.

On a happy note, she will be going to a good family.

We are back to the beginning and still open to Ethiopia, Southeast Asia or a domestic adoption.

Check it out...first uniform!!

Wild Life Praire Park

Today, we decided, would be a good day to take off of work. We ended up at the Wild Life Prairie Park and it turned out to be a beautiful day. Collin got to see most of the animals, even the cougar and bobcats. Although, we did not see a single butterfly in the butterfly garden. Here are some photos of our time at the park.

Here we were waiting to see if the chicken was going to peck at Collins nose.
We are not sure what he saw but it sure had his attention!

We were trying to figure out who was going to push or pull the wagon.

Someone's cheezin for the camera. Britt or Collin?

Just enough of a step stool.

Little Girl??

Jason and I have accepted the referral of a little girl!! It is not official yet, so I am not comfortable posting her photograph on this blog just yet. Our next step is to go before a review board and they will decide if our family is an appropriate match to her special needs.

Here's a little bit about her. Her name is Tamara and we would keep that. She is from the Philippines. She is gorgeous with a full head of dark brown hair and huge black eyes. Apparently she also has on ornery persona much like Collin...and Jason.....and myself, so she will fit in well and WE MAY HAVE OUR HANDS FULL.

Tamara is 4 1/2 years old with some developmental delays and speech delays, but we've familiarized ourselves with her medical records and decided WE'RE GAME....on to the review board!!

New Family Photos-Favorites

Mother's Day Gift

Shop Junk Posse Jewelry at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5208670

Revolutionary Parenting

I just finished reading the book, Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna. I really enjoyed it.

One of the things talked about in the book is how we as parents measure success in childrens lives verses how God measures their success.

Our Measurements:

• Physically healthy
• Performance at or beyond their age level
• Decent friends
• Physically attractive
• Athletic performance
• Not involved with gangs
• Not involved with drugs/alcohal
• No/little sexual activity
• No criminal record
• Obedience to authority

God's Measurements:

• Loving heart
• Serving heart
• Obedience to him

We've been blessed with the job of raising and coaching this beautiful little boy and we hope that God will continue to offer us the same blessing through this next ad0ption and others to follow. I desire to be a Revolutionary Parent to these kids, but man...talk about defying culture.

What does Revolutionary Parenting mean to me? It means teaching my kids that a strong athletic skill is not of them but of God and encouraging them to do their absolute best with what God has given them. It means teaching my 2 year old that by sharing with a friend you are showing love to that person. It is because of Jesus that we can show love to others. It means teaching our children that serving one another within the home is an honor.

.....and right now, with Collin, my outgoing, active and often aggressive toddler; it means that instead of just telling him not to kick/hit other children I instead use the opportunity to coach him on how Jesus would have him show love to that child.

Jason and I could definetly use prayer as we learn to become Revolutionary Parents and raise spiritual champions. Please pray that we do not demand obedience only for the sake of obedience, but that instead we are able to pass on a love for Jesus so that obedience may come from that love.

Blogspot Revised

We are well on our way towards our new adoption. What better time to get this blog up and rolling again. This time we are using an organization by the name of Holt International. By the end of May we should have our homestudy finalized. We've left our homestudy wide open this time around which means we are doing a lot of praying about what God has planned for us in this next adoption.

It will be interesting to see what his plan is. Currently we are open to:
1. A domestic adoption
2. An international adoption- no matter the country
We fit the selection criteria for Ethiopia, India, Vietnam, Thailand or the Phillipines
3. Special needs children
4. Sibling groups
5. Older children or infants

I'd say that about covers it. We really have no idea what our family will look like when this next adoption is final. The one thing we do know...whatever God has planned...WE'RE OPEN!!