thanksgiving

we hosted thanksgiving this year and always enjoy having the family all in one place.  this year it was my side of the family.  unfortunately, my brother todd and his sweet wife jennifer couldn't be here.  we missed y'all!  i am not sure i got many pictures of the day because i spent a good portion of it napping.  which also brings me to thank my sweet hubby for doing the dishes and carving the remainder of the turkey so we had some awesome leftovers.  here's a picture of the table.

and here's the  only other picture i have showing any food on the island.

whiskey glazed carrots, sweet potato souffle, green bean bundles, dressing, turkey, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, green salad, and rolls.  all yummy!

the rest of the family played a game my dad created, but apparently "it wasn't fair."  all in all a fantastic thanksgiving!  

garage sale

this blogging thing is way tougher than i thought.  so, the garage sale was a HUGE success!  we had so much stuff and i'll let this picture below prove just that.

it was truly amazing how much stuff people donated.  we sold quite a bit and donated the rest to goodwill that afternoon.  my one rule for the garage sale was that it wouldn't be coming back into my garage at the end of the day.  :)  we were overwhelmed with the donations we received.  and so much of it was "big ticket items."  we had a leather couch, a sectional, a table and chairs, a super nice jogging stroller, and so much more.  thank you to those of you who donated.  and a  big thanks to allan's parent's and my great friend sarah lowry!  you guys were troopers!  we made $1250 which covered our home study that was on december 17.  crazy, right?  we've never made that much at a garage sale EVER!  this is how allan and i ended the day.  

again, a huge thank you to all of our family and friends!  we couldn't have done it without you!

one of those months....

it's been a long time since i posted.  it's just kind of been one of those months.  i'm not even sure where it all started, but i do know that our a/c had to be replaced, we need some foundation work on the house, we've had sinus infections, one kid down with strep, another down with strep, mom down with strep, dad with stomach bug, and first child down with strep again.  in the midst of all of that, we are planning a massive garage sale on saturday in hopes to raise some money to offset the cost of the adoption.  we have received so much from friends and family and are so grateful!  it's sorted, priced, and signs are made.  we are expecting more to come in tonight and tomorrow night.  saturday will be an exhausting day, but we cannot wait for it!

there are so many other things that i won't bore anyone with here, because the important thing is that during all of these "trials" we feel like we've been going through, it's nice to know we have a God to cling to.  this morning i opened my bible and read:

"The Lord your God is with you, 

he is mighty to save.  

He will take great delight in you, 

he will quiet you with his love, 

he will rejoice over you with singing."  

Zephaniah 3:17

we have absolutely no doubt that satan is trying to attack us for our obedience to God's call to adopt.  we will cling to the hope of our Savior.  we know HE will carry us through these trials.  this verse is all about being content in HIS love for us and how much HE loves us and desires to be with each one of us.

"port a"

we had the awesome privilege of going to port aransas with some dear friends.  allan and i had never been there, but it was perfect!  in fact, we decided it was going to be an annual trip.  we laughed so hard and cried a little (mostly from laughing).  in fact, luke declared, "i've never laughed so hard in my entire life."  pretty serious stuff coming from an eight year old.  we stayed in an awesome house, relaxed, and played with the kids.  i think sometimes trips like this are food for the soul.  since the kids don't technically go to school on fridays, we loaded up while they were at school on thursday and did fridays homework in the car.  we finished it up and played on the beach all day friday and saturday.  we didn't rush out on sunday morning either.  the kids worked on more school work on the way home sunday and didn't have much to do on monday at home.  great trip, great friends!  thankful that the lord blessed us with their friendship.  here are some (a bunch of) pics to recap.  i know my family will appreciate them, the rest of you, not so much.

silly jack smiling for the camera!

sam buried in the sand

drip castle (and let me add if you have boys, you realize this quickly turned into potty humor)

they could all pass as siblings, right!

ahh....

posing outside of the condo we stayed in

both families

a shot from the living area into the kitchen (see i wasn't exaggerating, pretty awesome!)

we're pregnant...

okay, okay, so probably not what y'all are thinking.  but we are paper pregnant!  this post has been on my heart for so many months, i am surprised it's finally time to actually try and type it out.  after months or maybe years of praying and having a heart for orphans, our prayers are coming to fruition.  we've decided to pursue an international adoption.  i can tell you that since i was in high school, my heart has been to "work with orphans."  i always assumed that meant working in an orphanage on a mission trip at some point in my life.  i knew it wasn't really a possibility to work with orphans here in texas.  i mean, i did try and follow that desire through my work with birthmom's at an adoption agency and through working with lower income children who were developmentally delayed.  however, life got busy.  college, marriage, work, kids, home school, etc.  but, after we had our third child, the doctor confirmed for us, that due to my history of premature labor and the fact that our second and third babies spent some time in the nicu that it was probably a good idea to not have any more children.  at the time we were told this it seemed natural and fine.  we had three perfectly healthy babies under the age of 3.  we were busy.  we were full.  we had 2 boys and a girl and life was good.  however, our hearts began to stir a little about 2 years ago.  we talked about how we wish we could just have one more.  or maybe we should have just taken some time off from having babies.  or maybe it was just too many babies too quickly.  lots of "what ifs" occurred.  i think we probably tossed the word "adoption" around here and there, but would ultimately decide "we can't afford that."  which is true, we can't.  we aren't rich, we don't have a ton of savings, all the typical responses that you hear and think.  but, i kept researching it.  we'd talk, allan would be on board with the discussions for sure, but then it would get put on the back burner for some reason.  i'm not quite sure when it actually happened, but i think it was on a date night.  they come around about every 3 months. :) i think allan said something along the lines of "so, are we gonna adopt or what?"  i was shocked, not because he hadn't acted interested, but mostly because he rarely brought the discussion up.  so, we started talking more about it.  domestic, international, foster?  the decision seemed overwhelming initially.  after much prayer, we began focusing our attention on international.  one is not better than the other.  you pray about it and decide what is right for your family.  and for our family, international felt right.  the country choices seemed overwhelming.  however, when you sit down and look at all the options on paper and what the requirements are for each country, it tends to pick itself out for you.  so, we chose ethiopia or rather ethiopia chose us.   so here we go, we can't wait to share the ups and downs along the way.  as of now, the next step will be the home study which is already scheduled for the middle of december.  we would appreciate any prayers along the way when you think about it.  

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

12 years

allan and i just celebrated 12 years of marriage.  it seems so long, but it's been so much fun!  if you would have told me 12 years ago, that we would have 3 kids, 2 dogs, and i'd be home schooling part time, i would have laughed out loud.

we celebrated with our annual trip to reata here in fort worth.  i don't know what it is about that place, but it's so yummy to me.  i was so glad this year that allan ordered the same thing as me.  it's kind of a joke when we go out to eat.  most of the time, i order the jumbo 12 oz + steak and potatoes type meal and allan orders a fish or something way healthier.  and the sweet guy or girl who brings the food out always tries to hand me the fish and allan the steak.  then they act surprised that i'm the one eating the big fat plate of deliciousness.  so, this year, allan was sweet and suffered through a 12 oz or maybe it was 14 oz rib eye and potatoes.  we didn't do much else that day.  he was actually sick (fever and all).  one of the millions of things i love about that man is he never ever complains.  i knew he felt bad the day before, so the entire day i kept asking him how he was feeling and he always said, "great."  little did i know he' d been popping advil the entire day.

allan, thank you for marrying me.  thank you for three beautiful babies and hopefully more some time soon.  thank you for playing with said babies when you get home from work each day.  thank you for encouraging me.  thank you for supporting me when i have crazy ideas.  thank you for sometimes bringing me flowers :).   thank you for always working so hard to provide for our family.  thank you for  always, always coming home on time.  thank you for never complaining.  thank you for being confident in yourself and in your decisions.  thank you for being you!  happy 12 years my love!

the best we got that night!

just the boys....

friday night anna had a slumber party which meant it was just me and the boys.  it's so amazing to me how different it feels when one kiddo's missing.  so doable, you know?  but, this life isn't about what's easy for us now is it?  we had a lot of fun.  we ate dinner at home and then went to braum's for dessert.  they were allowed to get a double dip which they thought was pretty awesome!

sam seems to be missing his cone?

ahhh, there it is.  looks yummy!

we came home and luke said his tooth felt loose enough to pull.  so, i took a look and sure enough it came right out.  it's hard to see in the picture and i don't know the names of the teeth, but if you are looking at him, it's to the right of his big tooth on top.  i think this puts him just one tooth behind anna now.  yes she's ahead of him and no, he's not happy about that.

love me some missing teeth pics!

 

 

 

we came home and watched the great muppet caper.  you remember from the 70's?  it was really strange i must say.  movies have definitely improved since we were kids.  they slept on the floor in sleeping bags which is always fun!  sorry i took this with my phone, in the dark, so the quality is horrible.

they wanted allan to sleep with them.  ;)

such a fun night with our boys!  hope we get to do this again soon!