Update on our Winner

After announcing the Winner in our Give Away on Monday morning as Mrs. Dee S, I received a little note saying that it was her birthday.

Awwwww.......

How sweet that she won on her birthday! Happy birthday to you, Dee!

And thank you, again, for your support.

Thank you to everybody for your support. Without you, we wouldn't have the resources to bring home our little boy!

Giving Big Hearts of Kids

Reposted from Little Kids Big Faith

Our little Jack is turning into a surprising love bug. Surprising? Kinda, because he's Texas tough. But the other night he showed true compassion and a spirit of giving that touched my heart.

It all started with a few cases of Strep throat.

I understand that in households across America, moms succeed in achieving tidy, clean, efficient, beautiful bathrooms for their kids everyday. However, the truth for us lies somewhere between too small and close to HazMat dirty at times.

The three kids share a bathroom and we have had two rounds of Strep in the past three weeks. We decided drastic action was necessary.

The solution began with a trip to WalMart for handsaniter (hanitizer as we call it), antibacterial wipes, new toothbrushes, new toothpaste, and tongue scrapers. $100 later we were armed with what we thought would prevent the spread of this annoying and expensive infection.

Each child got his or her own drawer or cabinet to keep all their personal items. Gone were the days of every one's toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet. We sterilised the entire bathroom, gave a fresh new toothbrush and toothpaste to each child. Everyone got a new tongue scraper.

I was about to congratulate myself on my genius when I spied 87 six damp towels haphazardly hung on the towel rack. I saw with my naked eye every damp Strep cell dividing and spreading from towel to towel. No child of mine every cared if she was using her own towel or if he was, in fact, using the bath mat to dry off.

So our next step was to get out my favorite appliance of all time...my label maker! I threw all those nasty towels in the wash on hot, got out three fresh towels and labeled where each child would be hanging his or her towel for ever more.

Then the real genius hit and I called the kids in to show them my amazing work and to announce the World's Cleanest Kid in the Bathroom contest. Whoever could keep their personal space the cleanest for the next week, I proclaimed, would get the not yet decided upon secret PRIZE.

One week later, I was enjoying the cleanest bathroom of all time. If a child happened to leave his towel on the floor, well, I could tell in a millisecond whose towel it was. The personal drawer space was working like a charm and the kids were still enjoying the newness of the antibacterial wipes to clean the counter each night.

But why is this post called Giving Big Hearts of Kids? Because last night I announced the winner. Not wanting any 'losers' in my house but still wanting to promote a healthy sense of competition, I gave first, second and third prizes. Not really surprising to us, they won in birth order. Jack came in third. He had a couple of unfortunate mishaps in the bathroom but he still won a quarter. Layne, does exactly what she needs to get by but our first born, Kate does it with gusto. So Kate won a Dollar, Layne won Fifty Cents and Jack got a Quarter.

Then the sweetest thing happened when I tucked Jack into bed...."Mom, I want to give my Nickle (aka that quarter I just gave him) to the adoption fund."

Break my heart with pride at his love.

A Different Kind of Prayer

I have been praying a lot when I go to bed. My prayers are not what you might expect from a mother waiting to adopt a child. I do not pray for God to bring our son home quickly and safely. I feel selfish in that prayer and it weighs on me. Instead, I pray that whomever God chooses to bring into our family is safe tonight and happy and healthy.

When we get an email or phone call that a child is available for adoption, it will say one thing first, his family could not care for him. His family has made an excruciating decision and they are in pain for surely, no one leaves a child at an orphanage lightly. This boy will be forever changed by this event. It will follow him and change the trajectory of his life. He will wear this new identity forever and it will be our jobs as his new parents to make him whole again by providing a loving home where he can heal and grow and thrive. This is the job that our whole family will embark on, the kids included.

So tonight my prayer is this,

"Dear Lord, please watch over him and keep him safe.. whoever he is and wherever he is. Help me to remember that joy for us in expanding our family will mean heartache and uncertainty for our new son and his family. If there is a way for this child to remain with his mother, please Lord, help them find a way. If he must leave his birth family, help us to bring him home quickly so that he may begin to heal from his loss and grow into the man you intend for him to be.

In your loving name, I pray.

Amen"

I fret over praying just the right prayer. I know the Lord knows my intentions but I work on that prayer every night as I doze off to sleep. I want so badly to get the prayer correct. To put this boy's needs above mine, to put God's will above all and to be humble in my desires.

Winner!!!!!!!!!!

During September, the Jeffrey family sold pieces of our keepsake Puzzle to raise money for our international adoption. For every piece sold, we entered the donors once. Tonight the girls and I held the very official drawing (after negotiating who could do the actual drawing out of the bowl).

We have a winner!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations go to Mrs. Dee S. who won this little beauty from Noonday Collection. It is in the mail you, my friend!

Our fundraising efforts so far have earned us $1775.00.

In addition, we have managed to save an additional $1000.00. And we already paid for the home study, one round of fingerprinting, the doctor visits, and with the help of our mother in law we have our passports lined up. All total we have $2775.00 in the bank and have already paid $1400 towards previous adoption related expenses. We have accounted for $4175.00 of the $25,000.00 estimated for the cost for the adoption.

I'm no math wiz but that's about 1/6 of the way there. Not bad, I say.

Our family has committed to no dinners out, no fast food, no dry cleaning (as if...), no date nights (again, haha). We also renegotiated our cable and tv contract as well as our car and home insurance. And Layne, bless her heart, gave up a big birthday party out and instead had a few good friends over to the house to watch a movie, eat pizza and decorate cupcakes. Jack keeps coming to me with 'gifts' to sell for the adoption. It's heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time. His 'gifts' are scraps of paper with little drawings he did and perhaps a stray staple he managed to sneak on the paper or a small stray toy he found that he thought had great monetary value. We have no credit cards and both trucks are paid off. Amy is working overtime to earn a little extra here and there and in the words of Frankie, the mom from The Middle, "We're getting ahead of it!"  The efforts are paying off.

Thank you to everybody who has contributed to help bring a little boy home to a loving family.