Our Favorite Christmas Gift

So I have to share about our favorite Christmas Gift - that we gave, that is... Of coarse every year we think about what we would like and what the kids might want. We all end up spoiled and with way more then we need. But for this girl who has the love language of gifts, its a great time for me. I enjoy getting fun little gifts and really really enjoy giving gifts! This year we wanted to give the kids something that would be long lasting and they would really love. I suggested to the hubby that we should make the kids a play kitchen??  This seemed kind of silly since we have no garage, no workshop, and really no good building tools... but we have some really really really sweet friends who do ;)  So we did some research, asked our friends for help, and got started.

With the help of our friends we found these building plans that we based our build on. We gathered supplies, I day dreamed about design ideas, and Daddy went to work.  It took some late nights and sneaking away a few afternoons, but in the end it turned out awesome!!! Best of all we made it!!! Well mostly Todd made it ;) I was just the demanding designer behind the construction, and I helped with the painting.. ha ha...  but who is keeping track? lol

Here it is -

Isn't it so cute?! The kids love it and play with it daily.

They love to tell their friends "Come play in the kitchen my daddy made me!"

We used a dog bowl for the sink (it is a perfect size), got a faucet from a local salvation army store for $10, 

the shelves were the perfect scale and came from Michael's, and the window we printed off a scenic 

Shenandoah Valley picture and framed it out and gave it a curtain. 

The oven on the left turned out great with the plexi glass, and the little fridge on the right we would have taken taller if we did it over. 

We found fun food from Ikea along with the stainless steel pots and pans, utensils, and coasters for burners.

The blender and toaster were a fun Christmas gift from Pottery Barn

and the kids got lots of fun play food as well. My favorite of the play food is the wooden play Sushi set :)

They serve their food on a little set up Ikea table, and of coarse every little girl needs

 a tea party set, and got the idea for some simple little tea bags from Pinterest (of coarse)

The kitchen is a fun place to play for our current kids and can't

 wait for future kids and even grand kids to play with it!

Yay for fun DIY projects!!! If you have any questions about our project as you embark on your own feel free to comment or email me!

Prayers and Blessings - Dawn

Adoption Update

Hey Everyone - Just wanted to give you a little update on where we are with our adoption process. We were able to make some good process last week and that did my soul good! But was also very emotional!  Since our last update we have had two big things -
1- we had an awesome fundraiser (our online adoption auction)
2- we had our home study visits (and almost a completed home study)

1- Our online auctions was so fun. We hosted it via our facebook page through an album with all the items and bids were made via picture comments. We were blown away by the donations that were given by friends and complete strangers (aka new friends)! In the end through the auction and selling some more tshirts we were able to raise just over $1000!!!!!  We are so very excited and truly thankful for that! The funds we raised went to 2 things - 1: we had to complete some online training and it cost $200 for a couple, so it helped us pay for that. 2: we had a $2200 fee for our home study and the rest of the money went to help with that! Again we say thank you - thanks to those that donated, those that bid, those of you that gave us extra money towards our fundraising, and those of you that prayed for our fundraiser. We pray that you will be blessed back for your givings!  Our plan is to do this auction annually,  that it will be something our friends and followers look forward to and we can use future funds to help other families adopting (if we aren't in the process).   Again thank you!

2- Our home study visits were a mix of crazy, emotional, and good! The idea of a home study is stressful in itself  thinking that someone is going to decide if we are fit to add to our family via adoption. The reasons a home study is necessary makes sense, you don't want people who have evil plans to adopt children, but for the "rest of us" just weird people it feels odd and invasive. Thankfully we work with a Christian agency and therefor our social worker is also a Christian. Our first visit was the family visit that fell on the same day as Eliana's 5th birthday party (talk about craziness). We kicked our party goers out and she arrived 20 minutes later. I was really nervous but all went well, it was like having my grandma over for a visit. The kids of coarse didn't "perform" as I would have liked, especially when the social worker was asking the kids what they thought their brother or sister would look like and Eliana's response in a "duh voice" was - "well they will be black, they are from Africa!"  (goodness)  But when do kids ever do what we want in situations like that!

I was nervous for our first visit, but even more nervous for our second visit. We had to do our second visit individually - she spoke to Todd and then to me and asked some tougher questions. But the real reason I was so nervous was that I needed to talk to her in depth about my past of abuse and battle with an eating disorder. Its one thing to tell someone your testimony but to talk about these things in a way to make sure you are fit as a parent was a whole different ball game. Of coarse the visit went well and our social worker did not feel my past hurts would leave us not allowed to adopt but would help us to be better parents (we agree)!!!  But regardless of the visit going well it still left me emotionally wiped out.  Most of last week I felt emotionally and physically exhausted, the experience left me feeling similar to when I was pregnant :) (kind of ironic I thought) After a weekend of sunshine and 70 degree temps I am feeling much better!

So now we are waiting for our social worker to finish up our home study paperwork. She will get it to us this week, we will read it and review it, and then send it to the agency for final approval. We hope to be done with that all for sure by the end of the month. After that we continue to finalize our Dossier (documents that will be sent to Ethiopia including our home study), we just have a few more things for that to do which is so nice to almost have it done. One big thing we have is to finalize our USCIS that will cost us $900 to file and get more officially "fingerprinted".  After that we will have our Dossier Submission and second program fee of $7700! Whew scary to type that number!   We are trusting the Lord for this money and working on some new fundraisers as well! If you would feel led to give you can email us and we can send you the directions to submit to our agency!

So ya.... exciting to be moving forward, and working to Hurry Up and Wait!!! Hurry up and finish our paperwork so we can WAIT and WAIT and WAIT!!! But all good things are hard work and God never said we would just live this life comfortably!! So here we are Lord, walking behind you, taking this journey, and trusting YOU!

Prayers and Blessings to you all -
Dawn

Lets do this 2013!!!

Christmas has come and gone, the decorations are done, the company has headed home, the house has been purged, and life is headed back to "normal" - whatever that is!

Once again we were spoiled this holiday season, and not just spoiled physically but by love from family and friends! We were lucky to have Todd's parents out for Christmas and my dad and stepmom out right after Christmas. We had so many fun adventures while they were here, and are so grateful for them making the sacrifice to come all the way out to VA! Have I mentioned we LOVE visitors???  Can't wait for my mom to come back out, for a sweet friend to come in march (with friends), and maybe some siblings out this summer?? Again, I can't say it enough - WE LOVE VISITORS!!!!  Please come visit us ;)

So now that we are headed back into "normalcy" and its the new year I find myself setting goals, making plans, and like everyone else considering resolutions!!!  I was talking to my hubby about my goals and resolutions and about 1/2 way through his eyes glazed over ;) lol.... and this year I am reminded that - lets face it - I never meet all my resolution, I never accomplish all my goals. This happens for 2 reasons: 1- I am a DREAMER and so I have so many "I want to's..." and "I would like to's..." and "I shoulds..." and 2 - I am ADD (self diagnosed and on a mild scale and frankly find this a character bonus not flaw!) so I get distracted easily! I am a GREAT starter and not so great finisher. This blog for instance, I do not want it to be something I started and never had a proper finish. I want to share our adoption journey, keep our family up to date on our adventures, and enjoy the blog friendships I have made. But like other things I get distracted!

Anyway, I digress.... I say all that to say - I am not posting my "resolutions" this year. I'm not going to publicly state that I will do this or that this year and feel guilty at the end of the year when it hasn't happened! I want the freedom to let life move and so what if I don't blog every week, or don't run the 1/2 marathon that I have wanted to for the last 2 years, or don't pull those skinny jeans off the top of the shelf..  What I will do and continue to do is enjoy life! Enjoy the days with loud and crazy little ones, enjoy moments with friends, enjoy crafting, enjoy blogging, just enjoy what the Lord has blessed me with and hopefully pour some of that out on others!

While I am not posting any resolutions I am posting a word for this year - EDUCATE! I have heard of others doing this, praying about what god would have them concentrate on our move them into and I feel like this is a year of education for me and my family. Educating our kiddos through homeschooling, educating myself on the best path to be on right now for homeschooling, educating myself on food choices and making whole and pure food choices, educate myself more on who the Lord is and educate myself on the desires the Lord has placed on my heart. I am excited for this year of Education, maybe it won't be what I am thinking, maybe God has a different plan... but I do know that 2013 will be an amazing year. I am excited, I am anxious to see what will come, I am ready... Let's do this 2013 :)

What are you excited for in 2013? Resolutions?? please share!!!



In all things to God's Glory - Dawn