the post you've all been waiting for {our referral}

Yesterday, after 3 years in this process, we finally FINALLY received our REFERRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6 months old.

GORGEOUS.

AMAZING.

God has blessed us beyond our wildest imagination!

We are humbled and honored to be her parents.

I have so much more to say on this and the full story is coming soon, but for now please rejoice and praise God with us for this wonderful blessing!

WE HAVE A BABY GIRL!!!!!!!!!


These are the earliest pictures we have of her at 4 months old...

generous tuesday

The simple and powerful idea that Generosity can change a life has inspired Generous Tuesday. It's a day to kick off the holiday giving season that celebrates enriching the lives of others through Generosity.
Join us in living generously. 

 

www.generoustuesday.com 

There are so many ways you can get involved with this and carry it through the Christmas season. Our family has chosen to give a portion of what we would have spent on gifts to Run to Uganda to help build a school in Uganda. You can check it out here: http://www.runtouganda.blogspot.com . Jason's cousin is helping to head this up...their goal is $50,000 by next fall and you can help simply by running. Contact me for details.

Now...GO and be GENEROUS!

thanksgiving

 

we spent part of our thanksgiving week at camp of the hills with my mom, jason's parents and my sister/brother-in-law. it was nice and relaxing.

the rest of the week went something like this: christmas shopping, eating, decorating our house, watching movies, being with friends and date nights. i'd call that a nice vacation.

a letter to my daughter

Dear sweet baby girl,
Sunday, November 11th marked 3 years that we have been waiting for you. On that day 3 years ago we mailed the very first paper to get started on our journey to you. Three years is a long time to wait for a baby, but you are worth it. You are so loved already and we haven't even seen your sweet face yet. Oh what a glorious day that will be when we finally see the little girl that God has had planned for us this whole time!

It is strange to love someone and miss someone when we haven't even met, but you are already part of our family. You have been growing in our hearts for 3 years and there is a hole in our lives where you should be that literally hurts. I am sorry that you are not with us yet. It makes my heart hurt to know that there is nothing we can do to speed this up and have you here in our arms. We are sad that things are taking so long and don't understand the "why's" right now but one day it will all make sense. When we see your beautiful brown eyes, we will know that we were waiting on YOU. If the timing had been any different, it would not have been YOU. And YOU are the only one to make our family complete.

One day I will look into your little face and tell you how much we love you, how much you were worth it and how special you are. God has known you since before you were born. He has made you to glorify Him and fulfill a purpose that only you can do. He has big plans for you. I can't wait to tell you that. I will tell you how your brothers prayed for you every day for years and years. I'll tell you how they talked about you like you were already here. Their love for you is limitless. I will tell you how sorry I am that you have already had so much hurt and loss in your short life but that we will never ever leave you. I'll tell you about your beautiful country and heritage and the sacrifices that your first mother made for you. Your daddy will tell you that he has been waiting for his perfect little princess and that you bring him so much joy.

We love you so much and ache for the day when you are ours forever. You are never far from our thoughts and you are prayed for every day.

Love,
Mama

giving and giving thanks

i totally stole this idea off another blog but i love it!

this is our first annual "thankful tree" for the thanksgiving season.

we just simply do not stop and count our blessings nearly enough.

this way we're making sure we do that each day this november.

make your own "thankful tree". it was super easy!

also, have you signed up for Pure Charity yet?

well, make sure you STOP right now and SIGN UP.

how amazing is it that we can channel our spending to do good for others all over the globe?

you don't even have to change your spending people, this just channels it to wonderful places!

don't know what to "fund" on Pure Charity?

read THIS and fund THIS: http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2012/11/06/the-legacy-project

or follow me on there and we can fund something together.

the point is, just sign up and fund something BEFORE you spend another penny. :-)

orphan sunday

today is orphan sunday.

this month is adoption awareness month.

what are YOU doing to follow God's command of caring for orphans?

they need us.

we need them more.

"Today, ask God that of the 2 billion Christians in the world, 7% would show hope to a single orphan, looking after the child in their distress. Ask the Lord to convict the church around the world that if we did this, there would effectively be no more orphans. Ask the Lord to show each of His followers that we can each do something. Within your prayers, choose a country or countries to pray specifically over and pray for nationals within that country to rise up and be willing to care for orphans."

i must share this...

I am very disillusioned with all of the consumerism and spending during the Christmas season. It makes me want to vomit, honestly. Seriously, how we can buy a billion toys for our children while people all over the world go without clean water is beyond me. But, I digress.

 Our family has already decided that we are going to cut a portion of our spending this Christmas and use it to meet a need, either here or overseas. I challenge you to do the same. We haven't decided what yet, we just know we're going to do SOMETHING. Well, I may have just found that something...or yet another something that we can do to make a HUGE difference this Christmas season. Before you spend another penny, PLEASE watch this little 1 minute video and read this quick blog post. It can literally change the lives of countless without you changing anything that you do. It's brilliant. And please SHARE it on your blogs, on facebook, through email to everyone you know! This is so easy! 

I'm copying and pasting straight from Jen Hatmaker's blog:

You know sometimes when you hear an idea, and in no small way, it totally blows your mind, and you think I am so happy to live in a world where smart people think up smart stuff like this? Well. Sit down. Because do I EVER have the best idea to share with you, and I am going to absolutely insist upon penalty of death gently encourage you to join me in it.

Step 1: Watch this. Seriously. It's like one minute, and this is THE STUFF:

 

So here's the deal: We spend money. All the time. Sometimes it's exciting things like vacations and iPads. Other times it's slightly less glamorous, like diapers and Windex. But we're spending. And the stores we spend at have historically managed their own charitable giving. They give a portion of their proceeds to amazing work like...well...we have no idea. There is a major disconnect between our purchasing dollars and their corporate philanthropic giving.

But Pure Charity gets this great idea: Let's bridge that gap and allow the consumers to decide where their little percentage goes. If Target agrees to donate 1.5% of your total purchase, then how about you decide what project that 1.5% funds? And so, like magic, the way we are already spending, already consuming, just living our lives turns into generosity.

It's the easiest, easiest thing ever, and I'm going to walk you through the steps:

1. Sign up for a Pure Charity account. ("Follow" me then scroll down to "Get Started" to make your own account. Following one another compounds our giving, because that is another way Pure Charity WINS THE UNIVERSE.) If you're on Facebook, you can sign in through that (which is great for sharing in the future), or you can sign up the old-fashioned way.

2. Install the browser plugin. This causes a cute little icon to pop up when you're shopping online at participating vendors, and with a simple *click*, a percentage of your purchase will be routed into your personal giving account with Pure Charity. And when I say participating vendors, yall, I'm talking about over 1000 stores like:

Target Gap Best Buy
Groupon Priceline Sam's Club
Apple Sephora Petsmart
Walmart Lowe's Forever 21

Are you kidding me with this???? I'm telling you, Pure Charity has convinced virtually all of our favorite stores to drink the PC kool-aid. These are the places we already shop. Can you imagine if we collectively harnessed a percentage of our regular spending for good? (Never mind. Pure Charity already imagined that.)

3. Register your main credit/debit card with Pure Charity. This is so brilliant, because every time you use that card at a participating vendor IN STORE, a percentage is automatically zipped over to your personal giving account. You have to do absolutely nothing at all. (Not every online vendor has an in-store partnership, so when in doubt, online shopping will always build up your personal giving account. Plus, who wants to shop in the store when you can do it online?? asks the shopping-hater.)

4. Now, browse the projects. Well...JUST WAIT A MINUTE. For perhaps, just perhaps I have an idea here already. Oh sure, you'll see clean water initiatives and AIDS interventions and whatnot, but if you'll not get distracted by inferior projects just wait a few more teeny days, I have something awesome we can pool our collective impact for, and you're going to want to know about it. I promise.

5. Support your favorite project. (You can change the amount you support…it starts with $5 increments…by clicking the dollar amount and changing it.) These are time specific projects with a set amount of $. If that project doesn’t fund by the finish date, Pure Charity refunds the money back into your giving account. But again...kindly wait just a few baby days, because I clearly have an ulterior motive here.

6. Share it with friends! There’s a strong social connection to this, where you can share buttons and widgets with your friends and followers, to generate interest in a cause you’re passionate about.

Pure Charity offers a redemptive opportunity to harness consumerism for great good. It's just so brilliant. Good reader, please make a Pure Charity account. Please share this blog with every person you know. Did you know that in the next two months, Americans will dole out roughly 40% of our entire annual spending? If ever there was a time to capitalize on capitalism, it is surely now.

Christmas spending...harnessed for good.

Holiday travel...used for charity.

Spending on our families...equals spending on others.

May I ask you to share this blog like it's your job? Let's get everyone we know signed up for Pure Charity, because with virtually no effort, it will redeem our regular spending, bit by bit, purchase by purchase, to change the world.

And once you all have your accounts in place...I have a little project to back. We're going to do something amazing together between now and December 25th. Oh, yes we are. YES WE ARE.

twenty-eight months