Ten Months!!

 

Oh yeah! You know what this means, don't you? Cake Decorating classes have begun! Monday was our 10 month-iversary on the Wait List AND my last week of my first cake decorating class. For April, May and June I'll be taking the Wilton classes at our local Hobby Lobby. The first class was the buttercream class, the next one covers royal icing and gum paste, and the last one covers fondant. You might think from the picture above and the other pictures you've seen of cakes I've decorated in the past, that I totally rocked this class. And.... you would be WRONG! I could go into the details, but it would be boring for all of us, so let's just say that this class was - FOR SURE - a learning experience. I learned a little what TO do, but I learned A LOT what NOT to do.

Exhibit A: The first cake...

This was NOT (as one friend suggested) a carrot cake.  Oh no.  This is what happens when your buttercream is WAY TOO thick and ALL the crumbs from the cake get mixed into the frosting.  I was so defeated by the time I finished icing the cake that when it came time to actually decorate it, I slapped a "cupcake" on it and proclaimed it "Finished."  I was really tempted to just chuck it in the trash, but I knew my co-workers would yell at me for throwing away a "perfectly good" cake, so I took it into work the next day.  Bless their hearts, they ate all but one piece.  I love them :)

Last week we made cupcakes. While these were MUCH better than the week before, they were still kind of sad. I present to you Exhibit B:

I have high hopes for the next couple of classes that I will actually learn how to do new things WELL!

So, as usual, the theme of this month has been "crafts."

My friend taught me how to make pillowcase dresses and I was so inspired that I made a couple of them for our March of Dimes Silent Auction at work:

Aren't they so cute?! I love these things! I'm pretty sure the Lord will give us a boy, but I will FIND A WAY to find little girls to put dresses on! Trust me :)

Also, as I was pulling these pictures off my phone, I found a picture of the finished nursery "shell." We painted the room yellow (twice because the first time was TOO yellow) and put up white wainscoting. We're waiting to actually decorate it till we find out if our future child is a boy or girl, so for now, this is what the room looks like:

So, the big question: How much longer will we be waiting for a referral? I have no idea. My guess would be another few months, but it's really hard to predict right now. I hope by next month there will be a little more clarity. In the meantime, the Lord is teaching me that He might not always give me what I want, when I want it, but He will always give me more of Him - and He is more than enough.

Nine Months!

(Yes, I flipped the number upside-down from the six month post)

Using an upside-down six for our 9 month post that's a day late won't be the only thing out of the ordinary for this month's update.

I naively believed we wouldn't be on the Wait List 9 months.   I knew it was a possibility, but I never really thought it would happen.  I really thought we would have a referral by now and would be (not so) patiently waiting for a court date.  For a number of reasons, we are still waiting for a referral and really have no way to even estimate how much longer we'll be waiting.  At this point I still hope we'll be home with a baby this year, but each month that goes by without a referral decreases that possibility.  However, the Lord has been so gracious to enable us to REALLY believe that His timing is perfect and to trust Him in especially difficult times.

This last month has been intense.  As a church we began reading through David Platt's Radical.   Here's Amazon's product description:

WHAT IS JESUS WORTH TO YOU?

It's easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily...

BUT WHO DO YOU KNOW WHO LIVES LIKE THAT? DO YOU?

In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a "successful" suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus.

I actually started reading the book back in November when the rest of the blogosphere was talking about it.  I got a couple of chapters into it and just had to put it down.  I remember telling a friend it was just "too much."  I wasn't sure how to describe at that time how it made me feel, but I now understand it was guilt.  It made me feel bad about myself because, at the time, I felt like it was adding more tasks to my checklist - and it was "too much."  I couldn't DO any more than I was already doing.  I was nearly overloaded as it was, and here was a guy telling me I wasn't doing enough  It was too much.  So I put it down and thought I might pick it up again at some point when I felt like I could better handle it.

Over the next few months the Lord began showing me so much about myself.  The details are better left for another post, but I began to realize that Lord didn't really have my heart, He just had my good behavior.  As I began to press into Him, He began to reveal areas of sin in my heart that I had ignored and enabled me to repent of those. 

When I found out we'd be reading through Radical as a church, I was not excited.   The last thing I wanted was for our church to be guilted into changing.  Rob and I talked about it and agreed to pray that if David Platt's message was something we needed to hear, we would be convicted that it was right, and not just feel guilty about it.  Thankfully, as we both began reading, the Holy Spirit confirmed to our hearts that Platt's message was true, what he says is right. 

We're only 4 chapters into the book (we're reading 1 chapter a week so we can really wrestle with each chapter), and it has been an intense 4 weeks.  I could probably write a post a day about everything the Lord is showing us and allowing us to witness.  Yes, it has been intense, but it has been oh-so-sweet.  Which is why we have so much trust in His timing.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up at 2:00 in the morning.  I was wide awake and my mind was churning with everything that had been happening.  Because I was wide awake, I decided to pray through all of it.  As I was praying, it hit me.  If we had received a referral in the timeframe we thought we would have, we would have been so focused on becoming parents that we would have totally missed what God wanted to do in us through the Radical study.  How awesome is that?!  The Lord NEVER shows me why things aren't happening like I think they should.  He always asks me to trust Him and MAYBE later He'll show me what was going on behind the scenes.  His showing me this made everything even more sweeter. 

So, have I mentioned it's been an intense month?  A really good, intense month.  And I can't wait to see what next month brings.  Happy, happy 9 months to us :)

Balance

Because the last post was REALLY heavy, here's a little bit of happy...

Thanks to the AMAZING Jen Cook and Ann Carroll,

The Photographix.

P.S.  I really have THE cutest husband ever, don't I?

While We Wait: Sacrifice

Sometimes some things just need to be shared.  They BEG to be shared.  As much as part of me would like to blend in, not make any waves and go with the flow – be NORMAL – the events scream out, “Don’t keep me to yourself!  It’s not fair!”  Or maybe it’s not the events at all that scream out, maybe it’s Someone.  Someone who is guiding my life and its events and is weaving me into His story…

About a month ago I received some misinformation.  Someone misunderstood something that was said and called me upset about the possibility of Ethiopia closing its international adoption program. Not knowing all the facts, I got upset too.  I spent a very long weekend wondering about all the “what-ifs.”  What if Ethiopia really put a stop to all international adoptions?  What if we couldn’t adopt from Ethiopia?  What would we do?  I spent a few days mourning the potential loss of our Ethiopian adoption.  What it came down to for me was that I grown to love Ethiopia.  It had ceased being just a means to grow our family.  We have grown to love the country like they are somehow already our extended family.  Just thinking about the possibility of losing that was gut-wrenching.

As Sunday rolled around, it began to dawn on me that if I really love Ethiopia – particularly the children – then I want what’s best for them.  If there is corruption, then my prayer is that it stops. If children are being trafficked, then it needs to stop.  No matter what.   In worship on Sunday morning, we were singing a song that says,

You are the everlasting God,

The everlasting God.

You do not faint,

You won't grow weary.

You're the defender of the weak,

You comfort those in need,

You lift us up on wings like eagles.

Of course, I’ve always sung those lyricsthinking of myself.   But as I was thinking about them, I started thinking about the children of Ethiopia.  THEY are the weak ones who need a Defender; THEY are the ones who need a Comforter.  Of course, He comforts and defends me too, but singing that song that day, my heart changed and all of the sudden this adoption wasn’t all about me anymore.  My desire was that first and foremost God would protect His children. 

As I was singing and praying, another thought came to mind, “What if we didn’t adopt at all and just gave all of our disposable income away?  We could sponsor tons of kids each month.  We could even help fund projects like building wells or schools.  We really could do a lot of good with the money we’ve already saved and continue to put away.”  And it was those thoughts that exposed what was really in my heart.  My heart cried out, “NO!  I want to be a mom!  It’s the deepest desire of my heart!  I can’t give that up!”  And that’s when I heard Him.  A still, small ,powerful voice.  “Will you give Me your desire to be a mom?  Will you sacrifice that to Me?  Will you lay it on the altar and let Me have it?” 

What do you do?  When the Creator of the universe, the God who you say you worship, the God who gave HIS Son for YOU, asks for something you hold most dear?  You let Him have it.  You say, “OK, God, OK.  Take it.  I want You to have all of me.  Do with me what You will.  I will sacrifice my desire to be a mom to You.  You can have it.  Take it.”  At least, that’s my story.  I just couldn’t hold onto something when God was asking for it.

That hasn’t always been my story, though.  I like to plan, and I like to control, and I like to think I know what life will look like in 6 months or a year.  But God wouldn’t allow me to think
that way any longer.  And what I’ve realized is that by giving Him my deepest desire, I’ve actually given Him complete control of the future.  (I “gave” God complete control of the future – how delusional are we to think we have any control over that anyway?)  But my heart has changed.  And the way I feel about the future has changed.  I feel like I’ve given Him the lump of clay that I’d molded into what I thought the future would look like.  He’s taken it and is molding it, and will eventually let me see what it looks like.  And while there are parts that may look exactly like what I thought they’d look like, I suspect there will be some parts that will look very different.  I have no idea which parts those will be, or what they will look like, but I totally trust Him.

While the information I received about Ethiopia closing its doors was not quite accurate at the time, there really is a lot going on over there right now.  It’s hard to know how much is really accurate, and how much is really just speculation, but for sure things are changing.  I really have no idea how it will all play out, but getting caught up in the details right now doesn’t seem to matter much to me.  God is completely in charge of my future, and I trust Him to work all things out in His timing – whatever that may be.

I was asked today if we have a Plan B.  No.  Plan A all along has been to trust that God is writing our story.  He has, and is and will continue to do so.  I have no idea what that looks like, but I know it will be beautiful.

Eight Months!

8 months.  I'd like to whine and complain about how up until a couple of months ago we thought we'd have a referral by now.  I'd like to wallow in the fact that we will not have a baby home by this summer like we thought we would.  But then I hear myself.  And I want to slap myself.  Is waiting with no real end in sight hard?  Yes.  But then I remember that although I can't see the end, the end is actually out there.  And I hate whining.  I never want to paint the picture that the adoption process is all sunshine and roses or that I never really struggle, but the truth is that it could be so much worse.  Rob and I have a great life and are immeasurably blessed, and while we're both ready to be a family of 3, I don't want to wish away our last months as a family of 2.  So I choose to focus on the positive.  Because in the end, happiness is a choice.

So, you might be wondering what we've been up to for the last month.  We attended a dinner for waiting families at our Agency.  It was really great to be able to meet other people in our same situation.  We have another dinner coming up in a couple of weeks that I'm really excited about.  We've also been slllooooowwwwlllyyy been working on the baby's room.  We painted the room yellow, put up white wainscoting, finally admitted to ourselves how much we hated the shade of yellow we'd picked, and re-painted the room a much creamier yellow.  We still need to put a final coat of white paint on the wainscoting, so I'll save a picture of the room for another post, but I'm loving how it's turning out.  Other than some cake decorating, we've had a relatively slow month.  I think it was the calm before the storm because almost every weekend in March is already full.  As it turns out, busyness is a pretty good thing when you're waiting on a referral that isn't likely to come any time soon.

Now, for the official 8 month post, I'll turn the blog over to Rob to introduce you to his sister.

This is my sister M.  She is currently enrolled at UT studying to become a veterinarian.  He career path, coupled with the fact that she just can't seem to live without pets, is a good thing.  Our hope is that Auntie M's love and access to animals will mean that time spent with her will be special, and our child will grow to love Auntie M the way we love her.

While We Wait: And the Hobbies Continue...

I'm back at it again.  No news on the adoption front, so I must throw myself into something that keeps me from going crazy :)

I offered to help out with my friend Lauren's baby shower, and when I was asked to do the cake, I jumped on it!  For the last month I've been plotting and scheming on how to do a cake that went along with Mack's jungle animal nursery.  Here's what I ended up with:

Yellow cake with chocolate buttercream icing.  The dots are fondant and the yellow border is buttercream.  The animals are just toys I picked up at Kroger, and the "risers" they're on are mini cakes covered with fondant. 

Overall, I was pretty happy with the final product, but doing these things on my own has made me realize that I really want to take actual cake decorating classes.  I signed up tonight for the Wilton classes at Hobby Lobby, so starting in April, I'll be taking one class a week through the end of June.  Hopefully by that point I'll have a little more confidence in my abilities and won't consider every cake an experiment!

For Lauren's gift, I made her the hooded towels that I love so much:

Love, love, love these color combinations.

Now that the shower is over and the cake is finished, I'm feeling a little bit of a loss.  You know, what's next?  Well, 1) we're still working on the nursery; and 2) I've never actually decorated our Master Bathroom, so now's as good a time as any! 

Happy Monday, Friends!

While We Wait: Hobbies will keep my mind occupied, right?

I may have mentioned that I've been keeping myself busy by sewing and baking.  Well, since a lot of the sewing projects were Christmas gifts, I couldn't post pictures of them until after Christmas. 

Since my sister is adopting, I loaded her up with lots of baby stuff:

From Left to Right:  Receiving blankets, Taggie Blanket, Burp Cloths and Hooded Towels.

For my mom, Rob's mom and Rob's sister, I made aprons:

Right before Christmas, I also made a set of hooded towels for a sweet friend in NM who just had her second baby:

Then, pretty much as soon as Christmas was over, I started on working on a cake for a baby shower.  This cake decorating thing is a VERY new hobby for me. 

Back in th summer, Rob and I did this cake for a freind's shower:

So I was fairly confident I could do a cake for another friend's shower.  I spent a couple of weeks making flowers and butterflies out of gum paste and fondant...

And was pretty pleased with the finished product:

I also made her a set of hooded towels:

I now have a baby shower in February for which I'm dreaming up cake ideas :)

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking all of this sewing and cake decorating seems kind of obsessive, but pouring my time, energy and thoughts into a creative outlet has helped me focus on something productive, rather than truly obsessing over when we're going to get our referral and the "delays" in the process.  Which means I can honestly say I'm enjoying the time While We Wait.