Dear Santa

Mac's letter to Santa: dear Santa thank-you for my toys last year. This year i would like a big dinosaur, stuffed animal long snake and alligator, robot transformer, bike, guitar, and whatever you want to bring me. Please bring Maggie a baby doll, jewelry, and a kitchen set. We will be at lolly and Papa's house and will have milk and cookies out for you. Love, Mac and Maggie

Trimming the tree part 1

We started decorating the tree with White Christmas on in the background and this happened.

Housekeeping

We've had some spam-like comments one posts recently so we have changed the settings to not allow anonymous comments.  This will likely only affect 1 of the 3 possible commenters here.

Random kid update

There are some interesting things that Maggie does lately. These are a few of my favorites...
She loves to blow her nose. She has actually been doing that for a long time but it's weird that she can even do it at this age. Not only does she blow her nose but she likes to use it as an excuse for trying to empty a tissue box. When we catch her getting a tissue she fakes needing to blow her nose as justification. Tonight a pediatrician friend confirmed she's exceptional. :)

One thing will always distract her no matter what...she always wants to brush her teeth. She wants nothing more than some training toothpaste and to stand on the bathroom stool brushing away. She also likes to watch herself in the mirror. The problem is that you have to wrestle the toothbrush away from her when you are ready for her to be done.

She is talking some. Mostly just when she feels like it. She will randomly say a word. For instance she said pumpkin the other day when actually pointing at a pumpkin. However she won't say mom or dad most of the time. She is clearly an independent thinker :)

And a super sweet moment we have experienced at dinner several times lately. We all sit down to eat and with no prompting Maggie reaches both hands out waiting for us to take her hands and say the blessing. Sometimes she is so sweet you just want to eat her up.




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Running and bragging

Today was my second half marathon (13.1 miles).  This first was 2 years ago in Augusta.  Back then I had 3 basic goals: finish, don't walk, finish under 2 hours.  I managed 2 out of 3, finishing in 1:58:13 after having to walk a little due to cramps in my legs.

This year I was running in Athens and was very excited about the finish because we would get to do a lap around Sanford Stadium next to the hedges.  Not on the field, but still pretty cool.  Early on in my training I set a time goal of 1:45.  I was doing great in my training until the weekend of the Tennessee game - about 1 month before the race.  That weekend I missed the longest training run.  Following that week things got crazy at work and then we seemed to all get sick here and I wasn't able to do much training.  I probably ran 3 times in the last month.  I figured my time goal was shot and I would just be happy to finish.

Apparently God had other plans. At least that is the only way I know how to explain what happened.  I knew going in that I would need God's help after not being able to finish the training.  I hated the idea that I would not be able to perform well, especially considering Ecclesiastes 9:10: "Whatever your hand finds to do, #do it with [all] your might".  Since I hadn't trained, I thought this might be a good chance to see God provide the strength I didn't have.
He absolutely came through!  I felt awesome pretty much the whole race.  I had cramping issues again in the last few miles and had to walk more than I liked, but I still managed to finish in 1:42:49!

Now for the bragging part...
This morning I looked at my Bible app on my phone and saw that today's verse was 1 Timothy 4:8: "for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come".  
Right now, Samantha and I are helping at our church by serving as teachers in the 4 year old class every other week.  This week was our week, so the plan was to run the 1/2, shower, and head to church to teach. The verse fit my day perfectly and I love when God does makes things so clear.
As I checked the kids in, one of the ladies told me "I LOVE your son".  Not a big surprise, we get that a lot. But she went on to tell me that he is "all boy" but that he is "spiritually sensitive in a way that is uncommon, especially at his age".  She said "he gets it".  I'm not sure I could have been more proud of him.  We do try to  teach him as much as we can about God's love for us and how that should affect how we live, you know, like Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.". 
BUT, we are so scattered and don't always do a good job of keeping that focus in our hectic lives.  This is definitely God working in Mac through our weaknesses.  
2 Corinthians 11:30 is the only reason I am bragging about any of this "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness".
More pictures and less words next time.

Yet another sick day

Mac is home sick today, luckily Doug did not have to take off another day. I was able to switch days with another pharmacist and cover today. Mac seems to have picked up a stomach bug. He has handled it like a champ though. I think we have actually gotten through the worst of it now, but we went to the doctor this morning just to get checked out. They said they had seen a run of stomach issues like this, gave us some zofran, and rushed us out the door. Apparently stomach issues are the key to being seen quickly.

As we were leaving, the lady checking us out offered Mac a sucker (she didn't know what we were in for). Mac declined the sucker and instead picked up a business card. That was funny enough by itself. Then he spent the rest of the day carrying it around in his shirt pocket. I guess he has learned a few things from his grandfathers. :)


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Adding a little fall

Maggie helped carry the flowers to the front steps. She suddenly look so big!


She also refuses to sit long enough to take a picture.





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The letter F

Since Mac is now in preschool, he sometimes comes home with assignments (yes, homework in pre-K).  Other times, he comes home with prizes.  A week or so ago he came home with the "Share Bag".  This bag allows the child to bring in 2 show-and-tell items.
Last Monday he came home with the "Letter Bag".  The idea is that you fill the bag with as many items as you can that start with the letter of the week.  The letter last week was F.
We had a good time coming up with ideas, searching for some of them, and filling the bag as best we could.  We came up with a good number of things before letting everyone else on facebook join in on the fun.

There were several ideas that we couldn't use, but we sent the bag back to school filled up with:
flag, football, flowers, firetruck, fork, flashlight, flyswatter, fish (goldfish), fruit snacks, flip-flop, fire extinguisher, finger nail file, and a frog.

Daddy's dinner adventures

Last week Mac and I made bagel pizzas.  This week we tried something I saw on the internet.  If it is on the internet, you can trust it, right?
I saw this and couldn't resist trying it.  Somehow, I don't think Samantha felt the same.
I present "spaghetti stuffed hot dogs"

Mac and Maggie loved this, especially Mac.  I had it as well and thought it was great.  Not 4 star restaurant, but, certainly good enough for the target audience.

Crazy kids

Despite Maggie having strep throat and being pretty pitiful, she still managed to have some fun today.  When we got back from our walk, she insisted that she and Mac put on helmets.  Luckily I was able to get a couple of quick shots because almost as soon as they go on, she wants them off.

Odd?

I'm not sure that this is entirely normal. :) Gotta love these kids and their quirky habits!


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The little chef

Dinner tonight was bagel pizzas and Mac wanted to help. He did a great job (no real surprise) and Maggie screamed her head off because I'm not skilled enough to hold her, help Mac, and cook dinner at the same time.
We all ate everything on our plates. Well, almost...
I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell, but Maggie removed the pepperoni and mushrooms and carefully sorted and stacked those - pepperoni on her right and mushrooms on her left. She loves to sort and group things.


Mac gave his approval saying, "these pizzas are GREAT!"

Mac's surprise

Last night Mac told me "I have a surprise for you (Mom) and Maggie in my room but it's not ready yet."  Just before dinner he said it was ready.  He was so proud and excited about this because he worked on it the night before to get ready for me.

Sorry the video is vertical and a little shaky - I was holding Maggie and keeping her from falling out of her chair.
No, we didn't add music - that was the dinner music that Mac put on just for our special dinner.

First Day of Pre-K

I wanted to do a better job with picture taking for such an exciting occasion, so I used the real camera instead of my phone. Of course that means it took an extra 2 days to get a blog post because the pictures had to come off the camera to the computer.

The upside of the wait time is that we already have a funny school story from Mac. Yesterday during snack time the teacher said that everyone had to sit down and be quiet in order to receive their snacks. A few minutes later the teacher was also eating a snack and Mac asked why she was allowed to have her snack since she wasn't sitting down quietly. She laughed when telling Doug the story so now of course Mac thinks its ok.

 All I can say is "We warned them."

And we're off!

Today we mailed in the initial application for adoption!



We also talked to Mac last night about our adoption plans. We have been talking about adoption and orphans for awhile now, trying to introduce him to the idea generically first. When we told him we were going to adopt his response was something along the lines of "that's cool, I want a brother, can I have dessert?"

Tonight, though, he was very sweet in his bedtime prayers, praying for the orphan that we will adopt and that God will help us go to...where was that?...Ethiopia to get them.


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Adoption - but from where? through whom?

So we decided to obey God and adopt internationally. We thought that was a hard decision. Little did we know we had just started the decision making process.

The first two questions for us are what country and what agency to use? The agency question will be another post.

There are so many countries in the world and almost as many organizations facilitating international adoptions. Each country has its own set of requirements. Some are expected - you can't be a convicted felon, you have to have a job, etc. Some were surprising - your BMI must be under a certain number, you have to be at least a certain age, but not older than another. One country even requires a psychological exam. In addition to that, some countries have infants available for adoption and others only have older children or children with special needs. Some countries allow you to choose the gender of the child while others do not. The length of time in the country to complete the adoption varies greatly from 3-4 days to having to establish residency and live in country for months. And, of course, the cost varies by country.

We originally thought that we would adopt a little girl from China. The media coverage of the one child policy and how it devalued girls makes it natural to have a desire to adopt there due to the perceived need. In looking into the process in China we learned that the wait time for healthy infants is significantly longer (5-8 years) than we want to wait. The time for special needs is shorter but we don't feel equipped or called to that right now.

We also were recently introduced to the country of Uganda. Doug has a guy in his men's Bible study group from Uganda and we recently met Amy Washington. You may have heard of the book Kisses from Katie and the story of a 18 year old girl who moved to Uganda and ended up adopting 13 young girls. Amy's story is very similar. After graduating from UGA she went on a short term mission trip to Uganda to care for orphans. While there she felt God calling her to address the cause behind the high number of orphans. She started a maternity home to care for pregnant young girls, taking care of them and teaching them how to be mothers. She does this while teaching them how God loves them. She gave a very moving presentation to our Sunday School class. For more of her story, check out Kupendwa Ministries. Kupendwa means "to be loved" in Swahili.

We thought, how cool would it be to have a connection to the country we adopt from? Somewhere that we can return to when the kids are older to teach them about the nation and about our journey of faith. Well, as of right now, Uganda is not a realistic option for us. The average time in country to complete an adoption in Uganda is 4-6 weeks. It could be longer.

Researching Uganda opened our hearts and eyes to Ethiopia, another country with a great number of orphans, but adoption requirements that we should be able to meet.

We really feel as though God has been pulling us towards Ethiopia during the last weeks. We have decided as much as we can but realize that we have to be flexible, especially given that the governments of these African nations are often changing. The adoption difficulties are fluid and we may start down one path only to have that country close and have to switch to another country that is opening up.

One thing we feel pretty strongly is a pull towards Africa. This certainly means our family would be very noticeably interracial. That has been a concern for us. We are worried about how it affects the child. In fact, the difficulties of a black child in a white family is actually a highly debated topic in groups all across the board. Some studies advocate that a child is better off with a family that shares the same skin color because the parents can better understand the circumstances the child will face. Our feeling is that that is a great plan, but when the other option is an orphanage with no parents at all how could that possibly be better? We've talked to a lot of people about this issue, many of whom have children that don't look like them. The best answer we've gotten is to view those visible differences as an opportunity to tell people our story and about the love of God.

We think that works out pretty well since showing God's love is the purpose behind this whole idea anyway.

Mac says...

As Samantha was getting ready one morning, putting her contacts in, Mac asked "Momma, do you have to change your eyebrows everyday?" He meant contacts but didn't have the right word, but this was way funnier.

Moving up

Time is absolutely flying by these days. Mac starts pre-k the week after next and tomorrow is Maggie's last day in her class. She moves up and we know she'll be fine but it has been awesome having Ms. Courtney being Maggie's teacher. She has told us several times that she is sad to see Maggie go. Courtney is on vacation and Tuesday was the last day for her to have Maggie in class. Maggie's daily sheet had a short personal note from Courtney, telling us how much she loved having Maggie in class with her. That made us pretty proud of our little girl.

Big news

We're expecting!

Well, sort of. Not in the traditional sense, and this will most certainly take longer than the usual 9 months.

Samantha's not pregnant, but we are pursuing an international adoption.

This may seem like it came out of nowhere, but it is something that we have considered for a long, long time.

We always thought we'd have 2 kids and then possibly adopt a third. It was a nice thought and it was easy to keep it in the background - way, way back.

In the past year and a half, things have happened that made us feel like God was pushing us to move from a thought to taking action.

Right before Maggie was born we went to a friend's house for a Memorial Day cookout. Someone threw a ball into the neighbor's yard and we happened to meet a family outside celebrating their daughter's birthday. It just happened to also be her "gotcha" day, celebrating the day they adopted her from China. At this point, the idea of adoption started to feel real. It went from pictures to a beautiful little girl Mac's age with two older brothers. It turns out that the family goes to our church and the older boy was in Doug's AWANA and VBS groups.

Then Maggie came and our lives became more full and chaotic than before (which we didn't think was possible). Once again, adoption was on the back burner - but not very far back and not for long. We started to feel that pull again and began to seek out ways to figure out if this was something God was calling us to, or if we were caught up in a fad.

We prayed (and still pray) about it. We searched the internet...A LOT. We ended up finding a great book on adoption and how it fits into the story of our salvation in Christ. The book is Adopted for Life by Russell Moore. We have a copy and would be happy to loan it out after it gets passed around the family.

After reading this book we felt more sure than ever that this was something God was calling us to do. But how? When? What do we do next?

One Sunday Pastor Carlos preached on Noah in our summer series, Big League Faith which goes through Hebrews chapter 11, looking at those in the "Hall of Faith". In that sermon he showed the truth that delayed obedience is disobedience. The funny thing is that I always feel this way when trying to get Mac to do something. Somehow I failed to see how that truth applied to my own life. Carlos urged us to have faith in God and to show that faith with our actions by obeying whatever it is that He is calling us to do. He finished the sermon with what felt like a direct message to us. He said "God told Noah to build an ark, what has he been telling you to do?" Then he told about a family that came to him before the service and told him they were planning to adopt.

We certainly felt like God was making it pretty clear that he was calling us to adopt, but honestly we had some concerns. This year, Samantha's uncle Chet preached the sermon at DeSoto Baptist's Homecoming Sunday. In his sermon, he preached about how we as Christians often don't have full faith in God to do what seems hard or impossible to us. We don't even ask because we are defeated. He said "God is bigger than cancer. God is bigger than any financial issues. God is bigger than any social issue." It was the social issue statement that hit home because an international adoption means an inter-racial family, which has been a concern for us.

This truth was reinforced for me when Carlos preached again from Hebrews on how our faith in God helps us to persevere in the hard times.

To be honest, none of these things individually scream out "go adopt from another country". All together though, and especially through prayer, we feel like God is calling us to trust him and to demonstrate that faith and trust in our lives through adopting internationally. We aren't doing this because we think it will be fun. Or because it will be easy. Or beacuse we want the attention. We are doing this because we believe that God is calling us into it and because by obeying we might bring honor and glory to Him.

We know this will be hard. We are actually excited that God is calling us to something difficult. We are encouraged to know that He will also give us the faith and strength needed to see it through.

We will post more on this with some more specific information. This was just to let everyone know what is going on in our lives right now and to ask you to join us in the journey, especially by praying for God to be glorified, for the orphans in the world, for the specific child that God is preparing for us, and for us as we change our family to welcome another child in.

Oh, one final thing - Mac doesn't know yet. We will tell him soon but we don't know when. We are thinking he will be excited about this and might start asking everyday when he will get another sibling. When we tell him, we'll post his reaction here too.

James 1:27 - Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Funny kid

This morning Mac was up at 6:45. He came in to tell me he had made up his bed and was getting dressed. He had on camouflage underwear and camouflage pants. He just needed to know what shirt went with them. I told him any shirt was fine and just skipped the fact that it's gonna be in the 90s today and there is no way he can wear pants out.
That reminded me of a few funny things I've been meaning to share.

Mac was helping set the table the other night and announced "mommy you can sit anywhere you want because I didn't drop any of the napkins on the floor"

And I actually heard Doug say the other day, "that's a lie buddy, you don't accidentally draw a smiley face on the back of your hand. While he waited for us to get ready for church, Mac entertained himself by coloring his fingernails and hands with a blue marker. We probably should have taken a picture but we were trying to hold it together and not laugh. He looked pretty funny and he clearly thought he was hilarious. Of course he also got marker all over the back of his shirt because he was hiding his hands.

Life does not get boring around here. :)


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Yummy!

First corn-on-the-cob! And steak!



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Walking!

She started this past week with just a few steps at a time, but now she is cruising along pretty well and is even standing up and walking just for herself without any encouragement from us.

Coloring

We found Maggie playing with crayons the other day. She actually wasn't trying to eat them, instead she had a coloring book and was making marks in it. I think it was more about imitating what she has seen Mac doing, but we were still impressed. We put her at the table an she entertained herself for a while coloring (and she didn't put the crayons in her mouth a single time)



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A pirate hat

A pirate hat made from a pullups bag, interesting :)


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Breakfast

Because what you need after a late night with lots of cake is really a powdered sugar donut...

Supper time

We had a very interesting dinner tonight.
Mac asked if there was dessert. He was disappointed at first and then he decided to make the "Lima beans" that he pulled out of his green beans into his dessert. He's a bit sometimes. :)

Meanwhile Maggie had a huge dinner. She is a bottomless pit! She ate a jar of baby food, a piece of bread, 12-15 greenbeans, and a crescent roll. And then she was ready for her bottle right on schedule before bedtime. I guess we better get prepared for a growth spurt.

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Riding

Maggie got her first ride tonight in Mac's truck. She LOVED it!

Maggie

Maggie has decided that she does not like baby food anymore. She prefers real food that she can feed herself. More specifically she prefers bread. And anything I'm eating. If you give her something she doesn't want she will "politely" refuse and bounce up and down pointing at the thing she does want. She is VERY expressive. :)



And more than a little messy at times :)


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G day!

I finally realized the best way to get a good picture of Maggie is to turn my iPhone where she can see herself and then she will grin from ear to ear!


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Dyeing Easter eggs

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Happy birthday Dr Seuss

Sorry Aunt Melanie, mommy and daddy haven't gotten around to getting pictures off the camera from my birthday yet. But at least I can show you my crazy hair today. We are celebrating Dr Seuss all week at school!




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Maggie is learning to help with the laundry

Looking forward to spring

I'm looking forward to spring time with more nice weather to get outside with the kids. It helps that they both love it. Almost as much as they love each other.

Birthday party season

As young adults there is a definite "wedding season" every year. I didn't know this, but as kids there is a "birthday party season". We get more than enough invitations so we don't crash any.

Saturday was a rare day when Samantha had to work and Mac had 2 parties to go to. On one hand, this put a lot on my plate, but on the other hand, I was glad to have something to do.

We started the day with baths for both kids. Mac felt it was important to "shave" for the big day. Maggie loves to stand up by the tub and watch Mac play.

Party #1 was at the zoo here in Athens.
Maggie was less than impressed with the outdoor portion of the party.

However, she was very interested in the pizza and cake. I learned a valuable lesson: finish feeding Maggie BEFORE unstrapping her.

Thankfully, all 3 of us were able to take naps when we got home so we were well rested for party #2. This party was at a local gymnastics center. Basically they open the gym and let the kids run free.

Maggie conquers the menacing foam ramp.

From her vantage point, she's able to watch Mac swing from the bar into the foam pit.

She also watches him jump off the vault into the foam pit. I was really excited and proud to see him do this because he did it all by himself. I thought I'd have to talk him into trying it. Turns out, he loved it and it was hard tearing him away from this. I was only mildly jealous that I couldn't give it a try.

Maggie couldn't let all the big kids enjoy the foam pit without joining in.

She also wowed everyone there with her impressive strength. I'm holding her in this picture, but she managed to hang on even when I let go.

Maggie also LOVED when we bounced on the trampoline. I wanted more pictures of Mac, like when he touched the snake and rat at the zoo, but holding one wiggly child while trying to capture action shots doesn't work well at all.
I will say that he was AWESOME all day, helping me with things for Maggie, feeding himself, going to the bathroom by himself, listening, and taking a great nap. He makes it possible to take both kids out by myself

Weekend fun

At first the helmet seemed to make catching more difficult, then he figured out how to use it to his advantage.




Maggie only recently started sitting herself up and now she is already pulling up on things. She loves to stand at the table and play music.




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Creativity

A few photos of things Mac did today for fun.




The two vehicles are tied together with the dump truck pulling the gator like a trailer.




Mac said he was decorating his room like Thomas the train.


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There she goes!

Birthdays

It was a birthday party kind of weekend. Though I think that is indicative of the remainder of the winter at least. We had 2 parties on Saturday. One was at pump it up, our usual birthday spot, and one was at a children's museum in Gainesville.
Mac had fun playing in all the different rooms. He made us some lunch in the diner, had a visit to the dentist, worked at the bank, and took care of some animals at the vet. Oh and he also enjoyed checking out the train, plane, police car, and ATV.











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Creative mommy

This is Maggie looking adorable in the dress and matching hairbow that I made for her. Yeah I'm pretty proud of that. (it is a little large but I was afraid to make it smaller because I'll probably cry when she outgrows it)



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Moving Maggie

Everything involves alliteration now since we are working on learning letters and their sounds. :)

Tonight Maggie started crawling. She isn't fully up on her knees instead she army crawls and she ends up rolling over instead of moving forward about 2/3 of the time. None the less I am counting this. Who knows by the end of the week she might be fully crawling.


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Mac is growing up

So this week Mac started shaving












Okay there obviously isn't a blade in there, but he does seem to be pretty serious about the shaving. His kit came with a small mirror that is propped in the corner of the bathtub and that's what he is staring into so intently.

He really is growing up because last week we registered for pre-K for next fall. He will still be at the same school, but they seem to do a great job of making it a big deal for the kids. For awhile now he has used pre-K as a synonym for being grown up.

Yesterday I was taking him to school and before we got to his room he hugged my leg and started to take off. I said wait I'm coming with you and he laughed and told me he was just joking. He said he was pretending to be a pre-K kid.

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Catching up

I know we have been terrible about updating lately. There is a ton of things we have to report but we've been so busy actually doing stuff and visiting with people. We realized that this is the first weekend in at least a month and a half that we have been at home and not had visitors. (and I'll be at work all weekend) We've loved all the time with family but it didn't leave much time for other stuff.

So here is a recap of what's happened in the last few weeks. Maggie is now working on her fifth and possibly sixth tooth. She is apparently a teeth growing champ. She is also transitioning into a new class at school. I remember when Mac moved out of the baby class- it felt a little traumatic. In some ways it seems like she shouldn't be ready for that, but in other ways she seems to be growing and developing so quickly. On that note, she has outgrown her car seat. The week after Christmas we went and got new car seats for Mac and moved Maggie into his seat. Mac outgrew the baby carrier seat at around one year of age (by weight) and now Maggie outgrew it at 7 months (by length).
The car seat change was a big one for Mac as well. He is now the right size for a booster seat with a back so that makes him a big kid now.


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