Trip to LBL

This past weekend, we took a trip to LBL with my parents and my brother and his girlfriend, Katie. Since Mom is a teacher, thus a state employee, she gets a discount to state resort parks each year and we got to come, too! It was a great time. Kilee had a blast being the center of attention and she constantly said things that made everyone smile and laugh. Here are some pictures our our time together. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Dying eggs with Nana

Swimming with Nana and Papaw

Kilee and Mommy

Swimming lessons with Daddy

Pretty Katie

Yea Uncle J!

So cute in her wrap around towel!

Hunting eggs behind the cabin!

Family Picture

Our Adoption "Ticker"

Just a brief note about our adoption ticker to the right. You'll notice it has been changed to the amount of time we have been waiting with our current agency, not our overall wait time. We wanted to be able to keep track of how long it's been with this agency, because if we set it for our overall wait time, it would be 11 months today!

This may seem silly, but it's a little bit more encouraging to me to remember that it hasn't been that long with our current agency. So, I'm mostly doing this for my own encouragement more than anything else! ;) Please keep praying!

This is a brief timeline of our adoption:

March 2008 - God leads us to attend "Considering Adoption" class at church

April 2008 - God completely changes my heart about adoption and Scott and I move forward!

May 2008 - We choose our first agency and send in pre-application approval form. Began home study.

June 2008 - We're pre-approved with agency and begin work on 60 page application! Finish home study. Send in initial payment.

August 2008 - Receive full-approval from agency board. Make reservations to attend orientation in October.

October 2008 - Attend orientation at agency. Competely horrified to learn about policies within the agency that we cannot live with. Choose to withdraw application and go home.

Mid-October 2008 - Heartbroken over failed attempt with first agency, we receive a call from our home study agency that a local agency, Adoption Bridges of KY, needs profiles to show to specific demographics of birthmoms. We want to move forward, but we know that we cannot afford their fees. We pray about what we should do and . . .

God totally blows us AWAY with His complete faithfulness. We learn that a very substantial amount of money is anonymously donated to our adoption fund. And the next day, we learn that we are approved for the matching grant we had been praying for.

We cry. :o)

And praise God for what He has done!!!!

November 2008 - Our family profile is in circulation at ABOK. We attend orientation there and are certified as foster parents so that we can adopt in KY. (Not the same thing as foster-to-adopt, but we will be foster parents for the first 30-60 days of our child's life.)

Begin our monthly training sessions/support groups with the agency.

February 2009 - Take Infant CPR class as a part of training.

March 2009 - The wait continues!

March Pics

March has been another busy month for us! Scott has had a lot going on at work as he's trying to finish the computer program he's been working on since August. In additon to this, he and the other program staff at the office have been out at Cedarmore all week trying to finish the ziplines for camp this summer. Kilee and I went out to camp tonight to visit Scott and check out the zipline progress. It looks like SO much fun!

Kilee continues to grow like a weed. She is still loving school on Tuesdays and her teacher Mrs. Beth ("Mz. Buff" as Kilee calls her.) We are still in the process of waiting for baby. Our agency continues to tell us they think our match will be coming soon -- we are hopeful. It's hard to wait this long. We haven't been with our current agency for an incredibly long time, but we started the process with our former agency almost 11 months ago before we switched to ABOK in October. It's starting to feel like a really long time! We know that the Lord will bring us our baby when He sees fit and we try to keep this in mind when we get frustrated. Please continue to pray for our baby and for birthmom as there may be someone out there considering us right now!

Here are a few pictures from our March adventures. Kilee continues to wear her eyepatch 2-3 hours a day, alternating eyes. I think that it's helping, but we still see her eyes drift from time to time. She was so funny in this first picture. I was installing a carbon monoxide detector in our hallway and she was "reading" the instruction manual and telling me that the "book" was all about Elmo. So cute!

Kilee also decided to try out the old tricycle since we've had such nice weather this week. Each night, we took the tricycle out on the sidewalk and let her go. She's getting pretty good at it!



In addition to becoming a tricycle-rider, Kilee is trying out her culinary skills. Last Friday, it was my turn to host Bunko for our ladies' Bunko group and I needed to make brownies for the occasion. Kilee asked if she could help and we had so much fun! She is a GREAT egg-cracker and she loves to stir!

More posts to come!

Painting Pots

A couple of weeks ago, my 9th grade girls' group from church came over to bring in the spring season by painting flower pots! We had SO much fun! I was floored by their artistic abilities. They're just gifted girls all-around. I LOVE each and every one of them! Here are some pictures of our fun.

Our Little Gymnast!

Here are a few pictures from Kilee's Gymnastics Graduation Day. She does such a great job! Her teacher's name is Mrs. Sandie and we LOVE her. On Thursdays, Kilee wakes up and says, "It's a Miss Sannie Day!" Enjoy the pics of our little gymnast!

Small Group Time

Mommy and Kilee during Small Group Time

Daddy's up there taking pictures!

Before the backwards flip.

Kilee just kicks her legs over, sometimes before Mrs. Sandie is ready! Ha.

Almost done!

Good flip!

Jumping on the spring board

Doing a backwards bear crawl on 2 balance beams!

The rings!

Getting her ribbon with Mrs. Sandie!

Wearing the ribbon on her head. So, she's way cute, huh? :o)

The "Sticker"

Not long ago, I started to notice that Kilee's eyes seemed to drift outward when she got tired or looked like she was daydreaming. Not thinking it was anything serious, I put off asking her doctor. Then after a couple of months of seeing it a few times a day, we went to our pediatrician and she referred us to a pediatric opthamologist. Turns out, Kilee has exotropia. Exotropia is an eye muscle condition in which her outer eye muscles are stronger than her inner eye muscles and when her eyes are tired, they drift toward the stronger eye muscles. We are doing eyepatch therapy on her left eye, since her right eye is drifting more often. She just wears her eyepatch 3 hours a day to make her right eye muscles stronger. She does such a great job! Kilee calls the patch her "sticker." She's such a trooper! :o)

Kilee and her "sticker"

Watching Toy Story

Family Down Time

You Ready for This?

I would like to briefly give a timeline of the unique chain of events that have occurred this week:

Sunday

Afternoon: Took in stray chihuahua in our neighborhood (no shelters were open, dumb idea)
Evening: Chihuahua pees on carpet, chihuahua stays up all night crying, we can't sleep, I start to get sick with an infection

Monday

Morning: Chihuahua poops in Kilee's Room (I am on phone with my dad, not aware this is happening)
Mid-morning: Kilee eats chihuahua poop in her room, I call pediatrician -- they tell me to call poison control, poison control tells me to call the CDC, CDC tells me to call the KY Dept. of Health, KDH tells me to call my pediatrician. I take matters into my own hands and take the dog to the vet to see if it has worms. No worms -- Kilee's okay.
Evening: Dog stays up all night crying, pees everywhere

Tuesday

Morning: Get the chihuahua in the animal shelter! Yea!
Afternoon: Washing machine breaks, floods laundry room
Evening: Look for new washing machine, I start to get sick with something else

Wednesday

Morning: Mom 2 Mom at church --awesome!
Afternoon: Our dog runs away
Evening: Find dog, back to church

Thursday

Morning: I wake up feeling better, Scott and I trade cars so that he can get oil changed in van.
Mid-morning: Kilee and I go to "Mommy and Me" gymnastics (All About Kids) in Scott's car.
Afternoon: I realize that I've locked the keys in the car and Scott has no spare to his car. We're stuck at All About Kids. Cell phone is locked in car. Kilee wants a sucker, they cost 25 cents --no money on me, she throws fit while I'm on their business phone trying to solve problem. No good disciplining sites in the immediate area.
Mid-afternoon: Kilee and I "talk." Kilee decides to obey and spends the next hour playing happily while we wait for the locksmith guy. Sweet AAK employee gives Kilee the sucker she wanted and lets us play in the "Fun Zone." Locksmith comes, we head home!

Friday

We'll see . . .!

What Can I Do? :: 10 Ways to Make a Difference

With 143 million orphans around the world, sometimes I think, "where do we start?" and "what difference could I possibly make?" Visit this incredible resource if you want to learn what you can do personally/as a family to help Orphans here and around the world. Many practical suggestions!

Have a Heart for Africa

Okay, so get ready to act on behalf of Africa. Visit my friend's website, www.sevensojourners.blogspot.com and see the video of Sam and Esther. The Lord will move you. Will you sponsor a child, children, a family? Will you bring a child to your home forever? There are so many orphans here and abroad . . .

Eternal Things

We were putting Kilee to bed tonight and we were saying our bedtime prayers. We always thank God for our family and for Jesus and we also pray for the Lifesong for Orphans School in Zambia that Crossings works with. Usually, Kilee likes to do "repeat after me" prayers so we started one. This is how it went.

Daddy: Jesus
Kilee: Jesus
Daddy: Thank you for Mommy
Kilee: Tanku Mommy
Daddy: and Daddy and the baby coming
Kilee: Daddy . . . baby coming
Daddy: Be with John and Dru
Kilee: Wit John . . . Du . . . Zamba.

Unprompted, she said Zambia. It is so cool to hear just a tiny snippet of a kingdom perspective coming from our little girl's mouth. Pray that God continues to teach us to teach her about His kingdom. God is so good.

The Winter Storm

Well, we did it. We went outside. As nice as it is to stay inside and be warm, Kilee could not resist the snow anymore! So far, we've gotten around 3 inches of snow mixed with lots of freezing rain so it's not too great to make snowmen with. They're calling for more wintry mix as the day goes on. We lost power last night for a little while, but the house didn't get too cold. Scott braved the slick roadways and headed to the office today. He said that he had to drive 35 mph on I-64 all the way into Louisville. I decided that Kilee and I would stay put.

Here are a few pictures of our wintry fun!

All bundled up and ready to go.

Checking everything out.

She loved getting snow on her gloves!

Little winter beauty!

She loved to sit in the snow and kept saying, "Sit down, mommy!"

She was really busy with the snow, so the only way to get a picture of the two of us was
to lie down. COLD! I was ready to go inside after that.

Our neighborhood after last night's snow and ice.

Winter Pics

Here are a few pictures from this winter. We can't believe how big Kilee is getting! Hopefully she'll be a big sister soon! We'll be sure to let you know any new news that we have on the adoption. We are still waiting, waiting, waiting!

On Kilee's birthday, we decided to try some 2-year-old hair and gave her pigtails. She LOVES her "piggies!"

Grandpa gave Scott some of his camo Kenergy hats and Kilee was trying one out.

Working the problem . . . just like Daddy. :o)

Helping Daddy put her new table together.

Kilee really enjoys playing "people" all the time. This was one of her Christmas gifts, a Little People castle.

One new thing for 2009 is Mother's Day Out! Kilee is going to a local church every Tuesday to play with other kids and learn how to be in a class. She was SO ready for this and loves to go to "school." This is a picture of her and her backpack before we left for her 1st day! It's nice for me to have 4 whole hours to go to the grocery and clean while she's out of the house. I'm not ready to give up any more days with her, though! :o)

Doesn't she look SO grown up?