Settling In

Well, we are all moved into our new house! I don't know that I've ever been as exhausted as I was after this long week of moving, but it is finally finished! Our friend Brad brought over his HUGE truck to help us move the big things on Saturday and now it's just a whole lot of unpacking and organizing. Brian's dad took this picture when he visited yesterday. Once things are put into some kind of order I will try to post some pictures of the inside. Maybe we can post some before and after pictures of the landscaping after Brian and Matt work this weekend too! :-)

No new news on the adoption front. Lots of little ones being referred to families in our agency and it's so fun to get to see the sweet pictures. Once we get more settled in the new house I'm going to really put some energy towards Molly's room. I found out this week that there is no real order to the referrals--basically once you're DTV, you are somewhere in the referral process. We could get a referral as soon as two months from now! Of course it could be much longer--it's all in God's hands now!

We're DTV!!

Well, we got some very exciting news today! I called PLAN to check on our paperwork and we were DTV August 16th! I guess we either missed the email or didn't get it or something, but our paperwork is on its way to Vietnam!! And the wait begins......

Celebrations!

This week was a week of celebrations. Two of my neices had birthdays this week. My neice Jessica turned 15 and my neice Lexie turned 1. Also, our good friends Scott and Alicia gave birth to their second daughter, Ruby Ann on Thursday. She is so cute and so tiny (well, she weighed 8lbs but all newborns are tiny!)--we'll post pictures when we get them! Congratulations Scott, Alicia, and big sister Corrie!

Molly Grace

Molly

--Wished for child

We have offically decided on a name for the baby. For whatever reason, coming up with this name has been a lot harder than it was to come up with Zeke's name. I think part of that was that Brian and I don't agree as well on girl names as boy names.

We knew we wanted something you didn't hear everyday and we wanted to name her a form of the name Mary after my mom, Mary, and Brian's sister, Marie. So we'd been playing with different names for awhile when our good friend Jessica said "I like the name Molly." I thought it was cute, but didn't figure Brian would like it. So I went home that night and brought it up to him and he shocked me when he responded "I love it!" We looked it up that night and found that it is the form of the name Mary! (How we had missed that one, I have no idea.) Thanks, Jessica--we love it!

I hadn't planned on settling this early, but Brian started calling her Molly so Molly it is! We should be DTV (Dossier To Vietnam) VERY soon so we'll keep you posted!

Hometown Hero

This was just the coolest thing ever--I have to share this! Our friend James heard about a radio contest where you nominate someone as a "hometown hero"--well, James decided to nominate his fiancee and our good friend, Anna. The winner of the contest gets a brand new Hyundai to drive for a year. Well, Anna left the painting party today to be there to find out the winner and she won!!! She came back driving a brand new Hyundai!! How cool is that?!? We can't wait to hear the winning essay! Congratulations Anna!! :-)

Thanking God for Friends!

"A friend loveth at all times."-- Proverbs 17:17

Well, the painting party was a success! We were able to paint the WHOLE house!! It was so awesome to have friends and family over to help us. God never ceases to amaze me with the love and kindness that He pours over us in the shape of our friends. We are so incredibly grateful and humbled by the sacrifice of our friends and family to take a Saturday to help us. (Especially those who are going to be having a baby in 5 days!) We feel so incredibly blessed by your service. It's such a beautiful picture of God's love.

For the first time today I was really excited about the move. I think having our house full of our friends and family made it feel more like home. Last night I was getting a little emotional thinking about leaving our house and all of our memories here--but today it really hit me that our new house will soon be home and we'll make new memories there. And today we made our first fun memory. Thank you guys!! :-)

Exciting Week

Well, this has been a very exciting week. On Tuesday, Brian woke me up at about midnight--he had just checked our email and we had a message saying that all of our adoption paperwork was state certified!! It's now on it's way to the Vietnam Consulate where it will be authenticated. This is another big step in the adoption process. We are SO excited!

Our house is now officially "under contract." We will not be closing until September 29th but we may be moving sooner than that depending on our success tomorrow at the painting party. I'm really hoping to get the whole house painted! We even bought paint for the baby's room.

Tuesday will be eight months since Zeke went to be with Jesus. We still miss him so much. I so wish he could be here to meet his little sister. I think about him so much and what he would be doing if he were still with us. I know God's plan was different than what we would have wanted, but Zeke made such a mark on the world with his short little life. And it's been amazing at how many people God has allowed us to encourage who are in similar situations in the last few months. It seems like God is always putting people in my path who can gain something from Zeke's story. God's plan for Zeke was different than mine--it was bigger and better.

Well, Brian and I are having Qdoba tonight---Woo-hoo! :-)

PARTY!

We are finally going to attempt to have a painting party at the new house. We are planning on this Saturday at 10:30 AM and we'll provide lunch. If you are able to help out, email us and we will send you directions. (I'm not going to post them here since our blog is public.)

We're excited and looking forward to Saturday!

Pray for Scottie

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." --Matthew 28:19

I just wanted to ask for prayer for our friend Scottie who is in Honduras right now on a short term mission trip. Scottie has spent a lot of time in Honduras working with a boys' home there and really has a heart for missions and these boys. Please play for her as she does the Lord's work.

Under Contract?

Well, we may have some REALLY good news. We had a very good offer on our house today which we accepted contingent on a pre-approval letter. As long as our realtor gets that tomorrow, our house will be under contract! We won't be closing until September 29th--which is good because it will give us more time to work on our new house without the pressure of having to have our house in show-ready condition at all times. This is such an answer to prayer. It's really been a test for me to completely trust God on this. I've really been praying that God will help me to relax and put it in His hands.

On a side note, the new house is slowly coming along. While the painting party didn't actually happen this weekend, we did have our friend Anna over yesterday for a few hours to help (and you know Anna can make any situation a party!) We got quite a bit done and it's amazing what a little paint will do. These pictures were stolen off of Anna's blog:

I will close this post with a verse out of the book of Zephaniah. We have been going through the minor prophets at church and today we learned about Zephaniah. This was such a beautiful verse and picture of our Father:

"The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take delight in you. With His love, He will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

Happy Birthday Matt!

The goal was absolutely to get this post up on our friend Matt's actual birthday, but yesterday was a little crazy so happy birthday one day late, Matt! :-)

We went bowling Friday in celebration of Matt's birthday. Here are some of the pictures:

Melissa, Erin, Tara, Anna--the winning team!

Brian, Matt, Travis, James--so cool!

And they were such good sports when they came in second!

The birthday boy and his lovely bride to be.

Anna breakin' it down.

Brian after his first strike of the night. Woo-hoo!

Living Pefectly

Well, our house got shown today for the first time which was very exciting! I think the most stressful thing about having our house on the market (for a whole two days!) has been attempting to keep our house in perfect condition for showings. I feel like we are good housekeepers, but it's not uncommon for us to leave a load of laundry waited to be folded on the dryer, our shoes in the laundry room, etc. BUT when you are wanting your house to sell things have to stay PERFECT--it's very tiring! As I've driven myself crazy about our house staying perfect, I've been thinking about how grateful I am for God's grace. Although I try to do the right thing, I make mistakes and sin every day. I am so grateful that I don't have to constantly worry being "perfect"--living that way would be very tiring! God is well aware of my "laundry" and loves me anyway. :-)

"We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.”

--Acts 15:11