Easter, e-mail, and everything else

EASTER- I'm going to try to put some pictures on here directly from my camera of the the break. It started out not as I planned with Lydia getting sick but ended up just fine. We went to my parents on Thursday after Aaron was done with school. Lydia still had a temp but was better than the two days before, she was much better on Friday and pretty much back to herself by Saturday. On Friday we did the fun farm stuff, fed cows, saw some new baby calves, dyed Easter eggs with Grandma visited everyone on the farm. On Saturday we went to my uncles and had Easter/birthday party for my cousin McKenna who's 7. The kids had a blast and it was fun to see my Grandma and aunts and uncles. I got to see Baby Bjorn. He even came to me! I guess all that talking to him on the phone for the past 6 weeks has paid off! We drove back to Fargo on Saturday night and celebrated Easter at our church Sunday morning and a relaxing day. I was able to have some fun conversations with the kids about why we celebrate Easter and we went through the Easter story with the help of the Resurrection Eggs. They are these eggs that have a something in each of them to represent the Easter story (ie., a crown of thorns, a rock, a spear, etc) Very cool. Ok that covers the Easter part.crown of thorns, a rock, a spear, etc) Very cool. Ok that covers the Easter part.

Here's the kids and my dad and the 3 baby calves. Jonah liked to round them up and Lydia of course liked to pet them, the first thing she said when we got in the barn was "Well what should we name them?"
Jonah was very proud of his "dissappearing" or actually "reappearing ink". You just gotta love white crayons!
Alexis, McKenna and Lydia pretending they are so cool!

Baby Bjorn and his mommy. Thanks for all of you who prayed for him when we had his surgery. He's doing great!

E-MAIL-I got an e-mail today from our social worker saying she sent our homestudy to us to be signed last week and our backround checks/fingerprints came in today. So that means all we have to do is sign and our stuff is officially off and ready to be looked at by birthmoms. I have to admint when I read the e-mail I got this nervous whoosh go throughout my body. My heart did a little flutter, and my brain said wow this is really going to happen, thank you Jesus and please show us the way.

EVERYTHING ELSE- We have been prayerfully considering asking people to help us with our adoption and it is sort of hard to know exactly what to say. So for once in my life I"m not going to go on and on like I usually do , I'm just going to ask you to pray. Pray:



* that God will continue to prepare our family for the baby He has chosen for us

* that in details of this adoption that are ahead, that we will be able to discern what is best for our family and that we won't lose sight of God being in control

* for our babies birthmom that she will feel surrounded by God's wisdom and love

* that God will provide finanial support we need to make this happen for our family

Toothpaste and dissapointment

OK so sometimes I don't do the best with "changed plans" I have been planning for two weeks to go to my sister's today with the kids. I was SOOO looking forward to getting out of Fargo. Lydia came down with a fever yesterday and it lasted all night and through today. I was so dissapointed. She's in the tub right now, and fever free, but we'll see what happens after the motrin wears off. The poor thing just laid on the couch all day and didn't do much.

And me, I was selfish and having an internal pitty party all day. I tried my best to hide it from her, after all it's not her fault she got sick. I'm praying she feels better and maybe we can go tomorrow? I do feel better than earlier thanks to being able to just talk it all out ( thanks aunt J)

Now on to the toothpaste, as I've written before, Lydia does have a thing with toothpaste. The first thing she says to me when she wakes up is "Mommy, I had a dream." "Really what, was it?"

"Well there was a cow and a frog and the cow said "HOWDY FROG!" And the frog said," howdy cow, I have some toothpaste, do you want some?" And the frog shared his toothpaste with the cow and they brushed their teeth together. I"m thinking maybe I could call Crest or Colgate and Lydia could write promos from the toothpaste. That's all for now, I have to get Lydia out of the tub and I promised Jonah some "reading practice time"

"Hope is not a granted wish or a favor performed; no it is far greater than that. It is a zany unpredictable dependence on a God who loves to surprise us out of our socks and be there in the flesh to see our reaction. "

taken from God Came Near

John Piper on Adoption

Lydiaisms

This weekend Lydia just seemed to be full of the funniest stories and quotes. My sister in law Shannon even put one on her blog. Anyway, here are just a few:

We tried to go to the rodeo in Valley City yesterday. But we got about 15 miles west of Fargo and the roads were sooooo icy there were cars in the ditch everywhere. We decided it was not the best idea and turned around. Lydia was quite dissapointed and can you blame her she was decked out in her best cowgirl attire complete with pigtails, a cowgirl shirt and shiny pink cowboy boots, she did look awful cute. Anyway, when we said we were turning around, Lydia was crying and whining and she kept saying , "It's not that bad out!" We tried to explain to her that it was too icy and finally she said, "well can't we just ice skate there!"

Another one happened at supper time. and is sort of embarrasing but the laugh will be worth it. We all had sat down to supper and I decided to stop the ceiling fan. Now you need to understand that the ceiling fan has been going non stop for probably 4 or 5 months. I don't remember the last time we stopped it. Andway it stopped and for some reason we all watched it stop, when the blades came to a halt the amount of dust on them looked like a a dirty snowbank like about and inch and half thick! Lydia looked at me and said " WHOA ,that is SO interesting!" We all laughed out loud.

The last came before bed, Lydia who is kind of has a thing with toothpaste (she always has dreams about a girl drinking toothpaste) starts telling me this crazy story about this girl who is making the craziest toothpaste ever! She mixed together strawberries, and oranges and minty stuff and rice krispies and that is the best toothpaste there is and then she drinks it through a straw. What a story. I'm totally not doing it justice but it was very funny at the time.

That's all I got for now. I hope all is well with all of you and you had a restful Sunday.

Whew!

I am very glad there is a few of you out there checking up on me. It's been a whole week since I've posted so I have to think of what's happened this week that is interesting enought to write about. Oh now I remember, last week I swear we had something everynight. Swimming lessons, company, church, grocery shopping and all that. On the weekend, we relaxed and played. We checked out the indoor water park in Grand Forks on Saturday night with some friends, I would show you pictures except I didn't take any because we were having so much fun and before I knew it, it was 9pm and everybody was pooped! Oh yeah and I can't show pictures b/c our computer is still dead and I have been blogging on Aaron's laptop from school. I promise you'll see pictures some day.

Ok, the biggest thing that has happenend this week is the profile's are offically done! I picked the copies up yesterday at Copy Max and today I delivered them to our social worker. They should go out to the agencies very soon. When those profiles make it those agencies, I think we are officially in the next step. It feels very wierd, and very real. The great thing about it is I"m not filled with anxiety and worry about the unknowns (because trust me, with adoption there are ALWAYS unknowns), but I'm really excited. I'm trying very hard to rest in Jesus and let him carry us, and so far that is working. We are having lots more converations at our house about baby names and boy or girl. What it will be like having a baby again. I've been doing my fair share of day dreaming about what this baby will look like and what he or she will be called.

The next step for us besides waiting is to hammer out the details, but it's getting late and my favorite show (Wildfire) is on so I'm going to go for now.