"I will thank the Lord with all my heart...

as I meet with His godly people. How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in Him should ponder them. Everything He does reveals His glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails. Who can forget the wonders He performs? How gracious and merciful is our Lord? He gives food to those who trust Him; He always remembers His covenant. He has shown His great power to His people by giving them the lands of other nations. All He does is just and good, and all of His commandments are trustworthy. They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity. Praise His name forever!!" Psalm 111:1-10


Emma's adoption worker came to my home yesterday. She came to go over disclosures with us. For those of you who don't know how DHS adoptions work, disclosure is done at the very end of the adoption process. You are handed a big fat stack of papers to go through that list everything they have collected about the child you are adopting. Now, let me preface this by saying that most of what is handed to you is WRONG! LOL! Either the individuals who are questioned about the child's family are lying, or information from another child get's put into your child's file. Fortunately, I was AT Emma's birth, so I know how her life started out. I know all the statistics and the details. I know all about her birth mother. I am extremely fortunate. I know very little about Samara and Josiah's births or their short lives after and what I do know was told to me by family members, not DHS.

Back to the news. When you adopt through DHS, it's different from when you adopt after being a foster parent. The adoptive child has been in your home. Everyone already knows each other. There is no need for a "trial" period. The trial period is 6 months. We were praying that we would not have to go through the trial period in order to adopt Emma due to the circumstances of her case. My attorney has been working on this, but you never know how things are going to go.

So, imagine my surprise and joy when my worker said that my attorney is going to try to get our finalization date set for Friday, MAY 28, 2010!! That is LESS that two weeks away!!! Hallelujah! God's hand is all over this...again...still...

The ONLY thing that might happen is that we were already scheduled for an adoptive review in court that day, so it really depends on if the Judge has the TIME to do it that day. If not, it will be scheduled very shortly after that. You usually get a date within a month of disclosure. (Well, if your attorney is any good...and mine is!)

CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE THIS??? I am just walking around in awe. Although, should I really be surprised? He said He would do this. I will let you know as soon as we have our definite date. How can I begin to thank you all for the prayers and support you have shown to me, and to my family, in these past 21 months...and some of you even longer. With that being said, will you please pray that DHS will allow Emma everything she is entitled to with regards to the adoption?



Oh...and one other praise...while I cannot share the details, we did get some really good news regarding "X" and his adoption. God is moving!!!

Brand New Blog!!!

Well, here it is. After having to go private on my last blog, and not really liking that at all, I decided just to take my old blog down and start fresh. I do have a copy of the entire blog that I can email if you are interested...it's kind of like a book! I hated that some of you couldn't get on anymore and it really is a pain to have to sign in every time. I pondered whether or not to even blog anymore, and for a couple of weeks I thought I would just give it up, but then I realized how much I love to blog, and how many friends and prayer warriors I have met throughout the past 20 months.

I feel like we have started a new chapter in our lives...thus the new blog. So, bear with me as I figure out this new blogging system. I think I will like it much better. I believe you can actually subscribe to this blog so when I post something new, it comes right to you instead of you having to check your blog roll every day...or maybe that's just me that does that!!

So...welcome, or maybe it's welcome back! I'll leave you with this...

Blog coming down....

Okay...I figured out what I'm going to do.  I have changed my blog address completely.  I have saved this blog as a book, so I could probably email it to you if you ever had a need to have it or would like to share it with someone who may need the encouragment.

So, the new blog will be open to the public, again and I hope you will all keep reading...and commenting.  I love comments!  (That's for all you lurkers!!)

Here is the new blog address...it's still in the works, so bear with me.

http://blessedandreblessed.wordpress.com/

Blessings!  I'm off to rock this to sleep:

I'm still here!!!

Wow...it's been awhile! I've missed you all! So much has happened, but I am pretty sure you don't have 6 weeks to sit here and read my blog!

Life at our house has been full, to say the least. Everything is good...SO good. I have just been swamped with good things! We had our homeschool convention a couple of weeks ago and that ate up any extra time I had. It was a huge success though. This year was our first year to do TWO conventions in a row. The first was in Tulsa and then our annual convention here in OKC. Our trustee board felt God calling us to Tulsa. Doors opened and we prayed for 500 people...that's what we needed to cover our costs. We thought 700 people would be a HUGE answer to prayer. Well, we walked away from that 2 day conference with 1600+ people! Can I get a "Praise God"??? It was fabulous. Then in OKC, we had 3300+ people. We were praying that our numbers wouldn't be affected by the conference in Tulsa and they really weren't! We were only down by 200 people from the previous year. God is so good...in EVERYTHING! Oh...and my convention highlight? I got to meet my bloggy friend, Sara, who is now my "in real life" friend! I just love the way God brings people into our lives! It was SO good talking with Sara. Even though it was the first time we had actually SEEN each other, it was like we had always known each other. How cool is that??

So, I have spent the last two weeks trying to get everything and everyone back into a normal routine. Not sure it's going to happen! :)

So...are you wondering how Emma Claire is doing??? Well, what do you think??

She is such a joy. As you remember, I spent the first five days with her at the hospital. Now, I don't really buy into all of the "bonding at birth" stuff...some of it, yes, but I also believe you can bond outside of a hospital, at different points in life. That being said, Emma heard my voice almost every day for 9+ weeks before birth and then we spent 5 days together at the hospital. If I heard someone tell me what I am getting ready to write, I would probably roll my eyes...on the inside of course because I try not to be rude out loud! Emma came back to us after 7 1/2 months. From the time the worker handed her to me, it's like she knew I was her momma. She attached immediately. I know...it sounds crazy. But I know what attachement looks like. I know what the inability to attach looks like. Emma knew and I believe with all my heart that God protected the relationship and bond that He allowed us to create way back in the beginning. It's the only explanation there is.

Emma is 9 months old now. She started crawling this week, although she still cannot roll over front to back or back to front. Weird. She just started eating baby food and loves it. She gets really irritated when I am giving "X" fruit snacks or any other food that she cannot eat.

Speaking of "X"...we are praying that all works out and we will be able to adopt him by the end of the year. Right now, everything is looking like that will be possible. This will be a private adoption with details that are, well, just too much to share. What I can share is that the way we found out about him and all of the details were clearly from God. If Emma had come home with us when WE thought she should have, we would never have considered "X".

"X" and Emma are 8 months apart...the same age distance as Josiah and Jacob. I think that's pretty cool. They are SO cute together. I am posting some pics of him on here, but only because it's a private blog.

And speaking of that...I don't like being private. So, I think what I am going to do is start a different blog. It will have a different name, look, etc. I am hoping to write about many different topics. I will let you know when it's ready to go. You won't have to sign in or any of that junk, either. I had a life before Jacob died. We had other issues that when shared, I am hoping will be helpful to you and others. Did you know that Josiah is RAD? Did you know that Bryce was a severe asthmatic for four years and then he was healed? Would you like to know about our experiences in foster care and what the needs are in that arena? Did you know that I am an organizational freak?? And that I have done workshops on just this thing? Did you know that I like to cook for 3 months at a time?? Did you know that I'm a MOPS mentor??

I have so many ideas and experiences running around in this brain of mine that are just now ready to come back to the surface. Grief is going to have to take a back seat!!!

Chat with you soon! Enjoy the pics!