Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Happy late Thanksgiving everyone! We had a great thanksgiving with my mom yesterday and I made everything! The turkey, the sweet potatoes, the green beans, the rolls! The only things I didn't make were the desserts, that's my mom's speciality. We had a great day snacking on sticky buns and chips and dip and playing cards and napping. It was great having it at our house because it meant we didn't have to change out of our pajamas until 4:00. Hopefully next year we'll have even more to be thankful for and more mouths to feed!

Black Friday started early for me, I got up at 5:30 to go to Lowe's to buy a Christmas tree, the first artificial one I've ever had in my life which is sort of sad but last year the cats kept trying to eat the real one. They're still trying to eat the plastic one but hopefully they'll be less successful. I was home by six with a mocha in one hand and the tree in the other and Tim was still snoozing away. I also hit up old navy online which was awesome because they had all the same deals as in store without the lines and free shipping. We got a bunch of stuff and saved about $80. I also forced myself not to look at the kid's stuff because we don't need to buy any of that stuff yet. It is tempting though. 

We are so blessed and thankful for everything the Lord has given us. 

I hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving and is finding great deals today!

KGB

This knock knock joke sums up how we feel about Russia. (There is the H-E-double hockey sticks word in there so be please be advised)
via videosift.com

All I want for my birthday...

Today is my birthday and all I want is our home study to be approved. That and maybe for this cough to go away so that I can get more than two consecutive hours of sleep at a time. I will not lie, the past week has been frustrating. We must have given the adoption agency a hundred reasons why we want to adopt and it feels like most of them have been rejected as not good enough, too religious, not specific, etc. I'm almost to the point of asking them what it is they want me to say so that I can say it. I know this is part of the process, I know the process can be frustrating, but this specifically has been hard on me. Tim is so good, he just takes it in stride. I am not patient. I know that the longer this takes the less and less likely it is anything gets done in Russia before mid-January. We did get a wonderful surprise this week. I have been drooling over the Rosetta Stone Russian program for probably two months and our family sent it to Tim and I as a combined birthday present! BbI! (that's sort of Russian for Thank you!) We have such a wonderful supportive family we could not have asked for better! God is faithful. God controls even Russian bureaucrats. I will be strong, take heart, and wait on the Lord.

Paint, quilts, and reasons why

The last week has been crazy.

Today I took the day off of work and did a whole bunch of stuff for the kids. I

cleaned out the closet in their room and then my mom and I went to JoAnn's to get quilting fabric for their quilts. This was an adventure as neither my mom nor I really quilt, but after seeing the price of toddler bedding I knew that that wasn't going to happen. So quilts are started. I bought two stuffed animals on amazon and Tim and I painted their room tonight. It's scary to prepare this way. Nothing is assured but God is faithful and it seems right and good.

We also waited all week for our home study to be approved. It was supposed to be approved today but instead we got an e-mail from our social worker saying that the director in St. Petersburg was worried because the courts there have been especially difficult lately and she wanted us to elaborate on why we wanted to adopt, why didn't we wait and have biological children first, why now, etc. This was a little hard to hear. There are lots of reasons why we want to adopt now and why we don't want to have biological children first but all of those reasons are pretty personal and none of them are probably going to satisfy a Russian judge. We wrote back a bunch of reasons but I don't know if it's going to be enough but as my mom said "God controls Russian judges too."

Pray for our homestudy and pray that God gives us the right words to explain our hearts.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday S!

Today is S's birthday. At least we think it is. I was telling my third grade class at church this and asking them to pray for me because I knew that today would make me feel sad and they didn't really understand why. So I've decided to take on their attitude and not be sad. On S's third birthday I didn't know he existed, on his fourth I'm praying for him like crazy, and on his fifth I will buy him the gigantic cupcakes from costco and some obnoxious boy present that is big and loud and that I will probably regret immediately.

We bought paint for the kid's room this weekend and last night at 5 pm I wanted to pull everything out of the room and just go at it. Tim wisely stopped me but the urge remains. We are so busy this week that no painting will be done until probably Friday. If I can wait that long. The paint makes it feel real. The fact that Tim has found toddler beds on the internet and that we have every intention of buying them makes it real. The fact that I called my mom this morning and was trying to subtly hint at her that I wanted to make (rather I wanted her to make) quilts for their beds and she brought it up first makes it real.

Also, it is very hard to figure out a room that needs to be both for a boy and a girl. I mean there is a reason that there is nothing on the walls in our room and that they are the same beige color they were when we moved it. We decided on green for the walls, with brown and navy accents for S and pink and brown accents for E. I don't know how this is going to turn out but we shall see.

Pray for my little S today on his birthday. He's four, and if you were to ask any of the 3 year-olds in my Sunday School class that is a very important birthday.

Amazed and Thankful

This isn't about Carrie or me. It is about so much more and we are at the bottom of the list of people that it is about. God is at the top and we are on the bottom (in the cellar). In the middle, we have S and E, Mrs. Lee, our foreman, our videographer, the donors and the workers to just name a few. Carrie and I are amazed at the response this video is generated. It would be really easy to look at it and say look what we did, but I feel lucky to be included in this whole thing. God doesn't need me. But I so desperately need Him. I am just thankful He loves me. The fact that He may entrust me with raising these two young Russian children is incredible. Why me? I could work on 1000 widow's houses and still be unworthy. The day we were composing our letters these lyrics from a Caedmon's Call song came to mind and we put it at the top of the letter: We put the walls up, but Jesus keeps them standing. He doesn't need us, but He lets us put our hands in. So we can see, His love is bigger than you and me. I think that sums it up.

Both Hands Project

We had a great time and got a ton of work done. Thanks to everyone who was apart in making this happen. We couldn't have blessed Mrs. Francis the way we did without your help. There is still time to give! Make Checks payable to "Lifesong for Orphans" and write "Tweten #1009" in the memo line. The address for Lifesong is: Lifesong for Orphans PO Box 40 Gridley, IL 61744 Okay, Carrie Here. I didn't want to try and figure out how to put the youtube video up again and so I'm just going to tack on to what Tim already wrote. This weekend was amazing. I don't know that I've felt the prescence of God as strongly as I felt it for eight hours on Saturday. From getting the entire house painted to finding Evan's wedding ring after a furious search God led this project and we were just the hands. The adoption feels real now. I think someone called me a mom for the first time this weekend and it was almost too much. And God is moving our hearts, especially for little E. I know he's moving Tim's heart because yesterday when I started looking at children's furniture for the eighty billionth time on the internet and I pointed out a cute little girl bed he said "that's too big, she needs a smaller bed than that". His heart is bigger than I can tell you. And we are truly blessed. We have wonderful friends, wondeful families, a wonderful church body, we've met a wonderful woman in Francis Lee, and God is good.