First of all, I want to thank all of our troops for EVERYTHING they do each and every day for us! I appreciate the sacrifices you're making by being away from your families, in order to give us freedom!
With that being said... wow! What a weekend we had! So full of excitement, business and just fun! The fun started Saturday when Richard and I headed out early and spent the ENTIRE day looking for nursery stuff! We found a crib, which we had no intentions of buying quite yet, 2 huge, chunky white picture frames for the walls, rug and a lamp. I love our lamp! Probably my favorite find. :)
Some of the stuff we bought!
We put together the crib which was much easier than anticipated! To be completely honest, I had already prepared Richard that we would most likely get into a fight once we got started. Yay for preparation, because we were both pleasantly surprised when we realized how easy it was! :) Then, we rented the Goonies (which was a childhood favorite of ours) and ordered a pizza! We slept like babies on Sunday morning, but woke up just in time for church! :) Which reminds me, after 2 1/2 years of visiting churches and going back and forth, we are joining
RADIUS !!! We feel at home here and have realized over the course of these last few years that we have continually made excuses and found something wrong with every church we go to. Whew! Run on sentence, sorry!
So, after Sunday's service, we felt God tugging at our hearts and convicting us through Pastor Carnes message. It was definitely time! Not to mention, knowing that we have a child on the way and we will be parents, we want nothing more than to raise them in an awesome church home!
Radius is definitely that! It is an amazing church, with an awesome group of members that are involved! We love that it is extremely focused on children AND there are several other families who are and have adopted children. This makes me feel even more excited! We're sooooo excited what God has in store for us there!
I have also been nose deep in a book called,
Dear Birthmother . Its by Kathleen Silber and Phylis Speedlin if you're interested in reading it. I would definitely recommend this to ANY family who is interested in adoption, or in the journey of adoption now. This clears up any misconceptions you may have about adoption, the birthmothers or even about yourself. It is an extremely emotional book, for me at least. I must have cried about 2 hours straight when reading several of the letters in it the other day. The book is filled with 4 main mythes that surround adoption. Throughout are letters from birthmothers to their babies, some to the adopted families and others are from the adopted mothers to the birthmothers. They are just so candid and tug at your hearts, giving you the deepest compassion for these women as they give their child up for adoption. After reading this book, I started a journal (if you will) full of my prayers and letters to our future babies birthmother. When we get placed with a child, I plan to give this journal to the birthmother at the end. My hopes are that this will give her some comfort during such a difficult time.
And now for Monday.... another day off for us!!! We started the day off by eating breakfast on the couch snuggled up to our babies. We then spent the morning relaxing. I met a good friend for lunch at McAlister's. We sat and talked for hours about life, our journey and the multitude of amazing things He is doing in her life right now! God is one awesome God! I love to hear about exciting new things He is constantly doing in others lives! Then, Richard and I headed to another friend's house for a cookout! We ended the night back at our place for the Bachelorette (which I'm still trying to figure out why on earth we watch)! haha Regardless, it was a great weekend and much needed! That was our incredibly wonderful weekend! Until then, Brantley
