Lately, I can’t get our kids off my mind.

         I have not updated in a while. It's not about us changing our minds, or feeling insecure, we’ve just been super busy. We have picked up several tutoring jobs to make some extra money. One great thing this has done for us is be able to set money aside for our home study, savings, and even money to help get our house in order. This month we finally had enough money to buy some art to spruce the place up! We even bought these cute pieces that will go in our upstairs play room area. We’ve also had some time to reorganize parts of our house and refine certain aspects. Hopefully next month we can do a deep clean (maybe over Easter) and replace some of the things that are still broken around here.

Sketch of the Willow I drew.

       I've also been working on a sketch to work on for t-shirts or stickers or something. Any advice on what I should put it on? Or how to? Right now I'm looking into some local companies that might do it for cheap! Also, I may need help editing it on the computer so if you're good at that and would like to help... contact me!! I also came up with a fundraising idea; making home made pre-mixed cookie, cake and brownie mixes. Now for those of you in the states, you might think this is silly, but if you live in China, well, sometimes it can be as we say here, "hen ma fan" or "very annoying" to buy the expensive imports or to go through the effort of trying to get all the materials together to make your own. I'm going to sell some in zip-locks, decorated of course, and some in pretty glass jars. I hope that people here think it's great and buy tons!!

        Here’s an update worth sharing; we feel lead to adopt siblings! Our plan is to adopt 2 children between the ages of 1-10.  David wants the older child to be a girl, and other than that preference, we don’t really care what age or gender! I can’t wait to see their pictures! I can’t wait to go meet them and to hug them tightly and tell them that they are ours forever. I can’t wait to go pick them up and bring them to their new home! But I guess I need to start with the paper process first. I hope we can start this whole thing soon. We’re hoping to paint the house this summer while we’re on vacation. (We can’t paint while we’re in the house because in China the fumes are dangerous for a while). We’ve also been working hard at setting up some other things around the house, mostly organizational. Do you have any advice on what to make sure to do before a home study? Anyone have any experience with this?  It’s a little nerve-wrecking for us!

       Lately, I can’t get our kids off my mind. I keep praying for them and wondering at what point they are at right now in their young lives. Have they experienced their tragedy, whatever it might be, yet? Is there someone there to hold them and love on them even a little? Is someone taking care of those sweet little hearts and building them up? I hope someone is there for them, I really do. I think about them as I’m walking home from school, wondering what it will be like to talk with them about their days at school; to be able to hold their little hands and maybe stop off at the store for a snack or the playground for a couple of minutes. I wonder what it will be like to get home with them, let the dog out and live out the rest of our day. What will we do? Anyway, I long for them. I long to teach them English, to play with them, read to them and hold them tight. I know things will be rough and majorly difficult at first, maybe even for quite a while, but they will get better. I realize that I will deal with discipline issues, behavior and attitude problems and there will be days that I will hate, but from some of the best examples in my life of parents I have seen that everyone does. That sometimes it doesn’t work out perfect, but in the end most of the time it works out. I don’t pretend to think everything will be just perfect or amazing the moment we see our kids, but I can anticipate what God has laid out before us. I know that He has a great plan for us and our kids and I just can’t wait to see what it is amidst all the chaos and labor surrounding raising children. I’m so excited, in fact, that I kind of want to go out and buy a toy box and start filling it for our future kids! I have to restrain myself every time I go to the store now-a-days! What is one thing you think is super important for a child to have? What is something you always want to buy for your kid?