There's still time!!

Hi friends, just wanted to do a quick post to remind you that there's still time to head over to Go.Seek.Love. and order some awesome adoption shirts!  We are April's partner family and will be receiving 100% of the profit from shirts sold this month.  We would love it if you would support our family in this way!  Here again are some of the shirts you can order:

There's a few more on the website, so head over now and check them out!! Please let us know if you order so we can thank you!! Happy Monday!!

It is Finished!

This weekend is so special in the life of a believer.  Because our beautiful Savior died on that old rugged cross, we have been set free!!  This is reason to celebrate! And yet also approach it with reverence, remembering what Jesus did for us.  We had an awesome Good Friday service at our church last night, just reflecting on the love Christ has for us and the amazing gift he has given us. How Jesus took OUR place on that cross, it should have been us.  I have been loving this song over the past few weeks, it was written by one of our worship pastor's and there's just so much truth in it.  As he put it at the service last night, these are the 3 greatest words ever spoken...It is Finished. (remember to pause the music at the bottom of the page before watching)

This is also another great video from one of the pastor's at our church. Such an awesome story of God's love and care for his children, that he would orchestrate such a meeting.

Prodigal Son Story from Josh Sliffe on Vimeo.

Praying everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend, remembering the love of our risen Savior!!

What I've been up to

This week has been my spring break from the preschool!!  I am loving the beautiful weather and the time off!  While we're waiting on that USCIS appointment letter, this is what I've been up to.....

Turning this

dark, dreary kitchen, into this!

I thought I had more before pictures, but you get the idea, it was dark! And now it's light, bright, and airy!  I love it!  I have a small kitchen, it's actually the biggest of anywhere we've lived, but still small.  After a new coat of paint I feel like it's twice the size it was, it really opened things up!  I still have a few things left in there to do, curtains, backsplash, etc, but it's well on it's way!  I've decided to make things like this my project while we wait.  I really love coming up with new ideas, and now it's even more of a challenge to do things as cheap as possible!  Most of these ideas probably come because I can't do anything to the baby room yet, so I'm refocusing my energy in other areas!

Also, don't forget, there's still some time left to head over to Go.Seek.Love. and pick up an awesome adoption shirt to help us bring our baby home! Praying we get that USCIS letter soon!!

Happy 2nd Birthday!!

I don't typically write about non-adoption related things on this blog, but I rarely write on my other blog anymore and I figured I could make an exception for this!  I also thought it was time to introduce the blogworld to a pretty cute member of our family that I don't know if I've ever specifically wrote about on either blog.  So today is the day!  Today is this little guy's 2nd birthday.....

This is Tucker at 8 weeks old, the night we brought him home!

This is after his first trip to the groomer, doesn't get much cuter!

        Halloween 2009 Got himself half way into this shirt, so we helped him out a little!

                                              Christmas 2009

                                              Best Buds!

       Literally sitting in a carseat while riding in the car, this was his own doing! 

Lovin' the beach!

     Hangin' at the beach with his buddy Lucca!

 And here he is today, enjoying his favorite past time!

Whew, that's a lot of pictures, but I figured since it's his birthday, and the first time on the blog I had to catch up!  There's never a dull moment with this guy in the house!  Happy 2nd Birthday Tucker!!

I600A is sent!

I didn't get to post this on Friday, but our I600A application has been sent to USCIS!! Praise the Lord, it should be arriving there this afternoon.  I was so glad to finally get a copy of our homestudy last week and put that thing in the mail!  We are one huge step closer to our baby and getting on the waiting list.  Now we wait, wait for USCIS to send us a letter with a fingerprint appointment, get fingerprints done, and then wait some more for them to send us our FDL saying we are approved to adopt a child!! That is the LAST piece of paperwork we need!!! Everything else is done, sitting and waiting on this one piece of paper.  We are praying that this process doesn't take too long, although it could take up to 3 months, we are praying that is not the case.  We would love for you to pray with us for this!  It does give us time to come up with the last $500 we need to send in all this paperwork though, God is good!

Also, don't forget that we're a partner family over at Go.Seek.Love this month!  All money from shirt sales this month will go to us to help bring our baby home!!  Please tell everyone you know about this, who doesn't love a good adoption t-shirt?  And, if you buy a shirt, please email us at scoalson104(at)gmail(dot)com and let us know that you did so we can thank you, because otherwise we won't know who ordered!  Thanks y'all!  Happy Monday, hoping to hear lots of good news about refferals this week!

I wouldn't have asked for this.....

This post really starts last summer, when we began praying about starting a family.  I feel like it came full circle yesterday as I was sitting in church listening to the sermon.  God's plan for our lives is SO much greater than anything we could ever imagine!!  When we began praying about starting a family, most of our prayers consisted of asking God to bless us with a baby, a baby that would come from the two of us.  We weren't really thinking about adoption at that point in time.  We have said in other posts that we always thought adoption would come after we had biological children, so for me at least, adoption was an afterthought.  And then our church started an orphan care ministry, and lots of families started the adoption process.  We heard many sermons preached about adoption and how it is such an awesome display of the Gospel.  Our hearts began to turn towards adoption and we began considering it as an option for us NOW.  And we all know how that turned out, about five months ago we began this amazing journey to our child in Ethiopia.

And then yesterday, sitting in a sermon about prayer, our pastor said something that really struck me.  He was talking about how we pray, and that sometimes we don't get the results we expect, but we still pray, because God is our Father and he wants to bless his children.  This was the statement that got me, "God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what he knows."  That was it.  Doesn't sound so profound, but I started thinking back to last summer.  Back then, I wouldn't have asked for this adoption journey.  I wouldn't have asked for all the paperwork, waiting, fund raising, heartache, frustration.  I would have rather just had it the "easy" way.  You know, nine months and you have a baby way.  But then I would have missed the beauty of this journey.  I would have missed growing my faith by leaps and bounds, I would have missed seeing God work time and time again throughout this process to provide for our family.  I would have missed all the blessings along the way, and we don't even have our baby yet.  I can only imagine how much more this is going to sink in once we see that precious face, and know this will all be worth it.  It already is.  I might not have asked for this back then, but this is definitely the answer for our family.  I have seen a piece of God's heart through this, and we now know a tiny fraction of what he knows.  This may not be the answer I was expecting, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  We already love this baby SO much, and cannot wait to have him/her in our arms!  I may not have asked for this then, but knowing what I know now, I would do it all over again.

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Luke 11:13

We're a Partner Family!!

We are excited to announce our fundraiser for April!!  We have been selected as a partner family over at Go. Seek. Love.  We'll be receiving 100% of the profit for their T-shirt  sales for the month of April!  We are so excited and grateful for this opportunity!  God is just continuing to have his hand over this process and provide every step of the way!  We needed to raise over $5,000 for this part of our process and right now we are only about $700 away from our goal.  How awesome is that?  Our faith is definitely being strengthened and we're praying these t-shirts help us reach that goal.  Aaron and I have a post in the works of just how awesome and obvious the hand of God has been throughout our adoption journey so far, so be looking for that.  We are so blessed!  Here's some of the awesome shirts they have:

For the Ladies

one of my faves

There's even something for the little ones :)

So head on over to the T-Shirt store and check out all the designs, they're awesome!! Please help us spread the word about this, it's a great way to support our adoption!

In other news, our homestudy is at AGCI RIGHT NOW, for its final approval! ***UPDATE:  We just got word we are approved!! Thanking God we are finally at this point.  As soon as we get our hands on a copy we'll put that bad boy in the mail and get it on over to USCIS for the last step in our paperwork process!! We are so close to getting on that list, what a sweet day that will be!!