Austin here we come!

Our homestudy will finally be in the mail to us TODAY! We have been waiting it seems like forever to get this document in our hands. We have been at a stand still until this gets here in order to have our documents authenticated in Austin. We are planning to make a quick trip there in order to speed up the process rather than mailing it in, but wanted to wait until we have all of the paperwork. One step closer to little sister!

A question to my pro bloggers:

Let's just say I haven't been blogging long enough to have this all figured out so I need a little help here. I'm counting on you! When I started this blog I thought the name "Living by Faith" would appear as my web address, but apparently not. So I got busy, imagine that, and forgot to go back and change it. Well, now I would like to change the address, but don't want to loose anyone following our journey. So the question of the day is: If I change my web address will it still link to my same blog or should I just leave it alone?

Oh, and did I happen to tell you that:

MY GOD IS AMAZING!

Just click accept...

On June 3rd, I posted that we had gotten a referral of a little girl. Since her information was two years old we were concerned about her special need. She has a heart condition and we felt we needed more answers before we could accept her referral. So after consulting with a pediatric cardiologist and verifying her condition we spent time praying whether this was the child God had planned for our family. We knew it was important to have a clear direction from God, each other and a medical professional. As soon as Tia saw her picture I asked what she thought and she said, "just click accept!" So we showed her referral information to Brandon and his comment was, "well, just click accept." So I am excited to report that last Friday we did just that, we sent an email accepting her referral to our adoption agency. Monday, I gathered papers for our EA(electronic acceptance) to be submitted, wrote our Nuture Plan letter, faxed and scanned our family photo and passport photo and PRAYED! And today I am excited to announce that our EA has been submitted! We are one step closer to our little girl. I can't wait to post pictures, but due to agency regulations I am not allowed to do that until we get our RA(referral acceptance). We hope you will follow our journey to China and pray that God will hold our little girl in the palm of His hand until we can bring her home.

So for now I will answer a question that many have asked with one picture:

Happy Father's Day

The day is almost over and I must take a moment to wish those wonderful father's out there a Happy Father's Day. I'm so thankful to be married to a Godly man that is an incredible example to my children. Even better than that I have a heavenly Father that loves me in spite of my weaknesses. It just doesn't get any better than that. I hope and pray you have met my Father and have a personal relationship with HIM also.

I'm not that cruel....yet!

Oh those payback photos! For now just a post, but if my boys misbehave too much I have pictures from today and they AREN'T pretty! They each had all four wisdom teeth out this morning and it has been a pretty quiet day since then. We got up and dropped little sister off at a friend's house nice and early then drove 3o miles to the oral surgeon's office. After leaving Dad and Nathan at the oral surgeon, Brandon and I headed to the post office to get his passport renewed. This was the second trip since I didn't know I had to have his birth certificate last week. Well we got in and had all the paperwork finished only to realize that I had forgotten his old passport! Fortunately, it was a different lady waiting on us this week. So we left, I dropped Brandon at the dental office and I drove back home another 30 miles. I ran in the door, drove back to the post office and quickly completed the process to renew his passport just to get to the dental office before son #2 finished having his wisdom teeth out. They both finished surgery and we were on our way BACK home again for the second time before 11 am. The boys rested all day, but mom and dad certainly did not. I'll give you the details later. Just know that God has been busy today with our adoption process. Stop back by for more details to follow. I can't wait to share, but we must spend some more time seeking HIM before I tell the world. Your prayers are appreciated. We serve a mighty God and delight in watching Him work out the details!!

His gifts to us

Did you get up today and rush out the door, get busy with laundry, chat on the phone or stop to open an email? If so, did you later stop to spend time with THE ONE who knows your every need? If you are anything like me, if I don't take the time to be still with my FATHER before the craziness of the day, I get distracted and get busy with the things of life. So it seems that later in the day, I hear HIM say, "...I miss my time with you, those moments together..."(I can't remember the name of the song, but it is playing in my head.)

My favorite place to enjoy my quiet time is on my front porch early in the morning where I can hear the birds singing and watch God's creation before me. Then the thing that I love the most is watching the hummingbirds as they feed around me. This morning God showed Himself to me in such an awesome way. I hadn't been seeing the hummingbirds lately and was missing them, so I prayed for God to bring them back. He does hear those "insignificant" prayers you know! As I looked up from reading Psalm 119:18 "Open your eyes that you may see...." there before my eyes was a beautiful hummingbird. Thank you God that there is no prayer that is insignificant to you. He hears our every word and desires to bless our hearts.

Take time to Be still and know that He is God and share with me those little blessings. I love to hear how He is blessing you.

Today's the day...

The day for what I'm sure you are wanting to know? For starters it is my official first day of summer! After teaching about 75 sixth graders for the past year I am ready for some r and r. So how do I celebrate such a wonderful day? By doing what all my lady friends over age 40 need to do once a year-I'm having a mammogram! Maybe I'm not supposed to talk about that on my blog, but after loosing my dear friend Ann to breast cancer a few years ago, I know how important this is. So I urge you too, if you haven't made that appointment- Do it today! It could save your life! Today is also the day my 86 year old grandmother goes to the cardiologist to see if her heart is strong enough for surgery to remove a mass the dr feels she needs to have removed. Today is also the day my son flies home from Guatemala after a great trip riding bulls. And then today is my dear friend Rebecca's birthday. She is wonderful servant of the Lord serving as a missionary in Mexico and I miss her terribly. Today is also the day we will continue to pray for the little girl on the other side of the world that God has planned for our family. We will be seeking more answers and a clear word from the Lord. Please pray for all of these sweet little orphans that wait on a forever home. So sweet bloggy friends, "this is the day the Lord has made..." and today is the day I need to feel the Lord's presence as I ask for your prayers.

A day full of surprises

After all of our surprises today I am asking all of my prayer warriors to join us in praying for us over the next few days. Our first big surprise came when Nathan opened his passport on the way to the airport this morning to fly to Guatemala only to discover that it expired last week. I completely forgot that the kids passports are only valid for 5 years not 10. So tomorrow he and dad are taking a flight to Houston to renew it and then back to the airport to hopely fly out tomorrow afternoon. There he will meet the friends that fly out today. Talk about a whirlwind day!

My next big surprise came as I collapsed at my desk after a field trip with about 200 5th graders all day. I got a phone call from our adoption agency asking if I was interested in hearing about a possible referral match. Since our homestudy hasn't even been approved yet this was a total shock! I quickly told her yes I was interested! She proceeded to give me the information on a darling little girl. I can't give out any other details at the moment but we will be taking her information to our pediatrician tomorrow to get some more details.

Please be in prayer for us in the next few days as we seek God's direction and long to hear Him speak to us about His plan for our family.