Tme to reveal yourself

So, I will admit it. I am a blog stalker. I have many blogs that I visit frequently without ever saying, "Great post" or "Right on". (Cheesy, I know.)

I am trying to be better about leaving comments on blogs. I know it makes the blogger feel like someone out there is actually reading what they are saying. When someone leaves me a comment, it is like Christmas! I really do get so excited!

So now it is your turn. I would love to see who out there is visiting our blog. Especially if you are adopting from Ethiopia! Maybe we could be friends!:) You wouldn't want to let a girl down would you!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ev'rywhere you go

Take a look in the five and ten glistening once again

With candy canes and silver lanes aglow

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Toys in ev'ry store

But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be


On your own front door

Brian finally talked me into putting up the Christmas stuff today! He has been trying to get me to put it up since Halloween! But it is now up and I am in the Christmas mood! Love this time of year!:)

Clean water

I saw this on a friends blog yesterday and had to share. It is amazing to me that something so simple like clean water is something that so many have to go without.

Brian is doing a bible study with the youth group right now from a book titled, "Stripped Clean: Down to Nothing But the Cross". In the book, it states that according to adventconspiracy.org, an average of $450 billion is what Americans spend on Christmas presents every YEAR! They estimate that it would take only $10 billion to provide everyone clean water.

Right now, 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe, clean drinking water. That is one in six of us.

Charity:water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of the money raised goes to direct project costs in areas of greatest need. Just $10 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 10 years!

"Stripped Clean" challenges to drink only water for two weeks. No Sonic drinks. No Starbucks. After the two weeks, donate that money to the cause of clean drinking water.

Click here to be directed to the secure donation site of charity:water and click on the Yellow donate button. $10 could change someones life.

Do you floss?

My mom was always to great at taking us to the dentist. Every six months we were there for our cleaning. When I got married and we were in school, the dentist is just one of those things we cut out. I had never had a cavity, so I wasn't too concerned.

Brian and I finally made an appointment for both of us to get a check. It had been 4 years!. I was in shock that I had SIX cavities!!!!!! I will admit it, I have kind of slacked off in the flossing department. I had six small cavities in the back between my teeth that needed to be filled!

I had my appointment today for the left side of my mouth, top and bottom, to be filled. And I was numb! My face felt so swollen. It was so funny!

This is my "smile" face.

The "kiss" face.

This is me trying to show my teeth.

Probably not as funny to you, but me and Brian had a pretty good laugh!

BTW, I am now a regular flosser. You should be too!:)

What to Expect...

While organizing one of the closet's tonight, (one of the task on our baby list), I ran across this book.

I actually purchased this book about a year and a half ago when Brian and I were thinking about starting our family. (Kind of funny that I bought this book when I am a PA for a OB/GYN! ) It really got me thinking about that time a year and a half ago.

At that time, Brian and I felt that it should be time to start a family. I mean, it was apart of out "plan". I had graduated school and had been working for a few months. We were looking for a bigger house. It was just time.

When it didn't happen right away, we were really ok, which was actually shocking to me. I had always had a feeling it would be difficult for us. I thought that this would be something that would just devastate me. It honestly didn't.

After we had been off of birth control for awhile. Brian and I began talking about what the path was that we wanted to follow. Adoption or fertility? We always knew we wanted to adopt. I remember having conversations about it when we were dating in high school. The more we started talking about it, the more we started just talking about adoption . I can't really even explain it, but we didn't even think about anywhere else other than Ethiopia. It felt right in every sense of the word. We decided to go on a little camping trip and take the time to pray about it.

When we got home we decided to take a few weeks and listen to what God would say to us.

Shortly after that, Brian went to a lunch with some youth ministers in Edmond. At the lunch there were two women in line in front of them. They started talking and it turned out it was this family and they were leaving in a couple of day to pick up their son from Ethiopia!

At work, one of my patients was adopting through the same agency as we researching. As time went on, we knew this was our path.

We had dinner with the Silvestri's, who were kind enough to answer all the questions that we had. The next day we sent in our application and here we are! The waiting list!

Looking back now, at that time when I purchased the book, I had no idea what God had planned for us. He was already beginning to shape our hearts. We have no doubt that the son we were meant to have in our lives is waiting for us in Africa.

Bizarre dream

I had a dream last night that a muskrat was trapped in our bathroom. (I am not exactly sure what a muskrat even looks like but I knew that's what it was. When I Googled it, I was grossed out. The muskrat in my dream was not a rodent like) I was bravely able to get it outside.

Then a dog appeared from underneath the tub and while Brian took it away, I noticed a rabbit under the bed.

The whole time in the dream all I could think about was that I needed to take some pictures of these things to add to the blog :) I guess my subconscious was trying to help me out with some blogging ideas! Random, I know. But that is what you get when I have to blog 30 days in a row!

The Baby List

One of the most common tips we hear when people learn that we are expecting our first child, it to enjoy these couple of months together before he comes. That got Brian and me thinking and we have started a "Baby List".

A list of all the things that we would like to do before he gets here. Some of the things on the list include preparation tasks such as decorate the nursery. Other things include place we would like to go. So stay tuned for posts as we check off the tasks!

Oh, and we are open to any suggestions!:)

My new favorite song

I have a new favorite song. My neice sings it the best. I think you will like it too. :)

Parenting Tips from a Guy with a Dog

A couple months ago, Brian did a parenting class at church as the youth minister. We took some pictures to illustrate some of his points, and I ran across them today. I had to share.

(This also serves the purpose of adding our dog Louie to the blog. Brian thinks he is not mentioned enough. )

So here they are. Parenting tips from a guy with a dog!

Tip #1 Show them that you Love them, even if they act annoyed.Tip #2 It is important that they know that you are in control.

Tip #3 Show interest in their environment

Tip #4 Share your faith

I wish parenting were that easy, to master it with just 4 tips! I'm pretty sure there is a lot more to it!

Feed the Children

Excuse the blog design. Two hours ago I thought I would do some quick blog redesigning. Let's just say I am now frustrated, uninspired, and ready to go to bed! It may be a few days before you see any result and I am not promising that is will be anything magnificent. :)

Today, we traveled with the youth group to Feed the Children. It was an area wide event where several other youth groups in the area came to do some service. for the community. It was tiring, but we were able to pack up several hundred boxes of tolietry items to be shipped out to people in need. Oh, and we had a little fun too! :)

Just to show you how dangerous it was, I was injured by a box. :)

What a great day! Packing boxes is right up my task oriented personality and we had a great time with the youth. Brian and I feel truley blessed to be apart of these kids lives. They impact us in so many ways and we really just love hanging out with them!