Get Ready for a Challenge

Good Morning Friends!

Well I said I would post again about something I want to challenge you all on. I'm not sure if you all remember last year when Kyle and I did the Ordinary Hero Grant Contest. I filled up Facebook about it, and you probably got far more emails than you were hoping for. Well, we won that contest and it helped a lot towards our adoption costs for our agency, and it was such a humbling experience for us to see all the people who stepped up and purchased something and helped us through our process.

There is a grant contest going on right now, and there will be another coming up in October. They have gotten a lot of new merchandise that is super cute, they have also added a lot new items to purchase for villages, kids, and families in need. This is where my challenge is going to come in.

I brought this idea up to Kyle and we talked about it, and want to encourage and challenge other people with it. So here it is: We want to challenge YOU and/or you FAMILY to purchase something for someone in need. We want you to start thinking about it, praying about it, and searching out what might be a possibility for you and your family. I also want to encourage you to reach out to others and go in on something if it is a more expensive item, how cool would that be?! Now, we are not saying don't buy anything for yourself or someone in your family as a gift or just because you want them to have it. We would love to see other people promoting Ordinary Hero and all that it stands for. :)

Maybe, you know someone in need at your church, and you could purchase them a shirt, or sweatshirt. Maybe, its someone across the world that you want to purchase a goat for and feed their family. There are so many people out in the world, and in our communities in need. So, I urge you to stretch your mind and your heart about this.

Again, this isn't until next month, and I will be posting about the dates when I find them out, but I just wanted to get you all thinking and praying. Last Christmas Kyle and I did this for his parents and his sister and brother-in-law. They didn't need anything, so instead we used that money we were going to spend on them, on someone else. We then presented them with a certificate I made up to show them what the money went towards. Maybe, this Christmas you want to open a new idea to your children and explain that not everyone in the world gets Christmas presents, or Christmas dinner, so you used some of the Christmas money for that. What a great thing to start early, and have your kids get excited about helping out a person or family in need. I know its October, but I'm sure its something you can talk to older kids about it, or if your kids are younger just wait closer to Christmas.

Thanks for listening to my challenge, and I can't wait to see what God does through all of this. It will not only help bring our little GIRL home, but I truly believe YOU will be touched through this experience. Have a wonderful day friends!!

A minor Change

Hello Friends!!

I have been wanting to post for almost 2 weeks now, and have just been so busy. Again, I'm sure many people are laughing and thinking, "You think your life is busy now?!"

Well on that note, we have some news... Kyle and I have decided to go down to one child and we are waiting for a toddler girl. We said age 36 months or under, but we are willing to go up to 47 months. We will see how the timing goes, but we are pretty high up on the toddler girl list... like unofficially #2!!! :)

Now, I have to admit, I felt kind of bad about going to down to one child, and I was going to let people down because we said we were adopting 2. Kyle and I have had many conversations about this, and he more than myself has had reservations about bringing home 2 children at once since the beginning. Like I said Kyle and talked in depth about this topic and we want to be able to dote over our little girl, spoil her, and make sure she adjusts well here in the US. If we had a baby within that mix of a toddler, we often wondered if we would pay more attention to a baby because they need the attention, or if we would be a little bit of a house divided, trying to make it all work well. We want to keep our marriage strong and we like the idea of building our family a little more naturally, as in typically 1 child at  a time.

We would like to put in our paperwork shortly after we get our little girl home and go on the infant list and wait for whatever gender comes first, which will more than likely be a boy, but you never know! There is a certain amount of time that has to be between adoptions and we want to make sure she is well adjusted and making sure she has her place within our family.

This weekend we are going to get her bed and a possibly a dresser. Kyle and I are getting so excited about this next adventure! :)

I will be posting again this week, hopefully, about another Ordinary Hero Grant contest. It's going to be a bit more of a challenge this time go around, so we will see. :)

Companionship

Again, it's been awhile, but we are still in such the waiting game stage, that there isn't a ton to post about when it comes to the adoption. We are still in the process of updating our home study, but we are waiting for a little longer because of another opportunity. I unfortunately can't say anything about it at the moment, but as soon as I know more, I can let some other people know. :)

Today, Kyle is on his way to Kentucky to visit family and I'm really going to miss seeing all of them. I am in Kokomo visiting with my grandma and aunt who are in from Ohio. I won't be able to see them probably until January, just because the holidays get so crazy. So, we decided to both visit as much family as possible today.  I am away from Kyle daily because of work, but today as I was driving to Kokomo I started to realize how much I truly missed being with him. Now, I drive to Kokomo a lot by myself, but he is usually at work or something. I was thinking just how truly blessed I am to have the companionship of Kyle.

When I was growing up, all I wanted was to have children. I just wanted to be pregnant, and have kids. There were many times I honestly didn't think I would get married, but I knew I wanted to have children. Yes, yes I know... that shouldn't have been a thought without the thought of a husband. That's just how I was wired to be honest. Now, after all Kyle and I have gone through with the infertility and this whole adoption process, I could NOT imagine doing any of this without Kyle. We of course still want children so so much and we are so excited to build our family this way. But if for some reason we weren't able to build our family through adoption, then I would be happy just to be with Kyle. He makes everyday better. I know how much we love each other, have respect for each other, and just have so much fun together.

A lot of our conversations revolve around kids, whether it's our sisters, nephews, or friends. We love everything about kids and enjoy talking about kids. When we have these conversations I can just see how wonderful Kyle is going to be as a dad. He is a wonderful uncle and brother and friend, so I can't imagine what he is going to be like as a dad. I can't wait to go down this road of parenthood with my companion. :)

Happy day off tomorrow!!