Merry Christmas to You!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Before we head off for the holidays, we wanted to take a second to wish you a very Merry Christmas! We've posted a few of our favorite Christmas pictures for you above.

Santa brought Will's big gift a few days early this year, since it would be a little hard to ride a bike in the Colorado snow! (Yes, we are hoping for a White Christmas!) Will hopped right on it and began to ride like a pro around our kitchen - still wearing his jammies! He looked like such a big kid! I would have never imagined five years ago what a fun, loving kid he would become! What a joy!

We are still hoping for our second Christmas miracle to come soon! Keep checking back regularly - we're hoping that one day soon you'll find pictures of our newest son!

Again, Merry Christmas to all of you!
Bill, Paula, and Will

Christmas Gifts!

Two of my good friends left today for Vietnam to pick up their babies! Congratulations Shelly and Leigh - have the trip of your lives! We are praying for you and your families every day. Can't wait to see the pictures of those sweet babies!

Congratulations also to all of the adoption gang that got some long-awaited good news this week. With the ice storm, no information was available at all last week. This week, a couple of families have received travel dates and many have received news of good progress towards their travel. We are thrilled for all of you! May you have even more good gifts this Christmas season! Merry Christmas to all of you!

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful!

I almost titled this post "Ice, Ice, Baby" but I realized that might qualify me yet again for my buddy Meredith's list of cheesy music. I definitely didn't think "Winter Wonderland" applied, because the Colorado of my childhood created some really gorgeous winters. This week in OKC doesn't qualify for pretty - just pretty yucky! I am not a blog-complainer by nature, but man, is it awful here! I took this picture yesterday from my front window, and the branches of the beautiful blooming crepe myrtle tree in the picture are now touching the ground. The branches of my neighbor's tree are on top of my roof - yikes! Thankfully, no real damage, I think, but does anyone know how exactly you get a tree off of your roof? Never done that one before!

Still, I'm trying to remember that we should be thankful. Will and I are tucked away in the house, and for us, "Inside, it's so delightful" needs to be our state of mind. We have had power, heat, water, and lights at our house throughout the storm. (Only about 250,000 of our neighbors here in OKC are without that luxury, so we do really have something to be thankful for!) We've spent most of the last three days baking cakes, making homemade candy, scrapbooking, playing games, watching Christmas movies on TV, eating homemade soup, and wrapping presents. Honestly, I'm trying to keep my chin up, but I'm feeling a little Martha Stewarted out! So, if anyone has any good suggestions for fun ways to entertain a 5-year-old for long periods of time, please leave me a comment! :) Bill has been out-of-town for work too, so I will cherish any conversations from people over three feet tall as well!

I hope that you are all safe and warm. Blessings to my buddies in OKC and Tulsa that are struggling with the mess just two weeks before Christmas. It is definitely putting a holiday blue on a lot of the festivities! Still, in the words of Elvis (another one for the Meredith list),

"Give thanks for all you've been blessed with,
And hold your loved ones tight,
For you know the Lord's been Good to you
On this Snowy Christmas Night!"

Christmas Questions!

Some of my adoption buddies have been answering this fun Christmas survey this week. My answers follow. Several of you have e-mailed me with the Number One Question on your mind: Have we received a referral this week? Answer: No - not yet. Maybe a Christmas miracle yet to come......

Anyways, on with the show:

A 50 Question Christmas Survey Before Christmas

1. Does your family send out Christmas cards? Most years - a picture and a Christmas letter.
2. How soon do you start shopping? EARLY! I finished my shopping in early November! Hooray!
3. Who do you shop for? Family, close friends

Decorations
4. Do you put up a Christmas tree? Always, always, always!
5. If so, is it fake or real? It has ALWAYS been real til this year. I grew up in Colorado, and picking a Christmas tree was a HUGE Christmas memory for me. However, our tree experiences in OKC have been dismal (last year our tree HATCHED and we came home from visiting family to find small bugs about our great room - yikes!) so we gave up and bought a fake tree this year. At least it's a really big, beautiful, 9-footer with tons of lights - but it's still not like going to the tree lot in the snow.
6. Do you like tinsel? Didn't they stop making tinsel in 1976? :)
7. Do you use homeade or storebought ornaments? Purchased - we buy ornaments on many of our trips. Often they come from little hole-in-the-wall art galleries or tiny Mom-&-Pop gift shops. Now, 15 years and LOTS of airline miles later, we have some great, unusual ornaments from all over the country. Oh, and now, a new Will ornament for each year - this year is a soccer-playing Mickey Mouse!
8. Do you put Christmas lights outside your house? Always before OKC, we were in tiny apartments, so no. Then we moved here and thought it would be a great thing. Three weeks later, several precarious experiences with the roof and a 12-foot ladder, and arguements that nearly required serious marriage counselling, we finally finished the lights. This year, NO lights and a happier family!
9. Do you put lights on the tree? Bill threw them all out (along with the tree tree skirt, and tree stand!) last year due to the bug issue (See #5 above!) So sad! The fake tree came with lots of lights though!
10. How about popcorn and cranberries? Nope, but we hung them on the barn on my Grandpa's ranch when I was a kid!
11. Is there a wreath hanging on your door? Not yet, but Bill's been out of town for the better part of the last two weeks. It's on his honey-do list for this week. (Ya think it'll get done now that College Football is over?)

Christmas Eve
12. Do you celebrate it? You bet - a highlight! The church, the candles, the music! Our favorite part as adults!
13. Do you hang up your stocking? Yep - good things come in small packages, and we are ALL big-time Santa believers in our household!
14. Does your family read "Twas the night before Christmas?" Yep, yep, yep! Almost every night during December. Of course on Christmas Eve, right after the Christmas Story from the Bible.

Favorites
15. Christmas Movie - Funny one: Elf (It just makes me crack up when Will Farrell puts that syrup on his spaghetti!) Sappy one: The Charlie Brown Christmas Special - we could watch it a hundred times!
16. Character from any Christmas Movie - Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas
17. Christmas Song - Soooo hard to answer, because I love them all, but probably Joy to the World
18. Christmas Memory - I loved the Christmas seasons we spent in the city. Almost every night during the Christmas season, I'd walk down Michigan Avenue, eating chestnuts, seeing the store windows, humming Silver Bells, often with a light snow - fantastic! And oh, my goodness, for all of you post-Thanksgiving shoppers, you've never really experienced it until you've done it city-style! One Friday-after-Thanksgiving, we went to Michigan Avenue, with an estimated 500,000 other shoppers, wandered the big, brightly lit stores, ate dinner at the Marshall Field's Walnut Room, went to the Christmas parade that night, and watched fireworks over the Chicago river in the heart of downtown while it was snowing. Fireworks in the snow - just about the most magical thing I've ever seen. The fireworks all reflect in the windows of all the skyscrapers too, so it's like you have fireworks all around you. Really something. One of the things on my "Experience this Before I Die" list is to go to New York City for the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, see the store windows in all their glory, and watch the lighting of the Rockefeller tree in person. I can only imagine how grand!

This or That
19. Give or Receive? Give, give, give some more, get in trouble with my husband for giving too much, give, give, give.......
20. Eggnog or Cider? Eggnog unless it's really cold outside. We always had cider when we went ice skating as kids
21. Red or Green? Beautiful Chrismas Red
22. Ham or Turkey? PRIME RIB! Yum, yum, yum, yum.....
23. Star or Angel? Angel
24. White Lights or Colored Lights? White
25. Blinking Lights or Still Lights? Still, but we had those bubble lights when we were kids and they were awesome! It's a wonder we didn't burn the house down 'cause they were so hot, they'd hurt your finger if you touch them, but man, were they great when I was eight!
26. Were you Naughty or Nice this year? Mostly nice, but, um, I have my moments! :)

Presents
27. What do you want for Christmas this year? Boy, I have to be honest and say a referral on this one! I told my husband, maybe a referral or a trip to Meredith's spa! :)
28. When do you open your gifts? We have an early Christmas for our family of three before we leave, then on Christmas morning this year with Bill's family, and a few days later with mine. I counted up, and by the time we make the full loop (it takes awhile to go to Denver, CO and then Lubbock, TX), we may actually be celebrating the twelve days of Christmas this year!
29. What's the best gift you've ever gotten? Bill gave me a year's worth of manicures and pedicures last year - that was pretty darn great.
30. What's the worst gift you've ever gotten? Wow, do I ever hate clothes for Christmas. Hated them as a kid, hate 'em now. When you are over 30, you just gotta pick out your own stuff!
31. Who gives you the most gifts? Bill & Will - they really spoil me! :)
32. Have you ever had a secret Santa? Not since I've been a stay-at-home momma! Hey, we should revive that tradition!
33. Do you like wrapping gifts? Yes - it's my artsy craftsy side. I love the look of really pretty presents under the tree. This year, almost every present travels, so they get a bunch of gift bags and tissue, and it's just not the same. No matter how cute of a bag I get, it's not like a beautiful, shiny ribbon bow on crisp wrapping paper!

Random
34. Do you put change in those red buckets? Yes - all of it! Will is a Salvation Army kettle junkie.
35. Do you burn a yule log? Nope, but we ate one several years - yummy!
36. Can you name all the reindeer? Yes, I can sing them too. Will's doing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in his preschool Christmas concert, so we sing it about 50 times a day.
37. Do you bake cookies? Yep - see previous reindeer blog post! My favorite Christmas treat though is candy-making! I love to make fudge, Martha Washingtons, Peanut Butter Buckeyes, english toffee, and I think I may try homemade caramels this year. (Shhhh, don't tell my family - it's a surprise for them!) Recipes to follow in future posts!
38. Have you ever seen your mommy kissing Santa Claus? Nope!
39. Have you ever gotten a kiss under the mistletoe? Yes!
40. Do you go caroling? No, but I sing like crazy every Sunday at church - and around the house too. I have a shameless collection of Christmas CD's, and they live in all the cars and at the house, so we sung this week with both the King's College Choir and Alvin & the Chipmunks!
41. Do you drive around and look at the Christmas lights? yes - and take the Bricktown boatride!
42. Have you ever left Santa cookies? every year
43. Have you ever sat on Santa's lap? As a kid
44. Who do you celebrate Christmas with? Everyone
45. Where do you celebrate Christmas? Everywhere
46. Have you ever had a white Christmas? Oh, those white Colorado Christmases! So grand!
47. What part of Christmas do you look most foward to? Christmas Eve service - doing the candles and singing Silent Night with Bill & Will
48. Have you ever had your picture taken with Santa? Pictures of Will
49. Does your family always take a picture at Christmas? No
50. Have you ever heard the song "Thank God For Kids" by The Oakridge Boys? Yes, but I didn't realize this was a Christmas song! My parents were big Oakridge Boys fans in the early '80s - sooooooo corny! :)

Standing on the Promises!

So, it’s time for a little honesty on my part. The waiting and wondering about our adoption process has been hard lately. Once again, we are in the place where we have to honestly say that we just don’t know what our family’s future will hold. You’d think after all the years of infertility, not to mention our failed domestic adoption experience, that I would be better at this waiting game. I don’t know if you ever get very good at feeling this sort of yearning in your heart – or I really don’t want to go through what’s necessary to get good at it!

Still, I’m realizing that I have learned a few things in the past 14 years of marriage, and I have been feeling convicted that now is the time when I’d better put them into practice. For me, my best, most effective, never-lets-me-down method of coping with the waiting is Scripture. In fact, I think that might even be Scriptural, as in “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)

I have been trying lately to stand on God’s promises, and I thought I might share some of the ones that have spoken to me lately. Please, please, please leave a comment here with the Scriptures that God has been using to encourage you right now. If you are here looking for some good encouragement, don’t forget to click on the comments button at the bottom of this post. I know my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are on this adoption journey with me will have some great words for you too!

Jeremiah 29:11-14 – For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord…

Psalm 4:6-8 – Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?” Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord. You have filled my heart with greater joy….I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Matthew 7:11 – If you, then, though you are human, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Matthew 6:8-9 - ….Your Father knows what you need before you even ask him. This, then is how you should pray: ‘Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

Romans 8:28-29,31-32 – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son….What, then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

II Corinthians 1:3-5 – Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so the we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. Fur just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

I John 3:1 – How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!

Psalm 143:5,8,10 – I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done….Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul….Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

Isaiah 55:8-11 – ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seek for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you….’

Proverbs 3:5-6 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Philippians 4:6-7 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The Reindeer have Arrived!

Okay, so this post is largely for my mother and my brother, neither of whom believed when I spoke with them on the phone that plain sugar cookies could quickly become reindeer! Also, this is a neat trick for the rest of you, who I'm sure have about 80 school parties, church functions, cookie exchanges, and other happy Christmas activities all requiring you to bring something cute - because we all have tons of baking time right now! :)

So here's how it works:

1. Take plain sugar cookie dough and cut out circles. (I used a sugar cookie mix, rolled, and cut them with a cutter, but only because my grocery store was out of the slice-and-bake sugar cookie dough.)

2. Pinch each circle in the middle to form the shape of a peanut.

3. Add chocolate chips for eyes and a red M&M for a nose. Break sections from regular-sized pretzels to make antlers and add. (Expect to have to sacrifice a lot of pretzels in this process to get good sets of matching antlers, but who ever uses a full bag of pretzels anyways? Come on, they live in your pantry for too many months and then they get thrown out, right? That's what happens at my house!)

4. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. Cool completely. I put mine in the freezer for about 5 minutes to really set the chocolate chip eyes before I packed them in the cookie jar. I hate doing all this work and then ending up with chocolate shmears all over my cookies! :(

5. Enjoy! Ours turned out to be tasty and quick! We mixed up the dough early in the day (takes maybe 10 minutes including doing the dishes!) and then we made about 4 dozen in an hour this afternoon. Will did all the decorations himself - always a favorite at our house! Sure, the antlers aren't exactly straight and a couple of cookies were sacrificed in the process, but, hey, that's part of the holidays, right? Joy in the journey not just the destination is my motto right now!

6. By the way, I'm thinking you could get creative with this idea, too. I haven't tried it, but I bet you could cut out an oval and pinch it twice and have a great snowman. Maybe decorate with a chocolate chip eyes, M&M buttons, a red licorice scarf, and a pretzel broom? We might try it - probably in January when we have a little more baking time! :)

7. Have fun!

Home for the Holidays!

We had sooooo much fun on our vacation! We've posted a few highlight pictures below, but they really don't do our week justice. We had such a great family time, with a few days of just our family of three, and then the second half of the week with Paula's parents coming to be with us. Will was in heaven - from meeting Mickey to a whole store of Legos to parades and fireworks every single day! Oh, and let's not forget those rides - this boy can plunge with the best of 'em! He rode absolutely everything that he was tall enough to ride - most of them more than once!

Sorry we've been neglecting our posting time here, but by the time we dug ourselves out of our laundry mountains, it was time to think about the holidays. We spent Thanksgiving at home - just our family of three. Wonderful, relaxing, football-filled, tree-decorating, non-shopping weekend. It was great! We're usually travelling at the holidays, so it was kind of nice to watch the Thanksgiving Parade in our P.J.'s in our own living room! :) We are also usually big time post-Thanksgiving bargain hunters, but we've started trying to change our tune. This year we finished our Christmas shopping before we left for vacation (Hip! Hip! Hooray!) so we could just focus on some great family time instead of running through the mall mazes this holiday season.

Speaking of great family time, we have a momentous occasion ahead! You see, Will turns FIVE this week, and we are in full-blown party mode. He wanted a Lego-themed party, so I have been studying up on how to make a Lego-shaped birthday cake. If it turns out well, I'll post pictures - if not, well... you can imagine that it is a cute idea instead! :) We even have the special treat of Bill's parents coming from Denver just for the birthday festivities. So, I'm sure Will is going to be in five-year-old heaven! Just think, a birthday celebration and Christmas all in three weeks. It's big stuff at our house!

So, please forgive us if we our posting continues to be sporadic at best. Between the birthday and the heart of our Christmas season, our calendar remains full. We continue to be amazed at how blessed we have felt this fall, despite good news or no news on the adoption front. Thanks be to God for peace that passes all understanding right now, and for continuing to be real and present in our lives.

For those of you not on the adoption roller coaster, the situation in Vietnam has been less than stable lately. The U.S. and Vietnamese governments continue to struggle with how to make the adoption process more safe, more ethical, and more fair for the children of Vietnam. Of course, governments aren't always the most moral, logical, or honest folks. (Think about your last trip to the DMV for a new driver's license and then multiply it by 100 and you'll have a tiny inkling of what some of the paperwork related to an adoption can become and how frustrating the process can be at some points!) Still, we continue - especially in this Christmas season - to be so thankful that

"For Unto us a Child is Born, to us a Son is Given,
And the government will be upon his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace
There will be no end."
- Isaiah 9:6-7

We are holding strong to the hope that God is so much greater than any governments or bureaucrats. He is firmly in control of this situation in Vietnam and his peace will continue to increase. Please pray right now for the children in Vietnam - for their continued health, safety, and blessing. Pray for the families in the adoption process - for those who are waiting to bring their children home and for those like us who are waiting to be blessed with children and are trying to keep hope in our hearts right now.

This verse above is one of the central sections of the Handel's Messiah. Bill is a self-proclaimed Messiah junkie - he loves to take in the music, the Scripture, the praise. If you have a free hour or two this Christmas season, take a few minutes and listen to it. Chances are, you'll be glad you did. Maybe you don't have the time to go and hear a live performance of it, but at least grab a CD and pop it in your car stereo. You'll be amazed how different your day can be when you really understand even the simplest of lines that "for unto US a child is born!"

Merry Christmas Season Everyone!

Disney Highlights!

Meeting the Mouse!

WE'RE GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!
Have a great week, everyone! We'll try to post photos, but I bet we'll be having too much fun! We promise to share the trip with you too!
If you're stuck at home and a little jealous, we recommend the Playhouse Disney site at http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/index.html.
They have tons of fun coloring pages to print, games (Will loves the Little Einsteins games), stories, and other activities. Hey, if you can't go to Disneyworld, here's hoping this brings a little Disneyworld to you! :)

Fall Fun!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I keep getting these e-mails from friends saying, "Where are the Cooks?" Sorry we haven't posted in awhile, but we've been having a great fall! Busy, but so much fun! Some of our October highlights:

Will finished soccer! We provided decorations and team gifts for Soccer Awards Night. The kids had so much fun, and Will even got his first real medal! Bill was remembering how special his first team trophy was when he was a kid, and now Will's getting to experience that feeling too.

Paula is serving on the Leader's Committee for Will's preschool. Thepreschool had its Fall Carnival fundraiser last week. It was fun to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes, and we provided a craft project for about 200 kids. Everyone had a great time - especially Will! We all ate lots of corn dogs, bake sale goodies, and candy - what could be a better fall?

Paula also helped with the church carnival this past week too. We've baked cookies, served pies, and hung decorations. Will was a big helper too - stuffing goodie bags and helping decorate. We had a great time at the carnival last night with one of Will's soccer buddies and his parents - and of course, the other couple thousand folks that turned out for the food and fun!

We met our last weekend at the zoo for a Dillon OKC Vietnam Family Day. It was so great to meet all of these families that we have known only through e-mail and blogs. There were eight families in all - four with kids at home, three with referrals waiting to travel, and our family waiting for our referral. It was fun to watch the kids play and interact. Bill & I love to watch Will when he is with little Vietnamese children. You can just see his mind imagining what his new brother might be like. Thanks everyone for a great time - let's do it again soon! You can go to my friend Kerrie's site at http://www.zakmakesthree.blogspot.com/ to see a picture of our whole gang!

We've been celebrating Candy Week - oops, I mean Halloween! - big time this year at our house! Between the Fall Carnival at school, the Festival at church, the school party today, and a bit of trick-or-treating tonight, we should be good and sugared up for awhile! :) I think Will has worn his knight costume about 4 times this week, and has loved every minute of it. Today's excitement includes decorating pumpkin sugar cookies at school and trick-or-treating through the church offices. (Will's preschool is at a great church here in town.)

If all of the business above hasn't kept us busy, we have been getting ready for our big family vacation too! We are going to Disneyworld! Bill leaves tomorrow for a convention in the Orlando area. Will and I are flying out early next week to meet him - and to see Mickey, of course! My parents are even coming for the last few days of our trip to have some special grandkid time. Will has this free vacation-planning DVD that he watches several times a week - as much as I will let him. He knows all the cool rides (and the scary roller coasters too!) and exactly what he wants to do in each park. I expect he will be our little tour guide, because he was telling me yesterday how you get on the monorail and transfer between different parts of Disneyworld. The kid's got it down! I'm sure that we will be posting lots of fun pictures for all of you, but not until we return. There's just too much fun to spend much time in the hotel room in front of the computer! :)

We hope that you all are having a great fall! For my adoption buddies, I know that the wait has been a bit slow and quiet lately. We are so thankful that God has filled our lives with so many other things lately that we haven't had too much time to sit and count the hours until our referral. Sometimes busyness can be a curse, but for us lately, it's been a blessing! Of course, we'll drop everything as soon as we have some good news to share! Keep checking back - there may be baby pictures soon! :)

Happy Birthday to Me!

So, tomorrow's my birthday! We received a really wonderful early birthday present today! The Dillon staff e-mailed us to tell us that they sent our official paperwork over to Vietnam. Our papers are on the move again! For those of you not on the adoption road, this is really good news, because it means that we are still inching closer and closer to completing everything even while we wait to be matched up with our child. Sometimes things tend to slow down a bit during this phase, so we're thrilled that our paperwork wait was really short! I'm all about cheering for every little achievement - however small - in this process, so Hip! Hip! Hooray! :)

I was thinking how funny it is to e-mail and chat with my adoption buddies every day, and yet know so little about their "real lives." I don't know when it's their birthday or where they work or what they like to munch on while watching T.V. - you know, the stuff you pick up about your friends just by spending time together. So, in honor of my birthday, I thought I'd tell you a few things about me that you might never know otherwise!

1. I love to cook. Not like to cook - I love to cook. I love having a home-cooked meal on the table for our little family of three. I'd rather have a pork roast in my oven on a cool Sunday afternoon than go to the snazziest place in town.
2. I used to build things. In my previous life, I was a structural engineer. I designed buildings of all types - condos, houses, stores, restaurants, churches, schools - you name it, I've probably built at least one! Now, I do most of my construction projects out of Legos - occasionally Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys, but Legos are the most popular with my four-year-old by far!
3. I grew up in Colorado, but I really don't like to ski. I was never really enough of a daredevil to be a great skier. There was a time when I enjoyed an afternoon on the blue slopes, but now, after tearing up my knee a few years ago, it's really low on my list. I've felt shaky knees way too often in the past few years for me to ever want to ski again.
4. Beach vacations do NOT interest me. I really don't like to lie in the sun at all. I have ridiculously fair skin, and I just feel like a lobster in the steam pot the entire time. I really don't have tons of interest in visiting Florida again, outside of Disneyworld and perhaps an overnight in Miami just to see the architecture.
5. So, given #3 & #4 above, you may be surprised when I tell you that I am absolutely the opposite of a homebody. I don't like to be stuck inside for more than about 2 days, and sick-kid weeks are worse than a root canal to me! I'm a go and do, see and experience kind of a girl. I love to travel, and I love to visit cities. I've been to 40 of the 50 states, and 40 of the 50 most populated cities in the U.S. (Can you believe San Antonio is in the top 10 Most Populous Cities in the U.S.? You can learn something new from Google everyday!) I always want to stay downtown, and the more buildings the better, in my book - I've got to feed that little hiding architect/engineer in me somehow!
6. Many people joke that my true career path should be as a concierge - I love to tell people the insider secrets about the most fun things to do in any town. When we lived in downtown Chicago, I think I was the only local who actually enjoyed sitting next to tourists on a bus - I could give them enough good, inexpensive things to do to fill their whole trip! I also have guide books for just about anywhere we've ever been, because I love to read and study and learn about the places we are planning to visit. I don't want to miss any of the good stuff - and there's always good stuff! Just today I found a Canterbury Concert, a ballet, and a Christmas Children's Theater performance in Oklahoma City to take my in-laws to see during their next visit. My husband was laughing that only I could turn a trip to OKC into a cultural event! :)

Thoughts for the Day!

I'm in my deep thoughts mood today, I guess I'll share one of my recent ponderings with you. Recently, I heard a speaker say that, "PAIN IS INEVITABLE, BUT MISERY IS OPTIONAL." Now I'm not normally a fortune-cookie philosophy type of girl, but this one really stuck with me. What an interesting thought to realize that I play a HUGE part in my misery - or lack thereof. Hmmmm......... So, I've been chewing on this one for the last couple of weeks, and I've decided that there just may be something to it.

You see, Bill & I made a pact when we began this international adoption process that we were going to enjoy it. Every single bit of it. Now, for many of you who are in the process of adopting, you may right now think that we were either 1) hopelessly naive about adoption, or 2) totally out of our minds. Let me explain a bit, though, and perhaps you'll understand.

I haven't talked much about the road that got us to the place where we are adopting from Vietnam. I struggled with health issues and infertility for about eight years before becoming pregnant with my son. Then, when Will was born, my heart stopped working the way it was supposed to, and I was gravely ill. I eventually recovered, but the doctors informed us that having other biological children was a serious risk to my life, so adoption became our only possibility for being blessed with other children in our family. We experienced a difficult (and ultimately failed) domestic adoption situation prior to deciding to adopt internationally. God always stayed faithful to us, even though we didn't always understand the whats or whys of our lives.

Now, I'll be honest -- infertility stole a lot from my life. It stole many of the choices for my life and my family that most other people take for granted. It stole my health, it stole much of my youth as I was faced with the reality of cardiologists and pills at age 30, it stole way too much money from my bank account. But a few years ago, when Will was an infant, I decided that I was sick and tired of letting it steal my joy. Thanks be to God, who taught me that I did not have to let the possibility of not having another child keep me from enjoying every single moment with Will. So, we played pattycake in doctor's offices, curled up on the sofa to snuggle when I was too sick to go out, and slowed way down so we could smell the roses.

When Bill & I decided to pursue this international adoption, we followed the same guidelines. I mean, why should a little thing like not actually giving birth to our second son rob us of the joy of expecting him? When I was pregnant with Will, I loved every doctor's appointment, every chance to hear his heartbeat, every ultrasound. I loved decorating his baby's room and shopping for his little clothes. I did not love the physical part of being pregnant, but I sure did love the expectation! I loved knowing every day that I was one day closer to him.

Well, I'm doing the same thing this time around! I'm simply loving every day that I am one day closer to my new little one as well. I love to peek at my friends' blogs, see the pictures of their little boys, and imagine what my son might look like. I love learning every bit I can about his country, soaking up the visual images of the sun going down over Ninh Truan or the water flowing down the river in Can Tho. I've paged through every Vietnam travel book they stock at the Barnes & Noble, taking in the pictures of the country, memorizing maps and city names that I can't even pronounce. I've walked the aisles of the Vietnamese grocery store here in OKC, imagining what the smells might be like in my son's hometown. My husband and I have committed ourselves to travel to Vietnam early just to get to see what life there is really like - waking up on a boat in Ha Long Bay, visiting the ancient temples and fortresses of Hue, taking a train from Da Lat to Saigon.

You might ask what started this musing in me. Well, I'll be honest. I have been probably been doing way too much computer surfing lately, reading the blogs, forums, and chat rooms of other adoptive parents. Somehow, I keep stumbling over this overwhelming attitude of MISERY amongst most of my fellow parents-in-wait. There is this sense out there in blogger-land that the time between when you start your adoption paperwork and the time when you pick up your child is some sort of episode of "Adoption Survivor". It's like you try to make it through without too much collateral damage to your soul. Well, I'm here to say that maybe we all need a little more "MISERY IS OPTIONAL" in our attitudes. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect, or that I have all the answers. Certainly, there are people who have been down this road before me who've handled in with more grace in their little finger than I will ever have in my whole life. But, through my experiences, I have learned a few choices we can make to be a little less miserable, even in painful situations.

So, in true Letterman style, here's my Top 5 Tips for staying sane in the midst of adoption. If others of you, who have gone before us in this process, or who are riding this grand ride with us, have other suggestions, please post them on your blogs as well. Let's make this our week of really encouraging one another with ways to have good thoughts and make misery optional!


My Top 5:

5. Get a hobby! Adoption is a part of your life, not the sum total of your life! While you are waiting for your child, enjoy life! Take a class, make a new friend, travel, read a great book. For sure, enjoy your spouse (if you are married), your other kids (if you have them), and your extended family. Treat yourself to a lazy morning in bed, a long shower, dinner at a beautiful restaurant, and lots of good nights of sleep. (There may be a shortage of these when your sweet little one comes home - remember, it's not all green grass with new children!) Most of all though, be more than your adoption process - keep being you.

4. Be realistic about your expectations. Wow, am I amazed at how upset adoptive families can get with the waiting process, even though their wait is not longer than their agency told them it would be! If they say 6-9 months from LID to referral, it will probably be 6-9 months! Misery will not make it faster!

3. Fall in love with everything about your new baby. For me, all those travel books and trips to Vietnamese restaurant only make me more excited about my adoption process, not more miserable.

2. Get your information from your agency, not from others. I'm guilty of this one, too, so I can speak by experience here. I made myself sort of nuts for a few weeks, thinking that part of our paperwork process should be shorter than it really was, based on information from other families, rather than from the agency. When I finally called the agency to ask about my papers, they were moving exactly at the speed that they should have been. They felt like they were moving at turtle-pace because my perspective was wrong, not because they really were strapped to a turtle!

1. Be thankful! Don't see thankfulness as a consequence, see it as a choice - even a commandment, if you are a follower of Christ. Find something every day good to say about your agency, about your child's culture, about your opportunity to be a part of this process at all. Remember that our children are pure blessings, not owed to us or expected, but loved all the more for the reminder that they came straight from the Master's hand!

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." -- Philippians 4:6-7

One Happy Family!

Wow, don't you wonder why that family looks sooooooo happy? It's because they just received their I-171H Form this week!!!! Hooray! Yippeee! Woo-hoo! Yeee-Haw! If we could think of more cheers, we'd probably add them to the list too!

For those of you unfamiliar with the adoption process, you are probably scratching your head and thinking we're a little off right now. But, for a prospective adoptive family, the I-171H is sort of the crowning glory of paperwork! Funny, huh? It is the form from the U.S. government that allows us to get a visa for our yet-to-be-determined child. It literally says that we are completely, formally, offically approved to be adoptive parents. Almost all the papers we have filled out, notarized, certified, authenticated, and sealed with a kiss have led to this one - so we say again, "YIPPEE!"

So, what's next, you say? Well, our papers will be sent to the U.S. Consulate's office and then on to Vietnam to be translated and officially logged with the Vietnamese government. Hopefully, they will soon meet up there with our acceptance papers when we are officially matched with our son! Boy, are we ready for that part! If you think we are smiling in this picture, stay tuned! Wait 'til you see us when we get to meet our son! We're just hitting the really good part now!

Fall Fun!

Fall is in full swing now in the Cook household! Will is back in school, Bill is back on the road, and Paula is trying to keep us all sane in the midst of it all! Seriously, we apologize for our lack of blogs lately, but it has been kind of crazy around our parts the past month. We've had a couple of bouts of stomach flu, a minor car accident, a couple of travel weeks for Bill, and a lot of new activities starting up in earnest. Even Max the Dog was sick - we really mean it when we say that this has been "Survivor Month" around our house! (Max the Dog was very jealous of my blog-buddy Julie's daschund, Rudy, who got his very own post recently. So, Max managed to sneak into one of the pictures for his blogger debut!)

Finally, though, we are starting to feel like we're settling in a bit, and we've got the soccer pictures to prove it! Will had his first big soccer game this past weekend - what a hoot! If you are feeling down at all, grab a cup of Starbucks and spend a Saturday morning watching 4-year-olds play soccer! They may not have a clue what they are doing, but they are having a blast! I know I'm a shamelessly biased momma, but I think looking pretty cute too!

Fingerprints and Other News!

So, we are one step closer to our I-171H today! We had our fingerprints done at the OKC Immigration office. Bill was really excited by how high-tech the process is - definitely not the inkpad of the old '80's cop shows as we had somehow imagined. Everything is done by computer now, and it is pretty sophisticated. I was just so glad that everything went smoothly, and that we finally got this step checked off of our to-do list. Now, we just sit and wait. Literally. There is really no outstanding paperwork left for us to do. We've finished our required reading, our homework assignments, and even tentatively scheduled our CPR classes. So, now we do something else for awhile, until we have our I-171H in hand or until we receive a referral of our child!

A quick update for those of you who've been praying for us and asking me about my leg. I'm feeling better every day, and I'm definitely walking and moving better! I think we've passed the worst of it, and with a little bit of physical therapy, I'll be ready to do some serious shopping in the Saigon markets! No little broken leg is gonna stand between myself and a good bargain!

Since we've got a little time on our hands now, we are escaping the ridiculous heat of OKC and heading to Colorado for a week. We're planning on spending time with Bill's parents & his brothers and their families in the Denver area. Will's most excited about being spoiled by his grandparents, seeing a Colorado Rockies baseball game, and going to the water park. Bill & I are also going to take a night away in the mountains to celebrate our 14th anniversary!

Bill & I both grew up in Colorado, and we cherish the opportunity to get in a little Rocky Mountain High. Somehow, God just always seems a bit closer when you are in the mountains, and I don't think it has anything to do with the altitude. It's just that when you look around at all the surrounding beauty, it's clear that our God is a good God - a creative, loving, artistic, caring God who gave us such a gift of Himself when He created this world. When He created us. I feel the same peace in my heart when I watch my son sleep at night, when I look up and see millions of stars on a clear night, when I walk on a beach, or when I watch an Oklahoma sunset. I guess it's more about God than geography. I still wonder though where I'm going to find that feeling in Vietnam. Maybe on a boat in Ha Long Bay. Maybe in a cafe with my husband in Saigon. Maybe in the eyes of a little girl asking for candy in a small village. My heart thinks definitely in holding my new little boy. There's just some times in life when you really know that God is good.

For those of you who've already travelled to get your little ones, tell us your personal "God is good" moment in Vietnam. For those of you who are playing the waiting game like us, tell us what you think yours might be. It's different for all of us, because we are all as different as our fingerprints. But it'll be there if we're looking for it, that's for sure. If you are one of our family, friends, or just a visitor passing by that's not in the adoption process, feel free to tell us about one of your own "God is good" moments. It's easy, just click the comment button below this post and follow the instructions. Remember though, that anyone can read what you write, so be prepared to share something you aren't afraid for the world to know!

Broken Legs and Other Craziness!

So, we've had a CRAZY few weeks lately! In the last three weeks, Will & I have made two 350-mile trips to help my brother & sister-in-law take care of their new babies and to help my parents move to a new house. Bill has been travelling so much for work that he has been at home a total of 10 days in the last month. It seemed like we were keeping all the plates spinning pretty well - that is, until I broke my leg last week! No, really, I did! I was helping my parents move to a new house, and I slipped off a 10-inch high stepstool. I stepped down really hard and ended up with a compression fracture on the top of my tibia (the bone in your lower leg).

Now, it seems like the craziest thing in the world to say, but I am SOOOOO GLAD that I only broke my leg! No, our social worker does not need to revisit the psychological evaluation on our homestudy, I promise. Let me tell you why. You see, about 8 years ago, I injured my knee really badly. I had to have a major repair on my knee (and I have the screws to prove it). It took me almost a year to heal and rehab my leg fully. It was actually funny in a crazy kind of way - me, rehabbing like some sort of professional football player!

So, anyways, when I slipped last week and my knee swelled up, I had these horrible thoughts of having to repeat all that work. I had scarier thoughts of hobbling my way through Vietnam, of a very difficult and uncomfortable airplane trip. (Now I know that it isn't really a thrill for anyone to be on a plane that long, but it would be excruciating with a bum leg!)

But, as usual, God protected us from what we couldn't handle. I almost hugged the doctor when he told me that my MRI indicated that my repair was just fine, and I only had a little break. In fact, he didn't even really need to put me in a cast. My leg will heal just fine on its own, and the soreness will eventually go away completely. I'm not running any marathons (now or ever, thank you!) but I'm going to be okay. Thank you, Lord, for not asking any more of us right now. Thanks God that I only broke my leg! :)

Good News!

We got our letter from USCIS with the date for our fingerprint appointment! Finally, after a couple of weeks of wondering and waiting, we know that we are moving forward with the steps towards our I-171H! Our appointment is August 14. Our non-adoption lives have been full of surprises lately, so please pray that this process will continue to go smoothly. The great news is that Bill did not have any trips planned for that week, so nothing will have to be rescheduled. With his job, that is a huge blessing!

Based on this new information, we can realistically expect our I-171H to be completed by the end of September. We had originally hoped to have it by the end of the summer, but the paperwork just seems to be taking a bit longer right now. We know that God's timing will be good, and that He will open the doors that need to be open at exactly the right time. It looks like we will have a very busy rest of the summer, so hopefully, the wait won't seem so long.

In the Presence of the Great!

The school supply season is upon us! I've mentioned before that I LOVE a good bargain! Well, we've been spending some of our time in July & August the past couple of years collecting school supplies for children that might not have access to them. In the past, this has always been through church school supply drives, but this year, we have a more personal reason to donate. We are collecting supplies to give as gifts to the orphanages in Vietnam.

Now, mind you, I only buy the REAL bargains. But, somehow, this year, the bargains seem to be abounding. I have already found 9-cent crayons, 50-cent markers, 10-cent pencil boxes - and it's still just mid-July. I happened to mention it to my mother on the telephone one day, and as all good blessing stories go, she e-mailed a couple of friends, and they e-mailed a couple of friends, and well....everyone just wants to help. My parents' Sunday School class members are running around to office supply stores and e-mailing each other about the best sales of the week. Even the sales clerk at Target who innocently asked why I was buying 20 boxes of crayons offered to help, once she heard our story. My brother stunned us by providing an entire case of individual crayon packets from his restaurant.

Now, I know that some people still say really hurtful things about international adoption. (In fact, several of my adoption buddies have had some truly senseless and hurtful remarks thrown their way. I am so sorry that anyone has to hear that stuff!) But, I also wanted everyone to know how many people really care about what's happening and really are excited to help in their own little ways. I want to encourage my adoption and blogger friends to be vulnerable enough to let it be known that there are needs in adoption land. Who knows just how many people are waiting in the wings, eager to help? The sales clerk at Target sure is! If you are interested in helping too, please feel free to tag a comment on this post or just e-mail us.

"A gift opens the way for the giver,
and ushers him into the presence of the great."
--- Proverbs 18:16

Most of all, I want to say thank you to any and all of you who have given your time, your money, and your hearts to help. I wish that I could send you all a personal thank you note, for caring about us and most of all for caring about our new little boy - and lots of other little boys and girls in Vietnam. However, I don't even know any more all of the folks who might be helping and praying and caring for us in their little ways. So, I'll just offer this verse from Proverbs, and hope that your gifts have already and will continue to usher you into the presence of the great! Thank you for blessing us - may you be blessed back many, many times over!

I Just Can't Help It!

A few months ago when we started our adoption process, we passed a law in our house. No shopping for the baby until we have a referral in hand. Now, I know that a lot of you blogger gals are big-time shoppers. So, before you click that comment button to chew me out, please know that I too enjoy shopping. I really enjoy baby shopping. But, for me, filling my house with baby items without an actual baby takes me quickly to my crazy place. Bill & I thought that it would probably be hard and confusing for Will, too. Thus the "no shopping" law. (Please also note that there is NOT a no-looking law - I've picked out linens, room decorations, furniture...the list continues. But no actual items have been purchased.)

But today I broke the law. Will and I were at Kohl's, and there were soooooooo many cute little baby things. Creepers with puppy dogs and bears and trains. Little soft blue blankets and bibs. All on great summer sales - my achilles heal! My strength was waining. I probably would have bought a ton of clothes if I only had an inkling of what size to purchase. But, I didn't, so I passed through the children's clothing unscathed. (By the way, I also know that we have a trip to Branson, Missouri planned this fall, and they have one of the best outlet malls I've ever visited. They have Carter's, they have Osh Kosh, they have Children's Place. And come September, they will have a lot of my money!)

So, back to the story. Will wanted, of course, to look at the four really messy aisles of toys that they shove into a corner of the Kohl's as bribery to get kids to agree to go shopping with their parents. He was pretty good all throughout our daily errands, so I agreed. As I am standing in the heaps of Dora dolls, Matchbox cars, Thomas Trains, and other assorted toys, suddenly my eyes light up. I notice a darling, brightly colored FisherPrice Tabletop Playmat up on the shelf. It's got nobs, rattles, buttons, mirrors, balls - all those cute things that little hands love to investigate. It folds out to the size of a large placemat or folds up into a 3" X 10" packet - easily packable! It has suction cups to secure it to an airplane tray table! It is all the things I love in children's toys, and it is sitting on the shelf next to a sign that says, "All FisherPrice Toys 50% Off!"

I melted. A girl only has so much will power. And so, for $12.50 after sale (plus the travel game that I had to buy for Will because I haven't figured out yet how to buy for one child and not two!), we are officially moving into "getting ready for baby" mode. A really big step for me. But, finally, one homestudy, a three-inch binder stuffed full of paperwork, one dossier, a couple of big checks, lots of time on the blogs and forum, and a FisherPrice Tabletop Playmat later, I can say that I really think this whole thing is going to happen! We're really going to have a baby in our house!

Showers of Blessings!

What a wonderful week this one has been for all of the Dillon Vietnam families! We'd like to congratulate our adoption buddies on NINE sweet children finding their forever families this week! The last count I had was five infant girls, three infant boys, and one sweet boy from the waiting child list.

Now, for those of you who are new to the process or who are doing research on adoption, I'll add that this week has NOT been a typical one for all of us. In fact, the last referrals by our agency that I know about for certain were in late April. So, you can imagine that how glad we were that we had so much to celebrate this Fourth of July week!

(By the way, if you are reading this blog for adoption info, please, please, PLEASE do not choose your agency solely based upon how fast they can add a child to your life. Choose your agency based upon how well they care for the children in the country where you plan to adopt, how committed they are to improving the adoption process, how ethical they are in their decision-making, and how much in love with adoptive countries, families, and children they are. It just matters too much!)

So, anyways, it was great for us to see all these families come together with their new kiddos. It also has made the entire process seem incredibly real for us - this is not some distant dream way down the road, but now all the sudden, we know that our day will be here soon too!

Please pray for all of these families that their paperwork is processed smoothly, and that they will get to hold their little ones soon. Please also pray for the fantastic staff at our agency, that handles all of us with such incredible kindness and grace. This is an exciting and yet very busy time for them, so pray for perseverance, for patience (as we all may try their patience from time to time, I'm sure!), and for health for all of them.

Thanks, again, God, for gracing us with your blessings everyday! Thanks most of all for the gift of nine sweet little ones! :)

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Will and I went to the Oklahoma State Capitol to take care of some of our dossier papers yesterday. It felt like our timing was perfect, being the day before July 4, so we kind of got into the process. Pretty soon, we were taking pictures on the Capitol steps and in the rotunda like a couple of tourists. (In some ways we were, even though we only live about a 15-minute drive away. It was my first visit there in the two years we've lived here in OKC, so you know, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you!)

For those of you who are not engulfed in this pile of papers, the dossier is the official documents that go to Vietnam as our application. They include:

• a copy of our marriage certificate
• a copy of our homestudy
• a police letter for each of us stating that we don't have a criminal record
• a letter of employment for Bill & a letter for me stating that I am a full-time homemaker
• a doctor's letter for each of us giving us a clean bill of health
• copies of each of our passports

Our social worker sent our homestudy directly, so I had nine pieces of paper to submit. We also sent 6 pages of photocopied and signed application forms, but four of the six pages were in Vietnamese, so they didn't seem too real to me. All inclusive, 15 pieces of paper. I know that the agency adds a few more pages of paperwork and some pictures to this packet, but all in all, 15 pieces of paper just didn't quite seem enough to me. It just seemed like such a tiny stack of stuff to indicate how much we want to adopt a new baby boy. How can all this time, energy, effort, desire, and most of all, love, possibly fit into 15 pieces of paper?

Well, we took our pile of papers to the Capitol to have the Secretary of State's office certify the notary signatures on them. Now, this part of the puzzle is usually handled by Dillon, and it always seemed a little hazy to me. So, I thought my adoption buddies might enjoy seeing what a certified document really looks like. Each document gets its own separate certificate from the state where it was notarized saying that the notary's signature is authentic.

I admit I am glad I got to see these documents. Somehow, the big gold seal, the "STATE OF OKLAHOMA" written across the top in very impressive font, and even the little gold grommet that attaches the certification to each of my documents made me feel better. Somehow, it all seemed very official, very approved, very finished. (I just hope that the Vietnamese government sees it that way!)

Suddenly, it was hard to mail my 15 little pieces of paper off. I was a little nervy trusting them to the Kinko's guy, I admit. When he asked if my envelope contained paperwork, and I said yes, and he wrote down a declared value of $100. I immediately said, "NO!! It is worth so much more than $100 to me! In fact, it is pretty much priceless!" He looked at me like I was nuts, and said, "How 'bout $1000?" I nodded, defeatedly, knowing that I could never really express the value on this package. The Kinko's guy slapped a zero on the end of the declared value and carelessly tossed my precious cargo in an outgoing mail bag. I probably paid extra for that extra value, but I don't care. I also freely paid for the Priority Service, Automated Tracking, and some other bells and whistles. After all, this is the most important 15 pages I've ever put together in my life.

The Thanks Bank!

Our four-year-old son, Will, came running out of Sunday School this morning. He was so excited as he said to us, "Mom & Dad, I got to make a thanks bank today!" So, as usual, amidst the typical post-church flurry of kids being picked up, Sunday School papers flying about the halls, and other pandemonium, I asked casually, "What's a thanks bank?" I admit that I was concentrating on what to make for lunch, afternoon plans, and my general desire for a long nap, and I wasn't listening as well as I should. Will, however, didn't seem to notice, and began to explain, "My thanks bank is a way for me to say thank you to God for all the good things in my life. I drew pictures of the things I am thankful for and put them in the bank. It helps me remember that our word for the month in church in July is contentment."

Wow. Out of the mouth of babes, right? I stopped short there in the hall, and looked down at my sweet son, who is holding up a plain lunch bag with "THANKS BANK" written on it in red marker. He has filled it with little scraps of paper with pictures of simple things he is thankful for - the sun, a rainbow, and Mom & Dad. Suddenly, I am paying a lot closer attention as I ask him, "Will, what does contentment mean to you?" and he says simply, "It is deciding to be happy with what you've got. You and Dad should make a thanks bank, too!"

And that's what we did. Not thirty minutes after arriving home from church, we sat down with paper and crayons and made a family thanks bank. We had great fun drawing pictures of each other, Max the Dog's wagging tail, baseballs and bats, new baby brothers, swimming pools, flowers, maps of Vietnam, and crosses to symbolize Jesus. (Our Jesus portraits aren't so great, so we used a cross instead!) We are planning to keep adding to our thanks bank the rest of the summer. Will says we should get a really big bag, because we have plenty to go in it.

You know what? He's right. We have so much to go in it, that the largest shopping bag we could find would never suffice.

CONTENTMENT: It's deciding to be happy with what you've got.

As I read through Will's Sunday School paper this afternoon, the memory verse popped out at me. Phillippians 4:11-13 says, "...I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being CONTENT in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do EVERYTHING through Him who gives me strength." I'm going to try to memorize this verse in the next couple of weeks. You might want to try it, too.

As Will would say, you might even try to make a thanks bank. You might be surprised just how big a bag you really need, if you take the time to write down all your thank yous to God. For my fellow adoption buddies, I'm not saying this lightly. I know that sometimes the wait is hard. Really hard. But Will may be on to something about this contentment thing. Contentment isn't having all you want to be happy, it's deciding to be happy with what you've got. Contentment doesn't mean that we won't be crossing off squares of the calendar each day - it's more about how we fill the squares up before they get crossed off.

And maybe, just maybe, thankfulness may be the real key to the riches in God's bank. So, I'm gonna start a sideline here on our blog page of things I'm depositing in my thanks bank. On the gray days, I'm hoping it brings me some encouragement. Hope it brings you some, too.

A Quick Update!

We had a wonderful vacation this past week in Chicago. So much fun to see the city where we used to live, to meet old friends, and most of all to introduce Will to Wrigley Field! Will loved Chicago, and Bill & I have to admit that we were a bit wistful in some of our old stomping grounds. It is a fun city, especially in the summer, but I'm glad that God has us in OKC right now. God has had good plans all along for us, and right now we are in just the right place for another little boy to fly half-way around the world and join our family!

We came home to the great news that our homestudy stuff is finished, so we could go ahead and process our dossier documents. Hooray! So, without even finishing unpacking, I've been off to the doctor's office, police department, and notary's office in the past two days. Bill, in his usual style, whipped out his laptop, sent a couple of quick e-mails, and got his entire part finished in about ten minutes. Two days later, the FedEx envelopes arrived with his employment letters and our marriage certificate, and he didn't even break a sweat. I wish that I was as cool and collected as he is sometimes. All the time I spend wringing hands doesn't really get the job done any faster! A great lesson for me to learn at this point in the adoption process! :)

So, I guess when I send off this dossier packet to Dillon on Monday, we have officially hit "The Waiting List!" One prayer request for our extended family who has lovingly prayed us through this whole process is that our fingerprint appointment and I-171H would move along smoothly (and I add somewhat selfishly, RAPIDLY!) The I-171H is the final document that we need to be able to get a visa for our new child. The Vietnamese government wants to see it in our hands before we start trying to get approval to travel. We would love to have it in place so that when we are referred a child, we will have one less piece of paper between us and him. So, the sooner that one happens, the better. Hopefully, July will be a good month for us to get this last piece of the paperwork puzzle in place.

In the mean time, we plan to have plenty of BBQ's, see a bunch of baseball games, take Will to swimming lessons, and enjoy the good ol' summertime for awhile! When I actually get the suitcases unpacked, I'll try to post some Chicago highlights, so check back soon! :0)

Homestudy - Hooray!

We received the completed draft of our homestudy today! Hooray! Thanks to our great social worker and all of the Dillon staff - you guys are the best! They managed to get everything finished for us before we head out on our vacation - an extra treat.

For our friends and family not in the middle of the adoption experience, the homestudy is a critical piece of the puzzle. The homestudy report is done by a licensed social worker, who officially approves us as adoption applicants. This report goes to Vietnam along with copies of a lot of other official paperwork to describe us as adoptive parents to the Vietnamese government. It also is used here by the US Department of Immigration as official clearance to allow us to get a Visa for our new child. (The Visa officially allows us to leave Vietnam and return to the United States with our child.)

So, the moral of the story is that our homestudy unlocks the doors to the next big phase of our adoption process. We are thrilled to be moving that way! Funny, but I've never been so excited to be allowed to fill out more bureaucratic forms! :)

Attack of the Robots!

Well, Vacation Bible School is upon us! As I am writing this post, we have only one more day of robots and spaceships in our Sonforce Kids VBS theme, and we've all had a great time! Bill and Will made the robots in the pictures out of cardboard boxes, spray paint, scrap wood, and some stickers. Great job, guys! I've been teaching a class of 22 boys that are just about to enter third grade, and I have even more gratitude for elementary school teachers than ever before. The kids have been great, but man is it a lot of work to keep up with them!

Will has had a wonderful week and has learned a lot, too. Thanks to his teachers for all their kindness and hard work. One of the highlights was listening to him sing "Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World" and then tell me how that meant his brother in Vietnam! It's nice to know sometimes that our kids really get it! :)

One of our Bible stories this week was about baby Moses' mother placing him in a basket at the edge of the river to try to save his life. (If you don't know the story, the Pharaoh of Egypt had ordered that all infant Hebrew boys be killed in order to subdue the Hebrews and keep them as slaves. Moses' mother made a floating basket and hid her son in the reeds next to the river, where he was found by Pharaoh's daughter. She adopted him, and not only was his life spared, but he grew up in the palace with the best of opportunities. God used Moses' adoption to prepare him for big things in the future.)

So, I thought a lot about Moses' mother this week. How hard it must have been for her to push that little boat basket out in the water, even though she knew it might be the only way to save her son. Would I have been willing to make that choice? It may be that our future son's birth mother is thinking about the same decisions right now. Bless her for loving her son so much. May we never take for granted the love she is showing to her son. May God make us worthy of the blessings that He is pouring out on us.

I also have been thinking about the ways that God is asking me to let go of my own basket a little bit too. Am I willing in faith to let go of my children (both Will & our future son) and let God have control of their lives? Of my life, too? Do I really believe that God has the best plans for all of us, even if they aren't very easy for me? Even if they make my heart hurt sometimes? Yet again, I learn more from Vacation Bible School than the kids do! Thanks, God, that the rewards of Your plans are higher and bigger and greater than we can ever ask or imagine!

Summer Fun!

The blog gang is listing their Top 5 Summer Fun Goals. So, here are ours:

1. Visit the local Vietnamese grocery store and learn how to make at least one recipe in my new Vietnamese cookbook (or have fun trying, anyways!)
2. Eat ice cream while watching the Fourth of July fireworks - preferably at the end of a great baseball game
3. Watch the sailboats on Lake Michigan from Wrigley Field (watch out Chicago, here we come!)
4. Survive Vacation Bible School, and help our four-year-old son to enjoy his first real VBS experience. I am teaching a Second Grade Boys class, and the theme is Spy Kids in Outer Space, so I may well be fed to a robot by the end of the week!
5. Spend our anniversary on the top of a mountain. (We spent our honeymoon nearly 14 years ago in Breckenridge, Colorado, and we are going back - just the two of us!)

For the Family...

Our extended family has been asking for new pictures of our yard and flowers. So, here they are! If you are novice blog-readers, you can click on any picture and it will show full-sized in your window. Then, after you have viewed the picture, use your back arrow to return to the full post. Have fun!

Yee-Haw!

Happy Memorial Day everyone! We took Will to the Cowboy Chuckwagon Festival this weekend. Our little cowboy had lots of fun roping cows, watching cowboys cook over the fire, and making cowboy crafts. Bill & I enjoyed sampling all of the great campfire food. What a true Oklahoma experience!

One quick funny story about Will. We stopped at lunch time to take a break and sit down so Will could eat. We grabbed a spot on a hay bale in one of the music tents. There was a man with a guitar singing old cowboy songs - really nice. Bill and I were enjoying the rest and the music, and Will was munching away on his hot dog. He finished eating, looked up at Bill with a smile on his little face and said, "Dad, this is SO boring! Can we PLEASE move on?" We both just laughed and realized yet again that our sweet little boy is officially becoming a kid!! :)

Q & A Game!

So the blogger crew is doing a question game right now so we can all get to know each other a little bit better. Here's the questions:

1. Tell us something totally unusual about you.
2. Aside from your adoption process, what is your greatest accomplishment this year?
3. What is your favorite holiday?
4. Tell us the most interesting, funny, or embarrassing story from your wedding.
5. Where is your favorite place in the whole world?
6. Aside from your new little one, what are you most looking forward to about your trip to Vietnam? (Or for those who have already gone, what is most memorable for you?)
7. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
8. What is your best character trait?
9. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?
10. How has your adoption process changed you for the better?

Here's my answers:

1. I have designed and built a couple of ten-story buildings. (No kidding, I have a degree in structural engineering and worked on projects around downtown Chicago for almost ten years.)
2. Enjoying my time as a mom to Will. I’ve only been at home full-time for a little over a year, and I am really enjoying a lot of the little things about being a parent.
3. Christmas – I’m a Christmas decorating nut! We go Christmas crazy every year, but it’s really fun, especially now that Will can really enjoy the traditions too.
4. Our reception was outdoors, and it rained for about the first 15 minutes of it. It is a lot of brides’ worst wedding nightmare, but for us, it turned out great. There were 300 people at the wedding, and the ones that were friends of the family but not our nearest and dearest didn’t come to the reception. So, when the rain was over, we really got to spend time with the people we cared most about.
5. Sitting next to my husband in a totally quiet gallery in the Art Institute of Chicago
6. Seeing the gardens in Saigon. My Vietnamese friend keeps telling me how exquisite they are.
7. Homemade peach on the Fourth of July
8. Empathy
9. Sunsets – one of my favorite things about Oklahoma
10. I’m more thankful than I was at the beginning of the year. God’s been reminding me how the whole process is such a gift from Him – not just the child at the end!

Summertime & The Livin' is Easy!

Well, summer is officially here for our family. It's supposed to be 80 degrees all week in Oklahoma City, and we have moved into our summer mode. To the left is a picture of one of the blooms on our hydrangea bushes. They are so pretty, and now there are a couple of hundred blooms - literally. Hooray - I got about half a dozen blooms all summer last year, so I'm thrilled! Will's last day of school is this Friday, and then the fun really begins - sandboxes, swimming pools, Popsicles, and Redhawks baseball games!

We had our first homestudy appointment this weekend. Our social worker was so kind and helpful. We really appreciate the people that work for Dillon - every single one has been kind, honest, and helpful. The homestudy interview felt very comfortable, and we got a lot of our lingering questions answered. We don't have our second interview for almost three weeks because of the Memorial Day holiday time, so we have to just sit back and wait. I guess that means more time for enjoying the garden and watching Will's summer fun. Bill & I are really trying to be intentional about enjoying our time with Will right now. We are, of course, so excited about the new baby, but we also have loved our time as a family of three. So, we're going to cherish these next few months as much as we can. (Oh, and we have promised ourselves to appreciate our current ability to sleep through the night! We know that one is going to go by the wayside for awhile when we come home with the new baby!)

Hope you all enjoy your summer too. Have a hot dog and a lemonade for us!