Happy Birthday Alexis!

It's my oldest daughter's 4th birthday today, Happy Birthday Alexis!!!!

This morning I "interviewed" her (thank Pinterest! ;) )

1. What’s your name? Alexis!
2. How old are you? 4
3. What makes you happy? um... playing games
4. What makes you sad? um... in the dark
5. What is your favorite color? pink and purple
6. What is your favorite toy? um.... *scratching head* my favorite toy is the bath toys
7. What is your favorite thing to do? make necklaces
8. What is your favorite tv show? Veggie Tales
9. What is your favorite thing to eat? noodles
10. What is your favorite outfit? this outfit! (pointing to her outfit of a tiedied pink/purple shirt and purple leggings)
11. What is your favorite game? um, the slide game. What’s the slide game? Shoots and Ladders? uh huh! Shoots and Ladders
12. What are you really good at? um....... matching cards
13. What do you and Mommy do together? um, clean the dishes sometimes. We just do that sometimes.
14. What do you and Daddy do together? play games
15. Where is your favorite place to go? um... Ihop (where we’re going for breakfast)
16. What is your favorite animal? um... giraffes
17. What is your favorite song? Rainbows (Rainbow Connection)
18. What is your favorite book? Daddy’s Girl
19. Who is your best friend? Mary-Jane!
20. What is your favorite drink? Coke (for the record she doesn’t have Coke except maybe a sip of our’s here and there)
21. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? um.... blankey. My blankey.
22. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? um... *hitting face* a sandwich!
23. What do you want to be when you grow up? um, a cupcake maker
24. What would you do if you had a million dollars? um, buy stuff
25. What do you think will be the best thing about being 4? um.......... doing tricks

Love that little girl!

And just in case your wondering... she had a rainbow art party, and she helped decorate the cake. The inside was a Pinterest project!

Introducing...

We have a new referral!!!! I'd like everyone to meet Mima. She's 2 years old and A-DORABLE.

We won't know until the end of July/first of August "exactly" how old she is (what side of 2). Our facilitator is traveling for the month of July, and she doesn't trust her assistant to do age evaluations, so she will let us know soon. 

We are planning on changing her name, but keeping Mima as her middle name. Andrew and I don't have very similar taste in baby names and this is the third girls' name we've had to come up with! Right now the choices are Hannah, Natalie, and Michelle. I really like Abigail, but Andrew doesn't like it unless we can call her Abby, which I don't mind, BUT I don't want to name her something with the intent of calling her something else. Our conversations about names sound very similar to Ross and Rachel on Friends- "veto, veto, veto, veto..." And then someone chimes in "Is it just me, or is Veto starting to sound really good?"

We'll update again when we have a name for sure and know more about our little girl. 

Recently we've been working little by little getting the room ready. I've started a Pinterest board of ideas. I'm planning on keeping the paint the same, but painting the bed to better match the room. We'll be moving Alexis and Kaitlyn to bunk beds soon. Crossing my fingers that's not a big mistake! 

It's a little hard getting excited about Mima. Of course after what happened with Elizabeth, I'm a little guarded about getting excited, or buying things for her. We've got a couple things that I bought on sale for Elizabeth that I have to find time to return, because I'm sure they'll be to small for Mima. But today I worked some more on her room and cleaned out the closet some more. It's looking pretty good now :) 

In the next couple of weeks we've got some fun things going on around here. Alexis's birthday party is this Saturday and her birthday next Tuesday. Then on Thursday we hit the road for a little vacation. Andrew's grandparents live in Mississippi and have a little cabin at a fairgrounds and the fair is that week, so we're going with some of his other family and cramming in the cabin. We've never done it before, and I think the girls are going to have a lot of fun! The day after we get back from Mississippi, Alexis starts preschool! 

I'll also be updating with some more fundraising coming up soon. We're still recooperating from the concert and yard sale. They both took a lot of work, so taking a little break and then we'll be at it again! LONG way to go!

Heartbroken

I really struggle even writing this.


Andrew and I got some bad (for us) news tonight.


I checked my email and saw I had a new message from our facilitator with the subject line "Elizabeth", immediately my heart dropped. It was late in the day to be getting a message from Congo. They're 5 hours ahead of us, so to be getting an email late in the day when I wasn't expecting anything, I feared the worse. It is not uncommon for children to pass away while waiting in an orphanage.
Thankfully, that wasn't what the email said.


Instead, it said "Elizabeth's case is not going to be able to be processed." and went on to explain that a biological relative of Elizabeth has claimed her. What this means for us is we will not be adopting her and she will be going to live with them. 
While this is great news for her- she has a family! It is (selfishly) terrible news for us. We love her, we were getting her room ready, I have a photobook ready to send to her with her picture in it, I have been calling her my daughter for a month. Heartbroken.


International adoption (or really adoption in general) is full of uncertainties. We are thankful that Elizabeth has a family, even though we are sad to lose her.


We are certain that God has a plan, and even though we don't know what it is right now (and we hate that), His will and timing is what is best for us, for our family and for our little girl (whoever she turns out to be). 


Thank you for your continued prayers.

Our benefit concert

We had a great turn out for our benefit concert on Saturday! We had a table set up to sell some crafts (magnets, hair clips, t-shirt scarves/necklaces and our t-shirts). We also had pictures of Elizabeth set up so people could see who they were helping! 

Our youngest, Kaitlyn, modeling her new sunglasses. Andrew's parents came up for the concert and while we were getting things set up, they walked around the mall. The girls LOVE Claire's and Granny, who had 4 boys, likes shopping for little girl things (which usually works out pretty well for her two granddaughters!)

 Andrew went up to thank everyone for coming and talk a little about our adoption process, and Alexis wanted to go with him to show everyone a picture of Elizabeth. She held it up like this pretty much the whole time they were up there. So cute!

 The girls did some cool dance moves for everyone while the bands were playing.

Our girls! (minus Elizabeth...) 

The bands all came back on stage for the last song and played together. It was a great show! Thanks so much to everyone who came out to support us, and for all the volunteers that made it possible! The grand total for the night was $1,111!!!!! Seriously, thanks so much to everyone who was involved in any way!


We still have lots of t-shirts available. They're $15, or 2 for $25. If you want one, just let me know. If I don't have the size/color you want, I can get it. If you're local and you want a shirt, we'll have them available at our garage sale THIS Friday and Saturday!