The Itch

Lately I've been thinking and praying a lot about baby #2... how they will enter our family? Are we ready for another baby? When is the right time to begin perusing that addition? Should we do any infertility treatments or just go immediately back to DPAS? Lots of thoughts. The planner in me really does best when those things are kind of lined out. I've always known I wanted my children close in age (probably because my closest sister is just 17 months younger then me) so I've kinda thought when the oldest was two I'd like the second one to come. Tucker will be two in April. Adoption is so different because you literally have NO idea how long the process will take. Tucker took three weeks start to finish. Right now we are leaning more toward adopting again. I have known since Tucker was just days old that I wanted to adopt again. Partly because I want him to have someone in our family who he can relate to and match, but also because of the passion that adoption has become in my life and heart. While infertility treatments are certainly an option they are expensive and emotionally rough. We just don't have a peace about going down that road right now. Who knows what the future will hold though. 

I woke up early this morning with my head and heart still full of my dream. I RARELY remember my dreams anymore, maybe because I don't sleep in long enough successions to be coherent enough to remember. Who knows? Anyways. In my dream we had just gotten home from Africa (we're going in late July) and we got a call from DPAS saying there was a birth family who wanted to meet us. The couple had several children already and just couldn't afford another. She was already born, but just a few days old. We walked into DPAS offices and were greeted by Sandy. She gave us a super cute diaper bag with one tiny diaper in it and we kept walking into an area of the DPAS offices that we'd never been in before (and actually doesn't exist). I was met there by Dierdra, the Director and Tucker's birth mom's case worker, holding a infant seat with a beautiful, brown, baby girl in it. She told me the birth family was in the building so to stay put, but that I could hold her. Chris disappeared at this point to go do paper work or something. So just Tucker, Dierdra and I were left in the room with the baby. I held that sweet baby girl and tried to remind myself that nothing was decided for sure and not to let myself get too attached, but already felt my heart bonding with this baby. She then peed through her clothes and blanket. Dierdra left to go find her something new to wear and I tried to soothe this naked girl with just a towel to wrap around her. I got her calmed down and was sitting in a chair talking to Tucker about her and letting him love her when the birth family walked in behind me. I didn't know they were there for a while. Tuck and I talked and rocked and sang to this sweet baby as they watched. I finally turned to see tears rolling down this birth mom's face and mine immediately matched hers. She told me they'd been calling her Rosie, which I remember thinking was weird because she was brown, not all pink like white babies. We shared a few minutes and the name we had picked out and then we left with a baby girl. 

It just made me anxious for the day when we see the plan God already has worked out for Baby G #2. With Tucker's story and all the details that lined up so perfectly so that he would be ours I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that God already has a specific baby and birth family chosen for us. I know that His sovereignty is greater then my plans and my ability to prepare for what's next. And I'm so thankful for that. 

Here's to Baby #2! Maybe it will be fast and smooth just like our first adoption journey was.

Side note: If you're in OKC, Norman or Edmond today to go and eat a Johnnie's and mention DPAS. Johnnie's is donating part of their proceeds to our wonderful agency today. 

Random Facts

• Attempt #1 at potty training was NOT a success! After five full days of no diapers, except for sleeping, we decided he's just not getting it. Tucker is still young and we just wanted to try. He did use the bathroom several times and is holding it longer so he did learn something. We'll try again in a month or two.
• Tonight and tomorrow we are hosting the missionaries I lived with in Zambia, Africa during college. I haven't seen them since I left Mazabuka in 2004. I'm so excited to see them and to lead a trip of students and adults from our church back to Zambia in July.
• My college roommates and I are having a reunion in February in... NEW YORK CITY!!! I'm so excited. No kids. No husbands. Just us girls and the big city! I can't wait to spend nearly a week with these girls and explore a city I've always wanted to go to. 
• Tucker is talking up a storm! He says almost anything and means what he says. It's so fun/funny to hear him. I just don't think it gets much cuter.
• Tuck is also not sleeping again. He slept with us for the three weeks we were gone for the holidays and is not liking sleeping alone. This is making for long nights again and super sleepy parents. No good for Tucker or his parents!
• On a much more serious note, We lost our first student this week. One of our senior girls died in her sleep Wednesday night. We are walking through this first in our ministry with caution and sad hearts. I don't really have words for this yet. It has been amazing to watch our community and our church respond to this family's needs. It's also made me so proud to watch how my sweet husband has handled this tragedy and loved on so many people. I'm lucky to have him!

Lunch with Tris

On our way back to Sayre after all our Christmas fun we got to have lunch with one of my best friends from college. It's been way too long since we've seen him! It was so good to sit and chat and enjoy Tucker's Onion Burgers with Tristan.

Here we are in the good old days at OBU. This was probably 2003. We were such babies! But college wouldn't have been the same without this precious friend!

After lunch at Tucker's we had to snap a few pics with sign!

This guy really enjoyed his grilled cheese and "fwies."

Christmas Crawl 2011

We have a LOT of Christmases every year. Because both sets of our parents are divorced we always have a record number of holiday gatherings to attend. This year we started on Christmas Eve Eve with two, one on Christmas Eve, two on Christmas Day, one the day after Christmas and then we finished up on New Years Eve. I didn't take pictures at all of these Christmases because my sister did and I don't have those pictures yet. But here are a few of the highlights.

This is Christmas Morning. Papa Bill (my grandpa) helped Tucker go through his stocking from my mom. He just woke up for real and wasn't quite sure what was going on or what he was supposed to do. But they look so cute together! My whole life my grandparents have been at our house for Christmas morning. They are two of the most precious people I know and I'm so blessed to have them!

We started a new tradition this year and left all the wrapping paper in the floor for the kids to play in. This was the highlight of Tucker's entire Christmas this year. He LOVED it! 

We all went to church as a family at my home church. This is the best I could get of both kids after church on the stage at Union Hill in Purcell.

Here's the whole family at church. This was the first time in a LONG time we've all been to church together. It was a special day, especially for my Nana Lue.

That night we headed to Chris's Mom's house. Tucker is the only grandchild on that side so he was the star of the show. Di Di lives in Yukon so after dinner and gifts we went to look at the lights there. They are so good! Tucker LOVED them and kept say "Wow" over and over. 

The next day we head to Bristow to Tucker's Great Great Grandma's house. Grandma Smith is 99 years old and still living at home. It's always a sweet time to see her. She isn't doing to good this year, but apologized several times for not having a strawberry pie made for me. Unbelievable!

I also realized before Christmas I didn't have hardly any pictures of Tucker with his Uncle Delton so I tried really hard to get a good shot of them together. It wasn't very successful, as most photo ops are these days. But I caught this one of both of them laughing and I love it! His uncle loves him so much and they had a good time wrestling and playing in the floor together.

All those Christmases are hard on a boy! He was so tired he actually slept in his car seat. This is a SUPER rare event in our lives. 

Hope every one else's Christmas was filled with as much love and family as our was!

Steamboat Springs Ski Trip

I've got to play blog catch up because Tucker and I were gone for almost three solid weeks, including Christmas. It was a whirlwind and we're still paying for it with our sleep schedule, but it was all for good reasons.

This year for Christmas my family decided to take a ski trip. Tucker and I went for two weeks and Chris came up for the second week. It was a fun trip, but wasn't without "Bumps" in the road. We left Friday night and the rest of the group stopped in Sayre to pick up Tuck and I. We made it about one hour west when my sisters super-lush conversion van broke down. We spent the rest of the night (until 5 am) trying to get back to our house. The transmission went out so began a days worth of options for alternate plans/transportation. Saturday night about 8 o'clock we left Sayre again and made it all the way in a borrowed Expedition. Thank goodness for good friends!

This trip was also special because it's the first one that both my mom and dad have been on together in 17 years. My baby sister doesn't ever remember them taking a vacation together and so it was extra special. This is such a blessing for a kid with divorced parents to get to experience again. I know not everyone's parents can still get along well enough to spend a week together. It was great for ALL of us to be together. I really loved watching my Dad play with Tucker and Emrie. Special times for sure. 

Tucker wasn't super crazy about the snow. When he was so bundled up he couldn't walk well and definitely couldn't get up when he fell down or tripped. But he still looked pretty cute. He did love snowballs and would've been content for me to make snowballs for him to throw all day. 

Emrie gave skiing a try this year and she did really well. She loved it and wanted to go everyday. Her parents used a harness to help steer her and though she's not always the most graceful of gals she did so good! With her starting at four years old she should be really good by the time she's an adult. It was fun and funny to watch her and her parents navigate this new experience. 

Chris decided not to ski this year and that made his vacation much more relaxing! Every time we've been since we've been married he got hurt. So he watched Tucker while I skied and just hung out. Skiing isn't really his idea of a great vacation, but he's so sweet to let me go and enjoy. We also have a deal that I'll quit skiing if he quits golf and so far we're both still getting to do our activity. 

Here's the whole group. So lucky to have such a great family and that we all WANT to spend two weeks together. Thankful my parents can put aside their own comfort for their children and grandchildrens benefit. Grateful that my sisters are my best friends and we love spending time together. And so blessed to have a precious baby and niece that play so sweet together. Great memories were made for sure. 

Potty Training

So we started the fated journey of potty training yesterday. Tucker has been showing signs he might be ready to try it lately and he's getting too big for size 6 diapers. I didn't want to use pull ups regularly because I've heard its harder to potty train after that and they're stinking expensive. So we decided to commit to consistency for five days. We didn't have any plans this week so we're giving it a try.

The last two days we've been to the potty every 15-20 minutes. We have a kitchen timer that gets re-set every time we leave the bathroom. It's a good reminder for both of us. But it's a lot harder then I imagined just to sit in the bathroom for most of the day. In fact my booty is sore from sitting on hard plastic most of the day.
I don't know if he's figuring out what's happening or not, but he does say "oh no!" every time he pees in his super cute big boy undies. I mean despite cleaning up his accidents I've smiled most of the day to see his rolly legs and ghetto booty in actual underwear. Love it! We shall see. Three more days at least. If he doesn't get it then we'll take a break and try again in a month or two.