The Whole-Hearted Wife by Erin Smalley

I received a copy of this book for free to read and review from the publisher. The opinions I am writing are my own. I hope you get a copy to review this book also.

This book gives great, practical advice to a wife in ways to better yourself and love your husband more completely. The way she approaches the book is that even in a marriage, the best way to affect change is to start with yourself. So much of our culture is centered around pleasing yourself and making sure you are happy. It can be hard to go against what culture says and do the opposite: think of another higher than yourself; think first of your spouse and be quick to forgive. I am always thankful for reminders that our God asks us to be counter-culture in so many ways, especially marriage.

GUESS WHAT?!?!?

What apparently takes normal people about 4-6 months to complete has FINALLY been completed for us...

We have a Home Study!!! Completed, signed, sealed, delivered, notarized, paid for, educated about, blood drawn, shots given, doctors approval, friend recommended, finished home study!

It only took us 18 months...but I guess nobody had to tell you that we're NOT normal!!!

Jumping selfies are not easy...I hope you get half as many laughs out of these as we did making them!

"Good thing Ashley has good air brakes, that could have been dangerous!"

3-2-1 Blast off!

The work of our home study is finally done...now off to the dossier!

#400

I have been a part of The Pampered Chef family a little over 6.5 years and just sent in my 400th show! Who wants to come celebrate with me? 

So thankful to all my team members, customers and hosts. Without you, I would not have a business. Leave a comment if you want me to send you an invite!

book review: A Call to Resurgence

Call to Resurgence by Mark Driscoll is a poignant call for the church to come together and quit fighting one another. This has been a long time issue and is one clear warning that Jesus gave us before he left this earth. It must have been important to him for us to love one another and not fight over our small differences. Driscoll does a fabulous job of concluding the book in the 7th chapter when he gives his call to action: Preach the Word, Love the Church, Contend and Contextualize, Be Attractional and Missional, Receive, Reject, Redeem, Consider the Common Good, and Evangelize through Suffering. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who believes in Christ and wants to love his brothers in Christ in a Christ-like way. I would also recommend anyone who feels comfortable with where their faith is at to read this book. It will ignite a new passion for the Lord in you. I received a copy of this book to review. The opinions are my own. 

Uganda

If you are interested in seeing a bit more about Uganda check this video out Uganda

Resurrection Sunday, 2014!

We were so thankful to get to celebrate with friends and family today. We did miss my gramma and aunt Barby. We were also missing two littles that we can't wait to meet, learn about and share life with. But we got to enjoy good times!

The boys Easter baskets had a couple of books and a couple items we bought from the garage sale pile. 

They each had a "candy" item and had a note on it like this.

Cousins opening checking out their baskets

We dyed brown eggs and loved the way they turned out. Yellow was a favorite color choice because they were deemed "Golden" eggs by one of the kids, so they all did them that way.

Forgot to get someone to take our picture, so the tripod did ok for us to get one of ourselves!

We are so thankful for our risen savior of the world! Thankful that he took our place. Thankful that he gives us grace...every minute of every day!

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! SOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!

I am going to UGANDA in July! I am thrilled about the chance to go and experience traveling to Africa, Ugandan culture, food, and just see what God does during the 10 days I am there. I am going with an open, but guarded heart knowing that I will be interacting with a bunch of beautiful and wonderfully made kids that I can't/won't get to adopt. I am sure it will be so hard...yet so rewarding and I will come back with more knowledge about Ugandan Culture, what our time in Africa will be like, what kinds of things to expect when traveling and being there for the extended period of time like we will.

BUT...that is not the only exciting news...

So maybe we got some good news on Friday...and maybe I am a tad bit enthusiastic about it!

Our agency was approved and can now continue with their adoptions under the new law! I talked to our agent on Friday and was so pleased to hear that they got their approval. So we are excitedly finishing up the loose ends with our home study and preparing for our next GIGANTIC garage sale. We had an impromptu garage sale a couple of weeks ago with just what we had collected in a few weeks and it was very successful! If you want to know details, just ask me :) I am anticipating our sale coming up on April 26th. It will be our biggest one to date and I cannot wait to see what the Lord does this time. We have been amazed at what he has provided thus far and I am anxious to see what happens next.

So while all this is super exciting, we still need your prayers! Please pray for our process in this crazy world of adoptions. Pray that our agent and the orphanages would seek God in our placement (of course this is >9 months away), Pray that our hearts would be prepared for new lives coming into our home and the challenges that will present for our heart-grown littles and our home-grown littles, pray for our marriage that we would make time to be together and enjoy one another, and pray for the protection of our heart-grown littles who are not with us.

Leaving you with recent pictures of the shenanigans going on here with the first 2...

I tried my first cornrows and Foster actually sat still and liked having them in.

Foster's hair when we took the cornrows out

Foster loving on "our" dog Sandy. Sandy lives with "Baga Sue" but we still claim her as ours :)

Noah at his first Pray then Play Flag Football Game

Noah holding the Praying Mantis I found

Nate helping Foster hold the Praying Mantis

The hardest part about adoption is...

The money is probably the smallest part of my daily struggle with our adoption. I am not sure if that is because we have AWESOME friends and family who have already supported us beyond what we could have imagined or because God has promised to provide what is needed or because I have an amazing team of women who are brainstorming, organizing and fundraising with me. Maybe it is just all of the above. When I think of the HUGE amount all at once it is overwhelming. But I am pretty sure on a daily basis, money is not what the struggle is. Here are the top 10 things that are HARD about adoption. I think they could be true of adoption through foster care, domestic or international. What do you think?

10. Wondering who they are? Will they be younger or older than Foster? Will they like to cook in the kitchen with mommy and daddy as much as their brothers do? Will they love having people over and inviting people in? 

9. Hearing nothing. Waiting on the government to make decisions...seriously hard. Waiting on agencies. Waiting. Thankful for a God who is faithful- who will not delay.

8. Hearing about corruption. Wanting to be able to do something. Wanting desperately to NOT contribute to it. Wanting to help create income for families who would parent their children if they just had resources to do so. Not knowing what to do. Feeling like we are just one family, what can we do? Asking God to show us how we can be used by him to help others.

7. Wondering who tucked your babies in tonight. Wondering if they cried and no one noticed. Wondering if they needed their nose wiped and no one did. Wondering if there was a Band-aid for the scrape on their knee

6. Watching my home-grown kids reach new milestones, knowing we are missing our heart-grown kids' milestones too.

5. Asking- the money itself doesn't seem to worry me...Asking people to help is MUCH, MUCH harder than then number itself. 

4. Holidays- hard when you have lost someone but also as hard when you are missing someone. Feeling like your celebrations are not complete because their are people missing in those memories.

3. Hearing my home-grown kids talk about their "brothers and sisters" and wondering when they will be able to know them. Asking when do we get to pick them up. When do we get to play with them.

2. Thinking about my heart-grown kids and wondering what they are doing. Are they playing or sleeping or eating or learning? Are they caring for other people? Are they wondering about their first mommy and what she was like? Do they think about having a family to call their own?

1. Waiting for the day I will finally get to hold them and love them. Welcome them into our family and help them become a part of us. 

The whole waiting thing is just plain hard...BUT I am sure that just like holding your newborn for the first time (and in adoption sometimes this part comes so much father down the road), the first time our kids say "I love you mommy and daddy," that moment will make time stand still and all of the waiting, in that moment, will somehow all be worth it. 

Sharing some pictures that the lovely Linda Bainter at Lovin' the Light Photography did for us. I just LOVE the way they turned out. She always seems to capture more than just photos...PERSONALITIES too!!!

Family day minus two

Were were so excited to get to participate in the Okoa Refuge Carnival Fundraiser in Jacksonville Beach this past weekend. This is the orphanage we hope to adopt from and the people who run it are pretty amazing because of their love for Jesus and the sacrifices they are making to follow His word. We had fun times, great food and got to bless some of the kids there with a card and a message from our family. One of the things Okoa is in need of right now is sponsors for many of their kids. You can check out the kids who are in need of a sponsor, learn about their story and know that the money you are giving to sponsor one of these precious kids, all goes to the kids and their needs for school, food clothing, shelter and care. As you scroll through, the kids who need sponsors have a drop down menu. The three I have pictured here are all in need of a sponsor...go ahead...check it out...

Because we were only 3 blocks from the beach, when the carnival was over we headed to the shore. It was SUPER windy that day and only about 70 degrees so we did not venture into the water (well except for when a wave came up much further than the rest and knocked Foster down), but we did build a Sand Turtle. We also saw the sand blowing like snow does in Iowa (or I guess anywhere it snows) and that was interesting. The biggest difference was that the sand HURT when it hit you like being sandblasted! 

Our one family "selfie" that we were all actually in

Blowing sand. If you look just in front of the water you can see it.

Another blowing sand shot

Sea Turtle decorated by Noah and Foster

Complete with a smile :)

Wishing our new family members could have spent the day with us!

The wait...

We started this process in January of last year. We got on the waiting list for the agency we were planning on using in March. But now the agency we were going to partner with is not going to do international adoptions anymore because of a law that is going into effect July 2014. All adoptions on the American side BY LAW will have to be through Hague Accredited agencies. So the agency we were going to partner with is not accredited and has decided they are just going to stick with domestic adoptions. The agent who was working with us is going to work through another agency that is accredited. So she is saying January is when we will get to start. We haven't had our Home study agent sign off on our home study yet because we don't want our home study to get too "old" waiting on the new agency to be ready. I am hoping we can bring our kids home by next Christmas...but who knows! Waiting is so hard but the positive is that we have more time to fund-raise!


In other news, we had our 4th garage sale last weekend. Over 155 hours went into the sale. It is a lot of work but rewarding at the end of the day when you get to count! Our Silent auction closed on Wednesday and although we still had several items not even bid on and most items nowhere near retail value, God blessed what we had and our fundraisers were both super successful. Thank you to all of my many friends who donated and a HUGE thanks to Krystle Williams and Jen Searby for spending over 30 hours each on our garage sale. I am blessed to call you friends!

Silent Auction in FULL SWING!!

Thanks to so many of our friends and friends of our friends, we have a great silent auction going on right now on Facebook. What? What is that you say? You don't have a facebook account? Have no fear, Facebook photo album link is here! You can view the pictures and comment here on the blog your bids. I can update FB with the bids for you. From purses to diaper bags, pearls to matching mother-daughter aprons, cupcakes to Turkish scarves, there is something for everyone. Make sure to check it out.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1460783420814674.1073741828.1460778587481824&type=1&l=d7c2502b44

Some items below, many more at the link!