Thank you for my hubby!

I know that I touched on this in my previous Thanksgiving post, however, I have just been thinking a lot lately and want to give my dear husband the recognition that he deserves. I am so blessed to have him as my husband. Sure I am biased, but I think that I snagged the best husband in the entire world. Do I still take him for granted? Unfortunately yes I do. Benji and I are not the partying type. We are actually quite boring to be perfectly honest with you. It's just the way that we are. But the older that I get, the more that I realize that our lifestyle is not necessarily "just how everyone else lives". I take for granted that I am married to a man that is not a drinker, at all (not criticizing anyone here) but that lifestyle is just not for us. I was raised in a home where there was never any alcohol ever! I am blessed that I have never had to experience either set of my grandparents engaging in these activities either. Yes, there were some aunts and uncles that weren't living this lifestyle, but my parents very much sheltered us from them. If they came around then my parents, ever so discreetly packed us up and we would leave. This was nto a lifestyle that my parents wanted us subjected to. Did I appreciate it as a child/teen growing up? Not so much, do I appreciate it now? Heck yeah! It never dawned on me how lucky that I am and how lucky that my kids are going to be. Thank you God that my kids will not have to ever smell alcohol on their daddy's breath (nor mommy's for that matter). Because, it is such a blessing that I can say that I have never seen nor experienced my parents under the influence of any kind. That is a major blessing in my life. I am ever so thankful that I married such a wonderful man who doesn't partake in this lifestyle either. I can't express enough how comforting that it is to know that my kids will not have to deal with this from their parents. My children will not have to ever deal with a parent that has had a little too much to drink because A) I will not stand for that kind of behavior around my babies and B) I married a man with the same philosphies that does not want his babies subjected to it either.
So I can't thank God enough for sending me a husband that is such a great family man. A man who loves his family with his whole heart, a man who will want to spend every moment that he can with his family. I am quite confident that my children will have one of the most hands on daddies out there (with the exception of diaper duty, HA!). I am so thankful that my children will have a daddy that will be able to go to gatherings and just enjoy being there with his family and not have the need to participate in any alcoholic consumption. Thank you Lord for sending me such a patient, caring, nurturing man that shares the same morals as I do. And next time that he leaves his hat full of change on my kitchen table or his shoes by the door, please remind me that no one is perfect...but he is pretty darn close!

More ramblings while we patiently wait

I am quite thankful that part of our "waiting" period is during the Christmas holidays. I absolutely love Christmas. It just makes me happy. My house is for the most part all decorated, our town's Christmas celebration/parade was this past weekend, we will be doing our annual Christmas goody cooking next week, and Benji and I have vowed to watch a Christmas every night the month of December. So the Christmas cheer has kept our spirits up as we just sit and wait.
This past week, we adopted us a soldier! No, he will not be coming to live with us, taking on our last name and calling us mama and daddy. We recieved his name and address yesterday, and are so excited to send him care packages, prayers and support from home. I personally almost feel guilty enjoying this season so much when we have tons of men and woman overseas putting their lives on the line everyday to secure our safety. We often take for granted the sacrifices that they and their families make daily for us. I am so thankful and so proud of our armed forces, and all that they do.
Last, I got the opportunity to meet (via phone) a new friend last night. Tara and her hubby are on the verge of taking the leap of faith into adoption. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with you last night Tara, and I can't wait to meet you. I hope that by the time that you read this, you will have sent off for your approval or will be doing so real soon. I am so excited for you guys and you will be in our prayers.

Thanksgiving

So here we are at Thanksgiving. I want to take a couple mintues to give thanks were there is a lot of thanks due. We have so much to be thankful for and just don't express it nearly as often as we should. So here's my list of thank-you's that I don't state near enough!


First and foremost: I am so thankful for our God! I am so thankful that we serve such an awesome God that loves us unconditionally, and is always there to catch us when we fall. I am so thankful that he loves me enough to bless me abundantly every day even though I don't deserve a fraction of what he does for me.

I am so thankful that I have such an amazing husband. I am so blessed to be married to such a loyal, honest, hard working, family oriented man. I want to thank him for loving me even though I'm not always loveable:) I also want to thank him for loving my family. He has such a great relationship with my family and my life wouldn't be near as great if he didn't. Thank you babe for being all that I could ever hope for and then some, you are the best. I am so lucky to be married to my best friend. I love you so much!

I also super thankful for my family. I am blessed beyond measure with such a great family. I could not possible ask for better parents. They have raised me to be the person that I am today. My parents have always been behind me and supported and loved me through anything and everything in my life. They have been our biggest supporters in our adoption journey. Every single fundraiser that we have had to date, they have been right there working their hind quaters off to make it as successful as possible. They are amazing parents. I am also blessed with some pretty great sibling too. I have a pretty fantastic brother and sister too, that I love dearly and who are always there when you need them. Sure we have our squabbles from time to time, but I am so blessed to have siblings, and the older we get the closer we become. And I am so thankful that I have them in my life. I also have some pretty great in-laws. I shouldn't even refer to them as in-laws because they are family to me too. Benji was blessed to be a member of a large family. I fell in love with his family when we were dating. They are very close knit and I can't wait to bring our child into a home with such a great family all the way around. Our child will be so blessed with awesome grandparents on both sides, some really fantastic aunts and uncles, and several neices and nephews that are all my heart and I love each and everyone as if they were my own.

I am also so thankful for friends who are like family to me. I am so blessed with so many great people in my life and I may not say it, but I would be lost with each and every person in my life. I am so blessed with some awesome friends, that are always honest with me and keep me grounded. Thank you for being an extention to my family, thank you for always being there when I need someone to talk to, and thank you for always supporting me. To one in particular (and I am confident that you know who you are), thank you so much for all the laughs. You have been right there with me through all the ups and downs thus far in our adoption, and you keep me laughing even when I really don't feel like it. Thanks for always being an instant "perk me up". I feel sure that I would have lost my mind by now without you. So thank you for truly being the best friend a girl could ever dream of having.

I am aslo thankful for good health for not only myself but for all my family and friends. There are so many people that are fighting some pretty huge health battles right now. There are some out there fighting for each and every day and their families are just hoping to have a little more time with them. So this day and time, I just can't be thankful enough that myself and my family are so fortunate to be in good health. I pray for those who are not so fortunate every single day.

I am such a blessed individual and I can't thank God enough for all that he has done for me. He has always, without fail, provided for me. I am thankful that he continues to provide for us each and everyday.

Ramblings cont...

So I had finally had a day off Saturday, and it is my last free day until at least mid December. So I took advantage of the day and now my house is almost Christmas ready. There are some Christmas Scrooges out there that will grumble and moan about me decorating so early. But hear me when I say I LOVE CHRISTMAS!! Sorry, but four weeks of Christmas just is not enough in our household, thus we start early. So I have already put out all but two of my Christmas trees (and yes I am the tree in almost every room kinda person), and the house is, for the most part, fully decorated with the exception of the outside. Now I just have one request: "Mother Nature, will you please send us some cooler weather because this 77 degree weather just is not cutting it for my Christmas mood."
Also, I know that I have mentioned it before, but my secret sister at church ROCKS! She is awesome. I just got a beautiful sweater, watch and earrings from her for fall. Also, as she always does, there was a gift for "Baby Rentz". She gave is the cutest little fall plate, cup, and silverware set for our little one. It made my day. I have a nice little collection of things for the baby that my secret sister has already given me. She is really the best!
Oh, yeah and it has almost been one month since our paperwork was mailed. Praise the Lord that I stay insanely busy because otherwise I think that I would have lost my mind by now. I am so thankful that we are in the "waiting phase" because each day that passes means on less day that we have to wait to bring our babi(es) home.
One last ramble...Benji sent me a text a few minutes ago. It read "Ya teb-ya lyoo blyu". HA! For those of you who don't know, that means "I love you" in Russian. So, my dear hubby has been working on his Russian...and that just brought a smile to my face.

My "waiting" rambling shall begin.

So as we are in this period of just waiting, I don't expect to have a whole lot to report. Thus I will be doing random thoughts while waiting.



We recieved our "While you Wait" packet from AWAA the other day. It had suggestions on things to be doing while you are waiting. One of them was to begin preparing you child's room. Wrong thing for them to tell me to do considering I have been buying stuff from the moment that we decided to adopt. I now have a sense of urgency in getting my nursery ready pronto, and hubby dear is having to reel me in a little! I know that it is jumping the gun a little but I am so not a last minute kind of gal. I like things done way in advance. So we have been looking and getting ideas for what we want to do, and I came across a chair that I wanted very bad for the nursery, but it was just a little too pricey for us right now. Benji said that we could go look at it to see if we like it and then we would just start saving for it. When we went to just look at it, there was a floor model (covered in plastic) that they told us we could get for 40% off. So the chair is now in our nursery just waiting on a little one to rock.

I do want to say that I am not one for waiting. Our paperwork was mailed to Russia just two weeks ago and I kid you not when I say that it feels like two years ago. I am the kid that tore the house up looking for my Christmas presents every year. My own husband refuses to give me the combination to his safes because he knows that come Christmas, anniversaries and birthdays, this girl is going to snoop! I do not like surprises! Let me re-word that, do not like surprises that I know are coming. So to know that we will soon be getting the most precious gift in the world, and to not be able to climb in a closet, look under a bed, or crack the code to the safe to see this precious gift isn't going to be easy for me....but I am most certainly up for the challenge:)

Fingers Crossed

Benji and I took off to Atlanta once again yesterday to get the last few corrected forms apostilled. So it is all in the mail to the adoptin agency, who will look over it and then forward it on to Russia for translation. We are hoping and praying that everything is good and it will be forwarded on this time. We both are beyond ready to move past the paperchase and move to the next season...paper pregnant/waiting for a referral!

With God we can weather these storms

The past week has been, once again, a crazy week. We were approached, once again with a domsestic adoption. It was of a baby girl to be born in December. We were hesitant at first because we are so far into our Russian adoption. But then the more that we thought about it, the more that we felt as though we should at least look into this option. From both, the paperwork to the finances, our Russian adoption has constantly hit roadblocks. So we began to think that maybe the Lord was allowing these road blocks because just maybe we were to explore another option. So we did just that and we sent a profile to the birth mother. I'd be lying if I said that we both didn't allow ourselves to become a little excited. Could this be the child that God is sending us? Financially it would be so much easier for us to go this route, plus it would be soon, very soon. We would have our baby by Christmas. We are at a point in our adoption to where we can get a good portion of our money back. Then yesterday, Johnna (our adoption coordinater) called to tell us that she was going to go on and mail our dossier for translation and we'd add the remaining forms later (one form I am having a super tough time getting from the state). This is the point that we have fought to get to for 15 months now. We had to ask her to hold off for just a little bit until we knew a little better what the Lord is calling us to do at this time.
So over the past week, I have tried really hard to seek the Lord. I have spent as much time in prayer and reading my Bible as I possibly could. I found an adoption devotional that I had forgot that I had. In my readings it said that sometimes it is easy to become "child" focused rather than "God" focused when you are adopting. This really ressonated with me because that is exactly what I have done. I have become so focused on getting our child that I have lost sight of seeking God in this.
This morning I recieved an email to inform us that the birthmother decided to go with another couple. I wont lie and say that I wasn't dissappointed, because I surely was. The thought of having our child by Christmas this year was scary yet sssooo exciting. However, I know that God has other plans for us. This was not the path that he wanted us to take. Therefore, he has a much better path out there for us. Could we sit here and get mad that it didn't work out, and could we be mad with the Lord allowing us to stop our focus and have to endure this terrible emotional stress that this situation brought on us? Absolutley! However, we choose to just say "God needed us to hold up for just a bit because the baby that he has for us is just not ready yet." We are willing to wait as long as it takes to get to the baby the the Lord is preparing for us. Someone once sent me something that states "there's always rain before a rainbow". Well we are definately in some rainy weather right now, but that just means that our rainbow is soon to follow!