Benji's 3 Rules

Benji has laid down the law! HA! I was cooking supper the other night and in walks my dear hubby. He looks at me and says "I've been thinking..." This immediately perks my interested because he really typically doesn't have a whole lot to say about anything but when he does...you best listen. Come to find out, in his "thinking" he has come up with 3 rules that he says he is going to enforce when we have children. Now do let me say for the record his exact statement was this: "I have been thinking. I have 3 rules that I am going to demand in this house. Everything else is pretty much up to you and what ever you think I'll go with". I have a feeling that his last sentence will come back to haunt him one day:)

So here goes his three rules:

1) Our children will not be allowed to enter the kitchen shirtless. (this is a rule his grandpa enforced with him and he to this day will NOT even so much as walk into the kitchen without a shirt on). Also to go along with this rule he added, hats are not to be worn indoors.

2) One night a week will be family night. As long as our kids are under our roof they will participate in family night.

3) We will do Sunday lunches at home. No eating out for Sunday lunch.

There ya have it...Benji's 3 rules to child rearing! I 100% agree with each one but I have to laugh that out of all the things he wants to enforce, those are the ones that he picks. This, I must say is classic Benji...and I do love that man. However, I think it is quite obvious at this point who will be the disciplinarian and who will not.

The Mockingbird family

Yesterday, as I was headed to work, I noticed something in my driveway. I wasn't paying much attention to it and thinking it was a piece of trash or something, I almost ran smack over it. Then I noticed it was a baby bird. At first I thought it was dead but quickly realized it was very much alive. I sat there for a few minutes wondering if I should pick it up or leave it alone. I truly didn't know what to do with it so I called my bird loving next door neighbor, aka...my mama! She quickly came over determined it was a baby mockingbird. Soon enough a mama mockingbird was looming overhead. My mama felt we should leave it alone and see if the mama mockingbird could get it going. I was headed to work so she said she'd check on it in a little bit, as we knew it wouldn't make it too long on the hot pavement (we are having triple digit weather here in the south I tell ya!). I sat in my car and just waited. I hated to just leave the baby bird and I wanted to make sure that the mama was going to come back for it. Sure enough, in a matter of minutes the mama bird brought her baby a nice juicy worm. The whole time the mama bird was hyper aware of her surroundings, she was constantly looking and watching for danger. She sat there with the baby for a while yet nothing happened. This mama bird flew into the trees but she never a once let her baby out of her sight. I headed on to work hoping the mama could get her baby to flyin'.

Later I talked to my mama who had went back to check on BB (baby bird), she was worried about the hot pavement so she put BB in a shoe box and moved it into the shade. She gave BB some drops of water and BB hopped out of the box and into the bushes. Still MB (mama bird) was looking on.

Later in the evening, we went to make sure BB was ok and we couldn't find it anywhere. However, it was out there because now there was 2 mocking birds standing guard. They were squalking like crazy. Soon enough we realized that mama mocking bird AND daddy mocking bird were guarding BB. These birds never a once left their baby and that mama bird worked her tail feathers off all day long to constantly feed and protect her baby.

We finally found the baby and my mama put it is a strainer and put it in a tree to keep it a little safer. Mama and daddy mockingbird were there the whole time watching on. As soon as we stepped away from the baby, MB was in the strainer with here baby.

So I give you that long story just to say this...parents today need to be more like mocking birds. I see parents all over in public that are barely watching their children. This mama mockingbird NEVER let her baby out of her sight. She was super hyper aware of her surroundings making sure her baby was not in any danger. We live in a world today, plagued by some very scary people. People that will snatch your child up in a skinny minute. Mother's need to be constantly be aware of their surroundings and protect their children at all times. (I say this in light of seeing 2 amber alerts since Monday). Mama's need to fight like the mama mockingbird did to keep their children safe and nurtured. Also, daddys need to be there like the daddy mockingbird. He was right with the mama helping protect his baby. Parenting is a joint effort!

So that is my life lesson from the mocking bird family. The whole thing became such a lesson to me. The mockingbirds should be a model for all parents out there.

I am happy ( hopefully) to report that as of this morning the mockingbird family is gone. We are hoping that means they made it safely back to their home.

A day in the life of Benji and Shanon

In order to not show my increasing frustration with the lack of any feedback/ info on a possible referral, I decided to lighten it up a little. Yes I know that this has nothing to do with the adoption process but at least we are trying to keep our wits about us:)

Benji works about 45 minutes from home. Me, being the worrier that I am, ask that he calls me every morning to let me know he has arrived at work safely. He being the great guy that he is, willingly complies. This morning...he forgot to call. Thus when I see that it was 15 mins after time for him to be at work and I had not heard from him, I began to worry. When I finally got in touch with him, I was, hmmmm.....let's just say not as nice as I should have been. HA! So when I get to work this morning this is what I had in my email:

Hubby: Dear The Love of My Life,

I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize for not calling you this morning when I arrived at work. I have no excuse for forgetting all I can do at this point is ask for your forgiveness.

Love
Benji
(for anyone that knows Benji knows that he is completely being a wise guy)
Me: Dear my not worth a cuss husband,

I am not quite ready to lend you my forgiveness. You have to understand that your forgetting to call not only deprives me of my last little bit of good sleep, and not only does it cause me to panic, it hurts me deeply and emotionally. It can be perceived as a personal attack as if you are saying to me, “You are so forgettable” or perhaps “You are not worth 2 minutes of my morning”.

Love,
your still sulking and trying to overcome the deep trauma that you so caused me this morning, wife

Hubby: OK you win

Me: Your admitting defeat still doesn’t seem to ease the pain.

Maybe a nice home cooked meal prepared my none other than my not worth a cuss husband, on the table when I get home from work, as well as the dishes clean after the food consumption, will help relieve some of my suffering. I know that a completed load of laundry will help do the trick also.

Hubby: What if I bake some of your cakes can we call it even (bear in mind that he has more time off this week than I do and I have way over over extended myself with cake orders this week, and cake money goes into our adoption account so I had asked him earlier if he would do a lot of my baking this week. And note that he is always there to help me bake when I get myself in these binds...it's a common occurence in our home:)

Me: That job was previously requested prior to your infraction. Thus it does not count.

Hubby: OK here is my final offer I will arrange supper for the evening and give you the glory to remain my wife for the rest of your life.

Me: I’d rather be water boarded in a Mexican prison!


You may have to understand our sense of humor to find this humorous.

Patience

Patience is not one of my virtues. However, the Lord is most definately teaching me patience....like it or not, he is forcing me to be patient. We recieved a little "tid-bit" of information over 3 weeks ago. I have not mentioned it on here because we really don't much and it may not even pan out to be anything. We expected to hear more from our agency within a week, but we have still heard nothing. I am trying with all my might to be patient and just continue wait. It is beyond frustrating to know that our children are out there and there is not one thing we can do to get them home sooner. Today marks two years since we recieved our approval from our agency. It has been a long and tiresome two years. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't undo these past two years for anything. I have grown so much in these two year in my spiritual life as well as in my marriage. I have, and am still learning to be patient and wait on the Lord.

Galations 6:9

I must make a confession to begin with. This past weekend was very busy and hectic. Saturday night rolled around and I was so exhausted that I decided that I'd get up early Sunday morning to plan my children's church lesson (which I never do)because I was just running on fumes at this point. Well, anyone who knows me should know that I have trouble getting up early (my friend Hannah can attest to this as she and her family came for a visit and had to come into my room to cut my alarm off because I was sleeping clear through it. Sorry Hannah, Jason, Mollie and Miles:) Thus I say that to let you know that I seriously overslept Sunday morning. So I am running out the door with nothing planned for the kiddos at church. I just grabbed a children's devotional that I have once I got there I just decided to go on what ever page I opened the book to. Again, I never do this...and I am mortified to admit that I did this on this past Sunday. Please rest assured that I do take more care and consideration normally when planning a lesson for our children's church program. So please Pastor, don't fire me:) However, the lesson was on not quitting. The bible verse that it was based on was Galations 6:9 "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." I was very struck by this as the past week was very difficult for us in our adoption. There have been many times that I get frazzled and just want to throw in the towel (and unless you have been down the road of adoption, I'd imagine this is difficult to understand). I almost think that the Lord needed me to get that scripture more than the kids in church.

I never imagined that this would be so tough

We did recieve an unofficial referral Friday. We we very excited at first, however, we began to have a nagging feeling that it just wasn't right. We had until this morning to either accept and see if we could move forward or to decline. We spend the entire weekend in prayer and seeking the Lord's guidance. We spoke to an international adoption specialist, and a pediatrician here. Neither gave us anything over concerning medical wise. Family and friends were all in support and very excited. Still something was just nagging us that this isn't what the Lord is calling us to do. In this situation, we have been in this process for so long it seems and we are beyond ready for something to happen. Emotions are at an all time high. However, we have to make sure that we are not making this decision on what we want because we are growing impatient. We have to make sure that we are still focusing on the Lord and his will...not just our own desires. We had, as of yesterday, pretty much decided to pursue these children regardless of any of our concerns. Even though our minds were there, our hearts just weren't feeling that it is what we were supposed to do. Last night, we were finally able to look at each other and both say that we just had this gut feeling that this is not the path we are supposed to take. As horrible as it may sound, there was an overwhelming sense of peace once we came to that realization, whereas there was no sense of peace when we were of the thought we were going to do this.
At the end of my life, I want nothing more than to hear the words "Well done my good and faithful servant"....I do not want to hear, "You did try to follow me but you still did the things that you wanted to do without hearing me first". It is our prayer that the next referral that we get (and hopefully it will be soon), we will see the pictures and the Lord speaks to us so strongly in knowing that baby/babies are ours. So for now, we continue to wait and seek the Lord.

Father's Day

So Father's Day is fast approaching. Again, I am a few days early but this is the only day that I have to where I can get to a computer before Father's Day. I have a few Father's Day thank you's to give.

To my daddy:

Thank you for being the best daddy that a girl could ask for. You have taught me so much about life and you have pushed me to be the very best person that I can be. One of the biggest gifts that you have given me is your love for your family. You love times when we are all together and you make those moments as often as you can.


Thank you so much for enforcing a good work ethic and independence on us. You have always lived by the saying "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime." You have taught me to "fish" very well. Thank you for always requiring me to work. You never a once let any of us sit back and have a "free ride" so to speak. Thus, you have 3 hard working kids today don't go looking for hand outs, but rather try to hand out to others. Thank you for teaching us to not be burdens on others or to wait on others to do for us. (This all may not make much sense to some but I feel sure that my daddy will know exactly what I am getting at here.)


You raised us all to be financially independent. You have taught me so much about financial security. Now there are some lessons that I will not carry out, I can assure you I will NEVER put water in the ketchup bottle to stretch it, HA! You are extremely financially wise and I hope that I will carry that wisdom with me for the rest of my life.



You have always taught us to work hard and give everything that we do 100%. I am blessed to have parents who have taught me so much about life and how to work. Y'all taught me to cook and clean, you made sure that we knew how to grow our own garden, can our own produce, we can make our own jellies, get up cows, fix fences, and heck...I can even bush hog a field on my own (even though you fight me over who gets to use the tractor. HA!).


Thank you for always being there for us. No matter what we are doing in life, you are always right there pitching in, in any way that you can. You are there with me in everything I do for Kid's Camp, you are right with us when we do catering jobs, you keep our adoption account and the finances there, you have even helped me pipe buttercream roses once when I had so many to do. Thank you for being such a great daddy...there is not a better one out there. I love ya!