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HouseOfSmooches
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Name: Sarah
Gender: Female
Interests: Loving Jesus, Spending time with my sweet husband Stephen, Being a mommy, Adoption, Scrapbooking, Home Schooling, Reading, Watching NCIS and Cooking (ok they did not have a spot for "Addictions" so I'm adding my own category: Addictions -- totally addicted to Adoption!)
Expertise: Cleaning up messes!!
Occupation: Stay at home Mommy
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/5/2006
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|  Just some random pictures from our fun afternoon at the park. After what felt like 2 weeks of rain, we finally had a beautiful sunny day…..and it was actually pretty warm too! My camera is on the blink…. .ok, way more than on the blink…..it will barely take pictures worth anything……thus the lack of new pictures on my blog. But I’m hoping Santa delivers early…..a nd a little birdie said he was…….and I can’t wait to see what that jolly fellow brings me.  Enjoying a quick snack  Mr. Crazy eyes
My baby is getting so big!!
No trip to the park is complete without throwing a few rocks into the river
This takes skill and concentration
She finally found a Natalie-size rock that made it to the water! All the other big rocks only made it to the grass.
How many rocks can one little boy throw!
We had a fun afternoon!
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| **See update below!
I don’t do texting. Literally it drives me crazy just adding a contact to my phone’s address book. But I received the following numeric “text” on my white board last week.
And since I also stink at puzzles, I had no clue how to figure out this secret message. Good thing the author of my numeric text was willing to help me out! By the way, the 131.5 at the top has nothing to do with my message.
Actually Stephen has left me several messages on my white board over the past couple of weeks. My favorite was an eye, a heart and a sheep. I thought he was quietly telling me that I should really work on loving my little lambs (kids) that day.....but he was actually saying "I love you" (as in ewe, female sheep). It’s so fun getting surprise messages even if I can’t decode them to save my life!!
***Edited to add: My secret text message said, "I can't wait to see you tonight!"
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I was determined to get some of my 1.5 bushels of apples peeled, cored, into freezer bags and finally into the freezer. Carlos helped me by washing the apples and Jeremiah and Natalie were content to help me by handing me the clean apples, so I could peel and core them. But after so many apples, little hands are tired and little minds are bored, so off they went to play. After a little bit I realized that it was super quiet around the house…..not a good sign. I finished up the apples I was working on as quickly as I could….when all is quiet time is of the essence!! I found my little scalawags diligently working. They were so proud and pleased that they were “helping” mommy.
Sitting on my bedroom floor is a laundry basket filled with neatly folded clothes….waiting very patiently to be taken down to my basement and stored away in the various “clothing size" totes. This job I have been procrastinating on for about 6 weeks (I’m really very ashamed to say that this basket has been in my room that long). But this job ranks right down there with scrubbing the shower! Since I have 4 children there are at least 4 different sizes of clothing in the basket and since two of my children wear different size pants and shirts that will make at lease 6 different sizes in the basket and since I was cleaning out their closet and decided that every article of clothing that was not the correct size should be removed from each closet and drawer……there are probably 8 or 10 different size clothing in that basket. (did I just write a run-on?). Whew, just thinking about opening up 8 or 10 different totes has worn me out!! Now you see why the basket is still sitting on the floor in my room. And let me not forget to mention that the totes are stacked on top of each other and the sizes I need are always on the bottom…..can you explain to me how that happens?!?!?!?
Ok, so back to my darlings. So proud. So pleased. Yep, they have taken those neatly folded clothes and spread them out on my bed and are neatly re-folding them! I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, put a smile on my face and asked, “whacha doing?” Jeremiah happily replied, “we’re folding the laundry for you mommy and we’re doing it so nicely.” And God gave me the grace and wisdom to say, “yes, you are folding the clothes very nicely.” Because indeed for a 2-year-old and a 4 year-old the clothes were folded very neatly!! So in that instant I decided, they were happy, they were helping, they were working (and really the “damage” was already done)….so I let them at it and I returned to my apple freezing project. Working together Natalie and Jeremiah folded laundry for about 30 minutes and I was able to get 12 quarts of apples in the freezer!
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Last week in school we were reading our history read-a-loud book Castle Diary The Journal of Tobias Burgess, and the young page Tobias was observing that “many servants came in to aid” the Lady of the manor. After a minute or two of reading Carlos stopped me and said, “wait mommy, I thought they were eating the Lady of the manor?” It took me a minute to figure out that he heard, “the servants came in to ate the lady….” Thankfully I did not bust out laughing because it was so funny, but I did explain that aid meant to help someone, not eat them!!
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On Monday, Carlos remembered us! And his Special Mother said that every time he heard foot-steps coming down the stairs he would ask if that was “Esteven” coming back to see him! Carlos even offered me one of his cookies, though he asked for it back after I ate it!!! Carlos was very taken with Stephen……he always seemed to migrate to Stephen. We noticed that Carlos was very observant of his surroundings and what was happening. When Stephen stood up from playing on the floor some coins jangled in his pocket. Immediately Carlos asked Stephen for money and said (through the translation of the Special Mom) he wanted to use the money to buy eggs. We were able to spend about 45 minutes with Carlos. I wished it could have been longer, but our flight was leaving soon and we could barely spare the 45 minutes we did stay.
First Family picture with Carlos
Before leaving Hannah’s Hope we signed the paperwork for Carlos’ adoption. The director told us that we should take about a week or so to pray and get council before making a decision. We knew that our boys should remain together in the same family, we just weren’t sure if our family was the right family.
I cried most of our flight home. I loved Jeremiah so much and the thought of giving him up was excruciating. But I was terrified, how I could I be a parent to a 4 year-old AND a baby. Stephen and I had read quite a bit about adoption, about adopting older children, about RAD (reactive attachment disorder) and what we read was very scary. We knew almost nothing about Carlos’ birthfamily and his living situation. We didn’t know how to be parents. We had no idea where the additional finances would come from. But we did know a few things. We knew that God provides. We knew that God is in control. We knew that God had given us a huge heart of love for one tiny baby boy and He could do the same for a little 4-year-old boy.
That first week home was soooooo difficult. Stephen and I decided that we needed to seek council from two or three people and pray. So we told no one else about Carlos. It was so hard! I felt like I could not rejoice and be happy because I was not sure if Carlos and Jeremiah were going to be our sons. Our emotions were so high.
I had just started doing a Bible study with a group of girls from my church. That week we were studying Genesis 24. In this passage Abraham’s servant goes to find a wife for Isaac. As I was reading this scripture the last verses of this chapter were so powerful to me (v. 50-51):
Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, "The thing has come from the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken."
Reading this verse I felt just like Laban and Bethuel. This “thing” (the situation) our son Carlos was from the LORD. Carlos was here before us and we should take him and go (bring him home and make him our son). Stephen and I had many conversations about the circumstances surrounding our trip to Guatemala.
1. We were approved to adopt two children
2. We held out on other possible referrals to accept Jeremiah’s referral
3. Adoptive families usually traveled to Guatemala Thursday/Friday and left on Saturday/Sunday. We found a flight for $350.00 each, but the return flight was on Monday. We decided the extra day was well worth the savings. And because we were in Guatemala on Monday we were able to sign the legal paperwork.
4. Our boys birthmom waited more than a month before making an adoption plan for Carlos. If she had placed them together at the same time we never would have received the referral since we were on the waiting list for one child and many families were waiting for sibling groups.
Stephen and I prayed, separately and together, we received Godly council, we talked and talked. And in the end I could not shake that God was saying, “Carlos is before you, take him and go.” And although God did not use this same verse with Stephen, he too came to the same conclusion. I love what Stephen wrote: “We know that this path will be hard and at times feel nearly impossible, but our God is a great God who holds the universe in His hand and knows the number of hairs on our heads. This idea of adopting two at one time was not our idea (trust us on that one!!), but His and He will guide our footsteps as we venture (or should I say dive) into parenthood.”
Has our dive into parenthood been easy…..No WAY! Would I trade our beautiful Guatemalan born sons……NEVER! Has God been faithful to our family……ALWAYS!
First Family Picture with Jeremiah
A family united!
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