Good gifts...

Spinning my tires....

2012-02-09T06:36:00.000-08:00

Do you ever feel like you are so far behind in life that you just can't catch up? That's where I am right now, and I'm exausted. I really really really WANT a simple and quiet life, but for some reason I just feel so BUSY.

I don't want busy. I want simple.

A large part of this I've brought on myself. In an effort to earn money for this adoption I've been working overtime, which actually means I have doubled my time at work over the past couple months. I normally work two 12 hour shifts, but I've been working four 12 hour shifts. Before Ainsley came along I did this every.single.week. Actually, usually five shifts. But times were different then.

Now I have 3 1/2 days to get all the stuff around here done that I used to have 5 1/2 days to do. And in just in the spirit of transparency, I struggled THEN to get everything done, but now, I've all but thrown in the towel. One of my 3 1/2 days I literally just lay around all day (get off at 7:30 am from shift 4/4 in a row and come home to stay with Ainsley all day...), I try to do something fun or play with friends at least part of one of those days for Ainsley's sake, and the rest of the time I'm just spinning my tires at home. Since I've been working so much I've been tired, my husband has been frustrated and my daughter has been NEEDY. Let's just say when a little girl is used to only being away from her Mama around 5 hours a week (other than when she's in bed asleep) and all of a sudden Mama isn't around a LOT more than that... it makes for a very needy and attention starved baby, that makes it next to impossible to get anything done without a crying toddler attached to my leg like a baby monkey.

This is my last weekend of overtime. Starting next week I'm backing down to 3 days per week, which is still full time as opposed to the part time I was doing before. I may or may not continue to do that for a while.

I've realized something these few weeks though.

1) I've tried to convince myself that working so much was me trying to be faithful with opportunities that God has given me to make money for this adoption. However, I now see that maybe what I've really been doing is being self-reliant instead of trusting God to provide. I KNOW that as far as God's concerned, my first priority as a wife and mom is to BE a wife and mom. To serve my husband and my daughter. To nourish relationships with friends so that I can bless and serve them. To be available to serve those around me. It is NOT His will for me to pad my bank account just in case He decides not to provide for this adoption. Our pastor talks a lot about how there is a thin line between being financially responsible in saving and preparing for your future versus worshipping money and the security it provides for your future. I fear I have slipped into this second category in the past several weeks.

2) My main contribution to my family is NOT financial. Folding clothes, mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms, going on playdates, singing ABC's and 123's, reading an incessant amount of books about Minnie Mouse and farm animals, playing on train tables... these are ALL more important than the money. Today, literally THIS morning, I have been praying and asking God to change my heart and my attitude and to show me and to make it real to me that I am not JUST serving my daughter and husband though these tasks(ALL of which I am currently behind on by the way) but that I am FIRST serving God through these seemingly mundane daily tasks. It is for HIM I am working, it is for HIM that I am scrubbing dishes, it is for HIM that I am doing all of these things. At this point in my life, in this chapter, it IS my act of worship.

As it's been said “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” (This quote has been attributed to BOTH Martin Luther, the theologian and Martin Luther King Jr, the civil right's activitst... I don't know which one is right.)

3) Finally, my goal is to remember and to strive for these things for my home and for my family:

OK.... Sorry for the long rambling post... but I need to go now... to go play, to go fold clothes, to go clean toilets... :)

Sometimes....

2012-02-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

I'm such a fruitcake... seriously... just ask my husband... I'm seriously an emotional mess sometimes.

Can I just tell you... 6 months ago I said I think EVERY.SINGLE.PROFESSING.CHRISTIAN needs to adopt.... I know now that that is not totally true. I do know, because of what the Bible says that every.single.professing.christian.NEEDS TO BE A PART OF ORPHAN CARE... but I can tell you one thing... not everyone is cut out for this adoption stuff... this past week I have wondered if I am.

I have NEVER in my life felt such a roller-coaster of emotions.

Sometimes I feel so excited I seriously think my heart might beat out of my chest.

Sometimes I feel so emotional that I just burst into tears.

Sometimes I MISS these 2 kiddos so bad I can't stand it. How is it you can miss someone you've never met? I have no idea, but you can.

Sometimes I'm so overwhelmed with working, mommy-ing, wife-ing, friend-ing, home managing, that I think I must be CRAZY to be seeking out 2 more kiddos... to be a mommy to 3 kiddos under 3!

Sometimes I'm so exausted all I want to do is sleep.

Sometimes I'm SO happy for other families in the journey that I literally jump up and down!

Sometimes I'm jealous of others further in their journeys.

Sometimes I questions God.

Sometimes, ok oftentimes, I am so aware with His love for me and His love for orphans that it's palpable.

Sometimes I feel like us adopting 2 kiddos isn't even a drop in the bucket when considering that there are 147 million orphans in the world.

Sometimes I want to fill our home with like 20 former-orphans, like NOW.

Sometimes I'm scared of what is to come... What if our kids are sick? What if our kids don't bond with eachother? What if they don't bond with us? What if they grow up to hate us? What if we don't come up with the money to do this? What if we have to wait 10 years for a referral? What if, what if, what if?

But there's a bigger what if?

What if God's word is true?

What if God always keeps His promises?

What if God really did call us to this journey?

What if God is as good as He says He is, and is as kind as He has shown Himself to be?

What if God really does love us?

What if God really does love orphans?

"...may the righteous be glad
and rejoice before God;
may they be happy and joyful.

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds;
rejoice before him—his name is the LORD.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families..."

Psalm 68:3-6

So today, I'm going to sing.... I'm going to sing to the One who has all the answers, to the One who holds my wrecked heart, the One who holds our children, both here and in Uganda, to the One who is writing this story.... One day at a time....

Suffering...

2012-02-02T06:09:00.000-08:00

I feel like there are so many people I know right now who are suffering. So many people whose marriages are failing, health is failing, family is feuding, their finances are a mess, they've lost their job, they've lost their children...

I know these things aren't new, maybe I've just been more aware of those around me lately... or maybe these things are just hitting closer to home than normal...

I keep going back to this message in my mind. This was preached a long time ago at our church by one of the assistant pastors on staff at our church. Now he's the lead pastor of a church plan called City Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This guy knows suffering. He goes over it a bit in the sermon. I remember when he and his wife lost their son that my heart was literally aching in my chest and I held my daughter tightly to my chest and literally sobbed for them.

Since my Daddy went to heaven over 14 months ago, I've gone back to this message many times. You know, those times when the sorrow is so heavy you feel like you can't catch your breath. And I remember, that we are waiting...

This issue is one of the biggest reasons people don't believe in Christianity. How can a good and loving God allow so much suffering? How can he allow His children to ache, and bleed, and hurt, and weep... when He could do something about it?

Well let me tell you... He is good. He is loving. He bled for you. He weeps with you....

And guess what.... He DID do something about it.... Something greater than you can imagine...

As my daughter's little Bible (called the Jesus Storybook Bible) says so beautifully.... Jesus came to "make every sad thing become untrue."

Listen while you're eating lunch, listen while you're commuting in the car, listen while you're folding clothes. But whatever you do, just listen....

Why Suffering? from The Summit Church Sermons on Vimeo.

We are...

2012-02-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

number

on the sibling waitlist!!!

We can not pretend...

2012-01-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

"Once our eyes are opened we cannot pretend we do not know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows what we know and holds us responsible to act."

Proverbs 24:12

Image found here

There are over 147 million orphans in the world.

And now you know...

An Awesome Adoption Progress Day in the life of the Rougeux family!

2012-01-28T23:18:00.000-08:00

January 27th was an awesome day in the Rougeux household!! We got 2 pieces of exciting news in one day and I wanted to share the exciting news with you all here!!

Well it all started when I went to check the mail in the afternoon and found an envelope with this label on the front...

And in case you don't know what's in that envelope, let me explain...

As you may remember from a previous post, we had filed with immigration in early December and had completed our biometric fingerprinting with them on December 27th. So, for the past month we've been eagerly checking the mail every day for THIS piece of paper. It's a form called the I-171H and it's our approval from immigration to bring a child to the US for the purpose of adoption! And now that we've got this little piece of paper in our hands...

We.Are.WAITLISTED!!!!!!

Of course, it happened on a Friday and so we should get more details on Monday!

Excited doesn't even begin to explain it!! Matthew and I were talking last night and I was telling him that the closest thing I can relate this feeling to was the anticipation I had when I was pregnant with Ainsley!! That feeling of "Omigoodness-this-is-really-going-to-happen-and-I'm-really-a-mom" feeling. Only instead it's an "Omigoodness-this-is-really-going-to-happen-and-we're-going-to-be-parents-to-three-kids" feeling!

However, we are also freaking out. As you can see by the little fundraising thermometer on the right sidebar we haven't even come close to what we need for our funds for the adoption. I've been working quite a bit of overtime, but unfortunately, one of our cars needed new tires and new brakes, so most of what I've made thusfar got redirected towards that. We are optimistic and excited though. We plan to put our entire tax refund towards our costs, and I will continue to work overtime to earn some money to put towards it. We are so grateful that God has provided different means by which we can earn money to put towards the costs.

So as exciting as it was that we got waitlisted, we got a cherry on top when we received an email from an awesome organization that comes beside adoptive families to help them through the process called Lifesong for Orphans stating that we now officially have established an account with them that will allow us to receive TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donations to our adoption!!

Did you read that people?!?!

TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!!!

We understand that many people are uncomfortable writing checks directly to us, but now if you feel God leading you to donate towards our adoption you can do it directly to our Lifesong account and receive a tax-deduction for your donations!! Lifesong will then disperse the funds as we need them, directly to whomever needs to be paid for the eligible expenses.

There are several ways that you can donate through Lifesong.

(1) You can donate online from a credit or debit card via PayPal. This is a great option that is easy to do from home. Just click on THIS LINK and you will be taken to Lifesong's Donate page. When you scroll down the page a bit you will see this:

To make a one-time donation you can click that orange "Donate" button.However, this next step is VERY IMPORTANT... when you click the orange "Donate" button a new page will open. On that page you will see a light grey window at the top that has 2 areas in which you can type. Above the first, longer area, it says "purpose". In that window you MUST designate the donation towards us. Otherwise the donation just goes to the Lifesong organization itself. To designate your donation to us you must type: "Preference: Rougeux #2607 adoption" Then above the second small area it says "amount" and that is simply where you put how much you would like for your donation to be. Here's an example:

(2) The second way you can donate to our account is by giving monthly donations to be automatically withdrawn from your checking account. You can choose that option on this page. This may be a good option for many people who may want to take an active roll in our adoption, but don't have the ability to give a one-time gift. However, you might not notice $10 or $25 dollars deducted from your bank account each month. You have the option to give $10, $25, $50, $100, or $250 per month via this account. Once again, when choosing this option you MUST type "Preference: Rougeux #2607 adoption" in the window that says "gift preference" for the donation to be applied to our adoption.

(3) The final way you can donate to our adoption through Lifesong is through a good ol' fashioned check sent via snail mail. Please take note: The check itself MUST be made out to "Lifesong for Orphans". On the MEMO LINE of your check you MUST write "Preference: Rougeux #2607 adoption" for the funds to be designated for our adoption. Like this:

You can then send the check to:

Lifesong for Orphans

Attn: Rougeux #2607 adoption

PO Box 40

Gridley, IL 61744

Needless to say, it was a good day and we are super-duper excited to finally feel like things are moving again after over a month of just waiting.

But now we know the REAL wait begins... the wait that we know is the hardest...

just waiting for a phone call...

waiting for an email....

waiting for pictures to come through our inbox of two sweet kiddos...

But wait we will...

because it's worth it...

because they are worth it....

because adoption is worth it all...

"God sets the lonely in families..." Psalm 68:6

Sensory Play

2012-01-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

Hello!!

Well I'm working on a Christmas post (I know it's January, but I give myself at least a month before I start feeling bad about it.... it's just me people, get used to it :) ) but for the life of me I can not find our Christmas pics on our computer, so I'll have to wait until Matthew gets home so he can tell me where he hid them! So for now I'll show you a little project I did for Ainsley earlier this week.

Many of you know I'm really interested in homeschooling. I'm still not positive that it's what we're going to do with our kids, but my frustration with traditional schooling can basically be summed up in the cartoon below and this quote by Einstein:

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability

to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

-Albert Einstein

I was raised in public schools and I have several friends who are teachers who are some of the smartest, most amazing people I know. I'm just not sure I necessarily think that putting 30 kids who all have different strengths, weaknesses, talents and interests into a room and expecting them to all learn the same way is the best way to teach kids to learn.

So I've been casually looking into some different philsophies of learning (which can be applied in any setting by the way, not just homeschooling). I'm a big fan of Classical learning, but there isn't any Classical curriculum for preschool age that I can find. However, Montessori does have quite a bit of recommendations for toddler age. Sensory education is something that is highly recommended by them so I decided to give it a try. So the other morning I made Ainsley a rice sensory box and some homemade playdough (it's just made from normal kitchen ingredients, and since she's so young I would prefer for her to eat something that was made in my kitchen, not in a factory...). You can find a TON of these recipies and ideas on Pinterest, so I'll spare you a step by step here, even though I did take some pictures along the way. However, if any of you are just dying to see how I did it, let me know and I'll post it.

Can I just tell you that these 2 activites have provided HOURS of play over the past several days. Ainsley had her friend Koral over earlier this week and she loved it so much that her mom, Lisa, sent me a text saying she was making one for her daughter as well!! Seriously people... tons of fun! Here's some pics of Ainsley enjoying it!

They were both a huge hit! The play dough has a really nice soft consistency and hasn't dried out at all yet and although the rice is a little messy, it's actually not too bad... She's actually playing with it right now! So take the hour of time and $15 and go make your kiddos these super great, creative and fun activities!! Make it even more fun and allow them to help you make them! It's a great activity for these cold, rainy, wintery days!!!

An Adoption Update...

2012-01-05T21:45:00.000-08:00

Well we are DONE!!

Well, for right now anyways.

We have done all we have to do before being waitlisted.

On Christmas Eve I checked the mailbox, even though I was relatively certain that mail wasn't delivered on Christmas Eve. Apparently I was wrong. In our mail box was correspondence from USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) giving us our appointment for our biometrics fingerprinting, for January 17th! Merry Christmas to us, indeed!

As you may remember from my previous post you don't actually have to go ON your appointment date/time, but you do have to have the paper stating you actually have an appointment to get fingerprinted.Obviously, the USCIS branch was closed the next day, which was Christmas day and happened to fall on a Sunday, and on Monday as well, since that was the day the federal government set aside to "observe" Christmas. So on Tuesday morning we were on our way.

It was impressively quick. We were in and out in less than 30 minutes. The people were very nice. And now all we do is wait to receive our final approval from USCIS and we will be WAITLISTED!

So here we are, waiting.... Technically we are waiting to wait...

Oh my, I seem to be catching a theme here...

Until next time...

So much to be thankful for...

2011-12-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

Since I let Thanksgiving pass before I did a post on Halloween, I decided that I needed to hurry and put up a Thanksgiving post before Christmas came and went!

I am so thankful for so many things this year, and this past Thanksgiving was one of them. I got to spend a week at home which was amazing! It was so great to get to see everyone, but as it always seems, it went by way too fast...

I got to spend one evening with some of my favorite girls and closest friends: Laura, Stacy, Jess and their husbands and kiddos! They're some of my best friends in the world, even if we don't see eachother often... I love them!

While I was home we also spent a lot of time hanging out, cooking, and eating. Heather, Des and I also went Black Friday shopping... Let's just say that the night shift nurse was the wimpiest of them all when it came to staying up all night! hehe. We also went to Christmas at the Zoo and it was beautiful and so much fun! Ainsley of course loved seeing all the lights and animals, and I loved my mug of unlimited hot chocolate, and of course just making fun memories with our family :)

2011 has not been an easy one for our family... but it seems as though it is ending well for most of us. We have much to be thankful for, and a good God who has given us all that we have. It is for Him, for His gift of Jesus, and for the hope we have in His resurrection that we are most thankful. But right under Him, is family... So here is a bunch of pictures of our Thanksgiving in Indy.

Christmas at the Indianapolis Zoo!

I hope your Thanksgiving was as full as wonderful memories as ours was!

Homestudy = Complete... Woo hoo!!

2011-12-12T07:58:00.000-08:00

Well if the title of this post isn't self-explanatory enough... we got our homestudy back one week ago today!! Woo hoo!! The very next day we sent in our application (the I-600a: Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). It was received by them yesterday and now we are waiting for them to let us know they are processing our paperwork, and when they are done they will send us an appointment for our biometric fingerprinting. Funny thing though, although we have to have an appointment to get fingerprinted, we don't actually have to go in on our appointment date and time, we can just walk in whenever. Weird, I know. Then after we get fingerprinted, they will process those and when all of this "processing" is finished they will send us a form called the I-171H, which is the paper that says that we can travel internationally to bring back our children for the purpose of adoption. Without this form we can not travel to go get our kids! When we get through this step with immigration we are FINALLY going to be on the waitlist!!

In the mean time we are starting to apply for grants. We are also in the process of setting up an account with Lifesong through our church that will allow us to receive tax deductible donations. We're not really sure how long it takes to hear back from these, but we do know that sometimes it can take a while... That seems to be the story with most things with this adoption.

Just a note as well. Please do not use our adoption experience as a litmus test for how most adoption processes go. As much as I complain about how long each step takes, the truth is that our process has FLOWN compared to most others we know. Uganda's process seems to be pretty straight forward for the most part. Our adoption agency has been amazing, our homestudy agency was amazing, our social worker was amazing. Basically, when it comes to the people who are actually facilitating this process we have hit the jackpot! We have friends who have been in the process for a year or more and who still are not even on the waitlist, and we know people who have been on waitlists for over a year. So our 3 1/2 months so far, is really nothing compared to the length of the journey many take. However, obviously everything about this is unpredictable, so we never know how long it may take when all is said and done.

Please continue to pray for us, and most importantly, for our sweet kids, all 3 of them!! Please pray that God would provide for this journey. We've already seen His hand in this and we know He has called us to this. I saw this picture on another sweet adoptive family's blog. I love this because it was my Daddy's favorite verse, plus it has provided a lot of comfort through this whole process, and is a reminder when I'm doubting. Maybe that's why he loved it too :)

Thanks for all your support and encouragement along the way!! Thank you to each of you who has donated to our adoption and prayed for us along the way! It means more than you know!!

Happy Halloween!

2011-12-08T10:32:00.000-08:00

Oh, what's that you say?? It's December? Oh, and we've already had one major holiday since Halloween passed. Yeah... I know, I get it... But if there's anything in life I'm good at, it's procrastination. To be honest I just didn't realize I hadn't posted any pics yet of the cutest little "Buzz Buzz" (as she calls bees) you've ever seen... well I guess in this case it would be that you've NEVER seen. I'm all about helping other people and bettering society, and let me tell you... I would be doing the public a great disservice if I didn't post these pictures. Plus, I have to tell you how tough our little cookie was. It was 40 degrees out and raining and she refused to wear a jacket! Because, of course, then she couldn't wear her wings... and that was apparently unexceptable. So even though most bees don't have blue lips, ours did. (Please no hate mail about her catching pneumonia or cold or some other deadly disease.... People get sick from germs, not exposure to cold... check WebMD, they will validate my story!)

Our town opens up all the shops on Main Street on Halloween night and has trick or treating for all the kids, a fun tradition we didn't know about until this year! So for your viewing pleasure...I introduce to you, Buzz Buzz the incredibly cute Bee :)

Pretty darn cute, huh??

Yeah, I thought so too :)

(21 Days of Remembering My Daddy: Day 19)

2011-11-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it is so strange how God works. My Daddy sent out a daily devotional email to thousands of people Monday-Friday for the last several years of his life. It was something he loved doing, and unlike me and this blog, was something he was very committed to.

He passed away sometime in the early morning hours on a Sunday. After I got the call we were quickly on the road on the way home. We got in late, and went to bed shortly after arriving. Sometime in the middle of the night I remember waking up suddenly and reaching for my phone. I opened my email and wanted to re-read what his last devotional was.

He sent this devotional out one year ago today. My hands shake just typing this. Oh my, how one year can change everything. But oh how grateful I am that what he wrote was true, is true and will always be true.
===========================================

Life is for Living

by Pastor Steve Goens

Friday, November 19, 2010

2 Corinthians 4:13:18

I never really struggled with the existence of God. What I did struggle with was His interest in me. While living in Massachusetts I would often lay in bed and pray, "God if you are real and concerned about me, show yourself at the end of my bed." I prayed that prayer, every night, for months and never one time did He show up. Not once!
I thought about those days that I wanted to walk by sight, but since I have walked by faith now for over 38 years I see the blessings, reality and reasons of these verses written in 2 Corinthians 4:13-18. "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
As we begin this extremely brief look at this entire passage let us begin at verse 14. "Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." We are looking for that day that either we die, and will be with Jesus - "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord," or we will be raptured out of this world - "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." We anticipate one of these two things because Jesus was raised up. Death does not end it all!
In verse 15 we learn that "all things are for your sakes . . ." This life is not all about you, however the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf is all about you. Because of His great work, the "abundant grace" produces thanksgiving for the glory of God.
"for which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." We do not quit because things get tough. In fact, the man of God who walks by faith knows and considers these tough times as "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The problems and trials that make one that does not walk by faith, give up, only strengthens the man of faith because he knows that the troubles are temporal but walking with God, day by day, is an eternal walk. For those that are saved, therefore we endure, therefore we fight one more round, not for the temporal, but for the eternal. Our houses are on earth, they are temporal. Our homes are in Heaven, that is eternal. Our presence is on earth, that shall pass away. Our hearts are in Heaven, where we shall forever dwell with our God.

Because He Lives

=============================================

An Update....

2011-11-15T08:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates lately... We've been sort of at a stand-still and I didn't want to update until we knew for sure what was going on. So I won't go into all of what we thought might happen or what the potential delays were, as in any sort of adoption delays are the name of the game in most cases. So I'll just progress to where we are right now, which is actually right on schedule!

Our last homestudy visit was on Sunday the 30th. We survived the walk-through (which was completely painless). Our social worker contacted us yesterday and let us know that she has submitted the complete write up. Now it could take a couple of weeks for our homestudy agency to review and edit it. They will then send the final copy on to our adoption agency, and when they have reviewed and approved it we can apply to US Immigration! Woo hoo!!

The immigration process will take a few weeks, but basically after they receive our application and our homestudy, they will send us an appointment for biometric fingerprinting, run an FBI background check (yes, we will have 2 FBI background checks!) among other things, and then hopefully send us our approval! Upon approval from them we can get waitlisted!!

Oh.my.heavens... I seriously get so excited about this!

Yesterday while I was filling my mommy in on all of this she said I sounded like I was on speed! I'm not, I promise... unless an excessive amount of caffeine counts, then I'm guilty as charged. I just really can not explain to you the level of anticipation. Can I get an AMEN from my fellow adoptive families?!?!

From stalking other adoptive families' timelines it looks like from the time we apply to UCIS to approval can take around 4-8 weeks. So we're looking at the end of January or early February?!?! Of course it can take longer if something gets delayed, which is of course very possible! Matthew frequently reminds me to just take it one step at a time, and of course, he's right.

Finally, I just have to say that our adoption agency is AWESOME! We have been so blessed by their kindness, guidance, and most of all their patience! I have a feeling that adoptive parents are some of the most impatient people in the world and they handle all the questions and calls with such grace. We are so grateful for them!

Please continue to pray for the three of us and for the children God has chosen for us!

(21 Days of Remembering my Daddy: Day 4) One of Daddy's favorite poems

2011-11-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

I've dreamed many dreams that never came true, I've seen them vanish at dawn.
But I've realized enough of my dreams, thank God, To keep me dreaming on.

I've prayed many prayers, when no answers came, Though I waited so patient and long,
But answers came to enough of my prayers To make me keep praying on.

I've trusted many a friend who failed And left me to weep alone,
But I've found enough of my friends to be true To make me keep trusting on.

I've sown many seeds that fell by the way For the birds to feed upon,
But I've held enough golden sheaves in my hands To make me keep sowing on.

I've drained the cup of disappointment and pain And gone many days without song,
But I've sipped enough nectar from the roses of life To make me want to live on.

Author Unknown

(21 Days of Remembering My Daddy: Day 3) Lunch in the Park

2011-11-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder why certain memories are so strong in my mind. Lately I've been thinking a lot about picnic lunches that my Daddy would take me on when I was little. Where I grew up we only had 1/2 day Kindergarten and I was in the morning class. I remember often times after Daddy would pick me up from school we would go through a drive-through and pick up some lunch and he would take me to a park to eat. I don't remember everything about it, but I remember there was a creek, some picnic tables, and lots of birds that I would enjoy tossing food at. I specifically remember there was one week where every single day either my Daddy or I would drop food on ourselves and get it on our shirt (which, by the way, was never unusual for him and still isn't unusual for me to this day) and he would joke and say "We can't take us anywhere!" I still remember the way he would laugh when he would make silly, cheesy "dad jokes" like that one and crack himself up... I actually always thought they were funny too.

I know that some of these memories don't mean anything to pretty much everyone who reads this. However, it's only been a year since he's been gone and I can already feel some memories fading. I'm writing these things down for me... so that I can look back and jog my memory of some of these sweet times that stick out to me. Time just goes so quickly...

FAQ 3: WHY is adoption SO expensive?

2011-11-02T09:16:00.001-07:00

This is a question a LOT of people have... and it's been a while since I've done a FAQ, So I thought I would go ahead and share. I feel like a lot of people, including myself 6 months ago, have the perception that there is someone somewhere getting rich off of international adoptions. The truth is, that's just not the case... at least not that I'm aware of... it is just a very expensive process. So here is the breakdown to where our pennies and nickles are going to be going for the next few months... If you have any questions about what any of the specific charges are about let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to answer it.

Stage 1 lasts 4-5 months, which is the estimated time from application (which was August for us) until being waitlisted which should happen around January and includes:

*agency application fee: 250.00
*NCFA Training : 175.00
*Home Study fees: 1,500.00(+)
*US Citizenship and Immigration Fee: 890.00
*Approval Fee: 2,500.00
---------------------------------------------
Total: $5,315.00

Stage 2 is from January until we get our referral, which averages 3-6 months:

*Passport photos: 20.00
*Passport x2 people (mine is still good, but Matthew's is expired and Ainsley will need one): 120.00
*Placement Fee: 3,000.00
*Orphanage Services Fee (1k/child): $2,000.00
*Lawyer and Court Fee (1st installment, 500/child): $1,000.00
*Fed Ex Fees (for shipping of Dossier): $300.00
--------------------------------------------------
Total: $6,440.00

Stage 3 is due about 2 months after we receive our referral, when we travel to go get them:

*Humanitarian Aid Fee (500/child): $1,000.00
*Round Trip Air Fare x3: $3,000.00-$4,500.00
*Visas to Uganda: $100.00-$150.00
*Lawyer and Court Fee (2nd installment, 2k/child): $4,000.00
*Visa for children at US embassy (120/child): $240.00
*Medical exam for children at US embassy (500/child): $1,000.00
*One-way airfare x2 children (approximately 1k/child): $2,000.00
*Approximate Travel Fees (lodging, food, transportation, etc...): $2,800.00
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Total: $14,140.00-$15,690.00

Stage 4 is after we return home with our children

*Post placement and post adoption service fees: $650.00
*Court report for finalization of adoption: $200.00-$600.00
*Citizenship certificate (550/child): $1,100.00
-------------------------------------------------------------
Total: $1,950.00-$2,350.00

Estimated Subtotal Costs: $27,845.00 - $29,795.00

When looking at these figures remember that many of these numbers are estimates. For instance, we aren't sure exactly what our in country expenses will be once we get there, it may be more or may be less. The cost of airfare is another variable that is difficult to accurately guesstimate. Also, as with anything in life it seems, there are unexpected expenses that pop up here and there. We already had to get an additional background check done by the FBI that we didn't know we were going to need that total cost us $66.00 ($15 per person for fingerprinting and $18 per person for background check).

So that's it... it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to bring 2 orphans into a family. But when looking at the cost Jesus paid to pay for my adoption into the family of God... it just doesn't seem so bad.

(21 Days of Remembering my Daddy: Day 2) Our last conversation

2011-11-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

My Daddy passed away sometime in the early hours of Sunday November 21st. Unfortunately, I hadn't spoken to him on Saturday. I had spent the day going crazy around my house trying to get it ready for guests. He and my mommy were supposed to leave on Monday to drive down here to spend Thanksgiving, along with lots of people from Matthew's side of the family. One of the negative parts about working in healthcare is that unfortunately, people don't stop being sick just because it's a holiday, and Matthew was scheduled to work Thanksgiving, and so we decided just to host as many people as wanted to come at our home. However, I had spoken to him on Friday afternoon. I remember I was driving from our home in Creedmoor to Durham and we talked the entire way. All together the conversation was probably 20-30 minutes long. I wish now that it was longer.

Funny enough, our last conversation was about adoption. There was a little boy in a difficult situation here in Durham and his aunt who is raising him had approached Matthew and I about possibly doing a consentual adoption of this little guy. When all was said and done, she got cold feet and despite the difficulties of her situation is still raising this little boy. However, at the point of our last conversation it actually looked like we might end up bringing him into our home as our son, and that's what I was talking to Daddy about.
I wish I could type here more of the details of our conversation, but doing so would require me to go into more details about the background of the little boy and even though very few of you know who he is, I want to respect his privacy.

Daddy acknowledged how difficult the situation could be, how young Ainsley was at the time, etc... However, he was completely supportive. At one point he stated that sometimes he wishes that some of the adults who did harm to children could have a conversation with him about it in a dark alley. He was joking of course, kind of :) You basically couldn't have much of a conversation with my Daddy without him joking about something. He also joked that if we adopted this little boy (who was African-American) that it would be perfect because between him, Kai(a blonde), and Jake(a red-head) that his three grandsons would be Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry :) I can still remember the sound of his laugh when he said it...
Everytime he would come back from the Philippines he would talk about how much he would love to bring some of the street children there home for us kids to adopt. I think that he would be really excited about our adoption. I've told Matthew that I bet he would have loved to have gone with us and spent some time with us while in Uganda picking the kids up.

I also remember one time when I was younger he was going to have the dark wooden paneling in the church painted white. Someone in the church told him that it was a bad decision because all of the kids' fingerprints would show all over that white paint. He said that all those fingerprints would make it even better!

He truly loved people, and he truly loved kids. It seems like the worse the situation they were in, the more he was drawn to them. The darker the circumstances, the more drawn he was to share with them the light of Jesus.

I'll leave you with this picture someone took of my Daddy last time he was in the Philippines... Now just look at that picture and tell me he wouldn't be so excited about his next 2 grandkids!

(21 days of Remembering my Daddy: Day 1)

2011-11-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

I believe that this was taken the last time I saw my sweet Daddy... we were having lunch before he took us to the airport.

November 21st will mark 1 year since my Daddy first saw his Savior face to face. It is unreal... I'm going to try really hard to post each day a memory of my Daddy and/or a lesson he taught us. He was always very intentional about teaching life lessons at every opportunity. Even as an adult I know very few people who are as intentional in their child rearing as my parents were. The truth is, I think there are probably hundreds of people who could testify to these teachings who were lucky enough to have been invested in by him over the years. I actually didn't write today's post... My brother Todd wrote this 4 days after Daddy died last year. I didn't ask his permission to share this, but I'm going to anyways, and plan to share the other things he wrote as well. I'm also going to see if I can persuade my 2 sisters to share as well, and maybe some others in our family.. Heck.. we may end up with more than 21 days worth between all of us. After all, 4 kids provided a lot of opportunity for life lesson teaching over the years!

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Lessons from my Dad.
by Todd Goens on Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 5:15pm
.

As I am sure that you all know, my Dad, Steve Goens, the author of Life is for Living...Because he Lives, went to Heaven sometime during the early morning hours of November 21, 2010.

While I will not be using this site a lot, as I don't deserve to attach my writings to his name, I wanted to take the opportunity to Thank You for reading his devotionals and for your support over the years and also share a little insight into his life that will perhaps shine a light on him in a personal way and will encourage you in your tough times.

On Tuesday morning of this past week I met a man who told me that he thought my Dad was too tough on me as I was growing up. As I tried to explain to him, I knew how to push his buttons better than most and deserved a lot more of his discipline than he ever gave me. The conversation jogged many memories of teaching moments that I witnessed and was a part of over the years and I thought I would share a few of these today.

When I was in the 8th grade the Bedford Junior High School Cutters traveled south, across the mighty White River to play the Mitchell Blue Jackets for a football game. During the game I got hit very hard and was lying on the field, trying to remember my name, where I was and why I was seeing stars in my eyes, the first voice that cut through the fog belonged to my Dad. He said " Get up boy....Don't let them carry you off the field". He then encouraged me to get back in the game and compete as soon as possible.

When my sister Heather was in the 8th grade, she was exceptionally fast and as a matter of fact, held the Bedford Junior High School record for the 400 meter dash for many years. She still might...maybe someone can check for me. Anyway, on one particular night, Heather was probably 50 yards ahead of her nearest competitor as she headed to the finish line, when she pulled her hamstring and fell to the track. My Dad was standing along the fence and immediately hollered for her to "Get Up!". She got up and took a few more steps and fell again, and once again he yelled "Get Up!" This was repeated 3 or 4 more time as he ran along the fence and encouraged her to finish the race...She finally crawled across the finish line, battered bruised and sore...She still finished third and that 1 point that she earned was enough to be the winning point for her track team on that May evening in 1989.

One night when Julie was in high school, Kris and I drove to Columbus to watch Julie play basketball, and when we got to the game I was informed that Julie had a ankle that was badly twisted and swollen two or three times its natural size and was extremely painful for her to play on, but she was going to try and play that evening. As she warmed up and tried to get ready for the game, we were not sure if she was going to be able to go. When the game started Julie was still stretching her ankle and, as the first Lady Star off the bench, her Coach asked if she was ready and Julie took a deep breathe and jogged out on the court...that's when the unique "Steve Goens, Motivational Heckle" went into full effect. Anybody who ever attended a game with my Dad, knows what it was like. He rode Julie the whole night, telling her she was "Dogging It" and that if she was going to play, she better not let her opponent get the upper hand...he told her repeatedly that her ankle was no excuse.

To the new age, liberal, feel good, cuddle and hug group of people that run the world now, my Dad was much too tough on us in these instances. They would say that he should have stepped in and tried to keep us from further injury and that he didn't show a lot of compassion in these circumstances. He would have laughed at them.

What he taught us in our childhood was that life is tough. Sometimes you get knocked down and all too many times it hurts very bad. There is no shame in feeling hurt or being injured. The shame is in not finishing the race. The shame is in not competing. The shame is in using excuses. My Dad allowed us to "play hurt" under his supervision while we were kids to teach us life lessons that can readily be applied to situations like we face today....It is okay to cry, it is okay to hurt, it is okay to be sad but you have to finish the race and you have to keep competing...Live life to the fullest and Never ever quit....

I love my Dad and thank him for the lessons he taught me
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I loved it the day he wrote it and I love it just as much today. I love you Bubby!
More to come tomorrow...

It’s Fall Ya’ll!

2011-10-26T08:47:00.001-07:00

Fall is my favorite season of the year! By the time September or October rolls around I am craving cooler weather... I am craving a break from the heat that is so smothering in our North Carolina summers...
We have been enjoying this fall so far! Our front door is adorned with a wreath covered in fall foilage. I have baked my husband his all-time favorite dessert, pumpkin pie, not once, but twice! We have spent our afternoons at the park, in the backyard, on walks... Enjoying these last few weeks of perfect weather!
This past Saturday while I was sleeping after a night shift, Matthew took Ainsley to a pumpkin patch with some friends of ours. They picked out some pumpkins for us to decorate and carve at home! Here of some pictures of her cuteness that day!

So now that we had the pumpkins it was time to decorate them! While Matthew got his and Ainsley's pumpkins ready for carving (cutting the top off, or that "hat" as Ainsley calls it, and then gutting it) I set Ainsley up with one of the big pumpkins and some fingerpaints. I got the idea from the Young House Love blog and knew as soon as I saw it that it was something I wanted to do with Ainsley this year. I used duct tape instead of painter's tape just because I had it on hand... but the painter's tape would probably work better. Basically, you just cut the tape into the shapes you want, stick it to the pumpkin, and let the kiddo go at it with finger paints (preferably the washable, non-toxic kind). She had no problems getting excited and digging in! She had a blast... well, until she decided to take a taste of the paint... guess it was pretty nasty because it made her cry... good thing it's non-toxic!

When Matthew was done prepping the pumpkins we washed Ainsley’s hands (and arms, stomach, hair, chest, etc…) and he helped Ainsley carve her first jack-o-lantern! I have to say, it was pretty darn cute, and she had a blast!!

Of course, Matthew and I didn’t miss out on the fun… So here are the carved pumpkins all finished, lit up, and ready for Halloween!!

And our little pumpkin family…

Here’s Ainsley this morning posing with her pumpkins, after the painted one was allowed to dry overnight…

and here’s the other side of the painted one….

I hope that you all have been enjoying this beautiful time of year as much as we have!!

Homestudy update!

2011-10-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Omiheavens people!! We are 2/3's of the way done with our homestudy!! We have had 2 out of the 3 meetings with our social worker so far and only have 1 more to go less than a week away!! So far we have basically just spent a lot of time gathering paperwork and telling her a LOT about ourselves. Where we're from, about our families, our finances, our marriage, our childhoods, our parenting styles, etc.

This coming week she's coming to our house (the past 2 meetings have been at her's) and we'll finish off our interviews and give her free reign to look through our home!!

When we are finished with the homestudy and our social worker finishes the write up we only have 1 thing left to do before being waitlisted. There's a form for US immigration called the I600a that we will have to fill out and we have to get fingerprinted, again. Then, hopefull within a few weeks, they will send us approval and we will be on the waitlist!! I'm guesstimating in my very un-expert opinion that we may be waitlisted by January!!

Are you kidding me!?!?! Holy cow... just typing that gives me goose bumps... seriously...

From then, the average wait time for a referral is 3 to 6 months!! That means that our children are most likely alive right now!! Either in the womb of the precious mother who is carrying them, or even already born! Or maybe they've been around for quite some time now!! We have no idea and the anticipation is making me crazy!!

On that note, please please be praying for our 2 sweet kiddos. We know very little about them, but we know that our Father knows every hair on their head. The little that we do know is that no matter where they are now, that they either have been recently, or will be very soon, orphaned. That they either have already experienced great loss and tragedy, or that they will.

You see, as wonderful of a thing as adoption is... It is only wonderful in the shadow of the tragedy that came before it. In Uganda that is a mother who has or will either lose her life, or who is very scared and overwhelmed with this new little life she's been given, and has or is going to make a life altering and heart breaking decision to give her child up for adoption.

Before a child can be adopted... they must be orphaned... and THAT is heart wrenching.

So please pray for our children. That God will protect them and comfort them, no matter what their current circumstances are.

So anyways... We're coming right along...

1 more day = 1 day closer!!

Thankful

2011-10-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

and Overwhelmed....

That's how we're feeling right now.

We knew when we started this process that it was going to be long and it was going to be expensive.

We've seen God provide for our friends and for other people we've encountered who have taken this journey ahead of us. We were and are confident that He would do it for us as well.

However, the way in which He has provided the most recent chunk of money knocked the wind out of us and brought us to tears.... literally.

Before Ainsley was born both Matthew and I worked in the Emergency Department at Duke. He was a patient advocate, I was working there part time as a nurse on top of my full time position in the MICU. After Ainsley was born I went to part time and stayed in the MICU and Matthew got transfered to another department. However, to say that we both loved our time there and loved the people would be an understatement... seriously. We made friends there who are some of our most trusted here in NC and we really feel so lucky to have gotten the opportunity to build those relationships.

One of our friends we made during our time there is another nurse named Terry. Terry is an awesome nurse and he also takes lunch orders for take out almost every day which makes him and instant friend :) Not to mention Terry and his wife can throw one awesome party. Their house looks like it's straight out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine and they have a "winter solstice" party there every year that everyone looks forward to attending.

Well after Terry heard about us doing the yardsale to raise money for the adoption he and his wife came up with an idea to host a dinner party at their house for 8 people. This dinner will include everything from cocktails to desert, and knowing them, it will be amazing! They decided to raffle off tickets to this dinner to the staff in the ED and give us the money from it!

When we heard about his plan Matthew was speechless and I cried (shocker, I know). It was just so kind, selfless and thoughtful.

Then Matthew comes home last night with an envelope containing $566.00!!

I mean seriously... I'm crying as I'm typing this.

So even though I'm not sure Terry has ever even looked at this blog....

                   Dear Terry and Catherine,
                              Thank you is not enough to explain how much you have touched our hearts with your generosity. Your creativity and willingness to use your gifts and talents as amazing hosts, to open your home, to take your own time and energy all to help us with the costs associated with our adoption is overwhelming to us. To say we are grateful just isn't enough. To show our gratitude we are going to make sure that you both get regular babysitting rights for all 3 kids when we get them home ;) We are thankful for what you have done for us and we are thankful to call you friends.
                                             Love; Matthew, Julie and Ainsley

                   Dear Emergency Department Staff,
                              Thank you so much for all of the encouragement and generosity you have shown us over these past several months. Because of you we had tons of truckloads of goods for our yardsale, and now your participation in the fundraiser by the Kelly's has blessed us beyond what we could ever say. Thank you for your kindess and thank you for your friendships. We love you guys!
                                                               Love; Matthew, Julie and Ainsley

18 Months of Wonderfulness!!

2011-10-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

I wish there was a way to describe how this little girl has changed our life...

I wish I could somehow put into words the joy she brings to our lives every.single.day....

Before you have children others will tell you....
                      "Oh be ready before you decide to have kids because EVERYTHING changes..." (usually NOT said in a positive way)
                      "Forget about sleeping in, or going on dates, or just the two of you because you'll never have that again."
                      "Kids are EXPENSIVE...so be prepared."

The truth is... Ainlsey HAS changed our world. She has turned it completely upside down. We can't do ANYTHING without thinking about her first... We can rarely even go to the bathroom by ourselves unless the other one is around to play with her while we do, and even then sometimes she'll sneak up on us. We have had to watch our finances closer than we ever have, not only because she can be expensive, but also because I cut down from essentially working 2 jobs (1 full time and 1 part time) to only working 1 job part time.

But I can tell you what's also true.... In fact, I would stretch to say its "truer" (I am uncertain if that is actually a word ;) )... Life was good before Ainsley... Life is BETTER with her.

There is NO ONE in the world who is less of a morning person than I am... but I tell you what, when you wake up to chubby little fingers poking your forehead saying "Mama! Mamaaaaaa!!!" and opening your eyes to those sweet cheeks and bedhead in footy pajamas... Ohhhhh... just rip my heart out! Even if it is 6 am (although, admittedly, it is a little bit better when done at 7:15 ;) )

As far as our marriage... Ainsley doesn't take away from our relationship... She adds to it! We get to spend awesome quality time together in the evenings after she goes to bed... I mean, I love sleeping and all, but even I'm not in bed at 8pm when she lays down.

And with expenses... like I said, we have seen a cut in pay and an increase in output, but really, who cares?? Seriously! We have 20 channels on our basic cable and that's just fine... I don't even miss my HGTV if you can believe it! I've had to be much more careful with our groceries and we don't eat out as much... but it does nothing to decrease our quality of life.

Here's some pictures as of lately with our sweet girl!! Be prepared for cuteness overload..... It very well may melt your computer :)

Ainsley and her friend Elizabeth playing in her play house that Grammie and Paps got her!

Ainsley's version of a sandbox I guess!

The whole play area... We couldn't just put it on the ground because our backyard is basically one huge hill... So they had to build a leveled out play area to put her new house and slide on.

She LOVES to slide... word on the street is that this is what she does the whole time in church nursery as well!

The muscle behind all the work!! Matthew and his dad, affectionally known as Paps, worked their tooshies off to make a fun area for our sweet girl!

You should also know that Ainsley is a gifted artist... You can start placing bids on her artwork if your would like! I imagine it will be worth millions by the time she hits kindergarten!

I'm sorry, but is it not adorable how she crosses her feet at the ankles?!?!

Those eyelashes... Those lips.... Those sweet hands.... They slay me....

Precious

I know that all too soon the baby knuckle dimples will be gone... :(

This little girl is more of a gift, and more precious, and more valued than any of those other things could ever be. We take more joy in being her parents than anyone could have prepared us for.

More than all that though... being a "Mama" to sweet Ainsley has given me a very small glimpse into the love that God has for His children. When my heart fills with joy seeing her play with a toy we got her, I'm reminded of the joy that God must have when He sees us enjoy His good gifts (Ainsley being one of those!). When my heart tugs a bit when I see her fall down and hurt herself, I'm reminded of the broken heart of the Father when He sees His children hurting.

I'm also reminded that all over the world there are 147 million children who are orphans who are loved by God. They have no one to tuck them in at night. No one to pick them up when they fall down. No one to buy them toys to play with. No one to crawl into bed with in the morning and wake by whispering "Mama" or "Dada." May God burden the hearts of His people to be mother and fathers to these children.

Yard Sale Update and Prayer Request

2011-09-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Hey! So I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update everyone on how this weekend went. It started off really well but the way it ended has left us with heavy hearts.

The yardsale was a success and we are so grateful for the dozens of people and families who donated to our sale, the many volunteers who gave up their Satudays (and got up at 5am!) and the people who came out on Saturday to show their support and to buy our stuff! It was a LONG process to plan it and the days and weeks leading up to it were exausting. The day itself was a lot of work... but in the end it was all worth it! We were blessed and excited to raise over $3,000.00... $3130.04 to be exact :) So incase you just aren't very good at math... That means that each family (us, obviously, and the Dager's) took home over $1,500.00!!

Woo-hoo!!

Now, I'm not sure if you remember my post from here, but that is exactly the amount we need to pay for our homestudy, which coincidently starts NEXT week!!

God is so gracious in providing for our needs as we have them!!

We have also had donations from 4 individuals and families up to this point totaling another $1,460!!!

That brings our total so far to....$3,025!!

We are humbled.

We are thankful.

We are blessed.

So now on to the part that gives us heavy hearts. One of the amazing volunteers who came out this weekend was Jennifer, Matthew's cousin. Jennifer lives over 3 hours away and she drove all the way here to help on Saturday. Of everyone who was there she probably took the least amount of breaks (if she took any at all) and worked her tooshie off going through PILES of clothes and folding/sorting/hanging them ALL.DAY.LONG. She left our house on Saturday night, I didn't even get to say goodbye, she drove to her sister's house about 45 minutes away to stay the night. On Sunday night when driving from her sister's house to her own she was in a terrible car wreck. She has been in the hospital since and had surgery yesterday. Please please please pray for Jennifer. We love her dearly, and we know that her road to healing may be a long one. Please pray that she has a full recovery and that she can get home and get better quickly!!

Local News Covers our Yardsale!!

2011-09-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

Check it out!!

(If the above video doesn't work go here: http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/video?id=8365911)

3013 PROSPECT PARKWAY, DURHAM

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 24TH

7AM-2PM

3 Days Until Our Big Sale!!!!

2011-09-21T06:07:00.000-07:00

Well after having to delay our yardsale for a month thanks to good ol' Hurricane Irene we are back on for this weekend!!!

3013 PROSPECT PARKWAY, DURHAM

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 24TH

7AM-2PM

This is located in the Brightleaf at the Park Subdivision off of HW 70 between Durham and Brier Creek! When you turn into the main entrance of the Subdivision off of HW 70, take your first right (the pool and playground will be on your right) and follow it ALL THE WAY until the street dead-ends and that's where we'll be!!

We have EVERYTHING you can imagine!! Brand new Xbox Kinect, Brand new Logitech Revue with webcam and keyboard, golf clubs, furniture (tables, chairs, cribs, toddler beds, etc...), toys, clothing for infants-adulthood in all sizes and styles, exercise equipment, TV's, home items and decor, books galore...

We will also be serving some breakfast food items with coffee and water to drink!!
Please come and help support 2 families who are trying to bring children into loving homes! We appreciate it so much more than you can imagine!
And just to wet your appetite for the great deals that will be coming check out these pictures of some of the items we will be selling as well as pictures of my house that has been taken over by yardsale stuff!!!!

We can't wait to see you there!!

Fundraising Stage 1 out of 4: $5,315.00

2011-09-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

So as not to overwhelm ourselves with the financial task ahead of us I have decided to break down our financial needs in 4 stages, and we are obviously, currently in stage 1.

Stage 1 lasts from now until around January and includes:
*agency application fee: 250.00
*NCFA Training : 175.00
*Home Study fees: 1,500.00(+)
*US Citizenship and Immigration Fee: $890.00
*Approval Fee: 2,500.00
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Total: $5,315.00

Now obviously Stage 1 is just a small portion of the money we need to come up to complete our adoption. (You should see Stage 3, it makes me wanna cry..)But my Daddy always told me, "The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time." So, I guess you could say Stage 1 is our appetizer.

I have been brainstorming some ideas for coming up with this money, and I've got a few things up my sleeve...

First, we have the ever-implending yard sale on Saturday, September 24th!! It's going to be at 3013 Prospect Parkway in Durham! We're hoping to get a decent chunk of this first goal that day!

Second, on the right sidebar you'll see a button/link that will lead you to our Just Love Coffee store. This is internationally grown, fair-trade coffee and for every bag you purchase we will get $5 towards our adoption.

Third, also in the right sidebar you'll see a PayPal Donate link and a little widget that looks like this:

That's just to help us keep track of our goal! You can click on either of these links and donate directly via PayPal, if you wish!

When we reach our goal for Stage 1 we'll move into Stage 2. And let me tell you, this mountain just keeps getting steeper. But it's OK. We're trusting God to provide for this adoption he's calling us to. If you want a refresher on the total cost of the adoptions and what we're doing ourselves to come up with this money you can click here to see my previous post about it. We know though that we're not going to be able to do this alone, and we hope that maybe some of you will want to come beside us in this journey and pray about a way you can help us get our children home!

Watch it....

2011-09-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

...and PRAY for
*our children
*our family
*that God would be glorified in this journey and in this story...

Another photograph to wrestle in my head
Another sleepless night on concrete featherbed
These thoughts of you like bullets to my soul
We’ve got to find a way to get you home

I’ll find a way to get you here
If it takes my fleeting breath
Another sunrise hits the ground
And it’s a dark lonely sight
Lightyears away I hope you know
There is somebody searching
For the way to get you here

I will get you here

Throw the clocks away and run out to the street

We’ll fly to distant clouds where it’s just you and me
A day will come when all of this is gone

You’ve got to find a way to believe

I’ll find a way to get you here
If it takes my fleeting breath
Another sunrise hits the ground
And it’s a dark lonely sight
Lightyears away I hope you know
There is somebody searching
For the way to get you here
I will get you here

Close your eyes and dream of a better day with me
As angels hold you tight, may you sleep in peace tonight

So dream, dream, dream my child
Hear the whisperings of hope

(I originally saw this song on the blog of another family here locally who is adopting from Uganda. Go check out Zach and Michelle Miller's blog and read their story!)

A Tale of a Table

2011-09-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Many of you who are close to Matthew and I know that we have dreamt of having a large family for a long time now. Not because we think we can handle it (we don't...), and not because we think it's cool (we don't...), and not because we're trying to make some sort of political or religious statement with the size of our family (we aren't).

We want to have a big family because we believe that God loves children. It's pretty clear throughout the Word that God considers children to be a direct blessing from Himself. In a culture that often-times looks at children instead as a burden, a barrier to a particular lifestyle, an inconvience only to be had "when we're ready" and in quanities only conducive to maintaining the previously mentioned lifestyle... we want to counter the lies of our culture and the lies of the affluence of the "American Dream" (that arguably has turned into a nightmare for much of America).

We want to simplify our lives. Not by becoming empoverished.... but by using the resources we DO have to live a lifestyle that is glorifying to God, not to ourselves. And that means, loving what God loves, which is very simply... people. God loves people, therefore we want to strive to love people. We start in our home by loving Him, loving eachother, and loving children that have and will come into our family both by biology and by adoption.

For that reason I long dreamt of dining tables. I know this sounds silly... especially since God seemingly doesn't care about dining tables. But He cares very much about what a dining table represents... and that is family gathering around it, spending time together. Plus, we would need a new table as the one we have in our kitchen only seats 4 and will be useless once we're a family of 5. My idea was to move our current dining room table (that justbarely seats 6, tightly) to our kitchen. That of course leaves us with an empty dining room, but such is life.

Although I may sound somewhat self-righteous in my above stated views on materialism, let me clarify that I am not! You see, this is one of my biggest struggles. I loved watching HGTV (when we had cable). I love leafing through the pages of home magazines, gazing at the glossy pictures of beautiful spaces. One of my favorite hobbies is looking at home decor blogs. While I certainly don't have desire to drive a mercedes or live in a huge McMansion... I do really enjoy looking at pretty things and spaces. And I believe that is how God made me, and millions of other women! God made us to be homemakers, and part of that is in making a home that is lovely, welcoming and comfortable for our families and our visitors. I do not think it is sinful to like pretty things, I think it becomes sinful when those things are put above the things God loves and values most... which once again, are people.

All that to say... over the past almost 5 years of marriage, everytime Matthew and I would be out shopping or walking through the mall I, ummm I mean, WE (hehe) would love to walk through stores like Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, World Market, etc... We would look at, and sit at huge tables like these and joke about how many kids we could fit around it...

However, all of these tables range in price from around $900 to as high as $2,400. Well, ~~unfortunately~~ fortunately, our pockets aren't that deep. So these tables remained in our dreams and far from our house.

Until one day a few months ago.

This story starts just after we had made the definite switch to pursuing an international adoption and a few weeks before we announced it on this blog.

An unfortunate part about Matthew's job is that he has to work weekends sometimes. The only benefit to this is that he then gets a couple of weekdays off the following week. We usually use these days to do something fun as a family. Well, on one of those days we were driving down a road on our way to somewhere I don't remember when we started approaching one of my favorite thrift stores. It is associated with the Durham Rescue Mission which is a Christian outreach to homeless and addicted individuals in our area.

This place is massive. Matthew decided to be thoughtful and without me even asking he pulled in and as soon as we got out of our car this is what we saw sitting infront of the entry door to the building.

I know it looks a little rough, but I was instantly smitten. I got so excited about this table! I looked all over this thing, determined that although it had been "well loved" (which actually added to the appeal for me, if you look at the above pictures I like the distressed look) it was a solid wood, sturdy table, that did indeed, seem to be as good as it looked. This table is a massive 104" piece that is made to seat 10 people comfortably, without the leaves it's 72" long, seating 8 comfortably. The best part, it was only marked $75.00!! Did these people not know how great of a piece this was?!?!

While we were looking at it a lady who works at the Rescue Mission approached us and asked if we liked the table. We said we did and she went to get the manager. He came up a few minutes later and said if we liked it he would sell it to us for $50! Are you kidding me?!?! At this point I'm about thisclose to freaking out I was so excited! (Those of you who know me well know that this is definitely the type of thing that gets me excited!) We said we'd take it!!

Finally, the cherry on top... When I went to the desk to pay for it the lady told me that they were having a special and if you could present a church bulletin that we would get another %10 off! Luck be a lady, I reached in my wallet and sure enough, folded in there was the previous week's bulletin from our church!

$45 for our dream table!!

I was so excited I couldn't stand it. We took it home and as we were unloading it from the back of our friend's truck I noticed a little something stuck to the bottom of it...

I'm not sure if you can read that, because it was taken on my cell phone (as was the above pic of the table) but it's the original sticker from Pottery Barn!! OH.MY.HEAVENS!

Now I just didn't know what to do with myself.

You see, to me, this isn't a story about a table. It's about a dream that God has placed in our hearts to see a family with many children, from differnt countries with different colored skin and with different stories, all gathered around a table for dinner. It's a about a dream of craft projects, glue sticks and crayons in little hands being worked on at this table. Its a dream of one kid laying on it while the other plays doctor as they use it as a pretend examining table.

Most of all, its about God caring about those little things. Those little desires in your heart, that truth be told, don't mean a lot in the grand scheme of things, but that represent to you, much more. It's about God loving you, and loving me, so much that He takes joy in those little bitty unimportant details like dining tables.

(The above pictures are taken from the webpages of Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and World Market)

FLORIDA!!

2011-09-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

Well this past week has flown by!

I did end up having surgery last Friday. Everything went well... and it took me about 5 days until I was really feeling well again... but I feel back to myself and I am loving that I don't have to worry everytime I eat about whether or not I will have a gallbladder attack. I can easily say the worst part was not being able to pick Ainsley up. I could have others pick her up and hand her to me, but either way, when she runs up to me and puts her arms around my legs, I just want to be able to pick her up and hug her! It was frustrating for both of us, but we're doing just fine now.

The Sunday after my surgery we made the 9 hour drive down to Florida. Some of the people from my side of the family were coming down to go to Disney, so we spent some time hanging out with them and were able to go to the park one day with them thanks to a sweet family member who gave us a ticket for the day! The high-light of the trip for us was getting to see Ainsley meet Minnie Mouse!! Minnie is right up there with Ainsley's other 2 favorite "people" in the world... Bob and Larry! Even though she was a little frightened she warmed up enough to give Minnie a kiss, which was a courtesy none of the other characters got! My mom emailed us a couple of pictures she took on her phone. Hopefully I can add some pictures of the whole crew later!

Ainsley meeting Daisy, you can really see how hesitant she is! Cousins Jake and Avery encouraging her!

With Daddy, meeting Mickey Mouse

Giving Minnie a kiss!

With Daddy and Goofy

Smiling with Minnie!

When God says "Wait"....

2011-08-29T01:20:00.000-07:00

Last week was rough...

I would be lying if I said that I hadn't been stressing out over the upcoming yardsale. My house is a mess. My office and dining room have been taken over with the donations of dozens of incredibly generous donors and families. I find bugs constantly from having the doors propped open so often while bring stuff in and out and walking with dirty shoes from our car to the house and back again over and over.

I hate that most of the hardest and most labor intensive work can't be done until the last minute, making me feel very out of control. I hate the uncertainty of where things will come from, where help will come from.

And then, when I feel like I can't WAIT for this to all be over and behind me... when I'm wishing the days to go quickly so we can just get to the day of the yard sale and be done with it... God says, "Wait."

We knew that maybe this was what he was trying to tell us earlier in the week when the weather reports were showing a huge hurricane headed our way, sure to dump buckets on our area the day we have scheduled for our yard sale. And I prayed... "But God we've already spent the money taking out ads in the newspaper, We've put up flyers all over, We've told everyone we know about this sale! We even had a news crew come out to our house to do a story on it! Father, YOU are bigger than this storm! Move it!"

And He replied, "Wait."

As the week progressed I started to feel under the weather. "I know this is just stress Lord, as we prepare for this sale. I know that YOU love the orphans, I know that YOU are the One who has called us to this journey! God, heal me and move this storm so that we can have this sale!"

And again, He said, "Wait."

Finally, when on Friday morning I end up in the Emergency room and find out that I will be having surgery sometime in this coming week, and when it is apparent that Hurricane Irene isn't going anywhere but straight towards us...

And we finally say, "OK God, we will wait." (Not that we had much choice at that point... haha :) )

I'm not sure why with all that's going on in the world that He was so adament about us not having this yard sale this past weekend. I am unsure as to why He sent a hurricane to NC and me to the ER at such inconvienient times.

But just as I knew before, I still know now... that He DOES love orphans, more deeply and purely and fully than I could ever imagine... that He DID call us to this journey of seeking these children, and not leaving them as orphans, but instead bringing them into our family as loved children.

Does that story sound familiar?

So our new date for our yardsale is September 24th. We still need volunteers and we'll still take your stuff if you have any donations.

In the meantime, my house is still a mess... but it's OK. I still will have to have surgery this week... but that's OK too. Because the truth is, all those things that I mentioned above are merely red tape...
but pursuing the orphan, and using our family to reflect the love the Father has for His children... that is much much more...

We have been accepted!!

2011-08-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

We got the letter this morning!

We have been officially accepted into the Uganda program by Generations Adoptions!

We are working on scheduling our orientation and will hopefully be able to complete that by the end of the week!

We are on our way to our precious and loved little ones!!

DISCLAIMER: These are not our kids, this is just a picture of a set of twins that have been at the orphanage that our kids will come from, and you know, they're just cute :)

On another note, please be praying for our yard sale on Saturday. There is a potential that we could get drenched on Saturday due to Hurricane Irene. Please pray that God would turn her path and that we will have a bright and beautiful Saturday morning to have this sale.

Our God is greater...

FAQ 2: How much is your adoption going to cost?

2011-08-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

**UPDATE 9/12/11- After completing our orientation to Generations and going through the costs line-by-line we have realized that the final cost of the adoption will probably actually be between $28,000-$30,000... Not a huge difference, but we thought we'd cue you guys in!**

So I am back with our second "FAQ" in my little series. To see question 1 go here.

Question: How much does an adoption from Uganda cost?

Answer: Our adoption of 2 children will be roughly $26,000.00.

Yes, that's a lot of money.

Yes, we're kind of freaking out about it.

In reality though, it's going to be OK. It's kind of like being pregnant and birthing a child. It seems so dauting when it's in front of you, and then when you look and see how many people have done it before you... You kind of have to hit yourself and say

"Stop whining, and do what you have to do to get your baby (or babies in our case) home."

The truth is, there are a lot of things we, and seemingly everyone else in this country, spend our money on that is nothing but a waste. We have more stuff than we know what to do with, we have a house that's twice as big as our nation's average household size was 40 years ago, etc... It's all about priorities... and for a while, Ugandan orphans are at the top of our list of priorities!

So what are we going to be doing to get this money together?

*First, we are going to SPEND LESS MONEY! A novel idea, huh? 2012 will be the first year of our marriage that we're not going to be taking a family vacation, except to travel to Uganda of course! We've canceled our cable. We've cut back on our grocery budget, eating out, etc... There's not a single facet of our life that we're not cutting back on.

*Well, I've already mentioned in previous posts that I have picked up some overtime. I plan on doing that some more, in small doses, over the next year or so. Before I did it last time I underestimated the emotional toll it would take on Ainsley, and although she had a great time with her Aunt, after it was all done she had separation anxiety from me worse than she's ever had. After a couple of weeks she seems to mostly be back to her old self, but I'm not going to put her in that position again.

*We are having a HUGE yardsale THIS WEEKEND! We have had a TON of families donate a TON of stuff and this coming saturday is the day! In this process, we too, are purging a TON of our own stuff.
Simplifying + De-stuffing + Raising money for our adoption = Good stuff!

*We will be applying for grants as soon as we get approved for our agency (hopefully this week!) And then there are many grants that we can't apply for until we have gotten our referral.

*More fundraisers! This is where I need YOUR help!! Yes YOU! The ones reading this! What kind of fundraising ideas do you have? I've thought about selling the 31Gifts stuff,

I've heard of flower bulb fundraisers, I've seen some awesome ministries in Uganda that teach impoverished women a trade like sewing and bead making that they then provide for fundraisers.

Leave me a comment here on this post and let me know which fundraisers you think would be best or if you have any additional ideas let me know!! We are willing to consider anything!

*Donations... You know what that means ;)

*Finally, prayer. We know that God loves orphans. We know that God has called Christians to adopt. Therefore, we believe that God is going to provide for this adoption, in some way.

Hope you all are having a great Monday!

17 Months

2011-08-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I have a kid who is 17 months old! How did that happen?

I can't say enough how much we love this little one! She brings more joy to our life than we even knew possible!

At 17 months she is walking and running EVERYWHERE and has in recent weeks learned to climb the stairs (we fought this with every fiber of our being for the past several months!), climbing on our furniture, beds, etc. This new habit is taking an emotional toll on me as just last night I had a nightmare about her climbing out of her crib, out her window and down the side of the house!

Laughing because I caught her climbing on the couch!

She's expanded her vocabulary quite a bit... Words she can say includes...Mama, Dada, Schatzi, Maddie, Nana, Pop, Grammie, Paps, Dog, Cat, Sheep, Duck, Bird, Pig, Cow, Horse, Fish, Goat and all the noises these animals make...Light, Sun, Moon, Eyes, Ear, Hair, Nose, Please, Eat, Pool and Beach.

She can point to body parts including hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, chin, forehead, eyebrows, fingers, toes and elbows.

She still LOVES books and we recently started going to the local library. She also loves swimming, playing in the sand, drawing with sidewalk chalk and mimiking.

Here are some pictures taken in recent weeks!

Schatzi loves her! Well, sometimes :)

Loving on Larry, her best friend :)

Three of her favorite things; her hat, a book and her bike

She has learned how to open our doors

Playing with her twin babies her Grammy got her to get ready for her future siblings from Uganda!

She loves to color!

Talking to her friend, Goofy

Happy Thursday!

xoxo,

Rethink Adoption

2011-08-16T08:12:00.000-07:00
A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to have a guest speaker at our church named Russell Moore. He is an awesome preacher who is kind of famous in adoption circles because of his book "Adopted for Life."

This book with absolutely change the way you look at both the adoption of children and the doctrine of adoption. It will rock your world.

Read this book IF:

*You've ever thought about adoption.
*You know someone who is adopting.
*You are a Christian and have been adopted into the family of God.
*You have ever heard the word adopted.
*You know me or Matthew.
*You are breathing.

Well the message he preached was powerful, to say the least...

As our Campus pastor Danny Franks said that day and then later tweeted:

So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the next 41 minutes of your life and listen to this message...

Dr. Russel Moore - Adopted for Life from The Summit Church Sermons on Vimeo.

xoxo,

Frequently Asked Question 1: Do you plan on having any more children "of your own"?

2011-08-15T09:58:00.000-07:00
To say we've gotten a TON of questions since we started pursing this adoption would be an understatement. I just thought maybe it would be a good idea to address them here. However, the questions require more than a one word answer, so I'll just plan on doing a different post for each of them.

Probably one of the most common responses we get is this:

Question: Do you plan on having any more children "of your own"?

Answer: Before I give an answer, I'm going to address the question itself first.

I know that no one has ill intentions when asking this question, but it can be hurtful to the children and parents in an adoptive family when people use the phrase "your own children." You see, by using those words you are implying that children who are adopted into a family are somehow LESS of a part of that family than those who were born into the family biologically. The truth is, our children who we will adopt from Uganda will be just as much our children as is our precious Ainsley!

The word "adopted" is not an adjective. It is not a word used to describe a member of the family, i.e. "This is Mrs.Smith's daughter Emily and this is her adopted son, Michael."

Instead it is a verb, and it is used to describe how someone came to be a part of a family, IF for some reason it comes up in a conversation, i.e. "These are Mrs. Smith's children Emily and Michael. Emily was born to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Michael WAS adopted." In the imaginary Smith family I've created here, Michael is just as much a child of Mr. and Mrs. Smith as Emily is, they just came into the family by different means.

This may seem like silly verbiage to many, but to the child and his/her parents, this can be huge. Unintentionally, when saying this, people are devaluing the relationship established through adoption.

Our adoption of these children is meant to be a reflection of our adoption into the family of God. The Bible says that those who have accepted Christ have been adopted into the family of God and made children of God. It also says that since we are children, we are joint-heirs with Jesus to the throne of God. Therefore, if God is placing us on a level playing field with Jesus, surely we should do the same when talking about children who were brought into a family biologically and through adoption.

A great way to ask this would be: "Do you plan to have anymore biological children?"

The ANSWER to this question is: Sure! If God blesses us with another pregnancy we will be incredibly excited! We have been very blessed in the fact that, thus far, we have never had any problems with infertility, that we know of. For us adoption is NOT a "plan B." We are passionate about the value of life and of children and that our God cherishes every child and they are each precious to Him. Because of that, we will welcome any child into our family with joy, no matter how they come to us. We don't "plan" pregnancy in our family and we certainly don't avoid it medicinally. If you want to read an awesome post that reflects exactly why we have taken that stand in our marriage read this awesome post by Sharon Hodde.

"the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. Now if we are children, we are heirs- heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ..."
Romans 8:15-16

I hope you are all having an awesome Monday! I'll post another FAQ later this week!

xoxo,

Let the Countdown begin...

2011-08-13T06:33:00.000-07:00
Well it's officially official...

Although in our hearts and with our words we have committed to our adoption from Uganda, we hadn't actually put it on paper yet.

You see, when we had our telephone conference with the representitive from the agency we've chosen she recommended that we have a decent amount of cash at our disposal before starting because in the beginning of the process the fees come quickly.

Well, we immediately kicked it into gear...

First, we arranged for Matthew's big sister, Kimberly, to come and stay a couple of weeks with us so that I could pick up lots of overtime. We are so thankful that she not only watched Ainsley, but that she even cooked dinner for us every night! The fact that we weren't paying for childcare made a big difference for our "net" earnings for those shifts.

Second, we started begging for all of our friends and co-workers unwanted stuff so that we could have a yardsale. We are partnering with the Dager's (who we mentioned here) on this endeavor and hope to raise lots of money to help bring our kids home!

So, on Thursday I got my paycheck from all of my overtime.

On Friday we mailed in our official application to our adoption agency!

Wooo Hooo!!!

And, in case you were wondering... No, that overtime does not cover all of the expenses. However, we're acting on faith that the yardsale is going to be a success to get us to our first fundraising goal for this whole process.

We're so excited to actually be able to say we've put the rubber to the road on this whole process and we're officially on our way to adopting our next two kids.

Please pray for us as we start on this exciting journey! We are so excited and humbled that God has called us to this!

If you want to follow this step by step look over at the sidebar and "Follow" this blog so that you don't miss any updates!

Also, leave us some love by leaving us a comment below! Believe me... it is such an encouragement to actually see and hear that we have people backing us on this endeavor... It's a daunting one and we need all the love, prayers and encouragement we can get!!

Love you all!

Wanna know how good of a blogger I am?

2011-07-26T02:27:00.000-07:00
I just did my post for Easter 2011! That's right people, it's 3 months late. That's just how I roll... a day late and a dollar short as my momma always says :) BUT, I backdated it... That's right, years down the road I want to be able to look back at this blog and think wrongly that I was on the ball :) You can check the post, with a whole lot of pictures of adorable Ainsley goodness here!

Guess who's going to be a big sister?!?!?!

2011-07-23T00:51:00.000-07:00
Or possibly a little sister...

We're not sure yet! Their gender and ages, along with a hundred other details about them will all be a surprise!

But we can tell you what we do know about our next 2 children...

**We know they will have skin much darker than ours...**

**We know they will have sweet dark brown eyes to match their dark skin...**

**We know their hair will be a different color and texture than ours...**

**We know that their story will be one that begins with much loss...**

**We know that there are oceans and mountains, streams and valleys that currently separate us from where they will be/have been born... in an African country called Uganda.**

But there are many other attributes that we also know to be true that are MUCH more important than those things listed above...

**We know that they have been knit together in their mother's womb by the same Creator who knit us in our mothers' wombs and who knit Ainsley together in mine.**

**We know that they are very much loved by their Creator, and have been created in His image, just as we have been.**

**We know that the same Jesus who came to live and die for us, came to live and die for them as well, that they may someday know the grace, mercy and love of the Father.**

**We know that what they need even MORE than an earthly father and mother is to know their Heavenly Father who loves them deeply.**

So that's our news... Our hearts are overwhelmed with excitement and heavy with anticipation for the two Ugandan children that God has planned for our family!

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families..."
Psalms 68:5-6

{All of the above images are not children that we know or that we will be adopting, just random images of sweet Ugandan children found on the internet}

7 years ago today...

2011-07-22T21:58:00.000-07:00
Seven years ago today, on a beach in Florida, my then boyfriend of 3 1/2 months told me for the first time that he loved me and that his intentions with me were forever. He told me he had baggage (oh don't we all) and that he wasn't easy (as if anyone is)...

Seven years ago today I told him that I loved him too. I told him that I, too, wanted forever.

and I've never looked back

Matthew is the man of my dreams... a man with many flaws, but who in spite of them all loves me, loves our sweet daughter, loves our families and loves Jesus. A man who serves me and others. A man who is hard working and kind, frugal yet generous, convicted yet compassionate.

I love you Matthew... I love who you are. I love how much you love Ainsley. I love how much you love both my family and yours. I love how you make an effort to show your love for me in small ways that mean so much. I love how you love orphans. I love how you love "the least of these." I love how you love the addict, the poor, the lost. Most of all, I love how you love Jesus... because I know that the truth is, that all those other things, are merely an overflow of your love for Him.

Thank you for choosing me and for promising to spend the rest of your life with me.

I can't wait

(Us, July 2004)

Friends adopting

2011-07-01T22:39:00.000-07:00
Hey Everyone!!

So I know it's been a long time since I've talked adoption... and I don't think I've ever talked about it on this blog. However, for those of you who know Matthew and I, you know that orphan care and adoption is a huge passion of ours, for more reasons than one. We actually have some news on this front, but we're still not quite ready to let the proverbial cat out of the bag, but I did want to share a couple of quick links for you guys (when I say "you guys" I am talking to the 3 people who read this blog, hehe).

We have been so lucky to be a part of an amazing church that is promoting a "culture of adoption." This is actually a huge part of what drew us to the Summit. Through the Summit we have met 2 awesome couples who are also adopting.

Jeremy and Tori Young were actually our first small group leaders at this church. Although we haven't been in the same group for some time now, we love them and are very excited for where God is leading them. They are moving to Tennessee this month to start a church plant and are also in the process of adopting two sweet children from Columbia. Check out their blog at here.

Jeremy and Julianne Dager have blessed us with their friendship in amazing ways over the past few years. They have a sweet daughter, Norah, who is 4 months older than Ainsley. They are also future church planters, and are in the process of adopting one OR two kiddos from Hondurus. You can check out their blog here.

I would encourage you to read both of their posts on why they're adopting. They echo our motivations and intentions exactly, and may not be what you're expecting.

I'm not sure who reads this or what your situation is... Maybe you aren't sure if adoption is for you and your family, but you can have a huge part in bringing some orphans into loving homes by offering financial or prayer support for these families.

A special First Birthday!!

2011-06-16T21:54:00.000-07:00

The Birthday Girl!

Our little girl celebrated her first birthday at one of her favorite places, with a themed birthday party of her favorite characters, surrounded by her favorite people!

So excited about my birthday!

She had an absolute blast and so did we! You know, except the part where the people from the museum were kicking us out of the room after 59 minutes.... Crazy...

"Do you like my party dress?"

She was lucky enough to have a lot of out of town guests come in for the big day! On the Rougeux side Aunt Julie, Aunt Joyce, Aunt Kimberly, Uncle Guy and Aunt Jen and Grammie and Paps came! On the Goens side Nana, Aunt Agnes, Aunt Heather and Cousin Josie came!

"Why is everyone singing to me???"

She had a Veggie Tales themed party at the Museum of Life and Science! Ainsley loves this place as it not only has a lot of interactive displays, but also a lot of animals and areas to run around and play. We used her stuffed animals, a friend from work was gracious enough to make her adorable cake and the rest of the minimal decorations were just made at home. Here's some pictures of that day!!

"What's with the hat, Mom?"

"Ohhh, if wearing a hat means I get cake, I'll wear a hat everyday!"

Trying her first bite of cake... "hmmm I'm not so sure about this..."

"I don't know which is better, how it tastes in my mouth or how it feels in my hands...."

"How it tastes in my mouth, yes, that is definitely the best part!"

the cake up close

The food and some Decorations

Simple Birthday banner made on the Cricut, next time I would mount the letters on a background"

"I love my new car my Aunt Aggie got me, but it's a little big to push..."

"This is quite a workout!"

"Ohhhh, THIS is how it works!"

Playing in the bath with my cousin Josie!"

"I love my chair my Grammie and Paps got me!"

"It's even big enough for me to share with Josie!"

We had such an awesome time! We're already planning for next year!

Minnie Mouse cake, anyone?? ;)

Well...

2011-05-25T05:38:00.000-07:00
It's been 3 months and lots of things have been going on around chez Rougeux... Mostly involving one sweet little girl who has been doing a whole lot of growing up, and a certain mamma who has been trying to get a handle on things around here.

I remember when I was working 60 or 70 hours a week, especially during my pregnancy, when I just simply could.not.wait to be a stay at home mom. I would literally day-dream about how I would spend my abundant free time, what I would do to "keep" myself busy, etc... I just knew I was going to be blogging and going on play dates every day, scrapbooking all the time, completing all sorts of projects around the house as well as making sure Matthew came home to a beautifully clean house and homemade dinner every night.

Ummmm, yeah.... About that...

So this stay at home mom thing is easily the most difficult job I have ever had. Part of it is purely a personality thing. You see, structure doesn't come easy to me. I think that's part of the reason I love nursing... there is built in structure. These meds, due at these times, assessments at other times, etc... It's pretty easy to stay on track when everything is dictated by protocols. Obviously, there are times when things aren't going according to schedule, but you still have that built in structure to get you back on track when things do finally slow down. With this whole "mostly" stay-at-home mom/wife gig, I just have a to-do list that's a mile long without any procedures or policies outlining how exactly I am supposed to check those things off. Then my compensatory mechanism clicks in: If I can't figure out what to do and how to do it, I just do nothing. By doing nothing I don't mean that I just sit on my bum all day. In fact, I do very little bum-sitting. But instead I just run in circles all day and at the end of the day I haven't completed a darn thing.

Then the conversation happens that I dread on those days:

Me: Hi hunny, did you have a good day at work?
Hubby: Yeah it was fine, How was yours?
Me: Oh it was good, I was just really busy...
Hubby: Oh well that's good, what did you do today?
Me: ummmm..... {{crickets}}

So I've taken the past few months to try to figure these things out and get some structure to my life.

Just like any journey... there are good days and there are bad days.

But I figure there are very few people who in life can do a career switch and be completely proficient and efficient just a year into it.

And if you're one of those people... I would love to hear how you do it. But, if your methods involve skipping sleep or meals or hiring things done... I'm out.

Well I'm off to tackle some items on that infamous to-do list...

Hopefully I'll sit back down soon and put of some pictures of a very cute girl's birthday party, and our family vacation to Charleston.

Until then,

Easter 2011

2011-04-26T01:39:00.000-07:00
Easter was a lot of fun in many ways this year, bittersweet in some others. To be honest the day itself wasn't celebrated too differently than in recent years past. This year Ainsley obviously enjoyed it a lot more than she did at 3 weeks old last year.

But for me it was bittersweet. It had been several years since we had traveled home for Easter... but it doesn't really matter. Every "first" without my Daddy is bittersweet. Even if it's just not being able to talk to him on this day. But, on the flip side, the fact that he's gone this year also makes Easter better.

Strange?

Yes, I know.

Well this is what it's all about, right? The fact that death has been conquered. That for those in Christ, it's only temporary. We too, like Christ will be raised up in a new and glorified body. A body that can't be conquered by illness, fatigue or age.

It's because of this day that I know that my seperation from my Daddy is only temporary. Just like he knew this about those that he loved who had died before him. He would often talk about how he couldn't wait to see his mom and pop. Just as he was my hero, his "pop" was his and I remember just a couple years ago when he got tears in his eyes when talking about how he longed to see him again.

Don't get me wrong. It hurts so badly. Sometimes it just hits me all of a sudden and the wounds feel fresh, like it's the day he left all over again. Sometimes the grief literally takes my breath away, like a weight sitting on my chest.

But then He whispers in my ear, "What have I told you? What have I promised you in My Word? Your Daddy is not dead, in fact, he's more alive than he's ever been."

And this Easter as I stood in a crowd of people, with my hands raised to the One who came and died and conquered death for me, I was overcome with emotion, and tears filled my eyes as I realized that for the first time in his life, my daddy wasn't preaching about the resurrection, but that he was standing in the fullness of it. This easter my daddy wasn't preaching to others about the saving grace of his Jesus, he was looking into the face of his Jesus. This easter my daddy wasn't singing an old song out of a hymnal, but he was singing with choirs of angels and of saints singing "worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory and power and honor forever."

It's a glorious thing to know.

So, in light of those promises and in light of that hope... We celebrated with painting eggs, hunting said easter eggs, and bunny ears :)

----------------------------------------------------

Ainsley had a blast painting the easter eggs, which for her meant dropping them in the cups of food-coloring dye and then putting stickers on them.

I'm sorry but how cute is she sticking her little tongue out the side of her mouth?? Adorable!

This is the face when you ask her to smile :) Cracks me up!

"Close your eyes!"

"Lift your arms up!"

Some of the eggs we created...

Time to hide them!!

Here's our little Easter bunny ready to hunt for eggs!

Needless to say, these eggs didn't last very long. As soon as Matthew snapped this picture she proceeded to bang them together... Oh well!!

She had so much fun!

I hope you guys enjoyed your Easter weekend celebrating the new life we have been given in Christ!

11

2011-02-16T02:01:00.000-08:00
11 months ago, sweet little Ainsley Clementine graced us with her presence, for the first time, OUTSIDE of my womb.

11 months later she is crawling EVERYWHERE.
pulling up on EVERYTHING

and then cruising around any piece of furniture she can find...

and getting into absolutely EVERYTHING!

She is trying ohhhhh soooo hard to learn to walk...

She is eating pretty much everything we give her.... apples, pears, bananas, whole grain cereal, green beans, carrots, peas, peppers, cheerios, grapes, bread, egg yolk, cheese... ummm, as I said before, pretty much anything we give her. You don't think she gets those cheeks from being picky do you?

She is still nursing... I know, I'm practically a hippy.

She loves to dance to music, to clap her hands, to hug your neck as tight as those chubby little arms can hold you, to wave to strangers in Target (or Starbucks, or Harris Teeter, or anywhere for that matter) with BOTH hands simultaneously.

We are so incredibly blessed....

As we do every single day, a hundred times a day.... Thank you Lord for this sweet gift!

We love you Ainsley!!

2011 Resolutions continued... on the Chinese New Year :)

2011-02-02T19:02:00.000-08:00
Ummmm, well I guess you can tell I'm not a professional blogger, huh? See I had full intentions of publishing the rest of my 2011 resolutions by doing the "auto publish" option... Obviously I have a few things to learn :) Ooops! Oh well, let's try this again!! Since today is the Chinese New Year, we'll say these can technically still be called New Years resolutions. Since these were supposed to be published as a few posts over several days I decided to just combine them into one. So if you're interested in knowing what our family is going to be doing for the remaining 11 months of 2011 grab a drink, get comfy and hunker down for a few minutes.

Family/Marriage Goals

I only have one resolution in this category and that's because I feel as though this one thing will affect everything else in my family. And that is to consistently respond to my husband and my daughter with patience, love and grace. In college the church I was involved in went through the DNA of Relationships and a huge part of the focus of that series was that one of the biggest components of any successful relationship is the way you respond to the other person. Not what they do or don't do, or what you do or don't do, because disappointments are a guaruntee in any relationship. However, when you respond with patience, love and forgiveness to those disappointments, the relationship is strengthened. I have a tendency to respond in anger or in self-defense instead of in grace. So I'm going to try to be more intentional about the way I respond to those I love.

My Individual resolutions are very similar, I'm sure, to a lot of other people's.

1) Be healthier. Instead of doing a very specific, hardcore resolution, that I would most definitely break, I wanted to do something broader, and I think better. Instead of saying I'm going to exercise every day, I'm going to try to be more active in general and to exercise several times a week. Instead of going on some unrealistic crash diet, I'm going to try to eat healthier by eating less sweets and carbs and eating more veggies and fruit. We (Matthew's on board with this one) want this to be a lifestyle change and not just something that is short lived, to only breed discouragement.

2) Do my hair and makeup! Well I'm sure to a lot of you, this seems silly. I know this comes so naturally to a lot of you that you don't even have to think about it... but some of us tomboys have to work a little harder at it. My sweet mommy and my sisters do their hair and makeup to go dig in the garden. My goal is to only wear my hair in a pony-tail once a week (except at work, even if I go to work with my hair down, it ends up pulled back in the first hour, it just feels cleaner and tidier to me given the environment I work in). And I will wear at least concealer, blush and mascara every day. Neither me or my husband are into the really "made-up" look, so don't expect to see me grocery shopping in a prom dress or anything... But I've realized that just because I'm a mostly stay-at-home mom doesn't mean I have to spend all day looking like I did when I rolled out of bed. Plus poor Ainsley doesn't deserve to have to stare at my ugly mug all day without some make-up on it :)

3)Be more productive and develop better time management skills. I think that's pretty self-explanatory... It shouldn't take me all week just to clean the house and do the laundry... I've been doing pretty well the past few weeks... I think I'm off to a good start. I want to have all my must-do's done by Wednesday or lunch-time on Thursday so I can...

4) spend time doing things I enjoy. This sounds crazy, but I have a lot of things that I really enjoy doing, that I NEVER make time to do... I always feel like something else needs to be done, or I'm so pooped from work or house work that I crash in my free time instead of doing these things. I love to craft, scrapbook and decorate but I just don't push myself in the other areas of my life so that I have the free time to do these things.

Finally, our Home. Our family has been feeling a bit restless the past year or so and we've decided to move.... but not right away. When? Where? Well we don't know yet... but we do know that we have to sell our house before we can even think about those things. So here's what we're going to be working on around our humble abode before we try to put in on the market, at the earliest in the fall, at the latest, next spring...

1) Purging
2) Organizing and Simplifying
3) Neutralizing
4) Updating

I'll keep you up-to date on these projects as we make progress with them!!

So there you have them... the rest of my New Year Resolutions turned Chinese New Year Resolutions!

Happy February!

2011 Resolutions

2011-01-13T09:11:00.000-08:00
The last couple years I haven't made New Years Resolutions. I figured they were pointless since people rarely keep them anyways. But this year I want a fresh start. I've realized that even when you don't make resolutions, there is something about a new year that makes you feel like you can get another chance. The truth is though, EVERY DAY is a new chance. At least that's what God says...

"The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning.
Great is Your faithfulness.
'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul,
'Therefore I have hope in Him.'"
Lamentations 3:22-24

Because I have a few I've divided them into categories... Spiritual, Family/Marriage, Home, and Individual.

Now normally I wouldn't write these types of things down... You know for the ~~two people who read this blog~~ world to see. However, I figure a little accountability never hurt anyone...

Today I'll just cover the first category... Spiritual. I'll do the rest over the next few days.

1) Spend time ALONE with God, in His word: You see, as a family we do a really good job of reading the Bible and praying together daily... Unfortunately, I've used that as a mental "out" for not having to spend time with God myself. Like any relationship though, intimacy is built by spending that precious time alone. I certainly didn't develop intimacy with my husband in a group setting, and to assume that I can do that with God is just silly.

2) Serve at church: I've pretty much always been involved in serving until I was about halfway through my pregnancy. Now, I need to get back on the horse... a year and a half of just sitting in the ~~pew~~ chairs at church is much too long, and at some point I'm just taking advantage of all the people who ARE willing to serve at our church... Those people who greet us, brew and pour our coffee, seat us, lead us in worship, take care of our daughter, etc... I need to stop taking advantage of them and start serving beside them. I have just volunteered to start working with the Children's ministry at our church, so I'll be starting that again in the next couple of weeks.

3) Finally, Serving individuals: 2010 was a year full of me being on the receiving end of the body of Christ serving eachother at it's finest. We had four amazing baby showers prior to Ainsley's arrival (Thanks to Duke MICU and ER/PVR as well as our small group and my family and church at home in IN). When we had Ainsley we had countless meals brought to our home (Thanks to our amazing small group), visitors to support me in my new role at home(Aaron and Kelly from work!) and family who even cleaned my house and did laundry on their visits (Thanks to my parents and my in-laws!). We have had people volunteer last minute to watch our dogs when we're out of town, and then refuse payment, multiple times(Thanks Kelley and John)! My Daddy's funeral fell on the day before Thanksgiving and my sister's small group from her church all pitched in and made our family an amazing Thanksgiving dinner and brought it to her house for us. And finally, when we returned home we had many people bring us dinner for a couple of weeks (Thanks to the Dagers, the Pecks, the Salazars, the Tomlinsons, the Bowlers, the Lindstroms and Matthew's department at work). We have just been overwhelmed at how others have served us this year. This year I want to be acutely aware of how I can serve others on an individual basis. I've become fascinated with this idea of living life together, and although I'm not really sure what exactly that means yet, I think it starts with being willing to serve eachother.

Alright, well I think that's enough babbling for now... I'll be back to cover the other areas in the next few days...

And now, a complementary picture of Ainsley that has nothing to do with the post, but is just because she's cute :)...You're welcome ;)

It also may be a sneak-peak of an up and coming post...I know you're on the edge of your seats :)

2010 in Review: "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.... Blessed be the name of the Lord"

2011-01-10T11:40:00.000-08:00
Well it's been a while since I posted. Looking back, for a while I had done an OK job at keeping up with posting a few times a month. Then it looks like the end of October we dropped off the planet... Unfortunately, although we didn't in fact drop off the planet, the year didn't quite end on the note we were hoping for.

We were looking forward to hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year. Matthew was going to be on call at the hospital, and so most of his family and my parents were supposed to be coming to stay with us for 5 or 6 days over the holiday weekend. I spent the last couple of weeks of October and the first few weeks of Novemeber cleaning, organizing, etc in preparation for our guests.

The weekend before Thanksgiving Matthew was working and so we went to our church's Saturday night service. I was planning on spending Sunday working around the house and grocery shopping since our guests were going to start getting in on Tuesday.

That morning, as I do most mornings, I called my mom and talked to her while I was making breakfast and packing Matthew's lunch for the day. At 8:30 my mom got off the phone with me, as my Daddy's radio broadcast comes on every Sunday morning at that time and acts as her cue to make sure that he is up and getting ready so as not to be late to church.

At around 9 I got a call that shook my world and changed my life.

Sometime during the night, my Daddy had passed away.

He had fallen asleep reading as he did frequently, and when my mom went to wake him up, he was already gone.

Matthew obviously came home immediately, his brother and sister-in-law came and took the dogs and we drove to Indiana in record time.

The last month and a half have been a horrible roller-coaster. It's a nightmare. My Daddy was an amazing man and an incredible father. I hope to write some more about him and his life later, but I'm just not ready for that quite yet. However, my brother has written some wonderful posts on facebook. I will link to those below.

We had Thanksgiving dinner in Indianapolis the day after my Daddy's funeral. My sister Heather had some amazing friends who made us everything and brought it to us.

Matthew, Ainsley and I traveled to Indiana a few weeks later to try to help my mom get some things around the house done.

We spent Christmas in Florida with Matthew's family... and Ainsley had a lot of fun on her first Christmas.

New Years was pretty unremarkable.

This year it was all pretty different. I'm hoping next year we can enjoy the season a bit more, although I know that for my Mommy, brother and sisters it will never be the same.

2010 was the best year of my life.... It's the year that God gave us our beautiful daughter, the year Matthew and I became a daddy and a mama. Because of Ainsley's entrance into the world we have spent more time with family this year than in years past. We are truly blessed and enormously thankful.

2010 was the worst year of my life, as the year I lost my Daddy.

For the rest of my life I will look back on 2010 with bittersweet memories... the first memories I had with precious Ainsley, the last memories I have with my sweet Daddy.

In spite of all that has happened my entire family has an overwhelming sense of peace, hope and thankfulness. We are so grateful that my Daddy was never sick, never hospitalized, never had to suffer in any way. We are all thankful that my Daddy and our family as a whole never left anything unsaid.... We all knew how much he loved us, and he knew how much he was loved by us. Above all, we're incredibly thankful that we have hope in the gospel of Jesus that not only is our Daddy worshipping at the feet of the One who he spent the past 38 years of his life serving, but that one day we will be right there with him.

We have lots of exciting plans for 2011 that I'll share later. For now, I just wanted to post a quick update.

Hope 2010 ended beautifully for you, that your holidays were wonderful and memorable and that 2011 has started out in a great way.

I'm hopeful that this will be a year of growth, excitement and of growing in our knowledge of who God is and what He has for us.

Links to my brother Todd's notes are below.

"Lessons from my Dad"

"It's a Wonderful Life"

"Christmas in Heaven"

"Wisdom is knowledge in action."

"Nothing matters less than the score at halftime."

Holy Smoke Batman.... it's been 7 months already??

2010-10-21T05:13:00.000-07:00
Well month number 7 has been a busy one for our little pumpkin! As I mentioned in an earlier post she started crawling at about 6 1/2 months,

sitting up on her own the next week

and just in this past week has started pulling up on things!

Oh the terror that fills my heart!!

And I don't mean Halloween terror.... I mean the "Omigoodness, I wonder how much it would cost to suspend everything we own from the ceilings to keep her from getting into it!" If there's a drawer she's trying to open it, a window she's looking out of it, if it has wheels she's moving it (and even if it doesn't have wheels she's moving it), if it has a lid she's taking it off.... Nothing is safe in our house from those sweet little dimpled hands.

Can't you just see the curiosity on that beautiful face?

She's been trying out new foods every 3 or 4 days. I've had to do quite a bit of research on this whole baby making food thing. So I found out there are several things that I shouldn't be making at home until she's at least 9 months including carrots, squash, green veggies (green beans, peas, spinich, etc...) do to the high levels of nitrates in these foods. Unfortunately, squash was the first baby food I made by myself. Our doc reassured me though that if it was made within a couple of days of buying it (fresh produce builds up more nitrates the longer it sits) and frozen promptly that it should be fine. So for now we're doing about half homemade foods and half store bought foods. The store bought pre-made versions of these baby foods have been made at a very high temperature to kill off any nitrates and then tested for nitrate level before processing to ensure they're safe for baby consumption.

So far she seems to be enjoying everything, except homemade apple sauce that is. Weird huh? She puckers her lips and her face looks like I just fed her a pureed lemon! I used Macintosh apples this time, and I just think they're a little too sweet and tart for her. I'm going to try again with some Red Delicious. They seem to be a little less tart than other varieties. Does anyone have any experience and/or recommendations on this for me?

As for homemade foods we've done the above mentioned apples, as well as pears, bananas, winter squash, sweet potatoes and avacados. Store bought foods that she's delighted in are green beans, peas and carrots. She's also getting at least a serving per day of her rice cereal because from what I understand it's one of the best sources of iron for babies... plus she loves it!

Trying squash for the first time.

"Ummmm... I'm not so sure what I think about this mom..."

Not too bad of a variety for her first month of eating food.

If you want to check out some of her seven month cuteness in 2d then take a look at these videos!! (Please ignore my ridiculously high pitched voice in these!! haha)

The very first day Ainsley learned to crawl...

Ainsley eating cereal for the first time!

Sweet little Josie

2010-10-20T12:38:00.000-07:00
I had full intentions of writing this post about a month ago... and then something crazy happened... Ainsley started crawling! So while I've been chasing her around our house and trying to baby proof (I thought I had another couple months!! Is 6 months young to be crawling or am I just a completely naive rookie?!?!) my blog has been growing cobwebs. I guess cobwebs aren't so bad since it's October... keeping with the Halloween spirit and all. Not that I've ever been much of a Halloween person... anyways, I digress... back to the most important news...

Matthew and I are an uncle and aunt times 4 now!! Beautiful Josie Elizabeth Good was born on July 28th, completely healthy and completely perfect!

Her parents, my sister Heather and her husband Mike, didn't find out the gender of the baby this time, so we were all so anxious we could hardly stand it! I was personally very excited that she's a little girl because I think that it will be awesome for Ainsley and Josie to be so close in age, just over 4 months apart. I'm imagining a lot of fun will be had over holidays and visits, and I'm imagining her spending weeks here during the summer with us and vise versa for Ainsley, just like I did with some of my cousins growing up.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to go kiss those sweet cheeks until she was almost 6 weeks old.

Let's just say that with me backing down to part time and a certain little dog needing surgery a whole lot sooner than anticipated, our bank account is looking a little trimmer than it used to. Don't get me wrong... we're so thankful for our wonderful jobs and understand that we're so much better off than so many people... but we just don't have the expendible income we did a year ago to be able to just jump on a plane and go whenever we please. So I picked up a few extra shifts over several weeks and as soon as we saved up the money we caught the first plane outta here to good ol' IND.

Can I just tell you that this precious girl is every bit as edible as she looks in these pictures!?!?! And not only is she edible... but she's quiet... It seemed so odd to us as Ainsley was... well, not. Up until Ainsley was about 10 weeks old, if she was awake, she was screaming. Then from 10 weeks until about 4 months she was only screaming 80% of the time she was awake. Then after 4 months we saw a marked improvement and now she's quite the happy little clam... but little Josie... oh no, she obviously sees no need to cause her mommy to pull out her beautiful brunette locks.... She's a perfect angel. I'm pretty sure in the 3 days we were there I heard her squeak, like twice.

But mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... did I mention that she's edible?

So a BIG OL' CONGRATS to my beautiful sister Heather, her wonderful hubby Mike and big sister and brother Avery and Jake!!

The Good family is even better now and we love you all with all our hearts!!

Maddie status-post surgery

2010-09-23T18:11:00.001-07:00
Last week Maddie finally had her surgery. The surgery itself went really well, per the vet who performed it. Maddie came home with a large cast on her leg, pain meds and antibiotics. The days following her surgery have been rough.

The day after her surgery we had to take her back to the vet, where they kept her for the day to administer fluids, an enema and monitor her urine output (she hadn't voided since prior to her surgery).

Then 5 days following the surgery I had to take her back in because I was seeing some purple bruising around the top and bottom of the cast. I'm glad I did. When they removed the cast to look at it she had such significant bruising from the pressure of the cast that they couldn't put another dressing on.

Unfortunately for Maddie that meant "the cone." You're familiar with it I'm sure... a source of dread for all 4 legged creatures!

We've been having to feed her pumpkin several times a day (a natural laxative) to counteract the constipating effects of her pain meds, feed her dog food to her one piece at a time by hand and give her water to drink out of a cup (the cone makes it impossible to get her head low enough to eat or drink from her normal dog bowls.

She's not allowed to walk on the leg at all except when going to the bathroom for 5 weeks! For those who have spent any time in our house they know that we might as well be torturing the poor dog... As she's probably one of the most playful pups I've ever seen. We're trying to make the crate as comfortable for her as possible since she's spending 24 hours a day in it for 4 more weeks. Plus, the whole family is suffering a bit as she hasn't had a bath since the day before the surgery and our dogs get bathed every week religiously.... pee-ewww.... now I remember why we're so diligent about that. She may be little, but that little dog can carry a lot of stink!

All in all we are very happy that she's doing so well and that the surgery seems to have been a success. We just can't wait until Maddie is back to her normal playful self!!

Ainsley is 6 months old!!

2010-09-11T12:38:00.001-07:00
Well the past few weeks have been busy ones! Kimberly came to visit for a weekend from Myrtle Beach, we traveled to Indiana to meet our newest niece, little Josie, and Maddie had the much dreaded surgery. I'll do a post for each of those over the next couple days.

Last week, however, was a really big deal for Miss Ainsley! She turned 6 months old!!

What is that?!?! You mean EVERYONE doesn't celebrate a 6 month "birth" day?

Well that's just silly... they certainly should, and WE certainly DO!

Ainsley is moving and shaking all over the place! She has discovered that rolling works as a very efficient form of transportation, that Schatzi's hair is very soft and squeezable (poor Schatzi!), and that the weight of her head poses a small challenge as she's learning to sit up on her own.

To celebrate her first 6 months of life, she had her first taste of solid food!! She loves her rice cereal and gets excited between each bite by flapping her little arms and grunting for more! We plan on introducing more interesting tastes and textures this week, starting with green veggies. I'll be making her food for the most part, so say a little prayer for her that I'm a good baby-food chef. We've also introduced sippy cups and have started giving her water to sip on throughout the day. She's not quite sure what to think about those things yet though. For the most part she just enjoys chewing on it :)

She also is having a lot of fun in her baths these days. She's always enjoyed relaxing in her bath, but has just in the past couple of weeks started playing in it. She enjoys splashing in the water as well as eating and batting around her rubber ducks.

Ainsley has grown and changed so much in the past 6 months that it's a little overwhelming. I think though, that Matthew and I have learned and grown almost as much.

We have learned what our parents have been telling us our whole lives about how quickly time flies.

We've learned that each day is precious and is truly a gift.

Through the love that we have for our daughter, we have been given a small glimpse of the love that our heavenly Father has for His Son... and in understanding that, understand a little more what the true cost of His death on the cross had.

We also now can understand a little more the love that the Father has for US as His adopted children.

Finally, we are more and more convinced every day of how undeserving we are of His favor.

We are so incredibly and indescribably THANKFUL for the sweet gift He's given us in Ainsley. These past 6 months have rocked our world and we're looking forward to seeing what He's going to do in the months and years to come.

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Psalm 127:3

Smile Baby!!

2010-09-05T18:35:00.000-07:00
Well a couple of things have changed in our household over the last week or so....

Earlier in the week Ainsley was being fussier than normal. Still happy when we were holding her and playing with her, just a little more needy than normal. She wanted to be rocked longer before being put to bed. She did not enjoy playing by herself in her exersaucer. She was waking up in the middle of the night, which is strange since she's been sleeping through the night since she was around 10 weeks old. She just didn't seem quite herself.

On Wednesday we woke up to find our sweet girl was congested, had a runny nose and a bit of a cough. We just thought she must have caught a bug in the nursery at church. We gave her extra love and attention, put a humidifier in her room and didn't think too much more about it. This was the first time Ainsley has shown any signs of being sick at all, and from what I understand to be almost 6 months old without any illness is a pretty good run!

Well Saturday morning we found a new surprise... Ainsley was cutting her first tooth! Well, it only took this rookie-mama about a week to connect the dots and realize what was going on! Poor girl had been working on that tooth all week! I looked it up and sure enough, all of the symptoms she had can be signs of teething. So I guess it's a good thing that she wasn't really sick, and next time I'll know a little better what to look for!

It shouldn't be too long before the tooth has fully emerged... so say GOODBYE to those sweet gummy smiles and HELLO to those pearly whites!!

Poor Maddie

2010-08-26T17:37:00.000-07:00
Anyone who know us well knows that long before sweet Ainsley came into the world we had two little bitty girls who have brought us a lot of love and joy over the past several years... Meet Schatzi and Maddie :)

I got Schatzi soon after Matthew and I began dating and she was terrified of men. Poor girl would tremble and wet herself everytime any male tried to touch her. Over time, somehow Matthew won her affections and she became his dog. She still loved me, but she would always choose Matthew over me if given the choice.

Since Matthew had stolen Schatzi from me,in 2006 he decided to buy me another dog for Valentine's Day. He chose a sweet little Yorkie pup who we named Maddie.

In the past few years we have noticed that occasionally Maddie will wimper when jumping off of beds or couches and that she also limps on her back left leg. We found out from our vet that she has a birth defect that has caused her to have a luxating patella.

We believe that this may be genetic, as Matthew has a luxating patella on his left knee as well... hmmmm...

Over the past several months the condition has worsened and she is growing increasingly more uncomfortable on her knee as well as having a noticeable increase in the amount of limping on that leg. So poor girl has to have surgery. Normally this surgery costs anywhere between $2000 and $4000 per knee to repair. No matter how much you love your dogs, that's a lot of money. We'd been praying about it and putting it off, knowing we just didn't have that kind of money to spend.

Well God is good even in the small things. Our vet, who previously said they wouldn't be able to do the surgery, has now said that she feels confident that she can perform the surgery. The best part? It's only going to cost us $700.

Don't get me wrong, $700 is still a LOT of money... but it's a lot easier to swallow than $2000.

So say a little prayer for Maddie as she has her surgery in a month or so, and pray for our bank accounts!!

What's for Dinner??

2010-08-21T00:41:00.000-07:00
I have the smallest recipe repertoire of anyone in the world. Seriously, my husband always has joked that sometimes the greatest variation in meals from night to night is the jar of seasoning I use to season the chicken.

The saddest part.... it's true.

Common dinners in our house include grilled chicken with a variety of spices (barbecue, lemon pepper, Italian, etc.), pasta (spaghetti, chicken alfredo) and meatloaf.

So, in my new efforts to become a better wife, mom and homemaker I've been trying to expand my horizons when it comes to cooking. I think a good goal to start off with is to try one new recipe each week.

This week was a very easy Chicken Pot Pie. It was really easy(only took about 15 minutes of prep time) and ended up tasting wonderful! My sweet hubby gave it a grade A! This even reheats really well and made for some great left-overs.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

Start by shredding or cubing a couple of cooked chicken breasts.

Combine the chicken in a casserole dish with 1 can of Cream of Chicken Soup and mixed veggies of your choice. I threw in some frozen corn, peas and a can of drained green beans. Mix it all together well.

In a separate bowl mix 1/2 cup milk, 1 egg and 1 cup Bisquick mix. When mixed well pour over the top of the chicken mixture.

Bake in oven at 400 degrees until biscuit mix on top is a golden brown. For me, this was about 25 minutes.

Give the recipe a try and let me know how it turns out! I hope you and your family enjoy it as much as we did!

Ainsley is 5 months old!!

2010-08-20T23:50:00.001-07:00
It is hard to believe that it was a full 5 months ago that our sweet Ainsley came into this world! She has grown faster than I could have imagined and we are cherishing every single moment....

....every gummy grin
....every drop of drool
....every stain from spit-up
....every coo and cackle

So what is she doing now??

Well, I'm so glad you asked!

She is a proficient roller-over. She can roll from her back to her tummy and from her tummy to her back, although she doesn't do the latter as often.

She's sleeping on her belly, even though we are diligent about laying her down on her back.

She's quite the "scooter." Just incase you aren't up to date on what it means to "scoot," this is the term we have used to dub this pre-crawling activity that she's doing. She can push herself with her legs and pull herself with her arms a good 10-12 inches towards toys, etc... It's very impressive, if I must say so myself.

She's still just eating good ol' breastmilk. She's not exhibiting any of the signs of needing to start on solids, i.e. reaching for or acting interested in our food, still acting hungry after feedings, etc... So we'll probably go ahead and wait one more month before we start her solids. This is ok with us as this is what we were planning anyways. The American Acadamy of Pediatrics recommends six months of exclusive breast feeding. She does however, love to put anything and everything she gets her hands on in her mouth!

She loves to play in her exersaucer and her jumparoo as well as spending time just scooting around on her belly on the floor.

She's babbling up a storm and will frequently try to immitate sounds that you make. This can be very entertaining at times!

She enjoys being read to, especially books with a song-type quality to them, like Dr. Seuss. Our favorite right now is "Oh the Places You'll Go."

She's getting better about allowing other people to hold her and talk to her now as long as mom and dad are around. However, she still gets pretty grumpy if we're out of sight.

She is still holding strong in the 50% percentile for height and weight. She weighed in at 15lbs 6oz at her 5 month weight check appointment.

She's wearing 3-6 month sized tops, but is still in 0-3 month pants and dresses for the most part.

She sleeps for 10-11 hour stretches at night. We start her bedtime around 7pm, followed by time spent in the Bible and prayer time as a family while being fed and then usually gets laid down to sleep by 7:45 or 8pm. She'll usually sleep until between 6-7am. God is good!!

I think I've hit all the highlights.....

We can't wait to see what she'll be doing at month 6!!

We're Baaaaaaack!!

2010-08-18T18:36:00.000-07:00
Call me fickle.... What can I say??

We had switched our "blog" to the below mentioned page. However, after hearing through the blogosphere about some positive changes that blogger has made to their format, and after finding some not so great things about our other site, we decided to come on back to blogger.

I've also decided that I'm going to try to make keeping up with this blog a higher priority. I've come to this decision for a couple of reasons.

1) I've been encouraged to do so, by my husband and some friends who I never even knew actually looked at this thing.

2) I look at the blogs of several of my friends and people who I've met somewhere along the line. I enjoy reading about what's going on in their lives, so maybe someone may be interested in what's going on in our life. We have friends and family all spread out... being so far away makes it difficult to keep up with the day to day "goings-on" in eachother's lives.

3) This is the most important... Ainsley is only 5 months old. These past 5 months have flown by at an incredible pace. We have been blown away by how quickly each day passes and how rapidly she's changing and growing.

I don't want to miss a minute of it.
I don't want to forget a single milestone.

This is an oppurtunity to put into writing the day to day events of our life. Not that we have an "exciting" life, but when we're at the end of our lives, it's going to be these simple, every day happenings that will have defined our life.

I plan on trying to transfer over the posts that I put on our other site to this one, to make it more complete, since that's where I was started writing after Ainsley was born.

So here we go.... I know my husband has promised to hold me accountable for keeping up with the updates. I hope you will too!

We've MOVED....

2010-06-26T00:21:00.000-07:00
... blog locations that is...

our new website is :

http://mjrougeux.shutterfly.com

This new page is great because it can keep our blog, pictures and videos all on one site to make life a little easier!! See you there!

xoxo,
Matthew and Julie

Bun in the Oven!

2009-08-11T09:57:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been a while since I posted... and a lot has changed! No, I'm not talking about a new vaccuum again... We're having a baby! We were very surprised... but THRILLED!!

Today I had my first appointment and first ultrasound. We already think our baby is the cutest in the world!

We thank our wonderful God for this precious gift, and pray that our baby will grow up and will develop a love for his/her Saviour at an early age and will have an unquenchable desire for Him their entire life!

Please pray for us as we prepare to be parents and for the health and safety of our baby!

New Vacuum!!!

2009-04-06T05:30:00.000-07:00
I'm pretty sure that besides myself, my friend Laura and Martha Stewart... no one else gets excited about a new vacuum... It's consumer reports #1 upright and I'm hoping its lifespan is longer than the 2 years of our last vacuum.

.

Coffee mugs and Crayon pictures make me happy :)

2009-03-31T15:18:00.002-07:00
My awesome sis-in-law made me a coffee mug... I love it... notice the similarities between it and the Partridge Family Bus :)

AND

My sweet niece left these works of art on my fridge... Love...

Topol, dogs, guns and tattoos....

2009-03-31T15:18:00.001-07:00
We are SO blessed by having the oppurtunity recently to spend so much time with family!! The week after my family went back to Indiana, Matthew's family came up from Florida! We had a great weekend with them... We were SO surprised when we found out that Kathy (my MIL, for those of you who may not know...) got a tattoo!! Mid-life crisis anyone?? haha... just kidding! It's actually really cute!!

On Friday night we went to see Fiddler on the Roof performed live with Topol on his Farewell Tour! Topol played the lead in the original Fiddler on the Roof, and is now 79 years old! Although he looks as though he's shed a few pounds in the past 40 years...He was even more amazing in person than he was in the movie!

Saturday we went to the state fair grounds and hopped between a dog show (dorkey, I know), a gun show and the flea market (my personal favorite... surprise surprise)...

Here's some pictures from the weekend!

Stellan...

2009-03-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

Please join me in praying for Stellan. He is a precious 5 month old baby boy who has spent the past week or so in the Pediatric ICU. His condition is deteriorating and this sweet child needs all the prayers he can get. Check out his whole story... his Mom, aka MckMama... has been blogging to keep everyone up to date. Pray for her and her husband as well... that our Lord Jesus would comfort them in an incredible and miraculous way.

Please listen the song I have playing as you pray... Nothing is impossible with our good and gracious Lord... and as MckMama herself has said... no matter the outcome... God is still good... and Jesus is the same as He has always been, and we know that there's NO ONE who loves Stellan more than He does.

Reason #1,345,647 that I have the best husband in the world!!!

2009-03-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

1/4 a Century Old.... That's me!!

I just celebrated my 25th birthday and my AMAZING husband and family surprised with a surprise visit from my mommy, sister, sister-in-law, niece and 2 nephews from Indiana!! Matthew even called my manager at work and arranged for my schedule to be changed so that I could spend the week with them!!!

On Sunday afternoon (3/8) Matthew and I were just hanging out after lunch and the door bell started ringing. When I went to answer it found my nephews and niece standing at the door!! Of course, I cried... and then saw my mom, sister and sister-in-law peeking from around the garage!! I was SO happy... then they proceded to tell me about Matthew getting my schedule changed, etc.... This was the best birthday gift possible!! The only thing that could've made it better were if my Daddy, brother and brother-in-law could've come with them!!

We spent a lot of time just hanging around the house, going to museums, parks, and of course shopping at thrift stores!!!

This coming week the Rougeux family is coming to visit!! I can't wait!!

February

2009-03-06T17:07:00.002-08:00
Finally, February was wonderful!! Matthew and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary!! I am SO incredibly lucky to have this man in my life and thank God every day that he gave us eachother and he is the only person in the world with whom I want to grow old!! We celebrated by spending a weekend in a small mountain community here in NC called Hot Springs. It had snowed right before we went, but the weather while were there was perfect!! We loved relaxing by the fireplace and just enjoying the quiet :)

Matthew and I on Max Pointe.... that's TN in the background!

2nd Anniversary is the Cotton Anniversary! So... I got Matthew this shirt :)

Me making lunch in the kitchenette...

Matthew grilling dinner :)

January

2009-03-06T17:07:00.001-08:00

In January I was lucky enough to get to travel home to celebrate my Daddy's birthday! It was a wonderful visit and I got to spend an entire 4 days there! We spent a lot of time just hanging out... any time spent with my family is precious! I only wish there was more of it!! Because I didn't get to spend Christmas at home this year, I had promised my niece and nephews that we would decorate cupcakes when I came home in January (as opposed to the traditional holiday cookie decorating). We had a LOT of fun!! I'm not sure which was better... the decorating or the eating!!

Decorating the cupcakes!!

Nana helping the kiddos!!

Daddy and Mike relaxing :)

my Love, Kai :)

So Precious... Jakey :)

Me and my sweetheart, Avery :)
There are NO words to describe the LOVE I have for these 3 kiddos.... I am SO blessed to have them in my life!!

December

2009-03-06T17:06:00.000-08:00

December was a full month to say the least!!

On December 19th we celebrated Matthew's 25th Birthday!! I wanted to make it extra special for him so I threw him a surprise birthday party!! As anyone who knows my husband knows... Matthew LOVES a good steak. Ever since we moved to NC Matthew has been talking about this brazilian steakhouse that he wanted to go to. So... for his birthday I reserved a special room at this AMAZING brazilian steakhouse called Chamas. I got his birthday cake made at this wonderful local bakery called Madhatter's that's famous for their black and white cakes! It was a wonderful night!! Happy Birthday Babe!!

Make a wish...

The yummy black and white cake!!

One of his friends got him this mouse pad with a picture of Sarah Palin that said "Maybe next time... Happy Birthday" hahaha :)

The Christmas season was wonderful... as it always is. Matthew and I had fun picking out our Christmas tree and wreath for the front door, decorating the house, and of course the gifts :) I had to work on Christmas day, and Matthew was lucky to have family who felt sorry for him and came to visit so he wouldn't have to spend Christmas day alone. Mom and Dad Rougeux, Joyce and Ralph came to visit! It was wonderful! They were so gracious to work with our crazy schedule! We opened all our gifts on Christmas Eve night and then they waited on me to get home to eat Christmas dinner. And just to prove how great their Christmas spirit was... they spent Christmas morning baking goodies and brought them to my unit and the the Emergency department for the people who were working that day! It was incredibly sweet!!
Everyone enjoying a late Christmas dinner...

Dad Rougeux eating Christmas lunch in the cafeteria at Duke :)

Matthew and Joyce

Kathy working on dinner!! yummmy....
Ralph doing what he does best... watch TV! Give him a remote control and he's a happy camper!

November

2009-03-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

Well a LOT has happened since last time I blogged... so I thought I'd do one blog for each month I missed!!

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Indiana this year! It was wonderful to spend time with our family and see those who we don't get to see often. We have SO much to be thankful for! Unfortunately... I forgot our camera... so we didn't get to document the occasion. However, I did steal some pics from my sister's snapfish account :)

So probably the most eventful part of the trip was what happened AFTER Thanksgiving. You see, I come from a long line of very serious, dedicated shoppers... and this means shopping at midnight on Black Friday! Oh goodness.... well I lasted until about 2am... and then I wimped out and fell asleep in the car. I woke up as we pulled into my sister Heather's driveway at 6am... Omigoodness.... 6 hours of shopping!! Well... maybe I'll be more rested up next time :) haha...

My Daddy and Jakey!!

My brother Todd and his wife Kris and their son Kai :)

Avery with Uncle Matthew... she's in love!!

The cooks!! My mommy and my Aunt Agnes!!

I LOVE this picture of Jakey and Mike!! Like father, like son!!

Me and my sister-in-law Kris!!

I love the fall!!

2008-10-30T13:02:00.000-07:00
Well I got some GREAT feedback on my cheap meals post. I was getting emails, facebook messages, etc... of people telling me their hints for cheap grocery shopping and giving me cheap recipe ideas. The best part is some people I haven't talked to in years have gotten in touch with me to share ideas!! One of my favorites though is http://www.grocerygame.com/. I saved almost $40 the first time I went grocery shopping!! One of my friends started it around the same time I did and last week she officially saved more on her grocery bill than she spent!! (Go Julianne!). I also am a new fan of http://www.5dollardinners.com/. Matthew and I have been being really good about our goal of only eating out once a week!! Temptation has been there... but so far we've endured :)

This is one of the recipes sent to me by a great girl I went to high school with!! Jael is an awesome girl raising twins with her husband in my hometown, Bedford!! Check out their webpage: http://www.doddbunch.com/.
{{1 whole roasting chicken
1 large package of frozen egg noodles
In a crock-pot or slow cooker place the chicken. Fill the pot ½ way or ¾ way full around chicken.
Allow chicken to cook until it’s finished. (Each crock-pot and slow cooker varies, so that depends on yours.)
Remove chicken from the crock-pot or slow cooker once it is finished and place it onto a plate. Let cool.
Place the chicken broth from the chicken into the pot you’ll be cooking the chicken & noodles in. (Depending on how much chicken broth you have and how “juicy” you want it to be, you may want to/need to add some water.)
Bring the chicken broth (and water) to a boil. Add the frozen egg noodles to the boiling broth following the instructions on the package. (This may take upwards of 20 minutes, depending.)
While the noodles are cooking, remove the bones and skin from the whole chicken. Tear the chicken into pieces, and gradually add to the noodles.
Season with salt & pepper.
Once you’ve added the chicken, you can let it simmer on medium-low heat for a while, or you can serve it automatically.
I serve mine with mashed potatoes & corn, but you could serve it with whatever you wanted. }}
In other news... fall is here and the last few months have been full of excitement!!

Matthew's family came to visit for his mom, Kathy's, birthday!! We had a blast with them!! Unfortunately Kimberly, Julie and Chad couldn't make it :( We missed you guys!!

Matthew and I also went to the state fair which is one of our favorite things to do every year. Basically we just go and spend too much money on overpriced food. Every year it makes me wonder... is there ANYTHING that they can't deep fry?? I don't think so... But we love to look at all the animals... and walk around and see the exhibits,etc... it's a lot of fun!

Matthew's cousin Tabitha married an awesome fella named Jason and few weeks ago and we got to spend the weekend in Orlando to attend their beautiful wedding!

And also some of my girlfriends started a girls' night once a week!! We're only a few weeks into it but I'm super excited about seeing my friends more often!! I hope this is a tradition we can continue :)

Of course, anyone who knows us well knows Matthew and I are very interested in politics. We are not however the type of people who can't be friends with or have great relationships with people who believe differently than we do. This political season I have found that there are more of those types than I was aware of... of all types of political affiliations. We are huge fans of Sarah Palin and definite supporters of the McCain/Palin ticket!! So we have been to 2 Sarah Palin rallies this fall (John McCain hasn't come close enough to where we live for us for us to be able to go see him :( )

Ok... well I've got to work night shift tonight... Hope everyone is doing well!!

Financial Crisis

2008-09-29T21:57:00.000-07:00
Well yesterday's blog was about money and today's is as well... but this time it's not so much about what's going on in our life. (Although I DO still want the cheap meal suggestions: see my post from yesterday).

This is a time of great anxiety and uncertainty in our country... and for good reason. People are losing their homes, their retirements, savings for their kids' college, etc...

Hopefully, this will also be a time of revival. A time when people can be reminded that building your hope, your future plans, your well-being on anything other than Jesus will most certainly, at some point, fall away and disappoint.

A little encouragement from the Word to remind you of how great our God is.... God will provide.

I Tim 6: 17-19 "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,
storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

Money......

2008-09-29T20:09:00.000-07:00
So Money is on every one's mind right now!! We are no exception! Luckily, we are not in the unfortunate group of people whose lives are being directly rocked by the situation on wall street. It does of course remind us all of the uncertainty of life and make us think more carefully about the ways that we're spending our money and what kind of stewards we're being of what God has given us. It also brings into light the great need that will be arising of those in our community. We've decided to take action. We are going to buckle down on our finances and pray for and look for ways to help those who are struggling around us. Matthew decided the best way to do this was to first become more aware of where our money is going and what we're spending it on. That way we can be more aware of where we're faltering and where we're blowing money that we may not even realize. So Saturday afternoon Matthew downloaded Microsoft Money to our computer and synced it with our bank account, investments, etc.... WHAT A SHOCK!!

We realized that our only frivolous expense is our cable and Internet. However, last month we downgraded both of these and have cut our monthly expense on these things significantly.

But our eyes were opened to where we're throwing our money away at!!!!! Are you ready???

Drum roll please.................

FOOD!! My goodness..... you would think we each weighed 500lbs if you looked at the money we spend on food! Up to this point we were going out to eat twice a week. We would go out once on Friday or Saturday night for "date night," and once after church for lunch. We occasionally get fast food type lunches on the run, or a milkshake for a treat. Boy do those luxuries come with a price when you look at it over the span of a month or two. And the money we had budgeted for food...... we more than doubled!! SO... we are going to take action....

A couple of weeks ago I was on Facebook and the "status" of one of my "facebook friends" caught my eye. It said "looking for more ideas on $7 meals... check out my blog." (Or something close to that....) Well it caught my eye. She's obviously a smart gal and has been coming up with $7 meals for her and her husband!! Well that's one bandwagon that I'm hopping on.

So how are we going to put what we learned in action??

1) We're limiting our eating out to once a week. This has already proved to be difficult, but we succeeded last week... so we're off to a good start.

2) Cut WAY down on grocery bills. This means less snack-type foods to put in our lunch bags, less junk food (which will be good for us anyways), less individually packaged (therefore more expensive) lunch alternatives (AKA my Campbell's sippable soups at $1.67 each instead of regular canned soups at $0.87 each.)

4) Try the $7.00 meal plan (preferably ones that can provide left overs for lunches.)

5) Coupons.... I'm going to try really hard to start using these!! This requires much more organization than my current complete LACK of organization when it comes to planning meals and planning my shopping.

SO this is where I need your help!!!!

Please email me any ideas you have on cheap meal ideas. This can be casseroles, crock pot meals.... whatever!! So please put them in the comment section so anyone who visits can see!!

Thanks!!

So it's been a while.....

2008-07-28T10:10:00.000-07:00
So it's been a while since I've posted. This summer has been super busy for Matthew and I. We have work as always.... but we've also had a lot going on. We started off with a wedding in Sevierville TN in May. My cousin Melissa was getting married and it was a beautiful day and a fun weekend with the family!

In June Matthew's little sister Julie got married to her longtime boyfriend Chad. It was a gorgeous wedding and we had a ton of fun celebrating their day with them!! After the wedding the entire Rougeux family (except for Julie and Chad, obviously) went to Daytona Beach for a few days to relax after all the wedding hub-bub.

A few weeks later we went and spent the weekend with Matthew's brother Guy and his wife Jen. It was a rainy, lazy weekend that was beyond relaxing :) I don't think we left the house the whole time!! haha

Just last week my mom, sister Heather, Aunt Agnes, Aunt Edie, nephew Jake and niece Avery all came for a few days! We had fun shopping, gardening, playing games, etc.... They are such a blessing and we were SO excited to get to spend this time with them!!

We've also been taking advantage of the warm weather and have been landscaping our front yard and painting our living room. The landscaping has been very time consuming but it's been a LOT of fun... we never knew how much fun it would be!!

Check out all our pics below!!!!!!!!! Xoxox, Julie

I'm a hypocrite

2008-05-09T21:21:00.000-07:00
so here's the definition:

Main Entry:
hyp·o·crite
Pronunciation:
\ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English ypocrite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrita, from Greek hypokritēs actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai
Date:
13th century
1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Lately I've been feeling very hypocritical.... now don't freak out on me... I'm not doing drugs, running around behind my husband's back, or anything like that.....

I do however struggle with what it means to live the type of life that I need to be living. I guess I've always thought that for others to know that I'm a Christian is a certain level of accountability. If others know that I'm a follower of Christ then that compels me not to do things that would then be considered contradictory to that confession. We all know however, that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he....." I've been thinking a lot about that verse lately. Back up to my previous post on nakedness.... and understand that I above all others would be deeply ashamed to be stripped spiritually naked. The things I struggle with are innumerable.

In my heart is a deep and abiding love for my Savior, as well as a nearly lifelong struggle to prove that that's not all I am. I like to be liked, I like for people to think I'm funny, interesting, open-minded, intelligent.

I'm none of these things......

I truly am a hypocrite.

I struggle with proving that there's more to me than my faith.... but shouldn't that be what identifies me?? To be a follower of Jesus?

I don't want to be seen as the Bible thumping, close-minded, Christian-music-only, no-swear-language, chaste, cheesy-bumper-sticker, corny-slogan-tee-shirt wearing Christian.....

I also don't want to be the girl who uses popularity or approval from others as the motivating factor behind how I act/speak/work, all while claiming Christ as my Savior.

Some of my struggles include: approval from others, fear of settling/having settled for less than I really want, popularity, discontentment, ingratitude, inferiority complex....

If I say I'm a follower of Christ that would obviously imply that I'm following in His pattern of living... However, looking at the historical and biblical person of Jesus, he was none of these things. He was confident, yet humble. Strong in his convictions and bold in his presentation of these truths. He had no problem confronting, even scolding, his superiors. Yet he also had no problem spending his free time with theives, liars, prostitutes and the sick. He was gentle, but unmovable..... and I am fascinated....

My desire is for my life to be transparent.... To be consistent from the innermost parts of my heart, to the thoughts in my mind, to the actions of my hands, to the steps of my feet.... To be honest, I'm not even sure if this is possible.... I'm not sure if there will ever be a time in my life where I'm not leading a life of hipocrisy to some degree.

I want to treat the patient who is suffering with diseases caused by a life of drug and alcohol abuse with the same respect and love that I do the patient who is fighting a cancer of which had nothing to do with any lifestyle choices of his own.

To give the beggar on the corner the same compassion and mercy that I've experienced through a relationship with the Son of God.

To love, truly and deeply and passionately, the people who God puts in my life.... from my friends, colleagues, patients, etc........

To throw away concerns with fancy kitchens, trendy clothes, nice cars.... and to become obsessed with finding ways to allow God to exhibit His love through me.

We'll see I guess.....

So I realize this post has been 99.9% rambling... but it's my blog and I can ramble if I want to :) But really, I don't really have a good way to end this post.... so just listen to Todd Agnew's "Like Jesus" on my playlist....

I'm out of things to say now.

Pics Lately

2008-05-05T08:08:00.001-07:00
hahaha.... the above is my dad trying to get Heather with whipped cream :)

we seriously took 15 pics and couldn't get a good one... this is the best one.... even though mommy's eyes are closed... we will get a better one next time!
While at home Todd said Coal was ugly..... how can anyone say that puppy is ugly?? hahaha

Nursing...

2008-05-01T23:07:00.000-07:00
I love being a nurse. Knowing what I know now about my career... If I had to go back 6 years and choose a major in college all over again... I would still choose nursing. I just would've worked harder in school! haha.... As most of you know I've been at Duke working in the Medical Intensive Care Unit for almost 2 years now. I love medicine... but I've also worked in almost all of the other ICUs here at Duke for overtime (cardiothoracic surgery ICU, neurosurgery ICU, surgical/trauma ICU) somefrequently and others not as much. Although they're all different... I like where I work the best of all of them, but Ilike ICUs in general. After being approached by the head of the ED about coming to work down there (this doesn't make me special btw... they're in desperate need of experienced nurses and I met this man through Matthew.... he'll take anyone he can get almost...) I have decided to start working down there one shift a week to see how I like it.

I've been sloooooooowly continuing my orientation in the Emergency Dep't. Working 1 shift a week makes this drag on. Towards the end of the day I'm feeling good, getting into a groove, and then it's another week until I'm back in and I feel like I kind of have to start all over each time. It will continue to improve I'm sure... but right now it's slow going. The staff down there has been great to me so far. I'm sure the fact that Matthew is already down there and has become quite popular with the staff helps a lot. I will look forward to the time when people start associating my name with my clinical abilities and not "that new nurse from the MICU, you know, Matt's wife..." I'll be honest though... I'm not sold on the possibility of being cut out to be an ED nurse. Maybe it takes a nurse to understand what drives nurses into the fields they go into..... but try to stay with me for a minute.
There are a few major reasons I went into ICU nursing. 1) I'm extremely detail oriented.... I don't mind having 800 things to do for one really super sick patient. 2) I'm a bit of a control freak (this is new news to me btw... maybe some of you have known it for a while. ..) I've been told by ED nurses that this it's not just me though.... it's a hallmark of ICU nurses. In an extremely unstructured environment like the ED... this can be difficult. 3) I'm a science nerd... AKA I like patients with complicated disease processes and lots of meds and interventions. 4) I like really really really sick patients. ICU nurses live for this. This is what we hope to get every time we come to work. Granted, they do get sick patients in the ED.... but they also get a lot of the "not-sick-they-should've-gone-to-a-Primary Care Practitioner-but-they-either-don't-have-one-or-don't-have-insurance-people"
All these things said.... I'm not sure just how well this is all going to work out. I'm not worried about my skill set or knowledge base.... I'm worried about whether my personality will be a fit. A lot of the ED leadership has been talking to me about coming down full time. There would be a lot of benefits to this.... 1) they pay more.... I work overtime every week and if you're a full time employee of theirs they pay you an extra $10/hr for any overtime you work. This adds up quickly. 2) the scheduling is better. I would be guaranteed all day shifts instead of flip-flopping like I do now. And they have self scheduling which they stick to about 95% of the time..... However, my pros for staying where I am is I love where I work... I like my coworkers, my management, my patient population... I HATE our scheduling (flip-flopping from days to nights) and of course I wish I could make more money. BUT, depending on what I want to do in grad school.... ICU experience is much prefered over that of the ED.
Now that all that's been said, and I've bored most of you to tears.... please be praying for me as I make these decisions. The bottom line is... I need to be where God wants me to be and where I can make the most difference for Him and equip myself for what He has for my future.

Indiana

2008-04-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend we went to Indiana!! Simply wonderful........

I drove in with my friend Jessica. We've grown up together since we were in diapers. She lives in Richmond, VA now so it was pretty convenient for us to drive together. Matthew went to work and left a few hours early and caught a flight to Indy. He beat me there by 4 hours!! That night we stayed at my sister Heather's house. Saturday morning we do that which my family does best... yard sale-ing!! My mom and I drove down and met up with my wonderful aunt Agnes and spent the morning driving around in the rain... we found some great deals by the way :). We went back to aunt Agnes and uncle Dennis' house and had brunch, yumm-o! Biscuits and gravy, sausage, bacon, eggs, etc..... Todd, Kris and Kai, Heather, Mike, Jake and Avery, Diana and Mason all came over as well. (We missed you Daddy, Adam and Matt!!)

That afternoon I met up with my friend Laura and we drove together to go to Stacy's baby shower!!! She and Jeremy are having a little girl to be named Emmalynn Michelle. Afterwards Laura, Stacy, Jess and I all went out for dinner. I can't even tell you how much I love these girls.... We've been through it all together... school, puberty, first boyfriends, first kisses, college, jobs, weddings, and now babies!! Their friendships have been such a blessing through the years!

Sunday everyone who was able was there for church and lunch. After lunch everyone left, including Matthew (he had to fly out that afternoon), and I got to spend the rest of the day with my mommy and daddy!!! This was and always is wonderful!! This was especially special since my daddy flew out to the Phillippines for 17 days yesterday. I'm glad I got to see him before he went. Please be praying for his safety as he travels and that his trip is successful.

I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it is to be able to see everyone at home. Words can't even describe how much I miss everyone... I love you guys!!

Life...

2008-04-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

So lately I'm wondering when my life will slow down.... I'm beginning to think this is it.... but I've decided that if it is... that's just fine with me! God has blessed me with amazing family and friends. I'm feeling more at home here in NC than I ever have up to this point, and am thanking God that no matter where I go... family is still family, God is still God....
The past couple of weeks have been a great ones!! Saturday I went up to Lynchburg and got to see some wonderful friends from college... I had lunch with Kelli and Laura (fabulous...) those girls are such an encouragement to me!! I love them dearly! Then I went to my friend Kathy's baby shower... Kathy's friendship has meant more to me than even she knows! She's the only person who was ever able to motivate me to exercise regularly (haha... I wish I lived closer to her for this reason!), and she was an awesome friend to me through some trying times while in college. She also has shown incredible faithfulness and grace through some incredibly difficult times in her own life... I only hope that during the valleys in my own life that I will trust God as wholly as she has. So, it was awesome getting to visit with her as well and to celebrate the upcoming birth of her precious son!
Sunday afternoons are one of my favorite times to spend with Matthew! After church (which is an experience in itself... we LOVE our church)... we usually go grab some lunch (usually Pei Wei, Matthew's favorite), go to Lowe's, then come home and work on some sort of project around the house. So last Sunday we bought a Crabapple tree and planted it in our front yard..... see the above pic. It's a pitiful little tree, but as soon as we were done a sweet little bird came and perched on one of it's few branches... as if testing it out :) haha... Matthew is super excited about spring and summer so he can continue to develop his aspiring green thumb. We'll continue to post pics as more developments are made in our landscaping endeavors.
We also have joined a couple's small group at our church. We've only had two meetings so far... but they've been fabulous! We're SO excited about the possibilities of this group and how it's going to change our lives. New friendships, spiritual growth, challenges and accountability are just some of the things we're hoping to gain from this group. The other couples really seem to mesh well with our personalities as well... which I figure is half the battle of any group setting. So all in all, we're very excited!
That's it for now... I'm excited about our weekend trip to Indiana so I'll do a post when we get back!!

Naked??

2008-04-04T07:45:00.000-07:00
So the song I want everyone who reads this post to listen to is "American Dream" by Casting Crowns (I've made it easy, see my play list at the bottom)... this song is a little old school.... unless you're not into the contemporary Christian music thing (I realize I'm a minority in this aspect) and then you won't know it's old school :)... but none the less.... I think the lesson is applicable. But wait until you're done with the post to do so... it'll make more sense that way.

So several weeks ago at church our pastor spoke on something amazing that I'd never heard. First of all, I've been raised in church, my dad's a pastor, I've attended more "revival" meetings, camps, etc. in my life than most people have regular church. I spent 4 years in a Christian college hearing some of the most prominent evangelical speakers in the country... So I'm not exactly a novice. This obviously doesn't mean I know even a fraction of what is to be known of the Bible, God, Jesus, theology, doctrine, etc... but I'm not usually completely surprised by what I hear. There have been very few times in my life where God has literally snuck up on me and slapped in the face with a truth that I've never even considered. These are defining moments in my walk with Jesus... moments where I feel I am looking into the face of my Savior.

The first of these moments was obviously when I accepted Christ as my Savior. To be honest.... the older I've gotten, the more I've grown in my faith, the less I understand what exactly that means. Most people associate this moment in their life with a prayer. However, is counting a prayer as a "conversion" any less a works salvation than say getting baptised, or going forward in church after an emotional message? Obviously it's not the words, or the act of saying a prayer that "saves" a person. It's the change in a person's heart. It's the realization of who God is, who Jesus is, and what that means for you, for life and for the world. As much as it is those things, it's also the realization of who you are NOT. Throughout the Bible it talks about this, so it's not an original thought on my part.... but it is impossible to begin a relationship with God through Jesus without coming to the end of yourself. I said "the prayer" when I was 5 or 6. I don't remember a lot about it, except my intentions. Although I believed deeply in Christ.... the reason I wanted to be saved was to avoid hell if I died. Although this is a reality of salvation, as I've grown I've realized it to be one of the least important parts of what it means to be a Christian. Ask me if I still feel that way when I'm on my death bed. I'm sure my opinion will change then. However, a relationship with Christ is SO much more than that.... but that's for another post. I'd say I really started following Christ around the age of 9 or 10. I went forward at camp to "rededicate" my life to the Lord. To be honest though, I think it was the first time I ever embraced that fact that a life following Christ wasn't just about what happens after death, but what happens everyday in your heart and life.

The second of these defining moments was my sophomore year at Liberty University. It was spiritual emphasis week and David Nasser was the speaker. By this point in my life I had fallen deeply in love with Jesus. This was one of the greatest times of spiritual growth in my life... a growth that I hunger for now. I was "serving God" in several capacities at the time. I was in spiritual leadership at LU as a prayer/small group leader for girls on my hall, I was teaching a small group for high schoolers at TRBC, among other things. The message David Nasser spoke that night was about the conceit of Christians thinking they were doing a service for God. The message was about how God doesn't "need" anyone. He didn't need to provide a Savior, He didn't need to choose men to be the preferred method of spreading the Gospel. After all, Romans 1 says that men are without excuse because nature itself proclaims the glory and reality of God. The truth is.... it's all about His own glory. The Gospel, the salvation of man, the liberty provided through salvation, and the service of men for God... is all merely part of God's plan for Himself to be glorified by whatever means necessary. Now this might sound strange at first.... but in reality, it makes the whole message of God's love more powerful and amazing. It's incredibly humbling to know that the Creator of the Universe has chosen me.... has chosen YOU.... as a tool to proclaim His grace and forgiveness to the world. (Paul knew this all along by the way... maybe if I'd payed more attention to everything he wrote I would've seen it before that evening at LU).That message brought me to my knees, literally, in the greatest act of submission to my God that I've ever experienced. I remind myself of that message every time I do an act of service, step into a patient's room, pray, or worship.

The third, and most recent, was a few weeks ago in the Easter service of our church here in Durham, (hence, what I was talking about at the beginning of this post), The Summit. This message had a huge impact on the way I think about why people do the things they do and sometimes live what seems to be self destructive lifestyles despite being incredibly intelligent people. The message was about Peter's life before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus and how it changed him. However, the part that struck me was actually what was meant to be a side note of sorts. We were reading from Mark 14 and the applicable verses to what I'm going to write about were in verses 51-52. "A young man was following Him (Jesus), wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him. But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked." It seems like an odd insert. Why would we care about some nameless Christ follower running away in what we all would rank in our top 5 of potentially most embarrassing life moments. (Seriously, I know everyone has had the "naked in a crowd" dream at some point in your life.) There's only one other similar situation in scripture and that's in Genesis 3:10 where Adam and Eve ran and hid from God because they were naked. So what's up with naked people running from God?? The truth is that as humans nakedness = shame, except in the setting of a loving relationship. Our culture has skewed this.... However, we still all know it to be true. If it weren't the windows in strip clubs wouldn't be covered, we wouldn't have age requirements for certain types of movies or magazines. With Adam and Eve, it wasn't until their relationship with God was severed through disobedience that they felt shame. No one would argue nakedness between people is OK in a marriage relationship. However, I think if any of us were honest, and we were stripped naked in public.... in front of our family, friends, coworkers.... we would do whatever it took to cover ourselves. This doesn't have to just be talking about physical nakedness. What if you were stripped spiritually and mentally naked. What if all your family, friends, coworkers knew about all of your thoughts, knew about what you did behind closed doors.... would there be shame with that? I think if most people answered honestly... we'd say yes. This is the human being without God... naked. You see, we were created to have communion with God, to have a relationship with Him. We all have heard that Adam and Eve eating of the fruit = separation from God speech... so I won't go into it. However, the depth of that fall can be seen all around us and inside of us. Every person knows that there is more to life than what we can see. This is why we hear so much about people "seeking fulfillment," "finding themselves," and so on... Some people try to cover their nakedness, find fulfillment, replace what is missing with SO many different things. Work, Money, Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Partying, Materialism, Education, Popularity, Recognition, good works and even... yes, I'm going to say it.... Religion. I think that once again... the honest among us would admit that eventually these things prove to disappoint. Do I really have to use the examples we all know all too well but hate to bring up?? Britney Spears, Eminem, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Owen Wilson, Lindsey Lohan, Marilyn Monroe (I could go on and on....)?? We hate to compare ourselves to those people. But even worse than that are the ones you know. I'm not talking about movie stars or musicians. I'm talking about the ones you love the most. Family members (moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc....) who have spent their lives seeking some type of satisfaction from those above listed vices.... and who are probably some of the unhappiest people we know. Well, it seems a little weird. If we have this "God shaped hole" inside of us, why does God allow people to go through all this trouble and pain trying to fill it. The truth is.... God will allow you to come to a breaking point....He WANTS you to be stripped, disappointed, hurt, broken.... because when you have exausted all your options... He's all that's left. Adam and Eve figured it out... so did Peter.... and Paul.... and millions of Christ followers throughout the centuries. My vice, has and always will be, recognition and approval from others. This was the catalyst behind everything I did for my entire life up to the point of the aforementioned Life Defining Moment #2, and is still something I struggle with constantly. The truth is though... my identity and my purpose is in Christ alone.... who I am to Him (a daughter of the King, one who is perfect and flawless because the cleansing of Jesus's sacrifice) and what HIS purpose is for my life (to bring Him honor and glory in anything large or small I do). Everything I do... I have to seriously question myself as to whether or not my motivator is to make myself look good, or to glorify God. And believe, me.... God has no problem sending me home crying with frequent HUGE checks to my ego to remind me of my own weaknesses. I'm guessing that this will be a daily struggle with me for the rest of my life. I'm going to end this post by copying and pasting from the transcript of the message itself because I know I can't say it better than our Pastor JD did: "God lets your health deteriorate, lets you go through diffucult financial times... When that happens, you'll have one of a few reactions. Blame the thing itself and try a new idol. Sex didn't work, so I'll turn to money. Blame yourself: I'm not good enough. If I were smarter I'd be more successful... If I were prettier. Blame the world: become a cynic. Or you'll realize that what you are missing is something the world can't supply,it's found in God.....For Peter, he thinks that if he can be good enough to cover himself he can earn God's acceptance. Jesus lets him stumble, and fall, so He can learn that the love of God is not something you can earn. Peter will learn to trust in Jesus and not himself, and count on Jesus' love rather than his own goodness as his source of worth. That saved his life. And so, his failure saved his life, because when you're flat on your back, you're looking the right direction."

Don't forget to listen to the song I talked about at the beginning of the post... and if you have some time and feel like growing read/listen to JD's entire message here. Maybe it'll be one of your defining moments too.....

Getting Started...

2008-01-12T02:21:00.000-08:00
Well with a new year comes new commitments, new priorities, new goals and new dreams, and in this case, a new blogspot.... So, as I saw that some of my other friends and family members have "blog spots" I thought it would be a good place for Matthew and I to update everyone on what's going on in our lives. This makes it much easier on family and friends than facebook or myspace since you don't actually have to be a member to read our posts. So, as fun times happen, I'll be sure to update with pics, news, etc...

We love you all!

Happy New Year,
Matthew and Julie