Nothing and Everything

These days, it seems, I have a lot and nothing at all to say, all at the same time. James has been home recuperating following his shoulder surgery (which went really well), and we have been spending lots of quality family time together. Around here, that means playing football - a lot of football, reading, creating, playing with water outside, enjoying our meals, and spending time at the playground each evening until the sun has set.

We've also had adoption on the brain more often than not, and have been spending quite a bit of time talking about all the different facets of it - of our own personal journey as a family, and of adoption in general. We're making lists and researching flights and vaccinations, and waiting. The social worker handling our home study update should have the update completed in the next few weeks, and then we'll send it off to USCIS for them to update our approval. Our referral could come at any time once the update is complete.

Have we mentioned how huge the referral is?

That email is the one that will make our hearts skip a beat and stop us right in our tracks. That'll be the email with our sweet boy's face in it, his name, his background information, his medical information. That will be the email that make things much more urgent and much more slow, so much easier and so much harder, all at the same time.

Whew. I so often imagine what that will be like and I know that I cannot even imagine it. We're full of contradictions around here.

While we wait, we're trying to put our energy into what's before us right now. We're trying to delight in the little things, which are, really, the big things. Trying to, as Ann Voskamp puts it, "Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth. Give Thanks. Love well."

Second Child, Indeed

When AJ was a baby, he could always be found in our arms, in his little baby seat, in the pack-n-play bassinet, or in his crib. You know, the places where babies are "supposed" to be. While Nora can often be found in our arms, she's also be frequenting some, uh, less conventional locales. If you've never used the laundry basket as a safe resting place for baby while you're helping big brother on the potty/hanging wet clothes/braiding your hair/insert-any-other-two-handed-activity-here, I highly recommend it. Nora seems to like it, too. Really.

Art with the Boy

Saturday morning, our dining room table looked like this:

Mama had some card-making to do, so we all decided to sit down for a little impromptu arts and crafts time. Someone had the idea to do a little Thanksgiving crafting, so AJ and Daddy got right to work...

On Sunday, they put everything together.

Mr. Hand-Turkey is now being proudly displayed in the dining room. Do you remember making these when you were little? We both do, and it's fun to see AJ's little version of it framed and up on the wall for all of us to enjoy.

He had so much fun with all of the construction paper, scissors, glue, and markers that we took out; I think we definitely have some more family crafting mornings in our future.