What Have We Been Doing?

Okay, I know that you all are ready to crucify me for not blogging, but I promise we have an excuse! Time! We don't have any.



The month of January has been a whirlwind and I just checked to make sure and it seems that today is the last day of January. I am hoping that February might be a little less busy!



This month Abbey and I have both been busy with VBS Institutes teaching the Preteens Conference and Missions conference.



I had planned on doing a little blogging this week, but we were spending some days at Uncle Bill's house because we were going to be downtown so late and it didn't make sense to drive home when we had a place to stay.



We forgot to bring the camera with us and so I never got to blog.



We were once again thankful for our great friends like Kay Kay who was able to keep Reed for us on Thursday. And then Manya who came down and kept him on Friday. Friday night we actually all ended up staying in a hotel because we had quite a large snowstorm here in Nashville.



Reed had a blast playing with Manya, at LifeWay, and in the hotel, and at Uncle Bill's house.



We had a great time seeing all of the people at the VBS conferences, but we are really glad that they are over.



Reed has been so busy lately playing with his trains and trucks and cars.



Reed actually took the photo above. I think he has some skills.





Tonight we had dinner with Danny and Megan. It was good to get to catch up with them.

Now, enjoy some videos. Click on the pictures.









Another one of Reed's photos. Abbey actually is a little sore right now. She took a nasty fall on an iced over concrete step this afternoon. She was probably being more careful than anyone so we were shocked when she fell. I usually remind people to watch out by saying "Hip Alert!", but I forgot this time.



Here is Reed in his new outfit this past Sunday. Uncle Bill gave this outfit to Reed for Christmas. Most of you who follow our blog regularly know that we buy almost all of his clothes on consignment. So, when Uncle Bill gave him these clothes he said "Look, Reed, clothes with tags on them."



I love the outfit, but the only problem is that he looks like he is 5.

Prayer Request

God is doing a great work in our family. I will update you later. Please pray for us.

If you are a believer, we would ask that you would take a moment to pray! If you are not a believer, please ask us how you can experience a personal relationship with God. He works in ways we can never explain.

Big News: And No, She's Not Pregnant

First of all, Mary Catherine gave Reed these bath dropz for Christmas and Reed loves them. However, they have a very interesting effect on your bath water. There is a blue color which colors your water the exact same color as those blue things that you drop in your toilet tank. And then there is the yellow water, which as you can imagine colors your water the exact color of well, in Reed's words, "Look Mommy, I made peepee."

But, that's not the point of this post.



You know that for the past couple of years we have slowly been moving toward adopting a daughter from Taiwan. However, in the past couple of weeks, we've been hearing from our agency that things were going to be slowing down drastically.



During this time, we've been wondering if Taiwan was the right place for our little girl to be born. We love Taiwan very much and had a great experience there; however, we don't really desire to have "two" families of children. We don't really want to have a 6-7 year old and a baby.



So, last week, we heard from our agency that our agency in Taiwan was putting everyone on hold for about 8 months for sure.

So, we figured that we were about 18 months away from a referral on the list. Then, with an 8 month wait that would make 26 months. Then 6 months after that before we could travel, we would be waiting 32 months and Reed would be almost 6. So, we started looking into our other options.



Because we desire an infant, our international options are limited. However, we did find that the Marshall Islands refers babies. So, we started looking more into those islands. We found that they do refer infants; however, the RMI are very poor. It would be a completely different situation than when we adopted the Reedster.



We have found out a lot of information and have been praying daily for God's direction. We feel very at peace that we are to pursue an adoption though RMI. It is going to be a big difference in adoption from Taiwan, but we are up for the challenge.



We still plan to adopt a little girl, and we still plan to take Reed with us. As the weeks progress we will give you more updates about what we are doing to get ready. We have quite a bit of stuff to work on with our homestudy and dossier.



Please continue to pray for us and our little girl as we continue to ready our hearts for her into our family. We already love her so much and can't wait to meet her.

Haven't heard of the Marshall Islands, or don't know where they are? Yeah, we didn't either; it's okay. RMI (Republic of Marshall Islands) is halfway between Hawaii and Guam. We will provide you with more information about RMI as the week progresses. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

VBS Institute and Preview

Sorry there has been a lag in the blog, but we couldn't get onto picasa while we were in North Carolina.

First up are pictures from this year's vbs decorations.


Bible Study





Missions


Crafts


Snacks


Reacreation at Mustang Mountain



This is where all of the attendees got to sample all of the crafts.



Another view of the chuckwagon.



Uncle Bill's conference room.



Rhonda's conference room.



My conference room.



This was the craft's conference room. Abbey wrote the crafts guide this year, so be sure to look for her name when you purchase the curriculum.

Some other cute decorations:









And some of this year's snacks:









This year's crafts:










Preschool crafts:






Becky milking a cow:




More pictures of Reed coming up tomorrow. I know that's why you come over anyway.