Easter Shoes

I may not be able to show you their sweet faces, but here are the five pairs of shoes that keep me busy!

Even they're cute! =)

Our First Family Easter

We have had fun experiencing holidays through the eyes of our children.

Easter morning... the kiddos just found their baskets

Everything is new and exciting!

Though our children have always lived on American soil, they came from a very different world. 

This year they were able to experience Easter and how Easter has changed the world forever. We love hearing them talk about why Christ died on the cross and what it means!

Resurrection Eggs (they absolutely LOVED this!)

They enjoyed every single activity we tried.

Though sometimes they looked at us like we were crazy!

Easter Baskets

(made at 11pm by yours truly the procrastinating Easter Bunny)

They were quite confused when their baskets were not hidden in the same place their 

Christmas stockings were...that only seemed logical!

Pinterest Idea =)

Our family chick deviled egg project ended up being Mommy's project after the 3rd chick

and the bunny bread was a hit.

Today we celebrated Our Risen Savior. 

He is risen and NORMAL is OVER because of it! 

Praise God!

P.S. You all should know how physically painful it is for me to not post pictures of my littles!

Permission to be Imperfect

Permission to be Imperfect

It has been a week since I participated in the 3 days of healing that I desperately needed. 

The past 6 months have challenged me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. God has been stirring in my heart for months. Trying to tell me that I am missing something. 

But life continued – 

I allowed our busy schedules and bustling here and there to keep me from all God had to share.

At C4C… I listened!

Amidst 450 wonderful adoptive Mommy’s - I met with my Maker.

He met me where I was.

He met with me when I was broken…

I could write about the long list of things that I learned during this retreat: altering your parenting practices, devotions with your children, improving your marriage, bringing health through dealing with the past, and books and blogs galore! Maybe another day. Today I will share my journey to celebrating imperfection.

Being broken in the arms of my Jesus and soaring!

Permission to be imperfect

I am a perfectionist.

 I fit the Type A personality to a T!

Until God blessed us with our children I did not realize how many things I did in “my strength”. I have always set my mind on goals and just pushed until I reached them. Will power. That is what has accomplished things, even though I thought it was faith. Nothing was impossible.

Nothing was impossible until … I met 5 sweet, broken children who

needed MUCH more than I could ever give!

This trait has been a blessing and a curse transitioning from O to 5 kiddos.

These characteristics helped us establish routine and organization quickly, but they weighed heavily on my heart.

I felt surrounded by people who were waiting for us to fail. I spent every waking hour trying to hold everything together; heaven forbid someone should realize that adopting a sibling group was challenging me breaking me! I couldn’t let anyone know that I had moments where I: lost my temper, was impatient, and did not always know what to say when tears from years ago came forth. People could not know: that the clothes we wear at home have stains and holes, our toys were mostly broken yard sale bargains, or that we did not do every worksheet sent home by J’s teacher.

Everyone else has it together, so I will just figure it out.

How much time I have wasted. God has been calling me, to come and rest in His promise that when we are weak HE is STRONG! His desire is for us to come humble and broken. 

My pride has kept me from experiencing peace in these promises.

These walls crumbled during my weekend.

The permission to be broken was so freeing.

The command to be humble gave me hope!

Broken and Humble…

This week I have fallen MANY times.

I have: been less than patient with my children and husband, frustrated when nail polish is now all over the stairs, children, and walls, been agitated that the laundry pile is growing and nap time is three whole hours away.

Yet, I can reach for the peace that comes when my God takes over.  The strength I feel in Christ is unattainable when “I” have it all together. I am now so thankful for the events that break me, because it leads me to a place where I meet my Jesus and he takes over.

Verses that have encouraged me:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

2 Corinthians 11:30

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Isaiah 40:29

The Lord lifts up the humble…

Psalm 147:6

2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

James 4:6

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:10

Now you can see why I have peace in my broken, imperfect world. 

Because in HIS strength, I am strong!

Christmas

Christmas and New Years have come and gone – where did the time go?

I am currently writing while sitting in the hallway because my “baby” just moved up to a big boy bed – now we are working on staying IN the bed.

I wish I could write that our Christmas and New Years Eve celebrations were just like a storybook – but that would not be entirely true…

 The cookies are kinda like our life - looks messy but still tastes good =)

Christmas week came with more appointments then I believed possible. My beautiful sister graciously helped and when the rest of my family came we were still moving at the speed of light to accomplish all those “Christmassy” tasks. Tylenol and Sippy cups kept kids moving - Christmas Eve was a beautiful day – fun with family, friends, food, and bounce houses! But Christmas Eve gifted me strep throat and a stomach bug built to kill. My sweet hubby spent the early Christmas morning hours at urgent care and the 24 hour pharmacy.

Christmas morning started late and lasted the next few days. Christmas was a new concept in our home - an unfamiliar event. Our children are not from a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas – but rather from an environment where little was worth celebrating. One of my littles said, "Mommy why do people hang their socks up at Christmas time? That's gross!!" 

The excitement was overwhelming and illnesses contained the excitement I expected Christmas to bring.

Our beautiful kiddo stockings made by Aunt Kristie

  

I confess I had to spend an afternoon grieving the loss of MY Christmas dreams – after all this was our first Christmas as Mommy and Daddy and we wanted everything to be perfect!

I wanted the kids to be excited and running around – yet Christmas was pretty anticlimactic.

Yet in a way – this is how we tend to do things - a little different.

Not wrong. Not horrible. Just different.

But my kids learned about Christmas. We made birthday cupcakes for Baby Jesus’ Birthday – so what if we didn’t make them till the 29^th?!

They learned the Christmas story. They seem to understand that the Bible stories we read our unique - they loved our interactive 7 day Christmas story from Aunt Cille! 

New Years marked our 3 month milestone as parents – woo hoo! Exciting, right!? Yes and no. New Years Eve was one of the most challenging days I have had in a lonnnng time. 

The kind of day where you go to bed at night feeling as though you have failed majorly in the patient and loving parent department. 

I am glad that was LAST year!

So was our first Christmas perfect? Nope! But is my Christ perfect? Yes ma’am!

 

To Stress or Not to Stress

To Stress or Not To Stress

Just a little update… many friends have asked when we will reveal our Littles to the world… Until adoption finalizes we have to respect the level of discretion that is expected, after that –

I will be a picture-posting Momma! 

Everyone is different. Different stressors, responses to stress, and different levels of stress that they consider acceptable in their life.

I have come to function at what some would consider a high level of stress. (The fact that it is 12:30am and I am journaling and watching The Notebook should give you some idea of how crazy I am =) 

Since life has become a bit like a whirl wind the past couple months I have been struggling with this idea of stress. When feelings overwhelmed with schedules, homework, runny noses, laundry, potty training, cleaning, and all that goes with loving children that are new to your home. - I step back and I realize that during these moments of frustration I am task focused – not heaven focused. 

How do I rationalize this?

Quite well!

But then I am reminded…

Luke 12:25

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”

1 Peter 5:7

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

I do not think these are suggestions. There is nothing written that says

 – “Julia, whenever your to do list is done, don’t worry and cast your anxiety on Me – 

I will help you with your plans – just fill me in on what’s goin on”.

Francis Chan has said numerous times that when we are stressed out over things of this world we are essentially saying to God, “I don’t trust that you are in control and My plans are more important than yours!”

This is not a bash stress blog post –trust me I just wrote 5,000 words about how stress affects us at a physiological level and have come to respect stress in a new way. Stress causes motion at the smallest level of our existence. When we are in motion things happen! Stress can motivate. I do not believe that stress is a sin; yet allowing stress to distract us from the mission at hand is ignoring commands that are given 

– Do Not Worry.

God has been so faithful to us during this time of growing! Starting from scratch to set up a family of seven with the things that Americans are accustomed to (i.e. beds, pillows, clothes, food, and toys) was a stretch. To believe that we could do this while I was not working seemed financially daunting. And yet here we are. 

With everything we need… and want. 

The blessings that have been poured out on us are countless.

I am journeying to a place where I am following God’s plans and not inviting Him to join me on mine. I am sure I am not alone in my struggle to balance all these things called life. Just some food for thought. 

Next time you are stressed and overwhelmed consider this…

Luke 12:22-23

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.”

This is real to me when I step back from my "to-do's" and at the end of the day can see  progress healing a wound that one of my Littles came with... God is so good.