Will We Adot Again?

I really believe that certain people are called to adopt. I believe God places this desire on the hearts of the willing. I have always wanted to adopt and thought a lot about it, but never figured we could afford it or even do it. It's really weird as I look back from the day we started the process to now with the girls being home almost a year ago. It has been an adventure and a journey that I would love to do again.

Jennine, one of my closest friends, is in the process again with adopting a little boy. My sister just came home with her adopted son. You would think with this all around me, I would be jumping in and wanting to adopt again. In the Eban House, there were 2 children (sister and brother) that stole my heart when I was there during the second trip. I was really concerned that God placed them on heart to do something about it. But, He didn't. I thought a lot about them, but never did I feel the nudge I got with Rita and Racheal. The pull I got from the girls was very clear and strong. I haven't had that pull or nudge at all. I can honestly say that .......NO we will not be adopting again. It's not a bad thing at all. God knows our hearts and what we can handle. We are so blessed with what He has given us. I went into this adoption hoping for a daughter. I was amazed with God blessing us with 2 daughters. I look at the girls at night while they are sleeping and think, how incredible they are to join our family. They trust us and love us. All I can say.......AMAZING!

We Met a Year AGO!

It has been a year from now when the girls and I first met. I can't believe it has been a year!

I remember the first time we held hands and the first smile at me. They remember the smell of the gum I was chewing when we first met. But, it has been a year!

During the last couple of week, Rita and Racheal have been acting very strange. I couldn't lay my hands on it. The behavior Jarett and I were getting was a very defiant type of behavior: "I'm not going to...." or "Next time, I am not...". This was very strange behavior for the girls because they usually aren't so defiant. I was concerned, but at the same time I was thinking well they are 9 years old and figuring out things. Now, words and phrases aren't allowed to be spoken like that in our family because it shows disrespect. So when they did that then they had to do a chore for me or something to help me out in the house. During this same time, they kept bringing up their family in Africa. Well, about a week ago, we had a friend of ours (who is a photographer) take family photos of us. Right in the middle of taking the pictures, Racheal says to me with tears building up, "I miss my family in Africa". Right then and there I knew that was the cause of the behavior. I told her, "I know you do, let's talk about it tonight".

After pictures and PJs on, the girls came into my room. We had an amazing talk. This was the first time I talked to them about being adopted and feeling like they now have a better grasp on it. They are still grieving quite a bit, but it seems like a more healthy grieving. This is so hard because they understand and still wonder about their family in Africa. We talked about how lucky they are to have two families and how one day we are all going to be together in God's house. The hardest question for me to answer was "How are we going to know when our birth mom dies". I told them I don't know if we will ever know but we will see her again in Heaven. Them seem ok about it now, but I know the grieving is going to come and go with them. They were old enough to remember their life in Ghana when they left almost a year ago. They have been mentioning seeing their mother a couple of times at Eban House. She lived very close to the home and would come over to see the girls. I think that made things much more confusing for them. But, having to give up my children due to poverty is something I could never imagine doing. If it helped her to know she made the right decision by giving them up, then I am ok with the visits. On the other hand, I wished she didn't do it or was allowed to go and visit because I do feel like it was confusing for the girls. They were under the impression that they were to come to American to go to school and then go back to Ghana to give money to their family. I am hoping with time and maturing, the girls will completely understand what has occurred with them.

We love the girls so much and I know they truly love us! They just need to understand their heart can hold on to so much!

Below are a few of our family photos:

ENERGY

I have really been waiting for such a long time to gain back my ENERGY! I am usually a very energetic person. Sometimes, Jarett would get frustrated at the energy I would have because.....I would invite him to be a part of it. Boy, when we worked together we got so much accomplished.

Since we have adopted the girls, both of our energy levels has gone way down. I believe it was just the overwhelming feeling of having 5 children. The work involved was more than we both can handle or keep up. Both of my breaks (Fall and Winter) were full of other things, so this past Spring Break was awesome! I got to spend the whole time thinking and organizing things in the house. It has been at least a month of full organizing, throwing things out, and getting everyone involved with this. At the beginning of it, I was exhausted every day with the amount of work. Now (a month later), I am doing pretty well. Every weekend, I pick a project and complete it. Last night I stayed up until 3:00 in the morning. I got the front room completely cleaned, organized, and the way I want it. We have turned it into somewhat of a school room. All the kiddos have a cubby and some drawers. This is all the stuff we have had already. We just reused it for a better purpose.

This summer, I am planning on having our days be with at least one - 2 hours of school work. I am going to do crafts, cooking, and science projects with them as well. I really want the children to continue to stay in somewhat of a habit. Our summer days aren't as long as the traditional schedule. We get 7 weeks off, so I was hoping to keep them going. I am creating a calendar of events. I can't wait!

I really want my energy level to stay up. I haven't had it for so long, so now I am doing everything I can to keep it up. I have begun to work out and I am eating much more healthy. I am just hoping that my energy level stays up because I love it! :)

Yarn Braids

16.5 hours later and 2 very numb fingers, the girls have their yarn braids!

I do have to say that I LOVE THEM! The girls look so amazing with them. They walk around moving their braids as they walk. They are so excited to hair longer hair.

First, I started with Rita. We began on Friday night. I didn't really know how to part and was just winging it. :) Later on Saturday, I figured I was doing the braids way to small. So I got onto "You Tube" and watched some videos (during one of our breaks). I found out I was doing to many braids and my parts were to small. I kept going to keep it looking even in the back. But, in the front, I did the parts like what I had learned from the videos. That part was much easier and faster. :)

At around 6:00 pm, I started Racheal's hair. It definitely went faster with her hair because I believe it was the way I did the parts. The parts also make her hair easier to put into pig tails if she wants to. Now, I just have to find a swimming cap to fit their head and their hair. I really don't know if their hair won't last as long if they go swimming. Yes, my kiddos have begun to swim. I didn't allow the girls to go swimming today. I am going to have to find the caps for them.

Both girls were so amazing to sit there while I did this work. It was such an awesome bonding time for us. Rita actually keeps coming up to me today and kissing me. She says, "Mommy, you are the best at braids".

I am really anxious to see how their classmates react tomorrow (if they do at all). They are so excited to go to school tomorrow to show.

For the yarn experts: I have two questions
1. - What type of yarn do you use? On one of the videos I watched before beginning, the girl said she went to Walmart and just bought the yarn. So that's what I did, but found out that the yarn seems to shrink up as time went on. I braided Racheal's hair way longer than Rita's and they both seem to look about the same length. I am thinking it's because of the yarn that it shrunk up. I don't know, but if you have any ideas to make it longer, I would love to hear them. They both want really long braids (like to the middle of their back), but I am not sure how to do that. :)
2. What can I use to spray on their hair to keep it moist?

With twins, I am going to have to space their braiding days apart. My fingers and back can't take it, so I am thinking of doing one girl one weekend and the other the other weekend.

Here are some pictures of their hair:

Cash Only Days Ahead

Jarett and I have been reading and studying the Dave Ramsey book, Money Makeover. It is such an amazing way to get you thinking back to the simple days and how to get your money back in control. We have struggled really hard the last six month. We started his program and we can celebrate because we have paid for:

* all our medical bills (total of $600, which to us was a lot)
* 4 credit cards
* got caught up on all bills so no more late charges :)

We also have our emergency fund in a seperate account.

We have 2 more things to pay off by the snowball effect. We anticipate it to take us about 12 - 18 months. Our next plan is to pay off our car and 2nd mortgage. That should take us another 24 months. So in about 3.5 to 4 years we will be completely debt free. I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now we can make it go faster by selling some things, which we may do. But, as of today, we found in our account a little over $1,000 missing. I pulled up our account and found charges to a vet ($200), Pizza Hut ($107.23), 3 separate charges to Great Britian ($200 each) and a charge to the same place in Great Britian ($100). On top of that, we have 4 charges of international fees that our bank has charged us. The scarey thing is no one at our bank alerted us of these weird charges.

Using my detective skills, I found the vet and called them. They pulled the reciept and information about this lady and man that posed to be us. The vet clerk said she remembers this lady very well because she thought they were acting weird. Since the lady was acting weird, she got copies of her driver's license and other information. The sticky part of this is I have a class tomorrow and Wednesday from 8:30 to 3:30. During this class, I will have to find time to call the police and make a report since we have some information about a particular person. Then I will have to race to my bank to file a claim and hopefully get all our money back quickly. I have canceled my debit card (yes, it was my number off of my card - it matched to the vet's receipt), so it's cash for me. Now, that's not the problem because Dave Ramsey says you should only carry cash for your spending. But, I have all but 2 medical bills that were pending to be paid. From what you ask? My debit card! I pray that they still get paid so I don't have to get a letter from our bank to prove about this mess. I feel fees are coming at us.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...........

I was celebrating with our accomplishments and now I will have to deal with this mess to keep it going.

I just feel like since our twins have come home, Satan has been at our back door. We listened to God and adopted these wonderful twin girls and Satan is not at all happy with us following God's word. We can't seem to catch a break for longer than 2 days. Satan should already know that we aren't giving in and he needs to leave. We will not let him conquer us. God is going to take care of us, so he can do what he wants.

I usually don't ask for prayers, but if you have some extra time, we would appreciate any good thoughts and prayers about this mess cleaning up quickly, so we can continue our path to being debt free! :)

Pictures are IN

These are the pictures from the girls' first birthday party. We kept the party simple for them compared to what we usually do. They didn't quite understand what was going on, but we wanted them to have fun. So we rented a princess bounce house, ate pizza, and just had fun.



We really wanted them to have separate birthday songs and cake. So Costco was wonderful by allowing us to buy one cake and they split it into 2 separate cakes. Each cake had their own saying and we sang happy birthday to each of them. I think with twins (at least with us) we tend to see them as one, so I wanted to make sure they had their own special time to celebrate turning 9 years old.




I love birthdays. I love to celebrate the day that the Lord chose for that person to come into this world and join a chosen family. That is why I love Christmas. Birthdays are such a sign of God's amazing moments. Although, as the children get older, we are scaling down the parties; not the celelbration.

I love it when the girls' say, "Mommy, remember when.....". This will be something that will add to their memories and I can't wait until they say, "Mommy, remember when we had the birthday party with the princess house.". Oh, how my heart will melt! :)

Happy Birthday Baby Girls!

Happy Birthday Rita and Racheal!

Oh boy, were they excited today! We bought doughnuts for their classmates and they passed them out today. We bought them skates for their birthday. They have been wanting to have a pair, so this was the perfect occassion. They aren't completely sure why they are so excited, but they are.

We have planned their friend party for Friday (tomorrow). We have rented a princess bounce house. The kids are going to eat pizza, jump, and have a great time. The girls are so excited (have I said that before?) We also, are going to have 2 cakes. Each girl will have their own cake with their own name on it. OOPs - I forgot to buy the candles. I better make sure I put that on the list. :)

I can't wait to share the pictures of their party. :) Come back soon!