Like a flood, His mercy rains...

And we are covered in His grace!

Y'all, that God, He's a funny one! Don't let anyone ever tell you He doesn't have a sense of humor, and loves to use it to humble us! 

Let me take you back just a few short weeks ago...

It was a Tuesday...just your average summer day, the kids were on day 2 of their swim lessons, which were going amazingly well btw, and Jason was taking advantage of the dry weather and finally getting to hit the trail on his mountain bike during his lunch break. 

My phone rang. I didn't recognized the number, but answered it anyway. It was Michelle from Generations (the gal that did our homestudy). Not thinking anything of it, I very casually said "Hey, what's up". She asked if it was a good time to talk and if Jason was around, still not thinking anything of it (our agency had recently had some people shifting positions, so I just assumed she was needing to update something or discuss our recent foster involvement. Then bam, she says the words we have waited so long to hear...

A birthmom has chosen you guys...

"Shut up, are you kidding me right now? Are you serious" - I vaguely remember those being the first words out of my mouth. Tears immediately well in my eyes and my heart pretty much explodes. I feel like I am having an out of body experience. Like really? Is this really happening on THE DAY we finished everything for Foster?! shaking my head She goes on to tell me how amazing this young woman is and how beautiful and smart she is, and y'all we're talking full blown tears now! Then I ask, "Does she know if it's a boy or a girl?" - and let me just tell you that honestly we didn't/don't care either way, but for some reason, I have always had this vision that it would be a girl, and even the kids when they talk about a future sibling, have always said it would be a girl...

It's a little girl... due in September...

heart explodes again. Still cannot believe this happening. Sidetone, while on the phone, Jason drives by on his way to the trail, sees me on the phone and has NO IDEA! So we hang up and tentatively plan to meet her and the mom for dinner THE NEXT NIGHT - eek! 

Now, I have to tell someone or I'm going to explode, so luckily my sweet friend Liz was there b/c her daughter had just finished her swim lessons and she gets to be the lucky first person to see my ugly cry and hear the amazing news! Sorry Jason. And my other friend Lindsay happened to walk up just as I'm telling her, so wham, 3 grown women hugging and crying at the pool! Now... it occurs to me that I get to think of a fun way to tell Jason, you know like a normal wife would get to do! 

After swim lessons, I tell the kids and Emma is OVER THE MOON excited! Max is too, but Emma was just beside herself to have a little sister. So we hop in the car and head to Carter's to get some big brother and big sister shirts to surprise daddy :)

Here's the video of the big reveal, I don't know why I thought I could keep it together, so please excuse my squeaky, shaky cry voice!

Sorry it got cut off, my finger accidentally pushed the end button

So yeah, we honestly didn't think it was ever going to happen and that maybe God was leading us to foster this whole time, but maybe He just wanted to humble us, tests our faith, and be certain that we were completely surrendered to Him? I don't know, and who knows, maybe our job is to come along side this beautiful mom and pour God's love into her, all I know is... that's what I plan to do, and whatever happens, I will continue to love on her, because I feel very strongly that that is what we are being called to do. In the meantime, we are anticipating that... we are going to have a baby girl in SEPTEMBER!! EEEKKK!!!

Please, please, please be in prayer for this sweet mom and that she would seek after Him and that He would be near her during this time and that He would give her peace and confidence in her decision, and that she would be willing to let us come along side her and love on her :) 

Sometimes you're the windshield...

And sometimes you're the bug...

Friends, my heart is sad this morning and I have an overwhelming feeling of disappointment. THIS is exactly why our agency does not typically let you know when your profile has been shown. Despite my best efforts, I (we) got our hopes up, talk to our kids about it, prayed with them about it, told our friends and family and asked for their prayers, even talked about baby girl names... heck I even updated our registry/wish list with a few baby girl clothes. I shouldn't have done that. I know that.

My head knows and keeps trying to tell my heart that...

"all things work together for the good of those who love him." Romans 8:28
And to "not be anxious about anything, but in everything through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, to present my requests to God, and the peace of God will guard my heart and my mind" Phil 4:6-7
AND that "God knows the plans he has for me, plans for good and not for evil, to give me a future and a hope"

But today I am feeling a little hopeless and defeated :( My head and my heart just can't seem to sync up. I know that God has never let me down and I am completely blessed beyond what I deserve - and it's not that I feel like he messed this one up or anything like that - I'm just sad that it wasn't our turn.

I know there is something we are supposed to learn from this, which I guess just feeds right on in to my Word of the Year... TRUST.

Our baby is out there, and all I can do is try to shake this disappointment off and focus on praying for the precious mother that is carrying our baby.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

We have been some busy busy little bees over here lately, hence the lack of posts, sorry about that! Wow, so I guess the last time I posted we had just been officially approved aka "paper pregnant"! So here's a quick rundown of what's gone on since then...

The kids turned 4, yeah I know, I don't know how that's possible either - weren't they just fetuses like a minute ago?! So in lieu of a birthday party, we thought we'd take the kids to stay at Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine for a night. Well once Gram heard about that, she insisted that we stay 2 nights and that she would pay for it! OK, twist my arm! Naturally, that Friday night before we were to leave, I started feeling bad, and by Saturday morning I was full blown miserable! What the heck?! I literally NEVER get sick - even as a kid, So I force myself to drive the 1 mile down the road to the CVS minute clinic and wait for what seemed like an eternity (I was the second person there when they opened), just to find out that for the first time in my life, I had strep throat! I really wanted muster the strength to sit in the car for 3 hours on the ride up to Grapevine, but it just wasn't going to happen - I was in baaaaad shape. I pretty much slept ALL DAY on Saturday. By Sunday morning, I was feeling pretty good! Not 100%, but definitely a 180 from the day before! So, we loaded the car and set out for our birthday vacay! GWL was AWESOME! The kids LOVED it!

Uuuuuntil Emma came down with strep Monday morning :(

My miserable baby girl :(

Oh and did I mention that Monday was their actual birthday? Yeah, fun times. We spent 3 freakin' hours and the Care Now - I'm thinking they should reconsider the name of their business, maybe CPT Care or We Don't Really Care Now. And furthermore, since it was considered "urgent care" (again, not so urgent) it came at a higher premium - I totally should have just gone to a minute clinic instead! Poor thing just wanted to go back to bed. No sooner did we get back to the room, did Emma say she needed to go to the restroom, which really actually meant that she needed to throw up... which she did... all over me, the hallway, the bathroom floor, and herself... again. Not 5 seconds after walking out of our hotel room, she puked all over me and herself (I was holding her). So this was a second set of clothes for us. We got our diagnosis and script and cruised over to the CVS in Coppell our old stompin' ground :) While waiting for her prescription to be filled, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane and drove by our old house. Sometimes it seems like we just bought that house and brought our babies home from the hospital there, other times it feels like a lifetime ago. We got the meds and headed back to the hotel where daddy and bubba had been tearing up the waterpark all morning! Max was is heaven! Emma crashed out for a couple hours and after eating some lunch, Max and I headed back out to the waterpark while daddy took over nurse duties. For the first time ever, Max and Emma spent almost their entire birthday apart - so weird! After a couple hours and 2567 stairs later, we headed back to check on sissy and take a little break before daddy and Max went out with Gram and Poppy for a birthday dinner at the chop 'em up restaurant (think Benihana's).

I was so sad that Emma and I had to miss it :( But we managed to hunt down some mac 'n cheese, which she didn't even end up eating anyway, and by the end of the night she was almost back to herself. Jason picked up some cupcakes on his way back to the hotel, and we sang happy birthday Max & Emma blew out their candles putting an end to their 3rd year of life. tear. Of course, they didn't eat the cupcakes - weird kids! 

The next day Emma was right as rain and we were going to soak up every second we had left at Great Wolf Lodge before we had to checkout! So, we were first in line when the waterpark opened at 9 and we didn't leave until 12! We rode every,single, ride! This nice old lady who measures the kids decided that Max and Emma could be over 42" for the day - thanks lady! Annnnnd, my legs were soooooo sore! Even despite the many miles I've been racking up with my half training, there are def some different muscles workin' when you have to climb all those stairs! Even despite the sickness, we all managed to have an awesome time! 

Naturally, Jason started feeling bad on the way home (Tuesday), and by the time we made it home around 6:30pm, I made him go straight to CVS. Sure enough... strep! So... just like Emma, Jason was completely miserable on his birthday too :( No sickness or virus or anything has EVER made it's way through our family! I figured Max would for sure get it, but the kid never did! It's amazing really... for ONCE Max caught a break! On a side note - Emma finished her meds in 10 days, and 4 days later got strep again or rather it never really went away - so that was fun.     

On October 25th, Jason and I along with 11 other sweet friends, cousins, and 3 total stranger ran in the Chosen Marathon For Adoption (half marathon, y'all, I only went full blown crazy once!)

One of the awesome strangers that joined our team! #teammiksovsky

Amazing views throughout the race!

Somehow, despite not running ANY of the race together, Jason finished just 8 seconds before me!

How cute is Tim's girlfriend?! Seriously bro, put a ring on it ;)

Poor George (Jason's dad), had every intention on running, but came down with some gout (I'm not even sure what that it, but apparently it's painful :( But he sure was an awesome cheerleader!

My sweet, sweet friend Jenn - love her!

Sweet friends from church - love these ladies! And shout out to Hillary running and finishing strong in her very first half marathon!

Speaking of first timers - check out these studs who trained together, drove 4 hours,  and completed the whole 13.1 miles together ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY! Couples that train together, stay together :)

We haven't gotten word on our official grant amount from ABBA Fund yet, but I know that we at least raised about $1200 from the race! So blessed with amazing friends and family, y'all seriously, my cup runneth over! (see what I did there?)

After the half, we had Halloween...

Spiderman and Elsa, of course, would you expect anything else??

She froze daddy

raising superheros since 2010 y'all!

October was also the start of our own "7" Challenge, as inspired by Jen Hatmaker's book "7". The idea is to choose 7 areas in which you need improvement and/or spiritual guidance in and work on cutting out all the clutter, noise, distractions, etc so that you can focus on listening to what God has to say to you in those areas. I am keeping most of her same 7, but changing a few. Month one was giving - which coincided nicely with our church's One Mission Giving Campaign also going on at the same time. So for the month of October, the goal was to give away 7 things everyday for the whole month. I was pretty excited about this and ready to really do some deep purging! Y'all, I lost count (stopped counting) after 300 things. You just can't imagine - we had all the stuffs. And honestly, we have gotten pretty good at purging, so I don't even want to know what it would have looked like a few years ago! The other thing that was important to me was giving our stuff intentionally, as opposed to just dropping it off at Goodwill or having one of those donation places pick it up for you. I felt that was too disconnected. So I set out to find local places that could really use our "stuff". We collated, separated, and hauled stuff off to several different places. Texas Baptist Children's Home, STARRY Foster Care - a children at heart ministry, Life Bridge Job Corp and Compassion Services, and REVEAL ministries all received our stuff. And at some point my wedding dress will be made into gowns for sweet babies who never made it home :( Better my dress be made into something beautiful to help others than sit in my closet, right? Anyway, we totally killed giving month, but we still need to be careful that we do not fall into the trap or allow our kids to fall into the trap of storing up treasures on earth. Matthew 6:19

November was a blur, honestly! I know we made a crap ton of signs - even one sent to ALASKA! Max finished up soccer and Emma finished up ballet.

The giraffes! For the record, Max was not a fan of the name, and maintained that he was a "shark" not a giraffe, which is interesting because he's never been on a team named the sharks before! Boys! But seriously, the giraffes? Come on! I guess it was better than the other option... the bumblebees.

This is Max and his buddy Dane. My kids are obsessed with Dane and his little sister Rachel. Emma seems pretty convinced that she will one day marry Dane and thinks Max should marry Rachel. Um, can we slow this train down just a little? I swear girls must be born predisposed to planing their wedding as soon as they can form sentences! Slow down baby girl!

    

Let's see... oh November's "7 challenge" was food. Can I just say, I LOVE FOOD, so I knew that this was going to be a hard month. My goal was to make it 3 weeks (to Thanksgiving basically), only eating 7 (plus 1) different foods (yeah I totes added in another food, sue me!). Our foods were: beef, chicken, sweet potatoes, broccoli, eggs, bread and bananas. And it really wasn't THAT bad, probably because I gave myself a cheat MEAL once a week, because, well,,, I am weak and have no self control! Let's just say, we ate ALOT of rotisserie chicken! I will say though, that I did take away some things from this month that I plan to keep - like the whole keeping it simple meal time thing - some of the meals we had will def hold their spot in our weekly line-up! And bonus! I lost like 6 lbs! Another bonus... this challenge coincided with a health challenge I was doing with some girlfriends! Holla, look who won $45! Don't worry, I've already gained like half of that weight back... thanks alot Thanksgiving!

So yeah, that brings us to December. We are still plugging away at some signs... I have to ship one out tomorrow headed to North Carolina, then finish 2 more for some local friends and then 2 more as Christmas gifts. I also just finished 3 wreaths. Like I said, we have been buuuuuusy! And tired. A few other things of note that I will have to expand on later, cause well, I'm tired and ready to go to bed...

-Max will be having tonsil/adnoid/sinus surgery likely on Jan 6th (4th time going under)

-I started taking BCPs and Domperidone as part of a re-lactation protocol so that I can *hopefully* breastfeed once placed with a baby!

-We are actively looking for a new house to buy

Oh yeah, and my sweet, generous, extremely talented and very pregnant friend Becky took these amazing pics of my family! I freaking LOVE them! It's a little bittersweet thinking that these may be the last family pics we take as a family of 4 :) 

Almost 2 months down in our waiting game! Praying that they Lord will provide a sweet child for us in 2015! May you all have a VERY MERRY AND BLESSED CHRISTMAS and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

-Candice