November 18, 2008

4 MONTHS WAITING TODAY

Today marks our 4 month waiting mark. Today, four months ago, we turned in all of our paperwork to Ethiopia and officially became a waiting family. Most families in our agency are getting their referrals around month six. We are still hoping for a referral by Christmas. The past month has been amazing with the referrals of about 20 children. As for where we are on "the list," who knows.

November 16, 2008

Livingroom Colors

We painted the livingroom this weekend! The colors are a kiwi green and a cafe brown. I think the flash is a bit bright and I think the green is a bit darker than the pictures. We absolutely LOVE it! Here are our before and afters. Let me know what you think.

November 13, 2008

Our New Kitchen Color!

Here are the before and after pictures of our kitchen. When we bought this house the walls were crimson RED in the kitchen. I love red, but for a narrow kitchen it was just too dark. So it took three coats of primer to cover it up and now we have a beautiful buttercream! We are going to do our livingroom next. It's going to be an almost kiwi green and a coffee brown! I'm totally stepping out of my comfort zone here. Let me know what you think.

November 7, 2008

Halloween Pictures



I suppose I could lighten up this blog from the last two posts and show y'all what Miles was for Halloween. He picked out this costume only after we couldn't find a chicken that was in his size...lol! I told y'all we have a clown on our hands!

November 5, 2008

Overcome with Emotion

I am overcome with emotion, all of a sudden and totally unexpectedly! Yesterday was truly an amazing day in our history! While initially, I didn't support Barack Obama, I did vote for him. See previous post to see why. After finding a quote from another blog, I began to realize the depth of this election. I knew it was important. But now I see how far our country has come. Whether you voted for him or not, we will have our first "Black" President. I quote black, because technically he is half black and half white, like my son, but America considers him black. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed, because I thought Miles would be the first bi-racial President...LOL! Nonetheless, we as a country, have come to time when race wasn't as important as it has been in the past.
For those of you that know me, and have known me for sometime, know that this is an issue that I was called to deal with. From a very young age, I was very passionate about ending racism. I have lived an extremely diverse life, lived in many different cultures, surrounded by diverse races, religions and cultures. I never really understood how people could have racist views of other people that just had darker skin than theirs. Espeacially Christians, claiming to know the love of God and then shunning interracial marriages. I grew up in the 80's and early 90's. I experienced racism beyond belief. Yes, as a white girl in an all black school, I experienced some pretty horrific things. Yet, I overcame that. I don't like to use the titles "black, white, etc." because I dream of a day when we are all Americans and not labled by the color of our skin. Yesterday is one day closer to that day and I just realized it! Wow! I can show Miles, who already knows who Obama is (thank you Nonnie), that someone that looks like him became our President. I will be able to tell my daughter, that someone from her motherland had a son who became our President. I will be able to encourage highschoolers, who think because they come from a broken home, they can't succeed, they they too can accomplish great things. I can say, proudly, that my husband, also the result of a dead beat dad, can succeed and overcome (which he already has in many ways)! I didn't realize the magnitude of last night until just now and wow...

We are going to have a new President, finally!

I have never posted political rants and I rarely contribute to political arguments. As many of you know, I taught U.S. History last semester to High School juniors in Texas. As we learned of our nation’s history, we were also watching the candidates for President talk about changing our country. My students noticed that history was repeating its self heading toward another Great Depression. Every Candidate said their way was the way to change. I personally do not consider myself a Republican nor a Democrat. How can we put ourselves in those categories? I like to look at the whole person, not just their party affiliation. I voted for Ron Paul in the Primaries. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I liked what he stood for. Yes, he was a Republican, although he claimed to be the only REAL Republican. So Ron Paul faded away. We were left with John McCain and Barack Obama. Honestly, I didn’t like either one of these candidates. I do know that I do not like Bush and the path that we have taken under his leadership. I do not give him total blame, because we as people elected him (although, I didn’t vote in that election) and he can’t be at fault for every bad thing in our country.

That being said, I did vote for Barack Obama. Only because Ron Paul wasn’t on the Ballot…lol! Seriously though, I was very torn. I was not sure either candidate was the “saving grace” that we needed, only God can fill that role. I am a Christian. In my eyes, a strong faithful Christian. Having that in my life has been amazing. Yet I do need to speak out here. I am surrounded by Christians. I have always loved that. They have been my rock and helped build me up and strengthen my faith. It seems as if it is a given, “if you are a Christian, you vote Republican.” No, no one has said this to me, but it’s an unspoken given. I have people all around me saying, “you’re voting for McCain right?” I have heard people say they are not voting for Barack because he is for abortion and he’s a baby killer, and that is ungodly. Yet, John McCain had an affair on his previous wife with Cindy McCain whom he met in a bar. That too is ungodly. In our world, abortion is the worse evil. In Gods eyes, they are equal. People have called him a Terrorist and have vowed not to vote for him because he is Muslim. I have received so many emails telling me that Obama is the Anti-Christ!

Do I think Barack Obama is going to make a better President than John McCain? Honestly, I don’t know. As an educator, neither of them had a good plan, in my opinion, to reform our countries education system. What was my deciding factor was Sara Palin. I don’t feel she was at all ready to be a President in the event John McCain was unable to be. And Joe Biden made me feel much more at ease if he had to take the role. I feel like my fellow Christians are already on the defense, attacking our newly elected President and honestly I am sick of hearing it! Come on guys, we need to unite as Americans and support the person that was elected. Even John McCain has vowed to support him. If we are divided now, it is not going to get us anywhere. And please, don’t assume that he was only elected because of his color. It makes me sick hearing that. He has very strong qualities that brought him to where he is today. No, he hasn’t been in politics all his life. But he does have a great education, a strong Christian marriage and values, experience as a Senator, and a desire to lead our nation. If his race was the sole reason for being elected, we would have had Jesse Jackson for a President a long time ago.

So to conclude, to my friends and fellow bloggers, please let’s unite as Americans. The election is over and we as Americans have elected Barack Obama as our next President. He had a tremendous victory and Americans have spoken for who they wanted and let’s give him a chance.

I saw this on another blog and HAD to post this:

Rosa sat so that Martin could walk.

Martin walked so that Barack could run.

Barack ran so that my children might fly.

November 3, 2008

Our Past Week

So we had many eventful times over the last few days. My in-laws flew into town for Miles' Birthday Party and guess what people actually came! It ended up being an outstanding birthday party! We will be working on writing Thank You cards this week and since he knows how to write his own name, he'll be the one signing all the cards. Here are a few pictures of the event.
Then he had a basketball game to go to. Daddy had drill weekend so PaPa stood in for him.

THEN, I felt like we really didn't do enough a a weekend and decided that this would be a great opportunity to teach Miles how to Ice Skate. Ha Ha...we'll be trying this again at a later time......