Happy Birthday Daddy.........................

Your cupcake was delicious!!!!!!!!

Love,

Mommy, Cross, and Snicker Bug

Tommy da Twain..................

Cross got to go on a glorious adventure Saturday with the Bullock men and as you can see in the first picture, that crew included a very grandfatherish Granddaddy...............

They had a great time and I got a LOT of adoption paperwork done. I hated to miss a moment of mommy fun, but I think they did just fine without me! Cross buddy, your "cheese" and that stinkin hat are going to have my heart for as long as we both shall live!

Dream BIG.................

Hello Blog World! With a great big smile I can tell you that I am trucking along in the adoption paperwork extravaganza. I thank you so much for your prayers. After my break down the other night I got organized and made a "getting started" to-do list and put as much as I could fit on one sheet of paper in my oh so favorite list form and then decided I would just wait and make a new list next week once I actually got a few things marked off. It is hard when you have a husband, job, but most of all a child because you most certainly don't want to awake 4 months later from the paperwork fog and notice that your precious son has grown a foot and doesn't remember who mommy is or what memories mean. I am trying to make a very conscious effort to not obsess over the timing I have in mind and faithfully work when the door naturally opens, not when it has to be beaten down. I also wanted to ask for prayer in regards to a bump we hit today in regards to our health insurance proving that they will cover Mercy immediately. This is a BIG deal because it is a requirement by Ethiopia and there are some serious medical concerns (that I promise to discuss once we have processed them ourselves and I know that the insurance ordeal is going to be resolved). So ALL prayers will be appreciated. I feel like a selfish prayer friend so send me yours too because I actually do a much better job at having faith for you than I do for myself.

Which actually leads me to my point of posting. It is after 10 so I am thinking this may be short and sweet, but my desire is for your dreams (and mine) to be big (not at all short and sweet). I am a dreamer by nature. One of my top strengths in the Strength's Finders is futuristic so this dreaming thing is the most natural place for me to go. Obviously, this "strength" comes with a million weaknesses, but we aren't going to go over those details in this post. It is meant to be fun. One time in some much needed counseling during our last two years of "not so heaven like" reality, our pastor gave us some of the greatest counsel ever, to dream. He said don't ever get so defeated that you stop dreaming as a couple. Jeremy likes to dream just about as much as a snail likes a steady sprint, but he has been ever so willing for the sake of our sanity. But recently I feel like we have both stopped dreaming to some degree. So I want you to dream this week and I am going to dream with you in order to give my sweet man a break.....................

I dream of several rug rats running through a home that we own and picked out and painted and hung pictures and scriptures up everywhere! Oh and a backyard with a fence where Snicker girl can rome too.

I dream of a mini-van (yes you read that correctly) packed full of car seats, rocking out to some Veggie Tales and to the point where the base is bumping.

I dream of a kitchen that is larger than the size of my pinky nail where I can possibly toy with the idea of actually enjoying cooking, oh and GLORY hallelujah, it will have a GINORMOUS dishwasher to boot.

I dream of our finances putting us back in the position to bless instead of having to be blessed. I want to live radical, like really radical! I want to die and think, man, Jesus used us to rock the world for Him, what an honor that would be!

I want to fellowship with our Savior, by the day, by the minute. I want to FEEL Him more!

I want to walk more, be busy less, be my man's bestest friend and laugh and drink coffee with my dearest friends whom I selfishly want to be my next door neighbors.

I want to buy things for people, send kids to school in Africa, and have college funds set up for the ones we actually own.

I want our entire family to be radically sold out to Christ!

I want my friend's husband to go to work for a child trafficking organization because he is brilliant and I want them to step out!!

I want my other friends', plural, husbands to come home from war and never go back.

I want another friend to adopt sooner than later.

I want to be big and pregnant (well while we are dreaming, cute and pregnant) with a little red headed girl named Chapel Elizabeth Bullock.

I want Mercy to be totally healed and be Cross' bestest friend and I want to home school them in the same grade because she is NOT behind in the name of JESUS!!!!!!!

I want my parents to quit smoking. I want my cousin to quit doing things that are killing her body, mind, soul and spirit. I want Jesus to come back SOON!!!!!!

Yep, I for sure think dreaming is good for the soul! Feel free to comment dream or to talk your hubs into sitting down tonight and dreaming with you. Dream over email if he is 1,000 miles from home, but let's never stop dreaming and let's never doubt that Jesus has more than all we could ever ask, think, or imagine in store. Let's take Him at His Word and dream big, if we obey Him, He will trump them, guaranteed! Yes there will be hardships along the way, this is earth, not Heaven, but oh the saddest of days will come when we buy into the lie of doomed despair! Let's turn our dreams into prayers and just see what God might do, I dare ya! Have a great rest of the week sweet friends!

K

*ignore errors, I am hitting publish post and closing my eyes, it is 11 PM!

UPs and downs, HIGHS and lows...............

Hey gang, as I sit in front of this computer compiling a list of the 5,001 things I will need for the Dossier and then I scanned over the EIGHT page document I will need to fill out for just ONE grant, none of this is counting a glorious form called the I600a (which I have not even thought about), I am a bit paralyzed. I thought a plea for prayer would be a better use of my time right now. I am usually good at paperwork. It is like one big list and I LOVE lists, but this was more than I could handle, especially considering it is night and you all know just how well I do at night. In the strangest of ways, had I looked at this at 5 a.m. it may have felt like a good challenge, but at 9 p.m. it is making me want to cry. In addition to the paperwork we still need a miracle in the approximate amount of $28,425.00 NOW, that requires a LOT of faith! So here's my prayer this Labor Day Weekend Night, that I will TRUST JESUS, to get these docs done, to give me the time to do my part (a two year old, a part time job with an event a few weeks away and this thing I would like to somewhat keep called a LIFE are all making time a very valuable commodity). Please also pray that I will LEAN NOT ON MY OWN UNDERSTANDING in regards to the money. That is almost easy considering the amount, yet I keep trying to think of "ways" but they all include time and time is what I don't have. So just pray that I will trust Jesus. And finally, pray for me to trust Jesus and not carry guilt. If I think too much about all of this I will beat myself up for not locking myself in a room for hours and knocking this out. This paperwork to me represents a life that gets a modest piece of bread each day for her meal (singular). You get the point. I feel guilty for everyday that goes by and I don't have my paperwork in. I KNOW that God's grace will cover her until we can get to her, heck, long after we get to her for that matter, but pray that I FEEL that grace myself! Ok, thanks a ton, I have never been so thankful for your prayers. Have a great long weekend! Pray I can take it one step at a time!!!!

Kelly