Ask and you shall receive

We had a wonderful Christmas. Here are the kids blowing out the candles on the birthday cake that we baked for Jesus. This is one of the traditions that we have started with our kids to do every year for Christmas. When teaching them that Christmas was about celebrating Jesus' birth they said, "He needs a birfday cake!" so now He gets a birthday cake every year. They love it and we enjoy singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. We decided we would not do Santa Clause. We just didn't want it to be about him. My kids still got gifts and had plenty of fun. I just get sick of all the Santa hype and that is not what it is about to our family. This did upset some people close to us but they got over it. I think they quickly realized that Christmas can be enjoyed without Santa.
Have I blogged about adoption on here? Hmmm I don't remember. I know I stink at blogging. Life just gets in the way, and that is okay, but I do want to do better. Back in the summer after MUCH prayer we felt like God was telling us to add to our family through adoption of foster child/children. I prayed for a while, then came to Donny about it and we both prayed. When we both said yes that we felt like it was something we are suppose to do I talked with a friend of mine online that has been through it. She got me in touch with a sweet lady from The CALL in Arkansas and I found out that while we had missed the information meeting that they do that makes things SOOO much easier for you, that she, being the sweet lady she is could come over and talk with us, give us the paper work and we could get things rolling. So we met, got the paper work and ran around like crazy people the next day to get all of the papers notarized, fingerprints taken, etc to turn in THAT day so we could be signed up for the training coming up. It all came together beautifully though. We ran all over town with our 3 kids in tow and when people doing the notarizing and fingerprinting, etc saw what we were doing it for they all wondered which of those 3 kids we were adopting :) haha Nope those already belong to us.
I suppose it is unheard of to want more than 3 kids, lol. Well we didn't get that memo.
So we got that done, went through the training which takes 2 weekends, of full day training and have been waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, trying to be patient. I am not so good at being patient. I pray for patience and please don't say, "NOOO never pray for patience! If you do that the Lord will give you hard times to make you patient!" I say poo on that. God knows my prayers before they are spoken, he knows what I need, if I need trials to make me patient than so be it :) (I do have two 3 yr olds and one 5 yr old, so plenty of chances)
So as time goes on I start to worry. Worrying is a sin that I struggle with, daily, hourly, by the minute....... Can I handle more children? Can we afford more children? What if something happens to me? We already have 3 children that someone would have to care for but to add to it, is that ok? What if something happened to Donny, would I go nuts? Are my children going to be able to handle having more brothers/sisters? Even though they are very excited and want more children in the family very badly. Will Donny and I EVER get alone time again? and much, much more. I still worry. I do. I hate it but I do.
So I prayed. I spent a nap time in prayer asking for God's help. Asking if this was truly God's will would He let me know, because we felt so strongly it was in the beginning but after months of waiting you begin to wonder. I prayed that His will be done. That evening when Donny came in he brought in the mail as always and announced, "Our CPR certified cards came in." I giggled and said, "Well maybe that is my sign," then told him of my struggle and my praying. With a big smile and laugh Donny said, "Oh you will love what else we got today then," and he laid a paper for an orphanage called "All God's Children" down and the bar. Ask and you shall receive I suppose :)
We have our first home study scheduled for Thursday so I ask for your prayers. I am very nervous and excited at the same time. I am mostly nervous that the social worker will see my children jumping all over me and run away saying no way do you need more. God has a plan for us though. I think He has a special child that is meant to be with our family, maybe more than one :)