Jogging for Judah: A JOY RUN!

Doug and I ran in another race yesterday. This was near and dear to my heart as my friends and BRF's (best running friends) were putting this race on to support the adoption process of another BRF Kristy! How cool is that!

 

This race was done in our hometown but as luck would have it, I was out of town at my once a year scrapbook retreat. So I got up a little earlier Saturday morning and drove back to town to race.

 

Here is most of our group prior to the race.

Side note: Lesley doesn't run barefoot, but she does wear those rubber individual toe running shoes. Yes, I'm sure they have a real name!

It was great weather for a summer race. It was hot and humid, but we live in Texas and that is to be expected. I was really hoping to push for a PR, but I didn't take into account the toll 2 days of sitting doing nothing but scrapbooking would take on my hip.  I started the race with an achy left hip. Probably not the best conditions for a fast race. I also had had five "spells" or whatever you would call them on Friday where I know my heart did it's weird stop and re-fire thing. It is obvious to me that my constant state of motion is probably a good thing, because after sitting still and doing very little activity for 2 days resulted in my hands being all trembly and my heart hurting by Friday night. Good race conditioning I know! But before you get worried.. remember the cardiologist said my heart was great and was most consistant in beating when I am running. see, I needed to race!

Anyway... the ladies that I run with all the time and I very much enjoy running together. Here are a couple of the proofs from yesterday's race. You can see us in the background laughing and chatting while Doug is running very seriously ahead of us...

 

 

About a mile in, one friend started having asthma issues. We finally got her inhaler to her about mile 4. It was getting a little scary. We've decided that we will all get inhalers too and carry them with us in case she forgets again! Needlesstosay, pushing for a PR wasn't the priority of the day! But you know, that is one of the privileges of running with this group of ladies.. I know that without a doubt, if it had been me, they would have waited and helped me! I am so thankful to have this group of STRONG women to live my life with!

So back to the race, with about a mile left, I saw Doug a couple of blocks up... hmmm. yes I am that competitive. So I told my friends, I am off! And I raced Doug down and beat him by 30 seconds. I know, that's shallow of me. But hey what can I say, I know that in another 6 months Doug will have pushed past my times and will be waiting on me at the finish line. I gotta get the better time (even if it is just 30 seconds) while I can!

Here Doug is with his SECOND place medal!!

 

And here we both are with our medals. I got third in my division. Really I got fourth, but since the overall female winner came from my age group, I got bumped up! Guess I should be thankful that Wendy (another one of my BRF's) is soo stinkin' fast!

 



 

 

And here we are after the race. I must say, our little running community cleaned up on the awards!

I must say, it's a pretty cool thing to get to run with friends, take home a medal and know that you have helped bring a child to her forever family!



Beading to China

I came across this incredible site this morning and just had to share!  Please go look at http://beadingtochina.blogspot.com/ and consider purchasing some of her beautiful pieces.  Adoption is so very important to our family that I know I will be looking to support her efforts in a tangible way soon!!

Here are a few pictures of her work that I have stolen off her blog!

Have a great day!

ABC’s for a baby shower

So remember the family that got the baby boy to adopt and then it looked like they might not get to keep him… well, they have him and everything looks like they are his forever family!! So we are having a baby shower for them tomorrow at my house.  I wanted to do something fun and special, so I made this set of ABC’s.

The mom, Amy is an elementary teacher, so I figure she will appreciate the letters and can come up with something to do with them :)

Each letter is on it’s own piece of 6”x6” chipboard and I thought would be great as a wall hanging or clipped together with rings or something.  The backside of each letter is covered with paper as well.  They come together as a great mix and match album type thing. 

Originally I was going to have all the guests sign each letter and use it for a sign in sheet at the shower, but after all the work and since they are just so cute a friend and I decided that they were too cute for people to mess up! So now I still have to make the sign in page.. oh well.

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Materials are mostly from CTMH’s Animal Cookies line.  I LOVE these papers!!  I did add in a couple of other papers as I needed more pages. The alphabet is your standard teacher pop-out letters.

See and you all thought I was just taking it easy not doing anything!  I have decided that crafting with a 4 week old, a 4 year old and a 9 year old is really hard and will probably happen only in the middle of the night for quite a while.  

I do have lots of in-progress items that I am hoping to finish soon, but man am I tired! I have to remind myself to take it easy and enjoy these precious moments with baby Kylie because in the blink of an eye she will be 4 years old and not need me to hold her all the time.

And just in case you all needed a sweet Kylie Faith fix… here she is at 4 weeks.

Thankful Thursday: Growing Children and Families

I have so much to be thankful for!  I don’t post very often, but with so  much wonderful in life, I need to remember to be thankful each and every day!

I can’t believe Kylie is 3 weeks old!  She weighs 10 pounds and is adorable! Her sister’s still hover unmercifully, but I know that will end sooner or later.

Our  house is also finally getting well!  Last week everyone but me was on breathing treatments, 2 are currently on steroids and their 2nd round of antibiotics, and then we even had a bought of stomach virus mixed in for good measure. But as of today, I think we might just survive!

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And then there is Hudson to be thankful for!  My sister Libby, her husband Mike and their daughter Abby arrived home with new son Hudson just last night!!

Here they are in a park in Korea.

Isn’t he precious!

Wow, so much for which we have to be thankful!

Forwarding on a desperate plea

This is from a blog I follow.


Would You Please Pray and/or Fast With Us?

Sweet friends we need your help, please.





It is a long story, which I cannot go into, but due to circumstances that were completely out of our control we have not been able to file our paperwork with immigration. (It is near done, but not quite.)

This morning, while grocery shopping I received a phone call from our agency. They had just received word that Ch*na was troubled by the length of time it has taken for our paperwork to get to Immigration, thus they are withdrawing their acceptance of us as Jubilee's parents.

Meaning, we no longer have permission from Ch*na to adopt Jubilee.
I asked our agency what do we do now and they said, "We don't know. Ch*na has never done this before." Of course it hasn't.

Dw and I are grieved, have been crying, and are petitioning the Lord. We believe that one reason we have this blog and you bloggy friends is to join together "for such a time as this." If you think you cannot believe all the things that have happened to us this year, trust me, we cannot either.
Jubilee is our daughter. She has been our daughter for 18 months as we have dreamed about her, bought things for her and prayed for her. She will be 8 the day after Christmas. She needs to come home. She needs to come home now.

We need a mountain moved, a miracle to happen and great favor to be issued. We are asking God to move on the Ch*nese Government and rescind that decision and allow us to proceed - we are about 2 days from ready to send it.

Hence, we turn to the Almighty-God of the Universe, who we refer to as the Miracle-working, Mountain-moving, Awe-inspiring, Gasp-giving God....He is the ONLY one able to move this mountain.

Would any of you be willing to pray and/or fast with us tomorrow, Thursday, August 26, 2009? Please pray for Jubilee's protection as well. There is no doubt that things are going on in the supernatural.

PS PLease ask any prayer warrior or prayer chain to pray - please? And feel free to post it on your blog.

From
http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com

Why can't life ever be easy?

Why can't life ever be easy? That's my question for today. You know the previous post about the wonderful baby that our friends just got... well, life has thrown them a curve ball. It turns out that there are some unresolved issues and they don't know if they will get to keep precious Ryan. So please pray for this situation. We know that God is in control, but from our perspective it is so hard to sit back and watch the heartbreak.

An amazing adoption story!

Some friends of mine have been in the process of waiting on an adoption for a while.  Last summer, they turned in their “book” and have been waiting to be chosen by a birth mom.  They expected once they were chosen to have a couple of months to get ready. Amy has been incredible in all of this, she truly has rested in the fact that God is in control and that at some point she would be holding a child to call her own.

Well, yesterday the agency called and asked if they would like to come and pick up their 8 day old son!  Can you imagine!! No warning, no preparation, no supplies, no shower, no anything.. except of course A BABY!!!!

So with great pleasure, welcome Ryan! What a wonderful surprise and blessing!! Here are the pictures of the family that I stole off Facebook :)

Isn’t he wonderful!!!!!!!!!