They've never been anyone's screen saver!

I took their picture and saved it as my wallpaper on my phone and showed it to Max and Ridgley. You'd have thought they'd been put on the cover of Vogue. It got me thinking.....it is likely they have never been anyone's screensaver. Nor has anyone ever made them lunch to take to school. It's therefore unlikely they've ever had cut up strawberries and grapes and I know because they told me, that they've never had a turkey wrap or been driven to school. These are small things and certainly not critical to a happy childhood, but these are small things you only do when you go the extra mile for your OWN kid. Their ill grandmother, ex-stepfather, evil auntie or recent foster parents were merely keeping them alive, not loving them as their own.

Well, they are my own now and things will be different.

And boy are things different already. I'm writing in a fog of exhaustion surpassed only by Georgia's natural labor and delivery. It's fun and frustrating and well, nothing else really matters. I'm living in the moment and trying to keep eternity in focus. If my business falls apart, but these kids find Jesus, eternity has been my focus. If my business thrives, we get rich and these kids miss out on seeing Jesus through us, then mortality is my focus.

In light of my determined eternal focus, I'm struggling in the area of home expansion. Maybe some of you can chime in on this. We want to convert our garage to a master bedroom, add a detached garage and be able to take in more kids. Technically, we have room for one more as is. After that, we'd need a group home designation, but we could get it by doing some extra training and adding a sprinkler system to our house (fire code). The family I mentioned recently with 12 kids has only 1900 sq. ft and a 'cabin' for their two 18 yr. old boys, so I know we don't 'need' it, but man.....it would make life easier for everyone that lived here if we had another bathroom, a pantry (which we do not have at all) and another bedroom.

Poor Ridgley, who is sharing a room with a 6 month old and a 20 month old, already wakes up a 6am when Caton turns on her aquarium. It comforts Caton back to sleep but sweet Ridgley ran into our room this morning having no idea what that noise was. A nursery for kids 5 and under and a big girls and a big boys room seems reasonable. But the expense is more than twice what we thought it would be to convert our garage (a ghetto fix in the first place...seems we should be able to add a 2nd story for what they want to convert garage....45K).

If you're thinking that God will provide, you're right. But hasn't he already? They have a comfortable home and if I asked Ridgley if she'd rather us use our extra 'kid money' (from the state...which is $640/mo per kid) to pay for a room that might be hers short term but that she'd later have to share, she'd MUCH rather share with her little sisters and take ballet, gymnastics and all the other fun classes and sports kids who don't belong to anyone miss out on. So, we could use that money to pay a loan payment or it can go to the INSANE grocery bill we now have , fun vacations, extra curricular activities and possibly home-schooling.

Charles Dobson did some research that showed, when asked what they liked most about childhood, people always responded with stories about time spent with their parents. They never responded about their big house, fancy cars, nice clothes or fun toys.

You see my predicament? (and no, we don't even have Caton in a gymnastics class even though she's the next Nadia Comaneci, because it squeezes our budget too tightly) I suppose I will lay it at the cross and await a response. But I'd love to know what you would do.

This is Max pushing Caton on her bike that she's still too small for. He and Ridgley were riding and Caton finally got tired of watching and wanted to ride hers too. I was holding GiGi, so Max took it upon himself to get her bike out of the garage, set her on it and push her all the way down the sidewalk and back. He did this so carefully and with such vigilance that she never so much as became unsteady! Just a bit later he wiped out on his own bike and got a nasty scraped knee. He passed up dad and ran to me for comfort like he'd been breastfed too long! HA! Sweet Mommy love! It won't be long before I have completely forgotten or ignored the fact that I did not birth these children. God has provided an eerie bond already.


On to the commitment ceremony! I merely wanted to bless the kids with given names, make them feel welcome and let them know we don't need a 6 month waiting period to see how they behave before we commit to adopting them. But the effort and love that showed up on our lawn at 5pm on Friday was breathtaking. We had balloons, neighbors, teachers, grandmothers, friends and kids we barely knew! We flashed welcome home signs with their new names on the back of the signs. Jim kicked off the whole thing by sharing 1 Samuel Chapter 1 Verse 27 and 28 "I prayed for this child and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him so now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord and he worshiped the Lord there." Then he gave them their names which they adored immediately!

Jim blubbered a bit, but only in the most loving way that exuded his strength and authority in our household. Then Zac, our pastor, a man who while standing in our yard was booking airfare for 6 to Africa to pick up his orphan baby in just two short weeks, challenged us with a beautiful 'charge' as parents and also charged the kids with a commitment to receive love from us. It was perfect. The kids seemed to really get how serious this all was and later asked "is this whole thing just for us?".

Today was their 2nd trip to church and they seemed right at home. They went to their classes without any hesitation and both recited their memory verses to us later. Max declared in a loud voice as our discussion about what they learned started to wind down, "I FORGIVE EVERYBODY!" and then immediately followed with "Wait, what does that mean?" Idyllic teaching moments!

They are soaking up every bit of Bible and Jesus we will give them. It's really too easy. I can't wrap my head around the fact that I am not stealing grace from a lot of people because I simply have too much.