Easter

This year plans changed for Easter. Our son was sick the week leading up to Easter so we were not sure we were going to be able to attend Easter dinner at my mom's house. On Saturday he was feeling up to coloring eggs. This has been a tradition since the kids were little and they really enjoy it. It is fun to see their artistic creations. Quite a few years back my husband decided to dye the tips of the boys fingers different colors and they thought it was fantastic!!!! So as the years have gone on this is still part of the tradition. Crazy BOYS!

Easter Sunday comes and my mom calls and says that she is now sick and won't be able to do the Easter dinner. We were disappointed to say the least. I was thankful that our son was now well and I said that I would cook the dinner instead and had everybody over to my house. We had a wonderful time celebrating the resurrection of Jesus together. My mom had ordered this beautiful cake from our sister's cake business and it was FANTASTIC!!!! I thought the writing on the cake was very appropriate, too!

VERY soon we will be start a new beginning as a family of 5~

Luke was REALLY excited to eat this cake!

The dyed fingers of the boys. Nice variation of colors, huh?

The finished eggs. Several of the eggs broke this year :-(

Can you guess what egg is mine? Alesha, is always on my mind.

Next year we will be celebrating Easter with our little girl...YAY!

Painting Alesha's Room

It took me a while to get things moving on Alesha's room. For me, it was difficult to have her room completed before I knew I was closer to bringing her home. To walk by her room day after day and see it all done and no baby girl to put in the crib was more than I could deal with.

By the middle of March I had purchased Alesha's bedding and accessories and was trying to decide on what color to paint her room. I was talking to my friend, Hillory, and she said she had some green paint that she wasn't going to use and said I could have it. I am not a real fan of green, but there was green in the bedding so I got the paint and decided to try it out and see if the greens matched. I will say that I really like THIS green. It is bright and cheerful and goes perfect with the bedding.

The painting day began a little bit at the spur of the moment. I painted a couple pieces of white posterboard so I could get a visual....I am NOT a very visual person!! My husband and boys thought it looked great and wanted to start painting. The planner in me was a bit overwhelmed, because I didn't have everything ready. I had to run to the store and buy a roller before we could even start! When I returned with the ONE and ONLY roller that was left at the store....should have been my first warning of things to come.....the furniture was all pushed to one side and the males in my house were really excited to get things moving!

ALL the excitement and THEN.. IT happened!!!!!!

The look on my son Luke's face says it ALL! Yes, that is paint you see on the carpet...not on the plastic! This was ALL MY fault!! We had finished the first wall and I needed to move the ladder to cut in the base board on the next wall and forgot that I had my cut in bowl of paint on the little holder on the top of the ladder. You guessed it, April moves ladder and bowl of paint comes flying off and hits the floor. I was absolutely beside myself. Tears began to flow and I left the room and locked myself in my bathroom where I proceeded to SOB like I haven't done in a REALLY long time. I think that the paint spill was the last straw that burst open the flood of emotions that I had been holding in for the last several months. As I sobbed my sweet husband and boys who were shocked by my sobs sprung into action and managed to clean up the paint spill and today you would never know it happened. After I finally finished my mini emotional breakdown I continued to paint the next three walls that day and then called it quits.

After one of the wall was finished.

One of the finished corners. I still want to get letters for her name and paint them pink and hang them from some beautiful ribbon on the wall above her crib.



We decided to paint the entire room green. We had just the right amount of paint with some left over for touch ups later on as needed! I still need to get some shelves to hang above the dresser to put stuff on and I want to find some material to hang across the top of the closet and have it hang down gathered on both sides. These details will have to wait until later, but the majority of the room is done and we enjoy hanging out in there as a family and talking about our sweet baby girl.

To say that the painting of the Alesha's bedroom turned out to be a VERY eventful experience would be an understatement! The paint spill was used by God to help ME spill all the emotions that I had held in. It was used to have our family work together as a team. I stand in awe of how God provided the bedding for an amazing deal, we received free paint from a friend and it was a perfect match, and how my gliding rocker from 12 years ago that I used when my first son was born fits perfectly into the room. God is AMAZING in how he works out the littlest of details.

Update

The last couple weeks have been so exciting thinking about how CLOSE we are to traveling. We are actually discussing how our trip will look, where to stay, purchasing items for the trip, talking to families who have traveled and those that are getting ready to travel, dragging out the luggage, and stock piling things to pack. When I think back over our adoption process it is amazing to me that right before we left on our mission trip to India in August, 2008, we had just taken our place at #13 on the waiting list for our daughter! As I was flying to India and back I was thinking and dreaming about what this flight would look like when we had our little girl with us.

This August will be 2 years since that flight and SO much happened since that time. God has changed me in a number of ways. For me the most noticeable is how I don't freak out as much as I used to when things don't go as planned. This adoption process has been KEY is teaching me this. You find out in a hurry that you have very limited CONTROL and that things DON'T go according to YOUR timeline. As our process has unfolded I find myself not so uptight in the waiting and am trusting God more for His timing then mine. Time after time a silent prayer of mine is answered, a potential disaster is calmed quickly, a need arises and provisions are made, etc. All these things remind me of how faithful God is and that He sees the whole picture and has it under control. God has also calmed my fears of bringing our boys with us. I have a lot more peace and am looking forward to what the Lord has planned for my boys while we are in India. I believe this will be a life changing trip for our family as a whole and individually on many levels.

As everyday passes we wait for the longed for email that says "Alesha Mugdha Pfeiffer's passport is READY!" What an exciting day this will be!!!! At that point we can begin booking airline tickets and put all the finishing touches on leaving home to go to India and become a family of 5!

Today we received a couple new pictures of Alesha. It made me smile to see such a sweet smile on Alesha's caregiver's face. I can tell from the picture that she takes good care of my girl and for that I am forever grateful. It thrills me to see how healthy and strong Alesha is getting. It won't be long now and we will have her in our arms. I am praying that the passports will come soon and my family will be able to connect with the other families traveling to India around the same time.


We are coming baby girl.....hold on!


Our darling brown-eyed girl!

Spring Break Blessings

During spring break this year I was blessed beyond measure. I was able to take my boys to the Oregon Coast and the Washington Coast to spend time with both sets of grandparents. (If you scroll down on my blog, I finally got around to posting the trip) While I was gone I was getting updates on our adoption from my husband, because I was without internet access. My first surprise came on Tuesday when Darin called to tell me that we received new pictures of Alesha and that our scrutinizing of our paperwork was completed. I was so thrilled that our paperwork was now ready to go before the judge and that we had new photos of our baby girl. We have very few pictures of her so these were a blessing for sure. He then told me that Alesha was standing up and I was SO excited. He asked if I wanted to come home early to see them....ummm SO tempting, but I said I was going to stay put. Then on Thursday he calls me to tell me that he received an email that said we are now guardians of Alesha!!!!!! I was blown away. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Tears just streamed down my face. So filled with joy, shock and amazement. He then asked if this would bring me home early. I talked with my mom and she said that I could leave the boys with her so they wouldn't be disappointed in leaving early and she would just bring them home the following day. So I left early evening on Thursday after we had our day of already planned activities. I was just praising God the entire way home for answering prayer and my mind was just racing with all the steps that now needed to be completed. I guess I thought I had more time.....now I needed to get going on the boy's visas, fill out paperwork and get things in order! As I drove home it was pouring rain, but the sky was beautiful with sun coming through the clouds. As I rounded the corner before I would turn onto the Astoria bridge I saw the most amazing and beautiful sight. A DOUBLE rainbow!!! I stopped the car and got my camera out so I could photograph this beautiful site. It was absolutely breath taking!!!! It stopped raining long enough for me to capture the pictures. God is amazing and SO faithful. To have this rainbow appear at the end of such an amazing week was beyond words. It was like He was saying to me continue to trust me. I am faithful! Amen to that. God is GOOD ALL the time, ALL the time God is GOOD!!!

This is what the sky looked like prior to me rounding the corner

This is what I saw when I rounded the corner
Absolutely gorgeous!!!!!!

BOYS + DIRT = FUN

This is definately the case at our house. As you can see from the pics below growing older has not changed this fact. It is a known fact at my house that if the boys go outside to play they will be filthy when they come back inside. They are 100% BOY! I wonder how our little princess is going to like dirt?

Eating it!

Splashing in it!

Throwing it!

Covered in it!

Decided that ROLLING in it would be a blast!

My life is never dull :-)

Spring Break - Oregon Coast

My husband's parents live in Gearhart, Oregon so it has been tradition to stay a couple days with them over spring break before we head to my mom and Tom's house in Ocean Park, Washington. The boys get a good fill of grandmas and grandpas during spring break. We had a lovely time with the Pfeiffers. Martin was able to go on his 2 mile walk with his Grandpa Pfeiffer. He loves this walk and was looking forward to it all week prior to going. They have great talks and pick up shells, wood, and clean up the beach of trash along the way. The boys played at the little park nearby, went swimming at the pool, took a walk into town with grandma to pick up the mail and she bought them an ice cream cone. My camera battery died so I don't have many pictures, but we had a wonderful time. Thanks for having us.


Grandpa Pfeiffer with Martin and Luke

The little specks just beyond the rock are Martin and his
grandpa heading out for their walk. They leave early 7:30 a.m.

Crazy boys!

Spring Break - Washington Coast

It has become a yearly tradition that we head to grandma and grandpa's beach house in Ocean Park, Washington for a portion of spring break. It works out great. It isn't really crowded, because Washington's spring break is the week after Oregon. We had pretty good weather this year and spent a lot of time outside. The beach was beautiful, but REALLY windy. You can tell by my crazy hair.


Me with my boys

Martin's sand drawing

Grandma (my mom) with Martin and Luke

Grandpa Tom with the boys

My mom and Tom

My mom and me

Martin throwing the football with grandpa

Spring Break - Washington Coast Part 2

The plans for a fort


Grandpa getting ready to measure some boards

Doing some cutting

The basic floor plan - small box in corner is to crawl down
into the dirt pit below the fort.

Playing the traditional Spiderman Monopoly game with grandma.

Smores!

Boys and fire!

Making the smore with grandma

Spring Break - Washington Coast - Part 3

The annual trip to the arcade in Long Beach.

Luke always plays this game and wins BIG.

Look at ALL those tickets!

Martin counting his tickets with grandma

This arcade had Guitar Hero so Martin was thrilled.

Building forts out of driftwood at Cape Disappointment.

The top view of Martin's fort

Martin inside his fort

Luke

Luke inside his fort.