Lately

The Blackburn household lately.

• We have been loving the television series "The Bible" on the History channel.

Literally. It just excites us to watch it. Lee was watching it earlier today and he said, "I mean it's amazing to think that there were people who actually got to see, listen to and talk to Jesus while He was here on earth."
Now obviously, intellectually, we know this Truth, but there is something neat about seeing it acted out.

• I am 14 weeks pregnant today and beginning to get anxious/excited about finding out if we are having a boy or girl! We have no names yet for either sex. This child may be born without a name :) Lee firmly believes we are having a girl and I kinda have a feeling it's a boy. We will know soon enough.


• Speaking of being 14 weeks pregnant: I am feeling better! Nausea visits me much more rarely, and my fatigue has improved. Last week it was literally like someone flipped a switch and I started feeling better! I don't think I realized the fullness of how awful I have felt until I started feeling better! Praising God for carrying me through the first trimester!

• Lee says that I am nesting! :)
Yes. Nesting already at only 14 weeks pregnant. Either Lee is right or I am on a HUGE cleaning spree. We have literally been turning this house upside down.
Can I confess something?
I'm unorganized. I'm actually not very good at keeping my house clean.
There. I said it. All of you OCD people can gasp now :)
My house rarely smells like bleach. Clutter doesn't bother me. Cleaning does not come natural.
I'm very much "right brained." I'm easily distracted and it takes me hours to clean an area that Lee can clean in 30 minutes.
God created us to operate differently.
However.
I want to learn.
Lee and I had this discussion today and he is so precious in wanting to help me as much as he can (even if that means hiring a maid :)) no offense against people with maids! Id actually love one :)

But my response to him was, "I want to learn. I don't need a temporary fix to a long term problem. I want to learn the skill of keeping a house together, while still living life to the fullest, playing with my kids, studying the Word, painting, etc."

So I'm trying :) my house will never always be spotless and that's okay! Notice I said "keeping a house together" not sparkly clean.

I love, love, love the Chinese proverb:

"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

More on that at another time.

• On the adoption front:
We are currently completing paperwork for our "concurrent adoption." It's paperwork that has to be done by families who become pregnant during their process. We are waiting on our social worker to complete a letter on our behalf.
And we are waiting. Slowly creeping up the waiting list for our boy. But I continue to be encouraged by other families at all stages in the process!

Garage Sale!

On May 5th last year we had a huge garage sale fundraiser for our adoption. The response and generosity of you guys was awesome! It was a lot of work but I feel like it paid off in the end. Click HERE to see my garage sale post from last year.

So.

Lee and I have decided to have another garage sale fundraiser for our adoption on Saturday, May 4th. 100% of the proceeds will go directly towards our adoption.
We have raised/received a lot of money so far, but realistically we are only about half way there. We needs approx 12-15 thousand more to be fully funded :-/
So. The garage sale will be well worth it!

We will begin collecting items around the beginning of April. So keep us in mind when you begin your spring cleaning!

Organizational things we will need:
Tables
Boxes
Signs
Clothes hangers

(tables don't have to get to us until end of April- but it's good to have a count of how many tables we have. We will get them back to you after the sale).

Items that sold QUICKLY last year:
Purses
DVDs
TVs (the old, fat ones :))
Home Decor


Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare for and complete this garage sale. Pray for God's hand of favor, but also that His name would be glorified and spread through the entire process.

Yes, I am Pregnant :)

As announced in my previous post... Lee and I are expecting! I am 12 weeks pregnant today. I have blogged one time in the past month and a half. My lack of blogging is completely to blame on the severe fatigue and nausea that has decided to hang around this first trimester. Seriously. I have literally just been trying to survive. Remember, along with the nausea/fatigue, I have a wild 19 month old boy I've been chasing around. Not complaining. Just saying that blogging simply hasn't been a possibility.
My lack of blogging has absolutely not been because I have lost my fire for adoption secondary to pregnancy. Nope. Not even close. Lee and I are still absolutely on fire for adoption and for our sweet Malachi. Which leads me into the questions that most of y'all have regarding our pregnancy.

1) Are y'all still going to adopt? Absolutely!! Pregnancy hasn't ever wavered our desire to adopt. For those of you unfamiliar with our story - we were called to adopt before we even found out we were pregnant with Miller.

2) Was this a surprise?
That question is kind of hard to answer :)) I was NOT surprised to be pregnant again before completing our adoption (we've been discussing this because of increased wait times). However, I WAS surprised that pregnancy happened so quickly.

3) How does this affect your adoption process?
We will have to update our Home Study (which we would have had to do regardless).
We will continue to move up the waiting list (we won't lose our spot in line). However, IF we became "#1" on the waiting list before this new baby is 6 months old, our agency would skip us until our child was 6 months old. Then we would be eligible for a referral (being matched with a baby) .
But since the wait times have increased so much, we feel confident that our newest child will be well over 6 months old before we are next in line for a referral.

Thanks for continuing to journey with us! I am HOPING and PRAYING that the fatigue and nausea will fade since this trimester is coming to an end. Hopefully then I can do some more blogging :)

Please continue to pray for us! With warmer weather coming (yayy!!) we are talking about some fundraisers. possibly even another garage sale. I will keep you guys posted!

And pray for Ethiopia. Pray for the orphans there and for the government to be effective in placing kids in forever families!

Ceramic eggs for all my babies

This mama is ready to have all my chicks home!!

New Number + February recap

This is our collage for the month of February. You can check out THIS POST if you are wondering why I have a collage for the month :)

Pictured above:

• Our announcement card revealing our PREGNANCY!! So cute! Our photographer AMY BECKLEY is awesome! Check out her blog! You will be blessed.
• Family photo
• NUMBER 72 for Malachi!! Up 2 spots from last month :)
• Miller fell in L.O.V.E with hats this month! He will request to wear them and actually doesn't pull them off.  
• Jump House inside our living room!! February has been marked by COLD, RAINY weather! We definitely have cabin fever!
• And last, but definitely not least is the bottom right picture of my child in a trance watching MICKEY MOUSE!! Y'all... literally... he LOVES this show!
• not pictured is my Hubby's week long birthday celebration :)) Happy Late Birthday, Lee!

Not that y'all have missed me :) but it has been approximately 1 month since I blogged. I can't even apologize for the month off because nausea and fatigue from pregnancy has consumed me! I'm 10.5 weeks pregnant now so hopefully some of this will lift soon and I can get back to blogging, etc.

I do not have time right now to elaborate on pregnancy and how that affects (or doesn't really affect) our adoption. I promise to attempt writing a post on that this weekend (or next week :) ).

Rest assured.... we are STILL ADOPTING!!

This pregnant mama almost did a toe-touch at work when we moved up 2 spots this month!

I want all my little chicks home!! Soon!

Thanks for reading!

Happy MARCH! 

5 Months Waiting!

Today we have been "officially" waiting on Malachi for 5 months!! It seems like time has flown and crept by all in one! But regardless, we are 5 months closer to our little man :))

Looking back at our adoption timeline, on Jan 30, 2012 - we began our Home study paperwork and on Jan 31, 2012- our adoption agency assigned us a family coordinator!

Wow!

I cannot believe its been a YEAR since we officially began this journey! It's been a good, tough, refining year and I'm looking forward to all that 2013 has in store!

We celebrate moving up one spot on the "unofficial" waiting list. Our agency's movement this month was s.l.o.w. with only 2 referrals going out and I'm not sure what age/gender those were.
We moved up one spot on the infant (0-12 mos) list because a family switched from being open to both genders to only wanting a girl- so everyone in line for boys slid up a spot.
I will piggyback on that statement and take note that I haven't mentioned the toddler list much (age 18-24 mos). A while back we were #36 on this list... However, we are now like #40! So I've decided not to even mention it til we get back down to our original number :)
Why, you ask?
We moved backwards 4 spots on the toddler list because people ahead of us changed their parameters. For example: a family who was only open to a 0-12 mos child may have expanded their parameters to 0-4 years old so they then slid in front of us on the toddler list. We have seen some shifting in parameters lately for various reasons (increased wait time being a huge reason).

So don't be confused when I only give 1 number... Then all of a sudden switch to 2 :)

Lastly, this next thing is a total copycat from another blogger I follow. She did this last year and it turned out super cute so I am going to TRY to do it! "TRY" being the key word here.

At the end of each month she recaps some family highlights from the month and quickly puts them into a collage.
Then at the end of the year you have a little mini scrapbook!
Quick, easy and fun.

So here is my January 2013!

From left to right:

Miller learned how to "pucker his lips"

My book was revised and is officially for sale!

SNOW!! (at work)

Miller fishing with daddy

#74 on waiting list!

Thoughts about Life

I'm not real sure where the thoughts for this post come from. So excuse my randomness.

For some reason lately I've been thinking this same question in different contexts: "What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose?"

I could attempt to answer this in a Sunday School way: to love and live for God.
Or I could attempt to answer it in a theological way: actually no I won't :) I'd bomb that!

I love to think deeply. And I love questions like this because they not only challenge me to evaluate my perspective on life, but these questions also challenge me to grow.

There must be more to this life than keeping up with the latest fashion, excelling in your career, checking off a To Do List day in and day out, making more money, buying a better house/car/boat whatever, have a million friends on Facebook or being popular.

Solomon, the wisest man on earth, said that he denied himself nothing this world could offer, and in the end... It was a chasing after the wind.

About a year ago, our small group went to We Will Go (a ministry in downtown Jackson). On Sunday afternoons around 3:00, this ministry has an outdoor church service for the people of Jackson.
The setting: the missionaries' backyard.
Many people in the crowd are literally homeless. Others are stricken by poverty. Churches sometimes send groups to help serve and pray. Everyone is welcome.

Our group Prayer Walked before the service began, then we were asked to be seated (separately) so that we could meet/greet people as they arrived for worship. I found a seat and began scanning the crowd as people arrived. I wondered what their stories were. I smiled and said hello to the few people who came within speaking distance to my seat. One man in particular caught my eye. He arrived by himself. He slowly walked toward the chairs.

I watched him.

He wore a plain black toboggan, a green jacket, and blue jeans- no logos. He gave sincere smiles to those who passed by. He seemed solemn and quiet, yet very engaged. No one sat with him. I wondered what his story was. What had brought him here?

Everyone engaged in worship.

That man. I could not figure out why he had caught my eye. Why was I intrigued by him? He looked no different than the other people who had gathered to worship.

Yet still. I watched him.

Then it hit me.

I KNOW this man. His face, his name, it's all rising from my memory.

But what is he doing here?
A Sunday afternoon at 3:00.
He appears to be alone, not with a church group.

My curiosity raised to a whole new level.

This man. He is a very well known surgeon in the Jackson area. He is exceptionally talented and well respected.

What happened next was beautiful.

The missionaries invited everyone who attended church to stay for a hot meal. They pulled out the tables right there in the backyard. My group had kiddos and they were getting restless (as it was now near 5:30) so we had to leave.

But as I left, I caught a glimpse of beauty.

I assumed this man may leave too, as he was not in physical need of a meal. But he didn't. He stayed. Not only did he stay, but I saw him begin serving the people by handing out plates, etc.

Again I watched him.

What he did next caught me off guard. He stopped serving and sat down with all of these people whose socioeconomic status was polar opposite of his. He sat down with them and dined. He shared a meal as family and friends. These people had no idea about the knowledge and skills that this man possessed.

And guess what?

It didn't matter.

They were eating with their brother in Christ. And that was all that mattered.

This surgeon. I wonder if he has discovered a small portion of the secret to life? The beauty that makes life all that it is. The joy of being the hands and feet of Christ. The reality that one day we will stand before our Creator and give account for our lives.
Perhaps he has discovered that there is more to life than excelling at your career, making more money, buying fancy things and increasing your popularity. Perhaps he has discovered that true happiness and fulfillment comes when you forget your life and begin to engage in the lives of others.

You see... I sometimes get it all confused. I want to serve by extending my hand. I want to reAch out and "give." I want to stand behind a table and "serve." I want to keep a distance. Not intentionally. But that's how it manifests. And most of the time, I feel like that's enough.

But is it?

I think God calls us to enter in. To not only serve, but to sit down and engage. To dine. To get outside ourselves. To love others.

If I want to see beauty, if I want to discover the secret to life, I have to be willing to enter in.


Matthew 25:37-40

"Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

"The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

One Happy Girl

Look what I received in the mail today??

It's the REVISED version of my book! So very excited! I actually purchased this one off Barnes and Noble.com just to double check and make sure they had switched to selling the revised versions, and they have!! So excited!

So my book is OFFICIALLY back on the market and if you purchase it, it will be the revised copy.

I want to GREATLY apologize to all off you sweet people who bought my book before I realized there had been a mistake! I learned a great "author lesson."
"Do not tell about your book until you have a hard copy in your hands. Computers can be tricky!"

I would love to make it up to y'all somehow, so if you bought the original copy of my book and you desire to have a revised copy... Contact me and I will try to get you one!

Again, I'm so sorry!

Please pray for God's glory in this small children's book. Several moms have contacted me about this book because their children have/had helmets. My heart is just simply to bless these families! So if you know them, share with them!

Book is for sale on

Amazon.com

Barnes and Noble.com

And

Trafford Publishing