Grace's Birthday Weekend

Grace had a whole birthday weekend.

Friday:

Grace took cupcakes to school to share with her classmates.

Here she is with her birthday crown she brought home from school.
Friday night we ordered pizza and had a sleepover. Jeremy was gone helping his dad so the girls and I spent the night watching the movie Annie (one of my all time favorites) and sleeping on the couch together.

Saturday:

Daddy helps Grace decorate plates for her Puppy Party (more on that in a later post.)
Opening her cards that came in the mail.
Sunday:

Feeling a bit sad (see puppy party post). We celebrated with cinnamon rolls Sunday morning. Grace took her left over cupcakes to share with her Sunday School class. Then Sunday afternoon we ditched rest time and snuggled and watched the movie Nanny McPhee Returns as a family.
It was a roller coaster of a weekend, but we hung on. We are so glad to be celebrating six years with our sweet girl Gracie.

Grace,

I am so proud of the young lady you are becoming. You have a compassionate heart towards others and a helpful spirit. I love to see the way you care for your siblings and your class mates by encouraging them and praying for them when they are sick. You love to nurture (and occasionally boss) others. I see so much of myself in you, but you have a way with people that is all your dad. We feel so blessed the Lord entrusted you to our family's care and we are excited to see how God is going to use your life for his glory.

Mama

Baby Annie

One of the big, or maybe I should say little, changes around our house has been having a newborn 3 days a week. "Baby Annie" is with us on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. Her mom Mrs. Webb is Grace's music teacher at school. She is such a sweet girl and we love getting to love on her while her mama is at school taking good care of our Grace.

I have been quite surprised at Titus' interest level. He is VERY interested. He loves to help, give her pats or her bottle. He tries very hard to be gentle but it doesn't always work out for him so one of my jobs is defender. He is very much kind of like a bull in a china shop. He hasn't been jealous at all which kind of surprised me.

Typical Annie all calm while Titus is right there being all crazy.
Faith doesn't get to spend quite as much time with Annie since she is at preschool on the mornings Annie is at our house. However, when she is around she also loves to help.
We are thankful God has brought this opportunity into our lives. We will only get to enjoy Annie until school is out and then she will be home for the summer with her mama. But, we will have our Gracie back and we are definitely looking forward to that!

These are the moments Monday

These are the moments I stand in awe of our God.

I am so excited to share with you a way God has challenged our family and shown us his complete faithfulness. A few weeks ago I was talking with my friend Lindsay about life. I asked her what I could be praying about for her and she mentioned she had been asked to go on a trip to Africa with the organization she works for. She explained they were looking for someone to lead a VBS for the missionary children while their parents were having meetings.

To make a long story short a few days later I had an e-mail in my inbox asking me if I would be interested in going on the trip. It definitely caught me by surprise! Let me back up a bit. At the end of 2011 our small group read the book "Radical." At the end of the book the author issues a five part challenge. As a couple Jeremy and I committed to the challenge. One of the five parts was to commit a week to missions. Honestly, when we made the commitment we figured we would end up doing something locally and admitted to our small group we had NO IDEA how we would fulfill this commitment.

And so we began to pray about wether this is how God was asking us to fulfill the commitment we had made. From the beginning I felt it was a strong possibility God was indeed asking me to go. However, the financial side made it a very difficult decision. After praying and wrestling we came to the night before we had to give an answer. We still just weren't sure. We didn't have any spiritual reasons I shouldn't go but our earthly selves were VERY nervous about making the commitment. I already have a part time job of sorts as our family's "fundraiser" for our adoption. We decided we just weren't comfortable with sending out support letters if I committed to go. We finally decided we needed a "fleece" of sorts. We knew that there was only one other woman still praying about the possibility of going. We decided that if she decided to go we would take that as God's leading for me to sit this one out. If there was no one else to meet the need we would step out and faith and take it that I was indeed the one God had called to this particular task.

Well, Friday afternoon rolled around and our leader, Pete, confirmed that the other woman had said she didn't feel like this was the right time for her to go. And so it was official. I was heading to Africa in April. Moments later we began talking about plane tickets...and I hadn't even told my husband I was going for sure yet! It was a crazy afternoon but God had everything under control. By my joining the trip it added a new facet to our travel plans (everyone else on the team is located in Dallas). So due to my situation I decided I needed to contact a travel agent. Our leader had been avoiding this to try and save money, but decided to go ahead and check into things. God was at work! He arranged our flight more directly and for $100 less than the best price we had found. And I would be able to fly home directly instead of flying to Dallas. We had decided for safety reasons I would fly to Dallas before the trip. I asked our leader to check into adding my flight from St. Louis to Dallas since we were already using the travel agent. We had found a one way tickets for around $140. Our leader called back to say my flight was booked and it only added $9 to my total cost- WOW! God totally confirmed to me that he was in this step of faith and I couldn't wait to see what he would do next.

But, the story doesn't end there. The Lord has already provided through two generous gifts more than I need to cover my plane ticket!! I am so in awe of God's provision. One of the gifts was specifically given to us because the person was adopted and knew of our adoption plans. The Lord used that connection to prompt them to share with us towards my trip. The very thing I thought might hinder my trip plans was turned into another confirmation from the Lord that he indeed has a purpose for me to bless these missionary families. (AND ADOPT:)

I found a local health department that can give the shots I need and so the pieces are coming together. I can't wait to see what God is going to do next! Will you join me in praising our GREAT GOD?