I MOVED!

i've decided to start a new blog, and i'll be blogging there exclusively.

check it out...www.iamplantingtrees.blogspot.com

how it all went down

my friend, erin, wrote a post yesterday about how she came to meet and marry her husband, scott. go read it, it's really good. it might not make you cry like it almost made me, but it might inspire you a little. i've actually read a lot of love stories on blogs lately. so i think i'm gonna write my own. and if you're reading this, maybe you could write yours too?

when i was in college, i remember riding the bus at least once a week with a blind guy. i didn't know his name, i never talked to him. he often got on the bus after me and off the bus before me. i just remember he had longish hair and a yellow seeing eye dog. i also remember thinking it must be really hard to be blind person.

after college, i decided to pursue a three-year master of divinity program at wake forest university. it was seriously the scariest decision i've made in my life, namely because i didn't know anyone there. the director of admissions took a liking to me and encouraged me to live in a community of divinity school students. she told me about a house where there was room for one more person. there were 3 girls, 4 guys living there, and she told me wonderful things about all of them. i took particular notice to the comments she made about jamie dean, a joint law and business school student, who "everybody loves." jamie, she said, was blind.

now, if you're thinking this story is about to take some crazy turn back to the guy on the bus, i hate to disappoint you. jamie was not the guy on the bus. but what little i knew of blind people was from my observations from those weekly bus rides. i had a pre-conceived notion about blindness and people who are blind. and as everyone around me began speculating and joking about which of my male roommates might be my future husband, i just assumed the blind guy was out because, well, who dates a blind guy?

i met jamie dean on martin luther king day 2007. the dude walked in the door of our ghetto house on polo road after a weekend of skiing. all pre-conceived notions officially shattered. after he put his stuff down, he came in the living room to meet me. we jumped right into a spiritual conversation, and i failed to impress him. to be honest, i was really confused about faith for several months during that time in my life. i have no clue if i would've gone to wake had i not been so confused. so whatever question jamie dean asked me about my beliefs, i can assure you i didn't give a good answer.

thankfully, the great thing about communal living is that you're almost always guaranteed to have a conversation partner at the dinner table. jamie and i talked when he wasn't holed up in his room studying. at first, our conversations revolved around comiserating over recent broken hearts we'd both just sustained. but soon, those previous relationships faded into the background. he started asking me what my hobbies and interests were. what's something you and i could do together, he asked on several occasions. the more i talked to him, the more i saw how wonderful he was. he was smart, really funny, confident in his faith...not to mention that he had shaggy blonde hair, which i found to be super-dreamy. as i lived daily life with jamie, i saw that his blindness was just one aspect of a very complex person.

and then, there was that one fateful night when we all -- meaning all the housemates -- exchanged phone numbers. i'm ashamed to admit that our relationship blossomed over text messages. and after jamie made some ambiguous comment about making out with me in our basement, we thought it might be time to discuss things. at first, we decided it'd be a horrible idea to date. so jamie said he wanted to forget everything and go back to "how things were before." after about two days of pure awkwardness, we re-evaluated and decided to go for it.

we dated 5 months and 3 weeks. then we got engaged. we lived in the co-ed house another school year and got married june 7, 2008.

no, i never imagined marrying someone who can't see. unfortunately, our society isn't set up that way. we don't typically imagine ourselves falling in love with someone different from ourselves. in fact, to this day people still think i married jamie because i have a great heart as if i made the most important decision of my life based on charity. i wish those people were lucky enough to sit down and have a conversation with jamie dean. then they'd see what i see, know what i know. my husband, jamie, is passionate, determined, adventurous, and seriously the silliest person i know. he is full of grace. he loves justice. he is abundantly aware of his sinfulness and God's mercy to him. and he literally saved my faith.

i praise God that adoption was on jamie's heart before he met me. i'm thankful that we decided before we ever even married that we would adopt one day. and i'm pumped out of my mind to see those dreams come to fruition so i can watch that man be the best dad ever.

apologies for the lack of pictures. i can't seem to find any recent pictures on the computer. but for kicks, since my husband is the silliest and smartest person i know:

hope

the massai creed (1960, east africa)

we believe in the one high God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. he created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. we have known this high God in the darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the bible, that he would save the world and all nations and tribes.

we believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, jesus christ, a man in the flesh, a jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. he was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. he was buried in the grave, and on the third day, he rose from that grave. he ascended to the skies. he is the Lord.

we believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. all who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the holy spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until jesus comes again. we are waiting for him. he is alive. he lives.

let me explain

i wanted to give a little explanation for why it seemed like we were so close to a referral before christmas and yet still haven't received one.

every child who is going to be referred to an adoption agency to be referred on to prospective adoptive parents must have proper paperwork. this paperwork is the evidence that shows the child is truly available for adoption and has not been trafficked or unethically removed from his/her birthparents.

in the past, the ethiopian government was satisfied with a lesser amount of paperwork. however, as accusations of wrongdoing have become more prevalant, the government has added additional paperwork requirements. this paperwork must be gathered by local social workers, not adoption agencies. and the problem is, ethiopia is a third world country with a fragile infrastructure and drastically fewer resources than the united states. so some orphanages may only have one social worker gathering paperwork for many children. that social worker may have to travel out to a village to get information. that social worker may have to dine with a local official several times just to get him to sign a particular document. there are many cultural and logistical variables making the paperwork process in ethiopia very slow right now.

i also know that some social workers are currently having to backtrack on paperwork for children who have already been referred. in mid-december, around the time we heard we were next for unrelated children, the ethiopian government began requiring death certificates for deceased birth parents to be included in referral paperwork (meaning, a referral can't be made without this paperwork). there are some cases right now of children whose referrals were made before that new paperwork requirement went into effect, but whose cases now can't be heard in court until that paperwork is gathered. thus, social workers are having to balance gathering paperwork for those "old" cases with gathering paperwork for children waiting to be referred. and, of course, with all of that you run into the cultural and logistical variables i already mentioned.

i would ask you to pray specifically for those gathering paperwork affecting our case. our agency was told in december that paperwork for 4 toddlers was "forthcoming," but it hasn't arrived yet. please pray it comes within the next 3 weeks. we would like to give jamie's brother the good news by phone before he deploys to afghanistan for a year. but also, please pray for the overall paperwork gathering process in ethiopia. this paperwork is protecting vulnerable children (it is a good thing), but the inefficiency of the process is keeping children in orphanages -- and without families -- far too long.

and as an aside to all of that, i feel a need to say that despite all the slow-downs and all the shattering of expectations, we would not do this any other way. we have been so blessed by adoption and feel confident in saying that God isn't done building our family through this miracle. he has given us such grace and patience and sustenence throughout this process, so please don't pity us and wonder if we regret making the decision to do this. in fact, the way we see it, the only decision we ever had the option of making was the decision to be obedient or disobedient to God calling us to something greater and bigger than anything we could've dreamed for ourselves.

in other news

i wanted to do a little update that doesn't involve doom and gloom about our adoption. the truth is, i make it out of bed in the mornings. i function throughout the day. i'm not sad all the time and, in fact, am mostly joyful about life. yes, the adoption has been painful and hard as of late, but it does not totally define my entire life. so here are some very random tidbits that are a peek into our world...

jamie got me one of these for christmas.

my parents were so surprised that i would even want a sewing machine that they were convinced the box had been delivered to the wrong house. i had mentioned a few times before christmas that i might want to learn to sew. i attended a friend's baby shower back in november where she received several handmade gifts, and it occurred to me that if i could learn to sew, i could make handmade gifts too. unfortunately, i'm not a very crafty person and am scared of failure, so it took me a month just to take the machine out of the box and use it. thankfully, my friend, erin, was there to help me, and i have successfully completed two of these, though the stitches aren't straight and neither is my cutting. i have a lot to work on, but now i'm motivated.

recently, i've gone on a crusade against high fructose corn syrup. it's not that jamie and i have suddenly transformed into the healthiest eaters on the planet, but we are trying to make better decisions about what we consume. fast food, for example, is a killer on the body and the budget, so i wish we could just go cold turkey on it. i've tried to get into reading labels at the grocery store, and i'm amazed at how much stuff has hfcs as an ingredient. many brands of bread use hfcs, which offends me because people easily make their own bread and don't have to use hfcs. then i noticed that my jelly and salad dressing also contained hfcs. they even put it in yogurt and chocolate milk! seriously, soda is the only product containing hfcs that doesn't offend me because i expect it in my soda...but not in my bread.

i just finished the chronicles of narnia for the first time! i love cs lewis. i know that's the most christian cliche thing to say, but i don't care. that man has saved my faith in many ways, and i most definitely plan to give one of my sons the middle name lewis. what i love about lewis is that he pushed the boundaries while also ardently defending orthodoxy. i like to think that's what i try to do on my best days. now i'm reading a book about dogs that is proving to be pretty interesting.

hmmm...what else to say? i'm coming up on 6 months working the same temp job. i think i'm guaranteed to keep this job until i need to quit as long as the housing market continues to suck. i'm currently on the look-out for a cheap table that i can paint teal and use as a sewing table. we almost, on a whim, painted a magnetic chalkboard wall in our sunroom (which will be our kid's play area downstairs). we're still going to paint one, but we realized it probably shouldn't be done on a whim. we love our church and feel like there's no other place we'd rather grow in our faith and raise our children. we finally, i think, have names for our kids -- 1 girl name, 2 boy names. whichever name we don't use now will be saved for the next kid, which i just assume we will have (probably by adoption, but i haven't totally ruled out pregnancy).

OK, i think that's enough about me. what about you? current reads? current crusades against evil, fake food ingredients?

1 year

i wanted to write something meaningful to mark our being on the waitlist for one year tomorrow.

but, instead, all i'm thinking about right now is how the ethiopian government is now requiring that death certificates for deceased birth parents should be included in referral paperwork. those words just loom heavy: death certificate.

it is a reminder to me of why we started this process. the world isn't right. and as christians, we believe we're to be little vessels for God to use to make those wrong things come undone. no child should face a future in an orphanage. no child should have to grieve the loss of a birthparent alone. no child should go a single day without hearing a mom or dad tell them "i love you." i hate that poverty and disease and war have killed off many thousands of mothers and fathers who otherwise might have been wonderful parents.

and i especially hate thinking about my toddler-aged child (though i have never seen his/her face or heard his/her story) sitting in an orphanage quietly mourning the mother he/she has lost and wondering if there will ever be another mother to hold him/her again. i think that he/she must be old enough to remember what his/her mother's face looked like, how her hands felt, how her voice sounded, how she smelled...and also old enough to remember how suddenly she was gone...when all the sights, sounds, and smells just disappeared.

but, in adoption, there is hope for redemption.

tonight, i claim for my children and all those who need families words of scripture, promises from God...he sets the lonely in families...he defends the cause of the fatherless... he is close to the brokenhearted...he knows our sitting down and rising up...he never leaves us or forsakes us.

i will not leave you as orphans, i am coming to you. -- john 14:18
in him the orphan finds mercy. -- hosea 14:3

known

i'm really digging this song as of late. if you haven't heard audrey assad, find her on itunes. right now, this song affirms for me that God knows my heart about our adoption. he knows all my sadness, all my worry, all my anticipation, all my frustration, all my joy. he knows all those thoughts that are jumbling around inside of me...some of which never make it to human ears. he also knows our children in exactly the same way. he knows all of their sadness, all of their worries, all of their frustrations, and all of their joys. he knows all of our burdens and bears them alongside of us.

today we found out that our agency is waiting for paperwork for 4 toddlers that is "forthcoming." this is the same paperwork our case manager told about 6 weeks ago. once that paperwork comes in, we will be matched with a toddler and then the next infant. however, we also found out today that 2 families who got their paperwork in before us (and who had been waiting on siblings) decided they were tired of waiting for siblings and decided to open themselves up to unrelated children, which means we are no longer technically "next" to receive a referral. this was a bit devastating, but we are trying to push forward and believe God is orchestrating all things to bring us to the two specific children he has chosen for us. please pray we would hear soon.

planting trees

sit down and write that letter. sign up and join the fight. sink into all that matters. step out into the light. let go of all that's passing. lift up the least of these. lean into something lasting. planting trees.

what trees are you planting?

will you help?

i have no clue how many people read this blog. but tonight i'm posting this plea hoping that at least a handful of people will read it and choose to make a difference in the life of a child.

our friends, daniel and abby umlauf, are in the middle of a second adoption from ethiopia. last december, they received a referral for a little boy they had planned to name moses. unfortunately, the region in which moses was from closed to adoptions around the time they accepted his referral. for five months, they waited for moses' adoption to proceed. when it did not, they eventually -- with much heartache -- accepted another referral for a little boy they named asher. but they still felt that moses was their son and wanted to adopt him if his region re-opened. last week, they found out moses is officially available for adoption. his paperwork is completed. all he needs is his family to complete the necessary steps to finalize the adoption. what's standing in between the umlaufs and moses is $14,000.

i know that seems like a big amount of money. i know to them it seems impossible. but if we can all give a little, it can turn into a lot.

there are a lot of people out there who think fundraising for an adoption is wrong. there are a lot of people who think you shouldn't adopt unless you have all the money. but the reality is, there are millions of children who literally can't wait for people to get their lives settled and their finances in order. they need families right now. so when i see a family like the umlaufs -- a family so in love with this little boy they know is their son, a family willing and ready to bring a child into their family -- i believe it's my responsibility to do whatever i can to help them because moses needs his family.

if you have children, please consider that you would do everything in your power to get to them if they were not with you. you would ask your family and friends for help. and you probably would even appreciate it if a stranger came to your aid. i'm asking you to put yourself in the umlaufs' shoes and ask what you would want someone to do for you. and then i want you to do that thing.

here is the website you can go to give. when you get there, click donate now and click general fund under specify donation. move on to the optional section and select CWA family. make sure to write "daniel and abby umlauf" so the donation is applied to the umlaufs' account. seriously, even $5 makes a difference. and if you'd like to help the umlaufs in another way, let me know and i will put you in touch with them.

11 months

for history's sake, i wanted to write a little about being 11 months into waiting for a referral.

i realized the other day that our adoption has now spanned 3 different years -- 2009, 2010, 2011. two years ago this month, i was sitting in a religions of africa class taught by a sweet little man named dr. mugabe from zimbabwe (no relation to the awful dictator). and, at the time, i was completely closed to the idea of adoption from africa.

"what will people think of white people raising black kids?" i often said to jamie.

now, 2 years later, i'm on the edge of my seat. for almost a year, we have been sitting on a waiting list for 2 kids from africa. i never could've guessed in a million years we'd be here. but honestly, we'd really like not to be here anymore. we really, really, really want our referral. we thought maybe this was our week.

my parents told me on sunday, "don't be disappointed if it's not tomorrow." and i assured them that what i would feel if we didn't get our referral was the same feeling i've felt every day for the last 11 months -- a sadness, an aching, a numbness in my heart that just longs to know my kids. that feeling is always there. but perhaps what has worsened in the last bit is a feeling of hopelessness, a feeling of not knowing how much longer we'll have to wait, a feeling of wondering if our referral will ever come. the darkness of uncertainty looms heavy. jamie told me tonight he's been having trouble focusing at work because he's so distracted by the waiting. i feel that too.

and, to be honest, it's very tempting to look at God and quote him everything the bible says about his care for the fatherless and those who are vulnerable and those who are in need...only to then ask him why he hasn't hurried up. sometimes it just doesn't feel like God cares all that much.

but i'll risk sounding cliche and say that things are coming together in ways we can't imagine, for reasons we can't understand. and when i think God has not heard our crying, has not heard our frustration, has not heard the prayers of so many on our behalf...i am reminded that scripture tells us he is listening:

"then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, 'i cannot watch the boy die.' and as she sat there, she began to sob. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to hagar from heaven and said to hear, 'what is the matter, hagar? do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there...'" (genesis 21:16-17)

"during that long period, the king of egypt died. the israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with abraham, with isaac and with jacob. so God looked on the israelites and was concerned about them." (exodus 2:23-25)

"my soul is in deep anguish. how long, Lord, how long?...i am worn out from my groaning. all night long i flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears...the Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer." (psalm 6:3,6,9)

fun give-away!

i'm a big fan of give-aways. head on over here to win a super-cute headband and a pair of earrings. seriously, i've been dreaming about that headband ever since i saw it, and i don't normally wear headbands!

and if you didn't catch yesterday's post about adoption and advent, check it out. it's one of my favorite posts i've written in awhile.

advent & adoption

last week, i shared a few words at our church about advent from the perspective of adoption.

i have gained a new appreciation for israel and how God's people waited centuries for the promised messiah. in many ways, i know what it must have felt like to have little affirmations throughout history that God would one day redeem his people, and yet, at the same time, still anxiously have to await the day when the promised messiah would be revealed.

for us, we have had those same little affirmations along the way in our adoption process. we celebrated each time a new piece of paperwork came back, when we had the money to pay for one more fee, when we finally got on the waitlist. with each little step, we have known that we are closer to the day our children will be revealed.

and the waiting, at times, has been laborious. it has brought tears and anxiety and heavy hearts. i imagine this was true for God's people as they awaited the messiah. despite all the prophecies -- that the messiah would be born in bethlehem, out of the tribe of judah, out of david's line, to a virgin, etc. -- the people of israel had no clue when the messiah would come or what he would look like or even how the world would be changed when he arrived. all they really knew was that he was coming to rescue them from their sins and sorrows -- to restore them to God's perfect shalom.

i don't know yet what it feels like to receive a referral -- to experience the moment of having our children revealed. but i do know that the essence of christmas is the celebration of promises being fulfilled. we celebrate christmas because the messiah has come -- the promised hope of the world was revealed to us. and for those of us on this side of christ's birth, we now know him and all he has done.

on christmas, i often feel in the depths of my heart, that i have inadequately celebrated christ's birth. and this year, like so many, i have felt that. there may be little i can do to fix that because i am human, prone to allowing other things to overshadow the great miracle of christmas. but i want to foster a deeper sense of celebration in my heart not only for my sake, but also for my children's, because i want them to understand that christmas is the celebration of christ's birth, his coming, his revealing -- and not a celebration of presents, santa claus, memories, or even family. and as i have imagined over and over in my mind what it will be like to receive a referral, i have now seen that that moment may be a litmus test of sorts for my heart each christmas. because i know that my heart will overflow with such celebration, joy, peace, and contentment when my children are finally known to me.

and if that is true, how much more should my heart overflow with celebration, joy, peace, and contentment not only at christmas, but everyday, knowing that jesus -- the long-awaited, promised messiah -- was revealed to the world more than 2000 years ago!

come, thou long-expected jesus, born to set thy people free. from our fears and sins, release us. let us find our rest in thee. israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art. dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.

*oh, and if you haven't heard, we are very close to a referral. we will receive the next referral for unrelated children. our agency is currently waiting on paperwork for children they know is being completed. please pray the paperwork comes in this week so that we will receive our referral next week when our agency re-opens january 3rd.

the most humble gift

i have been humbled by the generosity of a woman i barely know.

rachel has been attending our church for the past 6 months or so. i remember the first sunday she visited. she came clunking down the steps of our sanctuary (it's an old school auditorium with stairs leading from front to back) in a wheelchair, apologizing with every thud her wheels made as they hit the next step. she was completely different than the rest of our congregation -- older, a little more rough around the edges. as time went on, i found out rachel lives mostly on food stamps and disability payments. she once struggled with addiction. she uses a motorized wheelchair to get around town. i also learned she loves art and playing the flute.

she is one of the kindest souls i've ever met.

last night, she approached us at church with a gift haphazardly covered in bright red wrapping paper. "i picked a gift for you that i thought you would think was pretty, and that jamie could feel the texture," she told me. when i unwrapped the present, i found three small wooden pieces -- a teapot, tea kettle, and frying pan -- that can hang on the wall. my heart was crushed in a million pieces as i thought about rachel's generosity to us. she said, "i had been praying God would help me buy christmas presents, and then someone left a box of gently used stuff on my porch one day. so i prayed over the things and asked God to show me what i should give each of my friends."

thank you, rachel, for reminding me that generosity is not about how much you give someone but rather the heart from which you give.

for our dog...

we know a girl who came back to faith because of dogs.

sounds funny, right? but the more i know our dog, hudson, the more i understand how a dog could've played such a pivotal role in her life.

we rescued hudson 2 years ago today. and since then, he has caused us a lot of trouble. in the first month we had him, we visited the emergency vet twice and spent $1200. i can't even count the number of things hudson has destroyed since he's been in our family. our life revolves around his separation anxiety and the simple fact that he needs his humans all the time. he has inconvenienced us, frustrated us, angered us...we have had moments where we've wished we'd never seen his cute picture on the rescue page.

but we love this dog. i mean, love him. one day, he accidentally got himself locked in our laundry room, and we couldn't find him. i seriously thought he was dead somewhere and bawled before i even thought to look in the laundry room.

i think God is like that with us. he loves us unconditionally. no matter how many stupid things we do, no matter how many terrible messes we make, no matter how inconvenient or frustrating we are to him...he loves us unfailingly and unwaveringly. and it has nothing to do with how good we are, but rather all to do with how good he is. so that no man can boast.

so thank you, hudson henley dean, our 4-year-old labradane. you have shown me God's heart for me. i can't wait for some little ones to be riding on your back.



*please note that while i love my dog, i do not want this post to seem like i view him like i do my children. children and animals do not have equal value, and the adoption of a pet is not the same as the adoption of a child.

tukula giveaway!

this is just a friendly reminder that it's christmas shopping season and tukula is open for business! i'm a little obsessed with this wonderful organization based out of uganda because they have designed some beautiful (and brilliant) products that support three female tailors AND a community water project.

if you happen to be a little tight on cash this year but still want to give your bff a present (or if you keep hinting to your husband or brother or friend or whomever that you'd like a new purse for christmas and they're just not getting the hint), you should enter tukula's giveaway that ends TOMORROW. all you have to do is get the word out about tukula over facebook, twitter, and your blog. and if you buy a tukula product, you can get more entries towards the THREE beautiful products you are eligible to win. go here to read more.

10 months

today marks 10 months that we've been on the waitlist for a referral. i'm beginning to feel hopeful that we will get our referral in the next couple of months. last year about this time, we were rushing around getting things notarized for our dossier and saving the last chunk of money we needed to send everything. it's hard not to look back and think that if i'd only gotten a certain paper signed earlier or if we'd been able to save the money just a little quicker, maybe we'd have a referral by now. but it's frivolous thinking, because i really believe God chose two specific children for us at the beginning of time and everything that has happened (or not happened) is leading us to those children.

i think that [our children being chosen for us since the beginning] is the concept most difficult to explain to others about adoption. and yet, it's the concept that really holds this whole thing together. my mom called me yesterday to ask if i'd watched a video that's circulating in blogland. she said, "i really think it explains to people why you are adopting." so i watched the video and was blown away. literally, i was doing those heaving cries that made jamie worry i was going to stop breathing. one particular part pierced my heart, because it's exactly what i'm trying to explain.

eric ludy, the preacher in the video, said he encountered a 4-year-old boy on the streets of liberia. the boy was orphaned, starving, and probably homeless. ludy said he was awakened in the middle of the night by the voice of God asking him, "what if that boy was hudson [ludy's son]?" and ludy realized that if that little boy was his son, nothing could get in the way of him getting to him. and as i was watching the video, i could only think to myself "that is my son." my son has been orphaned and is physically without a family. my son might be malnourished. my son doesn't have a home yet. my son might be sick. my son is probably lonely, scared, and sad.

my children are not just some random orphans in africa. they aren't a charity case, a nice project, or a humanitarian endeavor. they are my children. and when you see it from that vantage point, it should make sense why i would do any number of seemingly crazy, unsafe, and inconvenient things for them. so often i bemoan when people act like i'm not a mom, but i think it's even more frustrating when people don't act like our kids are really our kids, and prefer, instead, to keep treating them as perpetual orphans. it's like people assume just because our kids will have spent time in an orphange, it must be OK for them to stay there longer than they have to because it might be unsafe for me to be in ethiopia. when people question my decisions regarding our kids in this way, i always want to ask them what they would do in my position if it were their kid.

please watch the video.

the ladybug cake, part 2

if you saw this post, you know my friend, erin, and i did a trial run a couple of months ago for her daughter, sophie's, first birthday cake. i suggested to erin awhile back that we should do a fondant cake for sophie since you can take more artistic license with fondant because it can be molded, cut into shapes, etc.

well, friday was the big day, and we had our dear friend, leigh, to help create the finished product. here's what we came up with:

now, here's the backstory and how-to. erin and i got together thursday night and made the cakes so they could chill in the refrigerator overnight to make icing and then applying the fondant easier. apparently, i threw a fit the last time we did this and insisted that sophie should have a homemade cake on her birthday (instead of box mix), so we tried 2 different cake recipes for the tiers (the bottom tier was chocolate, the 2 smaller tiers were vanilla). but some unfortunate things happened, including me doing something weird with the butter in the middle cake tier, and we were forced back to box mix. that actually ended up better because we found the last time that adding an extra egg and a box of pudding mix to the box mix helps make a denser cake.

we cooked the bottom cake in a wok, the middle cake in a mixing bowl, and the little cake in a small dish. we frosted all the cakes with homemade buttercream frosting. erin had the vision to contrast the colors of the three ladybugs, so she increased the amount of red food coloring in each cake, adding a little black to the last one. you can't see much different between the bottom and middle tiers in the pictures, but the big cake was more raspberry red while the middle cake was more hot pink. and, as a side note, if you ever try this, use food coloring dye instead of gel. everybody thought the black gel made the fondant extremely bitter.

in all, we were pleased with how the final product came out. the cake is a bit more lumpier than the second cake from last time, but we were working with a substantially larger cake. plus, we were in a bit of a time crunch, so we had to throw perfection out the window. besides, this little girl was happy, so i think we did our job right!

i couldn't agree more

biological family is too small of a vision. patriotism is far too myopic. a love for our own relatives and a love for the people of our own country are not bad things, but our love does not stop at the border. -- shane claiborne

the real deal

i'm becoming a mom for the first time. through adoption.

sometimes i just want to be real about what that feels like.

for more than 18 months, i have had two children growing in my heart. normally, i hate alluding to pregnancy when i'm talking about our adoption because i don't think adoption needs to be metaphorized. but this allusion works for me because i have experienced it. i remember the small beginnings of deciding to follow God's calling to adopt a child. i remember how God enlarged that calling to include another child. i remember how we toiled and prayed and worried about how we'd get the money. i remember how, in all of that, our love for our children increased.

i know how it feels like my love for them is literally going to bust out of my heart. i miss them every.single.day of my life. and adoptive parents can tell you that no matter how weird it sounds, this is possible. you can miss people you've never even met. and you can love them intensely.

so imagine what it's like to be told you're not a mom. no, nobody said this to me directly -- as in, nobody just walked up to me today and said, "hey lauren, did you know you're not a mom?" it was more like "when you're not a mom, it's hard to understand ______________." i'm sure the person speaking didn't think much about the statement, but i did. because i do think i'm a mom. at least as much of a mom as a pregnant woman is. there are two children out there who are mine. right now, they are in my heart and not my belly or my home. i've prepared for them. i've sacrificed for them. i love them. i long for them. no, i haven't experienced the sleepless nights or poopy diapers yet. but i am the mother of two children in ethiopia. really.

a new pair of shoes

i have to put in a shameless plug for toms shoes.

apparently, it was cool and trendy to wear toms like 2 years ago. but i just got on the bandwagon back in the spring, so i'm a little late. when it came time to buy a new pair of shoes for winter (because the new balance tennis shoes i normally wear when it gets cold -- because, when it gets cold, i quit really caring about fashion -- are officially out of commission thanks to some heavy duty yard work), i decided that i really couldn't go wrong with buying a new pair of toms.

boy, did i underestimate how much i really couldn't go wrong with another pair of toms. i own 2 pairs of classic toms. if you have no idea what classic toms are, you basically just slip them on your bare feet and go. i've seen people with a funky (and, in my opinion, enviable) fashion sense wear socks with classic toms, but i didn't think i could pull that look. so i decided to purchase a pair of toms with laces so that i could get the functionality of a tennis shoe (ie, so my whole foot would be covered up in the chilly weather). here's what i got (laces not pictured):





now i'm going to encourage you to buy a pair of toms. any pair. why? well, my assumption is that, like me, it might be time for you to buy a new pair of shoes for winter. and toms has quite possibly the best business model aside from just simply giving stuff away for free to everybody. when you buy a pair of toms, toms will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. i just recently read the first annual toms giving report, and it's incredible how much thought toms has put into how they distribute shoes around the world. they not only work with non-profits (like world vision!) on the ground in places like ethiopia(!) to determine where the most need exists, but they also continue to supply children with shoes knowing that most children outgrow a pair of shoes every 6 months. and because toms serves children in different types of climate and terrain, toms has been intentional about designing particular shoes for particular locations.

since most of us have never lived in a place where shoes are a luxury, it might also be helpful to point out that something as simple as not having a pair of shoes can be a huge barrier to a child's upward mobility. many schools require children to wear shoes, so not having shoes can prevent many children from getting an education. not having shoes can also be fatal. children who walk barefoot in many third world countries are susceptible to parasites and infections that can kill them if not treated. and if these parasites are not fatal, they are often very painful. many children suffer daily from itching and burning caused by jiggers, small mites that dig into the feet.

if you are planning to invest in a pair of shoes this winter, please consider buying a pair of toms. i know of no other company or brand name or designer that has a "one for one" business model. and quite honestly, it just seems silly to invest in any other pair of shoes knowing that you could literally be sparing the life of a child just by being intentional about the shoes you purchase. you can check out the many different varieties of toms shoes here.