Budgets

So I know I have been asking a lot from readers lately. Christmas questions,venting about people using the word orphan, and opinions about schooling may birthday boys...I think I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. It all started when Aaron and I started talking about baby #3. We started talking a lot about bio trying and adoption. We also have been looking at and talking about purchasing a new vehicle(I love our Sienna). Wesley was also getting our attention with his star (or lack of stars) chart. Bringing to our attention the need to wait a little longer for kindergarten. As we have been hitting all of these different cross roads there has been much conversations about choices and how are we going to choose to do things as a family. It sounds silly especially since we have been married for 7 1/2 years and have 2 kids. But I feel like we kind of have always went with what was familier. What our families did in the past and what made up our different cultures. This has always been fine especially since Aaron and I both come from wonderful families and parents who did a great job. As the boys have gotten older we see more and more that we don't fit the mold of our previous cultures and it is time to be creating our own.

What does this mean? well it means figuring out schools, vehicle purchases and even new holiday traditions. It means contemplating what our family can do that brings God the most Glory. It means relying on God to direct us in the path he wants to see us go.

Wow all that to start talking about budgets...It's funny I read back through what I wrote and it actually has nothing to do with what I am about to write about. As a matter of fact I feel like I should erase it except for the fact it would then become time I wasted writing it.

Oh I remember...I am asking a lot from my readers. Well I am going to do it again. I want your budget tips! Whether it is grocery saving ideas or coupon sights to making clothes last or how to make your dog food. I love that recently a family posted a way to make your own laundry soap. Aaron and I are going to totally do this. Once I figure out how to link a sight and I ask their permission I will connect them with this post. Genius! Plus I think they said it ends up costing about .01 per load. YOU CAN'T BEAT THAT! So send me your tips...

I felt really convicted about my spending tonight after watching some documentary on large families. One family had 15 children. The family income...just under....$40,000. Excuse me. If a family of 17 can live on that income then excuse me but Aaron and I should be with some money to save.

Now I am assuming they don't use cel phones..or do they? Any way Aaron and I have committed that once our contract is up in Feb. We are decreasing our plan Way way down. I have such a pet peve when people say they "need" a cell phone. I we are all still alive coming from a generation that didn't have cell phones at all. Not my area of weakness but believe me it is probably my only area of will power.

Internet well I am guessing they have internet and well I feel like with Aaron being a pilot and checking the wheather and filing flight plans it makes his life a whole lot easier. Do we "need" it? no. Is it a luxery we are willing to sacrifice for? Yes.

Satelight: we actually have down sized our satelight from $45 a month to $10. How did we do it? Well we called to cancel our package. When Aaron called to cancel the lady pretty much begged him to continue. He continued to say we were not interested and well when it was all said and done she offered us satelight for $10 a month for a year. He said okay. I don't blame him. Sad thing is we pretty much lost all man channels and I have all awesome channels like HGTV and TLC.

Now on to my part of the budget and the area we blow out of the water everymonth. You know the weakness I was talking about earlier. Grocery shopping, household item buying, gifts, and oh the ever famous...Justification purchases. You know the ones. You're standing on the aisle at Walmart. You have just discovered that they have Little boy Pajamas on clearance $5 instead of the regular $9 price. Then you notice that not only are they on sale but low and behold they are adorned with star wars characters and they still have one 4t left. Yes isn't this providential, I mean what are the chances of Walmart having a sale and having a 4t (insert sarcastic sigh). Does Wesley need new pajamas? No. Should the discussion stop there? Yes. He doesn't need them. It should stop there. Unfortunately it doesn't. No no my friends it is just beginning. He may not need them but he would LOVE them. Oh and if he had some new ones we could get rid of one of his old pj's. Or we could get these and have another pair because it always seems like he never has any clean. Well really folks the truth is 3 warm pj's is probably all he needs. We own a washer and dryer. Yep we do. It's just right down stairs. All I would have to do is use them. All this to say if I can ask myself does he NEED them and the answer is no the justifications shouldn't matter. Actually I should tell myself that if the justifications start it should be confirmation that I must be trying to justify a purchase that doesn't need to happen.

So anyways back to the point of this post that should not have been written 1 1/2 hours after my bed time. (I apologize for the rambling). I am putting myself on a budget. $650 a month. $300 of that is our food budget and $350 is everything else(Not actual bills). Those are Aaron's jurisdiction. This means in that I have to buy Christmas, household items, clothes, haircuts, shoes, dates, babysitters, misc. gifts, Etc. It seems like enough but I am wondering if it is going to be harder then I thought.

So send me your money saving tips. PLEASE!!!

true meaning of Christmas how to start new traditions?

Grrr! It is that time of year again you know peace, joy happiness, budget issues. Ever since we had Wesley I find myself giving so much thought to the concept of the "true meaning" of Christmas. I didn't mean to put "true Meaning" in quotes as if it wasn't "true" I just used them for emphasis. Sorry for the verbal diarrhea. ANYWAY. I really struggle with what Christmas is becoming and maybe always has been. I remember as a child looking forward to Christmas. It truly is a magical time of year. Even though we didn't believe in (shield your children's eyes...) Santa I still would lay in bed at night wishing more than anything that he really was real and that something truly magical and bigger then my everyday world happened on that one special night. Looking back I realize that what made it truly special for me was that my Dad took off work. For the whole Christmas Holiday through to New Years he was home. To top it off he wasn't just "home" he was present. We would play games, go sledding, work on the family Christmas puzzle, go to the movies, and well just be...together...as a family. But one thing that sticks out in my mind is the disappointment I would feel wash over me on Christmas morning after all of the presents had been opened. I was disappointed because I didn't get what I wanted. I was just disappointed because a day I had built up with so much anticipation was over in just 30 short minutes. Pondering this on top of the "true Meaning of Christmas" has left me contemplating the Irony...the worldly Holiday leaves us with such a feeling of Sadness and emptiness where as the true meaning which gets lost and tossed out with the old wrapping paper, leaves us with lasting hope. Christmas morning is a symbol of hope and hope for better things yet to come. Christmas is the morning where things are just started to get exciting not reaching the excitement peak and plummeting before the breakfast casserole has even been consumed. This is where you come in.... I really want to start some traditions with Wesley and Liam that leaves them truly understanding the hope that begins on Christmas morning with gifts being a side note. (just wishful thinking?) I also want them to get to experience the joy and the magical time of year..Can they have both? I was thinking about us moving gift opening to New years morning, or a few days after Christmas. Another idea I had was to have Liam and Wes get only three gifts, just as the wise men brought Jesus(I know years later but we can pretend Jesus was 3 and it was on Christmas morning right?) I need some ideas...christmas is just around the corner:)

Venting read at your own risk

So there has been something on my mind for weeks well months actually and I have put it into my mind blog...(you know the one where you articulate everything as if blogging but yet it never makes it out of your brain...). I have put off blogging about it because actually I just don't know how people are going to take it. I mean I am genuinely nervous. I know that a large population of my blog readers are fellow adoptive parents. The truth is I have decided to blog about it because if anything I want to be educated on other people's opinions. I am very head strong but I am also very interested in a good discussion and if articulated well enough I may change my perspective....May....well we'll see... The controversial topic.... Orphans. I really struggle with this word being thrown around by adoptive parents as if it were,hmm a hair color, or maybe a "condition" that the child is cured from. I struggle with this word for a couple of reasons. 1. It is a label. I agree that there are some children who are "orphans" and age out of orphanages or out of the foster system without ever having a family to call their own. I do feel that this word does describe their family status. I believe that scripture calls us to care for the orphan...Again I feel this is used to talk about the child who remains family less. I do not like this label being used for my son or any child who is adopted. I will explain myself in a minute. 2. I struggle with this word because I feel like it puts the child in a neg. position that you as the adoptive parent comes in with the upper hand. You "rescued" a child. Well isn't your child lucky? Yeah that sounds totally snotty so please forgive me. But I have a very hard time with people who see Liam and they say "is he adopted?" I say "yes." They say "where from." I say "Ethiopia." Then here it comes "oh isn't he lucky," He is so blessed." I feel my blood boil. I am just as lucky as he is. I am just as lucky that he is mine as he is lucky that I am his. I am not more of a person because I live here and was able to provide a better life. He is not less of a person or less lucky because he started out life more difficult. That is a true and genuine and very priceless part of his story. NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 3. I also hate it because people throw it around so casually. "Oh he was an orphan." I even read one time that someone wanted to adopt a "full orphan." It still makes me sick. What did the child have to go through in order to be a "full orphan." Besides that it cheapens the need that every child has for a home. Whether a child has no living parents or 2, if they are not with their parents they need a home and a family. They need it just as bad. Whether a child is in foster care or "orphan care" these kids need families and families need these kids. It also boils my blood a little this particular label because I feel like parents are deterred from adopting domestically because there are "orphans" in other countries who need a family more. Excuse me where is this orphan rating chart? I want to know what Liam qualified as.... Well this brings me to my last thought. I can tell you what Liam qualified as. He qualified as a child of God and a child of mine. Before the beginning of time. Yes before the beginning of the human race God predestined Liam to be my son. So although he was born in another country, conceived by a man and woman, we will never know, He was my son. So although we went through an adoption to bring him home we were not "rescuing" an orphan. We weren't doing an act of mercy, we were bringing home our son through the labor pains of adoption. In our home Liam has never been and will never be considered an orphan. He always had a family. Any family that we have encouraged to adopt it has been with the understanding that they are not doing it to "rescue" children. Or show an act of "mercy." These are children these families are bringing home to hold a place of birth right just as any biological (don't like this label either) holds. God loved us so much as adopted sons and daughters that he was willing to sacrifice his son. Then does he continue to refer to us a orphans? No! He calls us his own. Okay I got it out. I understand there could be some opinions about this topic and I am all for hearing them. This is such a big part of Liam's story I don't want to just skip over something valuable. Please leave your feedback. Tastefully of course. Of course this time I was smart and if you chose not to be tasteful well I just won't post your comment....Hehehe

Being a stay at home mom is a working mom...

I was pondering the joys of staying at home... Waking up every morning not to an alarm that I hit snooze but to a little person crawling in my bed to snuggle, or to tell me he has a huge booger(oh and there is no snooze button). Rolling sleepily out of bed and being asked 100 times (before my feet have even hit the floor) If I want to play...my response is usually, "hey bud let momma at least go to the bathroom." Within 15 seconds of using said toilet I hear the happy giggles of my second Boss beckoning me to come attend to his schedule(said as sheduuuelll). Usually after greeting my second Boss my nose is greeted not by morning coffee breath, as some may have to deal with, but the smell of a different project that took place in a more southern region of the body. As my second Boss is being "cleaned" my first Boss is bounding down the stairs wondering where his vitamins are, asking yet again if we can play, and demanding to see exactly what the second Boss has done in his pants, involving a thorough sight and smell analysis. After the two employers seem relatively hungry we head to our employee "cafeteria." It is here that I am not only boss 1 and boss 2's #1 assistant but I am now full time cafeteria lady. boss 1 has a very difficult time staying on task of food and drink consumption and has insisted (through lack of ability on his own) that I stay on him to eat and drink a full breakfast. Boss 2 is very independent in the food and drink area but is very demanding that it comes in a timely manner. Food is often served to Boss 2 while he is so frantic he shakes his whole chair. Once food is before him his mood often lightens and he gives me a "good work my faithful servant type smile." Okay you get the idea. I just laugh sometimes when people say "what do you do?" I say "oh I stay home with the boys" they say "oh it must be nice not working..." I usually laugh at them with one of those crazy laughs that sound a bit like a hyena. You know the laugh the one where you find yourself going mad. Anyway I get what they mean (I think). Yes it is a blessing I wouldn't trade for the world getting to be a stay home mom with and for the 3 men in my life. Today was one of those mornings where I dropped Wesley off at pre-school and I looked around at the other 9 "stay at home" mom's dropping their kids off and I had to laugh.. What time do these women get up? Seriously? I was even up at 6:20 this morning which is a lot earlier then normal for me, I got in a shower before the boys were up, Yet I still dropped Wes off looking like I had just rolled out of bed. My hair half wet half dry, sweat pants and t-shirt, no make up. You know the women I am talking about and I know you are out there in blog land I have seen you in pictures. How do you do it. How do you look so put together and get places on time? You are my hero... I admire you from afar...well someday...or maybe just one day...one day in the future I will look put together...No one will admire me from afar...because everyone will be asking me what the special occasion is that I am so dressed up...You know pants, a shirt (that only has a little spit up or slobber on the sleeve), shoes not flip flops and yes completely dry hair. I won't blame them for asking...

Bye Bye Ba ba, kindergarden decisions, and other random thoughts

I swear I will add pictures one day! Because yes we do have a picture of our little man obliviously waving goodbye to his ba ba. It has gone well but now he acts just as neurotic about his sippy cups. So here is a question...I really need feedback. Wesley is a May boy. This means (supposedly in the world of school) that we have the hard decision of holding him back until he is a full 6 or starting him when he is 5 and will turn 6 at the end of the school year. This is a really difficult decision for me. Mostly I feel that right now and his pre school teachers have agreed that he academically can handle kindergarten at 5. Socially I am told he is doing well. I am just not so sure that his ability or readiness for kindergarten should dictate what will happen in 2,3,or 4th grade. Even if he is social and has friends I just don't know if his maturity is where it should be. For example: Wesley's class has a star chart, I think this system is fabulous for his class and his teacher to maintain order but I was sad to see that Wesley was one of 4 kids with the least amount of stars. Sure I did the whole "not my kid, it was the other kids fault", the teacher must not have been paying attention, etc. But after my split second moment of dreaming I realized that 9 times out of 10 the teacher tells me it is because he has a hard time following directions(there was that one time him and another boy were tackling ). I have started working with him at home, going over letters, having special read time, playing a game(during Liam's nap of course). I have found he really does have ants in his pants. He cannot sit still. He is very distracted. I am not talking about him needing to be medicated I am talking about him being a 4 year old little boy. Wesley's teacher this year is working really hard to prepare them for kindergarten next year. I am just wondering if he will have all his wiggles out! So I have a few thoughts. 1. Put him in kindergarten next year and see how it goes. 2. Ask the other may birthday boys what they are doing and follow suit so that if we hold our little men back at least he will still have peers from his class. 3. Put him in kindergarten at the christian school he is in now and put him in Kindergarten at the public school the next year. 4. Home school him. I love this idea purely from the stand point we can work at his pace. We can do Kindergarten or first grade work, with lots of breaks and recess to get out his wiggles. My only hesitation with #4 is that well...I actually have 2 hesitations. 1. I am an extrovert and a mom of little ones and I enjoy my few hours of either cleaning the house, going to bible study or running errands. My second hesitation is that I want to be sure we have enough social activities to keep him involved with kids his age. Can anyone throw out their ideas as far as what they did? Do you home school? Did you have a may boy? What are your thoughts.... Oh and one more thing we are considering a vehicle right now ...any thoughts on the Ford Flex versus the Toyota Sienna?

Our path starting out as 3 going to 4 and when to 5?

I am so shady I know. Hey at least I got you here! Well Aaron and I have prayed and prayed and prayed. Well let me rephrase that I have prayed and prayed and prayed. I know that Aaron has prayed about it but he doesn't obsess until a decision is made. He is a pray and wait kinda guy. Boy can that guy wait. He is awesome with patience. I am totally the opposite. Waiting is not my gift AT ALL! My true colors have been shining so brightly as I work on our home improvement projects. I will ask Aaron to help me with something and if he hasn't helped in like 3.5 sec. I huff and nudge him out of the way to do it myself. It's scary. Needless to say We have picked individual projects to work on it seems to be going much smoother.

Sorry side note....

Reason for the post: what have we decided?

Drum roll please........

We have decided to WAIT...HA!

You aren't going to believe this but it was my decision. I know hard to believe. Seriously though I prayed and prayed and prayed about which direction we should go. I had a talk with AGCI we were strongly praying about and considering Rwanda. I feel so passionately about this program and felt we were supposed to start. As of Friday after our talk with AGCI this was the direction we were headed. I still didn't feel peace. Aaron had to go out of town this weekend and I had the boys to myself. I always enjoy this time because it really does mean undivided attention for the little men in my life. I felt God's direction on Sunday. I had a great time of sorting and processing and being able to bounce ideas around, here are some of my revelations...

1. Our big struggle when bringing Liam home was that we had 2 kids to divide our time. Liam needing to take priority as he was new, yet Wesley not understanding mommy not being available. Trying to balance Liam being acclimated and Wesley not feeling replaced.

2.With #1 said this means we would go through this with Liam.

There are some things you need to understand about our little man. He is so precious and quite a snuggler, but he is also very high maintenance and demanding. He wants to be the center of attention ALL THE TIME! I realized We only brought Liam home 10 months ago. True he is 16 months but really he has only been a part of our lives for 10 months. If he was a 10 month old we wouldn't even be considering baby #3.

Right now Liam is our baby. He has every right to be our baby for longer time. He needs to be the one with more attention. He needs to take priority even still. I am not ready to push him out of the baby position and I can tell He in no way is ready or willing to give it up. I want to be free to baby my baby longer!

This is all considerations for our own family. Each child is different. I was just concerned with the Rwanda program going potentially very quickly or 9mo. of pregnancy well let's just say I am not ready. I think things may have been different if Liam came first. He would have had Mommy and Daddy all to himself for those 10mo. But because he has shared us from day 1 we just want to give him more time as the baby.

Oh and We also decided that with him being a future middle child it's nice to let him have a little more time to have a unique and special position. Meaning if we adopted we were told we couldn't specify under 6 mo, which would leave a great potential for Liam to be sharing his birth year or position with another child. We were told he would be 9 months different then the new one. We wanted Liam to have his own age own grade in school etc.

Again this was just our conclusion, it may change in a few months but I am not in a hurry to decide anymore and I feel so much peace and contentment in the stage of life we are in.

Just loving life, being a wife, and a Mom to 2 of the sweetest, busiest, craziest, most loving boys in the universe(ya I said universe!)

Where is God leading us?

I believe wholeheartedly that God created us choosing beings. I believe that there are some choices that we make in life that are not wrong or right they are just well a choice and as long as we involve God in the decision he will do what he promises and direct our path. Other times I believe that there is a specific path he wants us to journey down and we need to wait and see his direction. Here I sit totally humbled and looking for answers. I am wondering which path God is directing us to chose...

I feel humbled because I know that God is the author of all things and although we chose one path it may not be the one God blesses us to move forward on.

So what in the world am I talking about? Well I am talking about growing our family. When I was younger my sisters and I and our friends would play house. After the beautiful wedding (complete with fake flowers and a real but poor fitting wedding dress) the babies would come. As my sisters and our friends would often put pillows in their shirt and walk around for half the game "pregnant." I would always be on some adventure and during my adventure I would "discover" a baby in the other room. I never had the pillow in the shirt my baby was always found. To top things off my baby doll was very dark complected (just an ironic side note?). As soon as Aaron and I got married I wanted to adopt. You can imagine my surprise (and sheer joy) when I discovered I was pregnant. I then proceeded to have the fairest complected child known to man:). As Wesley got older my desire for adoption grew once again.

When Aaron and I brought Liam home things were really difficult. I really struggled with being a mom of 2. During those first initial months I knew and even looking back I know my struggle was not with Liam being adopted it was going from 1-2 kids. I always felt like I was short changing one of my kids. I often felt torn between working on bonding with Liam and making sure Wesley was not ignored or feeling replaced. I struggled constantly with guilt. I often felt like nothing I did was good enough. In the end someone was left out.

As a result I had difficult time initially bonding with Liam. He seemed angry all the time and I was frustrated with myself for not knowing him perfectly. I assumed it was my job as his mom to know him perfectly and meet his needs perfectly and it was hard. I was trying to be a mom to 2 a wife, Learn my second son, remember my first son and not forget me. I was so deep in analyzing it all and trying not to fail that I was doing just that. FAILING. Looking back now I see just how right I was doing it. I get to see now that as I would hold a very angry baby, both of us crying, thinking I was torturing the poor soul, I was doing it right. I needed to hold him I needed to show him that I was best and that I would take care of him and he didn't have to fight me.

I only know this now because of how beautiful things are now. My sweet boy who used to be sooo angry and aggressive is now quite a sensitive little love bug. Liam cries when others cry, Liam gives kisses out like crazy, Liam needs a snuggle all the time. If you give the boy a stern look you have to know that big crocodile tears will follow. We may have not found this Liam if we hadn't by God's Grace been able to stick with it even when it felt sad and hard.

In the end I sit here wanting more than anything to adopt again. Call me crazy or call it the holy spirit but I want to start the adventure again. I love both my babies more than I can breath. I would give my life for them. Liam and Wesley feel like equal parts of my body and soul. To me whether we adopt or biologically have one either way we are growing our family. I feel so convicted about adoption right now.

My big question is where is God leading us to go? Even if we think bio. there is nothing to say we will be able to conceive. We assume we will be able to but I have no idea. If we chose to adopt where is the money coming from. We would need it rather quickly and I know God can do it. He did it in abundance the first time. Why do I think he can't do it again. I need answers, I need help, which way do we blindly walk forward?