The Ultimate Gift

Today an 18 year old girl gave the ultimate gift. Because she chose to carry the baby inside of her, another girl -29 years old became a mother. What an amazing gift. What a heart-wrenching decision. To carry a life you created inside of you. To feel it move, hiccup, kick. To hold him in your arms moments after he's born, to spend quiet moments alone with him when no one else is there. Only to turn him over to another woman, a woman that desperately wants this tiny little being, who has fallen in love with him without ever feeling him kick.
To Kelly- who will probably never see this, thank you isn't enough. But know that there have been so many women praying for you. So many women who are feeling your agony. So many women who aren't sure they would be as strong as you. To choose to carry a life, knowing life is precious, only to give him up after holding him a few short hours in your arms. We will keep praying for you for we cannot understand even a fraction of what you are going through. May God show his face to you, may he comfort you and give you peace. May he bless you for choosing the harder way.

You see that 29 year old girl is my best friend Shawn. Tonight she holds her baby in her arms. She won't sleep very much because she will be staring at him and watching his every move. She'll be tired tomorrow because of feedings all night long. She'll realize that this new life will cause her more tears and joys than one could imagine. She will hold him close when he's teething and no one else can comfort him. She'll be there to pick him up when he falls down for the first time. She'll be there, holding his hand, as he steps into his first day of kindergarten. She became a mother because you chose life. There could be no greater gift.

Sometimes I forget just how great a gift God gave us when he sent Christ to this earth. To watch your son beaten and dying on the cross, knowing that he could have stopped it in an instant. But he chose the harder way too. He chose the path that meant life. Eternal life. Life that means someday we will all be back in his presence, no longer in a world where some women can't have babies and some women have to give them up. No more agony, no more tears. An amazing love.

Adoption is an amazing thing. Two families forever forged together. One mom that is desperate to give him the best life and one mom who will raise him up in this world.

Thank you Kelly. Thank you for giving the ultimate gift. For making Shawn and Dave parents. For carrying Alex inside of you those long months that now must seem like they passed too quickly. You have been a reminder to so many of us of our adoption in Christ. And may you too be adopted into his kingdom for all eternity.

Thursday Thirteen

13 Things I want to do this fall and winter...

1. Organize the basement so that the kids can play down there and get rid of some of their energy when we are cooped up during yucky weather.

2. Knit Avery and Reece sweaters before they outgrow them or it gets too warm to wear them!

3. Paint the entire first floor. Now if I could only decide on a color.

4. Take a fun mommy and me class with Reece.

5. Stay on top of the "business" type stuff I hate doing.

6. Read Northhanger Abbey by Jane Austen, the only one I've never read from her.

7. Finish a pair of knitted socks for myself.

8. Get my carpets scrubbed since we didn't get the hardwood floors put in this summer.

9. Drink lots of hot chocolate in my hot chocolate maker from Williams and Sonoma. SO YUMMY!

10. Sew Avery and Reece matching outfits for the holidays. I might be calling and emailing you lots Les to help me with this smocking thing! :)

11. Get my master closet organized. Everything is always falling over and I can't even walk in it.

12. Order prints and fill up all the empty frames I have hanging all over the house. This includes getting the next set of portraits done for the kids. They are growing so fast!

13. I'd like to say that I want to keep up with laundry, but I think that is a hopeless cause. So I am just going to say that I want to get out and walk more (by myself with the IPOD) and get some exercise.

Deeper

Since "retiring" from teaching, I have had to get creative to feed that intellectual stimulation that I crave. I'm not really that smart, but I do crave getting smarter. Anyway, I ordered a couple of books from amazon and they came today. I'm pretty excited. I have been wanting to read, no I should say I have been craving, deeper reading. Something that would take me to a new intellectual level with my relationship with God. I feel like my heart's in the right place, I just want to KNOW more. So I started looking at historical writings. Like Thomas Aquinas, Brother Lawrence, Martin Luther. Just to read something that isn't 8 pages long and rhymes with Poppy the pig ( a good book, but not quite deep).

So my goal this winter is to read some of this stuff and at least satisfy that weird longing to read something that someone wrote hundreds of years ago, in a language barely resembling English. I'll let you know how my intellectual journey goes. It must occur between taking Avery to and from Mops, temper tantrums, and an occasional (but important) trip to Starbucks (shame on you Amy for supporting my habit, but I also desperately thank you for the gift card!) and whatever else I just happen to be doing that day. We'll see if I can stay awake for longer than 3 pages.

All kidding aside though, I think as moms it's so important to keep feeding our creative outlets, whatever that happens to be. I've sewn some dresses, have learned to knit socks, but still craved something a little more challenging mentally.

I apologize ahead of time for deep theological issues and questions and ponderings I may have in the future over this, but bear with me and keep your comments coming.

This entry isn't quite as elegant as I was hoping as Reece is sitting on my lap rearranging my pen drawer (which stresses me out and will now spend half an hour fixing instead of folding laundry). But that pretty much sums up life right now. :)

Wordless Wednesday

You asked for it sister! It's about to get dirty!

***Update***

Mandy and I have decided to end the bad picture war before it got really bad. Hope you all enjoyed this at our expense, AMY!



This is tame compared to the other two I have. You have 22 hrs to take the picture down or I bring out the big guns.

Amanda Marie Murdock

I give you 24 hours to take that picture of me off your website or I will enter a picture on the blog entry that is an equal atrocity.

*Amanda is my sister for those of you that don't know and this is just a game between us. But she started it and since I am the oldest I am exerting my elderly authority.

Where do you blog?

So when we first moved in Shane and I just shoved the desk against the wall and called it a day.

But, he keeps joking (somewhat) that I need to write a book and make millions so that he can work in the garage and build stuff all day. Ha!

Well, talk about being uninspired while looking at a builder's white wall of the time. So after a large coke that I drank at 5 pm yesterday, I decided to move things around. I turned the desk facing the window. ( BTW: I watched the sunset as I organized the pen drawer- I am that anal.) I dragged the nightstand my dad made up from the basement and turned it into a printer stand. And took the wooden chair out and put the comfy chair in. Man it made a huge difference. I am going to have to force myself to be a mom now and not an office junky, ha ha ha. This tiny little space is off of our master bedroom and is so great when I am hiding from the whining. Yes, I do that. I go up and blog when they just keep whining and suddenly they start playing and are happy. Why do kids do that?

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll ever come close to writing anything that would be published and let Shane retire in his 30's, but at least my blog pages might be more thoughtful and creative. :)

My Little Ballerina

Avery has been asking Shane and I for months to take ballet and I called yesterday to sign her up. Today was her first class even! We rushed out to Target last night to get her little outfit and she didn't stop talking about it for the last 24 hours.

When we walked into the studio my heart was racing. Was she really going to walk across that big room with all the mirrors and join the other 3 and 4 year olds? What if she forgot to ask to go to the bathroom, could she function without me by her side?

My little princess practically sprinted across the room to her teacher, Miss Vanessa and sat down with the other little ones. I literally could feel the tears welling up I was so proud of her. And so excited to see her doing something that she clearly "dreams" of doing. Isn't it every little girl's dream to wear ballet shoes and a pink tutu?

She seemed to listen very well to the teacher and even took lead a couple of times in their lines. And as the proud mother I am, she was one of the only ones that would hold first and second position for an extended period. Of course the whole time I'm smiling wondering if the Miralax would suddenly kick in and her tutu would turn brown. I must confess that I put a pantyliner in her leotard under her tights. Am I horrible? I just didn't want her to get made fun of on the first day of class. But she was great. She went potty right at their designated potty break and pranced around like she had been doing this for years.

I love that I have a husband who also believes that as parents we are to give them opportunities and see where it goes. I only paid a partial balance just in case she changes her mind, but she looked quite content and the happiest little girl. Which is great after all of the poop issues we've had. Are you allowed to write poop in a blog all about ballerinas?

Anyway, I digress...she loved it, I loved it, and I can't wait to get online and order her the "proper attire." She is suppose to be in a black leotard and real ballet shoes. I feel like I am 8 years old again dressing up my Barbies. This is way too much fun. I wonder if I will be this excited with Reece's activities, hmmmm.

Cuddling with Mom and Dad

New Creations on a budget...

When I got pregnant with Avery I really wanted to create all of her nursery decor myself. Shane bought me a sewing machine and VOILA. Then we moved to Virginia and it sat in storage for over 8 months. Well, I finally got the thing unpacked and hauled to my Mom's house for some sewing lessons.

I love the smocked and embroidered dresses in the boutiques, but the new budget doesn't allow for such items. So, I am learning to do them myself. I started with just a basic jumper pattern and have figured out some decorative stitches and Mom's embroidery machine has jazzed up some cute dresses for Avery. Here's what we have so far:

The purple striped dress was fabric from my grandma and she would be so excited to see her fabric being used for her great-granddaughter. The green polka dot was fabric I got today at Walmart. So how much did these dresses cost?

Purple= free

Polka dot= $3.oo!

I've spent $60 on dresses like this before. My sewing skills leave much to be desired, but I'm getting there.

The Mom-Mobile

Well, after three years of debating, discussing, dreading, anticipating- we broke down and bought a minivan. Shane's been at the dealer for a couple of days trying to get a good deal and we ended up with the one we've wanted for awhile. For those of you that don't know, I have been driving my Honda Civic for 7 years and I love that car, but no the best for two little ones, two adults, and two black labs.

I'm officially a nerd, but I have to say. I am the coolest nerd. This thing even has a spot to plug my IPOD into the sound system! The DVD player is awesome for all these trips to the grandmas houses, and the heated seats...oh my bum isn't dreading winter so much. HA HA HA!

Here's our new baby. And yes, I got up this morning wanting to drive somewhere, but where? Now that we have an actual car payment and don't want to be part of the repo statistics- we will have to pay for this thing. Which means less shopping trips, but wait oh! There is one place that only costs a couple of dollars and rhymes with larducks. I can at least go there today! :)

Did I mention that when I hit a button the sliding doors open BY THEMSELVES! My sister-in-law Amy has this car and we drove it a lot last week. So I am going to totally copy your trashcan and first aid kit idea. Next time we get together we're going to look like the Mom parade! :)

And a special thank you to my honey. I know that this was hard for you. You have put in three years of searching, investigating, watching numbers. You are so wise with money and this was such a big gift to our family. All three of us really appreciate how hard you work each day so that we can have things like this. I love you.

Having fun with Mimi and Pop

Micah

Jonah