**UPDATED**I pray she KNOWS how thankful we are!

**Updated with Moe's card now... Roo's is taking a bit of time :)**
And I pray she has a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY and that she knows she is celebrated as a mother who cares for her son enough to give him a chance at life. We have been BLESSED by her gift.

I know she didn't CHOOSE freely to have this life for her son. But since this is the path that has been chosen for them both she has repeatedly mentioned how thankful she is that Bear is "OUR SON"! So are we.
So for Mother's Day, I like to do something special for the Bio mothers of our children. I want them to know that just because they do not have their children, they are still mothers, they did still give life to a human being... they should be celebrated, in my opinion. It is a choice to give a child life, whatever happens after that I cannot speak much for. But I know that God would want them to feel special and would want to speak to their hearts in this way.
Today I sat the boys down to make Happy Mother's Day cards for their Bio Mothers.
Bear has been practicing his letters for a while now and I figured we could put it to the ultimate test and have him write out "Happy Mother's Day! Tristan" I put his little (read: HUGE) hand prints on a piece of paper and gave him a pencil and showed him where to start his pencil. From there I just told him what letter to write next. HE DID IT! 2 year old perfect! I am so amazed to see all the effort come forth in his work. Such an extraordinary young man.

I think it will mean so much more to her that he wrote it all himself. He had a bit of trouble doing the first "Y" so I showed him with his pencil in hand how to do it. He did the next one on "DAY" all by himself. Then I showed him how to draw a heart. He drew some right next to mine. He was so excited to see his work once completed! Of course so were Mommy and Daddy!

* Love how his "S" are all turned backwards... sorta, I guess they are Ü *

As for the other two muffins ... Ü

**Moe, I gave stickers with a "card" and crayons.

I did his foot print and hand print on the card and we wrote I (heart) U on it.

It is covered in a plethora of random stickers, ranging from veggie tales janitors, to letter stickers, to puffy hearts, to scooby doo. It has scribbled crayon marks and lots of concentration from a sweet little boy. (I have to upload his pics later, once I get his name "covered" :))

**Roo... Nobody has heard from his mother. I am going to make her one too but it may just have to stay in a memory box and one day he can give it to her if it all comes to a place of meeting her.

Long time no see...

I am so sorry I have been slacking on the blog front. Life, at this point, is trying to see through the haze of the whirlwind that just left our home just in time for the next one to hit!

The smoke has settled some, and we are still standing. Praise you JESUS!

This is going to be a very brief update as to not keep you all in the dark... that is if there are any of you still following along on this SLOW moving train! Well the view may be slow moving but the activity going on on our end is ANYTHING BUT! I just don't have time to keep up with it to blog about it all!

So we went to Kentucky, The lord saw fit :)! Johnny got his job back after a 2 day wait. INTENSE 2 days! (I will be posting some pictures from the trip just as soon as I find my mind and get all our laundry done :).)

So I think overall he was out of work for 4 weeks. We have been seeing the hand of God provide time and time again! Jehova Jireh (as I was so sweetly reminded again this evening... THANK YOU!) He is, indeed, a God who provides!

The boys are still alive and well. They fared the trip very well and had lots of fun and LOTS of mishaps along the way. Moe is one of the most clumsiest children I have ever known. He would have to be in MY possession! LOL. I am glad he is but WOW! Can I please bubble wrap that kid!

More on that later! :). I have to go shower so that I can get ready for a night of folding laundry! Ahhhh my life!

Thanks for hanging in there with us on this winding journey. The end is going to be REALLY worth it, I just KNOW! We serve an AWESOME GOD!

Man am I that out of it that I am just now realizing, too, that I need to change my Merry Christmas greeting as my header! LOL... one day. I may as well just leave it up there for this Christmas, yeah? haha but in faith we will have TWO more boys to add to that picture!

If God sees fit we shall go to Kentucky!

To say there has been a lot going on in our lives is a total understatement.

I don't really even know where to begin, but hang on because it is... WOW, yeah, "just" WOW!

About 3 weeks ago J lost his job with UPS. He filed a grievance to contest his termination and had a hearing this past Tuesday, the same day I had Moe's hearing here.

J had to drive 2 hours away for his hearing and we thought that was absurd seeing that he just lost his job and we didn't really need to be spending that money on traveling to a hearing to SEE about getting his job back! But we felt he needed to and we knew that God would indeed provide if that's where he was supposed to be. We prayed for wisdom and guidance.

Moe's hearing in short went like this. We will be going to mediation soon. We will meet with the parents, grandparents(?), casa worker, case workers, attorneys (parents', Moe's and ours) and come to an agreement for us to adopt Moe. If the parents do not agree to relinquish on any terms (visits, letters, pictures etc...), we will then go to trial.

((If the parents relinquish (sign over) their rights, they get a say in what they would like out of this adoption at mediation.

If they still do not want to relinquish then it will go to a jury trial and more than likely their rights will be terminated leaving them NO SAY to even chose to have a relationship with their son.

Of course we would still want Moe to know his family so we would never just keep him from seeing them but if they relinquish it would be so much better for them and their future (as well as for their future children).))

SO as of now it looks like things are moving toward adoption for MOE! :):):)

NOW, For J's hearing. It didn't go so well. It didn't go bad either it just didn't go the way we were hoping it would. He didn't go and get his job back. The case got pushed to panel. Basically meaning that he now has to appear before a panel of Union workers and a panel of UPS workers to determine the outcome.

He has been told that usually if it goes to panel and you appear you will get your job back. We are not banking on that because we prayed that if God has something different for him that HE would close all doors. But also that HE would open a window to move through.

Here's the kicker. The trial now is going to be in Kentucky! Yup... We live in Texas!

At first, I was kind of torn about it all. "Like we have that kind of money when you don't even have a job for you to be traveling to KY!!!" I know it is not J's fault. I don't even think that what he did was worth the junk they are putting him through, BUT I do see GOD all over it!

As we started talking it through and praying about it, I got the idea... "hey let's just take a family "vacation" and pack up and go to KY with you!" We were both excited about it and didn't really feel like we shouldn't. It just seemed, too good to be true.

Then I kind of thought more about it, came to my senses and realized that all of us going would be more expensive than JUST him going so we would be wasting more money. I kind of wrote it off.

Later that night I was talking to a friend and after telling her what is going on with J's case now she commented, "you should all go with him and take a small family vacation"!!! HAHA what!

Sooo I told her my concerns about the cost increasing and she was giving me pointers on how to make it less expensive than I was thinking and seeing he was already going we would be spending SOMETHING on it anyway! All of us going would only increase gas prices really, due to having to take a bigger vehicle. (oh yes, all 5 of us :))

It was a go again. We started planning for us to all go.

This was Wednesday, we have to leave on Monday! I have to get permission for the boys to leave the state, we have to crunch numbers to see how we were going to make this happen, we have to figure out what all had to be paid for and how that was going to be done. Whew!

When sitting down we figured out gas alone, up there and back, was going to run right around $500. Depressing! We don't have that to spend on gas! Then the cost of a hotel room for 2 nights minimum?? oh wow! "Let's pray about it and ASK for it" we did. FAITH CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAINS!

**My dad called me last night and asked what we were doing, I told him we were sitting down trying to figure out what to do about going to KY. This was the first he'd heard about it. He said, "I want to come see you, when are y'all supposed to leave?" We told him, By Monday. He says "Well, I guess I will be up there tomorrow (Friday) then, I have something for y'all." He came by today and handed J and envelope.... containing $500!** um yeah. THANK YOU JESUS!



I have been exchanging comments on my FB with my husband's Aunt telling her what we were doing. She was telling me about my faith to move mountains and then she stated "I am believing for J to get his job back AND he is going to get back pay, AND reimbursement for travel. (Oh is that too much to ask for? NOT!!!! Ask and ye shall receive :)".

It's a long shot but HEY... ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH PRAYER!!! right?

**Today J opened a certified letter from the UNION. It stated that they are going to reimburse his travel at $.08 per mile. That covers the hotel boarding for 2 nights!**



We took Moe to his mother today for the weekend and it is a rather lengthy drive so we had plenty of time to sit and pray and think and process and just PRAISE HIM for all that HE has done and all that HE is going to do.

We were thinking that we would just drive to KY, see what we see along the way (get LOTS of pictures :)) and then come back home after it is all over with. There's really not a lot to do that's free... and we were completely okay with that. Just the trip alone would bless our socks off.

But for some strange reason that wasn't setting well with us. We felt that God wanted us to "ENJOY this trip as a family, pray for MORE" is what we heard, pray for it we did.

We prayed that we would have some extra finances to get to do at least ONE family thing while we were in some of these places... (Little Rock AR, Memphis TN, Nashville TN, and Louisville KY) I mean c'mon... those are some pretty well known places... that would ROCK to get to do SOMETHING.

We got home tonight and I checked our bank statement out of the blue, ...HOLD ON TIGHT!

**J got 2 checks from UPS for his VACATION time and an OPTION week (that would have been coming later this year) totaling over $600!** Tears of laughter and relief have been SHED! God's name has been PRAISED and lifted HIGH!

***ON ANOTHER VERY, VERY EXCITING NOTE.... One that money cannot buy; We get to keep our kiddos in our home!

In the beginning of all this my biggest fear was that our children would be removed b.c the requirement is that ONE parent in the home has to have a job. When I called our agency to tell them about J losing his job, they "had to discuss what this was all going to look like". OH NO! We were on egg shells!

Finally we heard back that as long as J is "actively seeking" that we would be okay. THANK YOU JESUS! Actively seeking he is! :) We are going to KY to finalize his future with UPS.

God saw fit, looks like we are going to Kentucky!

Thank you Jesus for pouring out your LOVE on our family! Words are no where near good enough to express our gratitude for your provision and your blessings, let alone your FRIENDSHIP!

I will keep you posted on the rest of this journey. I am so excited I can hardly remember everything going on around us. It has been a whirlwind!