this new season

i woke up this morning and let jackson outside like i always do but this morning i was greeted with the the beautiful sunshine, the crisp cool air, and the most refreshing smell. it felt like a new season had begun.

i know we have been talking about fall for weeks now and everyone has their fall decorations out. but today it felt like fall in my spirit. it felt like a new season. as i stood outside this morning i just took a deep breath and said "here we go". i have no idea what this new season of life has in store for us but it's here and i'm ready. i feel refreshed and full of faith. i hope today was the beginning of something new for you too.

grandparents

i have another prayer request that is unrelated to our adoption process. this morning i found out that my grandmother is in the hospital with pneumonia. yesterday brian's grandfather was put in the hospital for pneumonia as well. please pray for our loved ones. seeing people that you love get old isn't always fun. please pray for their health. pray that they would recover quickly.

prayer request

as some of you may know my parents have been missionaries since i was 10. they now work for a world relief organization based in singapore (half way around the world). they are in the United States about 2-3 times a year. since i was 11 i went to boarding school and since then my parents have sacrificed many things to serve God. they have missed many different times in my life which i know God will redeem one day. needless to say it hasn't always been easy or fun.

our child will be the first grandchild on both sides of our families. my parents flew in today from singapore to work in their nashville office for the next 3 weeks which means they will be close. it would be so sweet if something would happen with our adoption process while they were close by for the next 3 weeks. i'm not exactly sure what i would like to happen (i mean of course i would like to get word that our baby is here...but i would just like something to happen). please pray and believe with us that SOMETHING would happen to move us forward while my parents are here. it would also be great to have my mom around to help out when the baby comes.

thank you for praying and believing with us.

our baby's birthmother

today my heart as been very full thinking of our child's birth mother. i know how anxious i am for our baby to come but i'm sure she is just as anxious for the situation to take it's precious time. see from her perspective she is choosing an adoption plan for her child. meaning she will make a decision not to parent. i can't even imagine. how do you make that decision. then how do you decide who is good enough to raise your child. do you want someone like you? someone not like you at all? someone young? someone old? so many factors.

and she isn't taking the easy road. no, i'm sure it would have been easier not to choose life for this child that was unplanned. but she CHOSE LIFE!!!!! how awesome is that. God spoke to her that he had a plan for this child and she obeyed. she chose life for her precious unknown child. she has no idea what he will turn out to be or what family he will become a part of but she has the hope that it is better. better than any other decision she could have made. that takes courage.

who knows what this woman is going through right now. is she just a girl? is she doing this on her own? is she surrounded by a loving family? is she staying healthy? is she completely lost? is she taking care of my baby that's inside her? well just like God spoke to her to choose life for her baby and that he had a plan he is telling me that he has chose life for my baby and he has a plan. i have no idea where my child is or what his conditions are but i trust God who spoke life into him to not stop until it is complete.

so my heart is breaking for this mom who will forever be bound to my heart. i pray that God will allow us a relationship with each other. i pray that my child will know his birth mother. that he will know how brave she was and the hope and faith that she had for her child. i pray that no matter what the circumstances are surrounding us that God will receive all the glory forever and ever.

all about jackson

sorry i've haven't posted. as you saw i was sick earlier this week and then all of a sudden the week was over.

so on to this post titled "all about jackson". jackson is our almost 3 year old, black lab mix. We adopted him when he was about 6 months old. i remember going with my sister to the Happy Tales Humane at the factory in franklin (the best place EVER to adopt a pet). as soon as we walked in i saw jackson and his puppy dog eyes pierced straight to my heart and i knew he was ours.

the first few weeks he was really scared of any male he came in counter with including brian. so he spent a majority of his time at my feet or behind my legs. he was so cute. he hardly ever barked. wasn't super hyper. already house and crate trained. and he loved us. it was a match made in heaven. he really is the most awesome dog ever.

if you have seen the movie own a pet or have seen "marley and me" then you know the kind of impact a pet can have. i don't know what we would do without jackson. he sleeps at the foot of our bed curled in a small ball that i have no idea how he fits. he isn't a big dog, just topped out at about 50 pounds but he could do some damage if he needed to. he is very protective of me. he wouldn't hurt anyone unless i asked him to.

he loves to run. he could run all day if we would let him. he also enjoys chasing butterflies and any other flying insect. he likes to catch them in his mouth then let spit them out and try and get them to fly again. he also loves cheese and peanut butter. he loves a good clean blanket to lay on but absolutely HATES it when you fold laundry. he will run to the farthest corner in the house while you are folding laundry. he's a wimp and we know it but we love him anyways.

he fits so perfectly in our little family. he will always be our first baby. and yes, i am pretty sure he knows that life could change for him in an instant too. he does everything he can to get our attention right now. he would go and lay in the baby's room all day if we didn't have a gate up to keep him out. i think he thinks the baby stuff smells good. he will be so great and gentle with the baby. i have no doubt they will be best buds.

so now i would like to share a picture with you and you tell me if you couldn't love this face

being sick stinks

sorry guys, no blog from audra today. she is sick on the couch. later.

brian

a day of rest???

who came up with the thought that Sunday would be the day of rest? yes Lord I know it was You. well our Sunday was not a day of rest. it all started with the early service at church; myself with the youth and audra in the service. from there we moved over to our very first orphan ministry support group meeting. what a great time it was to get to know others in our family who are going through the same things. we had families from the beginning of the process to those who have brought children home and are thinking about the process again. click the button to the right or head to gracethroughadoption.blogspot.com to see what it is all about. from there we headed over to a friends house for some much needed fellowship. lunch was awesome and the fellowship was even better. can't wait to get to know them deeper. you guys rock!!! back in the car and off we go again. a quick stop by the house to pick up jackson and then off we were for pizza with my grandpa. mom was in town to help him out for the weekend, so we decided to have a quick meal and some time together. it was a quick but sweet time together. God, give grandpa the strength to make it through each day. allow him to serve You for years to come. finally, we headed home and finished the evening on the couch watching one of our favorite shows: CSI. off to bed we go. until next time, take care and God bless.

brian

a day of antiquing

well, we finally had a day where there was nothing that had to be done. so what did we do? after sleeping in we decided to drive around and check out some of the local antique stores. we had a few things we were looking for: a small desk for the entry way, a small bench for picture taking, and some window panes for decoration around the house. 1 out of 3 ain't bad.

here are a couple of old window panes we found at the Spring Hill Antique Mall. can't wait to get them cleaned up and see what we can do with them. stay tuned for the finished product. later

brian

finally fall

it's almost the middle of september and we can officially say fall is here. all the stores already have their halloween and fall decorations out. i even saw some christmas stuff at a few of them. lots of great sales going on.

this weekend i'm hoping to clean my house a little more. i'm finding that living in a rented house makes me very unmotivated to really settle in. i mean we have pictures hung and we are more settled here than we have ever been. but it's hard for me to fix it up just like i want it. but i'm trying my best to make it somewhat homey. for me the best thing is candles. and the fall fragrance ones are my favorites. i smelled this really awesome one at the store the other day. i think it was called pumpkin spice. love it!

i was excited that i found some glad candles at target today for only $.16 with my coupons. I was so excited. so now i'm going to get off here. put on some britt nicole. light some smell good candles. and organize my living room.

the bailey family day of fun

monday was a rare treat for the three of us. brian and i were off on the same day, it wasn't raining, and we had NO plans. so we took full advantage of the day. we started off with our free chick-fil-a lunch (thanks to our sports t-shirts) then headed over to edwin warner park for a picnic.

jackson very much enjoyed the waffle fries.

after our picnic we headed over to the dog park so jackson could play with some friends. there wasn't very many other dogs there. and i guess we have turned jackson into a lazy dog. he used to run and run and run. now he just sat there in the shade.

we didn't stay long. but it was a great afternoon out. riding around with the windows down just enjoying the company. however, we did find that jackson has a favorite new place to ride in the backseat.

what a wimp!

just a little information

just in case anyone was wondering... we are still waiting. we are still standing and believing that something will happen soon. we emailed our agency last week to see if there was ANYTHING we needed or could do to speed anything up. was there something on our profile that needed to be changed? did we need to update our information? and she assured us everything was great and we just needed to keep waiting and preparing.

she also told us to keep telling people about our adoption. being "home study approved" we have the ability to adopt from outside of our agency. so if you know a birth mother, that fits with our desires, who is looking for an adoption plan we would love to talk with her. if you know an agency that is having trouble finding placement for their infants we would love to know. we have no idea how God is working to bring our child to us. we will just keep spreading the word and ask that you keep spreading it too.

thank you so much for so many of you who have walked so faithfully beside since the beginning. and thanks to all the new people who are joining our journey and encouraging us along. we are so blessed to have such a large cheering section on this journey.

calling all prayer warriors

it's finally september. the weather is already getting cooler and i'm about chest deep in christmas planning at work. i have projects going left and right and sometimes i feel like my head is going to explode with all that is going on. but even in all the business there is still the deep anticipation of our baby.

since most of my posts are me pouring out my heart it makes sense to share this with you. this past weekend was a very overwhelming "baby" weekend. just one of those weekends where you see little babies at every turn, everyone is talking about being pregnant or their adoption, and everything else that can be baby related. don't get me wrong. i love being around all the baby stuff but sometimes it just gets overwhelming and i want to SCREAM! brian and i went to a CPR class on saturday along with several other couples that are also adopting. some of them have been waiting about 2 years. i kept looking around the room thinking "we are so much cooler than them." i know that probably is very judgmental of me to think that but that's how i felt. and i hate hearing that people are waiting so long. i believe in the depths of my heart that God will bring our child before Christmas but sometimes i get so discouraged. i have been heavily leaning on the verse "lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge Him..." I do not understand all this waiting one bit. but i do know i serve a God who sees the bigger picture. my God knows my heart. my God knows my baby. and my God is big enough to handle all my emotions.

because i work in the music business i listen to music all day long. i heard a song recently off the new britt nicole album called "have your way". it's a pretty awesome song if you haven't heard it. but here is the chorus and the words really spoke to me:

So I'll stop searching for the answers,

I'll stop praying for an escape,

I'll trust you God with where I am,

And believe you will have your way,

Just have your way

you can listen to the song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW6RinFJnOU

here is are call to all the prayer warriors:

PLEASE PRAY WITH US AND BELIEVE WITH US that we will hear from our adoption agency in the next few weeks. that we will meet our future child's birthmother and begin our relationship with her. we are believing that God hears our prayers and will bring our child home soon.