Fall into cold

    It's freezing here and about 29 degrees when I last checked. My heart fell yesterday with the temperature as I was nervous about our impending addition. A quick call to our contractor soon put my fears to rest as he assures me that all is well. They will begin work on Monday, so this allows Brice and I to finish up some odds and ends in preparation this weekend. I am so ready to get this project underway as I know our portion will take awhile and this all has to be done before a can proceed with the adoption!

     Brice and I are so excited and nervous about this journey. Sunday wraps up our last adoption class and we have learned a great deal about what to expect in regards to or childs background and possible abuse, neglect etc. We feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn so much and feel like we are better parents already for the experience. We covet your prayers as we move forward. Brice and I will be doing all the electrical, insulation, drywall and finishing ourselves due to a tight budget. So if you are handy with a hammer and want to donate some time please feel free to contact us! We plan on working every spare moment to possible have homestudy completed next fall and then some hard fundraising afterwards to cover adoption costs!

     We have already started fundraising for our homestudy by selling braclets, car decals that say "Support Deaf Orphans" braclets are $2 or 2/ $5 and car decals $10.00. We will also be hosting a large adoption yard sale next fall so please feel free to donate any items you want out of your house!

  We know our God is big and He will supply everything that is needed to being our son home. We are going to have to raise all of our adoption costs so that I can stay home and homeschool our son (the local schools are a joke when it comes to Deaf Ed) so please pray that God provides for us every step of the way. The first hurdle is to get our house finished so we can pass a homestudy. We found both an adoption agency and the cheapest local place for a homestudy so the hard decisions have been made.

Our beautiful Bree

Brianna is growing like a weed! He runs everywhere, gets into everything, and is picking up language at an extremely fast pace. She did her first sign at 6months and has slowly added to her vocabulary but I've often wondered just how language is developed as some of her signs are SO similar. Cheese and cookie are almost impossible to differentiate. She is now 16 moths old and has been signing milk mom more grape bath please dad shoe chicken bird eat drink water sleep and more recently help dog red and black. I'm am sure I am missing some things somewhere but it's crazy to see how much she understands. For the past two months I could sign pick up your bowl and give to mommy. She would listen (that seems to have recently stopped due to an independence issue sigh). Mimi taught her red ball and dog. She also understands potty bc I signed it one day then she reached in her diaper and pulled out a was of pooh for me! Kids! Well I guess u better start breakfast and wake up the crew or we are gonna be late for church. It is pastor Aric's first day, our first Deaf pastor!

Our summer journey

We so love our little 5 acre homestead and have enjoyed this summer fixing projects that we got behind on throughout the year. Now as summer comes to a close and we prepare to our life with opposite schedules again we have some exciting news, after lots of prayers and planning we are making the first steps toward adoption. Brice and I have had adopting a deaf child on our hearts since we were dating. We both knew we could provide a deaf child with language and resources most parents  couldn't. So now we have begun a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom addition to our tiny home in the hopes of finishing by next fall ( doing all interior renovations ourselves) in order to pass a homestudy and begin the one to two year journey to bring our deaf son home! We are currently looking at Columbia as the country of choice and the agency I have been in touch with has been very helpful! I have already setup an adoption account and will start some fundraising immediately but the bulk will come after the homestudy and once I've applied for grants. Brice and I are nervous because we have roughly 3 yrs to raise 30k but we know God can do all things! The first step is us finishing our house and raising the 3k needed for the homestudy and application fees then we can move forward! We Re both excited about where God is leading! Please keep us in you prayers and keep watching our blog to see how you can help!

Thank you!

navigating new waters

Funny as I begin to navigate these new waters of technology of posting a blog to keep others informed of the events of our life. I sit here thinking that it is not unlike the crazy new adventure that Brice and I have begun as parents and where God is leading our family at the moment. More info on that to come in the future!

We feel like this first year has gone by SO fast and that being parents have really just begun for us as now our wee one is walking, signing and even talking a little bit. Life has been crazy busy as we try to spend the summer catching up on things that we cannot get done throughout the year. We finally have an incredible garden, several chickens, and are working on getting our property looking much better!

Prayers are appreciated as we begin a new chapter this fall of working opposite schedules with a toddler!!! Our dear one is a fiesty little girl who is friendly and VERY active! We definately have our work cut out for us. Pray also for our addition. After alot of prayer we have decided to try and add onto our tiny house and so are going to talk to several contractors and the bank over the next few weeks. Prayers are greatly needed.

Well enough for now. I have a meeting to be getting too and I still have to make sure I am posting this right!

ttfn
Jessie