good design

From Mexico, Canada, St. Louis, Washington DC and Charlotte, the Wilson and Oster clans connected for the celebration of Christmas. 

Beginning in Blowing Rock with the Wilson clan, it was a wonderful time together of hiking, painting, praying, antiquing, strength-finding, dreaming, and feasting! Thanks mom and dad for all you did to make this a wonderful holiday!

Day after Christmas we headed to Roanoke for time with the Osters. It was a great time of resting, game playing, talking, cooking, and loving on our niece, Ella.  

They very thoughtfully surprised us with the two gifts pictured on the right. i can't even capture the flutter of my heart in opening both of these gifts. Anna and Sarah, the sisters, had the softest blanket embroidered with "Pequeno O" on it (gasp) and Tom and Sherry put together a frame with a picture of Peru drawn by Tom and it reads "I'm growing in my mommy and daddy's heart." It's our sonogram and i treasure it. 

PH and I took advantage of the time off work to dive into some more paperwork. We both wrote our autobiographies, completed the homestudy history, and are gathering together documents for the financial statements.  there were low and high moments in working on these documents, low moments include questions like: applicant's skin tone, build, weight, childcare plans, beliefs and values, budget sheets and spending habits. i don't know another expectant family that had to answer those questions. maybe they should have too also, who knows, but all we know is that each time we dive into the work, we have to change our mind frame and take this on as our journey to our child, we need to put our head down and go after them well, knowing that this is just a piece of the process for our family, for this fantastic God given journey of adoption. 

one morning of devotionals with my Wilson family, we discussed gratitude and reflected on what we may feel worthy of praise and thankfulness from the last year. Stephen encouraged us to think about PRAISE as a reflection on God's character and person to us and THANKFULNESS as the actual showing up in our life. with a bit of a trembling voice but an assured heart, i praised God that He is the GREAT designer, that He has created GREAT plans for us and others. I thanked God that Stephen and I now more than ever feel a part of that privileged plan when we were disrupted from our plan (graduate, get married, get great jobs, birth children, buy picket fence, so on and so forth) and led to adoption. I thank God for the reminder that He is control and of His DEEP love for His children, us and the orphans. I have never felt more lucky b/c with this disruption of my plans for the world, we have been gently led to God's plan for this one little family. 

Thank you God. We praise your GOOD design. We will take on this paperwork with lifted spirits and zealous hearts to unfold your plan. 

As you celebrate and usher in the New Year, I hope too you have a chance to reflect and praise. 

not yet

some mornings I wake up and i feel like I met you little o, like I spent the night talking to you. I love it. 

i have to admit that you feel so so far away, and i believe appropriately so. we have so many steps to accomplish to get to you and most of the times when people ask about you I immediately tense up because i just feel like i could spend all day making progress on paperwork to get closer to you. 

i am not there yet where i can dream past the paperwork. i am not there yet when i can allow my heart for one second to believe that this will all work out. i am not there yet when i would have to consider making a kids room. I am just not there yet. i can't predict when or how or gender or age or anything, i can't even imagine that the paperwork will be finished. i literally can't even imagine getting a referral. i can't even imagine meeting the social worker for homestudy! 

i so appreciate the generous hearts around me that are believing for me, i know i need you. Know that i am not there. 

even the very title of this blog scares me, i fall apart if i allow myself to hope too much for you. but everyday you are in my thoughts and graciously it seems at night i can safely hope for you in my dreams. 

bangs and a.d.d.

I am distracted. what has recently been brought to my attention that it may actually be called A.D.D.. 

how can their be so much snow in the Midwest and we are still in shorts? How can i be sweating with a Christmas tree in my house? Why does it seem the presidential primaries may be a vote for the least of evils? Why is it so hard to get the whole family in one house together for the holidays? Why do we pick a time of the year to eat more? Shouldn't we eat this much chocolate and "test" wines always? How can i be more efficient in my job? Who wrecked my house?

These are a few of the thoughts from the last 10 seconds of my day. 

i dropped off the immigration papers, took passport photos (i desperately need a tan), and GOT bangs. i can't believe it. Mal you probably remember when i first grew my bangs out in 3rd grade with the tiny pink barrette that i wore in my hair like EVERY day for a year. i promised myself then i would never intentionally get bangs again, and here i am. for the love of change. 

the main reason i am so aware of my distraction is that it has just dawned on me that that is the crime of this season, we are so joyful and so stressed, so in tuned and so bogged down, i can go from singing carols at the top of my lungs in the car to a heinous meeting with mean people to a cheery holiday luncheon to spreadsheets to a mall to another holiday party to folding a few clothes and falling fast asleep. i am including the season but not living the season, it's like i want to put post its up reminding myself of ADVENT and ANTICIPATION. 

Since we are talking about babies, it has been easy to think in the last few days of anticipation as we are waiting any day now for our friends Kim and Stuart's baby to arrive. i asked her yesterday what days before a baby looks like, do you pace, do you shop, do you try to fit in all the sleep before they come, do you clean, do you dream, what happens? i cannot WAIT to met her. 

and then i think to myself, what does my preparation for Jesus's birthday look like?

Am i just hurrying up to relax? Seems like a theme in my life. hmm. 

ACCEPTED. Paper Prego!

I am crying and smiling and i almost don't know what to do with myself. (i do think we have set a bad precedent on this blog that it is mostly all good news, i find that i had a very difficult time blogging last week because it was a low low week.) BUT today is JOY!!

We are IN. WE get to begin. Tidings of COMFORT and JOY, best Christmas present of the season! 

oh, i can't even make sense. i am just rip roaring to go! 

Step 1: File Immigration Papers -this form isn't too difficult to fill out but it takes a long time to process so i essentially want to get it in the mail tomorrow now that we know country and agency code. 

Step 2: Homestudy - forms are headed our way to begin filling out for the homestudy and they will assign us with a local social service worker to do the homestudy with us. She said it can be intense and the Peru's immigration office asks pretty specific stuff (whatever that means), so let's pray that we get assigned a great homestudy worker that we can click with and communicate well! 

Step 3: Dossier - we'll explain more on this later but this is essentially the mega sales packet that we submit that will include both of the above steps. 

Holy cow, if i allow myself to dream for one second, i hope that i never have to spend another Christmas without you! That you could be sitting by me (or crawling around) by the 

Christmas tree as i am now. What a dream come true that would be! Mi pequeno O! 

to the right are two ornaments made in Peru that my parents sent in hopeful anticipation that this would be our country!

Felicidades! Agradecidos! 

advent

little o, it's late and your mom has already gone to bed. I'm taking care of some finances and thought I'd post quickly before calling it a night. 

I've been thinking some about Advent. We're in the Advent season, anticipating Christmas and Christ's birth. The season has taken on a whole new meaning as we anticipate you, little o. This yearning that your mom and i have to meet you and see you and love you is very real. It gives me a glimpse of what it might look like to yearn/anticipate/hope for Christ's coming. So, I'm thinking about that. seeing if my hope for a little one, a little o, teaches me something about hoping for the Kingdom to come, for a time when we will no longer mourn, where Joy will fill the world, where Emmanuel will come, where we will see, smell, listen to, feel, and taste a Holy night. 

goodnight.

Portland

this is the longest i have gone without posting, it is never for lack of not thinking about where we are and where we are going, its just life feels very sectioned off right now with many mostly wonderful things going on. 

we just returned from a snow capped mountain and wintry rainy days of Portland visit to our dear friends, Jon and Jaz. i am already reminiscing the delightful days of endless coffee shops and delicioso vino, good laughter and friends. many thanks to will and dani and the vaughan srs. for generously hosting us and sharing giddy anticipation for little o with us.  also congrats to my friend amy whose beautiful twins turned one while i was out there, what a treat to catch their birthday!

one flurry morning over coffee i found myself a little choked up wondering what the mother of our future child may go through in her pregnancy. will she be hungry or cold? is she safe, does she have any family or a place to live? all these thoughts kept rolling through my mind and it certainly encourages me to pray for her and the development of the baby. 

many of you have asked about the timeline, so i'll share the timeline as i understand it more tomorrow. have a great day.