7 years later...I Still Do

Today marks seven years since we said "I do". I love looking back on the memories of that day. It couldn't have been any more perfect. I am so thankful for you.

I am thankful for your leadership.

I am thankful for your patience.

I am thankful for your selflessness.

I am thankful for the three (soon-to-be four!) children you have given me.

I am thankful for the way you value your family.

I am thankful that you insist we have date nights!

I am thankful that you like to cook ;)

I am thankful that you are ok with the fact that I am not too good at it!

I am thankful you are forgiving.



I am so very thankful for these last seven years together.

There have been tears.

But there has been even more joy. Immeasurable joy.



I am thankful for you. Just you.

Happy Anniversary. I love you.

2 Month Photo

I'm so happy with how these monthly pictures are turning out. What a treasure they'll always be to our family!

Waiting {Two Months}

Dear Baby L,
Today we have been officially waiting for you for two months! We are praising God that we are two months closer to seeing your sweet face! We are praying for you, little one! Praying that you are healthy and loved and safe. If only you could know how truly loved you are by your family on the other side of the world. We can't wait for the day we find out who you are and can pray for you by name and put a face with that name. The face of our child. I can close my eyes and sometimes I can almost already see you. I see you toddling around the field at Brody's soccer games. I see you running around with the other kids at Sunday lunches at Mamaw and Papaw's. I see you holding Daddy's hand as we walk into church. I long for the day we get that phone call letting us know we've been matched with you. God already knows. I can't wait to watch His amazing plan unfold! You are SO special, sweet child. And you've got a whole lot of people praying for you and waiting for you!

Love, Mommy

So, here we are...celebrating 2 months on the wait list. Not a whole lot has changed since my last update. We did receive our 1-600A approval in the mail this week, so that's great news! Good to know we've got nice clean fingerprints! ;) Now, we just wait. There's really nothing more we can file with USCIS until we have our referral. And speaking of our referral, I want to take just a minute to clear up a few things that people have had questions about. Sometimes I use words like "referral" and just assume everyone knows what that is. But just because we've been studying adoption for months and months, that doesn't mean anyone else has. :) The word referral is actually referring to a child. When our agency (Dillon) receives the information on a child that is ready to be matched with their forever family, they go to their list of waiting families. There are lots of factors that determine which family gets matched with the child (how long they've been waiting, conditions they are open to, etc), but I know they put lots of prayer into it. I do want to mention how thankful I am for the hearts of these wonderful people who work tirelessly to help us bring our children home. They truly feel like family, and I can't imagine going through this without such a close knit, intimate agency and group of people. So, like I've said before, they've told us to expect to wait 4-6 months for our referral (hopefully only 2-4 more to go!). When this happens, our social worker will call us, letting us know we've been matched. Eek! I have pictured this moment over and over in my mind, and I just can't even begin to imagine how it will feel. How exciting it will be. She will give us our child's age (we expect baby to be 6-8 months old at this time), Korean name, will go over medical information and background information with us, and then will email us pictures!! We definitely want to do something fun to announce our referral and share his pictures with family and friends, but I just haven't figured out how or what yet. If you have any ideas, please share!! :)

We have been asked a lot if this means that our baby will be ready to come home. Oh, how I wish it did. Unfortunately, we've been told to expect to wait approximately another year before we can travel to pick baby up. We are so thankful that our child will be living with a foster family rather than in an orphanage while we wait for travel. That is so reassuring. To know how loved he will be. From what I understand, the main reason for this wait is that the government in Korea only allows a certain number of orphans to leave the country each year. Why? I think it has to do with them trying to promote more domestic (in-country) adoption there in Korea. So, due to this limited number of EP's, or Exit Permits, that the government allows each year, cases stay really backed up. They have also passed several new laws recently regarding adoption, which require additional steps to the Korean end of the process, holding the process up even more. So, it's usually close to a year before everything is in place for us to travel to bring our baby home.

Clear as mud?? Thought so. It's still hard for me to understand. But right now, I know we are two months closer, so praise God!!

Levi Hudson {Fifteen Months}

Fifteen precious months! Levi, we can't believe you turned fifteen months old a couple weeks ago! What have you been up to these days?

We've still been blessed enough to avoid the doctors office lately, so I'm not sure on your stats, but I'm guessing you weigh close to 25 pounds.

You are still an excellent sleeper. You go to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 and sleep until 6:30 or so. You take one long nap from about 11:30-2:30. You still love your milk in a bottle, and have a bottle at bedtime, naptime, and when you wake up. You love to sleep with a blankie, and always want to bring it out of the crib with you when you wake up.

You definitely enjoy taking baths, but you don't love to wash your hair. You and Beckett have started taking baths together, and you think it's the best!

You are walking EVERYWHERE now!!! You just really took off right at 14 months and never looked back. You loooove being outside now that you can follow your brothers around.

You like to play with cars and trucks, balls, and toy guns. And you love cooking in your kitchen and reading books.

You babble in your own little baby language all day long, but you have tons of real words, too! You've even started trying to repeat some Korean words that Daddy and I are trying to learn. It's so funny!

You still are a big mama's boy and freak out when you go to the church nursery. This is really the only place I leave you, so I know it's a hard adjustment on you. I'm hoping you'll learn to love the nursery soon, because your sweet nursery workers sure love you!

I left you overnight for the first time since you were four months old last week when we went to our USCIS appointment in Jackson. You stayed with Mimi and Pawpaw, and from what I hear, you did great! Yay!

Your favorite shows are the Fresh Beat Band and Mickey Mouse, and you are definitely enjoying our new DVD players in our van!

Happy 15 months, sweet boy! I love you so!!

Fingerprint Appointment - Jackson, MS!

When adopting a child internationally, you deal quite a bit with USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service). This is who we work with to obtain official citizenship for our child. And it can get complicated. A few weeks ago we filed our initial application with them, the I600-A, or Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. Once they receive and approve this initial application, they send you fingerprint appointments to be obtained at your nearest Department of Homeland Security. Ours just happens to be in Jackson, MS!  After these fingerprints are cleared, they mail you official I600-A approval. It can take several weeks/months for these fingerprints to clear and receive this approval. It's just a lengthy process, like everything else related to adoption :) Once you receive it, if you have a referral, you can send in your 1600 form, or Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative. See what I mean? Complicated. But we are just taking it one step at a time to ensure we are doing it correctly. And the latest step we took was traveling to Jackson for our fingerprints! Our appointment was scheduled for 8:00 a.m., and our form stated how incredibly important it was for us to be at this appointment and be on time. So, we drove in the night before to ensure we would be there. I definitely enjoyed a night of peaceful sleep!

They don't allow phones are cameras inside the building, so we snapped a picture in the car before going inside.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is located inside this federal building. It really was a neat place!

We were in and out very quickly, and then headed to Highland Village to meet a very special lady for breakfast!

Alison has the blog Lovin' Much and is adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia! She is from Jackson, and she and I have chatted through email some, so when I found out we'd be traveling there for our USCIS appointment, we decided to meet for a visit! She is just a precious person and is such an encourager. When she and her husband began the process, they were given an estimated time frame of 12-18 months from start to finish. They are now going on 3 years, and have officially been on the wait list for over 24 months. But her faith is so strong! She has such an evident love for the Lord, and is waiting patiently for Him to reveal their daughter to them. And they are so close now! They are in the top 5 on their wait list! Please join me in praying that get that coveted phone call very soon and finally get to see their daughter's face!  They also have 3 young biological children, and felt the Lord calling them to expand their family through adoption, so we had lots to talk about!

After we said our goodbye's, we drove on into Vicksburg, did a little shopping, and ate lunch at our ol' standby...Cracker Barrel! We know. We are old souls. We really are. And we are totally fine with that :)

It was a fun relaxing little trip, and it was so nice to get to do something productive for our sweet baby! These fingerprints may have only taken us 10 minutes, but knowing they would be used to help obtain our child's United States citizenship, made us feel a bit more connected with our sweet baby still so far away.

One Month Photo

Our one month waiting picture. Let's hope from now on I can get this posted in a more timely manner :) I'll be posting a new one in a couple weeks!

Labor Day {Lake Chicot}

My Uncle Terry and Aunt Kristi recently bought a house on Lake Chicot, and they so graciously invited the whole family out for Labor Day! It was such a beautiful day!

Uncle John taking Beckett down to the dock...

The kids all had a blast playing together...especially on this super fun slide my cousin Bill created!

Brody taking a turn!



This is such a Beckett look ;)

There's that smile!

Levi enjoying playing in Aunt Kathy's lap!

Me and my Daddy!

Beckett even took a turn on the boogie board! He isn't quite the dare devil that Brody is, so he really had to work up the nerve to try, but I think he enjoyed it!

Beckett and Kingston enjoyed playing together, too!

Baby Dude has got it made.

So thankful Brent was off and could join us as well! Isn't the view from their house just beautiful?!

We also celebrated my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary while we were there. 60 years! I think that is just so amazing. I am so thankful for the example that these two people are in my life. I can only pray that Brent and I will have the same kind of relationship they have when we have been married 60 years. Only 53 to go! Ha!

The grands and great-grands that were there that day :)

My kids love my cousin Bill (they call him Bobby)!

This is Levi with my great Aunt Nelda. She is just the neatest funniest lady! Love her!

After grilling, eating, visiting, sliding, resting, and playing, we ended the day with a little boat fun!

Layla, Kenleigh, and Brody LOVE Big Mable!!!! And they're no wimpy riders either! They want to go fast and the more they are slung around, the better!

Sweet Beckett mostly just observed from the boat ;)

It's days like these I realize how blessed I am to have such a big, fun, loving family!