I receive a mini daily devotional on my cell phone each day. It isn't meant to take the place of actually reading the bible, but it's so nice to get extra encouragement (or kick in the butt) each day. I get one every day, but they come at random times. Sometimes I'll get it at 4:30am so it's there when I wake up, and sometimes it doesn't come until lunchtime or later. Either way, it's awesome how many times the verse fits with exactly what I'm going through, or exactly what we're learning on Sundays/Wednesdays at church. Anyway, I loved today's so much that I thought I'd share it...
"Abba, Father," Jesus cried out. "everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." Mark 14:36
While praying, Jesus was aware of what doing the Father's will would cost him. He understood the suffering he was about to encounter, and he did not want to have to endure the horrible experience. But Jesus prayed, "Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." Anything worth having costs something. What does your commitment to God cost you? Be willing to pay the price to gain something worthwhile in the end. Be willing to let God's will be done, instead of your own selfish desires. His will and His plan is so much greater.
We've got some exciting news to be sharing in the next few weeks as far as fundraising goes. We're in the process of designing a t-shirt and hopefully we'll be able to share the design and start taking orders soon. They'll be available in royal blue and hot pink. We've also got a big event being planned. More information on all of that once a few additional details get finalized.
BUT the adoption puzzle fundraiser is going well! (For more information, click HERE) 41 pieces have now been sponsored and a total of $205 raised! Yay!
Shockingly, Max and Cooper haven't found their way over to our blog that often yet. But, here are a few funny videos that we shot today when we got home from church.
First, you have to know that we leave our garage door cracked for the dogs when we're not at home. We leave just enough of a gap for them to get under. They like to hang out in the garage and lay around on the cool concrete. Really, who can blame them when it's 100 degrees outside.
Anyway, when we come home they usually hear us from a mile away and are standing at the end of the driveway waiting on us. BUT, sometimes we can "sneak up" on them. When we do, we close the garage door on them. I know, I know. It sounds mean. It's not. They know we're right outside the door and are so excited to see us, so when we open the doors we see this...
Did you watch the bottom of the garage doors as it opened? If not, it's super short so watch it again. They're so excited that they won't even wait for the garage doors to go up. They have to wiggle/crawl out.
Okay, one more video because we were having so much fun. This is Kevin's new trick that he's been working with them on. He has a hot dog bun for each of them and they're supposed to wait until he says "release" to eat the bread. Max has it down. We're still working on Cooper...
Moe's has just become my new favorite place to eat for one simple reason... the drink machine! I hadn't eaten there in a while (I know, shocker) but Kevin and I decided to make a trip to Moe's on Friday night. We ordered, paid, went to our table and then went to get our drinks and salsa when we noticed that Moe's had upgraded... big time! THIS is the new drink machine.
And here's a close up of the touch screen where you choose your drink...
I'd heard that Firehouse on Pelham Rd had gotten one of these, but had never actually seen or used one. So to me, this was an awesome Friday surprise! I'm so easily amused. So, here's the deal. It's apparently called the Coca-Cola Freestyle. Yeah, it has it's own name. This machine has over 100 different drinks to choose from. Say you want Coke Zero. You touch that option, and then you have the option of Cherry Coke Zero, Raspberry Coke Zero, Orange Coke Zero, and a couple more I can't remember. And, you have at least that many options with every drink.
The exciting thing is the number of diet drink options. For all you diet drink people out there, you know that when you go out to eat you usually have one option- Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi, and if you're lucky they might have Coke Zero. Now there's Sprite Zero, Pibb Zero, Coke Zero, Minute Maid Lite, Powerade Zero, etc with all of the different cherry/raspberry/grape/lime/etc options.
Okay, I'm through rambling about a drink machine. Pathetic, I know. BUT, it really made my day. :) Happy weekend everyone!
I took a day off from work on Wednesday to head to Atlanta with Kevin and the youth. We met at the church at 7:45 in the morning (too early!) and then were on our way to ATL to watch the Braves play. It was already overcast and they were calling for rain, but we were hoping for good weather. We stopped at Chickfila for breakfast in Commerce and then made the rest of the drive to Atlanta. We got seats behind home plate, all the way at the top. These were the BEST seats ever because we got to feel the breeze blowing through. Here are a few pictures from the day...
View from our seats.
One of Kevin & Me
Best part of the day! :)
We had fun watching the Braves play and got to see Dan Uggla & Brian McCann each hit 2 run home runs. They were up 5-1 so we left at the top of the 9th to try to beat the crowd. We were also trying to get ahead of the HUGE storm that was headed towards us....
Let's just say it caught up with us! We ended up driving in heavy rain all the way home. But, we're thankful that the rain held out on us and we got to watch the entire game with pretty great weather. And now, back to work tomorrow!
I promised that I'd post some pictures of the nursery so far. Well, here they are. Of course we couldn't do anything too girly or too boyish because we just don't know what to plan for. We wanted to do the basics for now- paint & furniture. Once we're matched, I'm sure there will be lots of pink or blue to add to the room. :) We actually bought the crib before our homestudy was even completed because there was a GREAT deal at Target. The rest of the room stuff came from Craigslist, Target & Walmart. It's definitely not finished, but it's a good start!
"Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen."
Kevin and I have been getting the nursery ready, because we have no idea when we might get "the call". We might have zero notice, so we (I) at least wanted to have furniture and painting ready. The rest can come later. I'll post pictures later this week of what we've done so far. My mom gave me a small dresser that she thought we could use in the closet for additional storage. Hanging baby clothes don't really come down very far, so it was a great idea. Here are the before pictures...
The dresser is the perfect size for the closet, but was definitely the wrong color. So I went to Lowes, bought a quart of paint and then hit up Hobby Lobby for new drawer pulls (they were 60% off- yay!). Here are the results...
Here is a close up of the drawer pulls. They match the room color (which you can see in the background of the above pictures).
And now a quick adoption puzzle fundraiser update... At this point 30 puzzle pieces have been sponsored, for a total of $150 raised. Here's a picture of the puzzle in progress. It's definitely getting bigger!
And last, Happy Father's Day to my Dad, and all of the other father's out there. I hope you had a special day and that your children are as grateful and thankful for you as I am for my Dad. I love you!
Wow! Last night had to be one of the worst storms that I remember. Every day this week it has gotten dark and stormy looking about 5:30 but we haven't gotten more than a drizzle at our house. On my way home from work yesterday I noticed that the sky was getting darker again and thought to myself "I hope THIS time we actually get some rain at our house". Since it was a Wednesday night, I changed clothes and got ready to go to church. Right as Kevin and I were about to leave the house it got EXTREMELY dark outside, it got very windy, and it started hailing- hard. I don't think I've ever seen so much hail fall that fast. They weren't small either. Once it finished the ground was almost white. We definitely weren't going to attempt driving our cars in that, so we waited until the hailing stopped and then went on to church. I'm surprised there weren't any tornados reported. Luckily we didn't have any major damage at our house. Others weren't so lucky. A friend at work had a huge tree fall on her fence and into her neighbor's yard. Someone at church had damage to multiple windows & siding. Crazy.
On another note, we've got a big weekend ahead of us. Our church's VBS is this weekend. We're doing things a little differently. In the past we've had the normal week night VBS. This year we're doing a camping theme. The kids are coming on Friday evening, spending the night (for the older ones) and then we'll have VBS on Saturday until 4:00. We're excited to be trying something new, and we'll see how it goes. Hopefully we will have a great turn out and we'll have a whole day to encourage and teach the "campers" about Jesus' life, death and resurrection and what that means to us! I have a feeling this will be one exhausting, but rewarding weekend!
Last week I wrote about our youth group traveling to Sumter, SC for missions work. They went for a week prepared to install windows in a home, and ended up re-roofing an entire house, installing a porch, and other random projects. The work was super hot, sweaty, nasty, and hard (from what I hear from Kevin), but they had the right attitude and allowed God to use them. Here's a short video showing some of the things they were able to be a part of through Sumter Area Missions.
"Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions."
1 John 3:18
First, a big THANK YOU to everyone who has already contributed to our adoption fundraiser and purchased a piece (or more) of our puzzle. We're so thankful for each and every one of you! In less than a week, we've sold 24 puzzle pieces and raised $120!! What a great start. Again THANK YOU. Here's an updated puzzle picture. Hopefully in the near future we can post a picture of the completed puzzle! For those of you who don't know what in the world I'm talking about, click here to read about our adoption fundraiser and see how YOU can help!
Kevin and I have been under our house for the past 4 hours re-running our cable, installing our new wireless router and hopefully ending all of our annoying internet problems. We're starving (not literally) and ready to go find something good for dinner. We're thinking seafood....
Those of you who know me know that Kevin and I go to Rocks to eat lunch after church almost every Sunday. What you might not know is that I order the exact same thing every single week. Country fried chicken with white gravy on top, fried okra and peach cobbler. Healthy, huh? But it's SO GOOD.
My mom came to visit this afternoon. We did a little bit of shopping and then met Kristi for dinner at DellaVentura's. Chicken Marsala = heaven on earth! Then we came home and tried out a new (easy) recipe for peach cobbler for dessert. Here's the recipe if anyone cares to try it....
Easy Peach Cobbler
1 Cup Flour (self-rising)
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Milk
1 Stick of Butter
Melt the stick of butter and mix together the flour, sugar, milk & butter. Pour the mixture in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Remove the skin from about 8 regular size peaches & cut into pieces. Pour the peaches on top of the mixture in your 9 x 13 dish. Bake 45 minutes to an hour at 350. YUMMY!
Kevin & the youth left yesterday right after church to go to Sumter, SC for a week-long mission trip. So that means, I'm home alone this week! But, not really. I am don't mind being home alone but I'm not really a big fan of it either. SO, my sister stayed with me last night and tonight, and my mom is coming to visit & stay on Thursday. It's really just an excuse to have a sleep over. :)
The youth group made it to Sumter in time for their first meeting at 4 on Sunday. Our team was supposed to be helping put in windows in a house, but now they're working to replace the roof on a house. Things never go the way you think that they're going to on a trip like that, but you have to learn to be flexible and adapt. And sometimes, the "changes" end up being the best thing that could possibly happen. Please continue to keep our group in your prayers. Pray that they stay safe on a roof in hundred degree heat, and pray that God continues to use them to accomplish His purpose for them.
Hi all! Kevin and I have decided to start a blog to keep everyone up to date on our adoption. To read about our adoption process, click on the "Our Story" tab above. I'll give updates as we get them, but since we're now in the "waiting" stage of our adoption, there probably won't be much to tell! So, I'm sure a lot of my blogs will not even be adoption related.
We've also started this blog in an effort to try to raise some money to offset the cost of the adoption. In total, our adoption is going to cost around $20,000. Yikes! We've got a few ideas for fundraisers and have spent a lot of hours googling to see what other adoptive families have done. The most frequent thing that we have seen is taking up donations from family and friends. But, we've also found a fun way of doing this.
THE PUZZLE
We've purchased a 300 piece puzzle and will be selling each piece of the puzzle for $5 per piece. If you buy a puzzle piece, we'll write your name on the back of the piece. Once all of the pieces are sold, and the puzzle is completed, we'll frame the puzzle with the names facing outward. We'd like to hang this in our nursery as a thank you to all of the people who are helping to make this adoption possible. If you'd like to sponsor a puzzle piece, you can make your payment through Paypal. To donate through Paypal just click on the "Donate" link on the right hand side of this blog. Please note that you do not have to have a Paypal account to make the payment online. Just click on the "Donate" button and then scroll down the page to the section that says "Don't have a Paypal account?" Click "Continue" and it will take you to a page to make your payment without having to create an account.
If you're not comfortable with Paypal, but would like to sponsor a puzzle piece (or more), you can send me an email at kelleyelders@yahoo.com and I will send you our address for you to send a check.
Each puzzle piece can be sponsored for $5. If you would like to purchase more than one puzzle piece, we would be more than grateful! As I said, we're looking in to additional fundraisers and are planning a huge yard sale for later in the summer. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue through this process!
Thanks in advance to everyone for all of your support! We love you all.
