Tee shirt!

Our adoption tee shirt is now available and will be for sale for the next 15 days! We set a goal of selling 50 shirts, but would not be upset if we we smashed that, ya know ;) We wanted something unisex, that was not super specific but meaningful for us. I got hooked on this line from a book many, many moons ago. It's been a family motto since our beginnings. Applicable to all things, right?! Foster/adoption, moving across the country, shaving your head, paying for oodles of dance/music/martial arts/etc classes, giving second chances, parenting children with special needs ... we are big fans of doing "crazy" things in the name of love! <3 eel="" free="" nbsp="" p="" romeasttowest="" share.="" share="" to="">

front

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Several styles/sizes available

Order your shirt(s) HERE!!


Update: 30 sold the first day!! We have the best village.

Update! {swoon.}

Things have been so busy on the home front, I haven't had a chance to update on our adoption of little Miss Lincoln Mabel lately.

Since both Roman and Anna Gray's adoptions were expedited, this is our first time to experience a "typical" timeline. That could feel painfully slow if we let it. The bright side of having so much going on right now, is maybe it distract us from waiting so terribly long for our girl ;)

Except to her big sister. "Mom, I want Lincoln." Constant.  And then slobbers all over my phone kissing her pictures.

I love a list. I make lists for everything and even more than the list, I love to cross things off the list. Sometimes I add things I've already done- like brushing my teeth or putting real clothes on- just so I can cross them off and feel accomplished. This is the same chart we used for Roman's adoption and I love to check off those numbers! Right now, we are in between steps 4 & 5, waiting on immigration approval.  I have absolutely no idea how long that is taking these days for a 'typical' adoption. Don't wanna know. Just gonna coast through and check off those numbers as they come.

Most asked questions thus far:

When will we travel?
Our dossier is all but ready to head East as soon as we are approved. At that point, the process is a little more predictable. I think generally travel is 4-5 months after our dossier gets to China. So probably winter, Early? Late? We dunno.

How old is she?
Lincoln is 2 1/2 right now... but tiny. The last measurements we got put her in a size 6-9 month clothes. We plan to send a care package to her in a couple of months and will hopefully get an update then. I'm still trying to learn what her orphanage allows, etc.

What are her special needs?
She does have Down syndrome and nystagmus, but otherwise healthy :)

Will Cupcake Tuesdays return?
This CRACKS ME UP. I have gotten so many messages about Cupcake Tuesdays! Such a happy question.
The cupcakes were a successful fundraiser and so much fun! But ya'll... so much work, ha. I don't know if I have it in me this time. Right now, I'm thinking instead of a weekly occurrence, we might do one or two big cupcake sales. Make all the cupcakes at once, sell all the cupcakes at once? I'll keep you posted.

We will be launching a tee shirt sale... next week! We designed it as a family and are really hoping it does well. I'm a tee shirt hoarder. There are probably enough tee shirts in the world already, but it doesn't matter. I have six kids.  This is, like, my uniform. I can't be alone in that, right?



Ya'll hear from me constantly but Hubs doesn't do social media, he just shows up looking handsome in photos from time to time. We each had to write an update to our personal bio for our home study since adding Roman to the family and he copied me on his when he sent it to our social worker. I thought it was only fair that ya'll hear from him too {sharing with permission}.

Spoiler alert: He's the best.

********

UPDATE: (Nathan)

Roman didn’t become a West until he was almost 8 years old but he plugged into this family like he had been a part of us his whole life! I’m not going to lie but I thought the “transition” into our life might be long since he had lived a relatively lengthy different life and now it had completely changed. Boy, was I way off. Right from the start he developed his own unique, loving and personal relationship with every one of us and it took no time to feel like he had been with us the whole time.

Roman brought to us a new understanding of resiliency from everything he has been through and everything he continues to overcome and his curiosity and enthusiasm to learn (EVERYTHING) has energized our family,  As a father I couldn’t be more proud to watch my family’s eagerness to teach and show him everything. He plays so many roles in our family- from little brother who hangs on everything his big brother does to protector of his “baby” sister. I thought our family was amazing already but he managed to make it better.

Last year we made another large change…. We packed up (literally) and followed a path that God was shining a very bright and blinding light on. We moved to a different community, new house, new schools, new buses, new places to eat, new parks to play in, new grocery stores, new streets to ride bikes on….  We are always apprehensive of change (and by "we", I mean me). All of this “newness” has been nothing but upgrades for each and every one of us and this has changed me spiritually in ways I can’t even explain. My eyes, ears, and heart are more open to understanding and trusting what God is showing us and wanting for us. All of this had given me a sense of “completeness”... So I thought!

There she was. A short bio and a picture on a computer screen. Here I am getting settled in to all these changes and feeling a sense of “We are here, everything is settled”. And all of a sudden there’s another small void. That one very small piece missing from a 1,000,000 piece puzzle like my grandmother used to put together. And you are in awe of the puzzle, but the more you go back and look at it, you begin to no longer admire the beauty of all of that together but only focusing on that one small piece that’s missing. It's like God is shining a big bright flashlight on my daughter who is on the opposite side of the world.

Now I’m anxious. I’m anxious to meet her, hug her, watch her with her siblings, see how she changes us all and how we change her. I’m anxious to put that last piece in our beautiful puzzle and show it to the world- complete.

*******


Hang on, sweet Lincoln. We are checking off numbers as quickly as we can!

{freeze frame from a video we have of her. presh.}

I love to tell the story...

I've told the story to approximately 72 people individually- always in slightly rushed and manic manor because it's soso good but also because I just generally don't have a lot of time to sit and chat.

I decided I should write it down because it is good and I don't want to forget any of it at all, ever.



It's been nearly two years since Roman came home (wait. what?) and we really did think we were done.  Six months ago, we packed up as much as we could in 48 hours and moved to a new community... new home, new schools, new church. That's a lot for anybody, but for kids sensitive to change (OURS), that's a LOT.  We know. But three of our kids had been expressing a need for more diversity- both in race and ability; and we could clearly see that this would be a great fit for our family.  More importantly, we felt clearly that this was God's plan for us. All of the doors opened at the exact same time. The transition was not flawless, but now we see our children building authentic relationships with peers, teachers, and in church. We see them being/feeling successful academically. We see them starting to stand on solid ground instead of trying to stay afloat.  Again, there is room for improvement always, but we can just see it happening before us. It's good. Like, GOOD.

After all this change, we thought we would just BE STILL for a while.

We did sort of casually start having little tiny conversations about "next time" jokejokeblahblah.
And Anna Gray being the tiniest person in the house but somehow ended up with the biggest bedroom, also the only one without a roomate... And what would life be like if we had two with Down syndrome? What would the future look like? Just brief, tiny little seeds convos.

Still, we were all talk because we had just survived all the changes. And Nathan was in the middle of a big, time-consuming inspection at work, and we still had two houses to sell. All talk.

Then we saw her.

For some reason, the conversation changed- quite naturally. Who would go with me to China? I mean, theoretically. And when would she be home? Theoretically. AND HER BIRTHDAY. AND HER NAME. AND... no no no. We can't. We can't.

Nathan has some friends who are considering adoption and I (lemme just test these waters right here...) suggested he send them "Anna Mae". His eyes got wide and he totally side-eyed me, "But I don't want to send them Anna Mae...." Yeah, I know. Me neither. CRAP.

We both knew it, but our stomachs were in knots.

We CAN'T, right?!
We have five kids who keep us crazy... busy. Crazy busy. 
It's insane, we can't.
We have two houses to sell.
Walk away and say no.
We don't even have an extra $350 to make the commitment right now.
It's okay. Because we can't. Say no.

We. can't. say. no.


We had a big family conversation - over the phone because Nathan had gone out of town that morning- about her. The three middles (B, C, R), they were begging please! please! please! Layla and I were looking at each other like: Yeeaahhh, ya'll the reason we hesitatin'...
We ended the call with: We aren't ready to say YES, but we really are not okay saying NO. We've talked and talked, analyzed every angle, the only thing left to do is pray.  We prayed together that God would give us a clear answer.

It was a Sunday.

After stressing it all morning, I loaded up the kids for church. I usually give them each a dollar for their tithe, but when I checked my purse, I only had three ones. They were fussing over who gets it, so obviously Jesus will have to go without- we will give Him nothing instead of arguing over it. Because that makes total sense.
"Guys, we are going in. God's got something for us today." was the last thing I said when we got out of the car.

I didn't realize we were going to have a guest speaker that day.
I was kind of bummed. Ba was visiting and I had been excited for her to experience our church, and to be totally honest, I wasn't really connected.  At the end, she called someone in the congregation out and shared what God was revealing to her for them. I looked at Cale seated next to me and said, "Don't let her look at me."
I knew. Knew.

Young lady? Yes, you, Little Mama.
(That was me.)
God has something to tell you....

She proceeded to speak total truths about who I am, who we are, who we want to be. She told us pieces of God's plan, not knowing they echoed exactly what Pastor had told me two weeks before.
I was shaking. Crying. Layla's arm was around me, she was shaking. Crying.

Our guest speaker interrupted herself and asked her assistant: How much money to I have in my wallet right now? I don't know if it's $5 or $500, but whatever it is, I'm supposed to give it to you now. 

It was $40 and she did.

Anyone else feel called to show this young lady what God has for her family?

Drum beats. Music.

Ya'll.

These people... our new church...they started walking up to us one by one. Filing by. Putting whatever they had in my hands.  One dollar, five dollars, a hug, three dollars, a few tens, a prayer, a handful of twenties... This is not an affluent area. These are not wealthy people. But they are God's people. This is what they had and this is what they gave. And they just kept coming.

Cale: Mama! Anna Mae! Anna Mae!
Shhhhhhh!
I shushed him. I was freaking out. I think I even said out loud- What is happening?!
WHAT IS HAPPENING.

As Brynn says, my head was spinning and I couldn't feel my feet.
It was crazy. All of it. Church ended with me still standing there thanking people as they squeezed my hand and left behind whatever had been in their's.

What had happened, what my kids experienced... I can't even explain what it did to/for us spiritually.

Of course, the kids couldn't wait to count this envelope full of money we had just come home with. I was still shaking so much I could barely separate the bills.

It totaled $347.

When I called Nathan (I don't know how he understood a word I said) and told him what had happened, what she (HE) said to us, that with the three ones still in my purse we now had exactly $350?! His only response was: HOLD HER FILE.

Are you sure?! Should we wait until you get home and talk some more?!

"Amma... Hold her file."

(This is also when he said 'We just got B****-slapped by Jesus, which I feel quite certain you are not supposed to say and probably not supposed to repeat it when telling a God-sized story, but ain't it true?!)


I contacted the agency immediately to hold her file. 

That same afternoon, someone made an offer on our house (which was not even on the market at the time). 

Oh, victory in Jesus...