Snow, again.

This become very unintentionally long. Grab a coffee or a snack or something... Turns out I have a lot to say when I have time to think about it.

We just survived our third (fourth?) big snow storm of the year. Most years we are lucky to get anything over two inches, this year...not so much. It just snowed and snowed and snowed. By late March everyone is pretty sick of it. And, I tried to be. I'm ready for those spring days where we can play outside and go to the park and go for walks but I kind of love snow. Especially because there are very very few times I actually HAVE to get out in it anymore. I can just stay in, no problem. The introvert in me LOVES that we've been really and truly snowed in with no ability to go anywhere. Snow days make me excited. This storm was the first one that it totally affected our schedule of the day. Church was cancelled. Which I did miss, really and truly did, but, it did make the snow day extra special that our plans were cancelled for the day. Our kids even slept past 7! And, actually entertained themselves part of the day.

So we got the kitchen really really clean and mostly reorganized, ready to start/continue eating as clean as possible. Yep. We're (sort of) jumping on that bandwagon. I'm usually cook it from scratch kind of person so I honestly didn't think it would be that hard. But, with our current (busy church plant people, two little kids, doing tons of adoption paperwork/fundraising plans/research, etc) sometimes faster or cheaper has become better. We don't have lots of money to spare (well, none actually..) so this switch is hard on the pocket book. All organic is out of the question, it just is. But, we'll get there and we're focused a lot right now on 'if there are more than 5 ingredients on the label, don't eat it' rule and ridding our cooking of white flour and sugar.  I've tried making the kids some snacks that could go out with us places and are 'clean' (they do great with fruit as snacks at home). I tried making granola bars and fruit snacks this week. Both failed. The granola bars are good, just better as a granola cereal-they totally fell apart but the fruit snacks are nasty. Dangit.

The kids and I are having at least one smoothie a day-it's been a super easy way to get fruits and vegetables in them without fighting over it. Josiah begs to turn the food processor and blender on multiple times a day!

Another thing I had time to do was some more adoption research and thinking. And folks, this is no joke. It's breaking my heart. My rose colored glasses of a perfect adoption experience because God called us to do this so there's no way something could go wrong (ie crazy unethical) are off. They've actually been thrown on the floor and smashed. I know full well there are lots of unethical things that could happen in our process. A lot of them completely out of anyone's hands, happening at the earliest stage of the adoption that no one even knows about. Others are due to some adoption agencies being unethical in their explanation of adoption to the birth parents, not giving the birth parents/family the yearly reports adoptive families send to the Ethiopian government, paying people for using 'their' adoption agency instead of others, etc. I am completely aware that adoption is not ever in any way going to solve the global orphan crisis. There are children orphaned all over the world simply for financial reasons or lack of support. These things can be helped. Family preservation and support in developing countries (like Ethiopia) is so so important (and is something I've talked to our agency about many times and I am assured they are working hard on this). Lifestyle changes and education about disease and how to prevent it are important. I believe in all these things. I know they, with adoption as it is needed, can solve the orphan crisis. Sometimes I wish we weren't called to do this. I wish I could just get pregnant, throw up for nine months, give birth, and bring home our sweet baby that looks like us, that no one would question, that wouldn't struggle not matching their family as they grow, deal with the huge loss that is always attached to adoption (because they have to lose a family in order to be adopted), that could breastfeed, held, rocked, doted upon from day one so no attachment issues could arise. But, God hasn't called us to that. God has called us to this sweet baby (or babies...our homestudy did 'ok' us for twins if the incredibly small possibility of infant twins came up) who won't look a thing like us, who is going to have experienced loss even at such a young age, who will stay in a care center for months after we've been matched with them, even after they are legally ours-not knowing they have a family aching to hold them, love them, kiss them, who will need to work on attachment and bonding with us harder than they (or we) have worked on anything before after leaving the only place they've known as home, whose Mommy is going to have to learn how to do their hair and buy them special shampoo and lotion, and who will ask hard questions about why their first family isn't their family anymore that we may or may not have all the answers to. My heart breaks thinking about this. I've had nightmares about the unethical possibilities. But, I also know that God has called us to do this. I know it can be done ethically. There are children that can not be in their biological families in their home country. We have a home ready to love. Ready to do the hard, the easy, and the super fun. Those things can go together, because GOD ordains it. Because God has called us to do it. Not because it is easy or simple.

Sweet baby, you've got a great big sis and big brother ready to love you. They think about you all the time. They have pictures by animals at the zoo (we'll show you when you're here), telling where the animals are originally from and when one was Africa-Addilyn got so excited, "Mom! Look! It's Ethiopia!" When we went to the Africa section of the zoo Addilyn was a little confused..."Africa? Like Ethiopia? Where we are going to adopt our baby from?" It took a minute to understand it was just the animals that are like the ones that live near you sweet baby, not actually you. But you are thought of often. Prayed for constantly. And loved forever and ever. Can't wait to meet you.