Happy third Birthday Aaron!

We have a three year old! He has been acting like a three year old for a while now, but today it's official. It's been said thousands of times, but it has gone so fast. It's hard to believe it's been three years since he became a part of the family. Aaron has been such a blessing. The best gift God has ever given us!

Aaron continues to be an active and silly little boy. He has a very strong will at times which can be a challenge. A good friend of mine said it better than I can. This will be our prayer for Aaron: that his strong will now will become a Godly strong will later.

We are amazed and blessed by his bright, fun personality. He is developing quite the sense of humor. Aaron also loves the outdoors. Weather it's just our backyard or going for a hike in the mountains, he is happiest when outside. It's wonderful to see our little guy loving the outdoors the way John and I do.

The food allergies we have dealt with for the last couple of years are improving. Aaron now eats everything except peanuts and tree nuts. What a change from having to avoid milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame and shellfish. We truly enjoy watching him eat a bowl of ice cream. Praise God that he has outgrown so many allergies!

The things Aaron asks and talks about are becoming more complex. The other day he was playing with his trucks. We heard him say something about adoption. John asked what he meant. He said: "My trucks adopted a baby girl, her name is Madalyn". Our friends daughter's name is Madalyn which must be where Aaron got the name. We thought that was pretty cute! It's good to hear him talking about adoption too!

Aaron is becoming more and more helpful. It's really nice to be able to ask him to help me something like feeding the dog and off he'll run to go do it. He loves his chickens and is a great help with them. Often I'll tell him to round them up and put them back in the coop. Aaron is very loving towards his animals!

John and I look forward to Aaron's forth year and watching him grow and learn. We are so excited to watch him become a big brother. We know he will be an awesome older brother and a great influence on his brother or sister. He is an amazing little guy and we are so blessed to be his parents!

For his Birthday we went to a near by town to ride the train. It's a fun little train that is modeled after a steam engine and operated by the Lions's club. Then our friends came over for dinner. I made noodles, which are Aaron's favorite. We had a jello dessert with candles. He loved blowing his candles out! It was a fun day. The big party is this weekend. Lots of friends and family are coming over for Aaron's jeep party. It should be a good time!

Happy birthday, Aaron! We love you!

Crested Butte 2012

I can't believe it has taken me this long to write about our Crested Butte trip! We had another wonderful trip to Crested Butte this year! Crested Butte is my family's favorite mountain town. There is so much to love about the area. Gorgeous views, lots of hiking and mountain biking, a quaint downtown with plenty of fantastic restaurants. 

The only sad part was that John was too swamped at work to join all of us. As much fun as we had, I kept wishing he was with us! Thank you John for working hard to provide for our family! You are a hard worker and wonderful husband. I appreciate your selflessness and that you were happy for Aaron and I to have a good time. We love you!

My brother rode with Aaron and I. It is a 6 1/2 hour drive for us so I was glad to have the company and the help. The three of us joined my parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles. I was wonderful (as always) to spend time with everyone.  I am so thankful for my wonderful family. It is truly a blessing to be with you all!

We packed in as much fun in as we possibly could! We mountain biked, hiked played games and enjoyed the town. One of the days I was out the door by 7 for a three hour hike. After returning to the house for a quick bit my brother aunt and I were out the door for a mountain bike ride. The funny part is that this pales in comparison to my brother going on three mountain bike rides a day!

Aaron hiked with us one of the days and did awesome! It was a three hour hike and he did most of it on his own. I was especially glad he hiked so far because he is getting heavy to carry in the Deuter pack! I think the pack with him in it weighs about 50lbs so it was great to not have to carry him for long! 

It was a wonderful trip but it went too fast. We are all quite attached to Crested Butte. There are already plans being made for next year. I am already looking forward to it!

Wild flowers! Monks hood, Common harebell, Sneeze weed, Mountain blue bell, Elephant head, Blue flax and Monkey flower. There were not quite as many wild flowers this year due to dry weather.

 Hiking Scarp Ridge with my mom and aunt. It was a beautiful hike on a gorgeous day. From the ridge we could see four mountain ranges! It was amazing.

 Aaron did awesome hiking as usual!

Hats for adoption!

I am quite excited to announce our second adoption fund raiser! I crochet and have been working on making kids hats the last few months. I have made hats for Aaron and also some of my friends kids. When we started our adoption journey it seemed like a great way to raise a little money to pay our adoption fees. I've been quite busy making hats, it's not unusual to find my watching animal documentaries and crocheting in the evenings!

All the proceeds will go towards our adoption costs. I opened an Esty shop, it's called Harebell Handmade.

Girls hats are $16 plus shipping, boys hats are $12 plus shipping and newborn hat/bootie sets are $10 plus shipping. If you live near me or frequently see me, send me a message on facebook or email me and we can skip the ordering/shipping step!

I can do custom orders as well. If you want a hat in certain size/color just use the "contact me" link at the top of the page or convo me through my Esty shop.

Keep checking back, I plan to add more designs and items to my store!

A huge huge thanks to my friends for the use of your beautiful children! 

They make the hats look good :)

Why Uganda?

I've been meaning to write a post about how we chose Uganda. I know a lot of people wonder not only why Uganda but also why International.

It's funny because I hardly even know what to say. If you had told me 8 months ago that I would be in the process of adopting from Africa, I would have explained that you were mistaken. I barely even understand how all of this happened. I'm still surprised that we are really doing this. We're really going to adopt a child from Uganda.

I know what some people are wondering. Aren't there kids without parents right here in America? Why not just adopt a child from this country. Well, yes there are kids that need homes here. I'm not sure there is a right or wrong when it comes to providing homes for children. There is so much need both here and around the world that you really can't go wrong. I have friends that have adopted kids here in the states and that is a beautiful, wonderful thing.

To be honest, the only answer I can give is that this is the path God has put us on. Originally, I thought we would become foster parents and adopt that way. John wasn't as interested in that path and we were both concerned about having to give up placement after placement. We've already experienced a lot of loss (that's another story for another day) and we didn't think we would be up for foster care at this point. I actually feel that there is a really good chance that we will become foster parents at some point down the road. For now we want to adopt, so fostering children is not the best fit for us.

When we spoke with our agency, we did say that if there was an American child that they were having trouble placing to let us know. We would definitely consider such a child. I think we feel called to be more mission minded about adoption. There really isn't much of a need for people to adopt healthy white infants! There is certainly nothing wrong with doing so, in fact it is wonderful; it just isn't where we feel God is leading us.

The need for adoption in Uganda is huge. Adoption isn't the only answer for all of the Ugandan orphans, but it is part of the answer. The AIDS epidemic in Africa along with war has left millions of children without parents. Children die of diseases that are preventable and/or easily treated in America. We feel that not only can we provide a family for one of these children, but we also have the resources to care for a child with special needs and medical conditions.

We didn't set out to adopt a child from another country, but we weren't opposed to it either. And this is where God has led us. It was a lot of little things which added up to become something big. As followers of Christ we should have a heart for all people and all nations.

Isaiah 43 makes me think of international adoption. In the context of the chapter, the Lord is calling collecting the scattered children of Israel back to himself.  However, this verse is applicable to all people because Jesus extended this promise to all people of the earth through his death on the cross and resurrection.  In this way we can all be adopted into God's family.

Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
    I will bring your children from the east
    and gather you from the west.  

 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
    and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the ends of the earth —

everyone who is called by my name,
    whom I created for my glory,
    whom I formed and made. 

Isaiah 43:5-7

Homestudy approved!

We met with our social worker today. She brought our homestudy so that we could each read it. Our adoption agency has approved our homestudy! John and I weren't too concerned, but it's nice to be able to say we are approved! Now it will be sent to the state so that we can be officially approved by the state of Colorado.

It feels really good to have our homestudy done! We just just received notice that our agency has our application for the Uganda program. We will begin working on our I-600A (Application For Advance Processing of Orphan Petition). Basically it is the government giving us the go ahead to adopt a child internationally.

This journey feels more real with each task we cross off the list. It is wonderful to be making progress!

Our little drummer

Some of you may have already seen this. I want to post it here as well. This is our almost three year old playing the drums. He LOVES to play the drums, especially with Daddy. I think he may have some natural talent...

Depraved indifference

This 8 minute video is really really good. These are a lot of the kinds of thoughts I've had lately. The video does a much better job explaining it than I can! I hope you will watch it!