I'm a proud mama!

I'm so proud of Princess tonight. She had her second track meet and during her first race she was the last leg and as she took the curve, she fell face first onto the track. Ouch! She was in 1st place when she fell and they ended up getting 3rd place. Double ouch. But she picked herself up and finished the race, tears and all. I, of course, being the very hovering mother that I am, met her at the finish line, scooped her up and carried her back to our seats. After deciding that she was okay, she let her coach know that she was ready for the next race. Her next race had her run the very same route on the very same curve that she fell on and she didn't let it slow her down at all. What a pro! Then on her last race, her coach put her back on the last leg and she smoked the competition to help bring her team their first 1st place ribbons of the season! She showed maturity and perseverance and I'm one proud mama. :)

Happy EASTER!!

We really did celebrate Easter this year, I've just been too busy to blog about it! :)) But before another whole week gets away from us I thought I'd better sit down and catch up. We started our weekend by going to the ranch on Friday with our family from Tyler. It was an absolutely amazing day. There was no wind and it was a toasty 85 degrees. Perfect Texas weather. Before we got started on anything else, my dad wanted the kids to try out the new swimming hole that he's worked so hard to get filled up. This is the same hole that I had pictures of earlier that the big tractors were digging out. Now it's almost full of water and has an amazing dock leading out over it with a "sandy beach" around it. We will thoroughly enjoy this spot this summer I can already tell ya. :)

Princess and Papaw

The motley crew getting ready to try out the water

My brother in law was the first one in but I'm choosing to not have him on my bad side for the rest of my life and not posting that picture. :)) Little Man was the next one in and discovered why my bro in law squealed a little when he went in....it was COLD!!! My dad said it was about 63 degrees....I was so glad I did not have my suit!

One by one they made it in the water. This is my oldest nephew, Coby.

My younger nephew and Princess took a while to talk themselves into getting in (I have no idea why...it's not like anyone was complaining about the cold) but once everyone got their chance, we dried off and headed onto the next thing.

I had seen these kites and really wanted to fly one but there was a problem. There was NO wind! After the last few weeks this was a shocker but it didn't stop us from flying kites. My family knows how to improvise.

Yes, that is us flying a kite behind a 4-wheeler. :) Call us hillbillies if you want but it was so much fun. The kids held onto the string while my dad drove them around.

They had to go pretty fast to keep the kite up which meant it was also pretty dusty.

It's all fun and games until someone gets it caught in a tree. :)

Then on Saturday we spent the day with my hubby's family celebrating his granddad's 80th birthday. I forgot my camera so I don't have any pics from this day. :(

On Sunday, we had a wonderful church service and then headed over to my grandmothers for lunch. I had already realized that Princess had not hunted eggs at all yet and I was anxious to figure out a way for this to happen. That's when Uncle Adam and Amanda came to the rescue! They brought ALL the kids Easter baskets filled with goodies and plastic eggs already with candy in them. So we combined all the eggs and went and hid them in the front yard for Princess to go find. It worked out perfectly.

There is a camouflage egg hidden in this picture....Princess had a hard time finding it....can you find it? :)

Uncle Jerod doesn't get too many chances to hold his baby niece so I was glad to get this on camera. He says the women in the family are kinda hogs with her....I'm sure I'M not included in that.

My brother Adam and his girlfriend Amanda...we really really like her....like I'd be okay if she became my sis-in-law but SSHHH!! don't tell him that....we don't want to scare him. ;)

The really cool thing about the baskets they brought the girls is that the basket part came off and was also a hat. Jacee tried her best to get it off Princess' head.

Then in order to get smiles, us adults will do just about anything. Uncle Jerod put on the hat and Jacee thought it was FUNNY!!

When we got home on Sunday evening we decided to fly the new kites the kids had gotten for Easter. There is ALWAYS wind at our house and going behind us worked great because there are not any power lines or trees to get in the way. We flew the kites for over an hour!

Princess got a ladybug kite

And Little Man got a tree frog.

I love my family!!!

I hope you had a very blessed Easter!

Saturday

I am so glad it's Saturday. This has been a whirlwind of a week (literally) and this Saturday brings warm sunshine with NO WIND! :) Wind is very annoying for most people but for me, it is a life-altering occurrence. I'm really not being over dramatic! See, where we live, there is nothing behind us except bare fields and dirt. But, they are cutting the land for a new street back there so all the dirt is nice and loose. So when you add that to 60 mph wind, you can imagine the dirt bowl that is my neighborhood. We've all had to carve out time this week to get all that dirt OUT of our homes. That's not a chore that you can put off, especially when you have kids. It is purely disgusting and does not set well with this type A, clean freak mom. But at least I have a home to be cleaning and haven't lost it to wildfires like several people in this area. It's just been bad this year.

On top of the wind and the mess it's brought, we've been working to get our dossier together. I cannot tell you how ready I am to turn that sucker in and just be in the "waiting" mode. Most people don't like the waiting mode...I'm craving it. I don't want to rant too much so all I will say is that the government sure is picky when it comes to things like a notary stamp being slightly smudged. And I could go on and on and on.....

But MOVING ON, today is Saturday and it brings no wind and no government; just working on crosses that have had to be pushed aside and watching Princess' first track meet. Today will be a great day. I hope your Saturday will be like mine: remembering the good of the week like finding a wonderful gift from a family member in the mail or spending the evening with great neighbors and friends and laughing til your sides hurt but mostly, one full of love, family and sunshine. :)

God is Good!

Well we had our open house today and I. am. tired. :) But it was such a great day and I am actually looking forward to having another one. I'll just give you the short run down of what we accomplished: I had 32 crosses to begin with and now I have 15. I have 10 new orders and we made right about $1000.00. Can I get a YEE-HAW?! :)) With expenses etc., we probably only netted about $700. but that's still an amazing amount for one afternoon. It makes me feel good to have done so well because I worked really hard on my product and now I can contribute to our adoption fund myself. Now for some pics:

Our raffle ticket table...my friend Lisa came and helped me decorate and she did a great job. Everything looked so put together and professional.

The "door prizes" table

One of three cross tables...

More crosses...

Our "etc." table...we had odds and ends from other people and it had everything from jewelry to frames on it

Last cross table

I didn't get the other tables but we had a Scentsy table, one with little girl hair bows and then one that had really cool canvases with words and paintings. Overall, I think everyone was glad they hosted a table and we had a really good time just being together.

Today was better than I expected and I am so thankful that I had this opportunity. Although I am so tired, I am very glad that I went ahead and held it and didn't back out like Satan tried to tell me to. Everything fell into place even if it was just at the last moment. God orchestrated the whole thing and He showed up in a big way for us. He is SO GOOD!

Side note: My mom mentioned me changing my business name from "Crosses By April" to "Crossing Over" or "Crossed Over"to illustrate our journey across the sea better....what do you think?

Did you hear that?!

Did you hear a big loud sound yesterday? A really loud sound? It doesn't matter where you live, you had to of heard it! About 1:00 yesterday afternoon the heavens had to have opened and the angels sang down because we got our immigration approval in the mail!!! You didn't hear that sound? :))

At first I didn't believe it was "the one" because it didn't come with fireworks or balloons but after calling our social worker and double checking, she assured me that it WAS "the one" we've been waiting for. This letter essentially says that the United States of America has approved us to adopt internationally. That they agree that we are who we say we are and we now have their permission to move forward. So what's next?

Now we can turn in our dossier (pronounced Dos-si-a) which is our lives on paper basically. It is our birth certificates, marriage license, letter of intent, financial documents, home study, etc. etc. etc., all notarized and official. That will be turned into our agency who will then get it to the people it needs to go to and we can then wait for our referral! (A referral is our child and/or children that we will then look at to say yes or no to adopting them.)

So this was a big step! One we've been waiting for since mid-February and one I'm really glad is done with the looming government shut down.

And I have to tell you this cute story: my hubby is excited about this adoption but is much better than me to keep his emotions in check. He doesn't get too excited or discouraged about anything until it's time. But yesterday when we opened this letter, he laid it out and took a picture of it to text to his dad. It was so cute. And he spent the rest of the day on cloud 9. :) I love that man!

Come One, Come All

Mission Minus 1

An Open House/Fundraiser to help bring our baby home from Ethiopia, Africa!

When: Saturday, April 9

Time: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: 3514 Farwell

$5 raffle tickets sold at the door for a chance to win an awesome door prize!

And invite all your friends!!