December 2012

December was another busy month for us, although we were actually at home for several of the weekends and it was so nice to get stuff done around the house and actually enjoy our Christmas decorations.  Mark LOVES everything about Christmas...this time of the year makes him so happy.  And although I could probably go all season without decorating, he gets so excited to decorate that it becomes contagious and I end up loving it too!  

Last weekend in November - Picked out our Christmas Tree 

First Weekend/Week in December

• Cut off 10 inches of hair and donated to Locks of Love 
• Kidney Transplant Christmas party at the Museum of Life and Science 

Second Weekend/Week in December - 

• Jenn gets sick with Bronchitis (hence why there are no pictures this weekend)
• Mark's work Christmas Party
• Small Group Christmas Party  
• We got to see Liz and Chip while they were in NC for Liz's graduation from her Ph.D program! 

Third Weekend in December -

• Jenn still sick...and now with Vertigo too!
• Annual Christmas Sweater Party (Friday)
• Date Night (Saturday)
• More Christmas parties
• Small Group Cookie Exchange

The forth weekend of December was also the beginning of our Christmas celebrations with family, so I'll save those for another post...stay tuned!  

Blog Facelift

In case you can't tell, I've updated the look of the blog a bit.  So feel free to snoop around, check out the "pages" across the top (why adopt, fundraising, about us, etc.).  I'm still learning how to blog, so this will be a work in progress.  Leave me some comments and let me know what you think of the new look.  And I promise to have another blog post by the end of the week...a recap of December 2012 (I've almost caught up to the right year at least :) )

30th Birthday Weekend

Well...it finally happened!  I turned 30, the BIG 3-0.  It actually didn't feel different than any other birthday, but because it was a milestone birthday we did do some big celebrating!  Shannon and Brady came down for the weekend before my birthday to help me celebrate and Mark planned a dinner out with friends, followed by some drinks at one of my favorite new places.  It was an awesome birthday and I'm so glad that so many of my favorite people were there to celebrate with me.  My actual birthday was on Thanksgiving this year, so I got to spend the day with family, which was really relaxing and enjoyable.  Here's to 30 being my best year yet!

Me, Shannon, Nicole 

Mariela, Amelia, and Me

Jess, Me, and Karli

LOVE these two!  So glad they came to spend the 

weekend with me :) 

Is he not the cutest little boy ever?!?

Adorable!

Brady and his favorite "Code-man"

My sweet neighbors made me this car and brought flowers!

Why adopt?

This has been a post that I have been thinking about writing for a long time, and I'm not really sure why it has taken me this long.  I think I was afraid I wouldn't have the right words, or that all of the thoughts in my head would not come out right when written down.  I was also afraid that I might offend some people, so please know that nothing I say below is meant to be offensive, or to put down others who have chosen adoption for reasons other than our reasons.  We know adoption is a personal decision and  that everyone chooses adoption for a different reason, all of which are justified and equally as important as ours...this is just OUR story.  

So, WHY?!?  This is one of the first questions we often get when we tell people we are adopting.  We absolutely love talking about our decision to adopt and are actually happy to answer this question and to share our story with whoever might want to listen.

First things first...adoption is not a "last option" for us. We are not adopting because we "can't" have children, we are adopting because we feel called to adopt!   Mark and I have talked about adoption for a long time, even before we got married.  We always knew it would be a part of our life story, we just didn't realize we would be having the adoption conversation in our late twenties early thirties.  We imagined that adoption was something that we would do after having a few biological children, maybe in our late thirties.  God had an entirely different plan for us, and we are so glad that He did.

*Side note, I know many people do adopt because they can not have children and for others it may be a "plan B", please don't feel that I'm judging...I'm not....for us though, that is just not the case* 

I truly believe that God makes no mistakes.  He has placed us exactly where we are meant to be at this time in our lives.  He led us to a Church that has a huge focus on orphan care and many adoptive families.  He placed adoptive families in our lives, and when we didn't get the hint He placed even more adoptive families in our lives.  Mark's dad was adopted when he was young, my step-mom has a special adoption story of her own, my niece Bella was adopted as an infant, Gabriela (who I have babysat for the past 7+ years) was adopted from Guatemala  and our neighbors just adopted the most beautiful baby girl, Daphne.  God has been doing some serious work in our hearts for adoption, and we didn't even realize it!

I wish I could say that we saw God's "signs" from the first moment adoption entered our lives, but of course we had our own plans and thought we were in charge of our own destiny.  When we decided that we were ready to discuss having kids, we focused that discussion on biological kids.  After we tried for a while, we had to face a choice.  Proceed with more advanced medical options or reconsider our plan.  Believe me, I know there are many ways to have a baby, I've thought about all of them and prayed about all of them, and adoption has just really stuck out in my mind as the way we are to have a baby at this point.  Let me be clear, we have absolutely nothing against fertility procedures.  We tried a few basic things, and I always just felt that it wasn't right for us.  I must say that through this process, we were surrounded by the absolute best friends and family in the whole world.  Had God not placed those people in our lives at that time, who knows where we would be.   Our friends, families, and small group were there to listen to us bounce ideas around, provide support when needed, and support us regardless of what decision we made. 

By deciding to proceed with adoption, it does not mean that we are settling!  Its quite the opposite.  We are so very excited to add to our family through adoption, we truly believe that this is God's plan for us at this time.  Would we like to add to our family through biological kids some day too?  Sure, why not!  We would love to have a houseful of both biological and adoptive kids.  We do not favor one way of adding to our family over another; both are such special ways to bring a child into a family.  Through adoption we have the opportunity to bring a child into our lives in a way that most people never will.  Many people may not understand, much in the way that those of us who have not given birth to a baby may not understand that.

Not only does adoption feel like a "calling" for us, something that God placed on our hearts and really worked through our hearts to make a reality.  But it is also a perfect picture of the Gospel.  God adopted us into his family as sons and daughters.  Jesus died for our sins so that we could have an everlasting relationship with God, our Father.   How could we ignore our calling to do the same thing, on a much smaller scale.  To bring a child into our home, to provide them with unconditional love, to bring them up in the Church to know their Heavenly Father.   James 1:27 calls us to care for the orphans and the widows - We are so excited about sharing the love of God with the birth family, with our baby, and with everyone who feels touched by our story.  We are adopting first and foremost to glorify God.  Yes, we will gain with a child, yes our family will be more complete, but we will also bring praise and glory to God's name, and that's really what its all about!

Reading through blogs a few months ago, I found this one from one of our Pastors, Danny Franks, at The Summit Church.  He and his wife adopted a baby girl a little over a year ago and were one of the many Summit members who were motivation for us in this process.  This whole post is awesome, but this part really resonated with me.  I think he outlined the call to adopt  perfectly 
"Adoption isn’t something you do because of romanticized notions of adding to your family. Adoption is something you do because you’re convinced that God called you to care for the orphan. It’s that calling that gives you strength. It’s that calling that helps you persevere. It’s that calling that helps you understand that you too are adopted, you too are strong willed, you too are a hot mess that God still loves unconditionally" (http://dannyfranks.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/year-one/)   

Thanks for hanging in there, it was a long post.  I promise to finish up my monthly recaps (and then hopefully do a 2012 recap), with pictures very soon!

Flapjack Fundraiser

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone who helped make our Flapjack Fundraiser a success.  We are surrounded by awesome and supportive people and we feel so very fortunate!  This fundraiser was so much fun to plan and to host.

Volunteers

First a little background...Applebees Restaurant opens their restaurants early on Saturday mornings to host charity fundraisers.  We held ours at the Applebees by NC State, we stumbled upon this one because all of the others were booked through 2012, but I'm so glad we did because they were so nice and accommodating.  They make the process so easy, Applebees made tickets for us to sell and flyers for us to post.  All we had to do was name the price, sell the tickets, and show up to volunteer at the event.  Applebees only charges a small fee for each plate that is served that day.  So for anyone who bought a ticket but didn't actually come to eat, we got to keep all of the proceeds.  For everyone who bought a ticket and did come to eat, we still got to keep 80% of the proceeds.

That morning we got to Applebees at 7am, there really wasn't much for us to do since the manager and the cook were taking care of all the hard work.  We had AWESOME friends who volunteered to help us that morning with serving food, serving drinks, working in the kitchen, and greeting/seating.  Thank you to Jen and Adam, Catelyn, Kevin, Andy, and Mark's mom.  We absolutely could not have pulled this off without them.  I so appreciate everyone getting up early on a Saturday morning to come serve pancakes and hang out with us as we raised money for baby Harrill.  We were reminded again how loved we are and how amazing our support system is.

We sold 133 tickets, but knew that many of those wouldn't actually be able to come eat that morning.  Of those we had 71 actually come and eat breakfast with us!!!!!!   It was absolutely awesome to have so many of our friends and family there, spending their Saturday morning with us, and showing their support for our adoption.   I know spending an hour or so eating pancakes on a Saturday morning might not seem like a huge contribution...but to us it made all the difference.   We know that everyone could have stayed at home, slept in, and supported us from the comfort of their own home, but to see all of you there supporting us in person was better than I had even imagined.  

If we decide to adopt again, we will absolutely be hosting a fundraiser at Applebees.  This was such a great experience and got us even more pumped up about adoption.  As an awesome bonus, we now have pictures of all of your friends supporting us that we can add to the baby book, so that baby Harrill can see how many people were anxious for him/her to come home!