the fart gallery. I mean the ART gallery.

More masterpieces from Payton this week.

This is Mom in a dress. Payton says that this dress has a picture on it of a sad person in a cage. Huh. Interesting. I DO so love to carry around small angry men in cages on my skirt. She nailed it!

This next one is Jason driving a truck. Payton says that he's honking the horn. BEEP BEEP.  In reality he is on a BEER run. One little line makes a pretty big difference sissy. Makes me think of the song, B double E, double R U N BEER RUN! I think I'm probably in the back seat with my $10 and my $5 and my fake id and SO happy to be on a beer run!

Adoption Update

Some have been asking about where we're at with our adoption. I know I haven't talked much about it for a while. There hasn't been a whole lot to update. We've been waiting to hear back on some things, which I did today. Yay!
So our next payment to our agency is the biggie. It's the one that is extremely large. Looking back, I'm so grateful that this payment was not at the very beginning of the process because if would have made me very discouraged. However, now into this process for a year and a half, I can find myself discouraged with the cost of adoption, BUT because I've seen God provided so much so far it's been easier to pull myself out of that discouragement. God has done and still is doing great things whether He decides to provide it all at once or spread it out. It's still His timing and He knows much more then we do. I'm grateful for that and it's becoming easier to be to not fret.
We applied for an interest free adoption loan through Lifesong for Orphans a while ago. They called and said that currently they did not have any funds to help us out but they felt we were perfect canidates and still wanted to help. They asked for permission to send our information on to Pathways for Little Feet. Well, after a few weeks of emails and more paperwork, Pathways called today and said that we have been approved for an interest free loan! It's a good chunk of money which will help incredibly, but there will still be a lot more needed to meet our current goal.
Once we pay our current payment to our agency it sounds like we will get our referrals!!! We are so anxious to get pictures of our kiddos! Once we do, I have no idea how much longer it will be. We work on one stage at a time. :)

Maybe you've also heard that we are moving! Jason's parents are moving into a new home and we are buying their current house. We are VERY excited for the extra space, which will help so much for  when we have five kiddos. Not to mention that there isn't any updating to do and no house projects to work on. We'll be able to move in and then work on projects that we WANT to work on like gardening and chicken coops! This move is such a blessing and we are so grateful that God has lined everything up! And Jason's brother is buying our current house so we are not having the stress of finding a buyer! Praise God! We close on the house June 15th and will move in the few weeks after that depending on timing for John and Becky.  So excited!

Please pray that God would continue to provide for the adoption and give us patience as we wait.

you don't see that in public school

I'm back. Well, at least for today.

Another post of "you don't see that in public school." Well, okay so a student in public school might be able to eventually take a cooking class in junior high or high school but not in 2nd grade. Last week Caedmon learned how to make an Egg in a Toast Hole. He made them for all of us the morning he learned (with a little supervision). He still has that "I'm afraid I might get burned" thing going on with his hands, but he did great! He will eventually learn to cook like a fearless mom who is more concerned with ruining the food then burning the tips of fingers.

Tonight we will be planting the garden at the new house. We're doing The Family Crawford Garden, which mostly consist of Uncle Eric and myself caring for the garden and everyone else helping by eating what comes out of the garden. Which seems to be working out so far. I told Eric that I'm not picky about how it gets planted as long as it doesn't look butt ugly.
I do want the kids to help out so they can learn about gardening. It will greatly benefit them into adulthood. I would just LOVE it if all three of our kids ended up having bright green thumbs. We shall see.... I'm pretty excited for them to help pick the produce. It is both a chance to appreciate hard work and and see what God can do with a seed, dirt, water, and some sunshine.