Normal Saturday Morning.

It's just a normal Saturday morning in the Carpenter house.
I woke up to a cowgirl princess ballerina:

Who wanted to look at some pictures:

And then pretended she was a baby in a basket:

But wasn't comfortable enough so she grabbed a pillow:

And she got cuter by the second:

Then the princess and I read a book together for about a half an hour:

All in a normal Saturday morning!

Pig-Tails

What, you ask, is big enough news that I would post on my blog for the first time in over a month??!! 

This:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

Ladies and gentleman, I can now die a happy woman because my daughter (who has forcefully resisted wearing her hair in any sort of fashion) has finally allowed me to put her hair in pig-tails!  No turning back now...she will wear them until she is eighteen...it has been decided.  For anyone searching within a ten mile radius of Newmarket for cute hair ties, my apologies, because I will have spent our entire life savings on this very thing within the next several days.  Bliss!

It's really happening...finally!

Here's an e-mail I sent to our social worker tonight - this is really happening and I'm so excited!

Hi Deb,

I hope you had a good long weekend!  We are just writing to let you know that as of Thursday, September 20th we are ready to be officially "in the system" as foster parents to girls 18mo. and younger.  Tim will have his paper done by that date and we will have just finished hosting some out of town company, so we will be all set at that point to welcome a foster child into our home.

We are so looking forward to this next step in the journey!

Please call us if you have any questions,

Jenny

 

And Stella is ready for this adventure, too...can you tell?

 

Not even 2.5 and already accessorizing...yikes!

Go get 'em, cowgirl!

 

Motivation.

Recently I took a good, long look in the mirror...and, in addition to my fitness level, I realized there are several things in my life that remain undone.  Obviously, a person's body is something that will always require work and maintenance to be fully "fit", but I've spent far too much time lately wishing I was in better shape and hoping it would just happen by continuing to eat poorly and not work as hard at the gym as I know I can.  NEWSFLASH:  after a summer of ice cream nearly every night, I can confidently say that my previously mentioned plan to attain a greater level of physical fitness DOES NOT WORK!  I can also say that, after two weeks of busting my butt at the gym, it's going to be a lot harder to lose the weight than it was to gain it.  Thanks for nothing, Friendly's Ice Cream (okay, I still love you, but "get thee behind me" - and I don't mean stuck to my rear end...)!  All that said, I'm thankful I'm finally motivated and moving in the right direction.  I don't want to waste any more time wishing for something that is totally within my reach and I'm doing something about it.

Like many people, I have a to-do list for general life stuff.  I'm translating my new desire to be the best I can be physically to other areas of my life, as well.  Tonight, I started to tackle a home project which has remained undone since we moved nearly a year and a half ago:  to paint the trim in our entire two bedroom, two story apartment.  It's just the first step, but as of tonight the front hallway trim is officially painted a crisp, glossy white.  In addition to painting, I want to finish Stella's baby book, complete some paperwork that has been hanging over my head, and get to a few other odds and ends around the house.  Perhaps it's the impending reality that we are really becoming foster parents that has given me this boost of energy and dedication?  In a few weeks we will be officially "in the system" and licensed to take in kids.  I feel similarly to when I was about seven months pregnant with Stella, and Tim and I spent New Years Eve ringing in 2010 by organizing and cleaning our entire house, down to the crawl spaces (I know, party animals).  Call it nesting or whatever, I'm just thankful for the motivation to never settle for "just okay" when greatness is within my reach!  God give me strength and perseverance for the tasks ahead!

What I Learned On Our Carpenter Family Outing.

Tim, Stella, and I took a trip to Cabella's today; it's one of Stella's favorite places because of all the stuffed animals (taxidermy style, that is).  Overall, we had a great outing as a family and yet I was once again reminded of why I don't enjoy shopping.  I find myself drooling over clothing I cannot afford and don't really need and it breeds a sense of discontent in my heart that wasn't there before I set foot in the store.  Shopping leads me to think about other things in my life that I want, and I start to dwell on things that, in the end, will not truly bring me any lasting happiness at all.  I walk into the store feeling joy and thankfulness and I leave the store with a desire for more stuff.

 

What a gift to have a husband like Tim who will let me verbally process my thoughts the entire ride home; it is a blessing to walk through this life with someone who feels similarly about what is really important and necessary.  I take pleasure in seeing Stella's simple joy about a trip to the "zoo."  I also am reminded to follow her example as she is fully capable, at least at this age, of leaving a store without buying a single thing, and she is an even happier person going out than she was going in...just thankful for the experience!

 

Did I mention all three of us wore the same exact outfit today?  Oh yes we did, and it was Tim's idea (no lie!):

Stella sings MANY songs.

Living My Dream.

Every once in a while I experience a moment in life when I feel like I'm living a dream.  Tonight I held Stella and sang to her while her eyes drooped - tired.  I looked down at my baby and realized I was holding love in my arms.  She is the product of my relationship with the love of my life.  She is our creation, God's creation.  I can't totally put words to the moment, but I was flooded with thankfulness for this gift God has given me.  I'm so thankful to be living this life.

Learning About Hard Work.

Who ever said you shouldn't put them to work early?

How to Stop a Temper Tantrum.

I had a tired, fussy two year old on my hands this afternoon, and when I told her it was time to shut off her new favorite show, "Dragon Tales", she was having NONE of it!  She threw herself to the floor and proceeded to hit her head against the computer (on purpose)...thus crying harder because she "got a boo-boo on my head!!"

As you can imagine, the tears stopped the instant she saw her fun lunch (thanks to an idea I saw on a few friend's Facebook pages):

mid-bite, action shot!

Now here is the real question - why doesn't someone make ME a fun lunch like this when I'm tired and fussy??

Different Ways to Have Fun - by Stella.

Stella finds all sorts of different ways to have fun.  She's pretty creative at two years old and is great at entertaining herself.  Here are some of her most recent adventures around our house (un-staged, of course):

Stella wore her alligator hat and tinkerbell backpack for a few hours this particular morning.

She kept them on no matter the activity.

She also chased me around the house "roaring" like an alligator.

She LITERALLY plays IN her toybox.

Like, for a long time.

All in a day's work!

Dress Up.

Stella loves to play dress up!  We have a bag of stuff from the daughters of a friend who outgrew their dress-up days, and routinely Stella will select items out of the bag to wear around the house.  This particular night, we were about to start bedtime routine and she wanted to keep wearing her pretty accessories.  She ended up wearing the ballet slippers to bed all night long, and you better believe the first thing she proudly proclaimed the next morning was, "I have ballet slippers on!"

Every night I read to her one chapter from the New Testament and she reads a storybook.  Then we read together from whatever books she chooses.  Please note: the solitary pink glove, the upsidedown tiara/crown, and the ballet slippers:

Girls are the best!

Adoption Update.

It has been a while since I updated about our adoption journey!  This past fall we finished our information gathering regarding domestic and international adoptions, and then the holidays washed over our house, sidetracking us from further discussions about adoption for a few months.  Another thing that happened this fall was, by God's grace (truly), we became 100% debt free and started a novel thing called a savings account...ever heard of one (the last time I had one was when I was about ten years old)?  As the new year rolled in we felt led, for a few reasons, to re-investigate becoming foster parents.  We had many providential interactions with people who encouraged us to consider fostering a child; that reason, paired with the fact that the idea of paying tens of thousands of dollars to adopt was daunting after becoming completely debt free, pushed us to move forward with re-taking the foster care classes.  Please allow me to say confidently: both of us firmly believe God is up to the task of supplying the funds for adoption, no matter the route we take; however, we felt it would be wise to at least investigate the option of fostering to adopt as a possible means to grow our family, and at the same time we would be helping other families reunite when at all possible.  The children in foster care are, in many ways, the most in need of loving and safe families, whether they stay temporarily in our home or forever with us. Tim and I took the class about five years ago and, at that time, we didn't proceed with licensing; we decided back then we weren't in a place in our relationship where we would seriously consider adopting...which is one of the hopes if your foster child cannot be reunited with their birth parents/family.  We didn't want to be just "one more stop on the road" for a foster child, so we thought it would be best to wait until the time when we both felt ready to foster and possibly adopt if the opportunity presented itself.

As we take this next step in our journey I would be lying if I said there isn't some level of trepidation and many, many unanswered questions.  Am I up to this task?  Will I be strong enough to survive the emotional ups and downs?  How will Stella do with this?  Is she even old enough to understand?  Where will we put another child in this tiny apartment?  How will our friends and families react to what we are about to undertake?  And, let's get really honest here, can we truly love another person's child as much as we love our daughter by birth? 

The bottom line:  I feel Jesus is calling us, as a family, to this next step and so I trust first and foremost in His strength which is made perfect in my weakness.  May He guide us as we finish up the process of getting licensed to foster and someday adopt!

Bookends.

Here's how my day started:

Here's how it ended:

Tim and Stella after Stella got rinsed off from the beach.

Note the sand amidst all the toys in our tub.

Perfect bookends to a perfect day.

Beach Baby.

From the girl who looked like this her first summer at the beach:

To the girl who would run straight into the water no matter what the temperature!

I'm happy to report that my daughter is a total beach baby.

"Mom, mom, mom, Mom, MOm, MOMMMM - can I go in?"

"Please mom, please mom, please mom, can I go in?"

"Now mom?  Now can I go in?  Now mom?  Now?!"

"Yes?!!!!!"

My little nudey-mcgoudy, SO happy after her swim tonight!

The entire ride home she would spontaneously exclaim, "That was fun!"  I am so happy she is my beach baby.

You Are My Sunshine.

Stella and I just returned from a visit to mimi's house.  It was the only trip I can remember in the past three summers where we did not visit the beach once!  The thunderstorms and rain kept us from our normal evening trips to the ocean, but we managed to have a lot of fun anyway.  Stella and I slept in my mom's bed and I want to always remember how we smiled and stared at each other before my baby would fall asleep (oops, sorry, if Stella was reading this she would say, "I'm not a baby, I'm a BIG girl" - direct quote).  It was the first time she asked me to rub her back and I watched as her eyelids got heavy each night.  It took thirty minutes for her to fall asleep but I think I could have stayed with her for a few hours like that.  She is growing up so fast!  Just ask the notches on mimi's wall where we record her height...

Stella and mimi singing "You are my sunshine..."

Me and my little piglet.

Tickles.



Stella with her own "sips."