Pondering

I've been wondering lately if I'm actually necessary to the functioning of my home and parenting of my children.  I've been SUPER lazy lately. 
I am tired. 
Bored. 
I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. 
Just waiting...for what?
I'm not sure.
I'm waiting to hear from Haiti, but that shouldn't interfere with my ability to function, right?
I'm waiting to do some projects around the house, but I'm also waiting for the motivation to kick in to do said projects.
I'm waiting to see if Chad hears about an online teaching job, but this does not affect my day to day life much...or does it?

I know on a conscious level that these things do not mean that I cannot do the dishes or a few loads of laundry, but that is exactly what my brain is telling me.
"No don't do those dishes just yet.  You might get an email from Haiti."
"Better wait on that laundry.  You might decide to go to the store and get stuff to paint the bathroom, put up baseboards in the mudroom or haul insane amounts of junk up from the basement!"
"Hold it!  Don't clean the bathroom.  You may hear that Chad was hired."
Stupid, right? 
I know this.
Help me.

Life goes on...

Not much slows us down, unfortunately.I had 2 days of near bliss with the hubs home and basically bed or couch-ridden.  I'm not kidding that I dream about that.  I could just lay or sit down next to him whenever I want.  For a girl who barely sees him for days on end, I'm telling ya, I was possibly a little thankful for that broken arm.

It only kept him home for about 2 1/2 days, though.  He's slowly getting back to work and sleeping the rest of the time. 
I haven't decided if he's sleeping so much cause he's tired or depressed.  I'm leaning towards the latter so I'll be keeping a close eye on him.  Don't tell him that if you see him though.
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No word from Haiti yet.  I was told they only check email once or twice a week so I'm trying to be patient.  It's hard.
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Last basketball weekend for this season.  We're going to divide and conquer again, but it generally works out ok.  I've really enjoyed watching the kids play this year.  They're just so stinkin' cute...don't tell Elijah that though.  He's a 5th grader and can't be "cute" anymore.
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I went to see The Music Man tonight with my lovely friend, Nancy.  It was wonderful.  I so enjoy theater and every time I go to something I remember why, but I don't go nearly enough. 
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I'm all over the place in this post.  Lots of things on my mind.
I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend at some point...say in 15 years or so...hopefully not quite that long.

He what?

"Your husband just broke his arm."
"You're kidding me."
"No, I'm not."

Not the phone call I was planning on getting yesterday.
My super studly hubs was maxing out on the clean with a friend.  He PRed, went for one more and bumped his elbow on the the knee when he caught it and SNAP.  His radius was now in 2 pieces.

It could have been a bit of a scramble to find someone to take the kids for the afternoon, but because we have the most fabulous friends ever, they were taken care of in a matter of 5 minutes.  Katie was here in a few minutes and Natasha took them for the afternoon.  I was able to get over to the Y 10 minutes after I got the call.  That's whatcha call amazing.
The EMS got Chad put in an air cast and I took him to our doctor for an X-ray.  One look and the doc. sent us to an ortho doctor.  Said he thought surgery would be needed.  He was right.
We went straight to the ortho and he scheduled surgery for this morning at 10.  Again, our friends jumped in!  We have dinner and even lunch (BONUS!) for the next few days.  I'm thinking about breaking my arm next week to keep this going...kidding, kidding...maybe....
Surgery went great.  He didn't need a pin in his wrist which means he'll only have a soft cast for 1 week and a hard cast for 2.  Really best case scenerio. 
I had 2 sweet friends sit with me from pre-op through post-op and they made the time go by so quickly!  I had super awesome friends take care of our kiddos all day and dude, did I mention we have food for the next 3 days??
I did.  Sorry.  That makes me super excited! :-)
Chad will be back doing what he does, which is entirely too much for one human, in a few short days I'm sure.  He has thankfully not been in much pain through it all and has been in good spirits, overall.
He is, of course, super bummed cause he's going to have to rehab and it will set him back on his personal workouts some.  I'm betting it won't much though.  The CrossFit Open started today, which is the real wrench in this.  He was registered to compete and is already talking about doing whatever the workouts are one-armed.  I don't doubt that he'll give it a go.
I think I married a robot.  A good lookin', kind, funny, brilliant robot, but a robot, nontheless.

Letter

I was able to get an email address to Nadine, who is Pastor and Lucy's daughter...here is the letter I wrote to her.  Some day, I hope our Haiti babies will be able to read this and see that they were loved long before they came to us!
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Our families have a long history together. My grandparents, Willie and Marge Dahlke were missionaries in Haiti years ago and got to know your parents very well. Since that time my parents, Pastor Jim and Claudia Dahlke, have been in touch with Pastor and Lucy and many others in the Lutheran Church in Haiti over the years. I can't tell you how my family hurt for yours when we heard of your father's death. I grew up hearing stories of his faithfulness and courage in spreading the Gospel in Haiti and our family grieved for your family and for all those in Haiti who lost such a wonderful man.

From a very early age, I loved Haiti. I will never forget meeting Israel and Thomas when they came to the seminary. I was just a young girl, but loved them immediately and they were so good natured in letting me hold their hands, sit on their laps and love on them.
Many years have passed and I have been married to Chad for almost 12 years and we have 4 children-Elijah is 11, Autumn is 9 (her middle name is Nadine!), Cory is 6 and Caleb is 3. We are very blessed!
From early on in our marriage, we would occasionally talk about adopting at some point. For many years, it was simply talk and no more. Recently, however, we felt moved to act and begin the process of adoption.
Haiti is where my heart is. This may sound strange, but I have often prayed for our children there. I did not know who they were, where they lived or even if they were born yet! What I did believe is that they were meant to be ours. We have an open heart and home to bring a sibling group of any ages to our home in Kansas.
With the history my family has with yours, I felt it only right to send you a letter and not only tell you of our plans, but to ask for your prayers and any assistance you may be able to give us as we go through this process. My mother mentioned that your husband, George, is a lawyer and may be able to offer some advice as to the adoption process.
We have not yet chosen an agency to work with. If you know of any that have worked directly with the orphanage in Les Cayes, we would love to know which ones those are. If you have any insight into the children or family units that are at the orphanage, schools or churches, we would love your guidance in that matter, as well.
I would love to keep in touch with you as we continue on. My father is planning a trip to the teach at the seminary this summer and I have hopes to travel with him.
If I am able, I would love to speak with you in person at that time.


God's blessings,

Research, pray, research, pray...

Aside from the normal day-day activities like work, schooling, cleaning, exercise, cooking, of course.
So far I've found quite a few organizations that provide grants for international adoption.  Getting just one of those would be so helpful.  Most require you to have already done a home study already. 
We haven't applied with an adoption agency yet.  The reason being is that I'm putting together a letter with our information to be sent to our family acquaintance who is a lawyer.  I am curious as to how they may be able to help and I don't want to pay an agency without knowing what, if any, advice he can give us.
In other news...Elijah had a basketball tournament this weekend so we watched a lot of ball and spent alot of time wasting time.  We blew a tire yesterday in between games and had to get 2 replaced.  Apparently our alignment is way off and it destroyed our 2 back tires.  The upside of this is that we have a little extra money right now so that was nice.
So, a car repair is in our weekly schedule now.

Elijah

Sensitive
Respectful
Helpful

Compassionate
Athletic
Honest

Competitive
Kind
Introspective
Humorous
Hardworking

He's 11 today...and we couldn't be more proud of the young man he is becoming.

Baby steps and a leap of faith

I don't think I ever really understood the term, "leap of faith" til this past week.
We're completely blind to what will happen with adopting from Haiti.  I hesitate even saying that's what we're doing because we're so early on and haven't even applied with an agency or put a dime towards it. 
The truth is we live blind every day, but for some reason we seem to think we know what will happen day to day for the most part.  We plan our days going from one activity or appointment to the next not terribly concerned about the "unknown."
I have this vision of us standing on a cliff with no visibility as to what is below us, and we just jump, with no fear.  A true leap of faith.
So here's our progress so far...I got in touch with one agency to see if they would work with the orphanage that we would like to adopt from.  They will as long as it's licensed and reputable(which it is.)
I also spoke with the man, Dick, who is instrumental in running the Haiti Lutheran Mission Society.  He has known my family for decades and was very good friends with my grandpa.  He is going to Haiti the end of March and said he would get as much information for us as he can. Lucy is Pastor Louis's widow and their son-in-law is a lawyer in Haiti and Dick will also be speaking with him.  My hope is that we can work directly with him to find our children!  Crazy, right??
Hope is a beautiful thing.  We have much hope today.

There is a stirring...

in my soul.
I first fell in love with Haiti at an early age.  My grandparents were missionaries there and helped bring men to the US to go to seminary training so they could go back to Haiti as pastors and spread the Gospel to their people.
I must have been 8 or 9 when I first met Israel and Thomas, 2 young men going to seminary in Fort Wayne, IN. 
Oh, I loved them at first sight.  I was particularly draw to Israel.  He had the most beautiful smile and he didn't mind that I wanted to always hold his hand or hug him.
I met these 2 men just so very briefly, but our family has always kept in touch with friends in Haiti who are involved with the Lutheran church there. 
Haiti Lutheran Mission Society is an organization here in the states that raises money specifically for the Lutheran church in Haiti. They help fund 5 churches, 4 schools, an orphanage, a medical clinic, and a seminary. My dad has gone to their seminary in Port Au Prince twice to teach a course. 
There has always been a part of me that loves this little country so ravaged by corruption, violence, disease and poverty.  I grew up hearing beautiful stories of God's grace in the lives of many of those we know there. 
Chad and I have talked over the years on and off about adoption.  It's always been talk.  No action. 
There is a good bit of fear of the unknown when you start walking down this path.  Lots of questions.
How can we afford this?
How will it affect our children?
Will we be able to raise them faithfully?
I have thought about adopting from Haiti forever.  This may sound completely crazy, and I can't even say it without crying, but I believe we have children in Haiti that are meant to be ours.  I always have.  And I do mean children, not child.  Siblings, cousins, more then one.
I so desperately want to bring them home.  I have prayed for them for years. 
Every few months, I am just overcome with emotion about them.  Different things trigger it.  This particular time was a book my sister Ang gave me. 
Please read it.  It's called Kisses from Katie and it's by Katie Davis.  If it doesn't make you cry and move you to do something, anything for the millions of poverty-striken children of the world, I don't know what will.  It is an enormous testament of God's faithfulness and power when we say yes.
This idea of actually adopting is very foreign to my husband.  He's a planner, details kind of guy and the amount of money it would cost concerns him.  We've talked again about just taking the first steps.  Getting as much information as we can now.  Praying alot.  Getting in touch with those we know in Haiti.
I'm so nervous and emotional about this.  We will have to do some saving and fundraising.  I think we both agree that the idea of adoption only makes us pause because of the money.  I don't want that to be the thing that stops us so we'll pray and work and save and take those first steps...who knows what doors God will open.

Finito!

Es terminado!
C'est fini!
Es ist fertig gestellt!
It's finished!

I'm so happy I decided to speak in different languages!
We're done with the shower tiling. 
Here are a few final pics to enjoy...

It's kinda hard to tell, but he's soaked. 
I have a confession to make. 
He cut tiles for about 6 hours on Super Bowl Sunday.
What kind of wife asks that of her football-loving husband?!?!?  The humanity!!  The cruelty!!
He didn't hardly complain at all. 
Cutting tiles is not fun.  You get sprayed with gallons of water, tile chips and clay-like stuff each time you make a cut.  He was a trooper and we got all but a few for the edge around the corner done in one day.  He cut. I put them up.  This was not really all that fun either, but at least I wasn't get sprayed in the face with tile debris.
We took FOREVER to get this project done, but I really do like how it turned out.  Don't look too close if you're ever in the shower though.  Lots of uneven tiles.
These pics are pre-caulked.  I just did that yesterday.  We still can't shower til Saturday, but we're all pretty used to bathing, old-school style now anyway.

I'll give the hubs a break for awhile, but I'm pretty anxious to get the floor done.  Don't tell him.

Shower progress

I'm not a professional, but I'm liking how it's coming along. 
We went ahead and demo-ed all the drywall out.  We had some concerns as to what was behind that outside wall because we had insulation blown in this summer and didn't want it all over the place.  Turned out after asking the right person, that there was rolled out insulation closest to the wall so we were good!

We then used roofing felt to line the walls as a vapor barrier.  If we were to do this again I would use plastic sheeting.  The roofing felt was difficult to manuever and staple into the studs.  It worked out fine, but was harder to use then plastic I think.

Then we put up the cement board which took a couple nights.  It's wasn't terribly difficult, just a lot of measuring, scouring and drilling. 

 Max felt the need to "help"

Then I taped the seams and applied thin-set mortar over the tape.

After a full day+ to dry I started laying up the tile. 

This is by far the messiest part (I'm messy with all things home-improvement related), but not hard to do at all.  Our walls are not level or even so I've had to just do the best I can to get them to look nice.  I'm done laying all the tiles that I don't have to cut so now we experiment with cutting tiles!

It's been fun and a good learning experience and I can't til it done! :)