Happy New Year!!

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!
Love,
Ryan, Arin, and Jovie

Oh! The Places We'll Go!

Three years. I have been married for THREE years! Honestly, each year has gotten better and better! I can't wait to see what the future holds for us. I've heard it said that you will love your spouse the least on your wedding day, but more and more each day. I thought that was kind of odd to say at a wedding, but it is so true! I love Ryan more today than I ever have :) He is an awesome hubz and I'm so incredibly grateful and undeserving of him!! Year four is sure to have some HUGE changes for our little family, but I know there is noone else I would rather walk them with!

Little trip down memory lane...The proposal...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wedding....12*19*09

 

 

 

 

 



BEST friends

I have some of the BEST friends!

 

 

 

December 1st!

Flashback to get you in the Christmas Spirit!

 

 Tomorrow is December 1st! I am oh-so-excited about this! Tomorrow we will be due with Baby Thompson in exactly ONE month!!! I can't imagine actually growing any bigger with this baby, but who knows?! It is also the first day of my favorite month of the year!! I love Christmas time and the joyful holiday season!

 

One of the main reasons for this post is to update y'all on the adoption. After ZERO movement the past few months there was a flood of referrals this week! I think atleast 5 infant/toddler/young child referrals were given! It moved us up to 62!! It was really just exciting to see some action finally.

 

 

Well, Happy December! May your days be merry and bright!

 

 

 

Adoption Update

 

I've given lots of pregnancy updates lately, but not so many adoption updates. Honestly, this is because there hasn't been much to update. I checked all the referral summaries last night and there has only been FOUR referrals for children UNDER FOUR since August. I had noticed things seemed slow on the referral side through the message board, but I didn't realize it was that slow. My heart hurts for the children that are ready to be part of families, but are stuck behind the legal tape. I am, however, glad that our agency does everything necessary to ensure ethically correct adoptions.  My prayer is that the governments will start moving at a miraculous speed and help bring these babies home! I also hurt for the families that are about to spend another holiday season without haivng or seeing their precious childrens faces. It will be a rough one for them I am sure, but they will hold fast to the promises of God and remember that He is good and has good plans for their families.

When it rains, it pours...

Blessings  in this case! We have had some AWESOME showers to celebrate Baby Thompson! I am overwhelmed with all the things people have bought us and the time and engery people have spent throwing showers! I seriously have some of the most creative, encouraging, and caring people in my life! I don't know what I would do with out them!!

 

Enjoy some pics!!

 

 

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Thankful Novembers!

Lots of people participate in Thankful November. Meaning, each day they list things they are thankful for in their lives. I think its great and love to see such appreciation! Last year during this time was one of my favorite times on my blog. Everyday leading up to Thanksgiving I highlighted a way you could SPREAD around what you are thankful for! I don't feel the need or want to do it again this year, but I do want to encourage everyone to continue sharing their wealth. So, I am just going to list the posts from last year and you can mosey on over to whatever pulls your heart!

Thankful for WATER....Help provide water...
Thankful for my BED....Help provide beds....
Thankful for FOOD...Help provide rice bowls...
Thankful for SHOES...Help provide shoes...
Thankful for FRIENDS...Help women style their friends and provide a sustainable income...
Thankful for MISSION TRIPS...Help spread the love of God...
Thankful for my COMPUTER....Help provide computers...
Thankful for PICTURES...Help provide portraits...
Thankful for JESUS CHRIST...Help spread His name...
Thankful for ADOPTION...Help bring an orphan home...
Thankful for GOOD HEALTH...Help provide good medical care...

Bring Love In

You know how every now and then you will come across an organization, cause, or family that just pulls at your heart? You know immediately what they are doing is great work and you want to help them? That is how I felt about Bring Love In. I watched their video off of Give1Save1 and was instantly compelled to help this family. I sometimes get the urge to donate, but if they don't have Paypal I will just move on and not go get my credit card. However, this was deserving of walking into the other room and getting the moola!! Sooo...Watch this video. Check out their site. Invest in their call to look after the widows and orphans!

"We work with local churches to find widows and mothers who’ve been left to lead their households on their own. In a country like Ethiopia, where resources are scarce, these women often find themselves on the streets, with no way to provide for their families.

We will train and provide for these women, so they can support their own families and, in turn, open their homes to children who’ve been left as orphans.

We will provide a first class private education to each of the children living in the Bring Love In homes.

We will have a team of nurses and social workers on our staff who will visit each home on a regular basis, ensuring the level of care – both emotional and physical – remains high.

Our focus is on building future leaders, residing within their home countries – leaders who will bring vision and direction to their communities." - Bring Love In- The Project

Great Sermon.

Sometimes during my conference/lunch period at work I have time to listen to a sermon. Today I felt like listening to The Austin Stone. I randomly picked one by Matt Carter and I was not dissappointed. It was so good. I kept thinking I wish everyone I know could hear this sermon! It was like something I just needed to be reminded of and kind of like a reality check for what my life looks like. Check it out, you won't regret it!! Great marriage advice that went along with my Perfect Guy blog post!!


Four Ways to Receive God's Word from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

Pit stop!

Today on the way to church I noticed a huge sign with our last name on it!

I thought it would make for a cute picture,

so on our way home we stopped and took a pic!

Almost 28 Weeks <3

Kid President

How cute is he???

Awaken LU

Are you 18-25ish?

Want something awesome and fun to do this weekend?

Want to see college students wake up from their slumber and realized that a living a life for Christ is so much better than living life for themselves?

 

Well if you said YES! YES! and YES!!!!
You need to get to the Montagne Center on Friday and Saturday this weekend to be apart of the Awaken LU Conference!

 

 

www.awakenlu.com

The perfect guy :)

This Sunday I was listening to my hubz preach. I was thinking that I am a really lucky girl to have found such a perfect guy. I thought about how it seems like most Christian women speakers really love their Christian husbands. It seems to me that they all got really lucky and married great men. I was trying to find the common link in all these guys. What makes all these different men, from different pasts, and different sins so great? Well I figured it out. Jesus.

I was thinking about how I wish I could beat  this into the heads of my friends, college students,and any girl really. There are amazing guys out there. Wait for a good one. Find a guy that loves Jesus.


Ryan lives for Christ. He holds himself to a high standard of a man. He understands and accepts the responsibility of being the head of our family and he uses Christ to guide him to being the best husband/future father possible. So ladies, if you're reading this and in the market for a hubz, look for a man that loves Jesus. If he loves Jesus he will love you like Christ loves the church. He will have a love for you that most guys don't have. He will put Christ above you. Yes that is sometimes a difficult pill to swallow because we like to be #1 in our man's life, but it is so necessary. We can not fulfill what our men need completely and he definitely cannot fulfill our needy, emotionally unstable hearts. Only Christ can fill that void. If our hubz understands that and points us to Christ when we are acting crazo, things will be better than if he tries to fill our voids. So bottom line. My husband rocks. He rocks because he loves Jesus more than me. He loves me so much because he learned to love through Jesus.

You want a man to love you better than you deserve?

Marry a man on fire for the Lord.

                          

 

 

                

 

Six Months

Today we have been DTE for six months!

 

 

 Movement on the referral side has seemed almost nonexistant lately; however, the court dates and embassy appointments seem to be flooding in! Ethiopia has been hit pretty hard recently with some difficult situations. Their Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi passed away in August. Please pray for the country and for the adoption process!!

 

*Summer Picture Wrap Up*

Annoucing to the first time grandparents :)

 

Last day of a looooooong end of school.

NYC Mission Trip!

 

Almost every Monday night my family would run in a 5k race:)

Towards the end I did much more walking than running.

One of my favorite pics of me and mawmaw.

Just love to look at this sweet baby!

First outfits for baby Adelyn/Jude!

Mini Destin Vaca!

Painting the baby's room!!

The new mom mobile. Loveee it.

First day of Year Four!!

It's beginning to feel a lot like FALL :)

I feel like I don't know how to start this blog! It has been so long since I have actually wrote anything. I don't really have a reason, stuff has been happening I just haven't been documenting anything! I use to get sooo annoyed with blogs that didn't update, but here I am becoming one of them. Hopefully this fall weather will get me in blogging gear! After all, in October this little ol' blog will be two years old! I thought I would catch you up on what has been going on in my life :)

*April- Found out I was pregnant! What a surprise!
*May- Felt blahhh constantly and had the longest last month of school EVER! Also, got to see Baby Thompson for the first time!
*June- Mission trip to NYC! That was a tough trip, but God blessed me by taking away all my baby blahs! Since that trip I have felt like my normal self, just gaining weight. (TOO much weight if you ask me!)
*July- Tough month. My grandma who I was very close to passed away. It was my family's first experience with a loss so close and it was very hard. Still is hard.
*August- Ryan and I took a last minute mini vacation to Destin, FL. We had a great trip and the perfect end to not so great summer. Another high note- We got to see the baby again! It was so neat to see him/her moving all over the screen and actually looking like a baby not just a blob!

Here we are in September...
We have a roomie! One of our students from our college ministry moved in with us for the Fall semester! It's been somewhat strange having a roomie. Mainly just in the sense of having someone else in the house, but it really has been overall easy and good :)

I got a brand new car! We bought a mom mobile, a Toyota Highlander, and I lovvvvve it! It took a few days to get use to the end of my car days, but now I couldn't imagine not having it!

We have been working on the baby's nursery and it has been so fun! I just love walking past his/her room and imagining a bouncing baby in there! It seems so crazy. I can't wait for little Adelyn or Jude to get here :)

So that's the summer wrap up! Maybe a phone dump to *show* this update will follow :)

______Thompson!

Baby Thompson will either be...