Adoption Monday!

We had an exciting weekend filled with adoption events!! We started the weekend early on Saturday morning with the Together For Them conference in Katy, TX. If you are adopting or considering adopting you don't want to miss this! The worship was great, the breakout sessions were awesome, and the food was amazing!! It is $10 a FAMILY, yes you read that correct a family! (If you have children, they have child care all day!)  This was a steal. We had breakfast (donuts!), main session, three breakout sessions, lunch (Chic Fil A), and a discussion panel. They had tons of yummy snacks for free, super cheap resources, and children's adoption focused books. It was great!

Ryan and I went to a behavioral, African hair care, and transgender adoption: does my skin color matter?, break outs. They were really fun and personal.

After the conference we met up with my brothers and my cousin for dinner at Cyclone Anayas. It was really yummy and we had a great time catching up with the boys!

Sunday we met up with my oldest little brother and went to Houston's First Baptist Church, then we ate at Chipotle. Next up, we were suppose to go shopping. We made it to Z Gallerie and West Elm, and bought a few things. I was really banking finding some great deals at IKEA.  However, on our way to IKEA we noticed Ryan's face was starting to get blotchy. He was obviously having some sort of minor allergic reaction to something. So we detoured to a pharmacy to get some meds and went back to the hotel and took a nap instead of my IKEA trip. Bummer, but I didn't mind the nap! We finished the night with a date to see Safe House.

Monday was the main reason for the trip (aside from the conference). We had our fingerprint appointment!! Yahh! It took about an hour of waiting and filling out forms, but only about 5 minutes total for the fingerprints.

Then came home and made copies of all our dossier paperwork!! (If your local I would recommend Master Copier on Nederland Ave. They were super friendly!)  Woohoo! Once we get the form back from the fingerprints we are ready to mail off the big DOSSIER!!!

Overall, a fun weekend with a lot accomplished!

Forty

I saw this on Facebook and I thought it was great! If you have three minutes and you need restoration, renewal, and/or revival maybe this will help you achieve it. I don't go to this church, but I think it is a fantastic idea that can be made modified in our lives wherever we live.

Forty for 40 from Resonate Church on Vimeo.

Love Thy Neighbor <3

The Greatest Commandment

     One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

    “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

    “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

    When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

______________________________________________________________________

Today we hosted a street party at our house. We invited our whole street over to meet and mingle! My neighbor and I started planning this a few weeks ago. We both felt that we needed to take the bible literally when God commands us to Love your neighbor as yourself. I was so happy she was on board and willing to help put on this party. 

We originally thought about doing a lunch, but quickly realized there are way too many houses on our street and that would be really expensive. So she came up with the idea of a "come and go" type of party. So we made all kinds of sweets and sent out invitations!

I had been super excited about this and really feeling like it was going to start something good. Ryan was not super into it, but was along for the ride.

I baked my treats last night and then I cleaned the house this morning. By 2 o'clock I was ready to go! My neighbor who helped put this together and her husband showed up and we got everything situated. We waited and waited, talked and talked, for about an hour and no one else showed up. I was a little disappointed, but chalked it up to the rain and figured it would work better in the spring. So they left and we wrapped up all the desserts and decided to go to a friends birthday party. We were walking out the door when Ryan decided it was a little chilly and we needed to search for his lost jacket. We finally found it and were headed out the door when our front doorbell rang. Both of us froze and didn't know if we should open it or pretend we weren't home! LOL. So of course we opened the door! 

Neighbor after neighbor started showing up! We unwrapped all the desserts, went and got our original neighbors again, and had a great time! It was a wonderful party and really cool to meet people we live so close to!! We are already planning a Spring get together!!

Something New...

Today for the February Photo Challenge is Something New.

I didnt have any ideas of what I should photograph.

Until....

The PERFECT something new came in the mail today!!!

Yep!! Monday the 27th, we have our biometrics (fingerprint) appointment!!

This is excellent news!

After this we wait for the government to send us a form back, then we can submit our dossier!!!

WooHoo!!!

*I tried to blur out anything personal! Haha this wasn't just a blank form!

FEELing the Light!!

Today I was checking our bank account and I immediately noticed it was quite a bit lower than normal. Instantly I got excited (your normal reaction right...??)!The USCIS people have cashed our two checks for our I600A application and fingerprints!! This is big news because if you remember in this downer post, I received both checks back already because I forgot a signature!! Anyway I have all kinds of super hopeful and ambitious deadlines running through my brain. I won't share because I don't want to be publicly disappointed if we don't make *my* timeline. We all know that this WHOLE PROCESS is without a doubt in God's timing. I am feeling the light today. The light at the end of this tunnel of paperwork! Yahh!! Also, we sent off our papers to have certified and they are in town! I say "in town" because I missed the delivery, so we have to go pick them up. Do y'all get what this means??? This means after this fingerprint appointment and we get our last form back we can turn in our DOSSIER!!! I am just a little excited :) I told y'all I'm feeling the light!!! I know its normally seeing the light, but I feel it!!

Change! Update! Look!

I have changed my blog address. If you have it bookmarked, please update it! I will now be http://www.faithfulinflats.blogspot.com/. I would have done this a long time ago if I would have known how easy it was! I will hopefully someday change to a .com or .net or something like that, but for now I am lovin this! Please make the switch, I love to see people are reading my blog, so I hope I don't lose any of you with the switch! I definitely appreciate it and hope that you see my love of Jesus through this blog!

Adoption Update!

I resent our I600A on Thursday. We mailed off our Dossier cover letter and Power of Attorney letter to get certified on Friday. We are officially just waiting for papers to be returned! There is nothing else that I know of to do except wait for papers to be returned! Come oooooooooon fingerprints....

#febphotoaday

Y'all all know one of my favorite blogs is Rage Against the Minivan. She posted yesterday about a photo a day challenge she participated in during January. I always admired the people that braved the 365 picture a day challenge. I attempted for like a day, once, and that obviously did not work out! I couldn't handle the randomness of it. Should I take a picture of this? What is something better happens today to signify my day? What if I wait too late and don't have anything cool to take a picture of?...Those thoughts plague that kind of challenge.  

This challenge is different. Fat Mum Slim decided what you should take a picture of! She gives you a topic each day all month. My favorite part is that it is instagram centered. (I love to use instagram, but some people get annoyed when every.single.picture. is edited, so I am a little self conscious of it!) So here is the deal. You take a picture of your interpretation of the topic, instagram it, then upload to twitter with the hashtag  #febphotoaday. My other favorite part is seeing what other people have taken pictures of!

 Join the challenge :)  Follow me on twitter to see my photos! @arincaitlin

*pic from here

Ugh.

As I was checking the mail box today, my heart started pounding...There was a big envelope, it had my name on it, it was our I600A!! Woohoo. Did it really come this fast? Is this really it? We could be DTE very soon!! I ran into the kitchen freaking out, only to quickly see that my checks were not cashed, but stapled on the papers. Confusion quickly turned into disappointment. I missed a part of the application. Yep. Me, being a teacher, forgot to get a signature I needed from Ryan. HOWWWW did I do this?!!?! UGH. When we resend it, they gave us a paper to return with it so it will get "special attention". I assumed at first that this would be "quick" attention, but I just realized I guess it could mean, stash at the bottom since they didn't do it right the first time. UGHHHH. Seriously every time I think about it I was to scream. How did I mess this up!?!