Smorgasbord

Super great news from Alabama, my cousin BHP delivered beautiful twins yesterday! I've been Facebook stalking her, her mom, her grandmother, and her husband to see all the photos. They are two very loved little babies!

More good news, Aunt LPJ and her family were in Orlando this weekend and we got to bother them see them Sunday afternoon. I took a couple of photos with my phone and when pulling them today from my photo stream (R, please note that I used my photo stream and loved it. No cables from my phone to computer. I know you're proud that I didn't even call you to ask how!) I wanted to add a couple from 4th of July weekend too.

My aunt's visit made me realize that my extended family doesn't know how close our home is to the Atlantic Ocean a.k.a. beach. Maybe that's why we don't get a lot of visitors? While we do live on the "land side" of the river, the ocean is only six to seven miles away. We don't go a lot, but R does like to surf and I've gotten better about allowing sand to touch my hands. So, to brag about living close to the beach, I also included beach photos. And, they're just pretty. 

That's my foot. You're welcome.

The waves were beautiful, we couldn't have asked for better colors.

Late in the afternoon, my father fell asleep on his towel, on the sand. R and I watched and silently giggled while the tide came in, waiting for the water to wake up my dad. Sadly, a rouge wave surprised me in my chair (which was further back from my dad, but also several feet to the left) and he woke up before getting soaked.

Waiting for the tide.

Grandpa, You eat the lemon! (He had been trying to feed her a lemon)

And now, from the Peabody Hotel, it's Auntie L, Aunt LPJ and LRJ.

Yummy, sunglasses.

I have these ladies wrapped around my fingers!

Aunt LPJ did act very similarly to Squirm's grandpa: Oh, you want to go over here? Okay. Oh, you want to go outside? Okay. Oh, you want to be held? Okay. I have also been told that the Squirms now has a Hedwig hand puppet from Harry Potter World. Auntie L does spoil her.

This is how you're supposed to chill by the pool.

This is not.

We also got to see the men of the family and DJ's friend, but I'm afraid I didn't take a lot of pictures. The Squirms did like DJ and kept telling him Hiiiii. Of course she might have just been pretending to be sweet so she could steal his phone, listen to music, and make phone calls.

Several people locally have been asking how the adoption is going. We are done with paperwork for now and just trying to prepare our house for God's timing. Our profile books are with the agency and able to be shown to birth moms. This phase is called Waiting Family. We have been a Waiting Family for approximately one month (not very long in adoption timelines). 

We really won't have any exciting news until a birth mom chooses us as her family - called the Match. Right now we're focused on preparing our house, putting money into our savings account for the upcoming placement and lawyer fees, and enjoying the Squirms as an only child. R has been painting Squirm's toddler room and we've been praying for our future birth mom. 

I keep reminding myself what a blessing it is to spend the day reading books that Squirms brings me, keeping her from eating rocks and green tomatoes in the garden, and hugging her whenever I feel like it. Patience during an adoption is greatly increased when you are teaching your 17 month old to blow kisses. She keeps me busy and reminds me of how God has already blessed us more than we could have imagined.