This situation feels completely different. When we didn’t even know that a second child was what we needed for our family, God knew. In His plan it was time. Charlotte is a blessing that He chose for us with a divine appointment. It is an amazing and overwhelming feeling to receive her as a gift. We had NOTHING to do with bringing her home - He provided the child for us and the means to add her to our family.

What’s nuts is that today feels like any other day. Just now, we have 2 kids. One is napping in her bed and one is dancing to some music on tv in the living room.

More photos from our first few days together, visitors, etc.

Headed out to the store for some quality time with Norah while Charlotte stays home with her Grannie. Stop by and see us soon!

(Many thanks to our friend Steph for joining us to photograph our family as we met our daughter.)

When Charlotte arrived, Norah was napping, so we had a chance to give her our full attention for over an hour. Then when it was time to get Norah up, we brought her into Charlotte’s room and introduced the two. Norah immediately leaned down to kiss Charlotte - it was SO sweet. She’s doing great so far.

We got to name Charlotte - we chose her first name because we like it - nothing more, nothing less. We chose her middle name because that is her birthmother’s middle name. That was our favorite part of selecting this name - was honoring her in that way.

We’ve got a big night ahead of us so I am going to sign off now. Charlotte, Norah and Brad are all in their beds so I am using the few minutes between now and midnight to catch up on things before I need to feed Charlotte again. I need to get out my baby books for a refresher! It’s been a while!

We feel so blessed. We give God the glory for this miracle - the opportunity, the fundraising, the ability to get all our paperwork completed in less than a week - it’s truly amazing and we point towards Him.

We have raised $12,600.

There are no words to describe how humbled we are that you would share with us. It is nothing we have done - it is ALL God and we thank you for your obedience to His call.

We spent the weekend in West TN celebrating Granddaddy’s 60th Birthday. Thought you’d like to see a couple of the prettiest babies I have ever seen sporting custom painted shirts by Aunt Shai.

I have much more to say but honestly, I am exhausted. I shot an engagement session in West TN this morning, then we travelled home today, whirlwind straightened up our house, had small group, got the baby in bed, plopped down to update our donations and then post this blog - and now I am happy to say I am going to be in bed before midnight. That’s the earliest I have been to bed in weeks!

More information as we get it. Thank you again. You are amazing.

I want to give you the amazing update on our fundraising progress. I asked for your help on Tuesday night at 9:30PM. Our total as of 5:00PM today (Thursday afternoon) is $8606 of $12000. If that doesn’t make you weak in the knees I don’t know what will. We are hitting the home stretch on our goal.

One more time, please click here to donate to help us make Norah a big sister by welcoming her biological BROTHER OR SISTER (we don’t know which one yet) into our family through a domestic infant adoption when he/she is born ANY DAY.

And how are we holding up, you asked? For lack of better words, I am an emotional wreck. I know it is a mixture of adrenaline, exhaustion from working into the wee hours of the morning, the lovely cold that my whole family has, and the underlying conflict in my heart of empathy and sadness for the pain that Norah’s birthmother is feeling in contrast to the excitement and anticipation that I am feeling about expecting a second child in a few days. Phone calls with me are not for the faint of heart these days - if you call me, I will probably cry during our conversation.

We have not purchased anything or prepared physically in any way yet, and that’s hard for me because I am a planner. Some of you might remember this post of nursery pictures from back in December 06… I was so proud to show off how prepared we were to welcome a little boy into our home. Little did we know that child wasn’t meant for us and we ended up with our beautiful baby girl 6 months later. We know we’ll have from when we’re notified of the birth until the discharge from the hospital to prepare, so pulling together a nursery and the items to go in it will be a fun way to keep ourselves busy until it’s time to go.

And the question that many people probably want to ask but aren’t for sensitivity reasons, if Norah’s birthmother decides in the end to parent this baby instead of placing him or her with us, we will contact all of you who have given to our Adoption Fund and you will have the option for your gift to be returned, or to be kept in our account for our second adoption.

Because no post is complete without a picture, I am going to add a retro picture from our early days as a family of three, taken by our pal Amber.

Guess that about sums it up for now. Please keep checking in. Please keep praying. Please keep sharing. Please continue to give the glory to God for what He is doing in this whole situation.

because Norah is going to be a big sister.

And because her birthmother has just asked us to adopt the baby – Norah’s full biological sibling.

And he or she could be born any day!

We would have liked to have come up with a clever fundraiser, but to be honest, we don’t have time for that. We are cramming the adoption application process (that took us 8 months when we adopted Norah) into the next week. Babies don’t wait for paperwork, background checks or physicals. They come in God’s timing.

We are completely overwhelmed by the task at hand, but we know that God would not give us this opportunity to trust Him and open our hearts and home to this child if He did not intend to provide a means for us to do it.We are praying for a miracle – that you who feel led to do so would pray and give however you can. The “Donate” button to the right of this post will take you to our paypal secure donation page that is connected to our Adoption Savings Account. We believe that with the help of many family members and friends, when we need to write “the BIG CHECK” in a few days, that there will be enough in that account for us to do so. If you’d prefer to mail us a check, you can email me and I will send you our mailing address. You may also send contributions directly to our adoption agency and note our names in the memo if you would like to do that.

If you feel compelled, we would love for you to help us spread the word on your blogs, websites, facebook, emails to friends and family, etc. Link back to this post as much as you’d like, and we’ll keep you updated over the next couple of days.

As you discuss this on blogs and among friends, please be as respectful of Norah’s birthmother as you possibly can be. We are choosing to walk in love and compassion instead of judgment and entitlement. If the choice to place this baby with us is her final decision, we will be blessed to now raise two of her precious children as our own. If she decides that she would like to parent the baby herself, we will be pleased to have been given the opportunity to care for Norah’s brother or sister for a few days or weeks and minister to Norah’s birthmother in a way that only we can.

As always, we need you to pray. Pray that God would be glorified through this whole experience. Pray that Norah’s birthmother would experience compassion and love by those around her during this time. Pray for the health of this new little life.

And pray for our sweet baby Norah – because she’s GOING TO BE A BIG SISTER in just a few days. WOW!!!

Anyway, Walden Farm is right here in Smyrna and is one of the best pumpkin patches I have ever seen. Because they do not charge anything to get in (there are several activities you have to pay for this year) and many things to do, I knew that I wanted to go a few times this season. It opened on Saturday and goes through Halloween.

So, we ventured out late Saturday afternoon (after a long nap for Norah) and met Grandpa, Mimi, Aunt Reagan (and her cast) and Uncle Kyle so that we could have some family fun. Here’s a photo-essay of our afternoon - enjoy the photos, I don’t feel like narrating each one.

I can’t wait to go again…and when the weather cools off a little more to go and pick out our pumpkins and take “official pumpkin patch pictures” in the appropriate festive clothing!

>We stopped off at our favorite toy store, the Peanut Gallery in Murfreesboro, to choose a fun surprise for Noah, and Norah climbed into the doll bed and fed this baby a bottle for a few minutes.

When we arrived at the party, the birthday boy was riding this cool train. It’s the only picture I got of him all day because he was on the move!

Fun Backyardigans cake

Norah (wearing one of my favorite outfits from Gymboree’s Ice Cream Social line) and her daddy - a perfect pair

And one more of Brad getting some cuddle time with Baby Asa. Brad looks good with a baby boy, don’t you think?

Norah began getting pretty cranky after she ate her delicious lunch and so we had to scoot out of the party after grabbing a lollipop from the pinata instead of staying for cake and presents. But we really enjoyed the party and we wish Noah the happiest of birthdays!

I can’t tell you how much joy fills my heart to see these little bright eyes again. Last week was a huge challenge to make it through Norah’s first time to really be sick. She was running high fevers and was very lethargic, etc. At one point she was in the floor with her head on a pillow watching TV and that’s when I knew it was really bad. She’s never still unless she’s strapped in the highchair! But a full week later she’s good as new…these were before school on Thursday.

I recall some pictures of me like this when I was about this age…

Same day after school we changed into clean clothes (**Mommy Mystery** Why does it seem that Norah needs a bath and new clothes as soon as we get home from school. She’s always SO dirty! No reflection on her teachers…I think all kids are gross after a busy day at school.) and headed out to Wal-Mart to buy diapers. While I put a few groceries away, Norah was dancing in the kitchen. (Amanda please notice our adorable shirt!)

I bought our first coloring book at the store. It went okay for about one minute.

Daddy got home from work and let Norah borrow his hat. Kind of cute I think.

We played outside after Norah got up from her nap yesterday, because I don’t know who could resist that fresh air - it felt GREAT!

Brad got home from work and there were a few rounds of “chase” around the truck in the driveway. They are so cute together.

Don’t you love the outfit? It’s from Gymboree’s Holland Days Line from this past Spring. I actually paid $2.00 for the shirt a couple months ago. I was so excited.

Our neighbors were picking apples off their tree and saw us playing, so they brought us a bag!


And though they are still a little small, they are already pretty sweet. Norah happily bit into one right away.

This worked out well for us because “apple” is actually one of the few words that she will say. She also made some apple artwork using her little thumbprint at school recently.

Lastly, I wanted to share a shot of our fireplace mantle (before it is decorated for Fall…) because I got in a new print of Norah and I am loving it!
For size reference, that is a 15×30 print mounted on foam-core and just propped up there. It’s actually fairly close to life-size at the time we took that photo (13 months). I’m calling it her one-year photo. She loves to wave at it when she wakes up in the mornings.

When the Murfreesboro Adoptive FamiliesPlaygroup that I belong to planned an outing there this week, I was all over it! I couldn’t wait to go and take Norah. Tim, Angeline & Rosa Grace had given Norah some passes for her birthday, so we were able to go and have a great time today on them - so thanks so much guys! We had a blast. Tons of pictures below…

In the Family Playspace

These three beautiful boys belong to Gretchen - we have been mutually stalking each others blogs for a while now…

After snapping that picture of baby Asa, I missed Norah, and found her just in time to spot her climbing the ladder on the inside of the tree. She made it but thankfully I was able to supervise the climb the rest of the way up and back down.

Then we headed upstairs to the blocks, farmers market and wheels exhibits.

It was a fun day all the way around! If you’re interested in joining us for our next playdate, click here to join the group and check it out.