Bad, bad blogger!!

That is me scolding myself for being so awful about updating my blog :)! Oh my, has it really been that long? With working on the cookbook, homeschooling, and all of Evie's activities, I haven't been on here a whole lot! I'll try not to make this a 50 page blog post. lol.

Evie loves to grab my camera and take random pictures. Sometimes, the pictures are so flattering....like this one....p.s. please note the sarcasm....

This one is actually quite flattering of Sierra though :).

In cookbook news, the cookbook is almost finished! It has taken me longer because I have had to make every recipe! I am one who just throws in ingredients, so I had to measure everything out. So far I have done 83 recipes. I may end up making 90 instead of 100, just so I can get it done faster.

On a hair related note, I found a new way to do curls that I love. They are more like braid waves, but with curls at the end. I got the idea from Rapunzel's Resource blog. Love her blog!! I need to post the link to her blog in my favorites. The curls/waves come from using bandanas. The length really gets shortened by the curls, but I love the look! This is what it looks like before.....

And this is after.....

Evie just finished up her first year of Bible quizzing. It goes for 6 months, and is off for 6 months. It was amazing to see these kids quote the Bible. Her age group memorized  90 verses, along with detailed questions about other verses. They just had their last quiz meet, and they did great! I'm so proud of the kids!

In baby news, we had an amazing thing happen a few weeks ago. I was really struggling with the financial aspect of the adoption. We were hitting a brick wall with the finances, and I started wondering if this was really what God wanted for us. I asked Jeff if he thought we should throw out a fleece. For those of you who don't know what that means, the expression "putting out a fleece" comes to us from the biblical story of Gideon. During a time of invasion by the armies of Midian, God called Gideon and the Israelites to fight the Midians. Before Gideon would commit himself to battle, however, he wanted to be sure that God was going to give Israel the victory. In Judges 6:36-40 Gideon asked God to make a fleece of wool wet with dew on one morning, then totally dry on the next morning. The fleece was to be the sign that God would definitely rescue Israel from the Midianites. God gave Gideon the sign that he asked for, and Gideon then went out and defeated the Midianites. Okay, that was your Bible lesson for today :). Anyways, I felt like I wanted to do a fleece. This is such a life-changing decision, and I wanted our family to know for sure that this was God's plan. Jeff asked me what I wanted to ask for. My words were, "Something huge, like a neon sign that I can't miss." About 2 weeks later, I decided to read the story of Gideon in the Bible, to see if God got angry when Gideon asked for a fleece. God didn't get angry at all, according to the Bible. I read this on a Friday. The following Monday, I started doing the Bible lesson for Evie's homeschool lesson. I hadn't even looked at it beforehand, so I had no clue what it was going to be about. Guess what it was about?? Gideon's fleece. Coincidence? No, I don't think so. The next day, I was having my devotional time, and I read one of my devotionals called The Daily Bread. It is a booklet that comes out every 3 months, and has set devotions for each day of the week. That day, I read the Bible lesson and story, and guess what it was about?????? Gideon's fleece!!! Then, 2 hours later, I get a phone call from Jeff. He said that his boss had called him and told him that they had placed his named several months ago on a list to get in on the profit sharing bonuses. They were so happy with his work, and all that he had done that they picked him from the list, even though there were many others on the list. His boss told him that they had cut him a check for the bonus. I gulped and asked Jeff, "How big of a check???" Jeff told me, "Five thousand dollars!!!" Then he said, "There's your fleece!" I was crying so hard that Evie thought something bad happened! Jeff has never gotten a bonus like that in all of his years of working, and the timing was just too crazy. The money got us to a point where we now only need about $6000, which is so much less overwhelming!! We feel so blessed that God made things so clear! We actually cleared out the room where the baby's room is supposed to be, and we are planning to paint it and get it ready!

So that is what has been happening for the past month or so. I hope you all are doing well!