Few more pics

I know that seeing my feet was just what you wanted today!! Meemaw got me a pedicure for my birthday and I wanted to have pretty toes for the baby shower, but instead of going with a pretty pink or red I had to match everything at the shower!
Isn't this bag cute that Casey got for Hudson?!

Baby Shower

Casey made me this shadow box, which, I have to say is my favorite. You can't see it very good, but the row of buttons going diagonally are hus name, the top left if for me to put his plane ticket hom and the bottom right with the bow is for his first haircut. The poem is an adoption poem, of course this made me cry and is already hanging in his room!

Mandy and Tiffany were troopers all day, they are very good friends of mine!!
Front Row: Sheryl (Jason's mom), me, Jeanna (Jason's sister), Jason's Aunt Cathy

Back Row: Jason's Aunt Jan, Jason's cousin Amanda

I love this picture of Mandy and Tiffany looking at the shadow box

Greco family
My mom, me, Casey (my sister), Sheryl, and Jeanna

I love this picture of Diane and Mrs. Pat
Me, Abby, and Jordan
Haley and Hannah Loveless
Can you tell we are very excited about the carhart overalls!! They are so adorable.

I think this is such a good picture of Mrs. Vivian, Diane, and Chris. Diane you should feel like a celebrity, you made two pics on my blog :) !!

My beautiful sister Casey who threw the best shower in the world! And for all of you who helped, my hat goes off to you...Jeanna, Tracy, all my aunt's, grandmother's, Carrie, and all of you awesome Bethel women.
I will post some more pics within the next few days. These were taken with my camera which I think my cousin Tracy had throughout the shower. I hope to get more pics from some other people to post.

Whoa, I don't even know where to begin. We are completely humbled and still in awe from our baby shower. It was so awesome. So here's how Saturday went for me. I woke up at 4:55, got ready, fed horses and loaded up for the horse show. Arrived at the horse show at 7:00 left the horse show around 9:30. My girls were awesome at the horse show. It was 2 of their first show and one of them was riding a horse that had never been shown before, they all did wonderful! I ran in my house at 9:46 (I had my shoes and clothes laid out, thank goodness), changed clothes and ran out. Arrived at the church at 10:01 whew! Thankfully Jason drove the horse trailer for me so I didn't have to worry about unloading the horses.

Thank you just doesn't seem like enough for everything we received. Hudson will definitely be stylin'! He has the cutest clothes. Watch out girls in Bethel nursery! I have gone through all of the clothes probably 5 times, and I can see those big brown eyes dressed in them all! We have more than enough 18 month clothes and we have a bunch of 24 month/2T clothes. We have over 1200 diapers and lots of wipes! He has cute tennis shoes and john deere boots! Lots of toys, bath stuff, I could go on and on. I was in tears (yes, me, in tears) thinking about all this goodness poured out on us and our soon to be son. All I could think about was how we are so undeserving, and in the next breath I was praising God for His grace, which is sufficient for me!! Our cup is running over and for once in my life I think I'm speechless!

Quick Note

I am so excited about tomorrow. Except the fact that I have to get up at 5 am (you know I am NOT a morning person)! We have a short horse show to go to in the morning that will end by 9:00 and then the shower starts at 10:00. Hopefully we will run on time that won't be good if I'm late to my own shower and smell like a horse!! I haven't had any pics to post here lately but tomorrow I will have cute little boy stuff! WOOHOO!

Today I spent more time with Lena, my neighbor who is from Russia. I have learned about 6 Russian phrases that should come in handy. She's even got this country girl rolling her R's :)
She is an amazing painter and came over today to look at Hudson's room. She wants to paint him a mural all around his room. I think we are going to go with farm animals. I am so excited about this. She showed me some pictures of a mural she did for her neice and it was amazing. I am going to take some pictures of her work so you can all see. She can draw whatever you want, so if you have any artwork you would like, e-mail me and I'll get you in touch with her. She could make some very special Christmas presents!! lindsey@treasure2farm.com

I have become good friends with Amanda K. from Michigan and she and her husband leave for Moscow tomorrow afternoon. Say a prayer for them, they will be meeting their son for the first time on Monday, I am so excited for them!

God's So Cool

If you are visiting for the first time and would like the baby shower information just scroll down the page. But I had to post and tell you all some cool things that have happened. Today I went to Pleasant View to do my normal errands for Carney Lawn Care (post office, bank, etc.). And on the way back home I stopped by a children's consignment sale (at the Gleave's house). I walked up and saw Mayme ( www.mcgowanmoments.blogspot.com ) who I have been keeping up with on her blog. They just got home last Friday with their adorable little girl from China. She knew who we were through Sheryl and Jeanna (my mother and sister-in-law). But we had never met. It was so neat to just run into her and get to talk for a few minutes. I hope we can get together sometime. I have been networking with a few other families in our area who have adopted their children internationally, I think it would be fun to have adoption get togethers!

Other cool thing...I met a neighbor who is from Russia. I stopped by her house the other day to talk with her. I was hesitant to just stop by but afterwards I was so happy I did. She is going to help me learn some Russian, write a letter to the orphanage workers thanking them for all they've done, and I'm going to take the dvd over so she can tell me what they are saying in it. I'm so excited. Her husband passed away last year and her family of course is in Russia. I hope we can hang out and then maybe it help her not be lonely and me to learn about my child's heritage, etc. instead of dwelling on the fact that I can't hold him right now. Isn't God so cool the way he brings people together. What a neat connection for us to have!

Last thing...although this isn't that cool, but consignment sales are awesome! I think I am so over things having to be new! I mean, who can beat a Ralph Lauren and Gap button up dress shirt for $1 a piece that look like they've never been worn! I found some cute things today but made sure they were all 2T or bigger, I already have a storage bin for clothes that he will grow into.

Baby Shower

Casey has mailed out all of the baby shower invitations as of yesterday, so everyone should be getting one soon. The baby shower is Sep. 27th at Bethel Church (if you need directions please e-mail me at lindsey@treasure2farm.com ) from 10:00-noon. It is going to be a brunch and my family and the Bethel girls really know how to cook, so come prepared to eat! On the invitations and in the bulletin we put our blog site on it to try and answer some questions for you. I know our family, friends, and many of our church family has never experienced a baby shower for a child who is not an infant, so below you will find the answers to the questions we have been being asked...

How old is he? Hudson Luke is 13 months old right now (his birthday is 8-7-07)

What size clothes will he be wearing? He is a little under the normal weight and is at 50% for height. Right now I believe he should be wearing 12 month clothing, but if you are planning on buying him something for the winter I think 18 months would work better. Our sw says that you cannot compare orphanage kids to others but they usually hit a growth spurt when they get home.

We are definitely into 24month-2Toddler clothing for next spring and summer. I'm all about planning ahead! Plus you can get some good deals right now as they are marking things down and bringing in the winter clothes :)

What size diapers? As far as diapers he will be wearing a size 3 when he gets home, but I'm sure we'll need size 4 for the future. Can you ever have enough diapers!?!

What is his room decorated in? You can scroll down on the blog and see pictures of his room (you may have to go to older posts). It's 3 different colors of blue, khaki, and white. Doesn't really have a theme, but his bedding and some of the decor. are stars.

Most all of our needs are on our registries at Wal-mart and Target.

One thing we didn't get to put on the registries is that we love books, veggie tales, and the Max Lucado dvd's. We already have a few of the veggie tales, but I know there are lots of them. Remember he is going to have to learn english so anything that is educational or will help with skills is great!

Casey's (my sister) e-mail address is cnattebery@bellsouth.net if you have any questions about the shower.

To all of our family and friends who are visiting the blog for the first time, please check back often. Jason and I love you all. Thank you is not enough for all of your prayers and support, Hudson is going to just love you. What a great family he already has in you!

Our Bethel Church family-you guys are awesome! The support you have shown us has been amazing, so many of you are so excited for us and ask about Hudson all of the time. We couldn't think of a better place to raise our son and what better people to show him the love of our Lord and Savior!

Jason and I are doing better since our tough week last week. The insurance company is moving along with things so hopefully we will get another vehicle this weekend or next week. Until then they are driving my truck and I'm cruising in skanky (pic. coming soon). His landscaping truck motor is being rebuilt, the guy started on it today. As far as dealing with us not being able to travel until Oct. or later, I'm going to send a photo album over for Hudson so he can see pics of us before we get there. It's a cute kids photo album with a teething ring and really soft, colorful pages. I'm finding strength in...

1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, b/c you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Yesterday

It's 4:00 in the morning and I'm watching Sweet Home Alabama for the 2nd time tonight. I really wish I could sleep but I can't seem to stop thinking about the day we have had. I found out that we will not travel in September, it will be October or later. I can think of no better word than this STINKS! Especially when we were told we would more than likely travel in August. There were 3 of us who received our referrals at the same time. The other 2 families are getting to travel at the end of Sep. and we can't go until after them. I asked why and was told that even though we had all received everything at the same time, we turned our paperwork in last. I guess since we didn't submit anything at all to Russia until the end of June (from where we switched countries) and they had paperwork in before us and it puts us last. I have been e-mailing with one of the families that will be traveling at the end of Sep. Her son is a month older than Hudson and we think they are in the same room together. Hudson is in her son's dvd. I was really wanting to travel with them, but I'm sure we'll meet some day. That's a connection I never want to lose, what a blessing it will be for Hudson to have contact with their son. She is going to take lots of pictures and video for me so at least we'll have some more pictures and can see how he's growing, changing, and hopefully progressing.

So when I finally stopped crying the biggest crocodile tears ever, after realizing we will not be able to see our son for another month which means that's another month of his life he will spend in an orphanage, Jason called me. We had been talking back and forth about our adoption and he, too, was really upset about it. But this call wasn't about that. His workers had been in a wreck. Three of them. Praise God they weren't hurt, but his dodge was totalled. Just last week the landscaping truck motor blew up so they had been driving Jason's work truck while he has been driving my truck. I guess it's a good thing we hadn't sold my car yet (a.k.a. skankmobile). Looks like I'll be driving skanky for a little longer, but I'm not sure what Carney Lawn Care is going to do. It'll take a few days for the insurance company to go look at the dodge so I'm sure Jason will find a way to get through next week before we can get another truck.

So needless to say, yesterday was rough. I try to find the positive in things so here goes...At least we know the Moscow program is doing something and that 2 families will get to see their sons this month. And we are going to get more pics and video of Hudson. No one was hurt in the wreck, the mowers were not hurt or the gooseneck trailer (only thing broke on the trailer was weedeaters and the blower). And the best thing I can think of is I have a wonderful man. He had his first trustee meeting at church last night and didn't get home until around 9:00. I was already in bed watching my movie, trying not to think about everything. After he ate and took a shower he crawled in bed and the first words out of his mouth while he was praying was for me. He knows how bad I'm hurting right now, although he has a whole lot on his shoulders, his main concern was me. I couldn't ask for any better of a man. Okay, now I'm crying again, hopefully my next post will be a good one!

God's still on the throne!

What's Happening to Me?!?!

It seems motherhood is bringing changes to me and I haven't even seen my child yet! Last night I watched you tube videos of people meeting and bringing their children home, I woke up this morning with a sinus headache from where I cried in almost every video! I even found myself glued to the computer this morning to watch a few I didn't get to watch last night. For those of you who know me best you know I'm not very emotional but it looks like that's all changing!!

The other crazy thing is I like to shop, yes, I'll say it again, I have been enjoying shopping! Usually I only shop a few times a year and I am a big bargain shopper when I do. Well, I'm still a bargain shopper but it looks like it's going to be a lot more often than a few times a year. I have discovered the sale rack at the children's place!! I only like shopping for Hudson and I'm loving looking at all of the children's clothes, it's so much fun! I think Hudson has plenty of shirts at this point, he's going to look like a little man! I have bought him clothes that are just like Jason wears (polo's, button ups, etc.). He's going to be so cute in his little outfits looking like Daddy.