Cover your eyes!

GameHouse.com has a "free" computer game download everyday. The only catch is that about every 20 minutes, you have to watch a 20-30 second commercial. We've downloaded several and enjoy them. Last night the boys were playing a hidden picture computer game in the kitchen. Then I hear Ryan telling Tyler, "Cover your eyes, cover your eyes."

"Oh, great," I thought, "What popped up on them?" I hurried over to the computer to see and had to smile. The ad was for shaving gel and it was showing a women's naked leg--- from about the knee down. The commercials repeat, so I stayed and made sure that was all the ad showed when it played again, and then told the boys they could go ahead and keep playing and just to cover their eyes if a commercial came on that they even thought MIGHT be bad. I also made sure, again, that they both knew how to turn off the monitor. I was quite happy that covering their eyes was their first response and that the "bad stuff" wasn't something worse!

And for what it is worth, we have enjoyed the free games we've downloaded, especially the hidden picture ones. Our virus software has always shown them as okay.

Adoption Update

The homestudy visit went well and our homestudy should be complete by next week. At that point, we start looking for kids on the foster care waiting child lists that we would like to be considered for, we submit our info, and the committee narrows down the applicants and gives the top 3-5 more information. At that point we decide whether we think that child is a match for our family. We've been told to plan on submitting our info on 10-15 kids/sibling groups that we are interested in. We will primarily be looking in Texas, Oregon, and Washington because those are the states our agency has worked with most in the past. It's similar to job hunting and connections can make a huge difference. As far as time goes, it's kind of "hurry up and wait." We get our info out there and watch and wait. Could be 6 months, could be a year, only God knows. But we both feel like this is what we should be doing and that NOW is when we needed to be ready, so as long as we do our part, it will all work out.

The kids are super excited. As we looked through the profiles Jeanisha kept pointing to different kids and saying, "Can we buy that kid?" "What about that one?" Tyler then responded, "It's not buying, it's adopting" in his, I'm older and wiser voice. Then he said, "Mom, can we maybe get enough to kids to play Red Rover?" :) I guess it depends on the size of the teams, technically you can play Red Rover with 5 people, so we are already there, right?

As part of the homestudy, our social worker talked to the kids and asked what they thought. When she asked Ryan why were wanted to adopt, he said very matter-of-factly, "Mom and Dad prayed about it and know it's right." She then told him it was great to trust his parents, and then told him he could pray about it too. He responded, "I know. I already did."

We have some friends that have 9 kids, 8 of whom are adopted. My kids think that family is SO lucky because "there would ALWAYS be someone to play with, even if some kids have to stay in and finish homework."

Catch-up

I haven't posted in forever and now I feel like I have so much catch-up to do. We've had 4 birthdays, Adam turned 2, Jeanisha is now 4, Tyler is 7, and Stephen is. . . old. Older than me at least.

We have been working on getting our paperwork together to adopt through the foster care system. We are almost done with our home study. The home visit is next Tues. YEAH!! This is something we've planned to do since we got married, at some point. . . . And we started feeling like the time was right and doing our classes and paperwork last fall. They want to know EVERYTHING!!!! But, all of the paperwork is in and we're on the final steps of that, then we will be able to start submitting our information for waiting children. Who knows how long it will take at that point before we are "matched" with a child/children. It could be anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, give or take. Once we do our part, it is in the Lord's hands. We have both felt strongly that this is what we should do and that now is the right time, so I am trusting that He knows what He is doing and what child/children should be coming to our home.

We have also been watching for/looking at houses. We found one we like, it's bank-owned, and we are just waiting for the price to drop again. It's been on the market quite a while. They didn't take our offer a month ago, but they are currently fixing the well and septic, the 2 concessions we had in our offer, and their realtor called ours yesterday to let us know and see if we might be interested in making another offer. Maybe after I get the homestudy taken care of. It's out in the county on 5 acres with 6 bedrooms and an office. We love it, but the current market makes me nervous, so we have to get a killer deal on it. And really, I like where we are at, so I'm not in any big rush. Although this house is getting full and will get more so once we adopt.

So that is the short version of everything we've been working on lately. I will try to post pictures later, but I figured a short, quick update while I feed the baby is better than nothing since Feb.