HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

A little grillin' out......

A little swimmin'

and a little strawberry pickin'

MAKES FOR A GREAT SUMMER DAY!

A little worn our from picking (and eating) so many strawberries!

Hey! This tastes pretty good!

Riley went for perfection on color of the berry, not size!

Jackson finding the perfect berry...

Daddy and Lily enjoying a few in the field

My little monkeys

I hope everyone was able to have a relaxing and restful day! I also hope you took a few minutes to remember those who have made this "free day" possible. It is awesome to think about our military and all they do on a daily basis to keep our country free. They are even willing to lay down their lives for the cause. I can't help but think about the sacrifice that God made for us by sending his only son to die for us. TO DIE FOR US! HIS ONLY SON! Even if I had been the only person ever born, He still would have made the choice to die for me. Imperfect, crazy, sinning me! ...unfathomable....We all know that "freedom" is not free, but "freedom" in Christ is free! By accepting Him, we can ALL have the freedom that is offered in Christ. To live for Him! To know where we will spend eternity! To make sense of this earthly mess! There is a point, and that point is to give HIM all the glory!


Blessings!


Meredith

What's Up Lately??

Riley and her sweet friend Emma

Jackson receiving an award from Mrs. Carole

Riley receiving an award from Mrs. Fletcher

FINGERPAINTING!

John's "new to us" truck- looks eerily similar to his last truck, huh?

3 kids stuffed in the back of the truck

Soccer days- Lily seems exceptionally happy to be there!

Riley on her special trip with Mimi and PawPaw

Lily with her sweet teacher Mrs. Felicia

Boys will be boys- trying to start a fire with a magnifying glass

I have to apologize for being such a bad blogger. Life is just so hectic! I have great intentions to blog about each exciting thing that happens to our family, and then suddenly, I am 3 exciting things behind again.......but I am going to try to do better!

Now that school is out, hopefully I will have the ability to stay a little more caught up!

In a nutshell, this has been our lives the past few weeks:

1- School is out! Enough Said!

2- Jackson's soccer team was runner up for his division in the season finals- YAY WOLVES!

3- John bought a new truck- I mean new to us!

4- I pressure- washed everything we own! (Well, it seemed like it, but maybe it was just the outside stuff!)

5- We have been swimming, sprinklering, and slipping and sliding and fingerpainting all day long....lovin' summer!

6- We received our police clearances for our homestudy, so now we are just waiting to have it finalized!

7- We have been having LOTS of crazy fun at home!

8- My parents took Riley to see "Toy Story on Ice"- a special trip for only her!

Now that you are caught up, enjoy the pics of it all!

Blessings-

Meredith

ADOPTION UPDATE

Well, we have had a busy couple of weeks, and so it has been a while since I posted. Easter and Mother's Day came and went, school let out, and I had a birthday- the big 37!! Man, sometimes I feel old, and I wonder where the time has gone?! I am thankful, though to be healthy and to be surrounded by a wonderful family and precious friends.

Today we had our biometric fingerprints taken for the adoption process. We had to drive to Atlanta to have them done, but thankfully, it didn't take nearly as long as it did for Lily's adoption process. We are currently waiting on the last clearance for our Homestudy to be complete. It typically takes 2-3 weeks, and we are in week 7!! Every week can drive you crazy in this process! Hopefully we will receive this last clearance for this part of the process sometime this week. Then we will have our homestudy complete and add it to the dossier. At that point, we will have to have it all authenticated and certified and apostilled- who even knows what all of that is?, and it will be off to China. I would expect a rough timeline for that to happen would be July-ish. Then we will receive our Log In Date (LID) and hopefully soon after, a referral! I think we are probably on schedule to travel around the end of the year, or early next year. But, in adoption, nobody knows until it happens!
I am going to post our timeline on the side of the blog in case you want to check it out.

Have a great week!

Meredith