We love you Aunt Kari!
The family with Kari and Micah (her boyfriend) right before they graduate
Quick family picture
The boys driving us around the campus
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Congratulations Aunt Kari!
This past weekend we made a trip to Jackson, Tennessee to attend the college graduation of my little sister, Kari. She graduated from Union University, Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in Social Work...we are SO proud of you Kari! Here are a few shots with the new grad...
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Cinco de Mayo
Every year, Will & I host a Cinco de Mayo party. Don't bother asking why...we are not really sure ourselves! ;) But it has turned into a great tradition to get together with friends and all hang out. Every year, it has been fun to see the different people who have been able to come for the day. This year, I was so excited to see several college friends and all catch up. Thanks to all the Cedarville Women's Basketball Teammates who made the journey...Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Little T's first experience with a pinata!
Rockin' the sombrero
Enjoying social time with other girls
LOVE THESE LADIES!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Toddler going on Teen...
So here lately our precious little two year old girl has been acting...well, two!! The past few weeks have been quite interesting for all involved - home, church, school etc. When she is sweet, she is SO VERY sweet! She can be my best little helper at home, and responds with "Yes m'am," "Yes Mommy, I will" and her "pleases" and "thank yous". However, when she decides she wants something, she IS going to do that no matter WHAT anyone tells her! This has resulted in multiple time-outs, loss of privileges and removal of toys and bedtime books. We have tried to take away toys, cause her to miss fun activities, promise her reward for a day of staying on green at school and practically bribing her with the promise of a "special treat" for each day she can make it without screaming at someone. Every day when I pick her up from preschool, I ask (both of) my kids, 1. Did you make good choices today? 2. Were you sweet to your friends and teachers? 3. Did you use nice words? In addition to these questions, I also ask our little girl, 1. Did you scream at anyone today? 2. Did you tell your teacher "no"? 3. Did you listen to your teacher? and recently "Did you throw any toys or rip any books?" (yep...that made the list last week).
Today, little girl had a rough day at school. She did not get a special treat at lunch and had to go down for her nap without 5 minutes of reading time in her bed. When I went in to tuck her in, I laid down with her for a minute just to spend a moment with her. She laid there quietly for a minute, and then this was our conversation...
Little Girl: "Mommy, I not make good choices today?"
Mommy: "No sis, you did not make good choices. God wants us to use sweet words to our teachers."
Little Girl: "Ohhh, ok. So I not get a special treat today?"
Mommy: "That's right. You can't have special, fun things when you choose not to listen."
Little Girl: "Ok. I will listen to Ms. Becca tomorrow."
Mommy: "Thank you. That would be a very good choice."
Little Girl: "Ok. And then you can take me shopping."
Yep...she is TWO years old...already trying to figure out how to get to the stores! :) I couldn't help but laugh (which she thought was great). I have no idea where she came up with this idea...but I told her if she can go for five days staying on green at school, I will take her shopping and buy her new pink chapstick. And as much as I would love to make this purchase, I feel pretty safe to bet we will unfortunately NOT be heading to Target anytime soon! So...here's to praying my little girl will prove me wrong! :)
Today, little girl had a rough day at school. She did not get a special treat at lunch and had to go down for her nap without 5 minutes of reading time in her bed. When I went in to tuck her in, I laid down with her for a minute just to spend a moment with her. She laid there quietly for a minute, and then this was our conversation...
Little Girl: "Mommy, I not make good choices today?"
Mommy: "No sis, you did not make good choices. God wants us to use sweet words to our teachers."
Little Girl: "Ohhh, ok. So I not get a special treat today?"
Mommy: "That's right. You can't have special, fun things when you choose not to listen."
Little Girl: "Ok. I will listen to Ms. Becca tomorrow."
Mommy: "Thank you. That would be a very good choice."
Little Girl: "Ok. And then you can take me shopping."
Yep...she is TWO years old...already trying to figure out how to get to the stores! :) I couldn't help but laugh (which she thought was great). I have no idea where she came up with this idea...but I told her if she can go for five days staying on green at school, I will take her shopping and buy her new pink chapstick. And as much as I would love to make this purchase, I feel pretty safe to bet we will unfortunately NOT be heading to Target anytime soon! So...here's to praying my little girl will prove me wrong! :)
Monday, April 25, 2011
Little T
Yeah......I know......I'm cool......check this out......first Easter egg hunt......that's right......
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Crazy
Crazy!
This is what I have been telling people for months who have asked me to write a blog about our family. Absolutely crazy. I have several excuses: no time, nothing to say, no one will read, too much to keep up, no way I will remember...but here I am writing our first post. We have so many family members and friends all over the world who we would love to keep updated on our journey. For those of you who know me, I am pretty much on Facebook at best three times a year! :) So...I am not sure how often I will be posting, updating or writing on this thing but I am at least going to give it a try. So to start off, I want to share our story of how the Lord brought our family together.
Crazy!
Will (my husband) and I married in May of 2007. We always had said we wanted to have biological children first, then adopt internationally and then open our home to foster children. During the summer of 2008, we were speaking with another adoptive family sharing with them our heart to adopt and foster in the future. They asked us one simple question that has now changed our life..."Why is adoption your plan B"? At the time, I had a very "logical", "planned", well "thought-out" answer! You need the nine months to prepare, you need your "own" first to learn what you are doing, you need the showers to figure out what you need and get baby stuff etc. However, throughout the course of the next sixth months, Will and I heard sermons, listened to radio broadcasts, read books and blogs and spoke with others who ALL kept mentioning allowing God's purposes to be your "PLAN A" even when the world says it would be nuts. We began to pray and ask God what HIS "plan A" was for our family to grow.
Crazy!
In January of 2009, we were approched by a young woman in our church. She had a 4 day old new baby that was removed from her home by Child Protective Services (CPS). She came up to us on Sunday morning and asked us to please take her baby and raise her child. We were, neededless to say, quite speechless but told her we would pray about it that day and promised to at least call the social worker the next morning. When I spoke with CPS, it turned out we could not even be considered as a foster family for this child since we were not a certified State foster home. Three weeks later, we had another family we knew very well faced with losing four school-aged children to the foster care system due to parental conflict.
Crazy!
At this point, we told the Lord we got the message :) and decided to go ahead and get certified as a foster home. Honestly, we began the training still feeling conflicted about God's specific call for our family, yet knowing we at least wanted the option of fostering and knew we must complete the training. Throughout the initial 11 week training, the Lord completely broke our hearts for the orphans right here in Louisville who have no where to go. They espeically talked about sibling groups, and how rare it was to place siblings together. God gave Will and I such a burden for young siblings here in Louisville who were being ripped apart because of their parent's mistakes and bad choices. We decided to go ahead and open our home through foster care to a young sibling group of two children. We knew we had a busy summer ahead in 2009 with youth summer camp, a mission trip to Africa and both working full-time, so we waited a few months and then officially opened our home in November 2009.
Crazy!
On January 12th, 2010, we received a phone call from the State. They explained they had three young children, all siblings (same bio mom and same bio dad), they needed to place. Even though on our placement scale, we had only put two children, they said they could not find another home to place these children in and wanted to "just check". I told them I would talk with my husband, but I wasn't sure we would be able to take them. I remember walking up to Will and saying, "Well, they have a sibling group of three children that need to be placed; ages two and a half, one and a half and nine months." Although I was a little unsure, I remember Will looking at me saying "Tell them yes! This is not a decision we can make in 10 minutes, which is why God has been preparing us and calling us to this for two years...call them back and tell them yes!" We called them back about 7pm that evening and they told us the children would be in our home by noon the next day.
Crazy!
As you can imagine, it was quite the adjustment going from no children to three children under three years old! :) However, God has been so faithful to provide daily and moment by moment everything we have needed. My hope for this blog is that I can post new things that are happening in our family, and also go back and take a few trips down memory lane about our first year and a half with the kiddos! I know there is still a lot left unsaid in this post, but it is quite long enough already :) and hopefully will give you at least a glimpse into how God has chosen to enlarge our family so far. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy all these little McCartney Moments! :)
This is what I have been telling people for months who have asked me to write a blog about our family. Absolutely crazy. I have several excuses: no time, nothing to say, no one will read, too much to keep up, no way I will remember...but here I am writing our first post. We have so many family members and friends all over the world who we would love to keep updated on our journey. For those of you who know me, I am pretty much on Facebook at best three times a year! :) So...I am not sure how often I will be posting, updating or writing on this thing but I am at least going to give it a try. So to start off, I want to share our story of how the Lord brought our family together.
Crazy!
Will (my husband) and I married in May of 2007. We always had said we wanted to have biological children first, then adopt internationally and then open our home to foster children. During the summer of 2008, we were speaking with another adoptive family sharing with them our heart to adopt and foster in the future. They asked us one simple question that has now changed our life..."Why is adoption your plan B"? At the time, I had a very "logical", "planned", well "thought-out" answer! You need the nine months to prepare, you need your "own" first to learn what you are doing, you need the showers to figure out what you need and get baby stuff etc. However, throughout the course of the next sixth months, Will and I heard sermons, listened to radio broadcasts, read books and blogs and spoke with others who ALL kept mentioning allowing God's purposes to be your "PLAN A" even when the world says it would be nuts. We began to pray and ask God what HIS "plan A" was for our family to grow.
Crazy!
In January of 2009, we were approched by a young woman in our church. She had a 4 day old new baby that was removed from her home by Child Protective Services (CPS). She came up to us on Sunday morning and asked us to please take her baby and raise her child. We were, neededless to say, quite speechless but told her we would pray about it that day and promised to at least call the social worker the next morning. When I spoke with CPS, it turned out we could not even be considered as a foster family for this child since we were not a certified State foster home. Three weeks later, we had another family we knew very well faced with losing four school-aged children to the foster care system due to parental conflict.
Crazy!
At this point, we told the Lord we got the message :) and decided to go ahead and get certified as a foster home. Honestly, we began the training still feeling conflicted about God's specific call for our family, yet knowing we at least wanted the option of fostering and knew we must complete the training. Throughout the initial 11 week training, the Lord completely broke our hearts for the orphans right here in Louisville who have no where to go. They espeically talked about sibling groups, and how rare it was to place siblings together. God gave Will and I such a burden for young siblings here in Louisville who were being ripped apart because of their parent's mistakes and bad choices. We decided to go ahead and open our home through foster care to a young sibling group of two children. We knew we had a busy summer ahead in 2009 with youth summer camp, a mission trip to Africa and both working full-time, so we waited a few months and then officially opened our home in November 2009.
Crazy!
On January 12th, 2010, we received a phone call from the State. They explained they had three young children, all siblings (same bio mom and same bio dad), they needed to place. Even though on our placement scale, we had only put two children, they said they could not find another home to place these children in and wanted to "just check". I told them I would talk with my husband, but I wasn't sure we would be able to take them. I remember walking up to Will and saying, "Well, they have a sibling group of three children that need to be placed; ages two and a half, one and a half and nine months." Although I was a little unsure, I remember Will looking at me saying "Tell them yes! This is not a decision we can make in 10 minutes, which is why God has been preparing us and calling us to this for two years...call them back and tell them yes!" We called them back about 7pm that evening and they told us the children would be in our home by noon the next day.
Crazy!
As you can imagine, it was quite the adjustment going from no children to three children under three years old! :) However, God has been so faithful to provide daily and moment by moment everything we have needed. My hope for this blog is that I can post new things that are happening in our family, and also go back and take a few trips down memory lane about our first year and a half with the kiddos! I know there is still a lot left unsaid in this post, but it is quite long enough already :) and hopefully will give you at least a glimpse into how God has chosen to enlarge our family so far. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy all these little McCartney Moments! :)
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