So I have been reading this book

and it quotes Gary Smalley as suggesting that you ask kids stuff to better see what God has put inside them for His divine plans.

I'm all up for that.  As most moms (I think) sometimes I look at these little people God has gifted me with and wonder, "Who are you?" and how do I communicate my love and God's love uniquely to you?

One of the questions he recommended is "If you could be any character from the Bible, who would you be?"
So I asked my 2 boys as we drove along the other night.

As Kaden pondered this silently in the back (I've never thot of that, why is Mom asking me that, who would I want to be, why would I want to be that person, what if I think of more than one person, what if I only want to be a certain part of a person...) I waited - I always expect him to think for a while before answering.
But before I had even finished the question my Carson had an immediate answer: 'I'll be God."
As I've thot many times - Could 2 kids possibly be any different?

But I don't have a preference of what answer I liked better.  In fact each response made me giggle a bit because they were SO VERY typical of my youngest two boys.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.
This situation reminded me of a phrase from The Shack, where Heavenly Father looks at one of His children, a twinkle comes into His eye, and He says, "I'm so very fond of her."  and then He looks at another of His children and His expression softens and He says, "I'm particularly fond of him."

I'm a mother, not a father, but this aspect of the Father's heart I really do understand - that each individual child brings me such pleasure just by being so incredibly themselves.   In fact, I would not have had nearly the pleasure from hearing one of my sons try to tell me which character he thought I would want him to be - of that his friends thought was great. 

I'm also reading

and Liebscher tells of the pressure to preach well, to perform well.  Before a particular large youth service, God asked him "Banning, you have a choice.  You can either choose to be a preacher or a son.  If you choose to be a pracher, you will be good sometimes and other times you won't be that good.  But if you choose to be a son, you will always be good because you are a fantastic son."  So his motive for preaching changed.  He pursued being a son - pursued intimacy with Father, and preached out of that relationship.

A girlfriend recently told me she was learning how to "just be." 
Another girlfriend wrote about her home in a book that she's had published, "it is a place where no one has to 'try' to be a Christian.  They just are."

On the heels of Kevin Costner's remarks at Whitney Houston's funeral, these words seem profound.  While this beautiful, talented woman continually wondered, "am I good enough?", we are given this incredibly free request from Father:  Just Be.  Just be my daughter.  Just be my son.  All these other things - all the requirements of the law have already been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. 
Learning how to just be a son/daughter of God will bring us in to alignment with His purposes and plans.  As this intimacy increases, so will my discerning of His heart and His will. 

I love that my boys didn't try to give me a desired answer that evening.  They just were.  They just spoke out of who they are.  And it gave me such pleasure.

Getting ready

I was so wrong.
I thought that once we had been matched - once we knew for sure who our daughter was that this would get easier.
The waiting is hard! 
I've never been very good at waiting - my main mode for being patient is to keep busy with things to distract myself.
So... we have been very busy! 

We built a small extra room in the basement for Adrian to have his own little cozy place.  With stained pine boards and metal wall lights that have moose-shapes cut out, with a rustic duvet cover and and black wall decals that read "Courage means being afraid, and saddling up anyway," Adrian has his own little cabin getaway. 
I'm so proud of Dean for finding a way to cut his own whole in that thick basement wall and put in a new window by himself!  It looks awesome - and that wide window ledge makes a great place for AJ to clutter up with stuffies and knickknacks!

Moving Adrian into his own room, meant Carson could move downstairs to share a room with Kaden.  Those two creative, imaginative souls have quite the disaster constantly.  They seem to enjoy their little pig pen, and get so frustrated when I come down to make them clean up.

Then began the big job of redoing the upstairs bedroom for Bronwyn.  It used to be AJ's room, then Kaden & Carson's, then just Carson's.  Until now. 

--dents in the wall from ramping hotwheels cars off the top bunk

--ketchup stains in the carpet:  looong story...

--peeled off wallpaper trim (which once looked nice for about 3 days before the boys found a loose edge to pick at)

--a large hole in the wall behind the door from someone flying into the room and putting the doorknob thru the drywall

My boys aren't excessively rough - really, they aren't.  It's just that life happens, and my boys do have a lot of ideas about what makes up a fun day.

This is what was left of the room when Carson moved out:

So we began by ripping out the carpet and taking off all the trim.  Light blue went on the walls, and we turned the trim white.  My sister Theresa came over - and she usually brings the party, so things went along with a lot of laugh.

We pulled out the crib - but it took us a long time to set it up.  It seems that in the past 5 years we had forgotten a few of the steps.  Finally we got it figured out.

The big white cubby shelf from the music room came upstairs, and my friend Diane gave us a little white dresser to use. Madison and I had fun filling Baby B's closet and drawers and shelves with pretty little things and cute books and toys.







And then I insisted on a new light fixture.  I hate every one of the ceiling mounted globe lights that were in this house when we bought it.  Thank goodness way back when I'd painted the boys' ceiling years ago, with brown paint, I'd gotten a good splotch on that ugly light.  It just had to be tossed out.  And with a lot of mumbling and nattering, Dean got this one up just perfectly. 



So that's done...

And we still haven't heard when we fly to get our little one...

So I began to collect the thing we might need in China - according to numerous blogs and suggestions from people who have done this before. 

Here are the main things I learned from those who have gone before me:

1. Pack light but bring everything you can think of.

2. Don't bring too much money b/c it's expensive to change it back into Canadian - but bring lots of money because you never know what you'll need.

3. Some people try to travel for adoption purposes with only a carry-on.  But be sure to make enough room to bring back many presents and purchases for baby in the coming years. 

Wow...

But truly, many of the sites and individuals were very helpful, and so I got stashing things in this waiting room.

We are ready as we can be for this new little person!