Matt and I both have been really excited to adopt a child since we got married. We have been around families, a lot at Bethlehem, who have set adoption out as a priority. I think everybody should consider adoption. I DO NOT believe everybody SHOULD adopt, just that they should consider it. The reason…

As Christians we have been adopted by God into his family. You read about this adoption over and over in the Bible. One of the places that describes this adoption is in Galatians 4:3-5. It describes the need for God to send his Son to free us from the elementary principles of the world by adopting us and receiving us into his family as sons and daughters.

This is the story of the Bible. Us receiving everything that we don’t deserve through Jesus Christ, through our own adoption. We were helpless and unworthy and God, through Jesus, took us into his family and gave us all that we could imagine.

We desire that our family would be a small picture of what a beautiful thing adoption is. Hopefully our children will grow up with an amazingly real picture of what adoption looks like, not only for our adopted children, but for our biological children as well!

So, with just a few thoughts out there for you I wanted to ask you to join us in praying for a little baby from Ethiopia.

We started our paperwork in September of 2011. We have our first home study meeting in February. We are hoping to be done with all the paper work and be in “waiting” status before we have to leave for the summer. On average, they say the wait is around 9-12 months from the time our paper work is sent over seas. Obviously it could be way longer than that as well. We know that there will be many hard things about adopting as well as many joys. We will be trusting God with all of this!

Pray for our hearts that we would be patient and trust that God is completely sovereign over every small and big detail. I know that whenever God wants us to have a baby, we will have one. He is powerful and will do as he pleases.

Anybody who has any connections with people who have adopted from Ethiopia would be helpful to have. We would love to get together with some families.

I will try to keep you updated along the way. Thanks for praying.

Here are a few picture highlights from our last couple months with our girls…

She is still fairly active and has a hard time paying attention for long amounts of time. She is just getting to the place where she enjoys sitting and paging through a book by herself for longer than 5 minutes. She is a trouper when it comes to playing with her little sister. Lucy, can be, well, kind of a bully. She likes to bite Annie and tries to shove her off chairs if she thinks she should be sitting there. But, most of the time, Annie will just cry (if she is bitten) and wait for us to come help her instead of retaliating.

Unfortunately, I spilled hot tea all over myself and the computer and my computer is now broken so I do not have pictures of the party for the moment. I will however, give you some pictures that we have taken since the “accident”.

Maddux and Annie this summer.

Lucy, Annie, Maddux and Sophie.

The Luce goose in her trick or treating outfit. This is a classic Lucy face.

Lucy, Annie, Callie, Maddux and Sophie on Halloween before we went out trick or treating. We went to my parents house in White Bear Lake so the girls would have a nice neighborhood to get some candy in. They actually lasted about 15 houses or so. They LOVED it!

MINISTRY UPDATES

Joanna, Linda, Jenny, Anna, Roseline, and Me. This is my discipleship group that I lead. We meet every Monday night from 8:30-10:30 to talk about the Bible and how truth impacts our lives. It has been an amazing year with these girls. I have never been more convinced and more excited to be giving my life away to girls on the U of MN campus. I want my life to be spent on relationships for the purpose of helping these girls love Jesus more.

Luke, Jared, Zach, Matt, Reed, and Matt. This is Matt’s group of guys that he is leading this fall. He has been walking through ministry with these guys. Two of them are CA’s and live in the dorms with freshman aiming to give their life away there. Matt has really enjoyed his time with these men and training them up to love people and share the gospel of Jesus with them.

We are nearing the end of the semester. Please join with Matt and I as we pray for these students, that God would use the rest of the semester to reveal more of who he is for us.

My sweet little one year old!

Lucy’s friends.

Lucy’s one year old hair style.

Sisterly love!

A few things about our Lucy:

1) We call her “goose” or “The goose” or “lose goose” or “goosey”

2) She has a temper. She already yells and throws fits if she does not get her way.

3) She is funny. Currently her new “trick” is to put something over her face and run around while not being able to see. She giggles and giggles. She thinks she is hilarious.

4) She is aggressive. She will “attack” Annie if she wants something that Annie has. She will charge at Annie with her mouth open trying to bite Annie.

5) She may be left handed.

6) She is bigger than Annie was at her age and we are guessing that in a matter of months she will be beating her up.

7) She whispers sweet nothings to you that make you melt. Really she has just started to whisper babbles. It is the cutest thing though.

8) She was walking by 10 months and is now running around after the big girls.

9) She climbs on EVERYTHING. I have to hide all our stools in the house now or I will come into a room and find her standing on them trying to get into things.

We love our little goose and pray that God would grow her up into a women who loves the Lord with all her heart and all her mind. We pray for a sweet sweet friendship with her sister, that they would grow up to treasure Jesus together.

John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Happy Birthday my little love!

1) We drove 22 hours through the night to get to Charleston SC. We left at 1PM and arrived at 11AM. It went as well as could be expected. For the most part the girls slept through the night which was our goal. Matt however got sick the last 4 hours of our journey which dropped our “grade” that we gave the trip from an A-/ B+ to an F.

2) We got to spend some good time with Nana and Reagpa and BB for a week before we headed to STP (Summer Training Project) in Myrtle Beach. This included lots of time in water. Sprinklers, pools, beaches and slip in slides were used to help adjust to the 100 degree weather.

3) We arrived in Myrtle Beach for STP. This is our hotel room where we spent the next month.                                                                         

The girls got to hang out with lots of other kids…all girls. There were 8 girls on project this year, all 3 or under. It was so much fun to have all of our friends in the same place as us to get constant play time with.

Annie and her BFF Maddux

My sweet little Lucy. She loved the sand…too much…she tried to eat it ALL THE TIME.

4) Lucy turned 9 months and started talking on her cell phone. She is holding a phone up to her ear (back of her head/ neck) in the picture.

5) Dad turned the big 30 this year and we had a party in his honor. All of our family went in on buying Matt a nice bike for his birthday. He celebrated by blowing out candles on his rice crispy cake with a bunch of two year olds. Good time!

6) We went to the very much over priced aquarium in Myrtle with our great friends. The older girls are able to enjoy more and more when we go out an do special things. Good thing considering the price of this outing!

7) Lots more beach time.

We have since come back to Charleston to spend most of the month of July with Matts family. More updates and pictures of that time to come.

This is a picture of Annie getting picked up to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house wearing her princess dress.

Callie Brooks, Maddux Poteat, and Annie Reagan having a dress up play date.

Annie’s new swimsuit for the summer.

This past weekend I had a volleyball tournament (that I am coaching) in Rochester. Lucy, my mom and I took the 1 1/2 hour trip together and were gone from Friday through Sunday. That meant Matt got to have a weekend with Annie. Things went really well. Annie LOVES hanging out with her daddy. However, this is what happened when it was time for church. Interesting look honey!

My little Lucy is 8 months now. She is crawling all over the place and pulling up on everything. Just in the last couple days she has tested out standing by herself. She has starting learning about balance. She is going to be walking before we know it!

Matt and I had our last Bible studies last night with our groups. The last hour of group we did together and seized the picture opportunity. These are some of the older students in our ministry. Most of them are graduating and getting ready to move on to the next stage.

Please join us in praying for these students and for the moving out into the world continuing to be laborers in the world wherever they go.

Here is a picture of the four girls. Lucy and Annie Reagan and Maddux and Sophie Poteat. Lucy is 7 1/2 months and Sophie is about 5 1/2 months.

A picture of the girls with their “loot”. This year was a major improvement from last years attempt at an Easter egg hunt. Last year the adults basically did the hunt for them and as soon as they found out that there was food in the eggs they just sat down to eat for the rest of the hunt. This year they got pretty competitive trying to find eggs.

A picture of the Poteats for all their family and friends who count on us for an update (they have a blog that they update about once a year )

The adults. We are so so blessed to have such dear friends. Samm and I basically do all of life together and it has been the most amazingly fun thing to go through dating, engagement, early marriage, pregnancy and now parenthood with her. They live right across the street from us and we literally see each other every single day. I don’t know what I would do without them living here with us. Especially in the winter, it is so nice for Annie (and mom) to have friends that can come over and play so conveniently. Having a constant play mate has also brought up many disciplining issues as well. It is such great practice for Annie and Maddux to have a close friend to learn how to share with We love them dearly!

My wonderful former teammate and now co-worker Erin trying to entertain both little babes.

And now for the Easter story of 2011…

It has been a nice Easter so far and the girls were up stairs napping like little angels…or so we thought.

Samm was sitting by the stairs and heard Annie calling for somebody so she walked up the stairs only to run back down yelling for me. Scared that Annie had hurt herself I bolted up the stairs to find Annie COVERED in something dark black. It was ALL over her hands, completely covered up to her elbows, in her hair and on her dress. I yelled for my mom to come up and then proceeded to walk into my brothers bedroom where Annie was supposed to be sleeping to find this…

Annie had found Tom’s black shoe polish and had proceeded to “finger paint” all over the walls, the closet door, bedroom door, and worst of all the brand new carpet. I mean, it was painted so thick that I didn’t even know where to start trying to clean it up. Mom whisked Annie away and threw her into the bath while Samm, Paul and I attempted to clean the room. The most promising was the wall, it came pretty clean. But the white doors and most of all the new carpet I am afraid have seen their last day.

That is why Annie did not have her dress on in most of the pictures. That is why she looks a little rough.

To our MN family: Sorry about the carpet, I am praying that the cleaner will get most of it out tomorrow.

To our SC family: Be glad that we live in MN! (and you may want to hide the shoe polish come July!)

So here are a few shots of Lucy at 7 months.

Lucy is really continuing to show her personality. She smiles ALL the time at everybody she sees. She is crawling all over the place and pulling up on everything. It is really starting to get interested with Lucy and Annie. We are trying to teach Annie to be a big good sister to her little sister. To help her, and share with her. But at this point, Lucy is all over everything that Annie does so we will be getting some good practice at sharing.

Tomorrow is Easter and we are excited for another opportunity to talk to Annie about Jesus. We are trying to help her understand that Jesus died and that he has risen. Not sure how much she really understands about death at this point but she can repeat “He is risen, He is risen indeed.”

Easter pictures to come

Annie “helping” Lucy get her hair washed. AKA Annie pouring water in Lucy’s eyes and mouth. Poor Lucy, thats the story of her life so far!

The day we left it was Lucy’s 6 month birthday so we took some pictures while we were there. Here are a few pics…enjoy!

This was Annie as we were leaving for the airport. She got this back pack for Christmas and loves to carry it around pretending that she is going to school. She was thrilled to get to fill it and bring it on the plane.

This was the scene at the airport. With two small children we do not exactly travel light anymore. Both the girls did really well on the flights but neither of them slept at all on the way there. This was more of a problem for the 6 month old.

The view from our back porch. We were right on a canal so Matt got to go fishing every second that he was at the house!

Annie LOVED the water once again. She spend the whole time swimming with her inner tube then jumping off the ledge into the water to go under. She kept doing it over and over again. Then she practiced swimming without the floaty. The doesn’t mind going under water but I think she started to take in a little too much water so we had to eventually take a little break. She was loving it though.

In the hammock with Aunt Steffie.

Fishing with Dad. She was very interested in all the fish that daddy was catching.

Lucy’s personality has started to come out a lot even in the last week. She is such a happy little baby. She doesn’t sleep as much as her sister did. She sleeps great at night but doesn’t love her naps like Annie did. Today it seemed like she blew raspberries for 3/4 of the day. It is hilarious, it is like she is trying to communicate something through making little raspberry noises. She just continues to do it over and over again. She just smiles and starts again. She is hilarious. She is also starting to really be able to move. Not crawling quite yet, but she can kind of army crawl to get to things that are close that she wants. She can swivel 360 degrees and is close to a full our crawl. We are thinking that we are going to have another outgoing, extraverted, hyperactive little girl on our hands in a matter of months.

Matt and I kayaking.

I thought this picture was hilarious because it shows our 2 1/2 year old sleeping away for over an hour on the plane ride home while our 6 month old would not sleep a wink. Lucy stayed up the entire time and was extremely tired but apparently if she is not in her bed she decides she doesn’t need to nap. Annie however, knowing that it is nap time and being exhausted from our trip decided to take a good hour nap in my arms. Hilarious.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, we loved our trip!

This is our morning. Usually in the morning Annie wakes up first at 7ish and climbs into our bed. She asks for apple juice which is already made and ready to go in the fridge and then rests in bed for awhile. Lucy wakes up at 7:30 so I get my lazy, tired body out of bed to get her up and feed her while Matt watches a show on the computer with Annie (usually Dora or Blues Clues). After I am done feeding Lucy it is time for Annie and dad to get out of bed and we all have breakfast. Usually we are up and at it by 8.

Three days a week Annie and I hurry through breakfast and drive to the YWCA. Annie goes to her kids gym while I get to go run and lift. Samm and Maddux go with us, so Annie has a friend to play with and I have a friend to run with. It has been so nice to be able to get to the gym and get some running in when you aren’t able to be active outside much. Matt has been amazing to work at home from 8-10 those mornings to stay with Lucy while we are out.

We started Lucy on cereal about a week ago now. She was 4 1/2 months old and was getting really fussy after she ate and was starting to wake up early from her naps so we figured it was time. I was a little hesitant because it seems a little early. But…she has been pounding the food. She, like her sister, is a big time eater.

This is a little picnic dinner and a movie night that we had with Annie. Annie had a rough couple days discipline and obedience wise so we decided to do something special with her. It is hard to be inside all the time and I think that leads to a bit more discipline issues. It could also be that we are well into the “terrible two’s.” Whatever the case, we went to target and got Annie a new Dora DVD and had a picnic and watched Dora for dinner. She LOVED it! At one point Matt and I were sitting on either side of her and she put her arm around both of us. She is such a sweet sweet girl.

This is Annie getting her first hair cut. She was so excited to go get a little trim. We talked about it for days before. She sat so still and was so interested in all the tools that they used. She likes to pretend to go to the salon when she is at home. She sits in her little chair and uses her brush and hair binders. She is so funny.

On other news, Matt took his first steps without his crutches the other day. He is able to walk around the house now without them for the most part. It looks so weird to not see him with crutches he has had them so long. He is so excited to begin rehab and start doing some actual bike workouts soon. So far, things are looking really good. Praying that he will have major increases in his ability to participate in sports and run pain free.

Well, our little lucy goose is 4 months old. So far she has been just as good a baby as her big sister was. She is a great napper and eater. She is sleeping through the night from 10-7:30 right now which feels wonderful. She is very smily and content, unless she has gas which she gets once in awhile from pounding the food. Four months is a little early to tell her personality yet so it is hard to compare her to Annie. The jury is still out if she will be as hyper, funny, and center of attention as her big sis. As parents we think she is getting cuter and cuter every day and she has such a sweet little giggle. We love our little Lucy.

This is a little sweater and hat that our good family friend Pat made for Lucy. She has made many a hat for our girls. I love them, they are so so cute. Thanks Pat!

And this is just a cute picture of me and my husband since we don’t get much face time anymore. I got this new hat for Christmas and Matt really likes it so I wanted to take a picture. You can see a little of Matt’s massive brace on his leg too. He has been doing awesome. He has been going to rehab once a week and has been diligent in doing his exercises probably 4 times a day. He just got the go ahead to put an ever so slight amount of weight on his leg while he is walking. This is a huge deal, he has been non weight bearing since Thanksgiving. Hopefully if all goes to plan he will be able to get rid of those darn crutches in a month.