I realize it seems pretty ridiculous.

Having to re-do our front deck so that we can get licensed as Foster Parents. But that’s just the way it is so we do it joyfully knowing that it brings us one step closer to our next child.

We started this project back in late February…..

Sadly, the deck demo was entirely way too easy.

Which goes to prove that it needed to be re-done anyways.

Ryan told me that it would take 1 day to complete.

I didn’t believe him.

I was trying to take a picture of the pile of disposed lumber – this little squirt jumped into my picture….I wish he was in focus – so rare that he photo bombs pictures.

2 Days into the project, this is where we were.

I recruited Rusty to help (this was before they moved in with us).

The key point for our inspection was that the vertical posts had to be a certain width from one another - you know, so our teenager doesn’t stick their head in between them and get stuck.

After we got everything built, we took a break on finishing the deck till about 2 weeks ago when we kicked it into high gear knowing our health inspection was coming up.

It was finished this past Saturday.

Ta-da!

Fully equipped and ready with 5 chairs (for our 5 family members).

I really can’t say that I did any of the work on this. Sadly, there was one Sunday when I had to work at 2pm and I sat in a chair in the driveway reading a book before I left for work while everyone else living here (the other 9) painted.

My point being….my husband is a rock star. He did an awesome job.

And – our inspection was today…..and we passed!

One step closer to #3 and a fabulous new deck to boot!

I know I’ve said numerous times that I’m not “doing” photography any more. And that is true. But when an you have the opportunity to photograph your best friend’s newly adopted baby, do some family pictures and – stop it – some with his Firefighter Dad dressed in bunker gear…….Yes, I will take those photos. No, you need not ask twice. You had me at the words “would you..”

So I’m thrilled to be able to show you these pictures. To share a tiny piece of this story that displays the God’s goodness, grace, and overwhelming love.

Meet Laurie & Brooks. You have probably seen pictures of Laurie before – I ran the marathon with her in November.

I met Laurie exactly 1 year ago. She was a customer at my Walgreens,  getting fertility medication. After several interactions, the Holy Spirit pulled on me so hard to let this girl know that I had been through all of it (fertility) and I knew what she was going through.  I knew I had no choice but to tell this girl that we were meant to be friends. Ok, so I actually told her I thought we were “destined to be friends” – don’t judge – I was following the Spirit’s prompting.

We had a sweet little moment where she told me she was praying for a friend because she had just moved here. One (or both) of us may have had tears in our eyes. I wrote down my cell phone number on her Rx bag and wondered if she thought I was crazy.

We met for coffee the next week and talked for 5 hours. It was abundantly clear to both of us that God had put us in each others path for a reason. Not just a reason, as a blessing.

Fast forward a few months and fertility doors closed and adoption doors opened.  They sought the Lord fervently and followed in obedience towards a private, open adoption.

In February, they were chosen by a birth Mother. On April 18, Nathan entered into the world with an amazingly loving and sacrificial birth Mother and went straight into Laurie & Brooks’ arms.

The story is absolutely fantastic. I’d love to have Laurie guest post about it – such a testimony to what God can do with obedient hearts.

Nathan (and Brooks for that matter) were pretty cooperative for this portion of the shoot. It was a pretty warm day and add the heat and weight of the bunker gear – Brooks was sweating.

Quite possibly the best part of the was when this happened:

Apparently Nathan thought his Daddy needed some cooling off!!

I didn’t even think I caught this on camera it happened so fast. The next thing I knew Brooks was yelling for Laurie to get him a paper towel.

And a diaper. The nakedness wasn’t working anymore.

X and I couldn’t stop laughing since we saw it happen. Brooks wasn’t laughing.

And later, when I was jumping up and down, elated I caught it on camera, he still wasn’t laughing.

It’s been enough time. I think he may laugh now when he sees it.

It’s hard to believe 6 years have gone by since my first Mother’s Day. I’m soooo not the person I was then nor are my kids the same.

We have grown together.

Every passing year I learn more about myself because I see a reflection of who I am in my children. I cringe when I see my not-so-fantastic attributes displayed back to me and silently rejoice when something I’ve taught them or demonstrated to them has stuck.

We’ve recently filled out a copious amount of paperwork about our family and our parenting style in order to finish our foster/adopt license requirements.

I’ve realized that parenting style is no different than my lifestyle.

I am an open book in parenting just as I am in life. I talk openly about everything with X & E. I share with them my struggles so that they can learn from me and know how I handle life. I lead a radical lifestyle so that they will know what it looks like to follow Jesus. I tell them silly stories that happened at work so that they tell me the silly things that happen at school. When they hurt my feelings, I tell them so they understand….when I hurt theirs, they tell me so that I stop (and understand). When I mess up, I apologize…when they mess up – well, I’m still working on that one.  Overall the system works.

Transparency. It’s the best I have to offer, it’s who I am. And that is what I want more than anything – for them to know me. Not just know what makes me tick but to know me so they can learn from me. Almost like a mentor and men-tee…..but more like Jesus and his disciples.

They need to know who is teaching them, shaping them, leading them, and loving them. Otherwise I’m just an instructor – giving advice and providing rules that won’t ever be used out in the real world.

Knowing who I am doesn’t happen through loving at a distance – it happens through intimate conversations, humility, quality time, and sacrifice. We walk alongside one another, learning from one another, until one day when they are ready to be sent out on their own.

Just like Jesus and his disciples.

For me, there is no greater calling than to disciple my children into passionate followers of Jesus.

Oh, how I love these two precious souls entrusted to me.

And how my heart aches in anticipation for #3. A part of me felt their absence this Mothers Day….but it won’t be long now.

I wouldn’t go so far to say that I have any of these “7″ topics mastered. But this one…I’ve recently got a real handle on. 

Or probably better stated, God has handled me on this one.

Spending. Consuming. Because we can. Because we think we need it. Because we think we deserve it. Because everyone else is.

The most powerful thing Ryan and I have done is to calculate how much money per day we live on.

It’s like – we can hear that over half of the world population lives on less than $2 per day – but does that really even hit home in our hearts?

Does is make us want to spend less and be extravagantly more giving to the poor and needy? Just so you know, not all the poor and needy are starving in Africa. They are right here. In your town. Suffering in silence among the rich and privileged.

If we aren’t “the rich” people that Jesus warns about over and over again, I don’t know who is.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s be honest. We are overfed, over-clothed, over-accessorized, over-privileged, over-recreationalized, over-socialized, and our homes are overstuffed with unnecessairies. We are a puppet in the hands of genius advertising and marketers who can convince us that we need what they are selling.

This is not judgement. I, too, fall prey to consumption machine.

We spend 90% on ourselves (that is, if we tithe the encouraged 10% of our income). I cannot find anywhere in the Bible where Jesus encourages this. The one story I do find in Luke 12 is called The Parable of the Rich Fool:

³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Be on guard against all kinds of greed. Oh, like wanting to have a bigger house than anyone else I know? Or wanting our children to look like they stepped out of a GAP ad? Or wanting to take a better vacation than my neighbor took their family on?

Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. Hmmm…like perfectly matched furniture and decor in every room?  Or every new toy? Or hundreds of pairs of shoes? Or purses? Or camera lenses? Or computers? Clothing, would that count?

I read a statistic in 7  that Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food and $12 billion on perfume. But it would only take $9 billion to globally give clean water and $6 billion for basic education for all global children.

I won’t go on a tangent about pets or perfume because I’m sure to offend someone but I will say that maybe some of us need to take an honest look at how much we spend on our pets versus the poor – or how much we spend to smell pretty (really?) versus the poor.

We can rage against the machine of consumerism. We don’t have to buy everything they’re selling.

This is the visual I have of resisting spending. It may seem like you are being attacked by everyone, but I assure you, the attack is against the machine of consumption – not you.

A few weeks back we drove to Austin for dinner after school got out on Friday. We just needed a little getaway – a break from the norm, and Frank’s was calling our name.

It wasn’t WASTE week so we didn’t stop to consider the waste of gasoline this would be….we could only think about the Hot Dogs.

Frank is the place we discovered while in Austin attending the VERGE conference back in March. They have the Chicago style hot dogs on Gluten Free buns.

They melt my hubby’s heart. So we drove almost 2 hours (with traffic) to get one.

But it wasn’t just for the dogs….we got to meet up with our beloved friends Aaron & Claudia, who moved to Austin earlier this year.

We sat and had some great food and great conversation….

The boys watched some X games on TV.

This was X’s dog called: The Notorious P.I.G.

That’s just awesome.

The kids were just dying for a dessert. And since the sign outside boasted BACON, COOKIES, and ICE CREAM they went for “The Lady in the Radiator”

Read this description:

Oh, you know, it’s just wrapped in bacon and dipped in chocolate as an added touch. Totally normal.

X loved it.

E ate around the bacon. It was too many conflicting flavors.

I ordered the coffee special for the day. It was a mixture of chai tea, espresso, and some other things.

Oh, yeah….and some bacon-y sugar around the rim. And a bacon flavored donut hole.

For real.

They were both divine, I must tell you.

As I was taking all these pictures of our food Claudia stared in amazement and commented how she felt like she was watching a blog post behind the scenes. Funny. My family doesn’t even think anything of it when I bust my camera out and snap away before any of us eat or drink. She couldn’t believe how E just ignored my snapping away at him….yes, that’s a special skill I’ve helped him develop – the art of ignoring your photographer Mother.

At last, my bacon-y coffee was finished and we left Frank. Or well, we moved our little party to the side walk where we annoyed anyone trying to walk by because we were taking up the entire thing.

Eventually we headed home. Such a fun, fun night.

E talked for not one iota of a minute less than the entire card ride. We heard about all the girl drama in his Kindergarten class….so-and-so stole so-and-so as a best friend and that really hurt her feelings…. At one point, X said, “you know – it’s okay if there is silence every once in a while!”

At one point, however, X did ask us (randomly), “Is weed illegal?”  WHAT????? Apparently at their field trip that day a kid in her class took some grass and pretended to “smoke weed”.

Toooooo which I replied, “Who’s ready for homeschooling?”