When God says, "be still." But your Human says, "AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

So if you read my last post, you were left with a possible question: Why is preparing for another post about another Riggins a spoiler alert...wait, you thought I mean another dog...LOL! Oh yeah, no. I'm kind of puppied out.

Ah ha! You're getting a new idea huh? Another...Riggins....GASP!? YOU'RE ADOPTING AGAIN!?

YEP!!!

Interestingly, we don't feel like we have enough? Weird. 

We like to keep the crazy going. LOL Rob and I had been talking about what it'd look like when we adopt. We have plenty of house for it now, so ...okay...when Lord? This last summer the kids and I drove up to Buffalo a little early to enjoy some time with our family up there. The girls were headed to Camp Bethel, but the desperately wanted time with their cousins, so we made sure they all had plenty of time to play and have their girl time. I had brought my painting clothes so Sandy and I could attack the starving walls. During our in depth color extravaganza, I was introduced to Graham Cooke and it was in this week that my spiritual growth drank a bottle of Miracle Grow. It was AWESOME. My whole spirit just soaked up everything Graham was teaching and I heard the Lord tell me many things. One of which was that there was another child...or two...

Well, this morning I woke up and I had a worship song in my head. I LOVE when that happens! And I was praying over the day and what had just happened this weekend...knowing that the reality is...we're going to adopt another baby. It's kinda like being in the fun 'let's try for a baby stage' with 86'ing the birth control and letting God do His glory. Except this stage for adoption means A LOT of paperwork...and anticipation...and TRUST. Man, this stage is the easy part...but having gone through an adoption already makes me wonder...what will this one look like? And when I say what will this 'one' look like, I don't mean my child...I mean, what will our process look like? As with ANY pregnancy, adoption is a process and each process and journey is completely different. So what will my heart look like at the end of this? What obstacles will the Lord securely walk us through? What kind of joys and tears will be see? I keep hearing over and over, "Trust in the Lord...be still and Wait." I also heard, "Rise up on wings like eagles." I had to sit and ponder this one because I didn't understand what that verse pertained to? Rise up like eagles? Huh? Well it is in reference to the verse in Isaiah 40:31. "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will fly up on wings like eagles; they will run and not be tired; they will walk and not be weary." Rob and I HOPE in the Lord. We don't have any other option. We also WAIT on the Lord and because we are focused on Him, He will renew us. It was like a sweet, whispered promise from the Lord that we will be able to rise up, fly up, like eagles...embracing and using the winds of faith. We KNOW God's got our family in a grip of grace.

That's about all I've got for now. I will update as we go along, but it could be awhile. I've already made calls to our agency directors and basically reserving our spot at the dinner table! LOL 

I will say this: Last night, one of my very dearest of friends, and her hubby, treated my husband and I out for a double date. It was WONDERFUL. Movie and dinner...CAN'T complain! She reached over and patted my purse on the outer pocket and said, "Do you ever zip this pocket closed?" Completely clueless, I looked down and back at her and said, "Nope, I usually just have a pen and my phone in here...?" She pats it again and says, "Yeah, but it feels like you have something valuable in there, you should probably zip it up." I'm oblivious to what she's trying to say to me, mostly because I do clueless  and I do it so well. "Well, I think I stuck some napkins in there..."  "Oh my gosh, Robyn! LOL Look in your purse for crying out loud, woman!" I stuck my hand in the open pocket to find a rolled up thickness...I see it is a solid roll of $20 bills. My whole body responded and I'm blinking tears back furiously. I had only started praying for God's timing last week and Rob and I were still only in the newest stage of asking, "HOW DO WE AFFORD ANOTHER PROCESS??" I looked at her through tears and she said, "There's your application fees." I want to shake her and say, "YOU WONDERFUL, CRAZY WOMAN!" But all I can say is a chocked up, "Thank you for everything."

God is so good. This is quite possibly the next 'stream in the desert.' 

No harm No foul

Alright, so its no surprise to any of you that know me that its been almost a solid 2 months since I've blogged anything. Its been a busy couple of months and it also seems that no matter how hard I try to get my rear in gear, something happens. I'm getting really good at switching my hats throughout the days...teacher, mom, referee, financial planner, event coordinator, taxi service, counselor, maid...you get the idea, I'm sure.

2014 came in in a SWOOSH! (without the Nike) No idea where this year has already gone. Obviously, after we get Joshua's birthday out of the way, it's fair game for whatever life throws at us! It's an adventure! I love adventure. Well, what I may have forgotten to mention was that we also got 2 puppies right before Christmas. We are fazing out Santa. I know that this is a delicate subject for a lot of families. Many of our friends still incorporate Santa in...some never did...some loathe the idea of Santa taking away from the meaning of Christmas...some love it. We are somewhere in the middle. We've made it clear what we believe about Christmas being all about Jesus, but there is something magical and fun to allow our kids to believe that there is a man with his reindeer, delivering gifts. ALL that to say, we also feel our older kids are at a point where they are old enough to know about Santa...so this year, we fazed Santa out ahead of time and got puppies as a family gift. 'Gift' is the word that makes me laugh because of how our dogs came to be apart of our family. We had been thinking about getting another dog since our beloved 10yr old Boxer, Gus, was put down in Nov 2012. I was not ready for another boxer, so we considered other breeds, specifically German Shepherds. We found a FANTASTIC breeder and the pups were only $800...the problem is that we didn't really think we could spring for such an expensive endeavor and decided to hold off until we felt comfortable paying more. That's when our wonderful neighbor called us and asked me if we were still looking for a puppy. I cautiously asked what kind of puppy it was..."a Pomwawa" WHAT IS THAT!? Its a Pomeranian/Chihuahua mix...oh dear Lord, shoot me. Nah, we'll pass...well...the thing is is that the puppy is FREE. Okay, well that changes it up a bit...so I called Rob. I was choking in laughter just telling Rob, my large, manly, Marine, cop husband that we should consider this 'purse' dog. He vetoed it with flare.  Unfortunately it made the void of not having our dog seem worse and we looked at adopting a puppy because it was cheaper and we still wanted a dog. It was a couple days later that we were driving home from our friends' home and Rob asked if I was serious about considering this free puppy. I thought, okay, if the dog is still available, we'll look into it more, but if not~ no harm, no foul.

I rang up our neighbor, and sure enough, the puppy is really needing a home. So I called the lady fostering this pup and we decided to go ahead with it. That's when God introduced Lucy into our lives. She's actually considered a PomChi...and one would assume that she's a yippy, dumb purse dog...but she's not! Thankfully, she's smart and LOVES our kids. I honestly thought that she'd barely survive our household, however, she has brought so much laughter. SHE IS A SPAZ. She's about the size of a young cat, maybe 8lbs. She's not too yippy either, which has solidified her spot in the family. Lucy engages all of our kids and plays in a way that makes you forget that she's so small. Lord, have mercy, may we never have another little dog though. LOL!!! Lulu is special because we later found out that had we not taken her, she and 2 other pups would have been abandoned at 5 WEEKS old on the side of a road. NOT OKAY. (Update~ 3/20/14~ Lucy is actually NOT a Pomchi at all, she is a blonde Jack Russell Terrier.)

We had already put in our application for another puppy traveling from OK. We had been praying about this decision and felt such peace that we decided to continue on in the process. Thats when we met our next puppy, aptly renamed Rosy Riveter (thanks to Rob). She's a black cur/mastiff mix. She was 19lbs at 10 weeks old and we thought, yikes...better buy stock in dog food. (Update 3/20/14~ Rosy is looking more like a solid Black Mouth Cur...we aren't seeing any Mastiff yet.) Now she's almost 6 months and probably around 35lbs. She's SO CUTE. As you can see from the pix, she's about the happiest dog you'll meet. Her tail is constantly wagging and she is at your beck-n-call. The first couple of days she also thought she was a lap/couch dog...which had to be stopped immediately. I had never heard of a black mouth cur before, but I know the mastiff breed and they get HUGE and I'm not sharing my couch with a big dog. I've gotten plenty of crap from the family about Lucy being on the couch, but Lucy won't be more than 12lbs and is more like a cat...Rosy is going to be a tank and will do a lot of damage to my beautiful furniture! Let me also point out my CRAZY. TWO PUPPIES...that means 2x the house breaking...3 weeks before Christmas. Looking back, it could have been MUCH worse, but these two beauties decided that my most treasured room, my formal living area and FAVORITE place to have my time, was their personal poop box. WRONG~O. For the last few months, they've not been allowed anywhere but in the family room on their bed and the kitchen...everywhere else is blocked off. Just last week we took down the blockade to the stairs, but they are only allowed to be up there with supervision. It's EXHAUSTING!!!!

But the greatest news I have to date is that we are officially done with potty training. I think accidents will probably happen, however, there hasn't been any in about 3 weeks. Its wonderful. They are also crate trained and so I feel like there's a blanket of new 'normal' settling over our household. Its WONDERFUL. LOL I also think it's funny that Lucy's FAVORITE lap to be in is the man of the house...as seen here. She will enjoy any lap though because she's a lover. We laugh a lot because Lucy also gets the speeds and zings around the family room and it makes Josh angry because toys get taken in the drive-by doggy-ing. Maybe we should have named Lucy 'Swiper' instead! And Josh has little or NO tolerance for that kind of nonsense. Especially because Lucy likes to take Josh's Thomas the train items. Rosy just wants to sit and lick Josh while he's on the floor...I can understand. He's usually got food stuck to him or just looks like something that would be fun to lick. So she does. And Josh screams, "NO NO WOSY! QIT YICKING!" Or my favorite is hearing him admonish Lucy, "NO YUCY! I SAY NO NO!"


 Any way, we'll see how the grass does. I had to employ cayenne pepper to some of my flower beds...Rosy, in her finest hour of brilliance, ROLLED IN IT. She likes to chew on my bushes. This clearly doesn't work for me since we offer an assorted buffet of ANY CHEWY POSSIBLE...but these bushes seem to be the chewy of choice. It's irritating. It's in the irritating scale of when you buy your child a really expensive gift and all they really wanted was the BOX. Oh yiyi. Who thought that having 2 dogs was a good idea!? *smack my forehead* oh yeah me...Hey, I wanted my kids to have that void filled too!!!! (fine, maybe there was some selfishness involved.)

 At any rate...these are the newest Riggins additions to date. (yes, prepare...there will be more.)

HOWS THAT FOR A SPOILER ALERT!? LOL