A Few Updates

Life at the Howie house has been good lately. This week is spring break, and it's been nice. Aubrey doesn't have school, there's been no karate, no tutoring, no Wednesday night church... basically nothing. As much as I like to stay busy, it's nice to have a week with no plans every once in a while. The kids and I have just spent a lot of time at home together, playing outside, watching movies, reading books.... I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there's also been some bickering and fighting, too ;) But, for the most part, everyone has gotten along well, and we're enjoying our low-key week together :)

I don't know if I've mentioned on here that our closing on our new house got delayed. We were supposed to close on March 4th, but it got pushed back because the owner is doing some work that needs to be completed before closing. So now we're supposed to close sometime before the end of the month. At first, I was a little disappointed when it got delayed, but then I quickly realized that the less time we own two houses, the better! :) Really, we're in no hurry, which is nice. I am getting antsy to go ahead and get this move over with, though. I just think the actual process isn't going to be fun at all, so the sooner we move, the sooner we'll get settled and feel at home in our new space. A lot of people have been asking me lately if we've started packing,. Umm, no. No, we haven't. Seriously, though, how are you really supposed to pack in advance with little kids in the house? I'm sure it can be done, but I'm just having trouble figuring out how it would work? We just can't have boxes piled everywhere or our kids would promptly unpack everything that we've put in said boxes. Ha! I'm sure we'll get it done, but it probably won't be in the orderly, organized way that I'm craving :-/

A lot of people have also been asking for adoption updates recently, too. Sadly, there really aren't any. In the next few months, it's going to be time to update our homestudy (it's good for a year, and then you have to update). Part of me knew going into this that we would almost definitely be waiting longer than a year, so I'm not surprised to be at this point. But I am discouraged to be here. Lately I've just felt this sense of urgency when I think about our adoption. Like, I want it to happen yesterday. I know that this is partly because I have the baby bug like crazy, but it's also because I'm ready to just do this already. This is adoption is something that we've been talking about, and thinking about, and praying about for so long now, that I just can't wait for it to actually come to fruition. As we come up on the one year mark, we are just praying that the Lord will lead us and show us what we should do. Should we stay the course and keep waiting for a baby domestically? Or should we maybe look into international adoption again? There are definitely aspects of both that are appealing. At the end of the day, though, of course we just want to follow the Lord's leading. If that means waiting longer, that's what we want to do. If it means going a different direction, we're excited about that, too. We just cannot WAIT to meet our new family member! We're praying that's sooner rather than later!