it's a wrap, folks…

First year of preschool is over and with my best friend in my class, it made it a wonderful first year of school.  Next year I'll be moving up to 3 mornings a week instead of 2.


Wanna see the masterpiece our class made on one of the last days at school?

under construction...

When our Australia plans were cancelled for the summer, our consolation prize was that we'd stick with our original plans to remodel our 1968 kitchen.   Home remodeling is our hobby, and Marc is our resident handyman!


So here we go!  Let the demo begin!

Caroline wasn't too fond of it initially as she said, "Daddy, why are you tearing down the house?"  But it didn't take this kid long to get in on the action and swing her own sledgehammer.  (You know, 4 year olds and sledgehammers just go together...)


Step number 1: remove the wall between the kitchen and the dining room.  AND may I mention, subsequently live in a pile of dust... cough, sneeze...


But taking down the curtains has made for some pretty great puppet shows.


No more wall!  But yes, this is the current state of things in our house.  And it's the kitchen, nonetheless.

It will be worth it. (deep breath)
It will be worth it.

This would NOT be happening with a baby in the house, so the time is now!  Plus it will make the wait for adoption a little less unbearable.  (but we joke about how crazy it'd be if we got a call for a baby in the midst of this mess...)


Step Number 2: Remove the laminate floor.  (and the original lovely red-brick laminate floor underneath the nasty floral stick 'em tiles)


We'll eventually be running our wood floors into the kitchen and adding new cabinets and countertops against this wall.


Step Number 3: Widen the kitchen entrance.  This is also a load bearing wall.  Pray for us.


Does this violate some type of childhood labor laws??  Does it make any difference that it was voluntary??

alopecia at 4...

... is different and a bit more complex than alopecia at age 3.

And since it's been awhile since I've blogged about it, I thought I would tell you how.


My little girl is starting to realize her uniqueness.  She knows that her alopecia makes her different.  But anyone who knows Caroline also knows it's surely not causing any lack in the self-confidence department.  :)

She loves to dress up around the house with a "wig." (which is really just a headband with fake hair extensions I got from the dollar store & put it into a braid at her request... yeah, big budget, huh?)

It's become a little more occasional that she hears comments or questions about her baldness, and when kids ask her why she doesn't have hair, she just ignores them.  (which I think is so funny!  "Mom, a kid kept asking me why I didn't have any hair!"  "Well, what did you tell them?"  "I didn't say anything!  I just kept playing.")

Mostly it's adults that can give the rudest stares.  Little kids are much more accepting.

Our town is small and friendly.  Taking Caroline out in public (both due to her personality and her baldness) is like wearing a sign that says "PLEASE, PLEASE notice me."  It's like having a miniature pavorazzi wherever we go.  We just get noticed, whether we want it or not.  And my kid eats it up.  She wins hearts wherever she goes.  I guess because of her appearance, people expect her to act sullen, or insecure, or maybe sickly, but what they see is a beautiful, happy, energetic girl full of LIFE and confidence.  (maybe a little tooooo much confidence, ahem....)


When you look so different from everyone around you, it's incredibly special when you meet someone who has alopecia, too.  We met Floyd tonight in a restaurant.  He approached us with "does she have alopecia?" and when someone starts with that question, it's always exciting to meet people who know what alopecia is. let alone someone who has it!  I could tell it was as exciting to him as it was for us.  Floyd was 53 years old when he lost his hair.  He lost all of it in a matter of 6 weeks, including his eyelashes, eyebrows, and body hair.  He has the rarest form of alopecia: alopecia universalis (aka no body hair).  


At four, I'm starting to see alopecia growing my daughter in maturity.
We talk little about outward appearance.
We talk much, much more about everything else.

(Maybe the time we save on washing, styling, and cutting hair gives us more time to focus on other things??)


I know my daughter inwardly holds onto the hope that one day she'll grow hair again.  Though I know the statistical unlikelihood of this, to that hope I tell her, "Yeah? I don't know!  Maybe you will!  We'll have to see!"  But for now we rock the bald and embrace bald as beautiful!


I never would have envisioned a life with alopecia, but now I can't imagine our life without it.

one fish, two fish...

Lots going on around our place these days!

We're finishing out the semester and getting ready to head to Florida with a group of our RUF students for Summer Conference.

We've FINALLY finished up our adoption homestudy, which means we are legally approved to adopt an infant when the time comes!

We've also gotten to visit with extended family this past week as well.


It was a treat to have my (Amy's) dad fly out to Raleigh to visit my Grandma & Grandpa.  I am so thankful for their lasting testimony of faithfulness to one another and to the Lord.


And we love our Pop!


Nanny & Papa (Marc's parents) also made a trip to visit this weekend, and they bought Caroline 2 FISH!  Her first pets.  She was ecstatic, as you can imagine!


Please meet Dorothy and Rachel.

house full….

It's the end of the semester!  As we are wrapping up our 11th year in campus ministry (can you believe it!?!), last night we celebrated with an end-of-the-year RUF party at our place.


Due to the rain and chilly weather all day, our outdoor cookout was forced inside.  (though thankfully it cleared up just before the party was beginning, as you can see out the window)


But that still didn't stop us from having a good time.  Eating, talking, throwing frisbees, an intense whiffleball game in the backyard, a group game in the basement... good times.


We love having a house full of these guys...




And the next morning... Reason #247 for having children.  (ha ha!)

not a g'day, mate...

We got some disappointing news the other day:  Our Australia trip this summer is officially off.

Not enough students signed up to go, so MTW (Mission to the World, the missions agency) had to cancel the trip altogether.  While we were initially saddened at this news, we are resting in God's providence.

Since we had seen this coming on the horizon, I (Amy) thought of a way to begin preparing Caroline for the bad news one day.

"Mommy?" she said from the back seat of the car.
"Yeah, babe?"
"Can we go to Baltimore again?  I want to go to the aquarium."
"Ooh, I loved going to the aquarium in Baltimore.  That was SO fun, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, Mommy.  When can we go?"
"Well, hmmmm.  There's a chance we might not be able to go to Australia this summer."
"Why, Mommy?"
"Not enough students have signed up to go so far.  So if it works out where we can't go to Australia, then maybe we could go to Baltimore instead."
"YEAH!"

Okay, easy enough, I thought.

So when it came time to officially break the news to her, wouldn't ya know the first thing she said was:

"We can go to BALTIMORE!!!!"   (ha!)

Baltimore / Australia.  You know... minor difference.  :)

Thankfully our disappointment has been covered with a greater sense of God's providence and guidance for our family.  Honestly, just the hope and planning of the trip alone was so good for me, if that makes any sense.  I was forced to face anxieties I usually suppress.  And just the excitement of having it to look forward to got me through many emotionally desolate days.  For that, I am thankful.

Even if the trip itself isn't to be.

In other news, we finished our final homestudy visit today!, and our social worker is rushing to complete our homestudy by May 1st before new adoption laws are enacted in Virginia.  Then we'll order our adoption profile book, (the one we showed you guys) send in $2,000 birthmother fee, and officially be in the waiting pool!  (which means at that point, we could literally get a call at any moment.... OR be waiting for years...)

And yes, I guess secretly we are hoping that God's providence of NOT giving us the Australia trip is because He might have a new little one to join our family very soon!, but only He knows.

He writes our story.

"I may not know the way I go, but oh, I know my Guide."  -hymn, "His Love Can Never Fail"

destiny?...

"Mommy, I can't wait to touch a FLUTE!" I (Caroline) kept saying all week.

The days passed soooooo slowly as I eagerly anticipated going to Mommy's symphony concert ALL week. As part of an initiative to attract more families to come out to the symphony, they were going to have an "instrument petting zoo" before the concert. (Hence, my constant talking about touching FLUTES...)

But when we arrived, and I was all ready for the big moment to touch a FLUTE... behold! What did I see??

An itty bitty 1/16th sized violin, just my size!

And from that moment on, it was ALL violin.

Touch a flute? Eh, I'll stick a thumb on it. But that little violin sitting in its little case behind me on the table is calling my name...

I love this thing!

Try a trombone slide? Oh, okay.

Now where's the violin?

You see, I've come quite a ways on my TOY violin at home, as Mommy's showed me how to hold a violin and take care of it. But I have never been allowed to play on a REAL one!

Until now. This was a huge deal. And now perhaps Mommy's seeing a real violin in my near future...

(I think proud was an understatement...)

Daddy shot a quick picture of Mommy before the concert began... I sat SO still the first half of the concert, but was much less than stellar the second half...

Afterwards, Mommy took Leah & me up on stage and let US pretend to play in the orchestra! (we are using our umbrellas as pretend violins) he he!

Though I didn't come out of her tummy, it's like it was meant to be. :)

adoption photoshoot...

We are so, SO grateful to one of our graduating senior RUF gals, Sarah, for taking some beautiful pictures of our family to fill up our adoption profile book. If you happened to take a look at it, you saw that these MADE the book! What a gift these pictures are to our family!

Here are a few of our favorites from the photoshoot:

(This one's my personal favorite)

Birthmommy Megan said she liked this one of us being bears. :)

Close up bears! Roar!

But by far, the best picture of our crazy little family was this one: