Ready?!

I grew up with an awesome dog. His name was Cozmo. He was a small, spunky, genuinely "human-like" chocolate lab who absolutely loved his life. He loved to swim, walk and eat. So simple. Not only did he have a vocabulary of 1,000+ words; he was the ONLY dog who could tell the difference between your bra and underwear and a bikini. Your "walking" shoes and your flip flops. The sound of a shopping bag of clothes and the distinctive crinkle of the foil wrapped around a bean and cheese taco. Cozmo passed away last summer where I'm sure Jesus is yelling, "REAAADDDDDYYYYY!" sending our Cozmo flying, toenails clawing to assume position as he launches himself off the rocks and into blue water. It's a family joke now and I don't think any one of us will be able to spend an afternoon swimming without hearing it in our minds. REEAAAADDDYY?! It did not matter what he was doing. He could have been dead asleep on the patio but as soon as the word was said he was IN the water.

I wish I had Cozmo's readiness to leap even when I'm not sure where I will land. And now, here we are...The point where we're literally a toenail away from launching ourselves off the rocks and into the blue. I can't lie and say that I have had no fears or reservation about having two babies in my life. I have the normal mommy doubts. Will there be enough love and attention to go around? Will Allie girl feel left out (My biggest and most sad fear.) Will I have enough energy to take care of two? Surely. My mom had two. Her mom had 3! Both of these women seemed to "have it together." I know it's totally normal to feel this way. If there were a baby growing in my belly right now I would feel no different.

None of these fears, however, have been sufficient enough to take away my excitement for what is to come. Since our agency closed... Yep, you read me right. They just up and closed their doors weeks after accepting our application and first payment. We had a few emotions about that. Disheartened to lose so much money right out of the gate. Disappointed in our decision to use this agency. And confusion about where we go and what we do next.

I don't know why I am always surprised that things seem to happen just at the right time... As if they are acts of God. (Duh.) The week before our agency closed we studied the topic of trusting God in Bible Study Fellowship. Particularly Abraham's trust in God when He changes the "plans" on him. 2 weeks before our agency closed I received an inquiry for my first newborn adoption session. After talking with mom about adoption, the door was opened in my mind to a domestic foster-adoption and I remember thinking, "I might want to do this at some point in my life."

So when I got the call that our agency had closed, I was not really surprised. But more amazed at how God had "set me up" to receive that news. I graciously accepted a change in plans because I could not help but think of Abraham's willingness in times of what must have been mass confusion. And my mind immediately went to fostering to adopt because of the conversations I had with a sweet new adopting mommy. The amazing thing is, Josh mentioned it first. "What about fostering to adopt?" I never thought I would hear those words from him because just a year before, we had sworn off the risky option of fostering. It was obvious that both of our hearts had been changed on the topic and the fear was then replaced with total excitement for our new direction.

We will be fostering to adopt. We'll be completing our home study in a couple of months and our education by the end of the summer! Everything is moving much faster than with international and we will be certified to accept placements by the fall.

In the meantime life has been busy in the Peterson house. Allie celebrated her first birthday on January 12th with friends and family. I cannot believe she is already one. She has since started walking and is now all over the house! I love to hear her bare feet on the wood. She says "Uh-Oh" "ba--" (ball) and "do-" (dog), night night, bye bye, Mama, and Dada. We are ever so proud of her little accomplishments.

One more note. Fostering to adopt is nearly free. The state practically pays you to do it. We have received such generous donations from people in the last 2 years for our international adoption that we do not feel it is right to keep it. We will be donating every bit of it to Heartland Children's Home in Boerne in the name of the Boerne (and beyond) families who have opened their hearts to support the orphan. Thanks everyone!!!

Nikki, Josh and Allie P.

Click!

So it has definitely been a bit too long since our last post and we’ve had a lot of people ask us if we are still adopting since we now have little baby Allie. I can say with absolute surety that YES!, we are absolutely still adopting. Granted, having Allie when we did was not exactly according to plan but if we’ve learned anything through this process it’s that God does not care what you think your ‘perfect’ plan is but rather He knows what your perfect plan is. We have learned to trust and abide by His plan while putting off our ‘perfect plan’ because life doesn’t always happen that way.


Allie has greatly enriched our lives and further fortified our desire to adopt. Over the last 7 months, we have watched her grow, learn things, have lots of fun, meet new people, see new things, be upset, be happy and adapt to her new life in the world. There were definitely some late, long nights and some early mornings when it was easy to question ourselves as parents and wonder if we were doing it ‘right’. However, during those nights when I was up holding Allie while she cried or while she slept on me, my mind often reverted to the thought or where my son was at that moment. Being the man’s man that I am, I instantly teared up at the thought that no one was there to hold him, comfort him, give him a bedtime bottle or rock him to sleep. It breaks my heart to think that there are so many orphans in the world, over 200 million, that do not have a parent to care for them and make them feel special. We know when Allie cries that she needs something and it’s always something simple that she needs and we can fulfill it easy. However, when you read about Eastern European orphanages, you find that they are severely understaffed and not able to provide for the needs of each child. Children don’t have the benefit of bedtime stories, cuddling or even clean diapers because there simply aren’t enough hands to go around and help out. When I think about that it makes me want to do everything possible to get Dane in our arms as fast as possible.

Throughout this process, Nik and I have been focused on bettering the life of an orphan, our child. As we have researched countries, agencies, funding, etc. we have begun to realize that as much as our future son needs us, we need him. God made us for each other and he has selected a little boy for us out there in the world that will enrich our lives in ways we could never imagine. We only hope that we can return the favor to our little man.

Just as an update, now that Allie is 7 months old (most agencies require your kids be at least 6 months old) we feel God pushing us forward in our adoption and telling us to get a move on! We are planning on adopting from Eastern Europe and have narrowed down our agency to either Little Miracles or Adoption Ark based on which country we end up adopting from. No matter where or when, one thing that doesn’t change is the need to fund this operation. We’ve been saving and raising money over the past year and half; we can never adequately thank those who have made donations to our adoption! The outpouring of love and support has been amazing to see and we have truly been blessed by all of you. Thank you all so much! We have raised about half of the funds we need and we have a goal to be 100% funded by the end of the year. With that goal in mind, we have launched a new venture to help us fund our adoption….



We’re proud to introduce ‘Click! Photo Booths’ as our new, exciting endeavor/fundraiser for Dane! Nikki and I have been to a few events over the last couple of years where photo booths were used and have always marvelled at how awesome and fun they are. We talked about starting this business about a year ago and somehow became distracted with other things. Since Nik is such a talented photographer, it’s a natural extension of her business but also a fun way to reach our financial goal! Our plan is to use 100% of the profits from our rentals to fund the adoption until we are fully funded =) The booth is excellent for birthday parties, weddings, corporate events, rehearsal dinners, etc. We have had so much fun setting this up together. This is the first business adventure we have taken as husband and wife and our common goal of getting our son home has made it that much more exciting. Our first booth itself is truly awesome... Thanks to the designing talent of my beautiful wife. She sketches, I build. We’re interested in delivering the full package, all the way down to custom event graphics printed on each strip. So look us up on Facebook or on the new website click-photo-booths.com for more information and help us reach our financial goal by the end of the year!

Our good friend Christie and her fiance Bryan were married this past weekend and we were able to give our new booth a trial run at the wedding. Here are some shots of all the fun we had!

We are planning our home study for November of this year. Thanks to everyone again for the support and prayers! We are in awe of the power of adoption and how it has moved through our community. We congratulate our friends and lifegroup members the Bakers and Fickeys as they have made big strides towards their own adoptions in the past few weeks. We know there will be many more families to follow. If you’re interested in adoption yourselves, they have also started an adoption ministry called Reclaimed to walk with families through the adoption process. They’re meeting on Thursday nights and I know the Bakers or Fickeys would love to give you more information about it. If you haven’t already, you should check out their blogs, here and here, and read all about their journeys.

-Josh

Patience

Patience: Quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care. 


This is the definition of patience as it relates to my experiences in motherhood so far. "Even-Tempered Care" hit it spot on as a matter of fact. I have never been a patient person. My clients tell me on a daily basis, as I am molding their newborn babies into photo worthy positions inch by inch as they sleep, that I "must be the most patient person in the world." Negative. I have a temper, am a bit of a control freak and am often grouchy and just plain mean when things don't go my way. Ask my husband. He knows. Which is why I am feeling continually surprised, if not completely in awe of my display of patience over the last 18 weeks towards my ever-changing and sometimes challenging daughter. You'd be impressed mom. When things get messy (literally), loud and downright crazy, It's with quiet and steady perseverance than I am able to make it to bedtime. She is teaching me things I never thought I would learn. Things I never thought I was capable of learning. Patience has many other definitions. This definition...


 An ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.


Is another virtue my darling daughter has gifted me. Long before she was even a bun in my oven. We waited for her. We prayed for her. We waited some more and more and more. We got angry and mad and annoyed and restless and then... One day it stopped. It's exhausting, you know. To pour so much into something you can't control. So we took a step back from ourselves. We felt peace and calm and thankfulness for what we had. We were still waiting, but were willing to. And then... As if she knew we were ready for her, she came down from her little spot in heaven to us. Oh, beautiful girl! What felt so long was suddenly timeless. I will not pretend to know the plan of God in our lives. But I have no doubt that patience is something He wanted us to learn before we embarked on our journey of adoption. I hear it takes awhile. Yes, yes, this might be true. But if there is anything we have learned, we know it will be worth the wait. 


We're EXCITED to test our patience. Bring it. We've got a goal set for October 1st 2012. It's a monetary goal a.k.a. extreme patience tester. But we are excited to challenge ourselves. And when we reach it, and I know we will! We'll finally rolling on this adoption journey! 

Alessandra

Months have passed since our last blog post... about 9 to be exact. One month after our second miscarriage we found out that we were pregnant...again! What a circus ride. Of course, following our second loss, we assumed we knew for certain now what God had in mind for us. But as we are always discovering and never finished learning, we don't know at all what God is up to. Our third pregnancy came with plenty of emotions. Absolute dread and fear were at the top of my list. I was terrified of the disappointment I was sure was coming. To my surprise and our joy, that little bean kept growing... and growing and growing! And on January 12, 2012 a beautiful 8lb 10oz baby girl was born into our eager arms. We named her Alessandra. Defender of humanity. And that is our prayer for her. That sh
e would grow a heart for all people and show God's love to the world.

She is pure joy. A lot of work, a lot of sleepless nights and tired days... But when I look at her, I can't help but see a beautiful miracle. God's promise, our faith, a life lesson right there on her face. We intend to raise her in a way that reveals God's amazing love for her and His world.

Late one night, as I went to get Allie from her crib for that 2am feeding, I found her so wet that she had soaked through her pj's and her swaddling blanket. It broke my heart that she had been laying like that for who knows how long. I changed her diaper, wiped her down and put clean clothes on her. I sang her, "you are my sunshine," I swaddled her in a clean blanket and while she ate, I rocked her and I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Honestly, I didn't expect to be thinking about adoption again this soon after Allie was born. But there I was in tears at the thought of the countless babies in this world who depend on the love of an adult that simply is not there. As a new mom, I want to be the one that rescues her. From a nightmare, from a pain, from a soaking wet diaper. Some people want to know if we are still planning to adopt since we now have Allie. More than ever the answer is YES. With more urgency than ever before, we want our son home.

A New Day

A new day, a new feeling. It sure seems like every day is bringing new feelings lately. Often times I look in the mirror and I do not even recognize the person looking back at me. The truth is, I believe that's what God wants. To change me. Even if it hurts like hell. He's molding me into the person I was meant to be. Remember a while back when I said that we were ignoring the command that He was so perfectly and loudly screaming to us? Well, there is nothing like a big bump in the road to throw you back off track again. Drowning in self pity and sorrow will surely cause introverted selfishness. Yuck right? Today I heard him saying, "Alright guys, I know you're hurting, but it's time to get it together. I have a son coming soon and he is yours." Quite literally I felt that kind of urgency... Like, he's nearly here. Unborn and nearly in this world; sensitive, helpless and without us. Time to make another push. So where do we stand? Unfortunately, finances will always define exactly where we stand in our adoption process. However, I'm excited to announce that since January 1... And with the help of some amazing people who want to see this dream become a reality for us and our baby boy, we have saved $9,610.00. We are still a ways away from our goal of $15,000 before signing the papers and beginning our home study, the first step in our 6-8 month adoption process. I am now working on different fundraising ideas to close the gap so we can finally get started! I am asking for your help to spread the word about our puzzle fundraiser. We are nearly 1/3 finished and I know we can get it done in the next few months with your help. I'm so thankful for you. For your prayers, and your thoughts and your help. Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts for following our story and taking an interest in our journey. We cannot wait to celebrate you with our precious baby boy. Here is a sweet video of a family from San Antonio who adopted their son in 2007! I thought I'd share it so ya'll could see what we will be doing in what I hope is a short time!

Space for Miracles

Good morning friends! I hope you all have been having a good week. It has been awhile since my last post... There has been so much going on here lately that time just seems to fly without me realizing it. It's going to be an exciting weekend!!! One of my best friends in the whole world is marrying her college sweetheart on Saturday. I remember the week leading up to my own wedding so I know she is just besides herself with excitement. On the 21st, Josh and I will celebrate our 2 year anniversary. I think the second year went by faster than the first... And I'm sure all of the years after this one will go by even faster! I am so lucky to be married to the man of my dreams who loves me with all of his heart. No matter what comes our way, we're blessed to have each other and I am certain we can get through anything together. We were reminded of this simple truth again this month when we experienced our second miscarriage. If there is one thing I am learning about life and God and the plan He has for each of us, it's that no matter how hard we try, it is impossible to understand the many facets of God's strength, love and grace and of course, the incredibly complex plan He's carrying out one day at a time. As people, we can't help but try to fit His plan into our personal schedules and timelines. When that pregnancy test turned positive for instance, I found myself saying outloud, "God is giving us this baby because of our obedience to Him. He is giving us more time to save and more time to plan and He's allowing us this JOY in our life in the meantime!" Well it made perfect sense to me. So when it was taken away, I couldn't help but feel punished, cheated and defeated. Why do we do that to ourselves? And why do I pretend to know what God is doing in my life? He is not punishing me. He's making me a stronger person. He's not taking JOY away from me, He's creating a new and greater opportunity for it. As hard as it is at the moment, I know He's working in our hearts and He's creating space for miracles. I was listening to KLove the other day and they were featuring a book called 'The Cause Within You' by Matthew Barnett. The book is about finding the one great cause you were created for. It talks about Space for Miracles... That's the impossible distance between something you were meant to do and what we are capable of doing on our own. The space between is God's space and we can't close the gap without Him. I honestly loved that mental picture! It gives me so much strength and hope to know that those things I consider impossible like being 9 months pregnant or paying for an adoption, are indeed absolutely possible with the Lord. It's this truth that reassures me that one day we will pick up our child from an orphanage carry our baby home. And that one day, we will bring home our sweet newborn too. What's a miracle without a little opposition right?
I love the verses in 2 Peter 3:8-9

'A day is like a thousand years to the Lord and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn't really being slow about His promises, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. '

I know that Peter is taking about salvation and the return of Jesus in these verses, but these words also help me to understand that God's timing is perfect. And that He doesn't see time the way we do. When He acts, the moment will be perfect and everyone will know that it was His miracle.

Let's Go Boerne!

So here is some pretty exciting news... We have 18 pieces to add to our puzzle. (Thanks Rachel and Jordan for your donation this morning!) It should be easy adding them in since I have nearly half of the puzzle together and sitting aside just waiting to join the rest! (Impatience kind of got the best of me these last few days.) I'll post pictures of the new additions soon.

Here is even more exciting news: Together with the Fickey family, we are getting geared up for an event that is going to shake Boerne. Our hope is that it helps in a big way to bring our babies home sooner and that it leads more families to adoption than ever thought possible. If you haven't already heard about it on Katie's blog, here is a little information to get your started.

Now for all of you non-runners out there... Let me tell you a little bit about myself. My husband is an Ironman. When he was training he ran 30 miles, swam 5 miles and cycled 120 miles per week. My idea of a workout was 2 loads of laundry and a dirty skillet. I mean, who wants to come back from a jog and proudly tell their Iron-husband that they ran a whole mile! (Which I would have been so proud of by the way.) But I've started... With Iron-husband's help, I am wogging 3.5 miles, 3 times a week and I'm so proud :-) Josh is too... Although he may be snickering at me behind closed doors, he seems pretty sincere. We're even talking about doing a 5K in the spring which is just crazy talk for me... I'm not the 'organized fitness' kind of gal. But I've realized that it's not about where you get yourself moving or how many people are in it with you, it's just about getting out there and doing it! So throw caution to the wind and come join us on May 14Th! There is still plenty of time to prepare if you are bound and determined to run the whole thing. I promise, if I can do it so can you. Click here and you can see the plan I'm on right now. And if you need even more motivation to come join us, here's the word that keeps me running through a cramp..."bikini."

So please, spread the word about One Less and come join us in the fun this May. We really need your help. God has shown Himself in some amazing ways regarding this event. We've received some extremely generous donations to help us get it going. We just know He is in charge of this race and we're eager to see what He does with it. We have a feeling it's going to lead to more than just 2 babies making their way home.