Olivia is a budding little artist...and at times she is a budding little delegator/manager/boss telling mommy where to draw Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato. I am now currently an expert at drawing Veggie Tales characters!!! She is developing her own skills, however, as you can see her version of Larry on the bottom right of this drawing. She loves to draw, paint, color, glue, stick, and any other kind of craft thing you can come up with.
Now you may be wondering why I chose to post pictures of this particular drawing when we have dozens more of her solo masterpieces. To be honest, I hadn't planned on posting these pictures, but family members have requested to see this particular one and I figure this is the easiest way to do it. Besides, amazingly enough it is the only picture we have of Olivia since we came back from Disney World, and I wanted to write a brief update of how we all are doing. But, back to the drawing first...
Olivia was quietly giving me instructions on how this particular masterpiece should look...Larry up here, Larry Boy down there, Larry Boy needs feet, Larry's holding junior, Bob's looking at Larry, etc...when she suddenly picked up a crayon and wrote "o-l-i-v-i-a" on the top of the page. I was literally stunned!!!! We hadn't been talking about her name, nor had I written it down for her to look at (though we have done that frequently in our drawing times together)...she just spontaneously wrote it out!!!! She hasn't done it since, and I doubt she'll do it again any time soon. It's kind of funny...it seems like when I feel it's safe to start bragging on her new accomplishments, she does something to prove me wrong. Like today, when I picked her up from Parent's Day Out her teacher said how good Olivia had been doing at going to the potty, so I said, "I know! She's been doing so great! Not a single accident in over a month and totally dry nights!!" Well, what do you know...today she had a little accident within hours of saying that. I had to laugh as I carried her down to the bathroom telling her it was okay!! She kept saying, "Uh-oh...we go peepee in the potty, not in our pants." (To her credit though, she was able to hold most of it until we got to the potty.)
So, now for our family update...exciting and busy times are ahead. JP received orders for Kentucky, and we plan on moving by early May. Our house has been up for sale now for a week and we have started searching for a new home in Kentucky. We are excited about this move because it means JP will definitely (I uses this term loosely considering nothing is ever definite with the military) be home for 2 years. We are so excited to have normal family life for at least a little while. And JP is very excited about his new job. He will be working with more of the advertising side of public affairs.
But for some reason we haven't gotten extremely excited about the new area yet. Maybe it's the thought of starting all over again finding a church, friends, babysitters, family outings, pediatrician & vet (we love our pediatrician and vet here...they know our children so well!!!), favorite parks...etc. I guess for me, if I can't move closer to family I prefer to stay where it is at least comfortable and Tennessee has definitely become comfortable. God has been faithful to us here and has blessed us with a beautiful home and rich relationships with neighbors and church friends. The move is actually only 2.5 hours north of here so sometimes we joke that we'll just commute to church, friends, the vet, and doctor (o: But deep down we know that where God plants us is where we need to firmly place our feet and do what He calls us to do. And we know He will be just as faithful there as He was here...afterall, He is a consistently faithful God!!!
One of the questions we have heard frequently since JP got home is, "When are you guys going to adopt again?" I guess the best way for me to answer this is we don't know, but we know that God knows (o: I want to share my heart with all of you on this subject because we know so many of you are excited for us to expand our family (as we are too). Right now we hear God telling us that it will happen, but as of right now He hasn't given us a time frame. Right now He has placed before us two things: 1. finding out who we are as a family again...a lot of things change after 15 months apart and with the whirlwind month of traveling right after JP got home we feel like we are just settling into a routine again; and 2. moving to a new home. It's a lot of big changes for all of us, and we feel like God is asking us to pace ourselves right now...His timing is perfect, He has a good plan for all of us, and we trust Him to work out the details. We definitely feel like God opened up this door for JP to be in a stable position for two years for a wonderful reason...just like He did when He opened the door for JP to go to Grad school for two years instead of deploying like we originally thought, and then He brought us Olivia Hope!!!! So, keep asking, and we will definitely let you know when God gives the green light!!!!! We won't be able to contain our excitment when He does!!!!!!
So, Olivia has quietly been watching Noggin while I've been writing, but I think it's time to turn off the tube (o: Thanks for listening to me brag and ramble...I pray that somehow you find a nugget or two of encouragement through my ramblings!!!!
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