10:11 a.m.

Still no call yet.  I can’t even function.  I’m just walking around the house finding little things to do…waiting for my phone to ring.  This is ridiculous.  I do have errands to run, but it is pouring rain outside…and COLD.  I guess I’ll bite the bullet and head out for a while.  Maybe Starbucks will take my mind off things.  🙂

**hopefully my next post will have answers!**

~audrey

(7:01 a.m.)

Here we are, Friday morning, still no word.  I got about 25  phone calls yesterday asking if we’d heard yet…so…yes, my heart raced and the knots gathered in my stomach every time it rang.  Oh well.

I figure, this is a pretty big deal.  And my God loves big surprises.  So why not make me wait one more day right?  It will be SO worth it!  I’m praying for the call to come this morning!  Not sure I can take another 5 or 6 hours of waiting.  Ahhh!

Once again, I’ll post as SOON as I hear.

~audrey

(12:40pm)

I called my supervisor earlier to see if she knew what time the hearing was scheduled for.  She did not know the time but said she expects to hear from them today OR tomorrow.  What?!  Yuck.  I’m still holding out hope that we’ll hear something TODAY.  How in the world am I going to sleep tonight if we haven’t heard anything?

We’ll see.

Only four more hours left in the DFCS work day.

~audrey

(8:20am)

I can’t believe this day is finally here!

This is going to be torture.  Every time my phone vibrates or rings my heart will race until I see the agency’s number.  Then my stomach will turn to knots as I try to read her tone of voice as she delivers either really great news, or really disappointing news.

Since, of course, I’m leaning toward really great news, I’ve got to decide on some girl names!!  We’ve been told by several families who have “fostered to adopt”, that we can “call” the children whatever we’d like and their names will legally be changed when the adoption is final.  The reason you go ahead and start calling them by the names you choose, is because it could take up to two YEARS for the adoption to be final and by then the children will be 2 and 4!  If the two year old is already close to three, we will likely either leave her name as is or simply shorten it somehow.  For example, we have friends who adopted a little girl at birth.  The birth mom had given her the name “Lamiracle”.  Oh my.  While “Lamiracle” was in a temporary foster home for a week or so, not knowing what the adoptive parents would name her, the foster parents called her “Mya”.    Not a bad alternative.  I’m hoping for an option like that.

Because there are safety issues involved, I’d really rather NOT leave their names as they were given at birth.  We’ll see.  I’ll keep you posted.  The FUN  thing is, whatever we decide on, I can POST IT ON MY BLOG!!  Since they won’t be their legal names for quite a while, it’ll be fine to call them by their ‘new names’ in my posts!

Isn’t this the perfect picture of how Christ chooses us, adopts us, and calls us his own?  Our past life no longer matters and we get to move into the King’s house free of charge and all of the King’s promises become our own?   My heart just leaps as I allow myself to think of how different these girls’ lives will be if they join our family.  The privilege of raising godly little girls into women of God.  Women who will treasure whatever God calls them to be.  Women who will be godly wives and mothers.  Just thinking about the relationship I have with my mother and imagining what it will be like to have two daughters.  It’s overwhelming.

I’ll post something as SOON as I get news.  Please pray.

~audrey

I can’t believe it.  The past two weeks have gone by relatively quickly and tomorrow is the big day we’ve been waiting for.

Will we have two new little girls in our home…possibly for forever.

I could hardly even sleep last night just thinking about it.  I have Bible Study today, church tonight, and Joshua has music tomorrow morning, so that should keep me busy enough to keep my mind half way focused.

I went to the grocery store twice yesterday, armed with coupons and all the insider info on Publix’ BOGO deals.  At the end of the day I totaled my two receipts.  I bought $115 worth of groceries and only spent $43!!!  I’m seriously getting the hang of this now and I can’t wait to do it again.  It is so silly how excited I am about this Sunday’s paper.  Proctor and Gamble puts out a ‘coupon book’ only a few times a year and it will be in THIS Sunday’s paper.  I know I’ve said it before, but if you want to try “this coupon thing”, go to Southern Savers .  The very best deals are typically at Kroger and Publix.  All the groceries I got yesterday were from Publix!  To think I used say Publix was the most expensive place in town!  Ha!

Have a Wonderful Wednesday!

~audrey

Thanks to the ice and snow in the Nashville area over the weekend, Lindell Cooley was able to stay here for the entire weekend, so he preached on Sunday.  He taught on the subject of having a lifestyle of sacrifice.  There are five realms of sacrifice:

1.  Sacrifice of Praise; giving the Lord your all in worship.  Do not offer the King of Kings something that cost you nothing.  David danced before the Lord until everything but his underwear fell off!   Jesus paid the ultimate price on the cross.  Are you praising Him like He deserves.  Do you “praise” your favorite college football team louder and more enthusiastically than you praise your Heavenly Father?

2.  Sacrifice of Good Works.  We all know that good works do not get you into heaven.  However, good works can and do show the light of Jesus to those who don’t know him.  Good works for those around you must get you out of your routine…otherwise, it’s not a sacrifice.

3.  Sacrifice of Fellowship.  This one hit me hard.  I mean, I love my church and I love my church family, but I also tend to get a little bitter when my children see their daddy more in the evenings at church than they do at home.  I got upset when my husband told me that if Little League interfered with church, Joshua couldn’t participate this year.  What?!  That’s ridiculous! (I thought).  But not according to this sermon.  Are we not called to be a ‘cut above’ everyone else?  To raise our standards a little (or a lot!)?  Godly fellowship is not always a social convenience.  My fellowship with other believers will and should cost me–even my TIME.  Americans tend to be extremely jealous of their time.  I know I am.  I’m jealous of my time that I spend schooling my children.  I’m jealous of my time at church.  I’m jealous of the time we spend at home as a family.  Yep, we’re jealous of our time alright!

4.  Sacrifice of Giving Financially.  God calls us to give our first ten percent.  Not what’s left after you pay bills.  Not 9.8 percent so you can go ahead and pay for Johnny to participate in little league.  Our first ten percent.  I’ve seen first hand how God blesses my finances when I give obediently.  There have been times when I would put an extra $15 or $20 in the offering plate (above our 10% tithe) and it was amazing to see how God would return that to us times FIVE within 48 hours!  I’m not exaggerating!  I would get a call the day after church from a friend of a friend of a friend who wanted me to help them with something (cleaning, organizing, babysitting, whatever) and they would pay me way more than I would’ve expected.  On a normal week in a normal month, we would not have had that income, but God was blessing our generous giving.  Luke 6:38 says,  “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full–pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” I loved how our pastor said it last year:  “If you pour out in the measure of a thimble, God will return it to you in the measure of a thimble.  Wouldn’t you rather pour out in the measure of a DUMP TRUCK!?  I would!!  Wow, I’m preaching to myself this morning.  🙂  Be a cheerful giver and watch God bless you for it.  Are you struggling financially?  GIVE and watch God bless your finances.  I cannot stress to you enough how much tithing effects your finances when you are a believer.

5.  Sacrifice of a Disciple; living for God to the point of not needing people to like you.  You have to be willing to sacrifice your reputation and care more about what God thinks than what people think.  Ouch.  I  like my friends.  I like being liked.  Even more so, I don’t like it when I’ve made someone upset, or have been misunderstood.  I have to get my focus off of myself in order to fully focus on the Lord and what He wants me to do in the area in which He has placed me at this time in my life.

Well, I think that’s enough for one day!

Have a Terrific Tuesday!       …two more days!!

~audrey

Since beginning Financial Peace University, Josh has become much more involved in our finances.  Up to this point in our marriage, I’ve done everything when it comes to our finances.  Some people think it is the “man’s job” to take care of the finances, but I’m the more organized person in this equation, on top of being at home and enjoying keeping track of our budget, so I’ve always done it.  With that ‘responsibility’ also came a little freedom due to a lack of accountability.  If I wanted to stop at Starbucks three times in one week **GASP**, I could.  If I didn’t plan for dinner and needed to drive thru somewhere to pick up dinner on the way to church, I could!  Now…not so much.  Josh is checking our online banking almost daily.  He likes to plug it all into our budget and make sure things are balancing and we’re sticking to our “Cash Flow Plan”, as Dave Ramsey calls it.  🙂  This has surprisingly been a nice change for me.  I know that I cannot drive thru Starbucks or Chick-fil-A without getting a phone call, “Honey, did you guys eat out this morning?  Was that in the budget??”  Without a doubt, we are going to save a lot of money now that every dollar we earn has a name and a place before our month even begins.  Dave Ramsey recommends the zero-based budget.  It’s genius really.  Basically, you create your budget based on your income, your bills, needs, savings, investments, etc, etc, and your total at the end of your budget should be zero.  That means, if your normal budget, after bills and everything, leaves you with $327, you need to find or create a place for all $327.  Even if it just means you create a section called “Blow Money”, which is what Ramsey calls your spending money.

It is important that you stay accountable for every penny you make.

I like it!

I know exactly how much cash I can put in my “grocery” envelope, and now it will be a fun challenge to stay under budget this month.  If we have money left over in the “grocery” envelope at the end of the month, we can either go out to eat or roll it over into next month’s groceries.

I’ll write more on this later.  I need to get a certain potty-training-two-year-old up from his nap and PRAY that those freshly washed sheets are still dry!

~audrey

Down another 1.5 lbs. for week four. Now that my soreness has subsided and our fasting is over, I’ll get back to Jillian next week. 🙂

Things are looking good for next week. I’m still praying that those girls will be in our arms by the weekend. I’ll know more on Thursday or Friday. Please keep praying!!

Josh and I have had an excellent, kid-free weekend. Worship Friday night with Lindell Cooley was awesome. He’ll actually be at church with us this morning because of the massive snow and ice in Nashville, so that is exciting. Josh and I had a great day together yesterday. We slept in until 10:30 (holy moly!!), had a very late breakfast and went to the mall. We almost NEVER spend money when we go to the mall. We just love to window shop and walk leisurely through all of our favorite stores.  Last night was Josh’s company’s annual party.  It was at a cute little place downtown called “Casa Blanca”.  It’s cute because it is in the lower section of the old White’s Building and now it’s called Casa Blanca (white house).  We had a fun time with his boss and coworkers.  What a blessing it is to work with people you like and love what you do and actually enjoy spending time with your coworkers outside of the office.  Indeed, we are blessed.

We pick the boys up this afternoon and have one more little sha-bang before our weekend ends.  We’re going to a couple’s house from church this evening after our Financial Peace class.  There will be other young(er) adults and married couples there and we’ll have finger foods and lots of laughs I’m sure.

Thank you Lord for weekends of intense worship, refreshing laughter, and sweet times with ones we love.  You are a good, good God!

~audrey

I have several friends who have gotten into hard core “couponing”. They head to the stores, armed with their wads of coupons and knowledge of where the best deals are, and they check out with 37 items and a grand total of $2.49 due out of pocket. I’m not there yet.

However.

I have begun.

Last week, I bought not one, but two, Sunday papers and saved the Smart Source and Red Plum inserts. I will be doing that weekly. Then, last night, I realized we were really needing snacks and breakfast items, so I went to SouthernSavers.com and found that Kroger had the best deals for what I was looking for. I pulled some of my coupons from the Sunday paper and printed some from the internet (Southern Savers tells you which coupons you need and gives you links to the online coupons that you can print). I made my list strictly based on what was on sale. This was my bounty:

$46 worth of groceries for $24.

Everything I purchased was ‘name brand’ and, divided up evenly, it came out to $1.71 per item. That’s excellent! Chex mix alone is over $3/bag. That big box of popcorn was originally $5! See? I’m getting more excited just telling you about it!

I had to call my friend Mary to make sure that I really had scored a deal. She confirmed that you should ALWAYS shoot for 50% or higher in savings, so my 50% savings was indeed a successful coupon-using shopping trip. Yay!! To be honest, I was quite intimidated. But come to find out, it was SO easy and now I just can’t wait to find more deals and go buy more cheap groceries. Southern Savers suggests stocking up on items that are at rock-bottom prices (like your favorite box of cereal for $.75).

It is definitely going to take a little work and effort to get some momentum going, but I feel like I’m off to a good and encouraging start. I really need to make a list of things that we use most often and also a running list of things that we need as I run out of them so I know what to be looking out for.

GO to SouthernSavers.com. They spell it out for you in the simplest terms. They even have some video tutorials on how to get started. BUT, wait until the kids go to bed or down for a nap, you’ll need a good hour to rummage through all the great info.

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day Four. Owen is doing great. Second morning in a row that he has woken up dry. He still won’t tell me when he has to go pee-pee, but he does hold it until I take him to the bathroom every 45 minutes or so. Progress, I suppose. A weekend at Nana’s should be interesting. I’m sure he’ll do well.

Tomorrow is Friday!!

~audrey

Last Sunday was our third Financial Peace University class. I’m really enjoying the classes and the books, but most of all, I’m SO thankful that we’re learning these very important financial principles while we still have time on our side. We still have over thirty years before ‘retirement age’. However, if we do exactly what Dave Ramsey says, we can put our middle class money to work in our favor and be millionaires a few times over by the time we’re 55….not to mention having lived most of our adult life completely debt free. That makes me very excited. Even more exciting: we have the privilege of teaching our children these principles NOW so they don’t make the same mistakes and bad choices that mommy and daddy have.

Dave Ramsey encourages the envelope system and it’s really quite simple for children. They have three envelopes: Give, Save, and Spend. Anytime they receive money, they put some of it in all three. We’ve decided to start them out at 10% in their giving envelope, 10% in savings, and the rest in their spending envelope. Joshua is almost seven and he already has a clear understanding that he is responsible for his first vehicle. That is what his “savings” envelope is for. However much he has saved by the time he is 16, Josh and I will match that and he can use it to purchase his first car. Ramsey said his third child really grasped the fact that Dad really did match what the children saved, so by the time his youngest turned 16, she had saved $8,000, and was able to buy a $16,000 car WITH CASH at the age of sixteen!! How awesome is that!?

Joshua emptied his wallet and counted it all up.

Grand Total: $5.49

He created his three envelopes.

And placed $.56 in “Give” and “Save” and the rest went in “Spend”.

I had to go to the grocery store, so Joshua asked if he could bring his spending money with him and buy himself a “Color-Shifter Hot Wheels” car.

I knew they cost about $3, so I said ok. Ramsey says it’s very important to let them purchase things by themselves, with their own money. It just doesn’t quite have the same effect when you allow them to give you their money and then you just throw their purchase onto the counter with yours and you pay for it all with your money. It affects them differently when they hand their hard-earned money to the cashier in exchange for what they chose to buy. Joshua LOVES games. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that before. My kids are GAME FREAKS. After Christmas, we re-organized the game closet and tallied a total of 26 games. Well, Joshua found a ‘travel’ Battleship game at the store, for $5.97. I specifically told him, “You have tons of cars at home. Why don’t you wait until next week, after you’ve had a chance to “work” for Nana and Grandpa and earn a few more dollars, then you can come back and buy Battleship instead of a $3 car.” He decided against it and I had to accept that.

He’s completely satisfied with his $3 hot wheels car. They are pretty cool. 🙂

On another note:

OOOOUUUUUUCCCCHHHHH!!! I am SO stinkin’ sore this morning!! I was so incredibly out of shape the first time I did my Jillian Michael’s video. I took so many breaks, I don’t think I did enough to even get sore. BUT THIS TIME. OH. MY. GOODNESS. It hurt to get out of bed this morning. The muscles in my back and surrounding my ribs hurt, so it hurts to take a deep breath, laugh, or even cough. On top of all that, our church is fasting this month. Everyone has chosen different ways to fast. Our pastor said, a “true Biblical fast” is giving up food, so Josh and I have worked gradually into our fasting. The first two weeks we gave up breakfast, the third week Josh gave up breakfast AND lunch, but I stuck with just breakfast. However, we’re in the final week and we have a big worship event coming up on Friday with Lindell Cooley.

So we’ve both taken the FULL plunge this week. I haven’t had a bite of food since Monday. I think I’m getting over the worst of it and have been drinking lots of Naked Juice, so that has helped with the cramping and hunger pangs.

All that to say, yesterday was probably NOT the best day for a hard core workout. I will rest today and work out again tomorrow. My lunch meeting at noon today should be interesting. It is with ladies that I go to church with, but obviously they plan to eat lunch because we’re meeting at a new restaurant in town. I’m afraid if I eat even a salad, it will make me sick. I’ve had some intestinal issues **IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN** as a result of the fasting. Clearly I’m in a serious detox mode right now and I’d rather not make it worse, so I will bring my little bottle of Naked juice to lunch and hope they don’t make too much fun of me.

I’m SO excited about this weekend! The boys are heading to my parents’ house on Friday. We have Lindell Cooley Friday night, a day in the country on Saturday, Josh’s annual company party Saturday night, and dinner with friends on Sunday night. We haven’t had a weekend this exciting in a long time. 🙂

Eight more days until we find out about the girls. Please keep praying!

~audrey