My super smart girl

This morning after feeding the kids breakfast I was waiting for my friends to pick me up for our last shopping day before we move. I was sitting next to Alana and she was talking about her Sesame Street place mat that has letters on it. I asked her if she could point to the letter "A" since we have been practicing recognition of it. She pointed to the correct letter and I was so proud. Then I said, "Alana do you know what the A says?" thinking I would teach her the sound and she said "a-a-a". I was so shocked that she knew it and so moved to the B and asked her what the B said. She says, " The B says b." I thought for sure she wouldn't know any more but she we worked our way through the WHOLE alphabet and she only missed J and Y! I kept looking over at Jonah, whose eyes were as big as mine, wondering how our little two and a half year old got so smart! Needless to say, I am a proud Mama today (not that I'm never not proud). And yes, I am bragging as much as I can ;)

Our house is sold and a new one is ours!

So officially we are no longer owners of the house we are still living in and our new house is ours too! We are very excited that things finally seem to be a little less stressful and just hope that the packing, loading and moving go flawlessly. Tonight is our last home group with our church friends. It's a small group of people from our church that gets together every other week to fellowship, eat and pray. They are making us hot fudge sundays as our parting goody. It is bittersweet to leave such good friends but exciting to think of the new one we are going to make. Only 6 days left!

Learning new games

After a very busy day of two different play dates with good friends the kids were tired and ready for some down time. We got home after dinner and got PJ's on and Kai in bed then Sarah, Alana and I sat down to play some games. This is the first time I have let Alana stay up for game time and she was so excited and kept telling me, "Mama, I a big girl!" We sat down to teach Alana how to play Candy Land and I only had to show her once! She completely understood how to play after I showed her how to move the "guy" to the color on the card (which she knows). She never got the guy on the wrong color or spot the WHOLE time. Now maybe I just don't know better but I think that she is very smart for a 2 year old! Needless to say I was impressed. She never ceases to amaze me. And there is nothing I can do to claim her genetically being smart ;) When we were done (Alana won, truly) Sarah and I put Alana to bed, prayed for her and then went back down stairs to play an "adult" game, as Sarah likes to call it. She wanted me to teach her to play checkers. I told her that I thought it would be too hard for her and it did take her a while to catch on to the strategy part and paying attention to all the chekers but she did REALLY good! I did win but as I am not a very good checker player I think she will be beating me in no time.
We are all looking forward to Jonah coming home from work tomorrow. He will be off for the next 11 days so that we can have adoption day, move and get settled into the new house. What a blessing that is going to be!

The moving rollercoaster ride

This moving thing is not fun! Jonah and I have never had this much trouble buying or selling a house and can't wait till this is all over. Everything is looking like we will be able to fund and record tomorrow which really needs to happen so that we're not waiting on our new house. My girlfriends planned a shopping day out on Saturday for me as one last hurray and I am looking forward to it. I am getting last minute address changes done and organizing things to set aside so that they aren't packed away. We are trying to get extra school work done so that we can take next week off and not have pressure to do anything school related except reading, of course:) All in all I guess I am pretty lucky that I am not rushing like a mad woman trying to get packing done (the packers come on Tues.). That is such a blessing during this already stressful time.
In the midst of it all I just remembered that something even more important and exciting is happening next week. We are adopting our kids for good and for certain! What a good feeling that is going to be, sigh... Now I have to make sure I have nice dress clothes for us all to wear packed in our moving suitcases. I pray I don't forget anything;)

We sign docs today!

Things are finally starting to move along. We are signing documents today at 2 for both of our houses and should be ready to close escrow on Thursday as planned. We do have to get our papers for our new house Fed-Exed asap so that they will be at the right place by 10 am Monday morning. Pray that NOTHING will hold up that paperwork. If it does get held up it will delay closing and we don't want that to happen!
God is so good (you were right Auntie)! This has been a super stressful few weeks and through it all Jonah and I have been quoting the verse "Consider it all joy my brothers when you encounter various trials" and "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I will say, Rejoice!" Even though it was at times hard to rejoice and praise the Lord when we were angry and frustrated it sure made us feel better to know that the Lord had His hand on this situation and was working it for good. We are so grateful that we will be moving on time and can't wait to be in our new house.
Sarah has decided that the first thing she is going to do when we get to our new house is jump in the pool and then the second thing she will do is throw Mom in. I told her she wouldn't dare but she doesn't seem to care what I think about it ;) Because all of our things will be arriving the day after we take possesion of the house we are going to have a little indoor camping trip with the kids. It will be fun and we have even considered setting our tent up in the family room. We are blessed that our family is going to come and help us unpack when our things get here. We are blessed!

I want Jesus in my heart! :)

Today I was working on the computer and Alana walked up to me. She said "Mama, I want Jesus to be in my heart!" I was a little taken aback at her comment because she is so young and I didn't know where she had heard this and asked her why she wanted Him in her heart. She told me, " I want Jesus to live there cause I love Him." I melted and almost started crying and told her all she needed to do was ask him. She lifted her head to the sky and yelled, "Jesus, come live in my heart!"

Counting down

We are very much counting down to "adoption day" and today we have only 15 days left. I am taking the kids tomorrow to court in the county they were placed into foster care to meet with the judge that "gave us our kids" so to speak. There is a hearing for Alana about her possibly being a part of a native american tribe and they will terminate all tribes rights tomorrow at the hearing. This judge specifically asked for us to be there so that she could see the girls and meet us, although Jonah is working and won't be able to be there. Since we aren't finalizing their adoptions in that county the judge wanted to see where her decisions had put these precious little girls. I am happy that this is one more final step in making them "official". This judge really has been amazing. She has seen this case go through since it's inception almost 4 1/2 years ago when the kids were initially placed in foster care for a few weeks and then went home to thier birthmom. Then 2 1/2 years ago she got handed the case again when the kids were placed and has been the judge making all the decisions about the fate of these kids. I am so glad she chose adoption! Not just because I love my girls but because the situation they would have gone back to scared the living day lights out of me. I do have to say I can't wait for all the court hearings and paper work to be over with!

Moving frustrations, UGH!

This whole moving thing is definitely NO FUN! We have had a hard time with our buyers pretty much from the get go but now they are making things so difficult and it may cost us the deal. We have 8 days until the close of escrow and they want us to put on a new roof! The roofing company said that it only needed new ridge line shingles and we said that we would pay for that to be replaced but they want the whole thing done. That they asked for the roof to be replaced isn't the problem, it really comes from the fact that they have known about this for 2 weeks and right before escrow is supposed to close they throw this in the mix. This means that we are in a pickle every which way. Our loan on the new house is approved and there is not enough time to get a new loan to be approved if we don't sell this house, we are all packed and ready to go basically, and emotioanlly we were ready for the commuting to end. It really isn't very nice of them. That is all I can say. Our realtor says they are playing dirty and Jonah and I don't like that at all. Sigh, I am overwhelmed with the possibility that we may not be able to move into our new house on the 30th and may not be able to keep that house at all if this deal doesn't go through. I'm sad... I really like our new house and it is perfect for the kids.

The BIG day!

We have been told that the BIG day for our family will be on March 29th and we can hardly wait. After waiting for 2 years, 4 months and 5 days we will be able to make Sarah and Alana official Wingers AND after 1 year, 8 months and 7 days we will be officially adopting Kai. This is such a HUGE day for us as it has taken so much longer than it should have for all our children. It is kind of a no-big-deal-thing because they have been "ours" for so long and we have never felt like they weren't ours but just to have that piece of paper that tells us they won't be taken away is going to be amazing! Now I guess we are ready for the next addition to the Winger family, huh? We are praying for the right timing and birthmom to choose us but we certainly are ready!

Blessings

As we are getting ready to move it is becoming obvious that God is blessing this move. Last night Jonah was told that his job is going to pay for moving expenses for us which is HUGE! That will save us around $700 and we will have someone doing the packing, loading and unloading. Also, we are told that the family that we are buying our new house from is a foster-to-adopt family and out of the 12 houses on our block there is something like 5 foster and/or adoptive families! I am so excited that God is putting us in such a great community where our children will see that adoption is a normal way of creating a family. I feel it on my heart to possibly start a foster care and adoptive moms group that will meet once or twice a month just to get the moms together for support. Pray for God's direction in this. Only 24 more "sleeps" until we move! Yeah!

White Wonderland!

We woke up today to a beautiful white wonderland! We have lived here for four years and it has never snowed this much at this elevation, usually only a dusting that melts almost immediately. Today there is a few inches and the trees are covered with snow, I just love it! It is definitley something I am going to miss about living here but we will be driving up this way to see Jonah's parents often and they get much more snow that we do. I woke the kids up early and bundled them up to go play in the snow. Kai wasn't so sure about it all but Alana loved making snowballs and throwing them at the house. Sarah is at her best friends house and they are planning on enjoying the snow too. Just wanted to share!