Tuesday's Best: 5 DAYS!!!!!

shred the paper chains and delete the countdown app...  you will now only need one hand.

WE SEE OUR KIDS IN 5 DAYS!!!!! 

we only connected for about 45 seconds worth of skype time today, and after no skyping for 3 weeks due to new years and christmas day falling on tuesdays this would normally completely depress me.  but not today.  today i am packing suitcases and planning schedules and printing boarding passes and praying i don't get pee'd on 3 times like our last visit.  it's a letter 'p' kind of day around here.

the twins showed off their new shoes, mohamed attempted to read to us, and mamie had a brand new 'do.

cannot.  wait.  to.  hold.  them.

'p'eriod.

new kicks

this face.  THIS face.  adore.

swoon.

haPPy tuesday's best.

xo,

m

Tuesday's Best x 2

oh heeeeey!  it's me!  i'm back!  

i've been moving, hence the hiatus, and it is safe to say that josh and i will be living in this house until we croak.  i am never ever ever (taylor swift quote) packing or lifting or unpacking or organizing or, let's be honest, dusting crown molding again.

but now i have internet again.  after 6 hours with the comcast guy it is nothing short of a christmas miracle.  so we can continue talking about our 'yes' conversation tomorrow and i can show you tuesday's best photos like an annoying mom. 

last week we were missing two very big things for our usual skype call.  

1.  josh 

(he was in vegas for work and no child should have to talk to their parent when they are 5 days deep in vegas.)

2.  gerald's front tooth!

yep.  gerald fell and knocked his front tooth so loose that it had to be pulled.  he was INCREDIBLY embarrassed about it and when i told him he looked handsome he turned around and started to cry!  poor baby.  just about broke my heart.  his tears caused me to start crying and everything just went downhill from there.  i was a super sensi mess the whole time.  pull it together soldier!

i did, however, manage to choke out an introduction of my friend, meesa, who was there skyping with me.  well, actually we were at her parents house because they live just down the street from me and had internet and breakfast sandwiches on white bread oh my glob is there anything better?

no josh, no tooth, lots of tears, and meesa.

mo showing his guns to meesa.  lady killer.

the toothless wonder.

so that was last week.  this week josh was back, but now three other things were missing.  mamie's teeth!  holy dental work batman.  we've lost 4 teeth in 1 week.  just wait until josh and mine start falling out.  maybe we can get a 6 for 1 special on dentures?

zero front teeth.

matching outfit twin love.

gerald practicing his fanning skills.  told him i'd need them when i visit in january and its 110 degrees.

i pulled out the guitar for the first time in a year.  i was totally a hit.  famous.

a little qt with the bigs today.

happy tuesday's best!

m

Tuesday's Best

i miss them.

terribly.

blurry is the most beautiful thing i have ever seen.

6.

father daughter.

teaching deen the sign for 'i love you'

twin profiles.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Cry

i didn't get to skype with g&g today because the orphanage didn't have an internet connection.  that means i'm at three whole weeks of not seeing or speaking to the babies.  that also means that by the time next tuesday rolls around it will have been a solid month since we have skyped.  not cool, orphanage.  not cool.

i had a mini meltdown this afternoon.  instead of being grateful for all of the times that a third world country has had an internet connection that's allowed me to see my kiddos i pouted over the small handful of times that they didn't.  instead of being grateful that i will be on a plane to see the twins three weeks from tomorrow i teared up over a mom that was picking out a book with her daughter in a bookstore.  instead of giving myself a pep talk that included phrases like "pull it together, soldier!" and "that kid was bratty you wouldn't want them anyway" i leaned against a shelf in the history section, where i obviously stood the best chance of not being seen by another human being because history books are b-o-r-i-n-g and very few people want to read them much less buy them, and cried.

it wasn't my finest moment.  it wasn't the best i've felt in awhile.  it didn't make me proud of myself.
but it was honest.  and i needed to let it out.

so here goes...

today i am sick of looking at families with their kids and i'm sick of feeling the responsibility to either help raise $35,000 or feel the burden of 96 kids again being without a home or family (can't even begin to talk about this one today, will get to this nasty road block tomorrow) and i'm sick of not being able to buy my kids anything because i don't know if they'll be too old to play that certain game or read that certain book by the time they are officially mine and i'm sick of this new important life and miss my old selfish one and i really really really miss shopping and spending silly amounts of money on myself and my closet and my god i need a pedicure before the bottoms of my feet scrape through my flip flops and i'm sick and damn tired of being the kind of girl who just cries in bookstores at the beach. (oh yeah, at the beach.  because only i could stand in the middle of paradise and whine about my life being so rough)

i, seeking sympathy, texted an adoptive mom-in-waiting friend of mine who told me that yesterday at 1:30pm she ordered a whole papa john's pizza, answered the door in her robe, and devoured it in bed by herself.  

it made me feel better.  and jealous.  but mostly better.  but i love pizza.  but better...

days like today are exactly why we shouldn't judge people by single encounters with or stories about them (right? please say yes and cue the full house danny tanner 27 minutes into the episode hug music).

xo,

m

Gerald and Geraldine

today is the day.  today is the day i can finally talk about these beautiful, perfect little nuggets i've been posting about.  remember when i said it was bigger than country music award show hair?  i bet you're gonna believe me...

one night in october i couldn't sleep so i spent the night online researching different orphanages in africa that i could volunteer at.  the next day i had lunch with my bestie, melissa spillman.  turns out she too had africa on the brain.  the day before she had lunch with 2 women from spring hill, tennessee who founded an organization called the raining season (TRS) that runs an orphanage called 'the covering' in sierra leone, west africa.  melissa asked if i would be interested in taking a trip to the orphanage with her someday.  i cried in my greek salad and said yes.

fast forward a few months and i am now a mother to twin two year olds that were taken in by the covering.  yep.  read that again.  mother.  to.  twin.  two.  year.  olds.  due to the atrocities of human trafficking there has been an adoption ban in sierra leone since 2009.  this means that in the foreseeable future none of the children at the center will be placed in permanent homes.  to counteract this TRS started the forever family initiative.  a forever family is matched with each child/sibling group to provide emotional, spiritual and financial help to these kids for the rest of their lives.  we are, essentially, a family that just doesn't live together.  we skype weekly.  i can visit the center as much as i like but am required to visit at least once a year.  and i have every intention of bringing my sweet babies to live with me the very moment that ugly adoption ban goes away.

i'd like to introduce you to my favorite little nuggets.  meet gerald and geraldine :)

so, i am a mother to twin two year olds.  if that doesn't produce an instant anxiety attack i don't know what will.  but the steady anxiety attacks have given way to heart bursting amounts of excitement that are only occasionally sprinkled with anxiety filled moments.  and the anxiety filled moments have given way to tremendously overwhelming periods of faith.  and the periods of faith have shown me what it feels like to be a follower of God.  and it turns out being a follower is the biggest, bestest, most awesomely powerful thing that i have ever experienced.  turns out... i like what i look like as a follower.  i like what it feels like to say yes with my whole, terrified heart.

i have an entire box of clothes sitting in my office that i will bring with me when i travel to see them in july.  i spend nights scouring blogs of anyone who has ever taken a trip to the center in search of baby pictures of g&g.  i have been known to watch a 7 second video of gerald waving for 45 minutes straight.  my mom put their faces on a coffee mug.  my dad adds every tuesday's "best of" skype photo to his screensaver at work.  they call me mommy.  i call them little man and baby girl.  they are mine.  i am theirs.  we are a family.

we are a family.