I expected the debate to go on for another week, the doggy name debate, that is.
But, then the breeder sent me an email late Saturday asking what the puppy's name was, and rather than have her suspect we may be unfit puppy parents with not yet having decided on a name, I pressed my family, "We have to decide!"
We had pretty much narrowed it down to two names anyway. And by this morning all 3 of my children and my husband were in agreement (amazing!).
The new puppy's name is . . .
Madeline!
Yes, you do pronounce the end "line" not "lynn",
I know, I know, a bit fussy of a name for a dog, but:
we do like human names for our dogs,
our last dog was Isabella,
Madeline sounds a bit like Caroline, no? (compromise with a 5 year old girl is no small feat!)
we love the Madeline
books (you know "In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, live twelve little girls in two straight lines. . .") and recently saw a Madeline play,
and the little girl Madeline has reddish hair just like our little puppy!
we've always got the option to call her "Maddie" if Madeline gets too cumbersome during training,
and it's way better than "Doggy", which the 3 year old suggested!
It's been a crazy busy week, something every night, which is unusual for us. We try to keep things at a calmer pace, but several things just happened to fall this week. We've had things at our church and things at both the preschool and elementary school. But, on a positive note, they've all been events that involved dinner, so I haven't had to cook since Monday!
I have, however, re-washed a load of laundry that was run through the washer and forgotten about for two days, added baking soda to the 2nd wash cycle and thankfully it all came out smelling fresh!
The debate over the new puppy's name continues around here, my daughter, of course, wants to name her Caroline because that's what she wants to name everything. We have Caroline the doll, there was Caroline the Caterpillar that turn into a moth, and it is a name contender for the new baby sister. So, I said to my daughter, "I thought you wanted to name the new baby sister Caroline, we can't name the new dog Caroline and the Baby Sister." She asked, "Why not?" She has absolutely no concept why that would be weird!
Happy Friday, Friends!
My 3rd child has this zest for life that is really inspiring to me. The zest is always loud, usually messy, and has most definitely contributed to my graying hair, but I do admire the way he does life in a big way.
For example, a few days ago we were walking down a long sidewalk to pick up my two older kids from school, it had rained all day long and was still raining. My 3 year old was wearing his rain boots and literally tried out every puddle along the way, even hiking up his jeans well over his knees so he could really jump and splash in the many big puddles. His jeans were soaking wet, but he had a blast! I wish I had my camera for the really big puddles, I had to settle for capturing his re-enactment once we got home.
Life often gives us puddles, big ole ones right in the middle of our path, are we gonna complain and tiptoe around them trying to keep dry or are we just going to jump right in with both feet and make the biggest splash ever?
Find more
Thankful Thursday here.
I've been attending a new Tuesday night Bible study. And Tuesdays were already our crazy day. I pick the 2 older kids up from school and we go straight to swimming for all three kids, then home for a quick dinner and homework before I take them with me to the church where I have the Bible study and my husband meets me there from work and we switch cars (I admit that sometimes it really feels good to hand-off that car-full of kids!). I head into my Bible study and he drives to my oldest's basketball practice.
So, after all that, what does my house look like when I get home from Bible study?
Two thoughts I had as I gazed at the reality of my kitchen:
1. I'd take His Word over a clean kitchen any day.
2. Were these children raised in a barn? The coats and shoes were thrown on the floor rather than put on the proper hooks and shelves that are two feet away!!!
What does your Tuesday night look like?Find more
Wordful Wednesday,
Wordless Wednesday, &
Not So Wordless Wednesday.
I've seen them.
The baby beds in the foster care center where over a hundred children reside right now.
Stuffed beyond capacity the care center is.
And from the pictures of families who've gone before, I've seen them.
The cribs that house 3 babies with a dividing wall between each one.
Three sections to the one unit of a bed.
And it's not that there is anything particularly terrible about them.
It's just that I can't stop imagining her there.
My daughter.
There, instead of here. At home. With her family.
I wonder what she's doing, what baby or early toddler phases she's going through that I'll never see.
And there are so many, so many babies there with families waiting on them here.
Families that are ready and willing to drop anything they're doing and fly to the ends of the earth at their own expense to bring those babies home, if only given permission that they could.
I've asked God, "Why?" many times. It just doesn't seem to make sense. What good could possibly come out of these delays? It is common knowledge that the more time a child spends in an orphanage the worse it is for them.
But then I study it, really looked at it, unlike all the times before.
The interaction between Jesus and His half-brothers in John 7:1-10 when they were telling Him to go to Judea for the Feast of Booths and verse 4, "show Yourself to the world." They wanted Him to go public with who He said He was right now, according to their timing. Verse 5-6b goes on, "For not even His brothers were believing Him. Jesus therefore said to them, 'My time is not yet at hand,"
If I'd been a half-sister of Jesus I'm afraid I'd have been doing the same thing. I mean if He was really the Messiah, why not go public with that info. sooner rather than later?
Would more people have been saved, healed, or converted if Jesus had began his public ministry sooner than age 30? He was crucified a mere three and a half years later.
But, God's timing is always perfect, even if it doesn't make sense to us. After all, God invented time.
Jesus knew it was not the right time! He was there when the universe was created. There was a divine plan that began unfolding from the very beginning of all time, and the plan would end with salvation for all who believed.
Without God we would have never been led to this adoption journey, without Him we could never have afforded it, never gotten through the paperwork, never endured this much waiting. I must trust Him with the rest of the story. I must focus on Him even more than her.
Psalm 27:14
Wait for the LORD; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.
Isaiah 40:31
Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.
Find more
Gratituesday here.
My kids have been praying for a new dog.
My daughter's kindergarten journal prompt on Friday was, "I wish". She wrote, "I wish for a new dog."
We spent a good part of last week perusing Petfinder.com and much of Saturday driving to various shelters and rescue groups around our city in the hopes of finding a new dog, a dog who needed a family just as much as we need a dog.
Obviously we are a family that loves adoption, redeemed lives, and I really wanted to find our new dog at the shelter, but we didn't.
What we did find were tons and tons of pit bulls and pit bull mixes, which I'd never consider allowing near my children. The force at which they jumped up and hit their pens barking at us terrified my 2 younger kids.
We wanted to find a young girl dog, preferably a puppy, who'd grow into an adult dog of 40 lbs or less, a breed or mix of breeds that typically do well with children.
But, all the puppies were going to be really big dogs, like german sheperds and rottweilers, and all the small dogs were around 8 years old. Having just lost a dog and going through several expensive senior years with her, we're ready to begin with a young dog and looking forward to several good, playful, healthy years.
We did find a little rat terrier girl puppy, only 6 weeks old and so cute, you could hold her in the palm of your hand. But, she was likely only going to grow up to be 8 to 10 lbs and we worried that a dog that small may not fare well in our house of 3 or 4 young children. How terrible would it be if one of the kids accidentally smushed the puppy or dropped it and injured it badly?!!
So, we decided with our specific dog criteria that is required right now in life with small children, we'd better go the breeder route. And we're so excited that we've found one with the absolute perfect puppy for us!
We haven't seen the puppy in person, yet, only pictures, because the breeder lives a few hours away from us, but we know enough and trust the breeder, so we've reserved a puppy who is a little over 6 weeks old and we'll be able to bring her home in less than 2 weeks! She is a mini goldendoodle -- a dog that is a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle. She's a second generation cross, meaning both her parents are goldendoodles. I had a poodle that was my 7th birthday present who lived 19 years, I also had a golden retriever as a teenager, so I'm very familiar with both breeds and can't wait to see the combination! Our puppy is considered a mini and she'll only be 25 to 35 lbs. at maximum adult weight. Goldendoodles have wonderful personalities, very smart, great around kids and typically either non-shedding or very low-shedding due to the poodle genetics! She and her 7 litter-mates are seriously the cutest puppies I've ever seen - - blondish-reddish-apricot coat color with a slight curl to it.
I'm so thankful to have these happy pictures posted in our house now, to be debating dog names amongst ourselves. Such a blessing to the five of us as we grieve the loss of our Isabella dog and wait what sometimes feels an unending wait for the Baby Sister from Ethiopia.
One of those precious pups is our new baby! And that baby girl is coming home very soon! Can't wait to hold her!
Oh, and the best part? Her breeder family that she lives inside the house with has 5 young kids, even a 3 year old that interacts with her regularly, so this little girl is already used to a chaotic, kid-filled house!
My 3 year old's vivid imagination was back at it this morning, but instead of being a baby bird I needed to feed worms, today for some reason it was all about hatching eggs. As in, "Mommy! Come see! The baby chick is hatching! Quick cover it up to keep it warm!" And there he'd be curled up in a tight ball and then suddenly he'd pop up - hatched! By 7:55 am I'd already hatched a chicken egg, a penguin egg, a snake egg, and a crocodile egg!
What can I say? It's a glamorous job!
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Speaking of the 3 year old, I found his new habit of falling asleep on the floor in the hallway during naptime really cute,
until today, when he had a pee-pee accident while sleeping! Now why I don't just put a diaper on him at naptime like we do at night, I have no idea. I guess that would be too easy. Most likely its stubborn mommy syndrome that thinks he shouldn't need diapers at all any more because his big brother and sister were completely done with them by his age, but the little dude? Is a heavy sleeper!
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I found this in my bed recently:
thankfully it is not a real mouse/rat-like thing, but just Num-Nums my daughter's Zhu-Zhu pet. Even so, the electronic hamster will be booted out before I sleep there, I'm not sharing my pillow with anything resembling a rodent!
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I have done many Beth Moore Bible studies where we watch her on video along with discussing the lessons and they are always phenomenal. But, I'd never seen her live until this week. And y'all? It was something! She was fabulous and the place was a sight; imagine a large Southern Baptist church completely filled with women (as in not only did the worship center fill up but there was overflow into the chapel and fellowship hall). I kept commenting on the shear number of women all in one place to my friend who is a veteran of the Beth Moore live Bible Studies and I'm sure she thought I was a nut. But, really it was amazing, awesome, and a little eerie all at the same time! Beth Moore announced that the church had run out of toilet paper and I don't doubt it. We women can use some t.p.!
I went to print off the homework for next week and had to laugh, it's 24 pages! Only Beth Moore can ask a grown-up to do 24 pages of homework in a week! I'll do it, somehow, and be all the better for it!
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Gotta go help my husband track down which of our roughly 12 smoke detectors is doing the high-pitched, low-battery beep!
Happy Friday!
