Africa Cookie Cutter- LOVE!

How adorable is this cookie cutter? So, the Wallace family is another adopting family! They are adopting a little boy from the Congo as well. They have just starting selling Africa cookie cutters- and I just LOVE them! So, if you would have adopted, know a missionary friend, or just want to support another adoption, you can add this adorable cookie cutter to your cookie cutter stash! :-)

http://wordfromthewallaces.bigcartel.com/product/africa-cookie-cutter

Yard Sales, Growing pains, and Great Sermons

Hello all! So, we are now in the midst of one of the biggest whirlwinds of our lives- our adoption from the Congo. I was explaining to Daniel just the other day, how I felt as if adoption was similar to pregnancy in that, it is a LOT of work. Whereas pregnancy entails your body working overtime to grow a baby inside of you, adoption entails mounds of paperwork that only continues to grow and the overwhelming financial cost of it all. And yet, there is this sweet anticipation- this love that grows inside of my heart. It is very similar to being pregnant with Naphtali. My love for her only grew over time. My love for these two boys is growing all the same. I guess that's why many call it a paperwork pregnancy! :-) 

So, some updates! This is yard sale season around here and we have some furniture and miscellaneous items around the house we were going to sale for the adoption on craigslist. Then our friend, Jenn Sutton, an adoptive Mama herself, suggested we do a yard sale and even had some stuff on hand she wanted to donate to us. Yard sales are not a favorite in the Lawson household, but this one is becoming exciting! Our church has graciously allowed us to use the church parking lot to host our yard sale and has asked members to donate any items they are wanting to clean out of their homes anyway! We are just struck with the love and support of the body of Christ. It is so encouraging! Truly, we are blessed to be a part of a body of Christ that displays love for one another. Love, love, love our church!


So here is the info in short:


When: July 14th 8am-2pm
Where: Kenwood Baptist Church
What: Yard sale to get rid of unwanted items! ALL proceeds go towards our adoption




Come and shop and support our adoption if you are in the area! 


One last thing before I sign off here... 


Daniel and I love Heine brothers Coffee.. and we love sermons... especially sermons about orphan care right now... A few nights ago we sat down with some Heine Brothers Coffee and listed to a David Platt sermon on orphan care.


Here is a must to listen to! So good and encouraging and convicting in our lives:


RADICAL 




In Christ by His Glorious Grace,
the Lawsons

Buy Coffee and help bring our children home!

Did I ever mention how much I LOVE coffee? Next to the Lord, my husband and family, and the church- comes COFFEE. Ha ha, maybe not that strong of a love, but it is definitely a comfort in my life!

This is my love and I with our Mr. and Mrs. coffee mugs! It's a must for Saturdays!

Well, thanks to JustLoveCoffee, we are selling coffee that will give a portion of the proceeds towards our adoption. I have been very impressed with this organization. They were founded by a couple who went through the adoption process themselves (they adopted two little girls from Ethiopia) and understand what it is like to go through raising the money to bring their children home. In their first two years of business, they raised $200,000 for adopting families! 

So, enjoy a nice cup of hand-roasted, organic, fair trade coffee in the morning and know that you have helped give orphans a home!

Here is a link to our storefront! We also have a link that will stay on the sidebar of our blog. Enjoy!

https://justlovecoffee.com/lawsonfamily

With Love,

The Lawsons

We are adopting!

So, we decided to repost this on the home page! I think the blog was a little confusing the way it was set up! So, here is the repost :-)

Our Adoption

We have some GREAT news! The Lord has enabled us to start the adoption process! We are so excited about this next step in our journey as a family. We are going through Lifeline Children's Services and adopting two boys from the Congo.

Our family sending off our application to Lifeline!

We found out yesterday that we have been accepted into their adoption agency and are gearing up for our home study. Our hopes are that this blog will be a way to keep our family and friends updated on this part of our journey to grow our family. We will also post some creative ways you can support us and help bring our boys home to their forever family! 

We will continue to add to our blog information about the Congo and why we are adopting and a host of other interesting tidbits of information.  

Naphtali in her Big Sister shirt that I made!

How time flies!!! Naphtali is a toddler! :-)

My sweet precious girl is already a one year old!!! How time flies. It seems like just yesterday, I was holding her in my arms after the long birthing processing and cherishing looking at her for the first time. How good the Lord is in His design to allow us the privilege of welcoming our little Naphtali into the world almost 13 months ago!

I wanted to take some time and highlight some of the ways our dear Naphtali is growing up!

If I were to use some adjectives in describing our Naphtali (and limit myself!), it would be adventurous, sweet, joyful, determined, stubborn, goofy, musical, and loving.

 

She is learning and growing so much daily! I am loving have the joy of seeing this on a daily basis. Here are some of the ways our sweet girl has grown recently:

1) She is walking up a storm!!! I really can hardly keep up with her lately. The days of crawling are really behind us. I LOVE her little toddler waddle! 

Here is our girl in her new walking shoes (and her pretty dress!). You can even see her determination here!

2) She LOVES to be Mommy's special helper. She helps me water the plants, she pulls out the measuring cups in the kitchen and "helps" me cook, and likes to be walking right behind her Mama while the chores are being done. I just LOVE this and am going to soak it up while I can!

3) She is learning imaginative play. Right now, EVERYTHING becomes her cell phone. Here she is using a carrot as her cell phone!

4) She enjoys music thoroughly! Whether it be listening to Daddy play the guitar, watching Donut Man on youtube and dancing along, or playing all of her musical instruments, this girl hears music all around her!

Here she is carrying around her drum stick! Always has to have one handy!! :-)

5) She brightens up our home so much! Her smile just melts our hearts. She is so loving towards us and we are just so grateful the Lord gave us our little Naphtali a year ago!

"Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward." ~ Psalm 127:3

Submission is not a dirty word

I am currently taking Seminary Wives class on Marriage and Family with Tanya York on campus this semester. It is AWESOME! I am loving learning more about my role as a wife and this great beautiful story the Lord has given me in walking through life with Daniel. We are reading a book I highly recommend on marriage (well, haven't read all of it, but loving what I have read!), entitled Creative Counterpart by Linda Dillow. One thing that I am really pondering lately, is the truth that our submission to our husbands is all intertwined with our submission to the Lord. What an outstanding and convicting truth! Marriage is designed by God and we receive all that we are intended to receive when we walk through marriage as believers- and it is good! Loving living life with the love of my life. Anyways, here is the cover of the book:

Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar? Naphtali? Couldn't be!

This weekend we were thoroughly surprised by the ingenuity of our little girl. She is almost 10 months old now, pulling herself up, and crawling up a storm! In short, she is keeping Mommy and Daddy VERY busy. This weekend, Daniel and I were getting ready so we could head out to the library for a fun afternoon with the family, when we thought we heard Naphtali crying. Daniel went to check on her and came back laughing histerically! Naphtali had somehow pulled a plate of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies into her pack and play and she was chowing down! Evidence was all over her, as the pictures will testify. She had chocolate chips in her hair and all around her mouth. Overall, she was very proud of herself and VERY happy with her sugar fix! So much for my plans to hold off sugar for the first year! Ha ha... just another lesson to me as a Mommy to lighten up a bit :-)