Author Archives: admin ***Disclaimer:). This is how WE have been led–and what WE are learning. EVERYONE is led differently–so this is just our story and works for our family. We will all be led in different ways as we seek and trust and follow Him. So…that’s my disclaimer for what it’s worth. I get emails asking how we […]  If you know us–we are always looking for a reason to celebrate–and THIS reason we thought was worthy of a CELEBRATION! It’s official. Today we have been home 1 year!!! SO–we decided to invite Isaac’s friends over and family and CELEBRATE! We have come SO FAR in 1 year!!! This time last year we were […] Makes my heart swell – love!! happy one year home, Isaac!!!! Can’t believe it’s already been a year! What a cutie and an adorable family. God is so good!! i wouldn’t say you spared us! i think you’re just teasing us by not posting! ha 🙂 congrats!!  AS IF our family isn’t already making crazy changes in our lives year after year after year–we have yet another one ahead! At the beginning of every year, my husband and I sit down and have a little “state of the family address”. We share things on our hearts for our children. Review the past […] can my kids come to your school?!!!! looks amazing! So happy for you! The room looks amazing – I know you are going to do a phenomonal job teaching them! What a great opportunity. It will be one of my greatest regrets in life that I didn’t homeschool my children. Love the school room. Congratulations! I can taste your excitement from here. Your room looks amazing and I am super excited about the letter writing. I too, am trying to raise writers. We try to have something to send 4-5 times a week. Finding people who will write back is tricky, but my kids have received enough notes to stay encouraged about sticking with it. :-)I am excited to follow your adventure! Andrea…first of all, that picture is TOO funny! I can’t believe you actually went out and found a “homeschooler” outfit! I love it!! =) Your room is AMAZING! I am so glad you are homeschooling because I know you will have so many awesome ideas that we can all borrow!! You are going to have SO much fun! It really is such a blessing to have them all home. I’m headed to IKEA next weekend to get some stuff for our room, too. Now I have some great ideas (thank you!) Welcome to the wonderful world of homeschooling! So much fun. Much to discuss my friend. 🙂 I did a double take when I saw that picture of the homeschooling outfits! I was thinking I might have to fly over there for an intervention! I have the same Ikea bookshelf with the same orange boxes. We use the big ones for costumes in the playroom. Love your homeschool room. It ALMOST made me want to homeschool. But, alas, I am too social a butterfly to spend that much time at home. PS- Hobby Lobby jars are fun! I’m using them to organize our craft supplies. So excited for you. Although it’s a tough job at times, homeschooling has so blessed our family. We will be homeschooling 5 of our 6 children next year and I’m excited to see what the Lord has in store for us. Have a great year! jessica So excited for you! I began homeschooling about 2 years ago. I have loved it. It has really drawn our family closer together. If you need curriculum suggestions just ask. I am so excited for you friend! I knew you were destined and I’ve been expecting this post for some time now 😉 You will make an excellent homeschool momma….. of all the callings on my life, homeschooling is the most challenging and my absolute favorite of all. It’s not always easy but I could not imagine doing life with my kids any other way. You are going to love it. Praying for you 🙂 PB I am amazed that you’ve had the time to work on this room, take care of your kids, and start a new adoption!! You must have superpowers…jk!! I love the homeschooling room…I hope to homeschool my 4 when they come home. Looking forward to getting some tips from you. P.S. we have the same natural baskets from Ikea in our entertainment center(from Ikea)…we like Ikea too! Congratulations on your decision to homeschool! Our family will be starting on this journey as well this year and we are super excited. I will have one in kindergarten and third grade. Your classroom looks awesome!! Great job!! Never been to IKEA..going to have to check them out..love that desk!! 🙂 WOW! That room looks phenomenal! Can you teach my kids too? Me too, for that matter! Best of luck and God’s blessings on your new adventure! You’re a stronger woman than I am! I’m sticking to the idea that our public school needs my children to be the “salt and light.” Girl – congratulations!!!! It’s a crazy journey, but seriously, has that every scared you off before! 🙂 We are starting our 5th year homeschooling and waiting for our referral and travel dates to Ethiopia that will most likely fall right in the middle of the beginning of our school year! 🙂 Had this been my first year, I would be panicked, as it is – not a bit! God has called us to both and will make a way! Confident of that! 🙂 READ READ READ together. PLAY GAMES TOGETHER! ENJOY THEM and learn along side of them! We were finishing up the story of Nate Saint together yesterday and I wept while trying to finish the story. The kids are used to this kind of behavior from me so they weren’t caught off guard. However, I thought to myself, I think I enjoy learning through this home school thing as much as they do! In all seriousness – amazing the results of heart tending throughout the days! Congratulations! I am sure you will be wonderful!:) We are entering our third year of homeschooling with four littles–7, 4, 2, and 7 months in tow so we can relate a little to the path you’re taking. You won’t regret it.:) Welcome to the crazy life!!!! I’ll be so excited to follow your journey! And I think I have that very same jumper in my closet:) JK We homeschool too and know lots of families who have adopted who homeschool as well. The two seemed to go hand in hand so well. I’m sure you will do an excellent job at it and being able to travel with your husband when he goes on his trips is a huge bonus. I rode to the Created to Care retreat with the woman who is moving there from Knoxville and we talked about homeschooling a lot during the drive down. So fun to have such a huge community of adoptive parents, who also homeschool, and “get” what you are doing and why. And we got our referral a week ago for our daughter so we’ll have a little one home too to shake up life with 5th and 7th grade boys. So excited for your family! Wow!!! That is awesome, Andrea! You will be the best homeschooling mom!!! And I love their “learning space”…it’s perfect! Woohoo!! So excited for you! I’ve also been working on our homeschool room (as funds allow) and have been having a blast with it. Definitely interested to hear what curriculum you’ve decided on! I’ve also been having a ton of fun with that 🙂 You’re going to love homeschooling! We have homeschooled since 2004. My children are now 11 and 9. We use a literature-based unit study approach. It’s called Five in a Row. Congratulations, too, on Isaac’s finalization. I remember both of our children’s day in court. The judges were thrilled, too. In a year, you will be wondering why you didn’t start homeschool earlier! I promise. It’s such a natural extention of parenting!!! For us- our focus has become learning God’s word, exploring HIS truth, and memorizing scripture. After that- everything else falls into place. Starting our 9th year of homeschooling and wouldn’t change a thing. Your relationships will be blessed beyond belief. I’m so excited for you! Your homeschool room ROCKS! As a former public school teacher, I would have loved to have that classroom! :c) I can’t wait to follow your journey this year. Oh and please post about the curriculum you’re choosing…definitely curious and interested! Andrea…you definately should have worn your hair in a bun and put on some white keds for the picture:) He-he! We love, love homeschooling….and our entire house has pretty much turned into the “school room”…..maps and graphs everywhere! Can’t wait to see all of the ideas you give us! And if either of you kiddos want a pen pal who will write them back each week…..I volunteer my 1st and 2nd grader:) Finding other kids to write them back is kind of a challenge! Hi Andrea, I am not sure if you “know” me or not….but we adopted our daughter Olivia from AGCI as well and I have been following your blog for a long time…I may have commented a few times before. Anyways we are leaving to become missionaries in Ethiopia at the end of the month and I was wondering if you had already filled your 16 friends for your letter writing project? I would love if our kids could be pen pals if that is what you are looking in to doing. It might be fun to send letters and pictures back and forth. Let me know what you think! deedee.aarseth at sim dot org DeeDee Your room looks awesome! I homeschooled our boys for 6 years and it was wonderful. We felt the Lord leading us to put them in public school this year (4th and 7th grade) and they did GREAT! We were always “one year at a time” as well and God of course is so faithful in answering, leading and guiding our decisions! You’ll do GREAT! Yeah! Welcome to the Wonderful World of Homeschooling! And WOWZER…. I LOVE the class room! If you can get to a homeschool conference before the school year starts, it can really make a huge helpful difference! Blessings, Denise HI! I came across this post when I googled for basement-homeschooling rooms! LOL! I LOVE your room, and admit, I am a little envious, as we could never get that much finishing done with our basement, but we ARE trying to cosmetically touch it up with what we can afford and do. So, your room has been inspiring and I have to add…I have that SAME SIGN with the verse but mine is above our couch, on a shelf, in our living room. I LOVE it and specifically purchased it just a couple months ago. I love Hobby Lobby too..it’s a fantastic place for unique finds! Your family is beautiful! Blessings! Andrea- I LOVE your school room!!! It is perfect. God has certainly gifted you with creativity. Thank you for sharing this with us! I love the ideas. God will give you an incredible year with your kids! Hey! I stopped over from topmommyblogs.com and then I saw this post and realized I’ve seen your adoption video on youtube! Small world! I’m preschool homeschooling my boys right now, and plan to go through high school. Such an adventure. look forward to following your blog!  We raised our right hands. I cried. Isaac gave the judge a high five. (Doesn’t the judge look happy???? He said adoptions are the highlight of his work…and our crew made his day! We also used up a lot of sticky notes from his desk letting the kids color on them…and I never knew how […] I remember the exciting time this was last year… what a beautiful way to celebrate it this year!!!! Love that picture!!!!! :):) Love it. so happy for you friend. makes me think back to when we had our court day to officially becomes our Isaac’s parents! Praise God! He is faithful! So special!! Congrats!!! Praise Jesus! I know this is all so sweet and exciting for your family. Enjoy your party…you have all earned it! YAY!!! So excited for ya’ll!!! I know it’s great to celebrate such a huge milestone!  Today (Wednesday) is Isaac’s big re-adoption day!!! We’ll rise at 6am–get everyone…YES! Everyone has to go…all dressed and ready for the courthouse. We’ll raise our right hands–and Isaac Temesgen Young’s adoption will be full and finalized…and he’ll become a U.S. Citizen! Please pray everything goes well!!! And I hope I remember my camera to remember […] As the mother of a little girl with special needs I completely and wholeheartedly agree. Kate has taught me to love in a deeper more meaningful way. Each smile from her is precious…when she says “Mama”, oh how my heart melts…for that is the one and only word she says. She turns 4 this July and only began walking a few months ago. My husband and I feel blessed for we will forever get to experience Kate as innocent as one can be…a child. Her spirit and life has touched more people than I can tell you. Yes, our days are long and sometimes very difficult…but if she can smile after having her 8th seizure of the day, or she can smile in the midst of being in the hospital for yet another EEG or test…oh, what joy can we find in living!!! Praying for you, friend. I know that God has a destiny for you far above what you can imagine. I wouldn’t want to go back to life before my Kate…God has made me into a new person through her. 🙂 I know I have mentioned my baby brother Stephen to you before. Stephen in now 14, and his list of special needs is so long it is hard to remember them all! I was 15 when Stephen was born, and so many people told my mom he would “ruin” the rest of us kids….we would be bitter and resentful that he had been born and how dramatically our lives would change. Well, he did “ruin” us, but not in the way they thought. My other siblings and I are not afraid of having children with special needs, we see every life as sacred and every day as a gift. Stephen cannot talk, he only makes LOUD, constant “hollaring” noises. He will have to be fed and diapered every day of his life. Though doctors said he would never even sit up, at 9 years old he took his first step. Oh, and he is getting to the “nightmare” stage. He can open doors, but has no concept to not go walking off into the road. (On more than on occasion my parents have made desperate calls to the police when they have “lost” him….when he has opened the door and left!) My parents house is totally rigged for him. They will never be empty nest, it is almost impossible to find someone to babysit Stephen so they can go on a date….and should he outlive my parents, I will become his caregiver. My mom once told me that if she could ever “choose” just one of her kids to have, she would choose Stephen. (And not because she doesn’t love the rest of us:) She says Stephen’s life has taught her the love of Christ like nothing else could have. We are like Stephen….helpless, needy, “unloveable”….and yet Christ died for us. Stephen has never said a word, yet many have come to know Christ through him…..or more accurately through my parents love and care for him. My mom describes it as “Hard, yet wonderful.” None of us would trade the hard for anything, because then we would miss out on the wonderful. I am so excited to see the child the Lord brings to your family, and to see the way he uses this little one to impact the World for Christ! (Sorry for the novel……I could go on forever about our love for Stephen and the “blessings” of special needs:) |
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by admin
i like this. thanks for sharing. great perspective!
Andrea, I am a single college student who is NO WHERE near to being a parent, but I have always felt a sincere calling to be a mother. Whether I am a mother to kids from different countries, kids from down the road, or kids that come straight from me, I KNOW that the lord will bless my parenting endeavors. It is encouraging to hear about the way you and your husband parent your children. I have been learning so much lately about the Lord and his way of life and I have been wrestling with the idea of how to parent my future children. All I can do is read the bible and pray to our God to direct my steps. The beauty of this blog world is that without ever meeting someone you can have an impact on their lives. You have truly impacted mine over the past year or so that I have been reading about your family. Praise be to the Lord our father that he has directed your steps and grown your family in HIS way. Your life is a light in the darkness and all glory be to God for that! Thanks for sharing!
Andrea this is wonderful. As the years go by I am more and more excited by what I call Parenting in the Spirit. Such freedom and excitement to partner with the Holy Spirit in walking with each child through each stage according to God’s heart! He has so much to say about these lives in our care–so much wisdom we can access for the little and the big things in their lives and our life as a family.
Thank you so much for this. As someone who nursed on demand,let their child wean when they were ready, and who has always shared our bed, this just confirmed what felt right in my soul. As he ages I am struggling with the discipline and I appreciate what you have shared. Thank you.
This is exactly what I needed to read today after answering a million questions about cocooning, cosleeping, ect. Thank you thank you thank you for always being an encouragement to other moms and for always pointing us to Jesus! You are a light, Andrea!
This really spoke to my heart today. I have such an eclectic style of parenting that I don’t rely belong to any sort of philosophy. Also, our kids need different style of parenting at different ages, but they are always loved and respected. Now that we wait for our two adopted kids to join us, I look to the Father for guidance for their needs. Thanks for your openness and honesty.
Love. I was so scheduled with my first child, too. With my second, I just can’t put her down long enough to schedule her. I still wear her and she’s almost two! I was so worried with my oldest about him becoming independent and not too needy. How selfish of me! Now I’m more concerned with how to keep them little just a bit longer.
Andrea, I LOVE this post, and I really feel that it is where God has been leading us during the two years that we’ve been parenting our little guy. Thanks for sharing your heart – you always encourage and challenge me at the same time!
Thank you so much for posting this, Andrea. We adopted our sweet twin daughters a year ago (our first children), and I’ve been pulled here and there by books and other families and I feel like my head is spinning. Your words made me feel some freedom to just follow God and my mommy heart. So much of cultural parenting strategies go completely against that intuition. So appreciate your heart!
oops, I put the wrong website before!
haha, did it again. I think mommy brain is taking over! 😛
I appreciate this post so much. As we are preparing for our home study visit we have been reading and studying on different parenting techniques. This really touched our hearts and helped us realize that the books aren’t the only way! Thank you!
So refreshing for me to read, Andrea! I have been on a similar journey, and so thankful for every day that God teaches me something new…parenting has led me to the cross more than anything! Thank you for sharing what God has taught you, and in such a real, loving, and non-judgemental way!
I LOVE this post and couldn’t agree more! 🙂
Andrea, I have read your blog after I saw your link on Wes and Nina Mullin’s blog and I just never commented before. (Sorry about that! haha) I am a mom of one sweet 5 year old girl and I love this post. I get so tired of seeing the influence of culture and how when we contradict it, many people really bristle and become defensive. My prayers lately have been that I go to the Word for our family’s decisions and to not allow society or even our friends to affect them because ultimately it is MY responsibility to seek God’s will for our lives and His will for us is not going to be the same for everyone! Thanks for this timely post that has blessed my heart this morning! 🙂
Love! I was once a by the book parent…or thought I was going to be…and then the Lord gave me my Kate. When you have a child that is autistic and has seizures…you can’t parent how “you thought” you were going to parent. I have to go to the Lord. While my husband and I were teaching the book “Created to Connect” we realized that we had strayed from how we felt led to parent. It’s amazing how much you can discuss with an 18 month old. My days are so much sweeter not constantly putting a little one in time-out or fussing at her. Many of the things parents get on to their children…are quite beautiful to watch in children. They are only little once–savor each and every moment! 🙂 Really grateful to have your words…I look forward to your posts in the morning with my cup of coffee! 🙂
Thank you for sharing!!
Well stated, perfectly written, couldn’t agree more, Andrea! Thinking of you as you prep for Zambia!!! Can’t wait for your updates and photos. =)
Thank you for sharing, that is beautiful. I needed to read this today. Today I was tired, exhausted, hubbie has been gone for awhile on business and my patience was low…I had my mess ups today in being short. I appreciate the reminder and I strive to act and speak slowly at all times. Today I did not seek God when I woke up and I did not ask Him for help today…I am sure all would have gone differently if I did. Now to refocus and go to God before I go to bed.
Love your post! 🙂 Thanks for sharing your thoughts and perspective.
which is why spanking is SO much better than time-out, usually! It’s quick, it allows for quick repentance & reconciliation, and it’s done. It’s Biblical. It’s very God-like, though His spankings are way worse than mine ever are (think Miriam-leprous for 7 days, Moses- kept out of the Promised Land, the Corinthians abusing the Lord’s Supper-fatally ill). Check out this wonderful sermon: http://defendingcontending.com/2009/02/11/sermon-of-the-week-child-training-by-voddie-baucham/
PS- much of the world “attachment parents” by necessity, not design. Doesn’t make it right or better, just how it is.
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