July 23

Two years ago, this day was by far the worst day of my life. It was Wednesday. Tuesday morning I was told by my specialist that we could take a deep breath, that we'd made it out of the danger zone since I hadn't went into labor again or gotten an infection. Tuesday night Matt accepted a job offer. Then Wednesday. Everything happened so fast its a blur yet each detail is so very clearly etched in my heart.

I have typed so many words this evening, trying to express what is on my heart, but it is all so jumbled right now.

But in brief.

We miss our babies. Eli, Isaac and our precious baby girl Micah every day.

We serve a faithful God who heals the broken.

I don't know what I would do without Cavin. He brings so much joy to our lives with his cuteness and orneriness.

I am so thankful for friends who took time out of their life to spend today with me so I wouldn't have to be alone while Matt was at church camp.

Bittersweet

I volunteered to be the VBS director at our church this year, mainly because I didn't want Matt to have to do it by his self. It was June 27-July 1, and let me tell you, it was a crazy week! Our theme this year was Hero Headquarters, talking about unamed children heros of the Bible. It was perfect. What kid doesn't want to be a superhero? It was also a lot of fun, and most definitely, a lot of work! We had over 280 kids register!

Anyways, my niece and nephew spent the first part of the week with us, and they are so fun and so cute. One night while I was feeding Cavin we began talking about their new baby brother or sister who would be joining us very soon, and how there would be three kids in their family now. My 5 year old niece then told me if I had two more babies then I would have three babies just like before (referring to the triplets).

My niece forgets NOTHING. Which can be quite annoying sometimes because even if you distract her away from an idea, she'll come back to it eventually. Its nuts. But I LOVE that she doesn't forget her cousins Eli, Isaac and Micah. I love how randomly throughout the past two years she brings them up in casual conversation. I love her perfect faith and acceptance of them being with Jesus. I love that they are still in her heart.

Throughout the next week I dreamt of my babies, of holding them and being with them. They were on my mind more than usual after talking with my niece about them, and with the two year anniversary of their death approaching.

Friday morning, July 9 we headed to Columbia to wait for a niece or nephew to be born. I cried most of the way there. We drove into the parking lot of the hospital where I walked out empty handed, and I fought for control. We went inside, took the elevator up to the floor where we were two years prior, a floor full of memories that made my heart ache. I held Cavin close and shifted my mind to the forthcoming arrival of a new baby into our family.

While we waited my doctor from the triplets walked by. He is easy to spot beings he looks like Santa Clause! I wasn't sure if he would remember us, but we walked out and asked at the nurse station to speak with him. I had wanted to show him our miracle, our happy ending. He was thrilled to meet Cavin and glad to know the outcome of the pregnancy I started with him.

We waited what felt like forever and then we finally got the news we had been waiting for all day, we had a new niece, Ruth Ann!! I will never forget my niece and nephew's reaction when they found out they had a baby sister, it was priceless. They were so excited!! She is a beautiful baby girl and I can't wait to spoil her rotten!

Now, a place I always thought of with sadness has become a place I can think of with joyfullness.

Fundraising Efforts Have Begun!

Today we sent in the first of several grant applications we have been working on. We will be completing the others throughout the weekend and getting them in the mail next week. Please be praying with us as the applications for these grants are received and looked over.

Also, we have been debating several different fundraising ideas and have finally decided to do a silent auction. We are going to pair the auction with another event, either a concert, a dinner, or a carnival with blow ups depending on what we can get coordinated.

So, here is how you can help at the moment.

1. If you have a service, or a craft, or something of the sort you would be willing to donate, let us know!

2. If you have a contact of someone or an organization who would be willing to donate something, a gift card, service, tickets, craft, so forth...you can send me their information so I can contact them.

You can message me on facebook or email me at matt.stephanie.richards@gmail.com

We are very excited to begin raising funds and to see how God is going to provide!

Thanks for helping us bring Rance home! Stay tuned for more details about this event coming soon!

Adoption Update

Here's what has been happening lately with the adoption!

1. We have filed our paperwork with the United States Department of Homeland Security for Immigration Approval.

2. We have been filling out applications for schoarships, grants and loans.

3. We have been brainstorming and discussing different ideas for fundraising events. (Feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions!)

4. We have been praying God will provide the funds we need to and that we will have Rance home by the end of 2010.

Next week we will begin working on filling out and gathering official paperwork for our dossier. Our dossier will be filed with the Ukraine governement on October 28th.

Please continue to pray for Rance, for funds to be raised, and for this adoption process to continue to go as smoothly and quickly as possible.

Blessings to you all!

Teeth

So this week Cavin has been working on cutting three teeth! Craziness! He's pretty well had a low grade fever since Sunday, but thankfully, he hasn't been fussy much and when he has, teething tablets have done the trick. So far the left middle and the richt lateral incisor have broken through, still waiting on the right central incisor to break through his gums. Its close!

Nothing like getting teeth all at once, eh?

9 Months

So tomorrow Cavin will be 9 months old. I can't believe he is already this big and doing so much!

He weighs 16 pounds 8 ounces and is 27 inches long.

He has been crawling (the real way, sadly the Cavin Crawl/The Combover is no more) for a few weeks. Its cute and getting him into all kinds of trouble!! But it does provide mommy and daddy lots of laughs!

He loves to talk, but if there are many people around he is usually pretty quiet and busy observing everything and taking it all in. He also likes to sing with mommy. He is beginning to repeat in his own way, what you say and do.

He gives really wet kisses and loves to wave bye-bye. He shakes his head yes and no and sometimes does a combination of both.

He loves to play with his daddy and as a result, loves to be upside down. You have to be careful when holding him because he'll just lean over and dive upside down. One of his favorite games to play with daddy is to drop a toy while daddy is holding him, then daddy will hold his legs while he gets to go upside down to retrieve his toy. Repeat until daddy gets tired!

Anything related to electronics are his favorite toys, cords, outlets, cell phones, lap tops, blow dryers, remote controls...

He is quite the ticklish little boy and I love his chuckle that you typically hear only when he's being tickled!

He is a very busy little boy and is very rarely still. He wiggles while you hold him, he wiggles while he eats, he is always moving. Our favorite is to hold him in the air and watch his legs go crazy!

And he still loves bath time.

We have recently found out he is highly allergic to anything peanut and most likely (his blood had a positive reaction) to milk, egg, wheat and barely soy. The allergist isn't concerned about the soy at all, and Cavin has been eating wheat with puffs and cheerio's so he thinks he's okay there too. We'll get to experiment with cow's milk and other dairy products very slowly and carefully when he's of age and see how he does. He may or may not be able to have them. The good thing is is 95% of kids allergic to milk outgrow their allergy by the age of 6. Egg will be a bit more tricky as his reaction was a bit stronger to it, but the allergist is hopeful that with time he will be able to eat egg as well.

You Guessed It!

Well, actually Jillian was the first to guess it without cheating (errr...being resourceful!). I will say some of the names were, well, not so lovely, but there were a few guesses that I really liked! And of course, those of you who guessed Lance a while back were really close!

I was going to wait and update this later, but we're heading out of town for the weekend (which we are so excited about!). Anyways, I didn't want to make you wait until Monday since I have made you all wait long enough already!

Our adopted son will be named Rance.

We won't decide on a middle name for sure until we meet him! We can't wait to put a cute little face with our name!

Please continue to lift Rance up in your prayers!

Thanks for playing the name game with us!

Last of the Letter Clues!

Eighth Clue: R

Seventh Clue: N

Sixth Clue: E

Fifth Clue: C

Fourth Clue: A

Third Clue: Not a traditional name, its not a name from the Bible, its actually from a book!

Second Clue: 5 Letters

First Clue: One syllable

Not its just up to you all to unscramble the letters! Comment with your guesses! If you're an anonymous commenter, please leave your name!

Name Game!!

N

Immigration!!

This week we recieved our notarized homestudy reports!! Finally!

This weekend we will be filling out Form I-600A, Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition to submit to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

This is the paperwork that will allow our little orphan to enter the U.S. with us and become a legal citizen.

This will also cost us another $830.00.

We have a LOT of fundraising to do! We have some creative ideas but aren't sure if some will work or not, so we'll see how it goes. If you have any ideas for fundraising please leave a comment with your ideas! We'd love to hear them!