Can you believe that Summer is coming to a close? Me either! I have realized more than ever that I have only an allotted amount of summers with the kids where I am at the helm of our activities. Before the Summer started we had a family night and made a list of things we wanted to do, goals we were making and established a general routine. We have done fairly decent at it!

Some of our activities this Summer have included:

• VBS at LifePoint
• Week of Camp for kids
• LuLu Camp
• First Tee for the girls
• Weekend in Knoxville
• Fourth of July fireworks
• Lot o Swimming
• Sleepovers

And many other moments of fun and insanity.  In light of my 3 children going to school, I decided that it was time for Jason to join in the fun. We went and ate dinner and then all set our for Target with our lists.  We divided and conquered and $100 later….We were done! We have a few more items on our list, but are well on our way to being supply ready!

I have such mixed feelings about our boy starting Kindergarten. At the end of the day, we do what we feel led to do. We seek, we think, we pray and we go with our gut. That is the Stew Family way of determining where God is leading.

Fancy, huh?

How do you feel about Summer coming to a close?

Today has been a very heartbreaking day for many families who are adopting from Ethiopia. For reasons unknown, the government has started shutting down orphanages with no notice. These precious children are then taken to undisclosed locations. We have been told they are being cared for by UNICEF.

Over 40 orphanages and 250 children have been effected.

Today, one of amazing orphanages that our agency works with was shut down. Many families now have no idea where their children are or if they will be able to proceed with their cases.  They may, but this is another delay in a journey that is already long and difficult. There is no other way to say it, but that this is devastating news for many families who have gone from expecting court dates anyday, to the unknown that has happened.

For now, Judson’s orphanage has not been closed, but the hard truth is that it could happen.

Sometimes, there are just no words except….JESUS.  I am clinging and proclaiming Scripture because I have no other response that can bring hope and peace. Hope that is built on NOTHING else but Him. Peace that is not dependent on my circumstances or the world I live in.

There is a sweet, precious boy who I long to parent. We are dedicated to this journey and to the path to bring him home. Until there is NOTHING else in our power, we will do all we can to bring him home.

I ask you to pray for all the children in Ethiopia who, more than anyone, are effected by these closures. I ask that you pray for those who are in Ethiopia advocating for these children on our behalf. I ask that you would pray for the families who are in such dark limbo that they would be able to bring their children home. I ask you to pray for the officials who are making these decisions.

If you know my man, you know he LOVES basketball. He loves to watch it, cheer it on, coach it and more than all of those…play it. After losing 50 pounds last fall, he put together a men’s basketball team from our church. They played in a church league and were eventually the CHAMPIONS…of course they were!  He played several times a week for a couple of hours. Needless to say, he felt great….except for a little nagging knee pain.

15 years ago, he blew out his ACL playing basketball and being that his doctor was old school, he didn’t start Physical Therapy for 6 weeks. We knew he had scar tissue and that it would need to be cleaned out eventually.  You may also remember that he ruptured his achilles. Finally about a month ago, he went to the Orthopaedic surgeon to have it checked out. They did an x-ray and low and behold they found a SCREW floating in his knee….a SCREW. It is never good when the doctor tells you that they have never seen this before. He had an MRI and the old graft was nowhere to be found and he has some cartilage damage.  Wow, not what we were expecting. The doctor was super impressed that he had been walking around with a screw lose in his knee without severe pain. My man has some major pain tolerance. He also let us know that he thinks it has been out for a while. Technically, we have no idea how long he has been without an ACL.

Needless to say, Jason had knee surgery last Wednesday. He has done so well and I am so proud of him. He just takes it all in stride and deals with it. I love that about him. He is not a complainer and makes serving him as easy as possible. We are hopeful for a smooth recovery.

The downside is that his basketball playing days for hours on end have passed. It is just too hard on his knee, which just makes me so sad for him. On the positive side,  we are looking forward to swimming, bike riding and elliptical training.

What a whirlwind we are having this Spring/Summer! I have neglected the ol blog and I am so sad. I write for my job as a social worker and writing at the end of the day is often put aside. So much is swirling in my head in regards to our adoption and family. I am loving a more laid back summer schedule, but also implementing routine and structure into our day. I am realizing that even though I do not LOVE structure and routine, I function so much better when I live within it.

Earlier this summer, we had a family night and set out our goals for the summer. We talked through the things we wanted to do and what we were expected to do! We have started using My Job Chart to track the kids chores and it has been a HUGE hit! The kids are responsible for completing and tracking their chores and in return, they receive points that they can cash in for savings, givings and spending. The site is connected to Amazon and they can create a wish list or cash in their points for extra tv time, computer time or certain outings. They did really well at the end of the school year and have continued to use if fairly faithfully! I highly recommend it!

Our adoption hit a snag in mid May. For reasons outside of anyone’s control, we have not been able to have our court date scheduled. This has been a huge frustration and delay. We have been told that a resolution should happen mid July. The Ethiopian courts close in August and September for the rainy season, so there is a great chance that we may not travel til the Fall and at that point we have no idea when he will be home. As you can imagine, that is not our desire and walking in the unknown has some hard moments. He turned two last week and I couldn’t bring myself to write a sweet little post about him, because I don’t know Him, I don’t even know if I would recognize him if I passed him in the streets of Africa. And that is a hard thing for a mommy to write.  The emotion just creeps up on me and surprises me at times.  I was doing a cool down to P90x and had a moment….I was shopping with Jason and broke down in the store….I will be worshipping at our church and it all feels very distant and hard. We did have a balloon launch on his birthday with a prayer with our family….and cupcakes of course.  So we live each day and pray for Judson and walk in faith that God is Sovreign in ALL things.

We have also had VBS, Creative Me camp, lots of swimming, Adventure Science Center, movies, ice cream, playing outside and time together….and we are only one month in for the Summer!

I am so behind on chronicling the days of our lives, so even though, our boy graduated 3 weeks ago, I could not resist sharing this momentous occasion. Jason and I are still determining if he will start Kindergarten or if we will give him one more year in preschool.  We go back and forth, but for now, we will celebrate how big our boy is and how he is growing up!

Bradley had two short sentences in the play they performed, which had been pre-recorded. He sang so good and did all his motions!

Afterwards they received their diplomas…

Nana and Poppy with the graduate

Jason and I with our boy.

Bradley and Emery

The real Bradley and Emery!

Bradley we are so proud of you…now stop growing.

On our journey to bringing Judson home, we have made many sacrifices as a family to save money for the $25,000 it will cost to adopt this precious boy.  We feel strongly that money should never be a reason to NOT adopt, but also want to be respectful and intentional about how we save/raise money to fund our adoption.  I am super excited about what we have come up with to help raise some additional funds! I love subway art and because of that, we have several pieces in our home. I am so blessed to have a man who knows his way around a Mac and can create some great graphic design pieces. Last December, we made two pieces for our own home: our family mission statement and James 1:27 to hang in my office. We had such a positive response to our James 1:27 poster that we decided this would be a great way to highlight God’s view of caring for orphans and also bring Judson home!!

We are selling these 20×30 posters for $25, which will go towards our adoption fund! We are able to ship these or I will hand deliver them to my local folk. We are offering it on Etsy, so please share our link with your friends and family. It can be found here.

And, because I am not above a little pulling of the heartstrings….

a little reminder of the life we are seeking to ransom….

Thank you for your support!

Trust me, you will want to make this for your cookout….you will be oohh’s and ahh’d.

Soapapilla Cheesecake

• 3 packagesCream Cheese (8 Ounce Packages)
• 1-½ cupSugar
• 1-½ teaspoonVanilla Extract
• 2 cansCrescent Roll Dough, 8 Ounce Cans
• ½ cupsMelted Butter
• ½ cupsSugar
• 1 teaspoonCinnamon

So in case you didn’t know…I am officially a runner. I have been running consistently since last July and when I started, I honestly never thought it would become such a love of mine.  It is such a release for me and as I have said before such a sweet time of worship and prayer for me. I still love to go early in the morning for several reasons…it’s done, it’s quiet. and on many occasions, I see the sun come up! Winter running was HARD for me. Because I need to go early, there were many days that I just couldn’t go when it was dark, cold and like 20 degrees. I have a lot of cold gear now! Needless to say, I did not really become consistent in my training until the beginning of March. I still ran and got long runs in, but I didn’t run as much during the week. I was not sure how it would play out running in the Country Music Half Marathon. I knew it would be HILLY and so I trained on some hills…not HILLS, but hills. The greatest thing I did this time, though, was to train up to 12 miles instead of 10. I knew I could finish feeling better this time!

This is a much larger race than the one I ran in October and it was so, so fun! The beauty of living in music city is the great music..and NOT just country music. The amount of talent here is just ridiculous. The CMM has band playing throughout the course. You run through downtown, music row, Belmont, the Bicentnnial Mall, the Farmer’s Market and then end by the Titan’s stadium. People were EVERYWHERE!

We had quite the adventure. Our shuttle took an hour to get to the race and then we had to potty so Kristi and I were LATE. I was supposed to be in the 17th corral and I went in the 26th….I did a lot of weaving around walkers, but it was still great.

Here was a couple along the way enjoying a little morning mimosa? Mint Julep? Champagne?

One of the bands entertaining us as we run our tails off. (that was one of the spectator signs and I LOVE it!)

My sweet little supporters! My Mom and Dad were there also and I am so thankful for them. They are so faithful to attend their grandkid’s games and activities, so it was cool to have them at something that is so important to me, also.

This is in front of Belmont University, my man’s Alma Mater…and more importantly….Mile 8.

Check out my sweet Mom and Dad cheering for me…

Bradley is ready with my Rehydrate..such a sweet helper. Look at Emery instructing him. She is such a great big sister.

Look at my sweet Mom and Dad still cheering for me….I am so blessed….and I look so much like my dad in this picture with my hair all slicked back. I started with braids and they were pretty much done at mile 6.

Bradley is big on goodbyes and proved consistent at this moment…little fist bump action….not that I cared since my chances of winning are about as likely as me going to the moon.

Ahhh, the end….and I love walking at this moment. My time was 2:27, which I was hoping for better, but with the hills and the amount of weaving I did, I can live with it!

My running buddy, Kristi. SO proud of her. She seriously improved her time.

Some other ladies from our church who walked the half…they are all over 50 and amazing women!

I think I could do a full marathon at some point. I am waiting until our kiddos are all under one roof and a little older. It is such a commitment and I want to get a few more halfs under my belt!

Anyone ready to train??

I shared the details of Emery’s Baking Party here. I thought you might want to see it played out….

Emery invited 9 girls to her birthday party.

Why 9 you may be wondering? Because we found some cute plates on clearance and there were only 9, so she decided she could only invite 9. Who am I to argue? Once it got close to her day, I began to get VERY worried that no one was going to show up.  She invited several girls from her class and I only heard from one…and she texted me the day before to say her daughter had gotten sick and wasn’t sure she would make it. Our other friends from church were at soccer and a family birthday party. I literally was praying, “Lord, please do not let her have the experience of having NO ONE show up at her party….plus I have gone to a lot of effort…so please let some girls show up!”

I am sooo spiritual, I know.

Needless to say, she had five little girls show up and it turned out fabulous!

Here are some highlights:

Here are these cute little girls with their equally cute aprons…

We started with decorating cupcakes. This is the instructional part of the birthday party where I am telling them all about icing cupcakes.

The girls were eager to get started with the icing of their cupcakes…

so they could get to the eating of their icing..I mean cupcake.

I seriously adore this girl.

Look how….pretty! It’s like the face only a mother could love.

Bradley and Parker were so sweet and were all about their sister. They let her enjoy her day (for the most part).

Next,  we made our jar cookie mix. I loved this. Each girl had their own bowl and was able to mix her ingredients together. It was fun to see them concentrate on the recipe and measure it all out. We made Emery’s mix for small group and they were really good! Measuring properly is such a learned skill, so hopefully they added the right amount of flour and baking soda.

We made an assembly line around the table and they really were so great and patient.

This is Abre’s finished product.

Lastly, they made their own pizzas…or I should say Jason and I frantically rolled out their dough and they piled on the toppings. The dough wasn’t cooked any before adding the sauce and cheese, so they were a little doughy. Oh well…buy pre-done crust is my word of advice.

We really had a fun two hours and I enjoyed having these sweet girls in our home. Their conversations are so interesting and fascinating. I was reminded that Emery is growing so fast and not a little girl. She is such a joy and I am so blessed to be her mom. I hope her party brought her joy and a memory for years to come.

This is seriously the easiest, most amazing meal.

French Dip Sandwiches

Chuck Roast

Packet of Italian Dressing Seasoning

2 Cans Beef Consomme

Hoagie Rolls

Mozzarella

Rinse the beef off. Put it in the crock pot, pour consomme over the beef, sprinkle with seasoning. Cook for 6-8 hours on low. Shred beef when it is nice and tender. Toast hoagie rolls and then fill with beef. Put cheese on top and melt under your oven broiler.

Easy, smeasy…