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…

I love planning parties…I mean seriously, I really love having people in our home, planning our family nights and prepping the environment. The web is just a plethora of ideas and information. I rarely come up with ideas from scratch, I just make other’s great ideas my own! For Emery’s birthday party, she decided on a Baking Party. She loves to cook with me and we had informed our kiddos we were going smaller scale this year, so a house party it was!  Here are some great sites I used for ideas: One Charming Party, TomKat Studio, and Pizzazerie.

This is how we greeted our guests, by inviting them into Emery’s Bake Shoppe…

Jason added the vase with roses from our rose bush…I know..I married a good man. I added white plastic eggs to my farmhouse basket. Don’t notice how faded my cushions are…

Here is the birthday girl with our Custom sign….I painted a canvas and then used  my awesome friend, Kristi’s, Sillouette to cut our the letters. It is kind of hard to see but really, so cute..

I also made these candlestick jars from old glass jars. I spraypainted the glass candlesticks from the Dollar Tree and glued them together. I was able to take advantage of the after Easter clearance sales to get some candy and these cute buckets. I also found some cute half aprons at Michaels. I had inteded to make these bandana aprons, but then found these and changed my mind!

I added some cooking supplies and the berries with chocolate and that was the dining room table!

Our first station was icing/decorating cupcakes. I made these sweet cupcakes and found these cupcake wrappers at Walmart after Easter and added them!

These are my custom cupcake stands that I made from the Dollar Store, as well. I got the glass candlesticks, silver trays and superglue. I spraypainted it all with these fun colors and then glued them together. FYI- the superglue did not hold and I am going to try a sturdier glue.  I found the tutorial here.  I also invested in the supplies for icing cupcakes/cakes. I bought the bags, tips, and couplers. We had 4 different bags of icing and it was perfect for the girls to decorate their cupcakes with. They each did two cupcakes.

Baking Station #2

Our next station was making cookies in a jar. I debated back and forth about what to make, but settled on these. We had an assembly line and off they went.

Here is the recipe I used:

All in all, it was a fun, successful party and our future baker LOVED every minute of it!!

My man surprised me on MD with a new blog look that he and our resident graphic designer, Sully, created for me.

I also wanted to share my new blog name….

Did you see it?

Catchy, huh?

We had a fun day and were able to take in the local Thunderbirds Air Show…pretty impressive. And Loud. I guess when you have 6 fighter jets flying above your head you should expect it to be loud!

Right over our heads….

My sweet kiddos…so thankful to be their Mom.

Our girl is 8.

I am so overwhelmed by this fact.

She is such a joy in a cute dimpled little body. I am so proud of her and how she loves on and serves those around her, especially those younger than her. Emery loves her some babies. She wants to be a teacher one day and a rock star. And strangely, I have no doubt she could be either, neither or both!

In her seventh year, I feel like I have gotten to know her more. I’ve known her since she took her first breath, but this year I feel like I understand her more. I have learned that Emery loves change and needs new adventures. She is our modern girl with her ipod touch, who still loves to play with her dolls.  She loves to laugh, can make friends easily, goes with the flow, but is fierce to get her way at times, she is super smart, COMPETITIVE, outgoing, yet shy, and pretty much cries every Wednesday night…sobs actually, over the most random things. I call it her midweek tired cry.

She is dynamic and I have no doubt that what she puts her mind too, she will accomplish. I not only love this sweet, sassy thing….I like her a lot too!

Emery, you are already a force to be reckoned with and I am so thankful that God ordained you to be ours to love and guide.  I am so proud at how you have taken on new situations this year and EMBRACED them. I love to see your confidence growing in yourself and that you are growing comfortable in who God created you to be. I love that you are tender to others and yet can be so fierce in what you believe in (even when it is flat out wrong!).  I love watching you reading the Word and gaining understanding of who God is and His purpose for you. I have no doubt that He has an amazing journey for you that will not be predictable or ordinary. He created you for more and I have no qualms claiming big things for you for HIS GLORY. I am simply crazy about you my sweet unexpected surprise. Be bold, be reckless in your pursuit of JESUS….I can’t wait to watch you grow…

Naming our fourth child has not been easy.

At all.

I love my other kiddos names.  I want to love his name as well.

Here is a little peek into how we named our other kiddos.

Parker Caroline- Loved the name Parker for a girl. We really like strong names for girls that were not on the list of the Top 100 names.

Emery Kate- We grew up off of Emory Rd in Knoxville. After we knew we were having a girl, Jason had a mommy bracelet made for me and he finalized her name.

Bradley Andrew- obviously, Bradley is my maiden name. Andrew is Jason’s middle name. No brainer.

We knew we would keep his Ethiopian name as his middle name. So, we wanted to wait to see what it was before we named him. He has had many nicknames the past few months.  Shaq Bieber (thanks Marty!), JJ, our little African, and the list goes on….Jason is really big on nicknames and being able to shorten their names. We have PC, Em and Bman, so we have to be able to have a good nickname!

We have finally settled on what we will call this little guy…

Judson “O” Stewart

It seems to fit. It isn’t too preppy, but it still flows with our family. We pray that he will be a man of faith and boldness like Adoniram Judson….the first Protestant missionary to Burma. We are so excited to see how God uses him to make His name famous!

We are excited to have a name and to begin establishing him in our minds and hearts as a Stewart….so please pray for our little man Judson by name.

So now that you have seen the adorable backside of our son, I thought I would share the specifics to his story. We received our referral while we were in Chattanooga on Spring Break…or at least we received pictures of ‘O’ but were waiting on his medical. The director of our agency had been in Africa for several weeks and was in their orphanage that is located 14 hours south of Addis. It was there that O had been brought by his mother. We have a good amount of history on him and will be getting more, but have decided to keep it private. It is our son’s story, not ours to tell, yet. They were able to get all of his paperwork together except for his medical, so he was brought to Addis to have his examination and to live at the Transition Home until we can get him.

Here is what we know for sure:

1. He is between 18 months and 2 years. When you live in remote Africa, a calendar is not exactly right around the corner and much is determined by phases of the moon. Because of that, we do not know the exact date of his birth.

2. We will be submitted to court on Monday, April 11. We will find out in about a month when our court date is and this will be when we travel. We think it will be late June or July. Current court dates are for the end of May for those who were submitted to court in early March.

3. We have a decent picture of his medical condition. He was anemic so they have put him on Iron supplements. He is 3% in weight and 25-50% in height.

We had a sweet time telling our children about their brother. They have been so anxious to see his face.  We had finally seen his medicals and were ready to move forward. We were ready to celebrate this amazing part of our journey. Jason and I had guarded our hearts and were just plain old excited to share his face and to begin falling in love with this sweet guy. We had some pictures printed of ‘O’ and put them in these cute little bags.

We had each child open it up, but not say anything…but I think their faces tell the story…

JOY

OVERFLOWING JOY

OVERWHELMED…

But, able to rejoice knowing that we now have a face in our minds and a name to utter in our prayers. As I have been processing what it means to welcome this little guy into our lives, I continue to cycle back to his precious mother. While I don’t know all of her reasons for choosing to place her son for adoption, I know this….she is forever apart of our journey and his. For whatever reason, she is choosing to trust that this incredibly hard decision is one that will give her a chance….and her son a chance. I also think about our son, whom I don’t know yet, but what I do know is that in these days, he is experiencing fear, confusion, anxiety and not understanding why….in a nutshell, my son is walking through a trauma.  And it is hard to think about, but that is his reality, and that of MILLIONS of other children.  Right now, I am choosing to love this little picture of a boy, in anticipation of loving him for all of his days.

So I ask you to pray for him these specific things:

• Attentive and caring nannies- I pray his cries are heard, answered and he is given as much love and attention that he needs.
• Peace- In the midst of his fear and confusion, pray that he feels the peace, security and love that can come only from God. I can’t give those things to him right now, but I serve an amazing God who will and does.
• Attachment- Even though he is young, attachment is a process. Pray that he will quickly bond to Jason and I when we see him and KNOW that he is loved, he is safe and he is home.
• A quick court date- Pray that favor is found in our case. Pray we get a quick court date and pass court THE FIRST TIME. Pray specifically that our letter from MOWA is written and all of our documentation is in order.
• His birthmother- Pray for her heart and mind during these days.

With that I leave you a glimpse of our little man (we can’t post his picture, yet)(and that is a scrape on his sweet little chin)

We have seen his face…..

And we know his Ethiopian name…..

And we are filled with joy!

For Bradley’s birthday party, we had a Hot Wheels party. He really just wanted to spend time playing Wii with his “frans.” We had gone bowling as a family, out to eat on his actual Birthday, had cupcakes for his class…it was really a little ridiculous. But, you only turn 5 once and so I am okay with it!  My wonderful friend, Kristy, designed some water bottle wrappers and Cupcake toppers to go with our Hot Wheel theme. We played Wii,  had some crafts for the girls and played cars…very simple and low key.

Our lonely bowling alley/hallway/coat closet/racetrack

Our water bottle labels…we are still drinking out of them!

I just bought plain cupcakes and then added the toppers.

I had easy sweets for the party. I made some chocolate and sprinkle covered pretzel sticks, oreos (wheels), the surprising hit of Pixie sticks and

Starburst jellybeans…who doesn’t love a s Starburst jellybean?

I decorated with glass filled hot wheels and hot wheel tracks!!

Girly car shaped melt a beads and car shaped DIY gummies…

My boy is in heaven right now!!

Playing Konnect…so fun.

Time to eat..

Again…the Pixie sticks were the big hit…

We had a fun afternoon and hopefully made a few memories for our boy!