Cayleigh Pics (at last!) and Big News :)

So here's some long awaited pictures of Cayleigh! I can not believe how much she has grown up in the past few months. She is now 7 and 1/2 months old, standing in her crib, crawling, sitting up, eating big girl food, and talking all the time! Enjoy the pics! :)


I've got the bird mommy!

Look at those beautiful blues!

Finger Painting Fun! (rice cereal and food coloring)

I'm a monkey! OO OO Ah!

So Sweet!

I feed myself mommy!

You can't strap me down!!

Fingerpainting fun with the spoon!

See?! I told you I feed myself Mommy!

Weeeee! I LOVE to swing!!!

Tee-hee! I'm so cute shopping with Mommy!

*Burp* Excuse me Daddy!

Fun in the Sun!

Me? Playing? Nooo, I was sleeping, I promise!

So that's our little Cayleigh Joan! Just a big bundle of energy and giggles :) Now for the big news part of the post. Phil and I have officially decided after lots of prayer to adopt our next child. It will cost about $20,000, so hopefully by February of 2011 we'll have the money saved up to start the process! :) We are so excited; we'll be hopefully adopting a boy from Odessa, Ukraine around the age of 7-9 years old. It's something that God has laid on my heart since meeting Michelle, a missionary at the Odessa orphanage, about 4 years ago. We always thought that we would be too young to adopt, but as it turns out, the legal age to be eligible for adoption is 21 and one parents at least 15 years older than the child. This would make up eligible to adopt a 13 year old, but we're shooting for the younger age range mentioned above. With this news, Phil and I started praying about it alot....I knew from the start that God wanted us to do this, and even though God didn't lay it Phillips heart the same way He did on mine, Phillip has recognized that we were really being called to towards this and has since been supportive and assertive towards making a plan to bring our boy home. It will be a long road filled with alot of challenges (even after we have our son home!) so support from our friends and family is crucial. We know this will be difficult, more difficult than we can really grasp at this point, but neither one of us believe that Jesus whispered under His breath after saying "Pick up your cross and follow Me"..."only so long as it is convenient and comfortable." We're putting ourselves out there with faith that we are doing what God wants us to do and we know that God can do extraordinary things with ordinary people like Phil and I so long as we look to Him for constant guidance and obey what He tells us. Please pray for us on our journey....I mostly need patience while we put aside our pennies before we can start the process officially...Phillip I'm sure needs courage! It's a scary thing to do, but we're both really looking forward to everything God has in store for us!