Christmas Happenings!

On Thursday we loaded up the kids for a night of lights! After eating a yummy dinner and Chipotle we headed to the Zoo for Zoo Lights! Jude started of the night with his Spidey Hands. 

 Shiloh wet through his diaper on the long car ride and soaked his pants, of course Mommy had forgotten an extra pair of pants but we found Jude's taekwondo pants on the floor board so Shiloh was styling.

 So cool all the lights in the trees!

Pretty Lights!

 Shiloh was not a fan of the carousel. 

 "Cheese. I'm Riding Marty." To be noted Jude was climbing on the Lion because he likes Alex the Lion from Madagascar and a big kid (8-10?) climbed over him?! Not very nice.

"Look a train." Well we tried to get it in the picture.

Tree.

 You know it was a good night when both boys are sound asleep within 20 seconds of being put in their carseats. Success!

On Saturday we went to our community Christmas party and Jude got to meet Santa. "I'm 3!"

 "Hmmm...what do I want for Christmas? A Cachoa (read Lightening McQueen) bike!" Which he is getting by the way and has already discovered it in the guest room child safety locked closet. Fail. 

Shiloh was not having a jolly time with jolly St. Nick.

Family with Santa.

Spider Santa tattoo. 

Please Note: Jude wanted a tattoo and then he changed his mind after standing in line 10 minutes but we made him get it anyway even though he screamed and cried while the poor elf painted.

And this is how our trip to see Santa ended. Shiloh screaming in the car. To be fair he is cutting at least 6 teeth right now which is enough to make anyone grumpy.

Happy Christmas Y'all!

Taking Care of the Least of These

It came and it went. It was busy. We had a little house guest. She was adorable and we were privileged to provide respite care (respite care is any time a child in the foster care system is placed in a home for more than 72 hrs but less than 14 days) for her. She came to us because her rescue family (foster families that provide care for Little Footprints are called rescue families because we are participating in "rescuing those being led away to death; holding back those staggering toward slaughter" Proverbs 24:11) went out of the country. It was great. It was exhausting. 


I am so tired. Adding a third child to the mix and one who is only a few months younger than Shiloh proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated (isn't that just like it always is?). She and Shiloh of course wanted my undivided attention, which with two one year olds and a three year old was never going to happen. Plus my unruly boys rubbed off on her and by the time she left she was crawling around the house screaming at the top of her lungs following the two boys as they ran around the house screaming at the top of their lungs. It was noisy (ok my house is always noisy, what with Boker and his very annoying barking and Lilah who barks to protect us if it gets too quiet and Jude and Shiloh always yelling and wrestling, really what is one more added to the mix?). 


There were lots of failures. I mean I think I must have prayed a million times for forgiveness for being impatient. I must have thought a million times why did I ever do this? And is this what the rest of my life is going to be like even if I never foster again because our third child is going to arrive in march? And the answer is: I have no idea! But we will foster again and I hope one day to adopt also. I want tons of children in my house. Reaching the point where I want to give up and cry because I feel like a failure in reality is great, because it is in those moments that I KNOW Jesus is real and that he loves me and that he is there for me. I may not be perfect but he is. And I may not be strong enough to handle this but he is. 


I am not fostering because it is glamorous (any parent knows it is not glamorous to change diapers, be spit up on, listen to screaming, etc). I am not fostering so people with think I am super great (because I am not). I am not fostering for any reason other than I love Jesus and want to obey him and join him in taking care of the ones who can't take care of themselves. Jesus calls his followers to deny themselves, their wants, their hopes, their dreams, their comforts, their will to follow him. Jesus is working on me and I know he is going to keep working on me until the day I die but I hope that I will one day hear him call me his beloved and that as in Matthew 25:34-40:

      "King: Come here, you beloved, you people whom My Father has blessed. Claim your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of creation. 35 You shall be richly rewarded, for when I was hungry, you fed Me. And when I was thirsty, you gave Me something to drink. I was alone as a stranger, and you welcomed Me into your homes and into your lives. 36 I was naked, and you gave Me clothes to wear; I was sick, and you tended to My needs; I was in prison, and you comforted Me.

    

    37 Even then the righteous will not have achieved perfect understanding and will not recall these things.

      

      Righteous: Master, when did we find You hungry and give You food? When did we find You thirsty and slake Your thirst? 38 When did we find You a stranger and welcome You in, or find You naked and clothe You? 39 When did we find You sick and nurse You to health? When did we visit You when You were in prison?

    King: 40 I tell you this: whenever you saw a brother or sister hungry or cold, whatever you did to the least of these, so you did to Me."




But then again I may hear, "you corrupted that sweet little girl, she now runs around screaming, refuses to sign please for her food and bottle, she won't lay down without a fuss anymore, she got licked in the mouth by the dog - repeatedly, knocked over by unruly boys, got hit and learned to hit back"...and the list could go on and on...

A Lesson in Counting by Jude

One

Two

Three

Four (and this is not a picture out of place, every time I ask him to show me four he shows me all five)

Five (so we need so help...)

A Husky (Dawgs Up!)

and Spidey Hand :D

Happy Counting!

So it Begins

Batman. Ok not Batman but he is a really cool superhero!

What is really beginning is a new season of our lives: Fostering/Adoption.

Chad and I have been working with Loving Houston Adoption Agency to become licensed as a foster-to-adopt family and we are just about through with the paperwork – the never ending paperwork. So yay! We got a call last week asking if we could provide respite care for a week for a sweet little girl who is about to turn 1 and we said yes. So on Friday we will open our house up for what will hopefully just be the first of many times to a child in need. Please be praying for us!

A little background on how we have reached this point: in college (why is it that so many things seem to find some kind of roots in college?) I got the privilege to  witness the awesome testimony to God’s greatness through families fostering and adopting and I knew one day God would have me do the same. So at the beginning of this year when I really started feeling God pulling my heart toward the orphans of this world, I did what any Christianity and Biblical language student from HBU would do, I started reading books:

            

            Adopted for Life by Russell Moore

            Orphanology by Tony Merida and Rick Morton

            Reclaiming Adoption by Dan Cruver, John Piper,  Scotty Smith and Richard Phillips

            Crazy Love by Francis Chan           

            Radical by David Platt

To name a few. And I started praying.

Well God always answers prayers and through some cool circumstances I learned about this ministry called Little Footprints. You can check them out here: www.littlefootprintscm.com. Chad and I really love the heart of Little Footprints and tentatively started going forward. We completed training in October and have been doing paperwork since to get licensed. And now we will have a little gal for a week.

Can I tell you – I am excited and terrified all at the same time. I don’t know what to expect and I must be crazy because I’m pregnant y’all and going to have 3 of my own soon. What where we thinking? We weren’t and aren’t we are just being obedient to what God is calling us to do. And maybe it will be a disaster and maybe my heart will be broken after falling in love with these littles who may one day be mine or may never be mine. But maybe I’ll fall more in love with my Jesus. And maybe my faith will be made stronger. And maybe I’ll bring a smile to my Father in Heaven because I dare to obey him and walk out in faith and join him in a work he is already doing to save the lives of these littles. I don’t know what to expect but I can say this I’m not afraid of falling. And its not because I believe the answer given in Batman Begins as to why we fall, you know the scence, “Bruce why do we fall? We fall so we can learn to pick ourselves up.” No. It’s because I believe what Jesus did for Peter (in Matthew 14:22-33) he will do for me when I fall, He will IMMEDIATELY grab hold of me. I can’t pick my self up and I'm so glad I don’t have to because I have a savior who loves me and will pick up.  

I know it’s long but the song, Oceans by Hillsong, has been really meaningful to me lately and if you listen to it or read the lyrics I think you’ll know why. So this is how I’m ending my post with a link to the youtube video because I'm still new to this blogging stuff and you got some paragraphs out of me this time - so be thankful :)

Oceans by Hillsong

Just another day

So today has been a somewhat typical day in our life. Wake up, read bible by the fire (ok reading by the fire is not so typical in Houston but when it's cold (below 50...) enough outside I like to jump on the chance to light a fire and yes that means even if it warms up later in the day to 80, which is not today, I got my fireplace fix), drink coffee ummm I love coffee, start to write an email when I hear, "come on Lilah, good girl Lilah, lets get up Lilah" in Jude's very very very chipper and happy morning is the most glorious of all times voice and that's when things started to get interesting. "I'm hungry mommy, what's for breakfast mommy, can we watch daddy drive off?" "Yes, yes Jude but let me finish this email," 3 seconds pass and it starts all over. Anyways we watched daddy drive off in our fancy robes, my lovely purple one I've had since I was 16 and Jude is his very cool Mater one that I slaved over last Christmas (only to hear him say, "I don't like it, I don't want it...") only the pockets are not sewed very well and have holes to which Jude informed me that I still had not fixed it for him and could I do it now, but not really now after he eats his breakfast, which by the way what is for breakfast? Back inside after daddy drives off and I finish my email and start to warm up breakfast - yummy peanut butter baked oatmeal with chocolate chips and Shiloh is up now to which Jude says, "don't get him yet you haven't given me my breakfast." 3 year olds are very demanding creatures. After breakfast we cleaned up and played, bathed the dogs, cleaned up some more and then rushed to make lunch:

Which I thought was good but Shiloh fed most of his to the dogs, though he did eat his strawberries. Of course as I'm cleaning up Shiloh I look over and Jude has smeared hummus all over his face, arms, hands and legs (maybe this is a new moisturizer?), so I hurriedly clean him up and insist we hurry because we have to go so we won't be late for taekwondo and thats when I hear my phone chiming that I have a text but I can't find it and after searching and searching it was no where to be found so we left without it. People used to go places all the time without their phone, yet driving 7 min to taekwondo without it had me all worked up, seriously I need to chill it just a phone. The frustrating thing though was that I finally get to taekwondo and my dad was all ready to teach my class because I am taking next week off (which I will tell you all why later this week) and he thought I was taking this week off, so I rushed and was stressed for no reason at all. Oh well. While at taekwondo Shiloh fell off the bleachers and bumped his head and of course he is not napping in his room because he fell asleep for 5 min in the car and that apparently counts as nap time for the day. So yay no break but such is life. Also I'm really annoyed with my blog entry because it is all one big paragraph and I know that I should edit it and make paragraph but we all know I'm not good at that stuff that's why I had friends do it for me in high school and college - thank God for friends who are good and writing without them I would have failed! So if you made it to the end of this entry good for you because re-reading it made me want to delete it, but its all I got for now so enjoy - or not. And in future I may try a little harder. 

A first attempt...

So I've been throwing around the idea of writing a blog for quite some time now and here is my first attempt. It is not pretty and it probably never will be but whatever. Why do I want to write a blog? Well so my friends and family who do not live close can know what's going on in the lives of the Legares. Anyway at some point I will try and explain the name of my blog but for now lets just say Amos 5 has a lot to do with it. I intend to write about the daily happenings and adventures we face but I'll most likely also include things God is teaching me. So that's all for now because life is happening and I gotta go...