The Beam Team Huddle

Here are a couple cool things of late:

A sweet moment in our day is when we gather for the 'huddle' before JD and the girls head out the door in the mornings. JD received this nugget of wisdom a few years back at a men's retreat. The speaker mentioned that he gathers his family each morning and prays a blessing over his wife and children. I can't tell you how stopping to do this each day has not just blessed us, but equipped us, and probably protected us from things we don't even know about, over the years.

In the last year or so, our moniker 'The Beam Team' has really stuck. So in the last few months, Avery has started hollering through the house, 'Time to huddle up!...Huddle time!' (I feel like a football team with one darn cute little coach!).

But the even sweeter part is that now as JD prays over me, Payton, Avery, Jackson and Brooks by name, he says 'and be with our two little ones somewhere out there.' Sweet.

Update on our home study: everything went well. I'm starting to marvel at how we started this process during the busiest time of year. I mean, wow. We have our work cut out for us.

Fingerprinting at the state police station, FBI background checks (yeh, guess they're not in the works yet because they need our fingerprints first!), autobiographies, questionnaires, medical screenings for all six of us, photos of all six of us to include with our Wide Horizons' application, and so on.

Oh, and Christmas shopping, baking and Christmas cards. Hmmm. I'm starting to wonder if I'll get to Christmas cards this year? I love sending (and especially receiving!) Christmas cards.

Our next home study appointment is scheduled for Thursday, November 2nd. Our social worker will come to our home, interview us and Payton and Avery. She'll want to see where the children will sleep (hope that doesn't have to be perfectly in order at this point because then I really won't be getting Christmas cards done!), our fire extinguisher, our smoke detectors, and how our firearms are secured (wish we didn't have any firearms, but I have a husband). :) The girls are so excited.

One last tidbit to make you smile -- at least it did me.

I called our pediatrician's office today to see if I need to bring the kids in for a check-up in order to have these medical forms completed. I told the woman who answered the phone that we're adopting and medical forms need to be completed for our four biological children. The first thing she said? 'Oh, been there, done that.'

'Really?' I said.

She explained that she has 6 children and one is adopted so she had to have forms filled out for her five biological children. Well, I was shocked to find out a month or so ago that doctors now charge for these forms to be filled out! I was appalled, but at least I was prepared to drop 40 bucks to have these filled out for our home study. She immediately whispers, 'We can help you out. My doctor didn't charge me for all of mine because it was for an adoption.'

She was super nice and pulled our kids' charts to confirm that everything was up to speed. We discovered that we have mutual friends! We talked about our churches. I mean, really. She was whispering through half our conversation because she was at work.

I just got so tickled thinking about how God works. It's like the lady at the restaurant that day when I told my mother and grandmother our adoption plans. It's just cool to feel Him in our midst.

May you feel Him in your midst this Thanksgiving.