A new blog

After a lot of prayer I have reopened this blog only in hopes that for someone on an adoption search will be find comfort in our story as well. We have a new blog too for updates in our growing family you can click here!!! www.gretchenandsteve.blogspot.com

trouble with blogger

I can't seem to get blogger to let me change my header picture. I am so frustrated with it!  I can't decide if I am going to stop blogging or take a break and make a new blog! But for now while I decide...Here's our latest picture!  Love our new sweet babies. They are adjusting so well. Life is so good!

Beautiful Disaster!

I am pretty sure I am in the middle of the most chaotic but most beautiful transition of my life. I can feel the influences of my Heavenly Father watching over and protecting our family so much.   

We found our babies and I can not go into details since it is their story to tell but I am blessed beyond measure!!

so much for going private!

I've not been able to go private yet because I've not been able to blog!  While our latest and greatest news didn't come at the easiest time for our family  as I started back to school as well as the kids and all their many sports, we realize the timing was perfect for them. We are so thankful and blessed.   I won't be posting much but thank you for all the emails and love you have sent our way. We have met a little sweet boy and precious little girl and they have been with us two weeks. We were asked  if we would like to adopt them last Thursday. My world has officially been rocked! I am so blessed in ways that I can't even find the words to describe. The sweet spirit that has been involved in this transition is indescribable. We went to court yesterday. We have a ten day wait period. So join us in prayer as we pray for these little people to be forever ours! 10 days seems like a lifetime right now!

Gotta go private

We've had some fun and exciting news in our family!  I have decided that I want to blog about it simply because I print our blogs into family books so this is a part of our journey and I will want this one day.  Because of all the "things" involved I will be changing this blog to private.  If you are interested in keeping up with us feel free to email me!
solomonfamily6 at yahoo dot com!

Sweet Summertime!

Sweet summer seems to be going by so fast! I'm trying to be in the moment and enjoy everything! 

Blake got chosen to go to Boy's State. It is quite an honor to attend and we were blessed that he got to opportunity.

Scout camp

A big deal for our whole family was getting Blake's ACT scores back. In the state of TN starting with the graduates of class of 2013 to reach the goal of valvadorian, a student must reach certain requirements. 

It is no longer a person that is the highest in the class you must meet a certain criteria in our public schools. So it really doesn't matter if you go to a school with 1000 students in the graduating class or 80 you still must meet the requirements to gain the honor.  One of things is to get a 31 on your ACT.  He has met all the other criteria as long as he keeps his 4.0 throughout his senior year. It was such a relief for him and all of us that have been praying for him to reach this goal. He made a 30 in April---so so close but to actually see the 31 we were so excited for him. (thankful to see his small and simple things turn to great things) Now we will all be praying he finishes all his courses with his 4.0.  I'm so thankful for his hard work and his dedication. 

4th of July at the Galloway farm...we played with Daisy the pig, fished, ate until we were stuffed, fireworks and the galloway singing parade!  What a fun filled day with friends!

Wisdom teeth removal!

Steve and I took Caroline on a special camping trip. She seems to get the tail in of all our energy.  So we decided she needed some special time with just us!

We went on a 10 mile canoe and camping trip.  It was so fun to have her one on one.

EFY for some spiritual and social rebuilding

Leah Beth's very first EFY and first church dance!!!

Crazy four!!!

Jack and Rhonda invited us to go to a Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney concert!  Lots of singing, dancing and fun!

Andrew is driving....fun times!

Movie night on the house with cousins

The cooks on the camping trip!

Water skiing with friends

tonsil removal surgery :(

Summer has brought lots of wrestling camps, girls camp, scout camp, eagle scout preparations,  cheer camp, house projects, breakfast dates with Steve,  triathlon for Blake, football practices, cheer practices, lots of swimming with friends, drive in movie nights, double dating fun for the boys, too many sleepovers to mention, and an extremely messy house. I cleaned it the first two weeks but I decided to just clean as we go!

It's been so nice for me this summer not to be worrying about  moving to a new classroom or summer school or taking pictures. I have been able to totally focus on my family and I've loved every minute of it.


I've been so hesitate to update and share this part of our life. First of all we didn't want to tell the kids but after a few turn of events we told them so since they know I guess it's ok to publish it.  One reason I didn't want to tell them is because so much of this part of our lives is unknown and it is hard for some of them to understand why the end result isn't happening.  Plus, sharing personal stuff for me sometimes is hard but I have finally decided if it helps one person that goes through this after us or one person that has been through this can help us then it will be worth it. 

After six months of trying to decide if we wanted to get back on the adoption train or not we have decided to go ahead and update our homestudy. It actually is complete today! We had kind of a series of events that brought us back to this decision.  Some of them I am happy to share here others I feel are a little too personal for a blog.

We got a call maybe Aprilish or May that a birth mom wanted our info. She knew a friend of our friend that knew we would possibly be interested. She was a homeless mommy with four small children.  She was pregnant with her fifth baby and decided adoption would be the best choice.  We sent our profile to her but needed to update our homestudy from that point. We went ahead and began getting our stuff together. It ended up being a dead end (we heard through the grapevine that she is placing through a friend in her ministry).  With our homestudy underway we decided to go ahead and move forward. 

Next we got a call from our "Amanda"  worker and she had been contacted from a case that was basically a DCS case. They wanted to take our info to the adoptive placement meeting. It was for two children ages 8 and 6.  The timing of the call was perfect. The beginning of summer and the meeting just happened to be on significant date for me. So you can imagine I thought surely this was it! Our home study was missing a court clearance but they were ok with us almost done. They ended up picking another family.  Even though I know this must not have been God's plan...I was frustrated with the system! They don't know us at all!

Next, I found myself wondering why were we even updating. What was the purpose in being paperwork ready but not sure what to do at this point. I called the agency we had waiting with before (american). They have our info. from before and some of our money so we just have to send them our homestudy to be back waiting. She said if we come in on such a low budget of 21K that placement would be hard. We really needed to be more like 30K. I am just having the hardest time with these numbers. I know most adoptions are that much but I can't really put into words how I feel about it. For some reason I understand why international adoptions are that expensive but can't understand all the fees in a domestic adoption.  Plus the whole...birthmoms change minds ...you really have to be ready for that just in case.

WOW this is a long story!!!

 We found ourselves back to the we really felt led to an older child..not nec. a baby.  SO with these feeling we thought we would contact social services one more time and see what we had to do.  The website http://www.adoptuskids.org/ is basically a joke. People inquire all the time and the workers loads are so heavy that rarely anything really happens and if it does your in the cold. Our system is messed up. We've had two calls in two years and they were to tell us the case was on hold.  To go through the social services here in Tenn. we realize we would have to foster first but also we have learned that  we would have to be flexible in our desires.  I found a bunch of names that we were in touch with from back when we took the PATH training. I contacted them. After a few weeks we were told we would have to start from the beginning not just another homestudy but to take all the classes over as well. I just wanted to throw my hands up in the air!  ugh  ugh   ugh   why oh why when they are the same classes from the same organization! OMG!

Next, I looked into LDS social services (we have too many kids for them) China's special needs program, down syndrome domestic adoptions and last Steve's aunt called with a friend that has a pregnant daughter. All situations we looked into wondering and trying to be open minded.

The part that is confusing to me is why we feel these strong impressions to be paperwork ready but then not know what to do at that point. Not being able to feel peace in the decision to move forward in any of the directions doesn't make sense. If I knew 100 percent we were suppose to wait with the other agency then I would  borrow the extra $ or if we felt sure retaking the classes was the way to go we would move in that direction.  But we aren't getting that peaceful feeling.  So, today we are not going to do anything yet. It's not like our cup isn't full - some days it feels like it's running over and it's confusing to me why my cup isn't full enough! I can't understand why it feels like some one is missing all the time! Why we feel this CALL but can't understand how to complete the steps. 

I find strength so much in the scriptures especially in Isa. 40:31 "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."  I love the article in the Ensign this month! I think it was written just for me.

 So here's to the next part of our puzzle...which way will we go...or will we just wait and see if anything happens! 

June has been such a blessing and a much needed break for me from the daily task of work.  I am so thankful for this time to renew and focus on my church calling and family. Can't wait to see what July has to offer!

Let the fun begin

Called on a mission!

Our Nana was called on a mission in Jan. She works in the mission home here locally  and does lots of work at home as well. The sister missionaries come and stay with her a lot too. 

She has dedicated her life to 30 years of service as a teacher and school counselor where she helped so many students deal with tragic situations and now she spends her time in the mission home. We love to hear her stories and all about the missionaries. It makes me excited and hopeful for my kiddos to serve a full time mission too. 

take one senior photo shoot!

where are they going?

Andrew turned 16 the end of March and I still haven't recovered from the all the party fun we had that weekend! 16-how did that happen!   We borrowed the Galloway's farm (what a fun place-they shared with us)  I have so many pictures to share and stories to tell but had to take a minute to write before these feelings move on!

The last few weeks have moved fast with parties, work, sports, two proms,dental appts, wisdom teeth appts.,  caroline with strep throat 4 times,  church service and just life in general. Today at school they had a senior meeting for senior pictures and I got to sit it on the meeting  While I was there my life kinda stood still for a small moment.  The photographers showed a slide show of the cool photos they would take and my stomach started doing flips...could it be really....a senior...what....NO!!! I called Steve and told him...sad to say he will be no support since he said "stop talking about it-makes me too sad!"  It is such a bitter sweet feeling to be happy they are  healthy, successful and good but then why is there a  the pit in my stomach that felt like the day they started kindergarten and I left them with Sandy Sisk (our kindergarten teacher) all day every day!     The thoughts keep going through my mind...have I taught them enough..are they strong enough to withstand...my time of teaching while they live at home is almost over. Life sure does fly when your having fun.

More pictures soon and hopefully not a month away!

 

Prov. 22:6

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

So thankful for my calling as a mama...wouldnt' trade these days for anything ever in the world!

Looking for a home

We had the priviledge of having these two boys in our home over Christmas break. They are good boys full of fun and life.  They have lived through some unfortunate events and are in need of a home.  We prayed and prayed about becoming their family but couldn't feel peace with the decision.
SO

I wanted to advocate for them and help them find a family. They are with a wonderful family that just sort of "came upon the situation" and took them in while an adoptive family can be located.

We are praying for these guys to find a good mom and dad that love them.

Here's the link.

Tennessee State Wrestling Weekend

Parade of Champions

A weekend full of fun, victories, win, joy, loss, saddness, endurance, pain, tears,  determination, and reward. I still can't write about it because it was so emotional for our whole family. 

Blake placed 6th in the state of TN in the 160 lb. We are so proud of his accomplishments and hard work.   

He was surrounded by those who have helped him, helped him prepare and cheered him on. It really does take a village! We appreciate our village. 

 

whooo wheee 19 years

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep

because reality is finally better than your dreams."

~ Dr. Seuss~

Happy 19 years!!

Region V Champ!

He did it!  So proud of our kiddo! 

Best match award!

Thank you Blake for an awesome weekend!  One more week of wrestling for our family.  State begins on Thursday afternoon. We are so excited for this blessing and opportunity for Blake.