Good News

I just got an email from a friend who called PGN investigations to check on our case. This girl is quickly becoming my best friend! Her name is Damaris, and some of you reading know all about her. She is well loved! Please take time to say a prayer for her and Nidia, her daughter, who Damaris has been trying to bring home from Guatemala since 2005. She was able to confirm today that PGN investigations has received the original document clearing our attorney of all criminal charges! This is what we've been waiting for! Well us and PGN. They are hoping to have our file "released" from investigations within the next couple of days. This should be ALL we need to get back to regular PGN and hopefully have a fast final approval.

Waahooo!

EASTER EGG MANIA

Nathan is very proud of his egg that he colored. When you tell him to pose and smile, he just can't do it. He HAS to be goofy, it's involuntary for him.

Tim made one that said "I love Tra" ahhh.



After we colored our eggs of course we had to go hide them!
Here Nathan is telling his dad, you can't look!! Stop taking pictures because then you'll know where the eggs are Dad!
In the picture below it's his turn to find the eggs.

He is KING of the egg hunt!

The pictures to follow are from the easter egg hunt at the local park. We had a blast at that one! 10,000 easter eggs to find.



Nathan actually found a special egg, that said you won a prize! We went up to the prize booth and it was a very nice easter basket with special goodies in it. It even had sidewalk chalk in the shape of eggs, he was overwhelmed with excitement on that one!

We had a wonderful easter holiday. It is certainly a holiday of joy, to celebrate Jesus is risen! At the same time it is a time of remembrance of how Jesus was crucified for our sins. Thank you God for sending your son and thank you Jesus for enduring the cross for the world.

We called Joseph to wish him a Happy Easter! The foster family was like what? So I know they celebrate Easter there, but they call it something else. I've heard "holy week" being thrown around on some message boards. Joseph didn't want to talk, but we talked to him and he listened. Nathan said hello to him too. The foster family has someone in their family who is going to be traveling to Nashville, Tennessee in the next couple of months! Oh how we wish they could bring Joseph with them!!!!

PGN opens again on Wednesday of this week. We are praying to hear good news by the end of the week.

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday!

Nothing but time...

Easter is right around the corner. Yippie! PGN in Guatemala will be closed starting tomorrow through next Tuesday for easter week. Maybe next week will be our week! I have a couple of friends who have gotten good news this week! In the meantime Nathan and I are taking full advantage of spring break this week. Nothing to do but pass the time, and sometimes that's pretty nice. Yesterday, we had an awesome PAJAMA DAY! Today, we plan to be outside A LOT. It is very nice here. We are headed to have a picnic with Tim at lunch. Who knows what else we will find ourselves doing. I'm also starting a new knitting project this week, hurray! Speaking of knitting, I'm thinking of doing special knitting projects and selling them. This will be in an effort to finish paying for the rest of our adoption. If anyone wants to talk to me about possibly placing an order of a specific item, email me- tracy.goodwin@yahoo.com I'm thinking baby blankets, luvies, baby booties, bibs, whatever you guys want. Full size blankets are also possible. I know at Christmas I had several happy family members with blankets! If you know of someone who might be interested send them my info. I'm off to picnic!

St. Patrick's fun

I had the privilege of helping in Nathan's classroom this morning. What a morning! Since the kids are on spring break next week, the school decided to celebrate St. Patrick's day today. Nathan's teacher "trashed" their classroom, and left green paint EVERYWHERE. We pretended that a leprechaun had been to the school and left this HUGE mess for all of them to clean up. He was nice enough to leave gold behind for all the kids. It was chocolate gold, so you can imagine how well that went over! These kids were hilarious when they saw their classroom for the first time this morning. Keep in mind, there are 20 four year olds in this class. We were all having a wonderful time finding everything the leprechaun left behind, until some of the kids got a little freaked out. One little girl cried for a minute, we explained to her that it was a friendly leprechaun and that's why he left chocolate behind. Then she decided she liked him again and all was well. You gotta love 4 year olds! It is such a great season of life.

I had a great time with them! They all put a big smile on my face, I was cracking up.

Trusting in Him....

Here is the email that I just received from our attorney:
THE STATES ATTORNEY´S OFFICE HAS WITHDRAW THE CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST MYSELF SO I AM PRESENTING TODAY MARCH 13 THE WITHDRAWAL TO PGN AND LET` S HOPE THIS WILL BE ENOUGH TO CONTINUE THE ADOPTION CASE.

OH MY LORD!! I pray that this is the good news we have been seeking God for. I pray that this is truly the end of the painful journey. I pray that the rest of the journey to bring Joseph home is smooth and quick.
Join us in prayer, there is power in numbers.

Thanks guys!

New Pictures from Guatemala

Psalm 139:14-16 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Okay, so yes I am shocked he still has a bottle! And, yes I am freaking out a little! He is almost 2!
Adorable

Ephesians 3:
¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

OUCH!

In Nathan's overwhelming excitement to see his daddy coming home from work, he ran right into our dining room column! Full force! If you know Nathan at all, you can imagine how hard he hit the column. His head must have hit the corner of the column and he ended up with a huge gash. When I heard the scream and then saw the blood running down his neck, I'll admit I was a little freaked out. Tim and I were able to get him calmed down enough to get in the car, emergency room here we come! He was totally fine by the time we got to the hospital, he was telling the nurse exactly what happened and how. He's so funny. We finally got back to see the doctor and everyone kept talking about how laid back he was. They all said I wish all the kids were like this! I kept telling them, well just wait. So the time came for the stitches, they decided staples were best for him because it would be the fastest. The laid back Nathan went out the window! My poor baby!!! I have never heard the poor child scream quit like that. It was so painful to watch. Luckily they were right, and it was over pretty quick. Of course, Tim and I had the whole guilt thing going once we got home. We wished we had told him it was going to hurt and we wished we had held him while they did it. In the moment though you just aren't thinking straight and you really are looking to the doctor to guide you! So I'll just be mad at them instead! Anyway, we all survived and that's what counts. He gets to stay home with Mom today and get spoiled. Although, he is very anxious to go to school and show everyone his 3 staples in his head.

Thank you God for being with us last night!

one more day is one step closer

Sometimes life throws so many curve balls at me that it is difficult to articulate the cobwebs in my head. Instead, I'll let scripture do my talking. Thank you God for your word that is alive and breeds hope!

21 But this I call to mind,and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning;great is your faithfulness. 24 The Lord is my portion, says my soul,therefore I will hope in him. 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,to the soul who seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3.

Below is an excerpt from one of my favorite blogs, (www.prayingthemhome.blogspot.com) I met Dawn through a Guatemalan adoption message board. She certainly has a way with words....

I wasn't there when you were born.

I wasn't there to see your first smile.

I wasn't there to watch you tumble as you took your first tentative steps.

I wasn't there to kiss away the tears of your first boo-boo.

I wasn't there as you cut those first teeth.

So many things I missed and so many things I never saw as I waited. Hundreds of miles away.

But in God's gracious goodness,

I saw the wonder in your eyes the first time you rode in a big airplane and realized you got your own juice.

I saw your smile of amazement when you took your first drink of water from a drinking fountain.

I watched your eyes sparkle as you put on clothes lovingly purchased just for you.

I saw your joy the first time you opened the fridge and saw it was fully stocked.

I listened to you excitedly holler the first time you saw a cow, a tractor, a gravel road.

I was there as it sunk in that these were your sisters, your brother, and that this family was forever.

I was there when you cried tears of sadness and I was the one you let gently wipe them away.

I felt your body melt into mine the first night I kissed your tender cheek and told you I would be your mommy forever.

Being your mommy means I missed so many firsts.

But being your mommy also means that I am blessed to see all the firsts for the rest of your life.

It was worth every minute of the wait.

Snow!

On Saturday morning we woke up to a wonderously beautiful site: snow! It was great. I had been obsessing on the internet watching the radar as it blew in. I was expecting the snow line to fall apart and it be a big non-event. However, it was certainly an event! We had a blast playing in it and having snowball fights. Sadly, it was almost entirely gone by the evening. Now, only the shadiest part of the yard (tough area so we don't go into that part ;)) has any snow left. After we came back in, I built a fire and we spent most of the day playing inside in front of it. We did get out to the new Super Target they have built here in The Hill. Target rocks.

Nathan could not wait to get out into the snow.

Tra and Nathan checking out how deep it is.

This was probably the deepest part around the house on the northeast corner. Weird since the snow came in from the southwest.

Again, on the northeast side of the house.
The monkey and I getting ready to pelt Tra with some snowballs.

I will add a few others later.

Thanks God!

I'm loving today's sunshine and warmth! I like to think that God did that just for me. He heard my whining yesterday and decided to grant my wish. It's hard to believe that tonight it will be raining and in the 30's; and they are predicting snow for the weekend! Right now I'm trying to be more about "being in the moment". To that end, Nathan and I will be outside until it gets cold again! This weekend will actually be great too, because then I can enjoy a nice fire in the living room.

Off the subject here, but really what is the subject anyway? So, Nathan has these stories that he tells with his dad every night around bedtime. They are hilarious! I am going to have to try and write the one they tell tonight down, and post it. They are always about an elephant named Arnold who loves ice cream. Nathan doesn't like ice cream, but really he doesn't like anything and that's a whole other bag of worms. So, moving on....Nathan is now asking for a baby sister. A what? That's right a baby sister. He said he really wants Joseph to come home so that he can be with his brother and play. Then he said but let's have Joseph and "let's adopt a baby girl". How funny is it that he uses the word "adopt". I found that so interesting for some reason. Of course, my heart's desire is to certainly adopt more, but God will have to move in that area. I will confess that I had been asking Nathan how he would feel if he had another sibling in the house. I'm sure that was on his mind, but the sister part was all him. I'm off to go get the squirt from school. Today is ice day. (you know, the sugar ice)

My private thoughts...

Alright, so the pictures have nothing to do with the post but I know how you guys love the pics! The other little boy and girl in the first two pictures are Nathan's cousins that came for a fun time this weekend. We loved seeing my brother and my parents this weekend! Nathan and Braddock were too cute serenading us! In case you are wondering, Nathan was singing "California Stars" and Braddock was singing "Jesus loves me". Never a dull moment with little ones.
So, on to the real post. I'm ready for the winter to go. Although, another season changing does represent the passing of time. I'm soon to be a year older, and so is Nathan. Which that is just part of life, right? It is something to celebrate! However, I am overwhelmed with sadness as I'm painfully aware that Joseph is soon to be a year older too. This will be our 2nd birthday to miss with him. The important thing is that we won't miss the whole rest of his life, I pray. It is after all, just a day in the year. I hope I'm not depressing anyone, I think the weather is getting the best of me! I really need some warm sunshine.

All the trust and faith I can muster, I leave in the hands of my heavenly father. I leave you encouraged and anxious to see how God will work miracles for my family in this coming year.