Thanks for sharing Dawn!! A fellow adoptive mom:)

The Top 13 Reasons Why Adoption is For You!

1. The fact that there are 143 million children without a parent to kiss them goodnight has made you lose sleep.
2. You realize DNA has nothing to do with love and family.
3. You can't watch Adoption Stories on TLC without sobbing.
4. The fact that, if 7% of Christians adopted 1 child there would be no orphans in the world, is convicting to you.
5. You spend free time surfing blogs about families who have experienced the blessing of adoption.
6. It drives you crazy when people ask you about adopted child's "real" parents.
7. You have ever been "pregnant" with your adoptive child longer than it takes an elephant to give birth. (2 years!)
8. You had no idea how you would afford to adopt but stepped out in faith anyway, knowing where God calls you He will provide. (AMEN TO THAT)
9. You have ever taken an airplane ride half-way around the world with a child you just met.
10. You believe God's heart is for adoption.
11. You realize that welcoming a child into your heart and family is one of the most important legacies you could ever leave on this earth.
12. You know what the word "Dossier" means, and you can actually pronounce it!
13. You shudder when people say your child is so lucky that you adopted them, knowing full well you are the BLESSED one to have him or her in your life.

I just cried when I read this....because number 13 happens all the time and we just look at Rylie and say man what did we EVER do to deserve a baby as special as she is. We are the blessed ones to have her as a daughter. God chose us to raise her and we are the blessed ones:)
Thanks Dawn for sharing this email with me...it was awesome!!!!

Orphans of God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJmRPdogf7U
Hey I say this on an adoption blog that I read and just wanted to share with you guys....really breaks my heart!

JULY 4th!

We have had a great 4th of July. I have been off since last Tuesday and unfortunatly have to return tomorrow. Robbie had friday and monday off so he got a long weekend as well. We had everyone over on friday and cooked out and then had fireworks. It was so nice just hanging out with the family and everyone being healthy. God is good to us that is for sure. Rylie liked the fireworks but she had more fun with the bubbles that her and "crica" were playing with. She LOVES her bubbles. Saturday we went shopping. Rylie did so well with her potty training. SHe has had the poopy thing down we are still working on peepee. When you are out shopping it makes it a little harder because she gets busy and doesn't want to take the time to go. She did great wore the same potty pull up ALL day long. It was nice...we saw every single bath room that the stores had to offer:)
Sunday was a GREAT day at church with friends and family and then Rylie went to Gigi's and popa's and mommy and daddy had some quiet time at home;)
We actually worked on some things for Rylie's upcoming 2nd birthday party. I don't want to wait till the last minute. I want things ready to go if you know what I mean. We are doing an "elmo" theme this year. Elmo makes me smile just to look at him...I just love that little guy:) she does too.
Today was the errand day. We went for breakfast and been on the road since. Robbie went and had oil change, rotated tires and had my car washed. Then this afternoon Rylie starts her swimming lessons.
How fun...we hope she does well. Just wanted to share a couple of our pictures especially the one with Robbie doing the rain dance it actually worked.
So if you need him to do one again there will be a small nominal fee:) Just kidding man we needed that rain something fierce.
Anyway keep praying for us with the unspoken prayer request. We have not heard anything else in regards to it, so we believe no news is good news. We will share as soon as we know more about this ok....thanks ahead for the prayers
Love you all

Unspoken prayer request!

Hey guys
We just wanted to ask you to lift us up in prayer. We have a situation that has been dropped in our pathway and we need to pray for guidance with this situation. We know God has our backs but we want to do GOD's will not our will and we want our judgement not to be clouded. We want and pray for HIS guidance in this matter.
We will share as soon as we can with everyone. PLEASE pray if we have ever needed your prayers it is now:)
Thanks ahead.
Billie, Robbie and Rylie

Love one another!

Here are some pictures of our Rylie Bug to share ...she is growing way to fast for her daddy and mommy...She is a trip...she tells you "I ash a tutu laaaaaveu nost" translated " I absolutly love you most" It is so cute how she says it. Kelly she also says "soup" for bathing suit like your boys. She thinks everyday she is going to the beach or pool. I try to tell her beach days are over for awhile and pool days are only when mommy is off, but telling that to a 22 month old is fruitless...
I wanted to share some thoughts on our message at church today ...

Love one another that was our topic of discussion from Jeff today at church. Love one another and God really brought it home to me today. It is easy to tell someone that you love them. I shake people's hand ALL day long at work. I am around people ALL day when I work and it is easy to tell some people that you love them, but sometimes it is not as sincere as it needs to be. For instance at church we all have been guilty of saying how are things or how are you doing..hey love you brother/sister and then keep walking barely giving some people the time to answer. We get caught up in the world around us. However God tell us to LOVE one another
John 13: 34-35
A NEW command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this ALL men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
It is here that he instructs us to love EVERYONE no matter the color, where they are from or who they are....WHY because He commands it and also because he loved us so much that he GAVE his LIFE for us...that is how much He loved us....and if we love one another then that is how people will know that we are HIS...not by how much we attend church or how much we give all those things are of course important but it is about how we love one another.
Now that is the easy part to love...here comes the hard part for some....
Luke 6:31-32
do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? even sinners love those who love them.
Luke 6:35
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of them Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
There it is....it is so much harder to love on your enemies but that is what He commanded for us to do. There will be times whe nwe are scammed by people but that is not our worry God will take care of that for us and be our vindicator....we just must do as He commands and LOVE!!
I was just really moved by our message today and thought I would share...

check out this you tube cardboard confessions

Check this out....Thanks to Kim for sharing...This is awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDDc5RB6FQ

God Bless have a great day!

Our vacation to the beach

We went to Myrtle Beach this past week. We stayed in a 3BR, 2Bath full kitchen condo with Ellen and Brett (aka GiGI and Popa). We had not been to Mrytle in over 10 years and it was a nice trip. There was hardly any one there. It was nice to go to restaurants and there be no lines. The only time there was a small line was when we went to the aquarium and even then it was not that bad.
When we pulled up in parking garage we said we are here at the beach and I really think that Rylie thinks that the parking garage is the "beach" because she called the ocean "awa" (water) . Thankfully she LOVED the water, especially the heated lazy river. She got on her small float and just floated around the pool. She did so great this week. You know you worry about being away from her bed and trying to potty train, but she was a trooper she had one poopy in her little swimmers, because she didn't want to go in to the restroom. ( Rest assured she pooped out of the pool in her lil swimmers...thank God). We were so proud of her. She feed some fishes and some ducks at the aquarium.
Also the ocean aka "awa" was a tad bit cold so you should have seen all of us digging her out her own personal pool out in the sand and then filling it with water. She thought she was something else in there. Popa and Daddy was at her beck and call at the beach if she wanted more "awa" then they fetched it for her. It was funny. I have a lot more pictures to share but haven't had time to down load them as of yet. It is crazy I took SOOOO many pictures this time...she was just too funny this time around. She is getting such a personality and man it shows.
We had a great vacation, but as with all vacation they are just too short:( and of course we ate entirely too much....
Also this is a praise report for us as well. Robbie and I did the Dave Ramsey classes through our church and have been trying to budget and save as much as we can. It is a LONG process we didnt get into debt overnight and it will not go away overnight. Dave Ramsey would be proud in a way and then again not be proud of us. But we are proud of ourselves. We budgeted and paid cash for the entire vacation this year everything paid for. This is the first time we EVER paid cash for EVERYTHING....Dave would be proud of that, however he would probably had said stay at home, and not go and take that money and put on your debt...but we REALLY wanted to go somewhere for awhile. It was nice to get away for awhile and spend some QUALITY time together as a family. Kelly I know you are feeling me:)
We just pray that God continues to watch over our finances so that we can get out of debt and be able to do God's will with our money when he calls us to. We want to be able to be a blessing to others.

I take Rylie back for a follow up appt tomorrow...please pray for health and healing for Rylie she has had a rough time with that little bug she had.