She's Legal

Today was our court date to make the adoption official and have the a judge sign off on it. We were not sure what to expect and were a little nervous but it was a piece of cake. Judge Martin was the judge we saw. We went into his office and chit chatted for a little bit and he signed off on the paperwork and we took some pictures. Then we went and filed the paperwork and we should get her new birth certificate in like 6 weeks. Judge Martin was really nice, he has adopted 3 kids (I think) so he is all about adoption. Here is our picture with him.

Esther also made a new friend at the courthouse. There was another couple there getting their adoption finalized also. We talked to them a little bit. Their little boy is a month or so older than Esther but he is a chunk. His name is Cooper, maybe one of these days they will meet up again. We took a picture of them together.

We also went by LifeSource today and let Esther meet our friends Ernie and Terry. Ernie is my brother's father-in-law. Ernie did our pre-marital counseling and he is one of my mentors.

And yesterday, Margo's roommate and good friend from college, Magevney and her husband, stopped by. They live in Memphis and are moving to Kazakhstan soon. Their daughter, Kirsten, is a year old.

Here is Esther today wearing her first dress for her day in court. I am not sure why babies need shoes but they are cute.

Update

The people are demanding an update.

Tuesday was a good day for us. The adoption paperwork became legally binding on that date. There is a waiting period after adoption to give the birthmom a chance to change her mind. It is 10 days in Arkansas but 5 of those days can be waived by the birthmom (which ours did). That put the day on Saturday so it would go to the next business day which was actually Tuesday because of the holiday. Now we just have one more thing to make it official official. Our court date for the judge to sign off on the adoption is tomorrow. They say that it is more of just a formality but I will be happy when it is all done. Also Tuesday, we talked to the agency (Bethany) we were working with to adopt to let them know we would not need to continue with them since we had adopted Esther (privately without an agency). They were happy for us but sad for them because they really liked us and wanted to work with us. We had already paid there upfront/non-refundable fee to use them (which was several thousand dollars). But they told us they had not yet deposited our check so they were not going to worry about it and not deposit it. So, we got that money back!!!!!!!!! Side story....This was a huge answer to prayer. We had been really worried about the money aspect of adopting. The average cost is $20,000-$25,000 and we had made a lot of changes to our lives to save this kind of money and it was going to completely deplete our savings. Private adoptions are hard to come by but God answered our prayers and provided a private adoption for us that is costing us less than 10% of what we had thought we would have to pay for adoption through an agency.

My work had a shower for us on Tuesday also. It was a lot of fun and totally blew us away how much stuff Esther got there. It was funny because I work with almost all women and a lot of their kids are grown and older so they were really excited about baby Esther and they were oohing and awing over her. I really like my job and the people I work with. Some of them are like family and it was awesome to see how much they already love her. It meant a lot to me.

I am still working on the furniture for her room. I finished repainted the cradle, crib, and changing table that we were given. She has been sleeping in the cradle in our room. We are trying to hold off buying bunch of stuff and getting her room set up until after the shower on Saturday. Right now I am working on stripping and repainting the dressers that are going in her room.

Here is the before picture of the cradle. This cradle was my cradle when I was a baby. It was given to my parents when I was born (almost 30 years ago). Hopefully we can pass it on to Esther when she has kids.

Here is it is after being repainted. I think it turned out pretty good. Much more up to date looking.

Our good friends Russ, Kristy, and their daughter Sophie came over the other day to see Esther. Here is Sophie holding Esther.

More pictures

More Firsts

Well, Esther got to meet lots more friends and family this weekend. She got to meet Margo's brother and family briefly. They were on their way out of town and stopped by just for a minute. They have three young kids so figured it was better not to unload everyone since they were on their way to a family reunion. On Saturday night we went to some friends house and we got to watch our first Razorback game as a family (and we won). Today, we took her to church for the first time and let me tell you she was a hit. We could not even make it in the door before a crowd formed around us. It was really awesome that everyone was so excited about her. She did pretty good during church, just a couple loud farts. This afternoon she got to meet my brother and his family. They were in town for the weekend. My niece and nephew were really sweet with her. They had even made a video for her on the day they found out we had got her telling her how excited they were to meet her and how much they loved her. Here are some pics, there are more if you click on the pictures link on the right sidebar (I put the newest ones first).

Here she is with Uncle Zack (Josh's brother)

With Aunt JoAnna (Josh's sister in law)

Uncle Chris (Margo's brother)

Aunt Megan (Margo's sister in law)

Watching the Razorback game

Her new Razorback outfit

Awesome little bow that JoAnna made for her

With first cousins Lincoln and Keylor

On a side note, our baby shower is officially planned for next Saturday from 2-4pm at our church (the grove church). It is open for anyone to come to (men, women, kids) and is come and go as you want. In case you are going to buy us something, we are mostly registered at Target and Terra Tots, and we registered for a little bit of stuff at Wal-Mart today. Don't feel like you need to get us anything but come if you just want to meet sweet Esther. Also we are having her baby dedication at church next Sunday at the 9:15 service.

Meet the Grandparents

Yesterday, Margo's parents came out to see Esther for the first time. And today my parents drove up to spend the afternoon and meet her for the first time. Then later in the afternoon Margo's mom brought Margo's grandmother to come see Esther for the first time. I think they liked her.

Margo's Dad

Margo's Mom

My Parents

Margo's grandma

I also wanted to share this picture from the other night when some of our friends brought us dinner. They just had a baby boy on July 25th. We have been celebrating his birth with them since he was born. Little did we know at the time that God had already provided us our little girl and she was actually born three days before him. Here they are on their first date.

And here is a picture of Esther on a baby quilt that my grandmother made for me when I was born (almost 30 years ago). Be sure and pay attention to the awesome hair.

There are lots more pictures on our picasa web album. Just click here. I will also add a link to this album on the right side column of the blog. I will add more as often as I can.

You don't have to buy us stuff, but we sure appreciate it.

Lot of people have been asking about what we need and what they can buy us. We really appreciate everybody wanting to get us stuff, but it is hard for us to ask people to buy us stuff. I guess that is just what people do when you have a baby. Please don't feel obligated though. Just your friendships and kindness to us is gift enough. But, since everyone has been asking, I wanted to let you know that we finally had time to register a little bit yesterday. We registered at Target and at a local store called Terra Tots. Terra Tots is owned by a friend of ours and they sell cloth diapers and lots of other really cool and natural type baby supplies. We want to try and do cloth diapers as much as we can. So, if you live in NWA you can check that store out, it has lots of great stuff and if Bernice (she is the owner) helps you, she has been a friend of mine since growing up. We will also try to register for some stuff at Wal-Mart at some point this weekend when we get time. I know some of you may not have a Target where you live but most of the stuff we needed we registered for at Target. There is a shower being planned for next Saturday afternoon/evening so if anyone is interested let me know and I can give our friends your contact information so you will get an invite. It will be a casual/co-ed/come and go kind of thing. But again, don't feel like you need to bring a gift if you come, just come and hang out and check out Esther.

I will try to put up more pictures later today.

Crazy

I wanted to share a quick fact with everyone. Normally I get around 20-30 hits a day on this blog. Yesterday we had 817 !!!!!!!!!!!

Day 2 - Finding which way is up

So, the first night was a little rough. We did not sleep much. She was having a hard time adjusting to new people, new place, sleeping by herself, sleeping flat. But we had a great day yesterday spending time with her and sorting through stuff. We tried to make a plan of action of what we need and what we need to do to have a baby even though we already have the baby.

Esther did a lot better sleeping last night. She slept for about 4 hours before she woke up the first time and then went back to sleep for another few hours. It was pretty nice, we got to catch up on our sleep a little bit. Some of our awesome friends have already been blessing us. A friend from work stopped by and brought some diapers, blankets, and other needed things. Some other good friends brought us dinner last night which was really nice. And then another friend from work brought us some stuff from her sister's little girl from when she was a baby. It is some stuff we really needed...a swing, a play mat, a boppy, some clothes, and more.

Today, we are going in to town to register for baby stuff (a shower is being planned by our friends). And we have to meet with the lawyer. Later today, she will get to meet her grandparents (Margo's parents) for the first time. And tomorrow she gets to meet her other grandparents.

And then there were 3

Ok, crazy story. We got a call at 5:30pm MONDAY night that there was a baby for us to adopt in Little Rock. A 6 week old baby. And we could come down and meet the birthmother and if everything worked out sign the papers and bring the baby home. So, we went to Wal-Mart on Monday night and bought a car seat, pack n play, diapers, formula, and bottles. We drove to Little Rock YESTERDAY and met the birthmom and baby, the birthmom signed the papers and we drove home around 3pm from Little Rock with our DAUGHTER. It was totally a miracle how it all happened. God was in complete control of our situation and blessed us beyond what we could ever imagine.

So, we are parents. Just like that.

She is awesome. We have named her Esther Louise Hale. Louise is one of Margo's grandmother's first name and her other grandmother's middle name. She was born July 22nd. She was a couple weeks early and weighed around 6 pounds and now she is up to about 7.5 pounds. She has brown hair and deep blue eyes.

We have lots of stuff to share about how it all happened but I thought I would post a quick note to let everyone know about it and give you a few details. I know, I know, you want more than details, you want pictures. Here....

It's Official

We are officially in a drought according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. And let me tell you, it is dry here. I have never seen it like this around here before. All the grass is brown and completely dead, all the farmers are feeding hay (including me). The drive out to our house is crazy because of all of the brown fields. My ponds are the lowest I have ever seen them, the smaller one is almost completely dry.

Here is the drought map to prove it (you can click it to make it bigger). We are in the light brown (drought moderate) in the northwest corner.

Where's the Kitty

As you who read the blog know, we had kittens a while back. We gave away all but one of them. The one we kept is starting to get big and he is at that really playful age so he is a lot of fun. We are still discussing names for him. I think Smalls might be the leading candidate right now, with Goodbye a close second.

Big Milestone

Something big happened today. We went to Mena for the weekend and on our way back while on interstate 540, between Chester and the tunnel, our car hit 100,000 miles. It is our CRV that we bought brand new in 2004. It is the first car we bought together. It has been a great car for us, Margo loves driving it. I hope it goes for another 100,000

I thought I would give a brief description of where it's been and what it has been through in it's 100,000 miles. Besides taking us all around Northwest Arkansas, it has been to the far reaches of Arkansas, to Mena tons of times, Little Rock a bunch of times, Dallas, St. Louis, New Orleans, Denver, Cleveland, Columbus (OH), Nashville (TN), Omaha, and many other lesser known cities. It has been in a wreck where a guy sideswiped it and it has hit a deer (both while Margo was driving).

Here is a picture of when we bought it and brought it home.

Here is today on the way home. Yes, I took the picture while driving (it is against the law to text while driving, not take pictures while driving). What is most amazing is I am only going 70 on the interstate (I slowed down for safety while taking the picture).

Death of a Farm

It seems that every year we have a period of the summer where it gets really dry and does not rain for a while. Well, we are experiencing that right now. Every year I think it is the worst it's ever been. I don't know if that is the case or not but it sure feels like it again this year. We have not had rain in several weeks here on the farm. There have been lots of pop up showers around the area but none of them have been here. The grass is mostly brown and dead. There are still a few spots in wetter type areas that still have a little green grass for the animals to eat. If it does not rain soon though, I will have to start feeding hay to the animals. Another thing that is dead is the garden. I tried to keep it going for a little while but it was just taking to much watering so I let it go. Luckily I was able to keep it going long enough to get all the veggies we needed to can and freeze for the rest of the year. If it ever rains again, I may plant some stuff for a fall garden. The only thing that I am still keeping alive is the cantaloupe and watermelon. Here is a picture of the last thing I got out of the garden, the butternut squash and spaghetti squash.

And here is a picture of a couple cantaloupe.

The natives are getting to comfortable

This is a picture looking out the back window. (that's a deer, not a goat)

Since we moved in and put up fence, cleared land, etc., we have hardly ever seen deer on our property. Sometimes you would see them back up behind the house on the hill in the winter but never near the house. But, the past month or so, two doe's have been right behind the house like it is no big deal. I just hope they don't get so comfortable that they get in the yard or garden and eat our plants. Otherwise, we might be having deer steaks soon.

Chicken Stimulus

I bought some new chickens over the weekend. Our current chickens are getting older and not laying as well and we have lost some of them to varmints a while back. I am not sure what varmints because I never caught any of them, but I think it could have been hawks. Anyway, back to the new chickens story. I took a couple of our goats that were born this year up to the Centerton Livestock Auction to sell on Saturday. I happened to get up there right when they were having the poultry sale. I decided to check it out to see how much the chickens were going for and they happened to be going for really cheap. So, I just had to buy some to replenish our numbers. I ended up buying 15!!!!! Oops (I am supposed to be trying to save money these days). After buying a few I realized that I did not have a cage to hold chickens with me so I had to buy a cage also. Luckily they had some they were auctioning off and they were pretty cheap. The chickens I bought are a little younger and may not be laying eggs yet but they should be soon. I got them for around $3 each which is really cheap. Usually these chickens go for $10+ each. I am not sure why they were so cheap, I guess the economy effects chicken sales also. And they probably have not been getting any stimulus money at the Livestock Auction......trade in your old inefficient chickens for new energy efficient ones. Now that would be a sweet deal.

Long Time, No Post

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything. It has been busy around here to say the least. I am going to do a quick catch up for you.

Our biggest time consumers are trying to sell the house and working through the process of adoption. Both seem to be going well but both are just kind of a waiting game at this point.

Another thing that has been keeping us super busy is the garden. It has been at it's peak the past few weeks. We have been canning lots of pickles, green beans, salsa, and spaghetti sauce. We have also put up about half of our corn so far. We have been eating tons of fresh zucchini, squash, eggplant, and cucumbers. Almost every day we are working on something involving the garden.

We also had some missionary friends staying with us for a few months while they were raising support to move. They moved last week to Germany. It was really fun having them around and sad that they are moving but we know they will do great things. We also have some good friends moving to St Louis next week so that is sad also.

I will try to blog more often if I can. The past couple weeks we have had stuff keeping us busy about every day. I will leave you with a picture of the tomatoes we picked yesterday.

Canceled

I have some very sad news. Margo and I have decided to cancel 4th on the Farm this year. This would have been our 3rd annual. Last year we had 60 people attend and we smoked a whole hog and had big fireworks, along with many other things. We decided to not have it this year because we are trying to save money for an adoption as I mentioned in a previous post, and putting 4th on the Farm on cost us a pretty big chunk of money. We tried to get some corporate sponsors but Wal-Mart, Tyson, and JB Hunt all turned us down. Sorry to all of you who might have been looking forward to it. We will try our best to bring it back next year wherever we are at that time.

FSBO

Margo and I decided to take our house off the market with a realtor for a little while. We are going back to trying to sell it by owner. This enables us to drop the price some. We now have it listed for $200,000 which we think is a really good deal for someone. We still have our website up advertising the house. The site is westforkfarm.blogspot.com. Be sure and tell all your friends, co-workers, etc. Feel free to put it on your facebooks, twitters, blogs, buzz, etc. Spread the word.

Flowers

Our flowers are looking pretty good right now so I thought I would post some pictures. These are in the bed out front. A lot of these I planted when I built that bed a few years ago. They are starting to fill that space better and look nice. There are a lot of daylillies, hostas, butterfly bushes, and many others. They really attract the butterflies. We have been enjoying them a lot.

Lum and Abner

Last weekend, Margo and I and a couple friends went to Mena for the weekend. We enjoy going to Mena to visit anytime but this particular weekend was the Lum and Abner Festival. If you don't know who Lum and Abner are click here. A brief description is they were a comedy radio team in the heyday of radio. Their show was the most popular radio show for several years. Anyway, these two guys were from Mena (and I just read that they both graduated from the UofA). The Lum and Abner festival is Mena's biggest festival during the year. It has been going on for a long time, as far back as I can remember. When I was a kid they had arts and crafts, fishing derby, and 3 on 3 basketball. I am sure they had more but that is what I remember. It has become a lot bigger deal now with lots more events. They had the above mentioned things along with quilt show, firemen challenge, live music, antique car show (they had 150 cars this year), pancake breakfast, bbq cookoff, and more. My two favorite things they have now is the baby crawling contest and the ice melting contest. The ice melting was they had 10 pound blocks of ice and the first one to melt their block using only body heat won. They had four heats and then a championship. Here is a video I took of it.

I just had to share the random awesomness with all of you.

We had lots of fun over the weekend with our friends who went with us and our friends we stayed with. We spent some time in the hot tub and a lot of time playing Beatles Rockband. It was a really good time. All of you who live in Arkansas should go check out Lum and Abner Festival sometime.

Going Personal

We don't share a lot of personal info on this blog. I don't really like to share personal info anytime except with people I am close to. I especially don't think the internet is a good place for all my personal stuff to be floating around, I think that could be dangerous. If we had kids and I was going to post about them, I would make my blog private, but that's just opinion. Ok, enough of that soap box and back to what this posting is really about.

Our immediate family and some of our close friends already know about this but I thought it was time to make it more public. Margo and I have some medical issues that make us not be able to conceive a child on our own. This is something we have been dealing with for a few years and no medical type treatment has been able to change it so far. There is still a very slight chance that we could get pregnant but it is a very small chance. So, we made the decision a couple months ago to officially pursue adoption. We are currently working on applications for adoption agencies.

The reason we decided to make this more public is because we would prefer to do an independent adoption (person to person) instead of going through an agency. Agency adoption costs average somewhere between $15,000-$25,000 and independent adoptions are usually 1/4 of that. But independent adoptions are hard to come by. You basically just have to be lucky and find out about someone who is wanting to give their baby for adoption but has not or does not want to use an agency. We feel like the more people we have out there who know we are wanting to adopt, the greater chance that someone might know of or hear about an independent adoption for us. Coming up with the money for an agency adoption will be a challenge. We can do it but it may take a little while and we are going to have to change our lifestyle a little. One thing we are trying to do to save more money towards adoption is selling our house. That way we can move somewhere that is cheaper even if that means not having a farm for a while. But an independent adoption would really be a lot better for us.

This whole process has been really difficult for us. There is a lot of things that we have been through so far but I will not share on here. It will all be worth it though if and when we are able to have a child (naturally or adopted). So, here is what you can do for us. If you hear about someone who is wanting to give their baby up for adoption, please let us know. We really would prefer to adopt a baby for our first adoption but we are open to considering anything situation at this point (especially if it is a large athletic black kid that is going to go pro in football).

We are not writing this to get sympathy from anyone, we just wanted people to know so they could help by letting us know if they hear about a possible adoption for us.

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 2 Corinthians 4:8-11

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Finally an update

It seems that I am doing a poor job at blogging on a regular basis. We have been extremely busy the past few weeks. I thought I would give you a quick update on what's new on the farm.

Our kittens are growing like weeds. They have left the barn and are now residing under the shop. They are eating solid food and playing like crazy. And they are really friendly. If you want one, you better claim it soon before they are gone.

I bought some new sheep last week. We did not really need more sheep (since I had just bought two a few weeks ago) but it was such a good deal that I could not pass them up. I bought six total, 2 boys and 4 girls. They are all mostly katahdin except for one and I am not sure what it is. I will sell the boys pretty soon because I do not need them and they were not castrated so I can't keep them around and eat them. I am really enjoying having the sheep around though, especially since they are pretty friendly.

The garden is growing like crazy. The asparagus is done producing but we are getting tons of sugar snap peas. And we got our first zucchini and yellow squash today so that was pretty exciting. We should have green beans soon also. I still need to make a post soon about a new gardening method I am trying.

That is all of the update that I have for now. I have another post in mind that I will put up tomorrow so stay tuned.

New Animals

The past few weeks, I have been getting rid of some of my animals. Every year, I adjust my herd a little. This year so far I have gotten rid of a few of my goats and my all of my ewe sheep. I had not planned on buying any to replace them anytime soon because as you know, we are trying to sell our house. I am not sure how many animals we will be able to take with us. My plan did not last very long because I came across some new goats and sheep that I could not pass up. I bought two young female goats that were born this year. The main reason I bought them is because they are dairy goats and I got a good deal on them. We have been contemplating doing some dairy goats for a while and now we are set. After they have babies next year, we will be able to do some milking if we want. These two are half Nubian, one quarter Alpine, and one quarter Oberhasli. We got these two in Huntsville and on the farm where we bought them they also had Katahdin sheep which is one of the kinds of sheep we wanted to replace the ones we got rid of. The ones we got rid of were Barbados and were pretty wild. Katahdin are naturally more calm. Our ram is Katahdin and we really like him. Anyway, we were able to buy a couple of ewe lambs from the same place we got the goats. We got a solid white one and a white/red one. With our black ram, we should have some pretty colorful kids. Now I just have to figure out what I will do with them if we move. Here are some pics of the four new ones together.

Kittens

Last week, our kitty Spot had three baby kittens. This is the third time for her to have kittens. The first two times she just had one kitten, which is kind of weird, and neither of them survived. Anyway, these kittens are pretty cute. Their eyes aren't quite opened yet. If any of you want a kitten, let us know.

Here they are

Also, in honor of our new kittens I thought I would put a few of our favorite cat related youtube videos on here.