God Said Yes

As you know, Sam and I have prayed for children for many years (in fact, many of you have joined us in this prayer).  This prayer has always been answered with wait.  Friday, our prayer was finally answered with yes when our son, Joseph Dean Parks, was born.

I've been in love with this little guy since January when we found out about him and his birth mom chose us to be his forever home.  Every since then, I've been telling myself that birth mom could change her mind and decide to keep him, but in my heart I loved him already.

His birth story goes like this:

Thursday evening, I told Sam that I was going to stay up until I finished my student assessment portfolios so I could take them to school with me on Friday and not have to stress about them if Joseph made his appearance over the weekend (his due date was May 26th).  I finally finished at 12:30 a.m. and went to bed.

Around 1:30 a.m., my cell phone rang.  It was birth mom telling me that she was headed to the hospital and we needed to start that way too.  I woke Sam up, we grabbed our stuff, and we jumped in the car to head to Lawton.  At 2:40 a.m., my cell phone rang again and, over his crying in the background, birth mom said, "Courtney, you have a baby boy."  I will never forget that phone call!  Our precious baby boy was born at 2:36 a.m.  He was 7 pounds 7 ounces and 20 inches long.  We drove as quickly as possible while still being careful and arrived around 4 a.m.  We were taken to the nursery where we met our sweet little man.

The tears couldn't be contained any longer (let's be honest, I had already cried multiple times on our way down) as we sat there looking at the child that is the answer to our prayers.   The next few hours/days are a blur of paperwork, visitors, crying, lawyers, diapers, and court dates.

I've want so badly to blog about Joseph many times in the time leading up to his birth and since, but Sam and I made an agreement that we would wait until everything was legal.  Well, he's ours now (as long as mom doesn't change her mind in the 30 day grace period) and I'm so excited to share him with you!

And, because I'm a proud new momma, here are a few more pictures of our little guy:

Sam has really fallen into the role of Daddy.

He's just so perfect!

 

Here is Joseph on his birth date with his cousin Bryar who was a day short of two months old.  I can't believe the size difference!

Aubrey's Birthday

Last Thursday was the second anniversary of Aubrey's birth.  As we did last year on her birthday, Sam and I both took the day off from work to enjoy spending time together (we've decided that a great way to honor her is to spend time strengthening our marriage).  We ate a nice lunch, took a fresh spray of flowers to her grave (where Sam also read his annual letter to her), made a donation to St. Jude in her name, and took a nap.  All in all, it was a great day!

A Month in Review - April

Well, since April has come and gone already, I guess I will write a recap of our month.  You might be thinking that I didn't write anything last month because I didn't have anything to write about, but it's actually because we were so busy I didn't have much time to get on the computer.  Here are a few of the highlights from April.

~ Sam and I started the month by coming home from dinner to find this in our yard.

 That's right, as an April Fools joke our neighbor forked our yard! 

~ We cleaned out the pond and added a second fountain.

~ We had a carnival at school. 

 

~ I finally convinced Sam to let me update our mailbox.

 Nothing is safe now that I have a Silhouette!

~ Sam got a shot in his back to help with the pain he has been experiencing.

 When I went back to sit with him and wait for his procedure I wasn't expecting him to be dressed like this.  Luckily, he was in a good mood and let me take a picture. 

~ I made a shirt for my friend's son's first birthday party.

~ I let my friend talk me into running the Remember the Ten 5k.  Thankfully, Sam ran with me since Bailey was actually running the 10k.  I might or might not have run into a huge flower pot mid-run.

~ Sam and Ben added a column to the back porch.

~ Bella went to school with me to teach safe procedures when petting dogs during pet week.

She waited oh so patiently in the office as the kids were waking up from rest time.

She even used good manners and looked at the speaker while the kids were asking me questions about her.

~ We went to Tulsa to The Black Keys concert.  Since we stayed at Sam's brother's house, we were able to take the dogs.  They had a blast playing with the cousin dogs!

Pete loves Bella so much!

Bella loves Sam!!!

So there you have it, April in a nutshell.  Maybe I'll have time to blog again once summer break starts.