Early Christmas Gift!

We got an early Christmas gift from a family member Monday night! Totally unexpected but oh so appreciated! I am not going to mention who gave it or even which side of the family it came from because I don't know if they want us sharing that but we received a very generous check for $1000!!! Jared and I both were shocked and so grateful. We are going to use it to start converting the family room into a bedroom for Kaeden and Grayson! We were going to have to wait to do that until the kids the were home because right now we are saving every penny we can for adoption fees but since this check came to us we can now go ahead and get the rooms ready for the kids now! What a blessing now they can come home and start getting used to their new rooms and the transition will be much easier. This means we will be playing musical rooms again though! Ashlyn will be moving into what is now Kaeden's room and Masha will go into the room that is now Savannah's. That way they share the hall bathroom and have bigger closets. Savannah will move into Ashlyn's old room that has its own bathroom and the boys will go in the new room that will be next to Savannah's new room. They are going to have to share bathrooms with all the girls until 8 years or so when Ashlyn and Masha are both gone then they can have their old rooms! So lots of painting is in our future but that's OK, it makes me feel like we are doing something while we wait for the kids to actually get here. I think Ashlyn has really been missing Masha and is excited about her coming home. I am not however looking forward to all the sisterly fights over clothes and stuff! Even though they are 4 years apart they can wear a lot of the same clothes...so I can already foresee arguments over clothing! So anyone wanna come help frame a couple of walls and put up sheet rock???!!! Anyone, anyone....I'm also not looking forward to all the dust from construction in my house again, we just now got most of it out from having the laminate floors installed back in March. Oh well, the flooring will be easier for Grayson to get around on when he is older and using either a walker or a wheelchair. We still need to build a wheelchair ramp on the house and build a covered carport and walkway to the house. It rains here a lot and having to pile 5 kids, 3 being younger and one with mobility issues its going to take a little bit of time to get everyone loaded up in a vehicle and buckled up. I have already  told Ashlyn that she and Masha will have to help when they are home with carrying a younger sibling and buckling them in otherwise I'd have to make a bunch or trips to and from the car! Oh the adventures of having a larger family!!! lol I never in a million years thought this would be my life!!! I thought two maybe three kids, now here I am with my three about to be five kids and wishing it could be more! I always have had a tender heart for children and orphans but over this last year my eyes were truly opened to the world's orphan crisis and I cannot close them again. It's not just overseas in developing countries, its here in America too. Hundreds of thousands of kids wait for a family every day, its so heartbreaking. I have heard so many times how "special" we are or that there is a special place in heaven for people like us for adopting. I'm here to tell you we are not special, we are very normal and there is no special place in heaven because adopting is what we are told to do in the Bible. I love all my children the same whether they are adopted or biological. Whether i have had them since birth or like Masha will be 14 when she gets home. You don't have to be blood related to a child to love them with everything you have, you don't need to look like them to feel like a parent and you certainly don't have to go through a pregnancy to be a mom. Being a parent is so much more than biology and I truly wish more people would look into adopting a waiting child.