Merry Christmas From The Kniep's

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Because we sure did!

We are so blessed to have so many family members who live around us!

And to top it all off- a family who celebrates the real meaning of Christmas!

JESUS!

*****

We are so excited to see what next year holds for us! 

Can't wait to see who God decides to put in our family! 

We are so close to having all of our paperwork ready to send in...and after that...waiting list! 

Bring on 2012!

Kisses From Katie

I just finished reading this book last week.

I have to say, that next to the Bible, it was one of the best books I have read.

I've read her blog for years, and like many people, I think we had a lot of questions of how she got to where she is today. The book answers answers all the questions, plus gives such  great insight to this girls heart for not only orphans, but for people in general. You can't help but read it and think, "I can do more!" My mind was just racing with ideas of how I could help people, and not just through adoption and other Christian organizations, but people in my very own community. 

If you haven't heard of Katie Davis, or read her blog about the work she is doing in Uganda, here is the link to her blog: http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/

If you want to purchase a book, here is the link to her organization: Amazima.org

Keeping Busy

Luckily for me...I have plenty of things in my life to keep me occupied from not thinking about adoption related stuff all the time! We have two kids, two dogs, two businesses, and one lizard. Yes, that's right, we have one Bearded Dragon named Izzy.

Meet Izzy

You could say he was one of those random purchases where not much thought went into it. 

We actually went to get some new fish for our tank...and there they were, little baby Bearded Dragons just looking up at me asking me to take them home. 

Here he is as a baby...so tiny!

Thanks to Izzy I have one more thing to take care of, which is great because I have been a little down lately about our adoption. It is so frustrating when there are things we could be doing if only we had the funds to do it! But like I said before, I know that God knows when our little one will arrive, and I'm not going to worry about it!

I have to laugh at myself when I'm getting out all our lizard supplies...calcium and vitamin powder, which I have to "dust" the live crickets in before I feed them to Izzy. (That definitely took some getting use to). And then let's not forget about the cricket food- I have to buy about 50 or so crickets, which last a few days, but they have to have food to stay alive that long. I NEVER thought I would be a mother of 2, dusting crickets in calcium powder and feeding them to a lizard...Yes, I'm strange :)

But Izzy has made a great addition to our family. We love him, the kids especially!

I think we'll keep him :)

Asleep In The Light

Keith Green has to be one of my favorite Christian Artists of all time. Yes, I admit, I still love to listen to 70's and 80's music, actually that's probably most of what I listen to. And to top it off, I love to listen to it on my record player...I think I was born in the wrong era!

This song, Asleep in the Light, still brings me to tears every time I listen to it. The words are so convicting, I can't help but listen to it, and immediately pray that God can use me to share Christ with others. I just finished listening to one his records for the um-teenth time this week- so I thought I would share it with you all!

New Schedules...

Sorry for the lack of posting lately...Our lives are crazy! So much has changed for us in the past couple months. I'm hoping we get use to the new routine soon! Some new things in our lives are....

*Josiah is going to school two mornings a week
*We opened a new business here in Morton (mortonrentals.com)
*We are working with Wyldlife again (Jr. high youth group)
*I work at church on Wednesday nights with 2 and 3 year olds.
*Josiah will be starting hockey in a few weeks

And I'm sure there are other random things here and there, but those are the newest additions.

As far as our adoption goes...well you can just about imagine how much extra time we have to do paperwork! We are hoping to get our dossier sent out within the month, which would be great so our agency can start translating it into French and ready to send over to the DRC.

One new thing for our adoption is that now people can make a tax-deductable donation to us to help cover some our adoption costs. I just want to make it clear that we are not asking for money, but there has been a few people who have asked about it, so we went ahead and got an agency to partner with us and set up an account for us. All the info is to the left of the screen, or if anyone has any questions, please ask me!!

I really hope I can have some more news about our adoption soon!! I can't wait for our paperwork to get done, so we can get on a wait list as soon as possible!! But I am trying to just trust the Lord, and remember that his timing is perfect!

Sibling Love

 My babies are 4 and 2! I can't believe it!

 Sy tries to kiss his sister....

...She wants nothing to do with it!

Josiah and Novea's Birthday

The best part about the the kid's birthdays being so close is:

Only having 1 cake!!!

I'm sure she covered the cake in spit :) 

It was SO hot outside, we were all sweating, but the kids had fun anyway! 

We are so thankful to all of our family who care so much about our kids!

We love you guys! 

Pizza Mania

If anyone knows me well, they know that I am a sucker for children's books, puzzles, games, or anything else they sell at Barnes and Noble or The School House. With all this non-summer like weather we have been having I thought it would be fun to go find some new new stuff to do inside, and of course I found a couple things :) One thing I found is this game and I love it so much I'm actually going to blog about it! It's called Pizza Mania, and it is pre-k age game learning the basics of math. Each kid gets their own pizza crust with four different toppings, and they have to listen to what the chef tells them to do. For example add two peppers, or take away one mushroom and so on. Sy and his friend Olivia LOVED it!! Novea, just wanted to make pizza, and it's great for that too :)

Khaki Kangaroos

I can't believe my little guy is old enough to be playing tball and soccer! I use to take kids I babysat to these programs and I'm taking my own kids! So crazy!

Summer Pictures

Just some pictures from this past week :)

The kids love to help great grandma and grandpa miller plant their garden!

So I just figured out how to post stuff from my phone. Thought I better test it out with a cute picture of Sy!

"Children of God"

Many people know that Brad and I want to adopt someday...preferably sooner than later!  We just know that we have some things that we need to take care of first. It's been on our hearts for years, we actually talked about it when we were dating! I just want to get started so bad but we have to be patient and know that God will show us when the time is right! Adoption to us is so much more to us than just "getting" another child and helping kids around the world. It is a great way to show people that as Christians we are adopted into God's family as well. Some friends of ours posted this video and I just had to pass it on again! It explains it perfectly :)

Happy Easter!

Hope you all had wonderful Easter! We have so far- one more side of the family to go after the kids wake up from their naps. This year was especially fun- both the kids are old enough now to really enjoy the whole Easter basket thing and I love to be creative about how they find their baskets! This year I had bunny tracks leading out of their rooms that they had to follow to find the baskets. Sy loved it- Novea woke up on the wrong side of the bed- she wasn't to thrilled about the whole thing....until she saw the candy- then everything was fine!

I was still up taping bunny tracks at 12:30 last night, I wasn't sure that it was actually worth it until this morning when I heard Sy asking what was going on in his room! He loved it!

The only thing Sy didn't quite understand was why the Easter bunny needed to put tape on the wall while he was "jumping the gap" down the stairs. (Brad's saying that now the kids think it hilarious :). I think the tape question is pretty valid...but then again he bought the whole idea that the tracks were real, even if they were made out of paper! So funny what stands out in a 3 year olds mind!

 I may post the whole video later, or I might forget, we'll see, I'm extremely tired. 

On top of the bunny track things, I was busy baking and putting Easter baskets together- I was still awake at 1 last night...then up at 7 and we still have more to go! I made a new cookie recipe that I found online, they turned out awesome and were super cute for Easter! Here's the link!

http://twopeasandtheirpod.com/chocolate-pudding-cookies-with-mini-robin-eggs/

We decided to get outside on Wednesday and head to the zoo- we knew we had some rainy days coming our way,  we thought we better get out and enjoy the warm weather while it lasted. It was so nice to be outside- I cannot wait for summer! Illinois weather was probably the number 1 reason why I would have chosen to stay in Arizona- I absolutely hate the cold! Oh well- we love being close to family- I guess we'll just have to put up with cold while it's here...but we'll gladly welcome the warm spring weather anytime, the sooner the better!

Sy usually just wants to sit on the fake animals...

And this little girl has absolutely no fear of anything...kind of scary. I'm sure we'll have some sort of accident sooner or later! I think she may take after Brad even more than Josiah!

Thanks Aunt Tracy and Uncle Chris!!

The kids got their special Easter bags from Aunt Tracy and Uncle Chris (who moved to San Antonio just a few months after we moved back to Illinois...not the best timing!) So here are some pics of the kids opening their bags. Some of the jelly beans spilled out of their cute little containers, so of course in most of the pictures you will see Novea trying to find them in the bottom of the bag!

No- she doesn't normally look so sloppy...she just woke up and was not in the mood to have her hair done!

Don't they just look so happy to have their pictures being taken!

Sy said that this was the face that frogs make :)

Thank you so much Chris and Tracy for all the cute stuff! They are already fighting over everything!

Things around here haven't been that exciting...maybe that's the reason for the lack of posting. The kids are doing great, keeping me busy-but I wouldn't have it any other way. Brad has been traveling a lot for work- so we have been trying to find things to do to keep us busy...but we usually just end up hanging out at home, or making weekly trips to Barnes and Noble to get a new book (which I have to admit is one of my favorite things as well!)

Novea is getting SO big and turning into such a little lady! She loves to have her hair done and help pick out her clothes for the day!

Josiah basically likes anything that his Dad likes. The other night he was at the desk "studying" Brad's firefighting book. 

I'm going to attempt to post more on here. When I first starting doing this it was because we lived in Arizona and I wanted to keep all the family updated on life. Now that we're back in Illinois- I haven't done a very good job of putting things on here or even taking pictures of the kids at all! Not sure what kind of stuff I'll find to write about...but I'm sure it will involve the kids, pets, and maybe a few of the crazy things Brad does from time to time :) 

"My Room Was To Dark"

This is how I found Sy at 11:30 last night. This morning he told me that his room was to dark to fall asleep so he went out to the hallway! Poor little guy!

SNOW!

 These dogs love the snow!! They just sit there waiting for me to let them go back outside!

We decided to make some snow ice cream. The kids LOVED it! And since there is plenty of snow- we'll probably be making it tomorrow as well!! Here's the link!

Snow Ice Cream