5 Little Ladies: Fear and Chaos

Around two weeks ago, a friend of ours sent me an email.  There were 5 sisters who had recently been turned over to DSS and needed a home, a family. She said that she had been praying over it and felt God specifically telling her to pass the information along to me.  I stopped dead in my tracks.  Its strange how much more thought I'll put into things that seem absolutely ridiculous when someone mentions that God told them to tell me. 

My first thought was exactly the same as what you are thinking right now:  5!  HAHAHAHAHA!  There is NO way! 

5 Mexican girls + 1 Layla = 6 girls......

My brain, trying to process what that would look like, came up with this:

and got progressively worse........

which could turn into......

So I'm exagerating a bit.  But think about it!  It would be like living with "The View."  All 6 girls would be seperated by only 5 years......  That is a 16, 15,14,13, and two 12 years old girls all living under the same roof.  Ryan would have to be put in a mental hospital.

 Why would God want me to hear about this family of sisters?  Our new house doesnt even have a foundation yet, I'm not finished with school until August, and we are going to Europe for 2 weeks this summer.  There is no way we could take this on!  So I prayed.  And prayed.  And prayed some more.  And then I knew why I needed to know about this. 

So many times I talk the talk about orphan/ foster care.  I want these girls to have a home.  It may not be my home though.  Extra large families scare me.  The chaos of it is terrifying.  Two or three kids seem reasonable.....but not 6.  I can't keep 6 under control.  Maybe that's my problem.  I still want to be in control of what happens in my house.  Every time I think I've given control of my life and my future up to the One who is actually in control, I find that I'm still holding on to one last string, just in case. 

I know that we aren't the parents for these precious girls.  God has some special parents set aside for them.  He did point out to me how much of a hypocrite I really am.  Thankfully, that is what grace and forgiveness are for.

Finally.... The Tutu Dress

February Photo A Day Challenge

So I stumbled across this Photo Challenge from Fat Mum Slim and decided that I'd give it a try.  I love my instagram, but all I've really been using it for is to take pics of Layla when my real camera isn't handy.  I'm hoping this challenge will help me think outside the box a bit.  If you have instagram, or just a camera that you carry around with all day, then you should join me!  I'll post the pics once a week, but you can check them out each day on instagram @ annashumpert.  Let me know if you're joining in so I can follow along!

Just a heads up:  We'll be having another giveaway soon.  For all you ladies that love handmade stuff (especially awesome jewelry), check back in a couple of days.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised! 

6 Month Stats and Other News

So I wrote this post last Friday....but apparently forgot to publish it....   WHOOPS

Layla went to the Dr to have her 6 month checkup yesterday.  My little lady weighed in at 16 lbs even.  She is 25 1/4 inches long.  Oh and by the way....she also has her first tooth!  I felt really terrible for not noticing this until the Dr pointed it out, but then I realized that it literally JUST came in (like the night before).  She's working on a second one as we speak.  Looks like I won't be sticking my finger in her mouth anymore.......

In other news, I get to spend half of my day picking out cabinets, countertops, flooring, and siding colors for our new house today.  After an extremely long week at work, I'm really looking forward to this.  I'll have a post later on what we chose.  For now, here's a pic or two of how things are progressing.

Casa De Shumpert: The Kitchen

I have this feeling that this blog is about to expand its horizons and take on some new aspects of our lives (mainly the building of our new home).  I hope this doesn't chase anyone away.  If you know us, we love house reno's and DIY projects so this is nothing new to you.

Last Friday Ryan and I met up with our builder to go over all of our finishing options for the new house that we're building.  Now I'm a fairly indecisive person, so it took a lot of thought before Friday to decide what look we were going for with the new house.  I'll spend some later posts going over what we decided on for the other rooms in the house, but today I want to focus on the kitchen. 

I like my kitchen in our current house, BUT its got a lot of tans and browns in it.  I'm not really a tan and brown kind of girl.  I love blacks and whites and greys.  I really love a modern kitchen.   You know, one that looks like this:

 I'm obsessed with dark cabinets with light colored granite and stainless steel.  Its so clean!  So this was what I was shooting for.  I didn't originally think I could get it because there wasn't any granites with whites and greys to choose from in our original selection.  But after a lot of thought, we decided to splurge a bit on the kitchen and upgrade our granite to a white and grey speckled thicker granite piece.  We ended up with this:

Sorry about the lighting.... my iphone was all I had and the lighting in that place was TERRIBLE.  Regardless, I'm ecstatic about the way the two go together. 

While we were there we were also informed that we get a tile backsplash with our home for free.  Hooray.  There was only three basic tile choices, so we went with the one with the grey tones to it.  We paid a little extra to get them to turn the tiles on a 45 degree angle.  It will look a bit like this:

The cabinet hardware options were pretty archaic (and cost extra!) so we opted to buy our own and install them later.  A modern kitchen needs modern looking hardware so we'll probably end up installing one of these two:

Last but not least, we took the plunge and opted to get all stainless steel appliances.  Our builder uses Frididaire, so these are the appliances we'll get:

So Yea I'm pretty happy about the way things are looking.  When the kitchen actually gets built, I'll post more pictures. 

So how do you like our choices?

It's Out Of Control!

Layla's hair is anyways......

I don't think I've ever posted about it, but Layla has some RIDICULOUS hair.  I've had my fair share of interesting hair connundrums, but never anything of this magnitude.  I mean let's be honest, I've got white people hair, and Layla's got......Layla hair.....  There really is no other way to describe it.  Just the quantity of hair that sits on her pretty little head is enough to make most people run away screaming. 

I'm hoping someone out there in cyberspace world can help me tame the beast.

So here's what we're dealing with folks:

1. Super tight curls.  Her hair is actually around 4 inches long, but you wouldn't know it.

2. Curly, not kinky.

3. Moderately dry, but still soft.

4. She runs her hands through it a lot.  The girl likes to play with hair....

5. Really thick on top.

6. The Problem Spot...... the spot in the back of her head.  The hair is thinner and seems to be of a different texture.  This hair gets tangled easily and tends to get kind of (for lack of a better word) "nappy."  It may be the same as the rest of her hair, but just gets rubbed a lot.  I think the car seat and/or mattress is the culprit for causing this spot. 

So I need your help!  I currently wash her hair about ever 3 days or so.  I shampoo it with curly shampoo and leave in the conditioner.  I've tried putting regular lotion, curling lotion and baby oil on it, but nothing seems to keep that problem spot from reappearing. 

Any suggestions?

Sick Day #1

Miraculously, I hadn't gotten sick at all for almost an entire year. Considering I normally get really sick once in both the fall and spring, this was a true feat. But alas, my streak is up. I knew it would happen eventually, and I guess this is as good a week as any. So Layla has been shipped off to my mother-in-laws to stay for a while and I am quarantined in the house; no Maddox, no Ryan, no Layla, and no friends. To say I'm bored is an understatement. It's gross outside and my house is already clean. I'm fairly certain that in high school, or even a year ago this would be the perfect day. I can just sit around and do nothing until 6 when Ryan gets home. But I miss my little family and honestly I kind of like my crazy schedule. So I'm hoping that this will help me get back on my feet.