The Lis Family 5 will be 6!

 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

John 14:18  NKJV

 

This verse has rang in my head over and over again for months. This journey started out as nothing more than reading a verse or hearing one at church. Have you ever heard the same thing over and over again and thought, "OK, God I am listening! I hear you!" That was us!

 

James read this verse first, " Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." James 1:27 After he read it, it sparked a conversation between us and opened a hole in our hearts we thought we had closed.

 

Back story: in 2010, we started the adoption process with a local agency and got almost to the end and that agency closed it's adoption division. We were upset

and at the time felt like God closed that door for his own reasons and we let it be. Until, a few months ago when God seemed to start pushing us through the adoption process again. 

 

We have always wanted a big family and after prayer and conversation we decided to add a precious addition to our family by adoption!!!

 

We have begun the process with Buckner International.

You can find their website here http://www.beafamily.org/about.shtml.

Some statistics we have found on domestic adoption are:

More than 6,000 abused and neglected children in Texas are awaiting adoption and about 60 percent of them are age 6 or older. The older the child, the longer they tend to wait for adoption.

 

In 2011, there were 13, 481 children in Texas alone waiting to be adopted.

 

Those numbers haunt me!

 

There are alot of choices out there for adoption including international, domestic, foster to adopt and infant.

 

James and I felt sure of our choice from the start and felt God was calling us to this program. It is called Texas Waiting Children. The description of Texas Waiting Children is Adopting a child who has been removed from their home because of challenging life situations. At any given time, there are children available for adoption through the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. These children have lived in traditional foster homes or residential programs, and for any number of reasons their parents’ rights have been terminated.

 

We have requested a girl ages 2-4 with no racial preference. We are so excited that our family is growing and I have heard, Adoption is the new pregnancy and we are eagerly awaiting our new addition.  I saw this on Valentine's Day and I love it!

We are still early on our journey but excited and blessed that God has trusted us enough to call us down this road. We can't wait to share our journey with you!

Our Valentine's Day

James and James Henry started off Valentine's Day 2013 with Dad's and Donuts. James Henry was so excited! He has been saying for weeks that on Valentine's Day he was going to eat donuts at school with his daddy!

 

 

 

The weekend before Valentine's Day, was what I like to call "Valentine's Day craft-a-palooza!"

18 "You make me feel squishy inside" play-doh Valentine's for James Henry's church class and preschool class.

54 "God's Conversation Hearts" for Makayla and Christopher's classes.

and 6 candy bar bouquet's for teacher gifts.

 

For the 2nd year in a row, we ordered the kids balloon-o-grams through their school.

They really like getting them as gifts!

 

oops! I'm not sure how I took this picture like this.

 

James Henry made us a Valentine at church on Wednesday night, and it is a true treasure!

 

We had a wonderful day together as a family and I spent my 13th Valentine's Day with my man this year!

We are so very blessed!

 

Snow Day!

We had a snowstorm come through on Monday night and it snowed all day yesterday! My ruler on the front porch says 4 inches but the weatherman says we got 6 inches total! Wow!

We don't always venture out in the snow, our southern roots tell us to hibernate until it's flip-flop weather but yesterday it seemed very inviting.

James pulled the kids around in the snow.

                                        
                                           We clowned around and threw some snowballs.

We built a pretty awesome snowman!

After a while we were cold and wet from our snowball fight so we headed in to some nice warm hot chocolate!

 

We spent the entire day just spending time together, and we finished the night with a hot bowl of veggie soup! Yum!

My 2nd Chance at Life

This is me the last week of November 2012. I was considered morbidly obese at this weight. I haven't shown anyone this picture because I thought it was horrible!

This blog post is about to get extremely real for me! I want to be as open and honest as possible. My story just might encourage someone else's walk or at least allow me to be honest about myself.

 

I have been "thick" all of my life. Even in elementary school I was painfully aware of the fact that I was not as small as the other girls my age. My weight went up and down during high school but when I was 19, I was probably in the best shape of my life going to the gym daily. Then came baby number one and the mentality that I was eating for two! That weight stayed on until James went to Iraq and from sheer stress and worry, I lost alot of weight. Then came baby #2 and an extended hospital stay and some fantastic steroids that helped pack on the pounds. Four years went by with moderate weight loss and then came, you guessed it, baby #3!! I only gained 23 pounds with this baby and most of it in month 9, due to some serious pregnancy complications. The complications continued even after delivery and I did not lose any of this pregnancy weight.

 

Fast forward 4 years...to the above picture and the words, morbidly obese.

Like I said, I have always been thick and curvy and in my family, I am of normal weight. We all struggle with our weight and being 4'9 doesn't help much!

In spring of 2012 I started really noticing some problems. I was having trouble getting a good nights sleep, I was snoring so severely it was keeping James up. I had no energy and my asthma was out of control. I was using my inhaler several times a day.

I decided it was time for a change, I wanted to be active in my kids life, I wanted to be healthy enough to play with my grandchildren, my dad was in a nursing home in his 50's his health was so bad and I wanted something different for my life.

I have tried lots of diets, nutri-system, herbalife, Jenny Craig, Alli, I have tried them all with little to no success.

So, I made a decision for myself and by myself to have bariatric surgery.

 

I know that there are alot of critics out there who don't agree with the choice to have surgery but for me it was the absolute best choice. I have been very quiet about my surgery out of fear of what people would say, I have been fearful of other people's judgement or comments. However, I decided that those were the people I did not need in my life so if anything this process would show me who my true Christian friends were and I really want to be honest about who I am and what God has pulled me through. I am choosing to share my story because it is just that, MY STORY!

 

With full support of my amazing husband I moved forward with my choice in Summer of 2012. I have an amazing doctor, he is the best! With his advice I decided to have a gastric sleeve.

 I had to have a full work-up which included 3 months with a dietitian, 3 months with a trainer, I had to have lots of blood work done, start a vitamin regime, see a neurologist, therapist and a cardiologist and best of all...have a sleep study!

This is what a sleep study looks like!

I cant believe I'm sharing this picture but I find it funny they think you can sleep like this!

 

God blessed me in the fact that in all the months of pre-op work-ups, all of my tests came back perfect! No sleep apnea, no high blood pressure or cholesterol. I was in good health!

 

On December 27th, 2012 with my amazing man by my side and my awesome father-in-law in town to keep the kids, I checked in to the hospital.

These are my cute slippers James bought me for my hospital stay.

I was in the hospital for a little over 24 hours.

James took this lovely picture of me all doped up and feeling nauseous.

I had a good experience in the hospital.

New Year's Eve post-op day 5, can we say "pain pills"!

 

I have had amazing support from the people in my life that have shared in my walk, first my friend Tera who walked this walk before me and has prayed for me and answered all my questions. My amazing doctor who on the morning on the surgery found James on the other side of the hospital to talk with him and who called James on his cell phone to keep him updated.

 

Most of all, I owe everything to my amazing wonderful husband and best friend, James. He has always had my back and been my number fan and supporter. He has loved me for over 14 years and has loved me and found me sexy at any size I have been. I have never in our relationship questioned if he found me attractive, he has let me know that he did. He walked this walk with me and supported my decision and let it be my choice. He took care of the kids and ran the house while I was out of commission. He is truly a gift from God and my soul-mate.

 

I am now 5 weeks post-op and I feel amazing! I am down 30 pounds and two pant sizes. I am half-way to my goal weight! I am back to "normal', or as normal as I can in my new life that includes a totally new way of eating and going to the gym with James.

I am sleeping so peacefully at night and waking up with energy, I haven't had caffeine in over 2 months and don't need to! James gladly reports that I no longer snore!

I also in the 5 weeks since my surgery have not used my inhaler, not one time. Just this first thirty pounds has made such a difference in my life!

 

I am so thankful to God for allowing me a fresh start on life.

post-op week 5. -30 pounds.

 

I plan on blogging about my weight loss journey along the way.