Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Great Transformation

Over the past year the Brewer Fam has had a lot of changes! Moving, getting going on our adoption, fundraising and on and on!

One of the most exciting changes has been in mine and Kelly's health.

For a long time I have struggled with my weight, and many health issues that accompanied that!

Kelly has only struggled with his for the past few years (that's what you get when you work a desk job!)

We decided enough was enough! How can we be healthy active parents to FOUR kiddos if we are unhappy, unhealthy and always tired?!

My journey officially began December 6, 2012. Here are my before and after pics!

 
Most days I almost don't recognize myself! and I feel soooo much better!
 
Kelly only began his journey about a month ago:
 
Already he has lost not only pounds but inches! He has soooo much more energy and not near the appetite that he used to have!
 
Kelly is using something called Plexus Slim. We have been really impressed with this product! Its all natural and works together to reduce appetite and boost energy. I am so excited to watch Kelly continue to loose weight and be more healthy!
 
I do want to make sure there is no confusion, unfortunately I missed out on the plexus opportunity for weight loss, I did not know about it at the time that I made the much more drastic decision to have surgery. Had I known I would definitely have tried Plexus! I have seen so many people have success with this product! I will be using it for the energy boost and multivitamin as there is not another one that compares to theirs!
 
I will definitely be posting more pictures of Kelly as he continues his journey! If you want to hear more about plexus let me know!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

My God is Bigger!

Some of you may have heard, from me, or other sources over the past few days that some not so good things have occurred in the Congo over the past few days.

For some of you dearest to me some not so good things have occurred in your life these past few days!

I keep hearing God speak quietly to me... "Even in the valley I am writing my story"

Over and over again I feel like God is saying this to me. I think of the times I have been in the valley, and now when I am in the valley, where can I look? No where but up!

Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?2My help comes from the Lordthe Maker of heaven and earth. 3He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; 4indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; 6the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. 7The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; 8the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

Right now in The Congo there is a group of people saying my boys cannot come home, maybe not for an entire year! But I am reminded... my fight is not against flesh and blood!


Ephesians 6:10-20
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.


Right now a family that I love dearly is struggling through some rough times. But God is writing his story!

Already God is moving, and people are hearing his name praised. I am saddened by all that has happened but I am rejoicing that God is telling his story. I know that as much as I want to control every situation I cannot, as much as I want my boys home right now God is in control of their story and he has a greater plan for their lives! Clearly God has more to do here and it is my job to listen and as my pastor would say " to put my yes on the table before I know the question!"

I pray that even when we dont know Gods plan that we would trust that he is in control, and that we would put our yes on the table even before we know the question!

Love this song!




Thursday, September 12, 2013

GASP... A NEW BLOG POST!

okay okay... I know I have horribly neglected our blog! Things have been so busy! But we are getting sooooo close!

We have officially cleared court! Woo hoo! We are just waiting our translated documents to submit our final step!

We have been humbled by how quickly God has moved this process and are praying that he would continue to move mountains! Would you join us in praying that we would have our boys home to celebrate Thanksgiving with is this year!?

On another note, we had another AMAZING garage sale last weekend, we were gratefully overwhelmed with donations!





















 










 
Sorry for the photo overload, but there was just no way for you to get the idea unless you saw all of it! WOW are we grateful for your support!

In the end we made just over $1000.00

I can officially say WE ARE FUNDED! Praise him from whom all blessings flow! Everything that we raise from here out with go to pay back a few small loans we have taken out along the way and prepare for the boys arrival! I guess they do need clothes right?!

Right now our case workers are in the Congo with our boys! Oh how we wish we could be there, but it feels so great just knowing that people we trust are with them! Would you join us in praying for great meetings, and lots of progress while they are gone?

and I promise I will no be so neglectful this month!

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Adoption Nesting!

So... I will just give you a heads up, this post has nothing to do with adoption! Well, not a lot to do!

In preparation for the boys coming home I have teased Kelly that I really feel like I am nesting! Except I feel like I am awaiting twins! That I don't know at all! Ha! (not to offend any of you that have actually had twins, I am sure you did tons more work than I am planning for!)

Anyway, in preparation for our little men I am trying to act a if I am prepping for a newborn, since I have no idea how high or low maintenance the boys will be! As such, I am trying to do as much meal planning ahead of time as I can.

You may not know this but I have a major love for my crock pot! So much so that I have three of them! different sizes so that I can do a main course veggie and side dish all at the same time! I know sad really, but this is a practice I began when Kelly and I were first married and I was driving an hour one way to work! I would just pop something in there in the morning and it was done when I got home! Since then I have stumbled upon several great sights with recipes for freeze ahead crock pot meals!

I have decided this is what I will do to prep for the boys, I have used some online recipes and created a few of my own based on things I know my family loves (lets hope the boys like these things too!)

So began my Saturday escapades of meal prepping... while teen beach movie played for the second time in my living room! (ok I'll admit it, I might have enjoyed it as much as Tatum :) )

I did all of my shopping at aldi and was able to get everything I needed for two weeks of meals, plus breakfasts for just over $100.00 Pretty great!

*Please ignore my messy kitchen in the following pictures*

so far this is what I have made:

honey garlic chicken

teriyaki pork chops

chicken fajita tacs

Hawaiian pork chops

Carolina pork roast

Italian sausage spaghetti

swiss steak

ranch pork tenderloin

here are all of the crazy pictures below! Including crazy topless Blakely who had to "cheese" during all the prep! (No I am not a clean preparer!)


If you want a recipe I would LOVE to share! Just email me BizzyBzBoutique@gmail.com

  
  Chicken Fajita Tacos
 


 Brittany Harley look ONIONS! You should be proud!



Hawaiian Pork Chops

Sunday Pork Roast

 
Italian Sausage Spaghetti


 
Swiss Steak


 
All the final products!
(ignore the fact that my freezer needs to be defrosted! One thing at a time here people!)

 
Alright! Hopefully we like all of these once they are cooked! Now onto something else to keep me busy and not going crazy with the wait!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Officially Brewers

As you may have seen Hank and Liam are officially Brewers! We are counting down the weeks when we can go get them! Even though we don't exactly know when that will be yet! Now that we have cleared the first steps of court in the Congo we are in the mandatory 30 day wait for our adoption to become official! Please pray for this to pass quickly and smoothly and for peace as we wait! Lots harder said than done!

We are busy laying out things to pack our bags and preparing for our final garage sale! Our last garage sale raised over $2000.00 and was a massive success! THANK YOU!

If you can contribute again we would be happy to accept your donations. We will even come help you clean out your closets! Let us know and we would be happy to come pick up things from you as well!

Also, as we are preparing our bags we are accepting much needed donations for the boys orphanage:

diapers
formula
clothes
shoes
wipes

If you have any of these items you would like to donate please let us know. We will be taking two additional bags with us for the orphanages!


We are so close to having these boys home and could not have done any of it without you!

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Big Screen TV winners!

Congratulations Saju and Reena on winning our big screen TV give-a-way! You guys rock!

P.S. Kelly says he wants to come over and watch football and he'll even help put it up :)

Thank you all for your continued support as we get very close to the end of our journey! Very soon sweet Hank and Liam will be home, we could not have done this without all of you!

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Two little boys growing in our hearts!

Thank you for all of your endurance through our unending posts about this fundraiser and that fundraiser, and how we still need to raise funds! We are sorry for the constant pull and more thankful than you can imagine for your support! It seems this will be the summer of waiting!

It's funny, Kelly and I were talking about it the other day but both of our girls were born in November, and it looks as if our boys will be coming home to us around then as well! Funny how God does things that way. We have had three summers of waiting, two for precious little girls who joined our family biologically, and now we are well into one that will bring two precious little boys!

In the meantime we are trying to busy ourselves and keep preparing for their arrival. We got HUGE news this week, the boys will have ONE social worker. This may not make sense, but because they are not biologically related it seemed as though they would need two different social workers which would mean double the court proceedings, and double the amount of time necessary. In a huge development we found out that they are both from the same county and would be granted the same social worker, and same judge for court proceedings which means that can occur simultaneously!

What a huge blessing this is!

In other news, we are busy getting ready for them and thanks to our dear friend Kylie of Kylie Davis Photography we were able to do an adoption photo shoot for the boys! Since we would not have a maternity shoot we wanted to mark their arrival in a special way! She did amazingly as always! Here are just a few from the fun we had!

You can check out her website here: www.kyliedavisphotography.com










 




I just love that she caught our true goofy nature here too! Can't wait to have our welcome home photo shoot with them in their shoes!