I just found this...

Our computer fizzled sometime in September and with it I lost access to many of my documents. Well, my fine hubby has just rebuilt the computer and with it many of my documents are back. Christmas made me think of our Christmas letter from last year and I had been trying to remember my wording on a little note that I had written. I just came across it and wanted to post it here.


Last year we mentioned that we were planning to pursue adoption and asked that you would pray with us in this. We are again asking you to pray for us as we move forward with the adoption process. Our biggest hurdle at the moment is completing our home study (which involves a bunch of writing and looks intimidating). Please pray we get it done quickly as well as that God gives us wisdom in all aspects of this process. We have also received a very generous gift to aid us in pursuit of adoption. This has confirmed in our hearts, along with other things, that we are headed in the right direction. In the meantime, we are beginning to say that we are expecting. We fully anticipate and believe that we will have a child/children within the next 9 months. Thank you for walking with us! We appreciate your prayers and your support.

The red phrase is the one I was trying to remember. I know that God led us to make that statement of belief and He has been true to fulfilling it. Joy came to live with us in April and Elle was born exactly 9 months after Christmas. Wow!!! How exciting and overwhelming for me to see the way that God answers His child's cry and how He rewards her faith.

This is for Grandma

My mom was complaining that there were no pictures in my last post so I had to add a few of my recent favorites. Elle was just given this sweet sweater with booties and hat. The booties fit perfect and are so tiny. The hat doesn't really fit (is too small) but I had to get a picture of her in it.
Joy is perched on one of her favorite spots...the dog food can. I just thought her hair looked so cute and curly so I had to take a picture.
Joy loves her teddy bear. It seems to be becoming a more desired item. Isn't she cute!
Elle is in her sweet lavendar outfit. It is newborn size and is fitting her well.
I started taking pictures of Joy and she started tilting her head...so sweet.

Rejoicing

We recently learned that Joy's birth father is currently planning to voluntarily relinquish his rights. This is huge. We have been praying for God's will and His direction in what is best for Joy and are trusting that this is part of His plan. We still don't know if we will be able to adopt her, but things are certainly looking possible. I wouldn't say probable, simply because so much can happen. But, oh, how encouraging to not have great barriers at this point. We must keep trusting God and His plan.

This year as my birthday and as Christmas approach, I must say that I have a gift that I have longed for for many years...I have 2 little girls under my care. Not only are they under my care, but I am mama to each of them. Right now I know that there is some legal risk with each of them, but oh, what an amazing gift. Jesus came to us in the form of a human baby and Mary pondered all these things in her heart. I have been trying to ponder these two and store up precious memories of them. I am amazed at the way God is answering this heart's desire of mine. I mean we would have been thankful to have one little one in our home this Christmas (last year we really believed we would have a child in our home by this Christmas) but to have TWO is incredible! It makes me want to shout for joy and cry with gratefulness! Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing and is blessing us with earthly blessings as well.

They very much remind me of the hope and ultimately joy that became available to us at Christmas time. May you sense that same hope and joy this Christmas season.

Shameless, I know

I just think the girls are so sweet and I want to share them with ya'll. I know that my blog hasn't been much of a place for deep thoughts or profound insights, but right now, my life is full of my family. It is amazing to me to have 2 girls in my house this Christmas. Especially being last Christmas without any. I do have to quickly share that Joy had a visit with her birth grandma last week and during the first part of the visit, her grandma was naming various family members who were interested in adopting Joy. I have to tell you that my heart was beginning to do little twists and turns. Eventually the grandma said something along the lines of, "Because I heard that you don't want her anymore now that you have your baby." Wow! I quickly tried to let her know that nothing could be further from the truth. I told her that we "love this little girl" and that "we think it would be a special gift from the Lord to raise two girls so close together in age since my sister and I are so close together in age." I didn't tell her that when we found out about the possibility of Elle, I called to ensure that adopting Elle wouldn't jeapordize our possibility of adopting Joy. I was so thankful that I was told it wouldn't...I don't know what I would have done if they had said it would. Anyway, by the end of the visit, Joy's grandma said that she thought it would be best if Joy stayed with us. She said it about 3 times. I have to tell you that it certainly filled my heart with hope that we might actually get to be Joy's parents for always. I do realize that the grandma doesn't get to choose where Joy goes, but it is nice to know that she is for us and thinks that Joy is in a good place. In the meantime, we keep trusting God. He knows what is best. His will be done. Okay...now for the pictures.

Joy likes holding Elle and asks to do so often. She was trying to hug Elle, Elle wasn't too happy.
I was baking some brownies with nuts in them and Joy needed something to do, so I gave her a cup of flour to play with. This is the end result.
I thought Elle looked quite cute in this little outfit. It is short sleeved, but I tried the layering approach and think it worked.This isn't THE Christmas picture, but it is a preview of what the picture will be like.
Again, I just thought Elle looked too cute not to take a picture.
This picture shows my first attempt at putting a little pony tail in Joy's hair. She doesn't sit still for long so I don't have time to experiment. But, isn't she cute?!

SNOW

Yesterday morning we woke up to a world of white. Actually...it started before we went to bed and I was up at many various hours during the night so I saw it progressing quite nicely and it looked lovely. Before bed, I prayed that there would be enough snow so that Joy and I could go out and play in it. That was a fun answer to prayer. Joy looked like the marshmallow man all dressed up in her snow suit. She was so cute. I helped her make her first snow angel. I also introduced her to eating snow...she couldn't get enough. She seemed to like the snow and loved being outside. Even though her hands were getting cold, she cried when we came in. Here are a few pictures of the day.

New hobbies and more

The other day I found Joy beginning a new hobbie. She was combing through our book shelves and stumbled upon a book she decided to look into a bit further. Can you see the Biblical Preaching title? Hmmm...wonder what she will grow up to do?!
Here is a picture of Elle's hand in her papa's hand. It's so tiny, but it is starting to get pudgy.
I had to add a couple pictures of the girls and their papa. I love them all so much!


















On another note, we had a bit of a sad incidence here. Our sweet golden retriever bit our Joy. Thankfully it was in the arm. She had a fairly decent puncture wound that they ended up putting 3 loose stitches in. It is healing well and she doesn't seem to be scared of the dog; though he isn't spending much time around her these days. I know he was just being a dog and protecting himself, but oh, how I wish I could reason with him and convince him to never do it again so that he doesn't have to be so isolated. Poor guy. But I need to protect the girls.

Dress up, laundry, and girls

About the middle of the month, I decided to try a few things on little Elle. So here are a couple pictures. This first little outfit is actually preemie size and fits her quite well. She is just getting into newborn sizes, but those are still large.

Here she is in a 0-3 month dress and little newborn shoes. I don't know if you can see how big the shoes are on her, but they are ginormous.
In the meantime, Joy spends time playing in the laundry basket. Oh, so much fun.
She climbed in there all by herself.

Here is a picture of all the girls. It may not be the best posed picture, but it is fun to have us all together.

The girls

I finally decided to take a couple pictures of the girls together. I was pleased with how well the older one did with the younger one. That is until she wanted to find out about her eyes. I didn't include that picture. The other day we went on a couple hour car trip for an eye appointment and the older girld was very excited to be in the back seat with the younger one. She kept pointing and smiling. So, here are a couple sweet pictures.

This one is after her second home bath. She always seems to be so alert after a bath. This time she didn't cry but seemed to enjoy it.
Lately the older one has been doing this to the couch cushions because then she can climb up on her own. She has also been reading a lot lately. I thought this was very cute.

First home bath

Now, I don't have any pictures of the actual bath, I was too busy scrubbing, but I do have a few after shots for you all. She didn't like her bath much and seemed to cry much of the time, but we both survived. She was very alert afterward and had her eyes open more than usual. We are curious to see what color of hair she will have and what color her eyes will be. But I guess we will have to wait it out. She is starting to look a little plump here.

This is a hand towel that I used for drying her off.

All in all, I would say the bath was a success and, Lord willing, we have many more to look forward to.

Halloween

Now, this is a holiday that can be hard to decide what to do with. I realize that there is certainly a group who values this as a religious holiday, yet most think of it has just a fun day to dress up and eat candy. This is the first year that I have had any children for the holiday. So, with the new little one being so, well, little, we just stayed in. But we did a few fun things, one of which I think I may make into a Halloween tradition. We dressed the older girl in an elephant costume and took a few pictures, ran over to the neighbor's house so she could "trick or treat", and then came back here to pass out candy. In between candy passing, we made cookies. The cookies are the part that I am thinking of making a tradition. We made candy corn looking shortbread cookies. I am such a sucker for shortbread! I think that the next time I make them they will look a little more like they are supposed to...but in the meantime, these looked fairly cute and tasted really yummy. Here are some pictures of the cookies as well as the very cute little girl elephant.

They might not be shaped right, but at least they taste right.
The trunk hung down over her face, so I helped hold it up.
A picture with papa. This is how she looked most of the night while helping to pass out candy.

Sorry, no pictures of the littlest one, though I have a little story. I was feeding the baby a bottle when a couple cute little kids knocked on the door, so I set the baby down and gave out candy...the little boy said, "I know you have a baby...she's cute." So the baby got noticed on her first halloween.

We are all home

Yesterday we brought the littlest girl home from the hospital. She weighs (as of Saturday night) 4 pounds 8.7 ounces. As most of you who have had first newborn children can imagine, last night was a virtually sleepless night. I am hopeful that it will get better. It doesn't help that I have had a sinusitis and need my sleep to get better. I guess God will have to protect us from each other and from other illnesses. It amazed me how much noise that little girl can make. I think tonight she will be at the far end of our room so that we can all sleep a bit better. The 14 month old is very curious about the new girl. She had such a happy look on her face when she first saw her. She continues to have a smile when she sees the baby. I hope that continues as she learns that it means she has to share...everything. Having a preemie is different than having a newborn, at least that is what I have been told each step of the way. We are going to have to be a bit protective of her since she is especially vulnerable due to her size and her gestational age. That means that I might not be able to take her to the store with me or to church or anywhere where there is a large crowd until April...when flu and RSV season is finished. Life is going to be very different for me for awhile. Anyway, here are some pictures from the hospital and finally our leaving for home.

I thought this bow was sooooo sweet!!!!

Her going home outfit.
Proud Papa holding a wireless baby girl.

Here she is all ready to go.

A picture of us with the newest addition to our family. I hope to have a picture of our whole family soon. Stay tuned. :o)

Time for an update

Okay, so 2 months is a long time to not update things, so, here is an update. Last Tuesday we got a phone call regarding a preemie baby girl and whether or not we were interested in adopting her. We then started praying and elliciting lots of others to pray with us as we made a decision. Wednesday we decided to go for it. So, for a week now, we have been the proud parents of (at most recent knowledge) a 3 lb 2 oz baby girl. She is still nameless, but we have been working on that of late. It is amazing. We got to meet her Thursday and everything looks really positive. We don't know when we will get to bring her home, but we trust that God's timing is good. In regard to our other little one, things are still up in the air in regard to her permanency plan, but we are trusting God. If we do get to raise them both as our daughters, they will be 13 months and 15 days apart in age. We will certainly be busy, but God knew all that as well. It has been amazing to see how God has gone ahead of us on so much. He has provided a place to stay when we are at the hospital, He has provided women to take over for me for the ladies retreat I was working on. He has a place for the college gal that lives with us to be when I'm not here. He has even brought together people to help with Bible study. He is a great and mighty God and is worthy of praise and adoration. I feel very blessed by Him! And, now for a few pictures! Here I am with my tiny daughter.
Our hands by her to show her size.
Celebrating at Red Robin...our favorite chain restaurant!
Our other little one playing the piano!

First Birthday gift of the baby girl's 1st birthday

A friend of mine came over last night and brought the baby girl her first birthday present.

She enjoyed the package and had fun shaking the gift...perhaps she was trying to figure out what it was.

The bow was easy for her to take off the gift as well as lots of fun to play with once it was off.

This is what was in the package. A very sweet dress that my friend had made.

We had to get a picture of the girl with the dress maker. I can't believe that the baby girl is going to be a year in such a short time. She is growing by leaps and bounds. What a delight she is to us!