Meant to Be

First I have to say I stole the idea for this blog post from Jolene at Our Adoption Journey To China... And Our Adventures Back Home. 

As adoptive parents, I even hate adding “adoptive” we are PARENTS, we struggle with so many things.  (Yes I hate saying “step” parent also)  How we word things to our children and others, are we doing enough to foster their cultural growth, do we talk about birth parents or foster families and then how much to do this.  Questions people ask about WHY Russia or China and not the US.

In our family we have birth, step and adoptive parents.  Just in Tim and I!  But I hate to use those adjectives!  Our kids call us Mom and Dad. I’m sure they add some adjectives once in awhile.  But we are a family.  Doesn’t matter how we got here…

WE are meant to be.  See, even that can be taken the wrong way… was it meant to be for our children to be taken from their birth parents?  God could not mean for that to happen could He?  I do not believe so but I don’t know why… I just know they are and we are as Stephen Curtis Chapman puts it… “Meant to Be”. 

Thank you Jolene for sharing this video and your thoughts on some of these struggles.  You put it so much better than I can.

Blessings!

 

White with polka dots!

I’m telling you this girl makes me laugh EVERY.DAY!!

 Last night I was looking at her VERY tan little legs and Samie asked her, “Sydney, what color are your legs?”.  Syd said, “Brown!”  She then asked Syd what color her, Samie’s, legs were.  Syd said laughing, “White!”  Then Samie asked her what color Mommy’s legs were…… 

Syd said, “White with POLKA DOTS!!”.  And then added, “Lots of polka dots!”.

Blessings!

Look out…..

kindergarten here they come!

Well, my girls went off to kindergarten today.  No fuss, no crying- well except for Mama!  They looked so grown up with their back packs and lunch bags.

This little girl was just so excited to go to “big girl school”!

 Sierra also loves school.  I pray that this will be a wonderful time for her.What a HUGE step for my little BIG girls!

Congratulations and we love you very much!

Blessings!

Prayers for Teresa

I have asked all of you to pray for this sweet girl before, but she is in desperate need of our prayers now.  She had her heart cath and the news was not good.  There is no repair that can be done.  She must have a heart replacement.  But along with that she has had a complication from the cath.  She has a tear in her artery and vein causing high velocity blood flow between the two.  She will have more testing and then go to the OR for repair of this. 

Please keep Teresa and her sweet family in your prayers.

 You can read their story here.

Blessings!

How does she keep doing this?

How does she keep getting further away from the little girl of yesterday…

1st day of Kindergarten 2003

to the beautiful young lady of today?

1st day of 7th grade 2010

While my heart aches for that little girl and I wish time would stand still, it is full of love and pride for the beautiful, loving, smart, caring young lady she is becoming. 

We are so proud of you Samie!  And look forward to what every new day brings.

HAPPY 1st DAY OF SCHOOL!

(Syd and Sierra will have their first day tomorrow.  The kindergarten goes on a staggered basis for the 1st 4 days to allow for mandated testing.)

Blessings!

Absolutely Beautiful!

BEAUTIFUL, GORGEOUS, WORKS of ART!

OH, yes the girls are too!  But I was talking about the outfits!

I have been drooling over all the wonderful things this amazing woman creates and finally ordered these for the girls.

They did not disappoint me!  Robin at Red Tread Stitches is this amazing woman.  Besides being an amazing seamstress she is also a woman of amazing faith and a champion of the orphan.  I knew that her creations looked gorgeous on-line, but when they were actually in my hands….. amazing!  Yea I’ve said that a lot… and mean it!  So professional and to know that they are made with such love.  Robin is sewing to raise funds to bring their 4th daughter home from China!  Their “Baby Love”.  Please go here to see their family and here to see her beautiful creations.

BLESSINGS!

15 years ago……

15 years ago last Thursday, August 12th, Tim and I were married.  This year we celebrated with Tim working, all night, and me shopping for the girls!  I know, so romantic.  But you do what ya gotta do.  Don’t think we didn’t eventually celebrate though.  The girls were sent to Mema and Papa’s for the weekend and Tim and I went here…..

     for a MUCH needed respite!

This wonderful Bed-n-Breakfast is in the Great Smokey Mountains.  We woke to this every morning….

and this….. and this….. Of course those were just the main courses.  I did not get a picture of all the first courses, but here is one…..

Now please don’t think it was all about food….  but we did come back to this every evening…..

 OH MY, HEAVENLY!!

We had the entire first floor all to ourselves.  This included a kitchen, large bathroom, dining area, living area and sleeping area.

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During the day we enjoyed some of God’s most awesome creations.

    

We just did whatever we wanted, ate when we wanted, saw what WE wanted and just let the stress of everyday life wash away.

And then we came home…… to reality!

OH, but it was wonderful while it lasted!!

But yes, we did miss our little monkeys.  How can you not!

 

 

  Blessings!