Finding Joy

Posted on April 27, 2019 by Jodi

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you know that this has been a rather intense… well, DECADE for our family. We have added a new child every single year since 2011, and even before that (as strangers would tell me almost daily) I had my hands full. There was a good bit of thriving, but on the whole there was a lot of survival mode going on.

A few things have shifted recently. I now have two teenaged daughters who can stay home and even help with babysitting so that we don’t ALL have to go to ALL THE THINGS. Also, (can you believe?) Teddy has been home almost two years, and there is no new adoption in the pipeline. I don’t think I realized how time- and mental-energy-consuming all the adoption processes were until we emerged from them!

Freya’s birth also knocked the wind out of me a bit. I am pleased to say (thanks in part to an herbal supplement called Ivy’s Mukta Vati) that my blood pressure is well under control now, and I am finally off my meds for that.

Our new addition for 2019 will be neither a baby nor an adopted child, but my mom! We are so excited to welcome her into our (new!) home this summer. She has long wanted to be able to help me more than she currently can living a half hour away, and I have long needed the help. We also really like each other, so it’s win-win!. Of course, we realize there will be hard things about sharing space (even a lot of it!), but we are prepared to face them and excited for this to be a positive change for all of us.

It feels like we have now entered a period of stabilization. I’ve been addressing things that had fallen off the radar over the past couple years (Delia finally had a sedated dental exam after years of not cooperating with the dentist, and guess what? Not one cavity!). I’m even beginning to remember things I used to do just for fun. I’ve found some new ones, too!

Here are a few things I’ve been doing lately that make me smile:

1. Crocheting. I had never really stopped doing it, but the projects had gotten progressively smaller and rarer. In February and March, the kids and I participated in a mystery crochet-along to make these beautiful dolls. Just because!

I’ve also embarked on a year long crocheting challenge to make each of the kids a birthday gift that they draw for me. They’ve drawn me some doozies, but it’s been so fun!

2. Photobooking. I discovered Shutterfly right around the time that I accepted the fact I would never be a real scrapbooker. I have always made a first year book this way for each of the babies/kids, but recently I’ve gotten more ambitious with this hobby. I’ve found ways to combine deals to make the books more affordable, and I’ve begun going back into the archives of our photos to make books of all of our many memories. I am pleased to say, after 19 years of marriage, that I finally have a wedding album. Trevor even got a baby book of himself for his 40th birthday!

3. My sister’s wedding. The big girls and I had such fun planning my sister’s surprise shower. Her bridesmaids were wonderful and it was a joy to get together with them to plan and conspire. The big day is in June, which means, next on my agenda: the speech!

4. Reading the Bible. I joined some ladies from church way back in September in a school-year-long journey through the whole Bible. The pace is intense (about six chapters a day with Sundays off and occasional catch-up days), but it’s been so good that I’m already excited to do it again next year. It never ceases to amaze me how you can read the Bible your whole life and always find something new.

5. Reading in general. I’ve gotten back into the habit of reading a tiny bit most nights just before going to sleep. It isn’t much, but over the course of six months or so I managed to get through the whole Anne of Green Gables series for the first time. I felt like they were written just for me, and yet I somehow never discovered them until my forties! Trevor is reading them now that I’m finished. I catch him reading them in bed and alternately giggling and tearing up. I think we’re both getting sappier in our old age!

6. This baby! Oh, what a joy our sweet Freya Poppy is to us each day. She is full of life and smiles and personality. Nine months old already!

I’m dabbling in some other new things, too. I’m just sticking my little toe in the water of some long-needed health changes, and I plan to take up blogging, too, so watch this space!

New Year Thankfulness

Posted on January 27, 2018 by Jodi

I don’t like leaving things unfinished, and I do it far more than I’d like to admit. My incomplete list of November thankfulness has nagged at the back of my mind for two months, and I am now afforded time to finish it for the unlikeliest of reasons: I am stuck in the hospital with Lewis, who has a stubborn skin infection. He is better in every way as I type this, except for one: his fever is gone, he is cheerful and eating full meals, but the rash still won’t go away, and so we spend another night here.

So it is a good time to count my blessings, and perhaps give a bit of an update while I do.

17. Grandparents far away. Trevor’s parents visited for Thanksgiving, and we had such a lovely time with them. I am so thankful that they are able to hop the pond as often as they do in order to stay so present in our kids’ lives.

18. Grandparents near. As I write this, my mom is putting ten of our kids to bed for the night in her two-bedroom house. This was the plan even before Lewis got sick, only Trevor and I were supposed to have a little mini “staycation” this weekend. We were thankful for the time together, even though we didn’t get to spend it quite as we expected.

Meanwhile, my dad came to our rescue last night when I left Trevor stranded at our Star Wars movie date to take Lewis to the ER. When I called to see if my dad might be able to go pick him up at around 10pm, his genuine response was, “Sure. That’ll give me something fun to do tonight.”

I have a good, good village.

19. Holidays. It was a special joy this year to have our schoolies home for a week over Christmas. Trevor had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but we still made time for family traditions once he had a few days off.

20. Sisters. My three all came to me in my teens. For a long time, they were fun little kids that I got to hang out with, but somewhere along the way they grew into beautiful women whom I am privileged to call dear friends as well as sisters.

21. Snow days. Love these, except for the 5 am wake-up call from the school to tell us about them. I miss the days of tuning in to AM radio!

22. My husband. You know you really love someone when even spending a day with them at the hospital bedside of a sick child brings you joy. (And you know your life is a little crazy if doing that feels almost like a date!)

23. Music. I love the role that good Christian music has in steering our hearts toward the Lord and instructing our minds. Over the years, we have loved memorizing scripture using the Sing the Word series by the Harrow family. We love singing hymns and worship songs from church in the van as well. These become the songs that get stuck in our heads and that we hum around the house as we do our chores. They work their way into our souls and fill us up with truth.

In particular, I am excited about this new album we bought right before Christmas. This is the second book of the Bible paraphrased and set to music by a group called Psallos (the first, Romans, is also phenomenal). We waited for the release of Hebrews for a long time, and it has not disappointed. It has deepened my appreciation for what Christ did in presenting Himself as the final “once for all” sacrifice to pay the debt for my sin, not to mention the music is just beautiful.

Since Thanksgiving was on the 23rd, I will end my list there, though I could certainly go on! My boy has finally drifted off in the bed next to me, and I should follow him sooner rather than later.

Happy New (ish) Year to you all!

Fall Highlights

Posted on October 8, 2017 by Jodi

We are in the midst of our Summer/Fall birthday season right now and these three dear ones have had birthdays since the last time I updated:

Happy 11th birthday to Teddy, 13th to Pippa (a teenager!) and 1st to our sweet little Verity Laine! Isn’t it nice that even the big ones still indulge me and let me take their annual teddy bear photo? Here is Pippa at about Verity’s age, for 1. size comparison (13-year-olds are huge!), 2. likeness to Verity (twinsies!) and 3. just for nostalgia (because how on earth is my baby thirteen already?!)

Aww! Wasn’t she sweet?

But probably what you really want to hear about is how school is going, right?

It is going so, so well!

I will admit that I spent the first week saying, “What have we done?” as I spent every evening signing dozens of forms and reading up on all the rules and regulations and getting to know each teacher’s little preferences and idiosyncrasies. But now we have found our groove, and it’s a good groove!

As a homeschooling mom, I held my breath for the first couple weeks to see how the girls would fare academically, and they are both doing very well: at or above grade level in all major subjects. Whew! Romilly’s teacher told me at back-to-school night that she is engaged and participating valuably in class, which is a huge part of what she wanted to get out of this year. Bea is in student council and plans to run for treasurer, and she’s also joined an afterschool singing club. Ro goes to an after school fitness class on the same day. Both are learning instruments and playing in the band. They have made friends and are finding acceptance. I could not have asked for a better first month for them!

Lewis is also thriving! I have to work a little harder to know how he’s doing, but here is what I do know: 1. He loves going. 2. His take home note each day has consistently informed me that he had a “Great” day every single day except for one in the first week that was only “Good”. 3. His ability to accurately copy letters has improved more in the past month than in our whole year of homeschooling. At home, Lewis has had some behavioral challenges, so we are working through those, but overall, this is such a good fit for him.

As for the “homies” we are having some new adventures of our own this year. Pippa, Niko and Junie have joined a homeschool choir, the Keystone Youth Choir. The are learning much and being stretched there as well as making new friends. (Bonus: the littles and I have a built-in playdate each week during choir with a friend from AWANA whose big brother is also in the choir.) Also, when Delia (and soon Teddy) go to Theraplay for speech and OT each week, Pippa, Niko, Junie and Cora are still going to the Weavers’ home for what is now officially called Family Science Club.

Pippa, in 8th grade this year, is almost completely independent with her schoolwork. I give occasional guidance in grammar and math, and we grade her tests, but otherwise, she runs her own show. I am amazed at her self-motivation and determination this year. She designed a weekly checklist of all the work that needs to be done, and she is a tough taskmaster!

Delia with her new communication device!

I am finding with three at school and Pippa working largely on her own, that my teaching load at home feels much more manageable. I carve out time to work with the littler kids in the morning while Niko and Junie do some independent work. Then I can help them until lunchtime. After lunch we read together or do science. At 3:30, when the schoolies get off the bus, our homeschool day ends, too. Wherever we get to, there we stop. This shift in our day provides a nice change of pace for everyone. The homies get to have some fixed free time (which never used to happen!), and I get to debrief with the schoolies and help with homework. Life is feeling more doable than it has in a long time.

Coraline making a rainbow

Another unexpected side effect of having a few kids leave each day is that we have so much to talk about at dinner! The schoolies tell us about their adventures, and we tell them about ours. The best part is that it is so balanced, with neither side generally feeling that they’ve missed out on anything, but everyone, having had a full and fun day, happily sharing and being excited for each other (disclaimer: it is also very noisy!)

A New Adventure

Posted on August 11, 2017 by Jodi

Our summer has continued to be full and busy. Delia celebrated her 11th birthday. Happy birthday, beautiful!

Teddy went to his first VBS, his first (and second!) baseball games…

As well as his first camping trip! This trip to the familiar haven of our friends’ parents’ home in central PA was our practice trip for a longer camping adventure later this summer. Teddy did really well. Our biggest fear was that he would escape from the tent and get into mischief in the early morning, but in fact, he loved the tent so much that a few times he escaped INTO it to hang out and look at books during the day!

But the biggest first of all will be happening for our family in just over three weeks, when THREE of our children will be going to public school!

It all began back in the Spring with the thought of sending Lewis. I have enjoyed teaching him, and he has done well at home, but at this point, he can really only be doing schoolwork when I am directly working with him. He has a good attention span and is a hard worker, and I just felt like he could benefit from more direct instruction time than I could give him. So we began the IEP process with our local school.

Over dinner one evening, the other kids began to realize that this was a thing that was really going to be happening, and immediately, Beatrix and Romilly spoke up to say that they wanted to go to school, too!

I’ll admit, I was a bit dismissive at first. We have always said that if any of our children ever wanted to go to school, we would hear them out. So far, whenever anyone has voiced a desire to go to school, it has been followed by, “…so I can ride the bus/have recess/have snow days,” so I wasn’t expecting this conversation to go far, but my girls surprised me.

Romilly, our highly sensitive, tender-hearted introvert, shared that she felt she would never overcome her shyness if she wasn’t pushed outside her comfort zone. After hearing her out, I found (surprisingly) that I agreed with her.

Bea, our bubbly, tomboyish chatterbox, had completely different reasons, but excellent ones. She feels that going to school is part of our shared cultural experience, and she wants to experience school for herself so she is better able to relate to others. (I’ll admit I have been teasing them that Ro needs to go to school so that she can learn to talk to other humans, and Bea needs to go so she can learn to let other humans talk!)

They had gotten past me, but I was fairly certain that Trevor, the die-hard homeschooler of the family, would veto this crazy idea. But you know what? He heard the same thoughtful maturity in our girls that I heard, and gradually, a “we’ll see” turned into a “maybe” and blossomed into a “yes!”

Both of us have a peace with this decision that I never could have imagined I would ever have even six months ago. The girls have never wavered in their resolve. And Lewis loses his mind with excitement every time he sees a school bus, anticipating his big adventure this year. We are all excited. The ones who are staying home are excited for their year, too, though it will look very different without our three public-school adventurers in the mix at home.

And this mama, who in nearly thirteen years of parenting has never sent a child to school, is learning whole new lessons about trusting God and letting go. Not to mention back-to-school shopping!

First Impressions

Posted on May 25, 2017 by Jodi

Teddy and my weary world-travelers are home – praise the Lord!

Today is day five and I feel I am only just starting to get a sense of what things might be hard about our new normal and what things are going to be awesome. And it will likely all change again by this time next week.

The first few nights, Teddy was jetlagged, which meant he was wide awake in the middle of the night. This was when we learned (well, we sort of already knew) that Teddy is a great collector and relocator of things. He helped himself to a few of the sweets Trevor had brought back from China to share, but not as many of them as we initially thought – he hid a second box in Niko’s bed. The next morning, he had stashed a few pieces of (fairly important, undealt-with) mail in the puzzle cupboard in his room, my Borax and Trevor’s shaving cream in the fridge, and all the pens and pencils we keep in the kitchen in the big crayon basket in the boys’ room. We can chuckle about it now, because as he’s slept later each morning he’s had less time to devote his item relocation program, but it was pretty unsettling.

He is mostly very happy and sweet, game for whatever the kids are busy with. He does have a very strong stubborn streak, which I’m sure we will see more of as time goes on, but for now, he is mostly happy to be with us and do what we’re doing.

He immediately adored Coraline, having apparently identified her as a smaller, squishier version of Bea. He is fascinated with Delia. They both love to give each other hugs, but usually only at times when the other doesn’t want one. It will be an interesting dynamic to watch! Lewis is enjoying him tremendously and suddenly seems like the resident big kid in charge, excitedly introducing Teddy to all the fun things about being a Young (“Teddy! Tuppon (Come on)!” All of the kids are just really excited he’s finally here.

Teddy is super affectionate. He was uncertain about me when he first got home on Saturday, but I got my first bear hug on Sunday morning just towards the end of our church service. I then got my second through twelfth bear hug, along with hugs and kisses for Niko, Bea, and Pippa. At first, we could hear “aww”s from the pews around us, then “aww”s gave way to giggles as he kept relentlessly smothering us with hugs and kisses. It was pretty sweet, but it got less entertaining when I finally had to try to peel him off his siblings, and that was no easy feat!

All things considered, we’ve had a good first week. Going from 8 kids (I got a little bit comfy there!) to 11 was an adjustment for me. I think I had prepared myself for Teddy being hard, but forgot what an adjustment it would be for everyone else. As always, God’s grace has been huge, I just need to learn to lean into it more. We are so thankful for the incredible gift He has given us in our new son. Welcome home, Thaddeus Merit. You’re officially a Young now!

A Mother’s Day

Posted on May 14, 2017 by Jodi

I was just saying to Trevor a couple of nights ago during our twice a day brief Facebook chat that things have been going so very well here at home. Normally, by the end of his work week, I find myself stretched very thin and so ready for a break, but while he’s been away, I have felt carried. I told Trevor that I have felt like Peter this past week, keeping my eyes dependently fixed on Jesus and doing what I would not have thought possible: not just surviving this time apart, but living life with joy and peace. But I also admitted to him that I’ve had a few moments when I have started to let the waves frighten me a little, when I’ve counted the long days and nights ahead (including the ones *after* they get home!) and felt panic begin to set in.

Well, today I took my eyes off Jesus and took a good hard look at the waves around me, and I started sinking fast.

Mother’s Day is never my favorite, I have to admit. I am thankful for my kids every single day, don’t get me wrong, but Mother’s Day is just another day, with all the same messes, all the same parenting, all the same disputes over who is sitting where and who gets to put their feet in Mommy’s lap while we read together. I’m used to that, and I’d like to think I’m pretty good at making the most of the day anyway, enjoying the seeds the kids have planted for me in Sunday school, and maybe getting to spend some time with my own mom.

Today was Day 11 of 16 days of caring for eight kids without Trevor. I arrived at church weary but peaceful, happy to get to sit for an hour and nurse the baby without any interruptions. My best friend Mary and her daughter Maura had had a slumber party at our house the night before, and were with us for church. It was shaping up to be a pretty good day.

Not five minutes after the kids went to their Sunday school class, Delia’s teacher came to get me. Delia had had an accident on the floor. While we were cleaning that up, she threw up. I took her out of her class and thought the two of us could just sit in the (unused) nursery while I fed the baby. Then she threw up again all over the nice new glider chair. While I was taking the cushions off and scouring the chair and all its parts as well as I could with wipies, the custodian came in and said, “Hmm, that’s going to stain.”

At this point, I’m looking at the waves, and they’re huge, and I’m freaking out. There goes our nice dinner (McDonald’s was the plan, but still!) with my mom and grandmom today. There goes my whole week, come to think of it. They’re all going to drop like flies now. I’ll probably get it, too. Hey, we’ll probably still have it when Teddy gets home on Saturday. Awesome. A stomach bug is exactly what we need right now. (So much sarcasm in my darkest moments!)

I more or less held it together until I got home and called my mom to tell her we couldn’t come to dinner, and in the warmth and safety of her response, I fell apart.

But God was so gracious and patient with me on this day that was not going how I had hoped.

First my dad called and came over to measure our new table for some custom-made benches (to fit a few more little bottoms than the chairs can comfortably accommodate.)

Then my mom and sister came over in the afternoon before going to dinner and brought me coffee and popsicles for the kids.

While they were there, Pippa got an idea to surprise me and reorganize the dresser in the girls’ room according to the Konmarie folding method. She mobilized a couple of sisters to help her and an hour later showed me this: (I wish I had a before picture, but believe me when I tell you it was a hot mess!)

In the very bottom of one of the dresser drawers, they found this:

I laughed when Pippa brought it down to me. This card is probably some fifteen or twenty years old and intended for my mother-in-law (sorry, Elaine!) I have no idea why we had it much less why it was in the girls’ dresser, but it felt as if Trevor had planned this elaborate scheme from China just to brighten my day. And it did.

The rest of the afternoon was passed with me and most of the kids making picture-and-word labels for all the new toy storage bins in the boys’ room. (Delia did stay curled up on the sofa feeling lousy for the rest of the day, but thankfully she didn’t throw up again, nor has anyone else so far!)

It was a lovely day. A truly lovely day. I don’t have a photo of me and all my beautiful children in our Sunday best to show for it this year (or one of me with MY mom and sister this year, for that matter), but I am surely the most abundantly blessed mother there is.

The Adventure Begins

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Jodi

On Thursday afternoon, Trevor, Niko and Bea set off for Hong Kong, their pit stop on the way to Teddy, and today I received photographic evidence that they made it – whew!

These photos from Trevor absolutely made my day, but I received another photo this evening that I wasn’t expecting. A photo of another adventure that began today.

This is our sweet Teddy in the car with his orphanage director starting the journey to meet Trevor, Niko and Bea on Monday!

How did I get this amazing, behind-the-scenes glimpse of our boy? It occurs to me that I never really told you the story of how we found Teddy. Well, grab a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you now while we wait for the exciting part to happen.

A little over three years ago, I began attending a wonderful, intimate support group for adoptive moms that meets five times a year. It’s over an hour drive to get there, but so worth it for my sanity and the well-being of our whole family.

About two and a half years ago, my dear friend Kelly whom I met through this group came home with two new sons from China. Even amid the flurry of excitement and chaos of her own two new boys, she shared with our group her burden for two other little boys she met there. These two boys, it seemed, were given free rein to wander around the facility and surrounding area. It wasn’t a good situation.

Shortly after that, one of those boys went missing. He still has not been found.

The other little boy was our Teddy.

Kelly wanted desperately to find a home for this little guy, but we had just begun our process for Lewis, and adopting another little boy with Down syndrome was just not even on my radar. I prayed for those little boys, but then life moved on.

A little over a year ago, right around the time we traveled to bring Lewis home, I became a little obsessed with the fact that Chinese adoption regulations allow for “reusing your dossier”, or parts of it at least, for a second adoption started shortly after the first. I will admit that even while we were in China falling in love with our precious new son, I was looking at waiting children on our agency’s website.

My heart was for another child with Down syndrome, which just hadn’t turned out to be the scary special need it had once seemed AT ALL. In fact, it was quickly apparent that Lewis’s extra chromosome, rather than leaving him deficient in any way, had actually made him a little bit extra awesome.

Our agency had pages of beautiful babies with Ds – oh, how they tugged at my heart strings! But they were all babies. Not one over the age of four or five. Knowing that older children can be much harder to find families for, and having seen first hand what a blessing they are, that was where my heart drew me.

After we were home, I was mentioning to Kelly that we were interested in adopting another little boy with Ds, perhaps an older one, maybe 9 or 10. She could hardly contain herself! “That’s Didi!”

She sent us his file, and we knew immediately that if we were going to reuse our dossier, this was the one.

We began asking our agency about reusing our dossier. They were open to the idea at first, but then Verity made her presence known.

We went back and forth for about two months, but in the end, despite having let us adopt while pregnant twice before, they said we would have to wait until after baby to begin our process, and waiting would make it too late for a “reuse”.

That could have been the end of it. I thought it probably would be. But meanwhile, the agency who had a partnership with Teddy’s orphanage had reached out to let us know that they would love to work with us.

When one door closed, another appeared. Let’s push it, Trevor suggested, and see if it opens.

And open, it did.

So, with a new agency and a new home study social worker, we set out on a completely new adoption, not a “reuse” after all. Because once we knew this boy was ours, we just couldn’t walk away.

Here we are, one year later, days away from receiving this precious little man into our family.

Thanks to Kelly’s ongoing connections with the orphanage director as well as a missionary couple that work nearby, we have been able to have regular updates and new photos of our boy throughout the process. We were even able to “send him” a birthday cake last summer!

And so it is that we have a backstage pass to his journey to meet us. Today he is on his way to the city where he will meet Trevor and the kids, just as they are on their way to meet him. I can only imagine what he is feeling. I don’t know how much he understands of what is about to take place, but please pray for his heart, that he would feel safe and loved right from the beginning.

Winter Haps

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Jodi

Trevor asked me a couple nights ago if I still had a blog. I’m not sure how kidding he was, but this is for him and anyone else who checks in once in a while despite my gross neglect.

As usual there has been much busy-ness, and most of it has been very good.

Most recently, just this morning in fact, we received the hard copy of our Letter of Acceptance from China! This means our dossier has been approved and all that remains is the final step of his US immigration paperwork. It also I can now share with you the boy that will soon be our son. (I could also share his name with you, but what would be the fun in that? Names deserve their own posts. Don’t you think? Stay tuned!)

Isn’t he delightful? We can’t wait!

We’ve had two birthdays this month, with four more in the next two weeks!

Romilly is now 11…

And Juniper, the baby of our “Original Four”, is 8.

Happy birthday, girls!

This little one, like her sisters before her, has refused to stay tiny and new. Sigh. In a fit of rebellion she even went and sprouted two teeth at just four months old!

But oh, how we all adore her.

School is moving along. We are just about two-thirds through our year. People are learning things. We’re in a pretty good groove.

Coraline is reading beginner books thanks in large part to the efforts of her biggest sister. Pippa is learning algebra and loving it, which just fills my math-minor heart with the greatest joy. Delia has made some strides with independence getting dressed, and she will be trying out a tablet-based communication device in the next couple months. Lewis wrote his name by himself for the first time a couple weeks ago. I think the whole neighborhood heard our cheers!

One of the greatest blessings of this school year has been our dear friends, the Weavers, volunteering to have our five “readers” at their home each time I take Lewis and Delia to Theraplay.

These days are not just free childcare for me, but amazing, enriching, educational experiences for our kids. They do art and photography lessons, science experiments that I have neither the equipment nor the time to do at home (they actually looked at broccoli DNA under a microscope!) and sometimes just play educational board games. It has transformed what felt like wasted time each week for our big kids into one of the highlights of their week.

Not to mention it gives me some much-needed downtime hanging out at Theraplay with my little girls.

Trevor is working 12-hour shifts again (with long weekends) after several brutal months of Monday to Friday weeks (how do people live like that?!), and life is feeling manageable. That can only mean we are in the calm before the storm as we prepare to bring home our newest member. I will take the calm wherever I can get it!

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2016 by Jodi

From the Christmas play last weekend….

To the Christmas Eve candle light service…

And the party at Grandmom’s house afterwards,

From the night before Christmas prep…

…To the whirlwind of Christmas Day,

…It has certainly been a busy season!

But in the midst of all the busyness, I hope that we managed to keep our focus where it ought to be. As Annis went around today cupping her little hands to her mouth and exclaiming, “Jesus’ birthday!” to anyone who would listen, I hope that in her little heart and mind, the enormity of what we celebrate today is beginning to become clear:

The God who created the universe, who created us, left his throne to join us in this desperately hard life we live. He arrived in the humblest of circumstances in order to live the perfect life we could not, die in our place, and rise again proclaiming victory over sin and death.

Today, our kids may have been excited about new Legos and endless feasting and treats, but I pray that as they grow, they will become more and more excited about the One who was the ultimate gift to this world.

Merry Christmas to you and your family today, and may your new year be filled with many blessings from our good and faithful God!

PS I must boast about one of our favorite Christmas gifts this year: some beautiful family portraits by my dear friend Ruth Thomas, of which my new blog header is one of my favorites. If you are local and want some very reasonably priced family photos, please let me put you in touch with her!

November News

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Jodi

My goodness, time is flying by these days. Happy Thanksgiving! And this year, we have much to be thankful for!

(The AWANA gang dressed up for Harvest Night. Our new AWANA leaders are fairly exhausting me with all the theme nights, but the kids are having a ball!)

Since Verity’s arrival, we have been getting back into our groove with life and school, but there is precious little down time. I always forget how time consuming nursing a new baby is, but I do remember that these early months fly by too quickly. All too soon, she’ll be wriggling to get off my lap and explore, so I am soaking in every minute of her while I can.

(First smiles!)

The end of October saw us dressing up an awful lot for people who don’t celebrate Halloween. First, the kids had their annual “Favorite Bible Hero” night at AWANA.

(From left to right:Bea as Balaam’s donkey, Niko as David, Lewis as an Armor of God knight, Pippa as Esther, Coraline as Ruth, Romilly as Mephibosheth, Junie as Lydia, and Delia and Annis just jumping in the picture for fun.)

Then we found ourselves accidentally bound for the zoo on their Trick-or-Treat day, so the kids chose costumes for that, too. I was particularly impressed with the Anna braid hat that Pippa improvised for Annis that morning!

On Halloween night, we were visited by these two rather unlikely trick-or-treaters: Honald Clump and Dillary Trinton. They brought us candy – so we let them in. One of these years our kids are no longer going to be surprised by the “surprise visit” from Pop-pop and Debedee on Halloween, I think!

In early November the kids had several opportunities to volunteer with Operation Christmas Child. First, they helped give out and collect shoeboxes at Chick-Fil-A, then they helped out at our church’s collection center.

And that’s what we’ve been up to.

But if you’ve made it this far and are still reading, you will now be rewarded with the biggest news of our November so far: our dossier was logged into China on November 8th!

Yes. That means that we are adopting again! In fact, we are quite far along in the process and hope to be traveling to bring home our new son in the Spring.

I have not been deliberately keeping secrets. This adoption, unlike our others, has felt very tentative at each step. There have been so many times that it seemed like God might be closing the door only to open it again, that we are only now letting ourselves begin to trust that this is actually happening.

Although I am not allowed to share pictures publicly yet, you can get a sneak preview of our boy here on our Family Sponsorship page at Reece’s Rainbow, and learn a bit more about our new son by reading his little bio on the same site here. We are so excited for him to join our family!

And with that, I now owe you a birth story and an adoption story. But for now, I need to sleep while my baby is sleeping!

Jodilightful!

Category Archives: Family