All I really want for Christmas

I remember about this time last year hearing this song for the first time...I was in my car, in a parking lot and I began sobbing uncontrollably! This time last year, I was excited for Christmas, but the ache for Micah to be home with us was getting to be ALOT. My heart was so heavy and then I heard this song about a child's wish for Christmas is a family....a family!! Not an ipod, ipad, iphone, kindle, yadda yadda yadda.....A FAMILY!

I'm more excited for Christmas this year then I have been since I was a little girl (I'm begging Matt to get the decorations out already) and I know it's because Micah is home and I get to live Christmas through his eyes and see how that Baby born so long ago in a dirty manager, transformed our lives and brought us to this place of celebrating the birth of our Savior AND celebrating His work in us and through us so that one of His children would have a family for Christmas this year and the rest of his life!!!

I hope and pray that in the hustle and bustle of this time of year, you can stop to pray about what God may be wanting to do in your life in order to give a family to a precious child out there without one...listen to this song and soak in the words....

My baby...

...isn't a baby anymore!!!!!!!!!!
Can yall believe how BIG he looks????!!!

Just a little picture for all of you who have supported our adoption from the start! Your love, prayers, and yes even your money...have helped bring us to this special place!!
Thank you will never be enough.... but I hope the smile on his face at least makes you smile!!

Moments like these.....

While I was cooking dinner tonight I let the boys out back to play - and I glimpsed up and saw that "kodak moment" going on and after a few pictures (of course) it got me thinking....

Moments like these....

~Make my heart swell up with joy, so full I think it could burst

~Make all the hard moments totally worth it

~Make me take a deep a breath and say "Yes God, this WAS right, You were right!"

~Make that 22 hour plane ride (twice!) seem like a breeze!

~Make our tight wallets seem like no sacrifice at all

~Make me glad we didn't charge the battery on that car!

~Make my heart continue to ache for those who don't have parents loving them all day and brothers to push them around in the backyard

~Make me keep asking God how He wants to use us more

Fall, Thanksgiving, and Pumpkin Patch

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what He has done"
Psalms 105:1


How very thankful we are. Each day we are reminded of all we have been given, while some days are harder than others when you have 2 around the same rowdy age, those days never trump the amount of thanksgiving and praise we have for God who has brought to this place in our lives....

Big smiles and laughter daily,

(Tyler thoroughly enjoyed the 3 laps around a pin on this big pony, which was $4!!)

Lots of loves and hugs,

The time we get to spend all together is never as long or as often as I would like, so when we do have a day without anything planned we try to really make the most of it! The pumpkin patch was a blast and the boys really enjoyed it and we didn't even have to spend alot of money! They just love to be loved....though daddy did splurge and buy $7 pumpkins! (They were the biggest and the brightest...I think) haha.

Fall of course gets us all thinking about Thanksgiving, but this year thanksgiving has reigned in our hearts even more so than usual! How thankful we are to have Micah home with us this year, last year my heart was aching for him to be home (and I didn't even know him yet!) and this year he is HERE! He will be at the big table chowing down on mashed potatoes and stuffing!! What a beautiful site it will be!

But even more than that is what the verse above says "make known among the nations what He has done." We are realizing more and more this is what we are called to do, make God's goodness known all around us and to all the nations.... so while I hope people see our adoption story of Micah and are moved to action, I hope even more that people see we are moved to action because we have been adopted by God, by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and made children of God, heirs with JESUS to the Kingdom of God!

So now... we pray about how God wants to use us to make the nations know all He has done....!

Long Overdue....

A new post is long overdue and I have had this idea for a photo-shoot with Micah since we came home and 5 months later, I got the urge at the spur of the moment today....I put Micah in just his diaper and let him play with the large Ethiopian flag we got at the market while we were there....He was on the move but was able to get a few cute ones of the rowdy little thing!

ENJOY...

Goofy Boys

They make me smile....hope this makes you smile too!

To Micah's Ethiopia Mommy

It is easy to get caught up in Micah Tirfe being home and everything going so smooth, that I just forget about all that happened in order for him to get here. Yes it feels like he has been here forever, but the truth is - he hasn't and a woman's pain has been our gain....Adoption is hard when you get past the surface, when you think about all the things that happened for one family to experience such joy. I don't want to pretend that he just magically landed here - I don't want to belittle all that his Birth Mother went through and sacrificed for him to have the life he has now - I never met her but I pray I get to one day. She has pictures of us and we have pictures of her, but that's about it - So in an attempt to get my feelings out and on paper, I wrote this poem for her....I pray it helps other mother's out there make sense of their feelings and make the decision never to forget the women who chose life for their children, our children and made the ultimate sacrifice for them.

"For Demekech"

~ I can't help but wonder how you must be feeling inside tonight
~Are you sad and lonely, just longing to hold your baby tight?

~My heart aches for you and at times it feels hard to breathe
~Especially when I think about the day you had to leave

~You acted out of love, to save your baby from pain he would endure
~And we'll honor you, by loving him-that you can know for sure

~There's moments when he looks at me and I see you in his face
~Oh how I pray God comforts you and you feel covered by His grace

~I have so many questions and I'm certain one day he will too
~Yet, even if they never get answered, we'll always cherish you

~There is so many things I want you to know, so many things to say
~It's my prayer that God gives me the chance to share it all with you one day

~I can never repay you for the love you gave him from the start
~But I will always carry gratitude for your sacrifice in my heart

~I pray you never feel guilty for the choice you had to make
~For only you could know what was best for him and all that was at stake

~I long for you to know he's happy, healthy, loved, and really doing very well
~To explain the precious gift he is to us - there's just not enough words to tell

~One day I hope to find you, to see you face to face
~To convey our love for you and the son we share, in a long embrace

One last thing I want to share that I haven't yet --- Micah's Ethiopian name of course is Tirfe (tear-fey) - well we had Micah picked out before we knew his Ethiopian name - and then when we heard it, it just fit "Micah Tirfe". Micah is a biblical name and means "profit of God" -- Well when we are in Ethiopia we find out that his birth mom was asked why he was given the name Tirfe and she replied "I liked the name - it means "my profit"....pretty sweet huh?! Only God could line that up... amazing