Monday, 08 August 2011
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Heavy duty questions from a five year old...
We arrived safely home from our road trip to Monterey tonight. On our drive home Tiana had some seriously grown up questions to ask about her birth mother and about her adoption:
"When I was born, was it unkind of my birthmother to leave me at the hospital?"
"She left me there because she wanted them to find me a new family, right?"
"She didn't want me..." [correcting herself] "... it wasn't that she didn't want me, but she was sick and couldn't take care of me even though she wanted to, right?"
"Did she think I was cute?"
"Was she married?"
"Do I have a birthfather?"
"What's his name?"
"Will she get better from her sickness?"
"If she trusts in Jesus, will I see her in heaven? And Jesus will give her a new body that's not sick, right?"
We tried to answer her questions with the rosiest possible version of the truth we could, at the same time shielding her from the harsh realities that she is not yet able to handle at five years of age. She is a super-smart, inquisitive, tenacious, intuitive, cut-through-the-nonsense kind of kid who has never been satisfied with the cutesy little answers that most adoptive parents that we know have used, and has asked questions that we weren't expecting until the teen years or beyond.
Praying that as she continues to grow in understanding of her story, Redeeming Love will outshine all of the darkness and sadness that made her an orphan in the first place... that she would remember that she is CHOSEN, LOVED, WANTED beyond measure by this mommy and daddy, and even more by her Savior.
Friday, 31 December 2010
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The pitfalls of learning colors...
Aliyah has recently learned the names of the colors and is in that stage where she's really excited to point out the color of different objects. During Playdoh time this morning, I helped her make a snowman. She exclaimed, "His nose is PINK!!! ... My nose is BROWN!"
What I SAID, "You're right! Good job with your colors, sweetie!!!"
(What I THOUGHT, "Oh honey, there are so many things wrong with that statement, please-oh-please-oh-please don't ever say anything like that in public.")
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
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A 2 year old's "ME-centric" worldview...
Looking through our family's Christmas card photo shoot pictures, Aliyah points to herself in the picture and says with glee, "That's MEEE!". Another picture, "That's MEEEE!". And yet another picture, "That's MEEEE!". Trying to be a purposeful mommy, I wanted to help her not be self-focused and to look at the other family members in the picture too, so for the next picture I pointed to Tiana's face and asked Aliyah, "Who's that?" I was expecting her to say "Tiana" or "my sister"... Aliyah replied, "That's not me."
Yup. Just 2 categories of people exist in her mind: "me" and "not me".
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
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Back down to 4...
Our 3 precious foster kids have left and now it's just Mike, me, Tiana and Aliyah. Our house is SOOOO quiet! I have to admit, I'm really missing baby J, who we had in our home the longest. I knew he was never mine to keep, but how can you NOT get attached to a baby with whom you spend the better part of each 24 hour day caring for, tending to, comforting, and holding???!! Although it hurts to love and lose, I would do it all over again in an instant. Praise God for giving us this awesome opportunity He gave us to learn and grow as a family-- it really was a great privilege to care for these 3 little ones. Thank you all for "praying us through" the past few weeks -- God answered in abundance!
Tuesday, 02 November 2010
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Our household...
We had my MIL staying with us this past weekend, so we were quite a large gathering of people everywhere we went: Italian grandma, Mike, me, Vietnamese 4 year old, red-headed befreckled 4 year old, blond and fair 3 year old, Ethiopian 2 year old, and newborn baby who could pass for a few different ethnicities. We get a lot of stares. A LOT. Yesterday evening at a pizza place, the gentleman at the next table turned to us and kindly asked... "Is this a birthday party?!!!" Uhh... no, this is our household. Yes we are crazy. Turns out he was the judge that finalized Aliyah's adoption a couple years ago -- small world!!!
Another funny from the kiddos. Aliyah was imitating me saying, "Does that make sense? Does that make sense?". 4 y.o. boy G asks, "...Does that make dollars?"
Friday, 29 October 2010
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desperate need of grace...
5AM precious 1 month old baby treats me to the perfect storm: poop mid diaper change, followed by copious spit up, followed by a pee-pee shower seriously within about 7 seconds while the diaper was off. Top the morning off with a toddler potty accident at the mall, a toddler potty accident in the car seat, and a diaper failure in the infant swing. What can you do but laugh and praise God for these inconvenient blessings that are blessings none the less?!!! AND praise God for laundry machines! 5 kids under 5 is no joke, but it has been such a privilege and a blessing...still...can you all please pray for me? Thank you!
Thursday, 29 July 2010
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Funny stages
This morning Aliyah while looking out the window, Aliyah turned to me and asked
A: "Trees doing, Mommy?"
Me: "What are the trees doing?"
Aliyah: "Hanging out."
Aliyah's favorite joke to tell goes like this:
"Want some Bella." "Eat her." (long pause) "DROSE!!!!!" (followed by peals of laughter!)
Need some explanation?!!! Aliyah's the stage where she's learning how to ask for things. In this case, she's asking to see her cousin Isabella, and after asking the question, she realized that it sounded like she was asking for some type of food, so she follows that up with the obviously silly request, "I want to eat her." which or course is "GROSS!!!!"
Yesterday Tiana pointed to a scab on her forehead and asked me, "Mommy, is this a bindi?"
Here's a sample of Tiana's alphabet soup phonics (hint, she was pretending to take our order at a restaurant):
PESU
WODR
BRYDO
IST
Translation:
pizza
water
burrito
iced tea
Saturday, 03 July 2010
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Feliz Navidad en Cancun
Wow - we can't believe 6 months have gone by since we've added a new post! It's not because life has been so UNeventful... but because it's been SO eventful. We've got a lot of catching up to do. We'll try to recap the major events of the past few months starting with our trip to beautiful Cancun, Mexico.
We were blessed with a rare opportunity to vacation with Sonia's entire family over Christmas week (told you we've got some catching up to do!). So our family + Sonia's parents + older brother and his wife and daughter + 2 bachelor brothers + Grandma and Grandpa all hopped on a plane bound for blue skies and turquoise waters...
It was beautiful and amazing. We had such a relaxing and enjoyable time taking in a little slice of God's incredible creation and the sweet blessing of time with family.
Tiana, enjoying the breathtaking beach
With cousin Isabella having some sand time...
You gotta love Isabella's hat!
It's fun having uncles!
We thought these Mayan-warrior-dudes were pretty cool [and worth the $2 to take a photo with]
Tiana thought they were going to sacrifice us to the sun-god Kinich Ahua...
We couldn't seem to get that perfect group picture. We had the perfect location... staring directly into the sun.
I love how everyone is trying to smile but the sun is just WAY too strong. Only Aliyah seems to not mind.
Here's Huey and family relaxing, Caribbean-style...
We praise God for such an unforgettable vacation with the people we love most!
Wednesday, 02 December 2009
Monday, 12 October 2009
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Vacation, Yoga, Walking, Proud to be an American, a new camera, yada-yada-yada, etcetera
Yay! I am back to the 21st century after a 3 week computer hiatus. Which means I have a lot to cover in this blog post...
Vacation
For my birthday last month, Mike planned a 4 day family getaway in the Monterey/Santa Cruz area. Norcal is so beautiful and refreshing! We spent a lot of time just driving along the coast and enjoying the view. And of course you can't go to Monterey without visiting the aquarium!
Meeting the penguins...
Counting the arms of this sunstar-- 20! (Tiana only knows how to count to 20)
Our two pearls. Interestingly, Ba and Grandpa gave Aliyah a Vietnamese name that means, "black pearl". Imagine that! An Ethiopian baby with a Vietnamese name! Ha!
On a ride at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
The sunset on our way back down the coast road
Back at home...
T is really into these yoga videos. She talks along with the instructor: "Make sure to make one long line from your sit bones out through your fingertips. And inhale. Feel your breath!"
At 14 months old... dun-dun-nah DAH.... Aliyah is finally walking! Time to bust out the crash helmet. Can anyone tell me why she crawls on her fists and walks on her tip-toes??!!! She is certainly one of a kind!
This girl sure can talk!
Gotta love that Afro hairdo...
And our Ethiopian princess became a US citizen last week after cramming to learn all of the US presidents and their terms of office! (kidding...)
And ...partly because the above picture turned out dark and grainy after several attempts, and partly because our point- and-shoot is on the fritz in general, and partly because we really miss our dear photographer friends who moved to Hawaii, and partly because we want to capture some of the million and one amazing moments of our children's lives, and partly because we want to have some pretty pictures that are worth framing... we bought a new (actually slightly used) SLR camera!
So Mike and I are reading up on f numbers, shutter speeds, and ISO, trying to learn some basics of photography. Here are our first few attempts to use the thing...
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cross00eyed
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God
cross00eyed
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- Name: sonia
- Member Since: 10/26/2006
