Pray

Pray, pray, pray for Isabella Faye, for her foster family, for us and for her BC. I know you do...just needed to say it!

Feeling very bummed tonight. Things are always worse when I'm tired!

What do you think?

With Christmas coming up, I'm starting to think of what to get sweet girl. The Lord willing, she'll be home in November and we will be celebrating the best Christmas ever!

So, for all you parent's of older babies (she'll be 16 months at Christmas) what do you recommend as a toy that your child/children loved/love? Of course, keep in mind we just payed for an adoption so prices have to be good! :-)

I can't wait to hear from you to get some good ideas and see who all is really reading this blog!!

Proud

Nana e-mailed tonight. She keeps us up-to-date on Isabella Faye's new tricks! Tonight she told me that IF has started hugging everyone and is very loving.

What a wonderful thing for a mother to hear! My heart is soaring and I can't stop smiling!

There is no way to adequately thank Nana and her family for modeling a loving home, for showering IF with affection. Children learn by what the see and my precious baby is learning to be a happy, sweet, funny girl!

I must admit I'm a little overwhelmed just now. Oh how the Lord provides! My baby isn't with me, but she's with a family raising her just as I will. That is nothing short of a miracle! God put our daughter with a foster mommy with a heart like mine!

I am so very proud of my baby girl. I can't wait to feel her little hugging arms around my neck! I thank God for Nana and her family and I hope you will too!

Missing IF

I miss her...bad. I think of her every moment...I'm tired of waiting for a piece of paper...tired of a piece of paper keeping me from my girl. I wish we were rich-I'd be in Guatemala next week! Oh to hold my precious girl again! My arms ache longing for her to fill them again. I need to smell her and feel her chubby cheek against mine. I need to put or foreheads together and giggle! I need to hear her laugh. I don't want to wait a moment longer-yet I have no choice. My chest feels like there's a thousand pound weight sitting right on it. 13 months...13 anguishing months... I am so tired. I miss her so much. Her room, so full of pink, is yet so empty. This house is so empty. My heart is so empty.
Lord, fill my heart with happy expectation. Help me find the joy in this journey. Ease the pain of my empty arms. Make my memories of my visits with my sweet girl so real, so fresh. Give me strength to wait.

Mommy Tips: Tip #1

I'm constantly wowing IF's Daddy with my plans and ideas for parenting IF when she comes home. If I have no other fans, Hubby thinks I'm a great Mom...Huh, so do I! :-)

Anyone who knows me at all knows I have a very good self esteem when it comes to mothering! I've only ever been with my daughter 3 times but already I'm convinced I have it all figured out! I know your giggling...but just wait until IF comes home and you see me in action! :-)

Anyway, tonight Hubby said I should blog my ideas, plans, suggestions. So, here it begins, a regular series on the blog: Mommy Tips



Tip #1: The car tote.



I have concerns that when my sweet girls comes home she's not gonna like her car seat. In Guatemala, car seats are not common. So, when she arrives at 15 months, not used to ridding in one, I may be up for some opposition. So...

I got an adorable soft plastic tote and filled it with small toys and books so when we go in the truck, I can let her choose a couple toys from her tote to play with on the trip. These are stuffed animals from the dollar bin at Target and other small inexpensive toys and a couple board books.



Stay tuned for more tips,



The Mom who thinks she knows everything!

He is there!

This is a devotion by Kate Gosselin of Jon and Kate Plus 8 on TLC. It comes off the family's website, http://www.sixgosselins.com/.

Psalm 139: 9-10 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

This verse reminds me of the vastness of God. I tell my kids all the time how God is everywhere but to read this verse, it just reminds me how amazing He is! So often as we travel more and more, I feel here, there and everywhere! Although I absolutely love traveling, sometimes the thought crosses my mind 'does God know I am here?' And sometimes I almost forget my own name in the process.... But God is reminding me that no matter where I go or where I wake up, He is there.... Just the same as He was yesterday, today and will be tomorrow.... Wherever I am then! Thank you Lord for your omnipresence! Thank you that you are available to me wherever I am!

When I read this I just kept thinking: God is in Guatemala. He knows IF and Giovanni and Lauren D. and Lauren F. and Ben and Mya Elizabeth and the 3 J's and Sophia Hope and the other children are still waiting in Guatemala. No matter where they wake up, He is there! It's so hard to be seperate from IF but I take comfort in knowing that HE IS THERE with her, loving and protecting her and sweet Nana Janeth and her family every moment. Thank goodness...they're in good hands!

Love you guys!

How to cope in the 13th month of your adoption...

When the going gets tough...when you've been waiting for over a year for your daughter to come home...when your last visit trip feels like a distant memory...when you have no stinkin idea when her birth certificate is coming in so she can come home...you fall to your knees and pray. This is of course, the most important first step! Then...you eat kettle chips and peanut M & Ms like there's no tomorrow with the promise to yourself that when she's home, you two will play so hard...you'll be a size 6 again...just like high school...

FFF-Silly Smiles!

This week's Favorite Foto Friday theme is Silly Smiles. IF has lots of those! She is always making funny faces!

The silly tongue-out smile...

9 months: Mother's Day Visit Trip

The I'm trying to say "Mama" and smile at the same time smile...

12 months: Birthday Visit Trip

The I'm too cool smile...

13 months: This past Monday...from Nana Janeth!

For more FFF fun, check out Sarah's Blog kissthefrog4me.blogspot.com

The beautiful love of my life!

Words escape me to adequately express my love for my daughter, this masterpiece of God's love for me!

I've been very down lately, missing Isabella Faye and tired of being so close but still so far away from having her home. Today started especially hard but wonderful Nana Janeth sent these breaktaking pictures and God has used them to soothe my soul!

A picture is worth a thousand words! #2

FFF-Hope

This week's Favorite Foto Friday theme is hope. HOPE!

As soon as I read the theme (found on Sarah's blog kissthefrog4me.blogspot.com) this picture came to mind. It's from my 2nd visit trip when I visited for Mother's Day! It's me and sweet girl being, as my girlfriends and I said in middle school in the early 90's BFF's-best friend's forever) hanging out in our pj's eating Pizza Hut bread sticks!
I think the thing I look most forward to when Isabella Faye comes home is being her friend! Now, I know that ultimately I am her parent and have to evoke respect and discipline when needed, so don't panic when I say friend. A good parent can raise their child in such a way that they are the dearest of friends.
I can't wait for sweet girl and I to Christmas shop, to go to Cracker Barrel, to clean house (okay, so I'll clean-she'll mess!) I can't wait to cook supper with her in her highchair throwing cheerios at me!
I have HOPE in my great God who loves my daughter more than I can begin to comprehend-and loves me just the same-that this perfect child will be with me as I shop and clean and cook and play, wrestle, swim, race, stroll, worship, pray, live and love. I have HOPE in my great God that someday she'll gush to me about her first boyfriend, call me crying and laughing so hard I can barely understand that she's just gotten engaged, that we'll pick out her wedding dress together, that I'll hold her daughter in my arms, some day. I have HOPE because my great God is seated firmly on the THRONE, holds all power over all things-but yields His power only, always in LOVE.
As you glance at this picture, what you won't see, but I promise you is there, is my great God, with His arms safely around our shoulders.

Some lyrics from Chris Tomlin's How Great is Our God

how great is our God...sing with me

how great is our God...all will see

how great, how great is our God!

Name above all names,

worthy of all praise!

My heart will sing how Great is our God!

New pictures! Happy Friday!

This juice is so tasty!

Let's go!

Nana! Come Back!

That's Better!

Nana and my sis are taking pictures of Me for Mommy and Daddy. Mommy and Daddy have no idea the mischief I can get into! Te he he!

Here I go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

13 months

Happy 13 month birthday, sweet girl! We love you!

I started something when we chose IF. Each month on the 14th we commemorate her "birthday" by buying an inexpensive gift. I have a $10 rule. Tonight I ordered some adorable hair bows from mybowstore.com.

If you've got a girl, you've got to check the site out. The bows are so very much cheaper than in boutique stores, etc. and they are every bit as cute!

FFF-Our pick!

For this week's Favorite Foto Friday we get to choose our own theme. Then Sarah (creator of Favorite Foto Friday) at kissthefor4me.blogspot.com will choose one of our themes for everyone to use mext week. My theme choice is collages.

I just used my Picsasa photo software (which I downloaded for free) and made some collages very quickly and easily!

Here's a collage of recent pictures from Nana, one of IF's room and one from her birthday!

From Isabella Faye's Daddy!

This Article is from the local newpaper for which Hubby is the editor. (One of his many hats!) Hubby writes a column called Beech Tree Banter. After Isabella Faye's case was approved, he wrote this column.
Before reading it, you need to know some back-story. Hubby's way of dealing with the adoption, if he'd had his choice, would have been to remain silent until we suprised everyone with a precious baby girl! Not that Hubby hasn't been excited...trust me, he has! It's just harder for Hubby to deal when the issue is constantly in the forefront. But, knowing that in order to deal, I would need to be surrounded by family and friends, supporting me through, Hubby lovingly watched as I spread the word to all who would listen!So, needless to say, when Hubby handed me the newspaper and suggested I read his column, I was delighted and so very moved!Hubby is the best Dad! I don't have to have IF home to know that! He loves her unconditionally, without reservation. He may not always say it, but he doesn't have to. If you could see the twinkle in his eye, the smile on his face when he sees a new picture of our sweet girl...if you could watch him when I come home from a visit as he hangs on every word as I describe IF.Please pray for John too! I don't mention him very often-probobly much less than I should-but he is a gift from God to me and Isabella Faye and we are so blessed!

One Step Closer From Guatemala

For the longest time my wife was about half convinced that I wasn't too excited about our ongoing efforts to adopt a little girl from Guatemala. I didn't talk much about it, she'd say, and I wrote nothing about it, which to her was proof enough of my less-than-enthusiastic approach. I explained to her, in my best teaching voice, that we just happen to deal with things differently. For her, coping with the many struggles associated with international adoption meant talking about it, blogging about it (http://www.isabellafaye.blogspot.com/), praying about it, talking about it some more, reading about it, and generally making sure that the adoption of our baby girl, Isabella Faye, was always front and center. I guess that's a mother's prerogative.I take a somewhat different approach, one that probably most men can relate to easier. I like to bottle everything up. For me, out of sight, out of mind. Of course, this doesn't mean that I ever forget about our baby and our efforts to get her. But, it is my nature to minimize things and to try not to dwell on a particular subject too much - especially something like international adoption where there are literally a myriad of things that can go wrong on a weekly basis.In the adoption world, we received some really good news this week as wife Beth was in the throes of planning for her third visit trip to Guatemala. It was Wednesday afternoon and hot. For some reason I had decided to mow my yard at high noon - not sure why I made that decision. Then, I went over to my Dad's bait shop and became convinced that he was trying to work me to near exhaustion in the garden as we tilled and made plans for our fall garden. Long story short, I had worked hard and sweated almost continuously for several hours. I was beat. That's when I saw Beth peeling around the corner of the old store building. She was moving fast, which concerned me. Either something had happened to one of our cats or our baby was coming home. Fortunately, it was the latter. Our adoption case, she had just learned, was officially out of PGN. Don't ask me what PGN actually is because I couldn't tell you. However, I do know that it is the last big legal hurdle separating us from our baby. Beth and Big Will Amos made the trek to Aberdeen on Wednesday to tell me that we had finally jumped that last hurdle. Beth did the talking, of course, since Big Will is only a few months old. Beth baby-sits Big Will, son of Josh and Terri - I added the "Big" part; it just seems to fit. However, I don't think Will was as excited as we were as I got the feeling that our PGN announcement may have messed up his nap schedule.Barring a natural disaster, a military coup, civil war, or foreign invasion, our baby, Isabella Faye, should be home in about eight weeks but there are simply no guarantees when it comes to international adoption. She will be one-year old on August 14. We continue to hope. We continue to pray. Our baby is not home yet but we do believe she is one step closer from Guatemala.

Supernatural Intervention

I went into Isabella Faye's room just a few minutes ago. I laid down on the floor-on my face before the Lord. I prayed for IF's birth certificate, begged for her to come home. Begged for God to take my pain, begged for God's supernatural intervention. Then I just layed there, in silence.

We have a doll, Lizzie-given to us from CCI that speaks words in Spanish and English. When you touch a little red heart on her vest she says "I love you, te amo." She sits on IF's changing table with nothing around her which could fall on her or touch the heart. As I was laying-weak, sick, tired, weary I heard "I love you, te amo."

I jumped up, grabbed the doll and collapsed before the Lord. I felt like Moses at the burning bush! I was overwhelmed! I was giddy! I was awed and speechless! The room became cool-I promise you-breezy-like a fall day-and I KNEW the Lord was there. He's always with me, I know...but not like tonight. Tonight He let me feel Him-sense Him, right there.

My heart is light, my chest doesn't hurt. I'm not scared. I miss her, oh how I miss her-but I know it's gonna be okay. I'm filled with expectation!

The Lord has heard my cries and has come to me! He has comforted me! Though He wasn't in any way required to-nor was I deserving of it-He supernaturally intervened. He gave me a miracle. He gave me a glimpse of His love, His comfort, His grace, His presence, to see me through until the journey ends.

Never before have I truly grasped how much He loves me. I know its not possible for me to ever truly understand but tonight, He impressed upon me that He loves me like I love Isabella Faye-except somehow-infinitely more.

Please pray!

Just when you think you can't take it anymore...you realise you don't have a choice.

That feeling is back. You know-the one where a sob wells up in your throat, your heart starts to race and your stomach fills with butterflies-panic, anxiety, fear, pain-all rolled into one awful breathtaking emotion. Lord, take this pain from me! Bring my daughter home. Please!

Friends, please pray. There are folks in my agency waiting 8 weeks for their birth certificates. Oh how I live in fear we will wait that long. I'm sick. I'm tired. I'm weak. I'm scared. I'm sick with worry for Nana and her family for their hearts when IF does come home. I'm wracked with guilt for feeling so bad when I have friends who's children aren't coming home, or who are farther back in the process than me.

More from yesterday...

Nana, Isabella Faye and Coni's beautiful daughter! I think IF would be an excellent maraca player!

Happy Independence Day!

September 15 is Independence Day in Guatemala. Today Isabella Faye went with Nana and aunts Paty and Coni to the school where Coni's daughter attends to watch the children do watch some typical dances in honor of Independence Day. Nana says Isabella Faye clapped for the performers and loved being around all those children!

Isabella Faye watches Aunt Coni's daughter and other students.
Isabella Faye and Aunt Coni and Aunt Paty.
Isabella Faye and Aunt Coni and Nana.

A collection of recent pictures from sweet Nana Janeth!

Piggy Tails!

Check out Jenifer's new hairdo for sweet girl. I love, love, love it! Sweet girl's got pig tails! Or...maybe piglet tails! I so love this sweet baby and love that she has Jenifer and her other foster siblings who love her and spoil her and play with her so much! We are blessed beyond measure!

For Nana Janeth

This post is all for Nana Janeth! You all know she is our amazing foster mom. She has been caring for Isabella Faye since she was one month old. Isabella Faye has developed right on target. She is healthy and and clean (I love the way she smells when Nana drops her off on my visit trips.) She is smart and has a precious little disposition and sense of humor. She is so happy and well adjusted and well behaved. Nana and and Papa Freddy and their family have done an incredible job raising my precious daughter.
Nana is so loving and kind to me. Each time I visit its like seeing one of my dearest friends! She's funny and so friendly and open.
These pictures she sends, every weekend and sometimes during the week, are sent from God to help us survive this awful wait.
I wish you could all meet Nana. She just exudes love. She's one of those Christians that God's light just shines through. I pray that Nana will be able to come to the US some day so at least some of you can meet her.
I wish there was some way to repay her for all her kindness. I pray God will help her know and understand the depth of my gratitude as I have no words to describe it.
So, join me in praising God for Nana Janeth today!

God sent...

This morning, standing at the sink washing up the breakfast dishes I had that feeling. It's that one where a sob wells up in your throat, your heart starts to race and your stomach fills with butterflies. I haven't had that feeling since we got out of PGN but there it was-panic, anxiety, fear, pain-all rolled into one awful breathtaking emotion.

This afternoon, standing at the sink washing up the bottles of a little boy I'm watching, the phone rang. It was a friend who said I had been on her mind today. Her words were kind and sweet as she validated my feelings and promised her continued prayers.

What a God-send. Thank goodness she followed God's leading and called me!

This wait is hard...harder than anything I've ever done or faced and let me tell you, I've faced a lot! But when God sends miracles of a phone call from a friend, just when I need it-I know He is with me and he'll see me through!

Percocious Isabella Faye

I don't even have words to describe how funny this is...

It's funny all on its own...

But for those of you who know how much I hate to exercise...my baby reading a fitness magazine is priceless!

Oh Nana Janeth, I haven't laughed this hard in so long! I mean, loud-shaking-slapping my knee-tears in my eyes laughing! My heart feels so good now! Thank you! I love you!

Mya Elizabeth's good news

I know I've told you about Mya Elizabeth. She is the daughter of my friends Amy and Chris. Her case has been unimaginable stressful. Amy is amazingly strong and graceful as she handles this wait. I have really bonded with Amy over the last few months, the last couple months e-mailing back and forth every week. It all started when I learned our girls share a birthday...And, the more I got to know her, the more I admired her faith. She is a southern girl like me and recently I have been able to share with and encourage her and I hope I helped!
Anyway, this afternoon I received a most wonderful call. It was Amy, calling to tell me that Mya Elizabeth is OUT OF PGN! I jumped up and down and screamed right in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant! There were times when we worried that Mya Elizabeth wouldn't get to come home. But now, we know it won't be long!
I can't talk or type about it without crying. Mya's homecoming is a miracle-a God reached down and intervened miracle. And Amy gives God ALL the glory! This has just renewed my faith right down to the core!
Please join me in praising God for this good news for my friends!

Splish, splash!

Nana Janeth has outdone herself! What a hilarious look at a day in the life of Isabella Faye! You know, I miss things like bath time. It's so nice to get a glimpse of my silly girl getting cleaned up!

Check this out!

http://theburningword.blogspot.com/2008/09/thinking-about-adoption.html

Check out this link. It's my friend Bro. Randy talking about what makes a "real" family. It's one of the best commentaries about adoption I've ever heard.

He and his wife Deliah are adopting Sophia Hope also from Guatemala.

If you've been trying to call...

If you've been trying to call...my cell phone keeps messing up and the home phone is a peice of junk but I'm too tight to break down and buy another one! Feel free to e-mail! I check every day!

Please pray this week...

Please pray once again for Lauren. I have come to you before to request prayer that she would enter PGN. As you know your prayers helped that happen. Now we are waiting to see if her birth mother interview happened before yesterday's deadline. If it did, praise God! If it didn't, her adoption will progress under the new law and we aren't real sure what that will mean.

Pray also for my 2 friends Amy and Amy! Amy 1 is adopting Giovanni. He is 2 and in an orphanage. They have been in and out of PGN for a while now. Please pray his approval comes this week so he can come home soon!
Pray also for Amy 2 whose's Mya Elizabeth was born on the same day as Isabella Faye. They went through some terrible trials early on in Mya's adoption and she only recently entered PGN. Amy and her husband visited their precious girl this past weekend. Pray for them as it is very hard to come home.

Please pray also for us as we wait for IF's birth certificate. I am terrified it's gonna be weeks before it comes. I literally live in fear. I know fear is not from God, but it's so powerful and hard to fight. It feels like months since I've seen her. I can only imagine how John feels-never having met her.

Thanks for your faithful support!

Love you guys!