How will you....

How quickly will you go if He says go?

How quickly will you stop if He says stop?

How long, how patiently, will you wait if He says wait?

How far, how long will you go if He says press on?

How far will you walk away, how long will you leave it, if He says lay it down?

How much will you care when He says care for the least of these?

How hard will you fight when He says free the oppressed?

How much will you love when He says love your enemies?

How peacefully will you rest when He says rest in Me?

An AMAZING week!!

This has been an AMAZING week in the adoption community!!

I'm SO excited to be a part of it and witness these things that God is doing.

First, Joseph Oatsvall got his hearing aids.

 Joseph has hearing loss and developmental delays and was adopted from Uganda in 2009. How cool to watch a child hear for the first time!!

Then, Kristi Johnson got to see Wes's smile for the first time.

Kristi was in Ethiopia before Christmas meeting her daughter's birth mom and helping her sister Kelly (founder of Ordinary Hero) photograph waiting children. While there, Kristi met her son. 

Then, a cry went out to the community that Davids needed a family. He is two weeks from aging out of the orphanage and needed a family to step up and commit to him so that he wouldn't be out in the streets on his own. The community rallied and posted his information everywhere. Within 48 hours a family stepped up to adopt him. Now the community is helping to raise the funds needed so that his family can travel to pick him up as soon as possible.

Then, Suzanne announced that Josie Love's HIV is UNDETECTABLE in her last set of blood work.

WOOHOO!

Then, ISAAC STARTED WALKING! As I shared on fb, capturing a child's first steps on camera is cute but it takes on a WHOLE NEW meaning when that child

-was 6 lbs at 6 mos

-has hypotonia (low muscle tone)

-met only ONE developmental milestone at 8 mos

-and was adopted by his wonderful parents even though it was unknown if he would ever make any progress or meet any more milestones 

 

Then, just today I saw that John and Christine are adding to their family bringing the number up to 17!!

 

PHEW!! What a week!!

To GOD be the GLORY!!

I'm SO excited AGAIN!!

YAY!! YAY!! YAY!!

Adam HAS A FAMILY!!!!

Adam was my Reece's Rainbow Christmas Angel Tree child from last year. He is SUPER special to me.

I'm so excited for him and his family!!

REJOICE with me!!

Giveaway on another blog!

Check out Devin's giveaway over at Our Very Full House. (Check out her adorable kids here.)

CSN stores have everything. Everything. What do you want??

One year later

Shh! Don't tell Abigail (yet)!

When I was looking at the Christmas Angel Tree I saw some familiar faces. 

Last year I explained to Abigail that there are children in orphanages in other countries waiting for their forever families and that money is the only thing standing in their way. I asked her if she would be willing to give up one of her Christmas gifts in order to help a family bring their child HOME. You can read about her response here.

This is Kathleen last year

 And here is her updated picture on the Tree this year

Here is Anna last year

And this year

I was so excited when I realized that we had updated pictures of the girls. I can't wait to show them!

But as the day went on...I realized how sad it is that they are on the tree again this year. That means their forever family was not able to adopt them. That means they are still waiting. They will spend another Christmas in an orphanage. Another holiday without a family. Another cold winter in a very cold orphanage.

And that causes me to fight even harder to spread the word. To educate people about the conditions that these children suffer in. To shine the light on the need. To help families adopt. To speak up for the helpless and the needy.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,

for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly;

defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Proverbs 31:8-9

Won't you join me?

Reece's Rainbow Christmas Angel Tree 2010

I'm so excited to see Reece's Rainbow Christmas Angel Tree this year.

Reece's Rainbow is an organization that raises money to help families adopt children with Down Syndrome and other special needs. There is no shortage of families that want to adopt children with special needs...only the money to do so. The Christmas Angel Tree is their biggest fund raiser of the year. Please take some time to look at the faces of the children and consider helping them meet their forever family.

My new nephew

We are SO excited to welcome

John "Andrew" Wesley Showalter

My first picture with my nieces and nephew. LOVE them!!

We all wore our Africa shirts from Calling Orphans Home.

Well, except for Andrew. Anna was very surprised to find out that he wasn't wearing any clothes at all.

Here is Andrew's Africa shirt. He wore it one day but it was too difficult to get a picture of him in it.

We didn't know the gender before hand. I took both onesies. Isn't this one adorable?? Not sure if you can tell but the fabric matches the girls' shirts. Cute!

Here is Andrew's newborn picture by Heather Blair Photography.

She's got MAD skillz!!

Check her out if you live in central Pennsylvania!!

Oops, I missed it

So remember when I said that my blog disappoints me?

Two years ago on September 24 Grace, Abigail, Anna and my mom arrived home from Ethiopia. Two years ago I held Anna for the very first time.

Here's Anna wondering who this crazy, crying, giggling woman is.

It was so wonderful to be able to finally hold Anna. I was SO glad to be there on her first day in America. What an incredible blessing she is.

Here is a picture from out visit last year.

And some from our visit this year.

LOVE THAT GIRL!!

Silly girl

"Ok, girls. Lets all try to sleep on the way to Chicago."

Two little girls tried to fall asleep. One succeeded.

She did end up falling asleep about 20 minutes or so before we landed.  

Children's Museum in Baltimore

We visited the Children's Museum of Baltimore when I was in Pennsylvania. It was tiring but lots of fun.

There was an area set up as a pretend grocery store for shopping and checking out. 

And then there was a car for you to take your groceries home. Anna was trying really hard to buckle the belt by herself.

Loved this!

Can you see how wet the girls shirts are in front? They had an awesome water play area.

Bob!

Abigail took a picture of Anna and me at lunch. Pictures are really hard to take with an iPhone.

See?

Poor Anna. She tried and tried and tried and finally got one.

Painted

One day that I had to work my mom let the girls play with make up. Real make up. Without supervision. Yeah. See her (under) eye shadow? That took two days to wash off completely.

I don't have pictures of Abigail. While she did have the same amount of make up on it didn't show up very well in pictures.

Our kind of funny

Yes, the girls have make up on. Lots of it. That is a whole 'nother post.

Abigail's version

A few years ago we discovered that Abigail had her own version of the song Here I Am To Worship

Here I am to worship,
Here I am to bow down,
Here I am to say that You're my God
You're altogether lovely
All together twirly,
All together wonderful to me

It made me smile to hear her sing it the same way when she was here for a visit this summer.

Bowling

My nieces Abigail (7) and Anna (3) live in Pennsylvania. They visited my mom and me this summer. One of the things we did was take them bowling. It was lots of fun!



I'm not sure what this thing is called but it is generally used for children with special needs. (Perhaps one of my friends that teaches special education can enlighten me:) We got it so that Anna would be able to bowl. She really enjoyed it. She was so excited to bowl that I had to keep her ball from rolling so that we could take a picture.

This is the lightest ball they had and it was just a bit too heavy for her. I ended up helping her carry her ball the whole time. This is much more difficult than I make it look! Haha! (And yes, a normal person would have carried the ball to the contraption for her and then allowed her to push it down the alley. Doting aunties bend all the way over, waddle like a duck and spoil help their nieces so they can "do it by myself")

Jai was able to come bowling with us. He had fun and we enjoyed his company. (My mom is a nanny for his family. She loves him like a grandson.)

Speaking of grandsons...my mom might have one in about month or two. My sister Grace is pregnant. She and John do not know what it is yet but everyone will be excited either way. As Abigail said, "We don't care what it is. We are just hoping for a healthy baby."

My blog disappoints me

So I was just looking back through my blog to find pictures of a very important anniversary that is coming up and...nothing. No pictures of that day to be found. I didn't even mark that day. How disappointing!
I am hoping to blog here more frequently to record the memories that I am making.

Project Home Children's Foundation

A few of my friends started a foundation to help underprivileged children.
Their mission: To raise money and support international and domestic adoptions, orphanages, education, and programs that benefit underprivileged children, including those with special needs.

Please check out their facebook page!

A website is in the works and I will be sure to let you know when it is up. Or better yet, "like" them on facebook and you will be kept up to date with the happenings!

Giveaway

Ladies- MB Sprout is having a nursing cover giveaway. Click here to check it out. Also, take a look at the other things they have in the store. (The links are under the top picture.)
Nursing Covers
Carseat Canopys
Aprons
Minky Lovies
Burpies
There are so many fabric choices!

I'm SO excited!!

I'm so excited for you to meet my Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree child.

TA-DA!!
This is Adam.

Don't ya just love him!

Adam is EXTRA special to me. (I can't share the reasons on the internet but...if you know me in real life, just ask!)

Please join me in praying that a family will committ to adopting him.

Also, please spread the word about these children that need our help!

New grass

I wanted to show you some pictures of the new grass that is growing in my front yard.
Do you remember what it used to look like?

Pretty pitiful, huh??

Look at all this new grass!

Improve the world

This is an amazing video!! Please watch it! It is 2 minutes and 40 seconds. If you do not have that long please AT LEAST watch minute 1:18 to minute 1:38. That's 20 seconds. Please watch AT LEAST that much.

Advent Conspiracy Intro - 2008 from Robert Terrell on Vimeo.

“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
- Anne Frank

Only 6 days left

Just a reminder that December 15th is the deadline to place an order for a Reece's Rainbow Christmas Angel Tree ornament to ensure delivery by Christmas. There are only 10 children left without a sponsor. They are the first children on the tree. Will you please consider sponsoring one of them?
(The Angel Tree runs through to the 31st of December so even if you miss the deadline for the ornaments, you can still help the waiting children meet their goal of $1000 per child.)

Twas the night before Christmas

"Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land

there are parentless children, with no toys in hand..."

To read more please visit this site.

Pick one

It's time again for the Reece's Rainbow Christmas Angel Tree. This is an organization that raises money to help families adopt children with Down Syndrome from other countries.

Andrea Roberts, Executive Director

"By raising money to offer adoption grants on waiting children, we are able to give adoptive families the extra financial help they need to bring a child with Down syndrome home from a miserable existence in overseas orphanages.... These children are viewed as outcasts with no ability to learn or be functional members of society. They languish in mental institutions, hidden away from the world in shame....There is no shortage of families wishing to adopt children with Down syndrome, only a shortage of funds to do so!"

This is the little girl I sponsored last year. This is from when I discovered that her forever family had found her. AMAZING!! I was a (very small) part of that!!

This year I asked Abigail if she would give up a Christmas present and help a family adopt a needy child instead. I told her that she didn't have to decide right away. Withing 30 seconds she was saying, "I want to do that Teta. I really want to."

Meet Kathleen.

This is the little girl that Abigail picked.

After Abigail spent at least 10 minutes looking at all of the children and reading almost all of the names, we asked Anna to pick one. She had a bit of trouble picking just one. "I want this one and this one and this one and this one and this one." (They are all so cute. Who could blame her?)

This is Anna. We picked her for Anna.

Here is the first video I ever saw about Reece's Rainbow.

Won't you take a moment (or as long as you need :) and look at these children. If you are not able to donate this year, won't you please pray for these children.

If you feel so inclined, please spread the word about this organization.

One and a half trees

So I just realized that I never blogged about what happened with the tree in my front yard.
One week after I bought my house there was a very bad storm and I came home from work to this.

The entire top half of one of the two trees in my front yard fell into the street. THANKFULLY no damage was done.

This picture is looking from the back of the house. Can you see the little bit left on top of the tree?

Improvements

I have two large pine trees in my front yard. (Well actually one and a half - did I ever blog about that??) The grass was not growing under the trees so I had someone prepare the area and put down grass seed. Hopefully grass will be growing there soon.

As seen in my garden

Look at what grew in my garden.
Well, I guess I should say - Look at what was growing in the garden when I bought my house. :)
These two little pumpkins were growing on this huge vine right outside my front door. It was a fun surprise. I loved seeing them there. I cut them off today and pulled out the vine. It was so big! It spanned my entire drive way! The pumpkins sure were nice to look at but I am glad to have that thing out of the way of the front walk.

I picked up this pumpkin the other day for the front of the house. I do not decorate for or celebrate Halloween but I do like to have fall decorations.

The pumpkin trio

This is my fall wreath on the front door.

Then I got really inspired and I got out the rest of my fall decorations.

Ok. So that is my only other fall decoration. :) I'm planning on shopping the clearance section when the season is over.

Do you have fall decorations up?