Just A Pic I Had To Post

...And this is what happens when you lose your two front teeth and eat a blue sucker.

The Best Big Brother in the World

So we're sitting in meeting today and Ian kept whispering "I want to hold Tana. Can I hold Tana?" So finally I passed her over to him. Very quietly, so quietly I wouldn't have heard it if there had not been a pause in testimony, he whispers to Tana, "You are the best little sister I could ever have in the whole, wide world."
I burst into tears.

Thank-you God

I haven't had time to post this recently as we were out of town, but I wanted to let you know, another baby has a home. The agency called me again last week with another "baby born" situation. A half Hispanic, half Caucasian baby girl born to a mother who did coke and drank beer through out the pregnancy. The urine test for the baby was clean however, and the doc said there were no signs of fetal alcohol syndrome, (apparently you can spot that immediately) and while the baby was premature, she was otherwise healthy.

So, I made calls and the people I called made calls and a little baby found a home. God did His work, and I cried again.

Dear Nana (An Open Letter)

Dear Nana,

I really enjoyed your last visit. Sitting on your lap, talking to me, all the attention. It was so wonderful! But the best part of all was the play mat you got me! I lay on it all the time to play with the toys, or just to rest. It's so much fun! There is just one little problem...

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Will you PLEASE tell Tana you got it for me? She's always stealing it!

Thanks!

Love, Simon

A New Ian-isim

Yesterday at meeting we heard about how when people die their prayers for us don't just disappear. Rather, that God keeps them in rememberance tword us. Today Brian and I were in the car and we were dicussing how wonderful that is, when Ian broke in to ask us what that meant. I explained how when people pray for us those prayers don't go away when they die, but that God keeps them. I think he was unsure about weather God keep the prayers or the people that die, because the next thing he said was, "Wow! God's house must be full of prayers and caskets!"

.....Annnd I lost it. ;)

Cute! Cute! Cute!

I was able to meet Jacob and his new family today. Jacob is the little baby from my last post. And he lives about a block away from us. He is ADORABLE! He is also about the size of Tana. I guess he was close to 10 pounds when he was born. He has the chubbiest cheeks I have ever seen on a newborn.

The mom made a comment that really made me think about God's hand in all this. She said that they had been trying to adopt through another agency for about 2 1/2 years, they had just sent in the paperwork to continue on. She said that she told her husband they weren't going to get their baby this way, but rather that they would get a call out of the blue that someone knew someone who knew someone else. I smiled because when I first got the phone call I felt a strong feeling that I needed to call Calleen. Now Calleen has four children of her own and I KNEW she and her husband didn't want to adopt, but I called her anyway. Now sweet baby Jacob is where he belongs and I KNOW God's hand was in it.

Oddly Satisfying

This afternoon as I was feeding Tana the phone rang. It was one of the people from the adoption agency. She said that there was a baby that had been born last night in another state that needed a home. She was wondering if we knew of anyone that was looking to adopt. I knew no one, but two people I had talked to recently had mentioned that they knew of families who were looking. So the first thing I did after hanging up was to call my husband to ask if HE had heard of anyone. Then we called our friends who called their friends....
To make a long story short, there is a family we don't know flying to another state to pick up a baby we've never met and bring him home. I may never meet this family and their baby, but right now I am so happy for them I'm crying.
And I feel... satisfied.

Christmas 2009

#1 Kimberly, Wilson & Tana
#2 Grandpa and Tana
#3 Greatgrandma and Tana
#4 Picking oranges for Christmas
#5 (couch pic #1) Ian, Aunty Yvonne, Aunty Shawna, Alex
#6 (couch pic #2) Ian, Tana, Alex, Kimberly
#7 The start of The Great Marshmallow War
#8 the park will never be the same - marshmallows ALL over

We did not have a "white Christmas", but we did have a good one. We went to Phoenix to visit Dad and Tami. Shawna and her kids were there too so Tana got A LOT of loves! we had a wonderful time.

Curls!

See? It really does get curly when we wash it!

Check it out!

Go to http://rozephotography.com/blog/ and scroll down until you find the entry titled "Beauty" to see some fantastic pictures of Tana. The photographer is a friend of ours, and all I can say is "Wow!!!"