A Humbled Heart

Well, they met.

Surprise, surprise-The country does not want to budge for families in the pipeline. (knifeinheart) There was a whole bunch of other stuff said, but nothing that my heart can bear to relay to my fingers to type.

They did say, however, that no law is forever.

But our God is!

Through this ordeal, we still praise God for so much. No matter what governments do, no matter what politics come into play, they cannot ban our love for God and they cannot change the fact that God loves these kids even more than we do!  So now, we feel it important to praise God as we wait. (Oh, and we will wait!)

We praise Him for opening our eyes and more importantly our hearts to these children, as God clearly lays out in His word.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~ James 1:27

We praise Him for bringing us an amazing support network, many of whom are going through these steps with us. We have cried, fasted, and prayed together for our sweet children.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ~ 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

We praise Him for providing the resources necessary to complete the adoption as soon as that light turns green.

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. ~John 16:24

We praise Him for the children, so many who may be considered different from the typical children. We praise Him that they have been born, as the reality exists that most children with differences in many countries don't even get that chance.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ~ Psalm 139:14

We thank our prayer warriors for lifting up these children and families in your prayers. It means so much to us!! We are not giving up; we intend to watch this thing play out as long as it takes until all of these children are home!

All the Marbles....

This one is for all the marbles!  (Or if not all the marbles, a lot of the marbles.)

On December 28, 2012, Hudson's country closed their doors to all US adoptions.  This horrible, politically motivated decision sealed the fate of over 800,000 orphans.  Included in that number are the 1,000 orphans that had families in the process of their adoption.  Some of those children had met and hugged their parents, hearing promises of their swift return.  Some of these children had no idea that a family a half a world away were pining for them, dreamily staring at their pictures and waiting for the day they got show these children the love they so deserve.

For four months, those 1,000 families have been holding their collective breaths, desperate for any news coming out of the country. Between spending hours each day researching and sharing articles that come out of the European media, Department of State and US Senate conference calls and some even entering legal cases overseas on the basis of inhumane treatment for these children, the process has been grueling.

On April 17-18, the Federation from Hudson's country will be holding talks with the US State Department.  This is the FIRST time in these long four months that these two countries are talking specifically to address these 1,000 families and how/if things can proceed.  All too familiar to us is the time, money and emotion that has gone into this process and to have our boy remain in an orphanage is truly the toughest thing to stomach.

We need some prayer!!

Whenever I get sick of this political mess, I think of this sweet face, and I am propelled to pray and pray and pray some more!

Please join us in prayer for these children and families!   If the picture above didn't make you drop to your knees and pray immediately, here a few other cuties that our hearts are aching for. These children all have parents waiting who long to hold them forever and ever, as soon as we all get the green light!

You are the helper of the fatherless. LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear, To do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, That the man of the earth may oppress no more.

Psalms 10:14,17-18

Happy 2nd Birthday, Audrey!!

On Monday, March 25th, Audrey turned 2 years old!!  Since Monday birthdays aren't a lot of fun and she is not old enough to know the difference, we celebrated her birthday on Sunday, the 24th instead. Shhhhh.

Hugging a character from Peep and the Big Wide World

She woke up to her favorite breakfast of waffles and pears and then she chose the Boston Children's Museum for her fun outing.  She most enjoyed the bubble room, the light up dance board, and Peep and the Big Wide World displays.  We ate lunch in their cafe and they kids even got to pick a little present from the gift shop. Noah shockingly chose a train, while Audrey chose Floam.



We then returned home for her favorite dinner: a giant spiral ham and Panera-style mac and cheese!

Audrey waiting for her birthday dinner! She's excited about food!

After dinner, we feasted on cupcakes from Sweet, one of our favorite cupcakeries in Boston, and then she opened her present-- a dress up chest!  She spent the rest of the evening trying on high heels, gloves and hats.  She certainly is a girly girl!

Then it was bedtime. For everyone!  Happy Birthday, girl!

Playing in the Kindergarten area in the Museum.

Climbing in the construction area

Noah takes a break from bike riding to sing Happy Birthday to his sis.

Audrey's cupcakes!

Mama helps blow out the candles

Noah helps her open her present

Mama has to try on the hat, too.

Accessorizing!

She walks in heels better than her mama!

Can't leave out the skirt, gloves and purse!

In the Groove...

We are finally starting to get into the groove here in the Arctic.  Ok, maybe it isn't really the Arctic, but it sure feels like it!  For three weeks in a row, as soon as we were celebrating the weekend's coming, it was time for another storm. Ugh.  But 30+ inches of snow later, it is now March and we are aching for green grass and sunny skies.

Last Tuesday morning, we woke up and hustled to get Noah to school, only to find out that they were on break. " What break is in February?" you might ask.  Apparently all the schools around here have Mid-Winter Break.  Winter Break is the week between Christmas and New Years, and then Mid-Winter Break is in February, shortly followed by Spring Break in April. Apparently winter around here is so bad that they need two breaks to get through it!   Being from an area of the country where we are lucky to get off a day or two around Easter and call it "Spring Break", this was absolutely foreign to us.  Unfortunately, this also means that the school year does not conclude until the end of June.  On a brighter note, it means we have no excuse not to head out to Western PA in April.

Audrey and I attended our first MOPS meeting in Quincy this past week and wow, have I missed MOPS!  It is never easy to get comfortable in a new group, especially when it seems so different from my last MOPS group, but I am determined to keep an open mind and make friends with these moms, even if they really don't want to be friends with me!

Dave and I have also gotten a chance to get out sans kids several times in the past few weeks.  We have had 2 awesome date nights in MA so far.  The first we dined at Wahlburgers, complete with a video played on repeat of Donnie and Mark Wahlburg in their greatest action scenes. The burgers were great, even if the viewing material wasn't exactly my style.  On our second date night, we checked out a wonderfully hip and awfully crowded restaurant called Fat Cat.  They had wonderful comfort food with artisan ingredients and a few gourmet touches. This will definitely be a place to bring visitors to in the future.

As wonderful as all of this sounds, it is not without a deluge of guilt and sadness. After 2 months of sheer torture as we wait to find out the future of our dear boy a half a world away, we know we need to continue living life and are forcing ourselves to function somewhat normally.  We continue to scour no less than 10 news sites each day from his country and we desperately latch onto any piece of news. We are still hopeful and will continue to fight as long as it takes.  We have now hunkered down in preparation for a war, as this will not be a quick battle as we had originally hoped. This little guy is worth this extreme test of patience.

About 1 month ago, we noticed that our sweet Edena was still listed on the database for orphans and her picture was even updated.  She was still doe-eyed and gorgeous.  We knew she would be getting a family and we just relished this last picture of this girl who will always be in our hearts.  Last week, her picture was removed from the database and we are assured she is now in the loving arms of a mama.  Though it still pains us that we cannot be those parents, she is an orphan no more, and we rejoice for her!  She is loved.

As spring is coming ever nearer (at least we hope!), we pray that the warmth in the air will be felt in our hearts and the brightness of the sun's rays may brighten our spirits as well.

Blizzard of 2013

Inches of snow: 23
Days in the house: 3
Hours spent shoveling: 5
Gallons of hot chocolate/chai consumed:  Too many to count!
Quality cuddles:  See response above.


We survived our first New England blizzard!  We have only been here about 2 months and we knew it was too good to be true that we hadn't had any significant snow in that time.

The blizzard hysteria started Thursday morning.  Audrey and I dropped Noah off at school and hit the grocery stores at 8:30 am.  The deli line was over 40 mins long.  The checkout lines ran half way around the whole store.  There was no 1% milk to be had.  Of course, we questioned why half of these people weren't at work, as there wasn't even supposed to be drop of snow until the next afternoon.  But we were glad to hit the store when we did, as by 11:30 am when we were driving by on our way to pick up Noah, it was even crazier!  Yikes, people up here take their milk and bread very seriously!

Provisions for the kids (they pick chai over hot cocoa
about 99% of the time! Crazy!)

On Friday, Dave was to leave work at around noon.  The kids and I filled the minivan up with gas, hoping it might provide a way for us to warm up if we lost heat/power (shoveling out the tail pipes, etc. before turning on, of course) and we hit the library for some fresh books and movies as we prepared to hunker down for the weekend and perhaps beyond.  We made it until just before nap time when the first flakes began to hit the ground.


Dave got home safely at about 1 pm, and we spent the rest of Friday inside.  We busted out the electric train sets from Dave's youth and spent all afternoon playing trains.  After a warm, comforting dinner of gnocchi and garlic knots, the kids were bathed and jammied to hit the hay early, while Dave and I curled up with Neil Simon's The Odd Couple and we had a few good chuckles as we watched Walter Mathau and Jack Lemmon, one of our favorite comedic pairings.  Only once during the movie did the power flicker, though we could hear the wind whistling like crazy. Before we went to bed, we estimated we had around 9 inches of snow.

View of our neighborhood

Saturday morning, we awoke to a winter wonderland and our 23 inches of snow. We were so grateful that our power had not gone out and our house was still toasty warm. The plows had done our neighborhood continuously through the night, so we were happy to see that it wasn't 23 inches on our road.  After a super decadent breakfast of chocolate croissants and banana/peanut butter smoothies, we donned our snow gear and headed outside.

Though it was no longer hurricane force winds, it still whipped pretty strongly and stung poor Audrey's cheeks, so she only made a few minutes outside before she was ready to go in.  We started by digging out  series of paths to get around the house, to the deck (our back doors were not functional with 3-4 foot snow drifts blocking them.  We shoveled a small bit on our deck for the kids to play in and then we were inside for some quality fireside chats and lots of chai!

We aren't getting out our back garage door anytime soon!  

The rest of the day was spent inside with our valentine making extravaganza, our Caillou movie marathon and  the making of a giant pot of baked potato soup.

Now it is Sunday.  Since we don't need to, I am not planning on leaving the house anytime soon!  Dave, however, is itching to get out, so he will be going out to pick up a pizza for dinner.  We also realized that we hadn't used any bread after stocking up like crazy, so we made a big ol' batch of french toast and stocked our freezer with it to enjoy for the coming week or so!


Overall, we are so thankful that we were able to fair the storm so well and are grateful for a chance to spend a few days together without the pressures of getting out and about to socialize, run errands or get anything accomplished.  Having a few days to slow down and just have fun together is a luxury these days, and we will take it, even if accompanied by 23 inches of snow!

Noah standing by our lamp pole.  This is the last time we may ever see these
poles as they got buried quickly!

As the flakes start to fall, Noah wrote his name in the snow. 

My beloved minivan is not happy about this, I am sure. 

The front of our snow covered home.

Noah standing in front of where the poles were once visible!

Audrey standing in front of the poles. 

All of the snow on the side of our yard was blown right up to the fence, leaving
a small strip where we could see the grass popping up. This is where the kids will be playing!

Oh fiddle, it's up to his middle.  Dave was a trooper shoveling all of the snow! 

Massachusetts Musings

We have been in MA for over a month and a half now!  We have survived January in a new, colder, snowier state and are beginning to find our groove.

Dave is adjusting wonderfully to his new job.  His boss seems understanding of his personal life   and appreciative of his hard work. He has been home at 6 pm most nights, with just a few occasions of having to work late. The kids are loving having the whole family together for dinner and Noah is just on cloud nine having his best bud around more often.  

Noah has already experienced a few Firsts in MA!  His first cavity and subsequently his first little root canal! Yuck! We found a great pediatric dentist and even though Noah suffers from some anxiety issues and may have cried the whole time, he was cooperative for the dentist and came through with flying colors.  Apparently his molar was defective and it wasn't our/Noah's fault, but we are now super vigilant in his oral care!

Noah also starts his new school this week!  He has been doing a great job of perfecting all of his letter sounds and started sounding out words during his truancy this past month and a half and loves completing his learning workbook pages.  We were lucky to find an open spot in a preschool, as most of them are filled, but we think we have managed to find a decent school for the remainder of the year.  We hope to find him a Christian preschool for next year.  

Audrey has been adjusting great!  While Noah has his few dentist appointments, she has been making friends with some new sitters.  She is getting a few more teeth but hasn't been too bothered by it.  Her enunciation still needs some work, but she is stringing together a few basic sentences.  

We have been getting involved in a local church and are very excited to finally be able to engage in a small group in the evenings.  Dave's work schedule never really allowed it in the past, but now that he has more reasonable hours, it should be fun!  We have been attending Discovery Church for a few weeks, and while we would probably classify it more of a seekers' church, it is a nice size, a friendly environment and an active community.  We attended the annual Chili/Chowder Cook-Off and Superbowl party this weekend and got to talk to so many folks.  There are a lot of transplants there, so it is nice to find a community of folks that aren't born and bred in MA.  Plus, perhaps there is a chance of Audrey and Noah not picking up the Bostonian accent!  Woo hoo!

We are also hitting the playgroup circle and trying to meet folks that way.  We have found a MOPS group and are anxiously awaiting our first meeting in a week or so.

All in all, the transition is going smoothly.  The only thing we are missing is a cute little 2.5 year old little guy to make things just about perfect for us here!  

The "Cool Kids"

When I was growing up, I always knew who the "Cool Kids" were in just about every situation and was so eager to be friends with them.  Yes, it is shallow, I know, but I think deep down we have all felt this in some way, shape or form, even if we have a very healthy self-esteem.

When I was a wee tot, the little girls with the pig tails, fancy braids, or perfectly matched bows were so cool to me.  My mom had tons of talents, but hairstyling was admittedly not one of them. I so wanted to be friends with these girls and see their collections of bows,barrettes and other hair doodads.

Later on in elementary school, the kids with the individual packaged snacks in their lunch were the cool ones.  We had lots of kids and it made much more sense economically to get a big bag of pretzels and then divvy them up into sandwich baggies for all the kids' lunches.  So of course, I loved to sit next to my cool friends and their perfectly portioned bag of chips in the cafeteria.

As the years passed, my perspective of cool grew to include the really smart kids, or the athletic kids or what have you. 

Now as an adult, I still have a desire to be friends with cool folks, but my definition of cool has come a long way! This family pretty much personifies it for me and I think they just might be the coolest family around!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKoV1HGGe28

I see their joy in their large non-traditional family; now THAT is cool!  I see their joy in serving God's children, and that is even cooler!!   I see their love conquering their fears and following God's will even if itdeparts from society's definition of cool (or even normal). 

These are the type of people with which I hope to surround myself now as an adult.

What's even more, to hear these kids singing these words of giving a family to God's children (yes, in the form of a popular song, but still!) and delighting in it all just makes me tear up. 

We hope to instill in our kids the true, godly definition of cool and we hope that the kids featured in this video are exactly the type of kids our children find cool and want to befriend!

And if all this causes us to appear very uncool to most of society, so be it. We know exactly what cool means!

(And of course, the ability to do the worm like that is pretty cool, too!)