Category: the New Middle Child

Another Addition to the Fam.

Before Matt and I had kids, we decided it would be a priority in our household to sponsor children in poverty-stricken countries and situations “overseas”. We decided that our family would add one additional sponsored child per biological (or adopted) child in our household. We figure if we can afford to add on a child to our mix, we should make it a priority to afford a $30/month sponsorship as well. God has blessed us beyond measure and we trust He will continue to enable us to glorify Him, even if things get tight. Priorities require sacrifices, but some sacrifices are so right they feel like breathing.

With that being said, we first picked our Lidia back when Rachael was a baby. Sweet Lidia was the youngest child available that day when we walked into a local Family Christian bookstore and checked out their “World Vision” sponsorship rack. Sweet Lidia was just a petite little almost two year old (who looked more like a new one year old) when we first sponsored her and is now a thriving five year old starting school this year.

When Abi was born we discussed another sponsorship child. Our dear Tofic fell into our laps when the youth group was no longer able to provide funds to upkeep the little guy’s needs. So we joyously took on our dear Tofic in Abi’s honor. Tofic is currently an active seven year old (his birthday was 8 days ago) enjoying his second year of schooling. We love the hand-drawn pictures he sends us.

Lidia and Tofic are precious in our family as we learn about their loves, lives and families. We have clocks hanging on the wall to remind us of their real-life times and schedules. We pray for them at meals and talk about them during the day. They are two sweet kiddos who have just been  dealt a hard hand and we are so beyond blessed to come alongside of their families and their communities to help them “learn how to fish” in a desolate place.

So with the addition of Hannah to our family on the horizon, Matt and I took the girls back to the bookstore to the familiar World Vision rack. We studied the faces, learned new name pronunciations and worked together to pick out Hannah’s sponsor child.

It was a given when we came across her. Valentina from Colombia. She’s a cute little two year old with a birthday split between Rachael and Abi. The sweet thing is the only child of a single mom, for whatever reason, who is doing everything she can in upholding a daily wage earning job to try to provide for herself and her little girl. Valentina is growing up in a poor community in Colombia. World Vision just recently expanded their efforts in Colombia to come alongside struggling families after a devastating earthquake.

While we still have much to learn about Valentina and anxiously await our packet of information about her that we will be getting in the next few weeks in the mail, it was so neat to watch Rachael’s excitement and curiosity about this precious life. And our dear Abi clung to Valentina’s brochure with joy. We read and reread the few paragraphs we have about her before bed that night and since then.

It’s such a blessing to watch our children’s eyes slowly opened to the precious opportunity we have to love on children in the name of Jesus that we may never meet.

So welcome to the crew, Valentina. Rachael wants you to know that she loves you very much.

*** This post is in no way to bring glory to us, but to give it to God in thanks for the privilege of bringing Him glory in our daily lives.

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The Last of Us

Well, I guess it’s not really the last of us, but it was the last vacation of “just the four of us.”

We headed an hour away to a hotel,

[All children must ride on hotel luggage racks before they grow up.] 

enjoyed the pool,

 “We’re going to the pool!!! YAY!!!”
 My skinny muscle man and lovin’-the-pool Abi.

 She would not stop laughing. =)
[I put the camera down and piggy-backed the children with Matt for a half hour of glamorously freezing swimming. But the kids loved every second of it.]

and stayed up late watching football together on the big king-sized bed while eating popcorn and special snacks the girls picked from a nearby gas station. We laughed, the girls did some bed jumping, and then they fell asleep around 9:30p on the pull-out sofa bed.

 Abi’s zonked.
[P.S. Dry pool noodles make EXCELLENT temporary bed rails when placed tightly under the bottom sheet. No one had any problems falling out and my kids can be violent sleepers.]

The next morning we decided to go to COSI, an awesome children’s science museum. We got in free with our local children’s museum passes gifted to us this past Christmas from the grandparents.

The girls ran amuck, enjoying all they could soak in and we even enjoyed some lunch down in the cafeteria.

 Kitchen play with Daddy.
 Mmmm, serve up the plastic goodness.
 Off and on goes the X-ray viewer. =D

 Poor baby.
 Tragic. 😉
 Excellent nursing.

 1800’s town.

 And now the same town in the 1960’s.
 Working at the local diner. 
 Riding a rocket on the “street”.

 Hula-hoops in front of the “old” post office.

We loaded up a little after 1:30p and found ourselves back at home by 3pm.

It was a wonderful last get-away of just the four of us before we all welcome Ms. Hannah Joy to the family soon.

Oh the delights of two small girls soaking in the utter excitement of what so many pass by as commonplace.

We all had a wonderful time!

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Moving Mountains

Saw this over here and decided I liked the quote enough I made my own.

I used some scraps from my collection of gift bags, scrapbook papers, construction paper leftovers from other projects, etc, and glued them onto the lid of a shoebox to give it a canvas-like feel.

 [ “Let her sleep for when she wakes she will move mountains.”]

So now it hangs on the nursery door to the girls’ room as a “quiet zone” reminder when we have the youth over and also a precious little reminder of their beautiful potential to “move mountains.” I really love it. Makes me smile. And reminds me of how quickly the time goes – how little time we have to serve and love our children into adults. But it also speaks volumes of their ability to “move mountains” each day, not just in the future.

And I’m very happy with how it turned out. 

And of course I couldn’t have done it without my eager helper. 😉

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Paint the Window

When you have a 2 year old and a 3 year old you can never get enough paint. There’s the squishing and the experiencing to the full that is a mandatory part in all toddler and preschoolers’ play. But if you’re like me, sometimes you just don’t want to do the whole mess of paint thing.

So we did this:

Used: Ziplock/Hefty Storage bag, 1+ colors of paint squirted in, tape it to the window or play at the table.

 Rachael wrote letters in it. 
It lasts about 3 days on the window before looking “less fresh”. 😉
 We even used our feet!
(Love their creativity)

And we adored every second of it.

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Little Guy

We had a little guy for respite the past nine days (thanks, Matt, for the math). I can’t give out a whole lot of details about him, but I can tell you that he was tiny enough to utilize all of Hannah’s “new baby” things and sleep for the majority of the day and night (bonus!).

We weren’t given more than a handful of sentences of vague instructions on him so Matt and I studied him to figure him out. Since we weren’t given a general bedtime for him, the first few nights were very trial and error oriented. But we eventually fell into a “normal” routine with him.

The girls adored Little Guy, enjoying his “real life doll” qualities and returning him when their attention spans moved on. “Where baby go?” was a common phrase from Abi as she suddenly came to the reality throughout the day that she hadn’t checked on Little Guy recently.

She was always ready to hold him, 
never turning down a single offer. 

 Look at her little Mommying. =) She was so preciously gentle with him.

Little Guy just snuggled right into our family and provided (Matt and I joked) “training wheels” for our soon-to-be addition of Hannah. I even got to play with cloth diapering Little Guy when he ran out of disposables a day and a half early of his pick-up date.

Little Guy… I don’t know if we’ll ever get a chance to meet you again. But I won’t forget your snuggles. And the way you scaled my shoulder, from the outside in, a few days after you met me until you were comfortably nuzzled in my neck. Thank you for trusting me.

Trust may not come easily to you. Most babies your age are more entertained by faces, studying them and wanting to interact with them. It took you a while to watch my face for more than a glance-by. You studied objects and flocked to fluorescent lights. Maybe faces were too inconsistent for you. Maybe you were guarding yourself. Maybe the lights reminded you of the NICU. Who knows. But thank you for getting to the point of studying my face for a few minutes by the end of your stay. Your eyes spoke volumes.

Precious boy, if I can leave you with nothing else, I want to leave you with the hope you listened to me singing with the congregation on Sunday morning. With your ear to my heart you heard:

” How sweet to hold a newborn baby;
And feel the pride, and joy he brings;
But greater still the calm assurance,
This child can face uncertain days because He lives.
Because He lives (you) can face tomorrow;
Because He lives all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.” 
 (“Because He Lives” by Gloria & William Gaither copy write 1971)

And
“I need no other argument, I need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.”
(“My Faith has Found a Resting Place” by Lidie Edmunds & William Kirkpatrick to a Norwegian Folk Melody.)

I sang these over you throughout the week. And I prayed over you that you would one day see that despite the pain and loss and uncertainty, Jesus is more than enough. No other argument than Jesus is needed in this world and because of His hope, tomorrow is able to be faced.

Thank you for the opportunity to love you, sweet Little Guy, and if we never meet again, I take comfort in my prayers and my family’s prayers for you not falling on deaf ears.

I loved you like my own, Little Guy, even if we only had you for a week.

How you blessed us.

– Thank you, Jesus.

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