(This was one of those things that I had to get posted by Chrismas!) A couple weeks ago, we had our annual Christmas party with our closest family friends (our Hot Springs friends). However, this year was a little different than past years; because, this year, we had a very special visitor stop by after dinner. I was told to post pictures (though of course I would have anyway!).
He brought along his naughty/nice book. Fortunately everyone in attendance was on the nice list.
All the kids got to take a turn on Santa's knee, even if they were "too old."
Tekia loved him. Halle was not quite as excited. Hunter loved him.
Avery loved him.
Chase didn't know what to think.
Dylan tolerated him.
And poor Connor did not even "tolerate" him long enough for a picture!
Halle finally woke up and had a little chat with him.
Along with the annual party comes the annual chaos.
Halle with her very first Christmas present ever! (from John & Kathy) John & Kathy with "the littles" (minus a sleeping Connor) (special thanks to our friends and blog readers Ken & Joan for making this post possible!)
I hope our special visitor stops by your house tonight!
Some people like just a few ornaments on their tree; some like a lot. My mom likes a lot. There is a method to decorating our tree, and it is the same every year. The first ornaments to go on are those belonging to the kids. I say "the kids" in the most general sense. A long time ago, my mom began a tradition of buying an ornament for every foster baby that lived in our home. She also got a matching one. One would stay here, for us to hang on our tree, and the other would go with the child to his new home (or old home, as the case may be), for his family to hang on theirs. Jamal and Tekia got an ornament for every Christmas they were with us, and this tradition continued after their adoptions (as it had happened for Jared and me our entire childhoods).
This is our tree less than half decorated, with only Jamal's, Kia's, and our babies' ornaments on it. It is filled with little brown angels, teddy bears, Baby's 1st Christmases, and such (and one certain Bob the Tomato, for our oldest and loudest foster child ;-).
This is the tree given to us by foster care and adoption.
We've been richly blessed.
And, just in case you're wondering, here is the latest addition to our tree, for sweet Halle Kate.
Speaking of foster care and adoption blessings, I hope you all will tune in tonight for the 10th annual A Home for the Holidays, at 7pm (central) on CBS!
"Each December, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and Children's Action Network present A Home for the Holidays, a CBS network television special bringing together all-star talent to raise awareness for foster care adoption.
Since 1999, this heartwarming holiday special has generated tens of thousands of calls to the Foundation from viewers moved to action after hearing true stories of waiting children and families who adopted from foster care."
Just FYI . . . there are over 500,000 children in foster care in the U.S. today, and 129,000 of them don't have to be there; they're simply waiting to be adopted. The outcomes for these children, if they aren't adopted, can be tragic.
I thought some of you might want a little more information about the show, so I sat down with a friend of mine who's more educated on the event and asked her a few questions.
Enjoy the show. And, if you feel called to do so, adopt a child.
Last Sunday night, Tekia made her musical debut in the children's Christmas musical at church. She was in the chorus and even had a solo in one of their songs (much to her dismay - she didn't realize she was trying out for a solo at rehearsal a few weeks ago!). Despite being way too cool to smile, she did a wonderful job and we are so proud of her! Each of the kids received an award after the show, and Kia's award was for the "sweetest solo" (and it really was!).
The musical, Bows of Holly, reminded us how blessed we are and how we should use our blessings to bless the lives of others, hence the title of this post. During this holiday season, I hope that each of us will remember that we've been "blessed to be a blessing."
Kia with her flowers and her award
Unfortunately, during the song with Kia's solo, the lights were off to showcase the kids' candles. Thus, the quality of the video isn't great and I couldn't get any good pictures. But you are able to hear the "sweetest solo" at the beginning of the clip; she's the first one to sing.
If you'd like to actually see Tekia, here's a clip from one of their first, better-lit songs.
Tune it next year to see our favorite little star back in action!
This year, we spent our Thanksgiving in Paducah, Kentucky. Both of my mom's parents are from there. Though they live here in Memphis now, much of their families (great-aunts and uncles of mine, cousins, and my great-grandmother) are still there. So every year, our family, along with my grandparents and mom's sister's family (Uncle James, Aunt Bernie, Brittany, Ashley, & Caleb) go to Paducah for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Lots of memories are made on our Paducah trips. ;-)
This year, my cousin Ashley and I decided to make the most of our downtime (you know, the time when everyone lays around the house being stuffed full of turkey) by taking ridiculous pictures with things we encountered at our relatives' homes. Between those pictures, and the countless number of photos that I always take of the kids, there were just too many to post. Fortunately slide.com is around for times such as these . . .
Edited to answer Laurel's question (and because I should've thanked these people in the first place!) . . . Many thanks to Mom, Aunt Bernie, our cousin Linda, and my cousin/Ashley's sister Brittany, who at one point or another followed Ashley and I around with cameras to capture our adventures on film memory cards.
Isn't that a sweet two-month-old? We like her. Mom and I took Miss Halle to her 2-month check-up today, and she's put on 4lbs in the last two months. She now weighs 10lbs, 4oz. She's making that transition from newborn to "big" baby, which I'm sad about for a couple of reasons. The first is that I love the newborn stage (okay, mostly I just love to photograph it). The second is that this means her parents, whomever they are, have now completely missed her tiny newborn-ness. Fortunately, I've got lots of pictures for them. ;-)
Let me tell you why we love this 2-month-old. Halle, or "Pipsqueak" as my dad calls her, is full of personality. And by personality, I mean coos and smiles when she's happy and really loud, shrill squeals when she's not. She does not hesitate to let you know when she's the slightest bit unhappy about something. We love her huge eyes. Everyone loves her eyes. And, believe it or not, Mom and I are positive that her eyelashes doubled in length one day last week. She's so gorgeous.
She's finding her voice and smiling more and more all the time. Her favorite time of day is around 4am when she gets up for her feeding. This is when we see the most smiles from her (which is why you haven't seen any pictures of real smiles - we don't feel like snapping pictures at 4 in the morning!). I got up with her last night, and I'm not sure what she was more excited about - her bottle or getting to look at the lamp by the couch. She just smiled and smiled at that light! So, no, she's not sleeping through the night. We're working on that, but until she is, we'll continue to enjoy our happy little night owl.
Halle is an avid reader. I read 2-3 books (she usually reaches her limit by the end of the 3rd book) to her just about every night and she loves it! Her favorite is Dr. Suess's Oh, The Places You'll Go!, probably because she hears that one every day. I want her to hear one book regularly, and I figured the rhythm and rhyme of Dr. Suess would be easy for her to recognize. My hope is that her adoptive parents will continue to read this book to her, so she'll hear something familiar when she moves to her new home. I hope it will make her transition just a little bit easier.
Her hair's starting to get curly. But it's not really curly yet. It just kind of sticks out in all different directions. It may be time to break out the hair care products. She likes to watch TV sometimes. She likes to swing in her swing sometimes. She really, really loves to be held all the time. We're working on that, too.
And for anyone who's wondering (and I know everyone's wondering, as this is our most-asked question lately), no, we don't know how much longer Halle is going to be with us. She is a "pre-adopt" baby, and typically we have these babies about a month. Halle's case is a little more complicated than most, which is the reason for her extended stay. We are more than happy to have her as part of our family for as long as she needs us. And, no, my parents do not plan on adopting any more children (and I do not plan on starting to adopt children, at least not yet). Halle will be someone else's miracle, and we'll do our best to help her get to them.
Now for some pictures, of course!
Excuse the poor quality of this picture. I took it with my cell phone today while we were waiting at the doctor's office. Sadly, it's probably the best (awake) smiling pic that I've gotten of her!
And here's a short video of Halle's 1st bath when she was just a few days old . . . to help you understand why Dad calls her Pipsqueak (though it's more of a SCREAM than a squeak in this video!).
Somebody needs a little hope, Not too far from here. And I may not know their name, But I'm praying just the same, That you'll use me Lord, to wipe away a tear, Cause somebody's crying, Not too far from here.
HeartLight 2008 (previously mentioned here) was a little over a week ago, and what a huge success it was! The theme, of course, was "Not Too Far From Here", inspired by the song of the same name. The first half of the evening included dinner and a series of videos highlighting the many ministries of Agape, along with a special performance of our theme song by one of our talented HeartLight committee members. And the second half of the evening was a Mark Schultz concert! Mark was awesome, both on and off stage. Onstage, he made his performance more about Agape than himself. He sang most of his hits and shared many personal stories, including some about his own adoption. His jokes and stories would have the audience in stitches one minute and his songs would have us crying the next. Offstage, Mark was a pleasure to work with. I was his "person" for the weekend, making sure he and his crew were taken care of, so I was able to hang out with Mark quite a bit. He is such a genuine, kind person and so incredibly down to earth - he flew coach! Dad and I had a good time with him on our trips to and from the airport, but I think Tekia was probably his favorite member of the family. Anyway, we had a fabulous evening. It was quite possibly the best HeartLight ever!
Our theme song and lyrics can be heard/read below (and, yes, that is Tekia on the background of the lyrics . . . just because I learned a new trick).
The most powerful part of the evening for me (I think this was the 2nd of several times that I shed tears that night) were the cardboard testimonies, which were done to our theme song.
They got a standing ovation, of course.
Mark was awesome!
three of his newest fans
We love Mark Schultz.
Mom and me in the dressing room at the end of our very long day
The other half of the family was there as well. They (and by "they", I mean Shelby) wanted me to take a family picture of them. Isn't this one great? Look how they're all looking at the camera, eyes open, smiling pretty. And then there's Hunter. This is our Hunter. We're all so proud.
As fate would have it, Saturday, November 15th was also National Adoption Day. Below is a short but moving PSA about this day (for those of you in the medical field, this "PSA" stands for public service announcement, not prostate-specific antigen. What? No one else thought that?) . Courts were open all across the country to finalize the adoptions of children in foster care, and events were held to raise awareness of foster care adoption. Over 3,500 foster children were finally introduced to forever that Saturday. May there be thousands more than that next year.
A couple weeks ago, on one of our last warm days here, we all went to the zoo (since Mom was suckered into a buying a family membership this summer and needed to get her money's worth). We were joined by the rest of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi, so that was fun. Anyway, everyone was excited to see the zoo's two new baby giraffes. The boy was two months old and the girl was just two weeks old! It was hard for me to stop taking pictures of them. They were just so cute! The picture above is the 2-week-old girl, Sesi, with her mother, Sarabi.
Even though there were a trillion other people there that day, it was great because the weather was perfect. I think this may be the only time I've ever been to the Memphis Zoo and not produced a drop of sweat. We had fun and saw lots of cute animals. Below are some other pics from our zoo day.
Kofi, the 2-month-old boy giraffe, is standing, and Sesi is sleeping.
Kofi and mom more giraffe love Seriously, how sweet are they?
My mom thinks they have pretty eyelashes.
polar bear love wrestling
strike a pose
Does this make you want to sing My Country, 'Tis of Thee? Oh . . . yeah, me neither.
(special thanks to our friends and blog readers Ken & Joan for making this post possible!)
