A family of 8 - 1 year later.

I will always consider January 21st 2010 to be one of the best days in my life because that is the day that the Lord in His infinite wisdom decided to bring Josiah Jacob, Lilliana Faith, and Jeremiah James to become part of our family.

One year ago today we got the surprise call telling us that they needed help and half an hour after that call we were on the way to pick them up.

The past year has been by far the most faith stretching, patience growing, spiritually maturing year of my life. It has been an experience that has tested my husband and I in every aspect of our lives - spiritually , emotionally, financially, and physically. In those hard times I have been so thankful that I have been able to look back and say, “I know the Lord has called us to do this. He IS going to do this.” Through every trial, whether it was in those first few months without Nate, or during those seemingly endless adoption paperwork nightmares, the Lord has been faithful. He has never abandoned us even for a moment and I am in awe of all that He has done.

When the Lord brought us our kids they came with hurting hearts and lots of baggage. Now one year later it is like they are three entirely different children. This is not because Nate and I are the world’s best parents . No. This is a work that only Jesus could do. Only Jesus could make these kids into who they are today and only He could turn them into the awesome Jesus loving adults that I know they will become. In all honesty the kids still have hard days. Josiah still has lots of questions about what happened and why, but in these difficult moments I have hope. I know that because the Lord is the one that began this good work in our kids HE will be faithful to complete it.

I have so many amazing memories in this past year I am pretty sure I could write a book, but instead I will take a minute and share my favorite moment with each of our three newest additions. If you are reading this you might not think that these moments are very special but as their mom I will forever hold these moments in my heart. :)


My favorite moment with Josiah –
Josiah has A.D.D. so school has always been difficult for him. We are homeschooling this year and after the first week I thought that we were going to need to look into something else. I just didn’t think that I was cut out to teach him to read. Man was I ever thankful that we didn’t give up a few weeks later when we were snuggled up on the couch reading and he just GOT IT! All at once it was like a light turned on and he was able to read whole sentences at a time. He was SO excited and I could not have been more proud of him. He kept saying “Mommy I CAN read! I AM smart!!” Ahhhh.. it was a great day. :)

My favorite moment with Lilliana –
If any of your know Lilly you know that she is a spitfire to say the least. I am pretty sure that she will keep her daddy and I on our toes (and our knees) for many years to come.
When Lilly first came to us she was the hardest two year old that I had ever seen. She did not show us any emotion for the first month and when she did start to show her personality it scared me how mean and angry she could be at only two years old. That being said we have seen a change in Lilly that only Jesus could do. She has gone from being the little girl that would not smile at all to become the little girl whose eyes literally dance when she smiles. She has now become our most affectionate child, and I lose track of how many times a day that she runs over and says “I wanna kiss Momma!”

My favorite moment with Lilly was when she was looking at my wedding pictures and said “Momma I wanna grow up! I wanna get married! I gonna marry Daddy- he’s MY prince!”

Lilly is absolutely in love with her daddy. Her favorite thing to do is dance with him. Every time I see them dance together I think “What if she had never had this? What if she never had a daddy to dance with her, or a daddy to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day?” In those moments I always stop and thank the Lord again for bringing these kids into our family, not just for them but for us as well. Now Lilly will have a dad to walk her down the aisle and I get to be the mom that gets her ready to go down that aisle. :)

My favorite moment with Jeremiah (Jer Bear) –
Jeremiah is our little blonde haired blue eyed boy that has a smile about as big as his face. When people meet our family it is always Jeremiah who steals their heart within about a minute of knowing them.

Jeremiah has many health problems. He has hydrocephalus and a V.P. shunt in the right side of his brain along with a handful of other things. Because of his health problems he is considered “slow” but I think that it only adds to his cute personality. Jeremiah is always making us laugh, he doesn’t always quite know why everyone is laughing but he is always laughing the loudest and the hardest and in doing so only makes us laugh more.

Jeremiah is just starting totalk and he is really figure out what he likes and what he is into. So far he has found four things that he LOVES - bugs, basketball, cars and SUPERMAN !

On Christmas Eve my mom sent him a Superman shirt with a cape. Jeremiah put it on and ran around the house playing Superman. When I called him I said, “Jeremiah come here.” He looked up and said, “No! I SUPERMAN!!!!” I think he wore the shirt for three days straight before we could convince him to take it off to wash it and for days he only wanted to answer us if we called him “Superman”. ;)

So there you have it. A couple of my thoughts and memories of this past year. I am so thankful, blessed, and humbled that the Lord choose me to be “Mommy” to these kids. I praise the Lord for His faithfulness over the last year and I am looking forward to the years to come.