Farewell 2012

This has been an incredible year! As 2012 comes to a close in just a few hours, I find myself reflecting on all of the incredible blessings bestowed upon our family this year. Our amazing God granted so many desires of our hearts this year.

We welcomed our second daughter, our precious Emalyn, near the beginning of this year. She lit up our lives in more ways that we can count. She walked into our lives and never looked back. She has thrived this year. We have watched her go from a tearful and terrified baby who couldn't walk and couldn't talk with no light in her eyes to a vibrant, vivacious and joyful toddler who makes us laugh everyday with her silly personality.

Not long after we brought Emalyn home from China, we welcomed her baby sister, Myla Grant, who is the sweetest baby on the planet. She loves her sisters and they love her. She has been bringing joy into our family since her birth.

With both additions, we watched Adair become a little lady. She has grown up so much this year. She has become a great helper and teacher to her sisters. She loves them in ways we couldn't have expected.

We walked into 2012 not knowing what would come as our family grew. We knew God was asking us to do something hard and against the norm. We walked into 2012 with little more than confidence that God wouldn't give us more than we could handle and that He was directing our family's path. Without our faith and our belief in God's sovereignty, we couldn't have survived the hard moments of this year. The change and growth of our family didn't come without a price. There were alot of hard moments...more than I can count, but we survived and the sweet moments, the joy, definitely overshadowed the difficult moments.

As I reflect on this year, I am reminded of a sweet song by Mandi Mapes called Story of Love. It says, "our lives were less than ordinary and while I couldn't see past tomorrow, God was making history, oh my, what a beautiful story of love." I can't help but think about the shock of learning we were pregnant while we were waiting on an adoption referral. We never would have dreamt our family would have been knitted together in this way, but boy am I glad we couldn't see past tomorrow! I am thankful God was making history in our family! I am thankful that His plan was so much greater than our own! So, as we say goodbye to 2012, we thank God for our story of love this year. We thank Him that He placed these three beautiful and precious girls in our lives for us to shepherd.

My prayer for 2013 is that we will embrace our own adoption story...our adoption as God's own sons and daughters. That we will take forth the gospel with new zeal and share our joy with everyone we meet. Mandi Mapes has another song called "This Love" and it says, "my heart has been redeemed, adopted and now I know my Father; this grace that I've received, I want to show you, I want to show you." May we take our adoption story into our whole world.

To God be the glory, great things He has done!

Christmas Day

No more waiting, anticipating

The promise has come, the promise has come.

This Christmas was so much fun! Everything about Christmas day just felt right. All of our girls together and excited to celebrate the birth of our Savior. Last year was hard because Emalyn wasn't home yet, so we spent the day wondering what her past two Christmases were like...probably like every other day of the year at the orphanage. What a blessing to celebrate Emalyn and Myla Grant's first Christmases together. It was a sweet day that started with the Christmas story, Santa gifts and cinnamon rolls and ended with driving around to look at Christmas lights in a thunderstorm. In between, we enjoyed opening gifts together, lunch with Nona and Joe-pa, a birthday party for Jesus and playing with new Christmas toys.

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift."

1 Corinthians 9:15

Advent Ornaments

The girls and I love doing crafts together, so this year, we made an Advent ornament every day as we celebrated the birth of our savior and talked about all of the events leading up to and surrounding His birth.   The girls learned a lot about Jesus' birth by doing something hands on and we had fun!

Christmas Eve

One of our favorite things to do at Christmas time is baking cookies! Adair and Emalyn loved helping measure and mix and they each had to taste the dough periodically. This year we spent Christmas Eve baking cookies at Nona and Joe Pa's house.

Greeting Santa Claus