Colossians 3:17

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

Saturday, June 22, 2013

11 Years

We celebrated our anniversary this year with a homemade gourmet Asian feast.

We prepped, chopped, minced, and mixed for about 3 hours first.  I'm pretty sure we used almost every food prep item we own.

One rule we agreed to was that every recipe had to be new to us and made from scratch.

I searched for a while to find a wine that would go with our Asian-inspired meal.  I thought a wine called Jade Mountain sounded like a good match.

Our wontons tasted great, but didn't quite have the right look since we had to use spring roll wrappers when we found out our store didn't have wonton wrappers. 

Shrimp and mango salad (w/fresh mint and basil from my yard).

Chicken satay w/peanut dipping sauce.

Sesame noodles.

And ice cream with raspberry puree, raspberries and mango. 

We had a lot of fun cooking together (largely due to the fact that the kids weren't underfoot!  Thanks Mom and Dad!)  Mmmmm...I could eat that again.  It was good.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

A Father's Heart Toward Adoption


Eight years ago, when I first brought up the subject of adoption with Adel, he responded with the equivalent of a father pacifying the whimsey of his imaginative daughter, nowhere near the thought that it would one day come to pass, something like, Sure, honey, adoption is great.”

Six years ago, when we watched a short video clip on adoption in church that had me all revved up and ready to go, Adel responded with a slightly more engaged response, something like, “Adoption is something I can see us doing at some point in our lives.”

Three years ago, when we attended Focus on the Family’s Wait No More conference in Dallas, Adel responded with much more conviction than I had ever heard from him on the subject of adoption.  God had spoken to him through the presenters and his response was something like, “Yes, I believe we will adopt at some point.”  And he gave me permission to submit the interest form, just to learn more.  But since that conference was in Dallas and we live in Houston, it never progressed.

Two months ago, when Adel was in Honduras on a mission trip and I was getting ready to attend Focus on the Family’s Wait No More conference in Houston, Adel and I had a conversation quite different from any other.  His mission team had been talking about the sponsorship of Honduran children in the mission school program.  Adel had called me to ask my thoughts on it.  In the end, we both agreed that while sponsorship was a good thing, and something we are in full support of, we both feel strongly that adoption is what we are being called into right now and we need to focus all our resources on that.  His response was something like, “I believe God is calling us into adoption and the time is now to put our faith in action.”

Eight years ago, I never would have thought it would have taken this long to get to the point of actually adopting.  Eight years ago, Adel never would have thought we would actually adopt.  We have had many conversations on the subject in those eight years, usually consisting of me taking his pulse on the subject.  It has been really amazing to see, without any effort on my part, God transforming Adel’s heart into His own.

After all, God is the ultimate Father, who has adopted all believers into His family through our faith in His grace:  


Ephesians 1:3-6
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

Lord, I am so thankful for my husband, the godly man that you have created in him, that his heart so resembles yours in his love for the lost children of this world. I pray that you help him keep his eyes on you as he leads our family through the adoption process and as he becomes a father to the fatherless.  I pray that you would give him wisdom as he learns to be a father to new children and that you would give him patience as our family is turned upside down in the process.  Amen.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Happy Birthday Abby!

Abby has disobeyed me yet again and has grown another year older.

We started with a trip to the car wash, which my kids think is about as exciting as Disneyland.




Then we picked up two special friends and their dolls.

And took a trip to the American Doll Store...

...where Mimi met us with a brand new doll of her choice.  She chose the Native American named Kaya.

With Heidi and her doll.

With Olivia and her doll.

Presies.

Isaac was a bit out of his element, but I thought he needed to be at his sister's celebration.

Drinking tea or hot chocolate with Kaya. 

The boys stayed occupied doing boy things.

(Insert Spock quote: "Emotions are alien to me.  I'm a scientist.")


Tea party trays arrived with goodies.

We grabbed a chance to sing Happy Birthday.



Then the waitress brought out a brownie with a candle and got the whole restaurant to sing to Abby.  Abby looked pretty petrified by all the attention.  I'm not sure she's my daughter; I would have eaten up every second of a room full of people singing to me!

But, she blew out her candle. 

Then we shopped, while the boys waited (heehee).

Abigail also got to pick out a matching nightgown set for her and her doll...this place is a crazy way to spend $$$ fast, which is why I told her no party, just the doll store.

Here's Abby with her Kaya and all the many possible accessories we could purchase. 

And, while Mimi and Momma paid, the girls got some play time with their dollies.


Later...modeling her and Kaya's new pajamas. 

And demonstrating how precious she is.

Happy birthday, precious Abigail.  You are such a joy and we love you so very much.

First Summer Night

After the last day of school, we had a long-overdue family night.

 First, pizza, mmmmm...

Then the kids each picked a favorite game.

Old Maid for Abby.


What's wrong, Daddy?

Oh, you got the Old Maid?

Bitsy does not appreciate all the noise surrounding game nights.


What's wrong Abby?

Oh, you got the Old Maid?

Then it was Isaac's turn to pick a game.  He picked a strategy game.

Abby wasn't so interested in it.

Noise, lots of reminders that it's your turn now, a scared dog, and many laughs later, it was a good end to the school year.