I know I have encouraged you to read their story HERE. Adoption is beautiful and it is costly. They have sacrificed a lot to bring Kai into their world, to choose him, to give him a home and a family. But their friends and family have helped, too. Many people get to share in the delight and joy that this little fella has brought, as we have all learned a lot more about the “spirit of adoption (Romans 8.15). Family is lovely, big or small.
There is another couple whose journey I am following via their well-read blog, The Lettered Cottage (www.theletteredcottage.net). I am watching as they take all the steps my kids have just recently, which has culminated in so much joy for us. I cannot help but want to cheer them on and pray for them as they also take the many sacrificial strides toward opening their hearts and home to a child who needs one.
On that blog, the adoptive daddy-to-be wrote and recorded a song for the child they haven’t yet met. Can you even imagine what an ongoing remembrance of love that will be? You can download “Love Collides” for a monetary gift that will go towards their upcoming adoption.
Isn’t that cool? Get an MP3 and invest in a child’s life.{CLICK HERE} I did! :) It is such a sweet song with beautiful lyrics.
Baby Kai update: he is 12 days old!
Meanwhile – Kai is getting stronger daily. He is still in NICU and mommy and daddy are getting more anxious daily to get to take him home. They are “living at the hospital” until he is released (because it is too far to go back and forth) and Hunter is just rolling with the flow, a few days here, a few days there, adventures with friends and family and waiting for his baby brother. Pray with us it will be soon, OK? :)
He is 5 days old today (Monday). These photos were taken when he was three days old.
Please pray for him, will you? Pray for my 7th grandbebe, 6 weeks early, if you would be so kind. He is still in NICU at a really wonderful hospital with an amazing staff. He has some challenges to overcome. He has rhythms to master and development to continue and bottles to learn to love.
Sleep is his favorite, right now. And he seemed to enjoy cuddling, too.
Poppa (who was also adopted so many years ago) blessed baby Kai.
This is the small giraffe who keeps careful watch over our little Kai during his time under “the lights.”
And just so you know ~
These were taken Saturday, “Bronco” day. And we dutifully wore blue and orange so the little guy would be exposed to that which he has been born.
But it didn’t help, did it? Don’t blame me, I wore my orange. I don’t even like football. But, wow, I adore Malakai, bunches!
Kinda why I bought the Rod Stewart Christmas album this season. Ya know, for the good {old} times. I tried to like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John’s 2012 Christmas collection, but it may be the worst Christmas album (and accompanying video) ever.
Here is Rod’s smooth version of Auld Lang Syne. For the New Year! :)
Now-I am pressed for time, so let me just say this:
We are leaving 2012 in a few short hours and will meander into 2013 (some more quickly than others) with a few circles of a clock’s hand. Though I have tendencies towards setting grand resolutions and starting revolutions and always wish to eschew all I haven’t loved about the year just past, though you know me to leap headlong into whatever is next – really, today is Monday and tomorrow will be Tuesday.
And Tuesday will be as fresh as Wednesday will be and Thursday and every day we are given, so let’s not put too much pressure on it. Let’s not expect everything awful to suddenly be better, but let’s do remember that the mercies of the LORD are new every. single. morning. Every one of our mornings, fresh!
The start of a New Year is really available to us every single day of our ever-loving lives. Is that not amazing? :)
Lamentations 3.22-23 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I found this print recently and “pinned it” because it really does give us perspective:
In 2013, I will fall. I will get back up. I will make mistakes. I will try to do better next time. I will cry. I will laugh. I will feast. And I will fast. I will have times of sweet peace and security. And I will have to trust God in vicious storms and not lean on my own understanding. It will be good and it will sometimes be bad. There will be high points and probably some devastation along the way. I will scribble out things I had inked with great certainty and erase penciled-in plans when the wind blows a different direction. I will rejoice and I will trust and I will sing and I will believe and sometimes I will also totally want to throw in the towel.
Many years of living tells my the preceding paragraph is a true and certain prophecy. But those same years also give me the unapologetic and unmitigated confidence to declare: He will be faithful. God’s faithfulness will not take a hit at all, ever. And one year from today, I will be able to look back at 2013 and say with no reservation: He remained faithful, as always. Just like I can say about Him today – at the end of 2012.
I was reading from an 1893 school book today (I am weird like that) and came across Daniel Webster’s eulogy for John Adams called “In Favor of Independence.” Though there had not been a recorded or written record of John Adams’ speech concerning the Declaration of Independence, Webster shares what he says was said during those crazy days for the revolutionaries.
It begins:
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.
And ends with:
Sir, before God, I believe the hour has come. My judgement approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I have and all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I have begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment and by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment, – independence now, independence forever!
I have decided to adopt his impassioned and whole-hearted oration for my journey into 2013:
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to 2013. By the blessing of God, great will be the faithfulness of the LORD. This much, I already know to be true!
How about you? What are your plans for the New Year? Join me??? :)
What a week. A good week. A full week. An exhausting week.
Averi & her IKEA doll (all the girls got one).
So many snippets to remember. So many frames I’d like to freeze.
Gemma & her grand-poppa built a castle
Christmas morning – Stormie bringing us breakfast so we wouldn’t be lonely on our first Christmas ever without the whole family in the house, raising the roof with creative gift-giving and happy-noise. That is a good frame…it worked.
And then guess what? They all came later and stayed late and it was messy and wonderful just like always. :)
Tuppy catching up on her social sites
Ryan’s family from Florida joined us for Christmas, too. Then 2 days later, Steph and Tris went for an anniversary celebration and we got the kids and Tuppy-the-Puppy, which made for very merry and bright days, too.
Amelie’s first night ever to stay over with ALL the cousins. She is a big girl now!
Just for added fun, we invited over Hunter and the 2 Rhoades baby girls.
Guini and Gemma did “snow” relief paintings with melted wax candles and a watercolor wash.
And the grand-boys and their grand-poppa made this little freeze-frame video.
Using 145 different photographs to fill this 54-second film, we present “Magi This!” It would have been a longer story, but their parents showed up early.
Now, look around. What do you see? Are you blessed, warm, fed and secure? Has God been faithful up to now? Freeze the frame in your heart and save it for a rainy day. Then remember…
Christmas lights are twinkling through bedroom windows as nightlights and I pray over cherub faces and tuck each child in with the requisite two stuffed animals and/or squishy toys. We whisper our good-nights, the boys in one room, and 4 little girls next door.
I give the regular if-you-wake-up-before-everyone-else-please-just-read-a-book-and-don’t-wake-your-cousins speech, though I know with 100% certainty that it will be ignored at 5:54 am sharp tomorrow. Still, I go through it and ask one more time: Did you go pottie? Brush your teeth? I add more blankets so they won’t get cold. They kick them off, “I’m hot, Nonna.”
Everyone is tucked. I can’t help but pray over them again and again for God’s anointing on their little lives and for peace and joy and for good restful sleep and a smile in their hearts and for God to heal little sniffles and keep them safe from evil, who lurks near our babies – this, we know. I pray and I pray and they let me. They make their requests known and soon, if I don’t say amen, we will be up all night praying over every detail in their universes…
More hugs, more kisses, more one-last-drinks…whew. We made it.
I walk into the hallway and through my house. O.my.goodness. There are globs of toothpaste in every sink, toothbrushes teetering on counter edges. There are overcoats and outer-wear and underwear strewn about in bathrooms, entry, living room, family room, and yes, even in the kitchen. Every couch pillow and cushion has been used otherwise and our floor is covered with blankets and baggies of cheese balls and water bottles with names written on them. Are there any toys left in the playroom, I wonder?
Is that a marshmallow gun target on our front door? Why, yes, it is. Why do you ask?
Evidence of a family feast-night and a disco dance and watching the Turtle Man- Christmas episode and a couple of Gilligan’s Island re-runs (to my great dismay) and my house is in utter, complete and total jumbled, snarly, tangled, topsy-turvy, chaos and clutter, with a side order of full-blown dishevelment. Yep. It is a mess.
And me? I love it. I am neck-deep in grandbebes and it is grand!
Still basking in the glow of the holy days of the holidays. Merriment continues…
I hope you never forget, Tristan, how pleased we were to get YOU as our first son by marriage. I know it had to be terribly overwhelming to join this humongous, loud bunch, but we loved you instantly and thought you had amazing taste to marry our daughter! I hope I have let you know often enough. We do thank God for you.
And I hope you will never forget, Stephanie, how pleased we are with the choice you made and how you have chosen to love and grow with Tristan. And are making a family of love. We could not be prouder of the woman you are, and our daughter, too! It is all further proof of your keen sensibilities and superior perspicacity in so many many areas, including love and marriage.
You two chose well. You have done well. You are doing so well and we love you.
Congratulations on the 11th anniversary of the day of your marriage. Be blessed with many, many more!
Christmas Eve 1970. The light is dimming and it is brisk outside, snow on the ground in Davenport, Iowa. It has been a year of big changes for the Moslander family. We’d left my childhood home where relatives lived on every block nearby and moved to a new city to start a church. Nothing like being the new kid and late to start the school year. Yes, big changes for us. In fact, we had gotten a TV in October so my dad could watch the World Series (and possibly to cover the sound of lonliness for our family until we could meet people). A 16″ black and white portable sits on a stereo rack.
As the daylight fades and turns blue then silver-gray, dusk pushing its’ way in, mom busies herself in the kitchen making Christmas Eve snacks.
This was a few years before. That is me reading to the sibs from a children’s encyclopedia. 1967
Of all the Christmas Eves I have lived through (a lot by now), that one in 1970 somehow became the Christmas Eve by which all others, both before and after, would be judged.
We’d moved so far from family and friends and familiar places and things and I was struggling to adjust (and as a kid, these things are hard to express – so you just don’t), but on this night, as it fell, a familiar safeness and warmth settled in around me like a heavy old, rag quilt, the kind of quilt that would have built secret forts and been lots of fun but also wrapped you around in times of sickness or sorrow – you know – a quilt with which you had history. That is what settled in – that kind of peace and warmth and hope and all-is-right-with-the-world….
It was nothing fancy, this particular Christmas Eve. It was just us – my mom and dad and 4 younger siblings. But mom made snacks for dinner. There were the annual Bugles (you couldn’t just have those everyday, you know) and a wondrous delight called Pizza Spins (why-o-why can’t I get them today??), chips and dip and hot cocoa – the real kind, the kind that kept my mom stirring at the stove for at least 30 (to 100) minutes as she perfected – a little more whole milk, hmmm, some vanilla, more sugar now…Hershey’s cocoa powder being stirred and stirred into creamy, frothy submission. When, oh when would that cocoa be ready??? Then of course my mom always whipped up a big batch of her amazing popcorn.
Oh, I think there were sandwiches, too and candies and various Divinities (there is a reason no one makes these anymore) sent by my Great Aunt Jenny and my dad’s customers on the milk route (he was a bi-vacational pastor before that vogue termed was coined). But the hot cocoa and popcorn, the Bugles and Pizza Spins and chips and dip – these were what signaled that this was a special night.
And she served us as we settled in, cozy on the couch, tree lights twinkling away while tinsel fluttered at the slightest provocation, watching the Davy & Goliath Christmas Special. Then the Peanuts Christmas Special, and who knows what all else? We loved our TV watching after having gone without! Haha.
Yes, we were far from family and friends that Christmas, getting adjusted, the big move having changed everything about life as we had always known. But on that night, all was well. It was cozy and sweet and I am sitting here writing – so many years later, as I watch the daylight turn blue and ease into silver gray and I swear I can almost hear my mamala in the kitchen popping some corn and stirring away at that rich, hot cocoa. If I turn on the TV, the Davy & Goliath Christmas Special will be on, right?
It is funny, isn’t it, how one shade of light, or an ornament twinkling or a certain scent will trigger a gold-spun thread in our hearts to pull us back? My heart remembers…
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.
Guess what??? It just now started to snow…it’s Christmas Eve. It’s magic!
Stormie usually does all the payout and design work for me, including narrowing down the photos. But dangit. I am a grandma. I cannot hardly bear to leave a photo out of the line up, seriously!
Since I don’t Photoshop and I am woefully behind on Stephanie’s wonderful Gimp lessons, I am having to make do with the Monkey…which now charges me money to use it and I am not getting anything new that I wasn’t using for free just a week ago. Just in time for my card! Boo.. Watch out Gimp, here I come.
Anyway. I am such a novice. But I am trudging away. Sneak peek…
Waaaaay less words this year. Just a super-simple message from Luke 2.10,11. :)
Secrets about the shoot? The main, front & center camera had a disaster and none of the pics turned out. Two angels didn’t have halos until we were wrapping up. It was cold. It was in Ryan and Tredessa’s back yard. Hunter’s head tie came from his shepherd’s robe from 2008. I totally forgot to hot-glue the sides of Gavin’s robe. And yes, all the costumes were made from fabric and hot glue. What else? We missed Wrex. And all his animals. And oh, how I love that my grandbebes let me do this with them!!!
Finally – we thought it would be fun to just leave the kids outside to play in their costumes while we went inside to prepare a snack and hot chocolate for them. I told Hunter to feel free to “direct” a pageant, if he so desired.
As I was about to step inside the door, he was explaining that they would begin with the angels visiting the shepherd in the field. Hunter then yelled, “From the top!”
At which time Averi simultaneously announced, as she lifted her outer robe, “I’m gonna put this baby back up inside me.”
Hot glue + fabric-scraps + gold poster board and tempera paint and some old frames + white poster board + Elmer’s and angel dust (aka white/clear glitter) = getting ready for the Nativity shoot on Saturday.
Stormie gave me the tsk, tsk “You make new angel wings every time.”
And Dave said: You need to be creating costumes we can keep for the theater company.
But people – the grandbebes grow at a terribly fast rate and we haven’t done Nativity since 2010 and you just don’t need wings in your everyday life. So I think poster board wings are fine and I choose hot-glue seams over sewing and an old-old-old pillowcase will make a fine head-dress for a shepherd and some actual used drop cloth will seem as though it has been on a real shepherd in the field keeping watch over the sheep by night.
Wings & Angel Dust:
Mary’s costume is almost done, just some ribbons and final touches (“gown” made from a dollar store backed-table cover). Two of three angels are complete. Joseph and the shepherd next. I am getting excited!
What is that sound? Is it the sound of angel choirs? No. It is Dave frantically vacuuming up the glitter. Good luck with that, honey! :)
Merry Christmas, people. 12 days until THE day…Love & JOY come to you!
