another year come & gone...

So quickly time seems to move now days. It's been 9 days of digesting the fact that our little guy won't be coming home to us. LOTS of prayer for guidance as to where we go from here. Our hearts desire has been to adopt for years. Before having our little Eli we talked of adopting a little one with special needs. We never thought of DS. More along the lines of alcohol fetal syndrome or maybe a child born with an addiction to drugs, children that now live having to deal with the consequences of their parents choices. God was preparing our hearts for sure for a little one with special needs! When our Eli was born blessed with an extra chromosome God melted our hearts. We never felt the pang of him not being "typical". Only pure bliss at who God has chosen for us to parent. When we had just started talking again of having another little one we came across Reece's Rainbow and found hundreds of children blessed with that extra chromosome like our Eli. Ton's of children that many in the world see as burdensome. We now had first hand knowledge of the joys & sometimes hardships having a little one with special needs meant. We now knew why God had so long ago placed this burden in our hearts for wanting to adopt a child with special needs. There are no coincidences when your faith lies in a God who can do anything. We know that God still has His perfect plan already laid out for us as a family. There's no doubt we're to keep on moving forward. We're more than saddened by the loss of our Nika, but know that if Nika is to be home with us...he will be. Maybe not now, but maybe in the future. When and if his country is able to pull things together our family is the first to be notified. Maybe our Nika will come home to us years from now. You never know. For now we trust in God's guidance and put one foot in front of the other. There are so many more children waiting to come home to a forever family. We've relocated our homestudy to the country of Armenia and will wait on the Lord for whens the right time to consider another child. May God's peace abound in your home and life in this coming year! We can't wait to see where He will take us next. Blessing, alysha

Psalm 68:5-6a He is a Father to the fatherless; He is holy. He gives families to the lonely.

Maybe..

God made the perfect woman for Adam...his soulmate, wife, helpmeet, lover and best friend. If God had first made your husband in the garden would you be who God made to be the perfect woman for him? I wonder this sometimes as I look at my Mathew whom I love beyond measure. But am I all that God intends me to be for this man? Are you for yours? God has such a beautiful plan for each of our marriages..Why is it so hard to grasp sometimes? Why do we have to be so hard headed? O' I pray that my Mathew is more happy with me as his wife then I am with me as a wife. Maybe he doesn't realize how much more he could have..Maybe he's completely happy with me and I need to accept that. Love you Nika, good night.

Today I was reminded of how good our God is.

I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed lately and of course my husband's the one who feels the brunt of it because I don't want my kid's too. He's my safety net to fall into, and is ALWAYS there to catch me. But today I needed to be reminded that the one I'm to be going to is my Heavenly Father..if I do my Mathew is spared my wrath too. This morning I made a point to get up before our house became a home and I enjoyed spending my alone time not being alone, but hanging out with my God. I so enjoy this time during the start of the day. I felt compelled to let Him know all my hardships so I just rambled on about all that I had put on my plate and how it's just to much for me to bear right now. & then He did something amazing. As I rambled my list of woe's off, God allowed me to hear my list of blessings instead. I realized I wouldn't have all that I do if God didn't know I could handle it. He sees more in me then I do. He knows that if I just allow myself to be completely reliant on Him, the way my Eli is on me, that I will be fully taken care of & that all those things that seem like huge obstacles to me will become something small enough to see past because He's taking care of them with me. "I can do all things thru Christ who strengthens me" Philippians 4:13 including finding the will to lay it all at His feet and then "trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding but in all my ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct me" Proverbs 3:5-6 (personalized) I've found I tend to get in these knacks of thinking I can do it all, just give me the time to do it and I can take care of it. I've also come to realize that it's during my times of being overly confident in myself that I begin to unravel..because it's during these times that I'll let my daily devotional times being in God's Word slip by...As soon as I catch myself unraveling I know why. The Word of God is what sustains us, it's not called the Bread of Life for nothing. My Bread this morning was this~James 4:8a & 10~"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you....Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up." May we each earnestly seek His direction today...and live a life glorifying to Him.

Luv u Nika, good night.

So, what's in a name right?

O' the amount of books we've been reading!! There's so much information to try and gather before our son comes home. So, in an older post I was so excited to share the name our daughter Ayla had chosen for our little guy; especially after reading how important it is to give him a new name, one that connects him to our family. Our Nika is to become our Levi. Now, we as a family have been calling Nika, Levi when ever we talk about him..you know, tryin' it on for size and all. Our Naomi even corrects us now if we call him Nika. Weeellll...now we're in the middle of yet another book to read for our adoption process and on Saturday I came across the topic of name change. In the last book it was all for it. In this one it seems to be too but then if asks the reader to be careful & really take into consideration the attachment our child may have to his or her name..how it's not always a good idea and can even be damaging to some children. I started thinking about when I got married and how strange it felt to go into the social security office and file to have my LAST name changed...for me it definitely symbolized the start of something new. I wasn't just me any more...I was a wife and having my husbands name showed it. I carry his name proudly today and after 11 years can't imagine going back to my maiden name..but I still found it odd at first...and I knew the name change was coming. Then I started thinking about our Eli. He's 2, a year younger then Nika and if he were to be away from us he would for sure be miffed if who he was with started calling him, I don't know, let's say Mark. Elisha knows he's Elisha, he knows he's Eli, Lisha, Ly-ly, stinker, pickle, tiger, peanut butter and so on. If he were to be away from all his comforts, his home, it's smells and so on I'm positive he'd NOT want to be called Mark. So after talking to my Mathew and getting his input we've decided to stick with calling Nika, Nika. He'll still have Levi on his birth certificate and we'll just call him Nika Levi so that he'll get used to the Levi name..Maybe someday down the road he'll adjust to being called just Levi but if not that's okay. Besides, I like Nika~it fit's him and it's cute.

So, Thanksgiving came & went just like that! Along with our Naomi's 5th birthday and my 37th. Did I really just type that big number there?! I can't believe it. I'm grateful birthday's don't scare me. I know some friends of mine who've had a hard time swallowing the aging pill. Me? Wisdom, darling...I'm gathering wisdom. Or at least I hope so :D. Our Naomi was born 3 days before my birthday..(Thank you Lord for such a wonderful gift) We like to go all out here in our home to celebrate our little ones. While they sleep we decorate the house and make a real big fuss over them. I love it and so do they. We want them know how grateful we are for them and how lucky we count ourselves to be able to celebrate who they are and how much they mean to us. Our Naomi chose to take us out on a ice skating date to celebrate her. It was a blast! Seeing my husband out there was one of the best parts. Naomi got out on the ice like she'd done it 100 times before and never cried once in all the falls. It didn't take to long for the cold to get the best of her and then she was content as could be with just watching the rest of us. It took some doing, but eventually we all had it down and enjoyed it. Zeke's all boy and would crash on purpose. Like everything in life, Ayla handled it with care, and Rubee toughed it out slowly, but then worked up a good speed. Grandma, & Grammie and Phil (mom's husband) came to watch but weren't brave enough to put on the skates. Auntie Gen came bringing Naomi's cousin's, William and Mitchell and we all just skated pretending like we knew what the heck we were doing. Load's of fun and can't wait to go back..even though I was pretty soar the next day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTIFUL NAOMI!!
Okay, talk (type) more later. Good night Nika, luv you much.