Month of Celebrations, Especially Today!

I love August. This August, in particular, is a month of celebration and joy.

MARRIAGE :: August 5th we celebrated 10 years of marriage!!! It hasn't always been "happily ever after", but it has been a partnership deeply committed to oneness and loving each other through the best of days and the worst. In our 13 years together we've experienced some tough stuff and fought through challenges, but we are more in love with each other and more connected today than we were 10 years ago. Brian has been the most sharpening and shaping person in my life [next to my parents?]. I respect, love, and admire him more than words can say.

We imagined for our 10th anniversary that we'd escape to Hawaii or Europe, but with 2 little ones only home for 6 months, the best we could do was 1 night away in a local hotel. My mom was so generous to provide us 30 hours away from our kiddos to reconnect with each other and enjoy time together. It was an amazing gift...we were crazy excited!

View of the pool where we spent many hours lounging

Celebratory gift from our hotel

We cannot wait for the next 10 years of life and partnership together. The best is yet to come...

BIRTHDAY :: August 9th I celebrated my 32nd birthday. This was my first birthday where I didn't take the day off work and solitude at the pool with my Bible and journal in hand. This birthday started EARLY with 2 toddlers who intuitively must have known it was my birthday. They awoke at 1am, 4am, and 6:30am. I'm sure they meant to wish me happy birthday, but it wasn't my love language [wink]. My mom was still in town and I was able to celebrate with her - what a gift!!!! We ate breakfast overlooking the ocean, my mom gave me a beautiful charm necklace with Judah and Addise's names engraved, our Embassy date, and the quote "chosen. to belong. to be loved."

After a half dozen pictures, this was the best we could do.

MEET THE COUSINS :: This past weekend Judah and Addise met their Puerto Rican/Finnish cousins, Luna and Esa. Since they left, Judah keeps asking for "Muna". They had such a great time together playing at the beach, checking out the aquarium, and hanging out together. We are SO grateful that Brian's sister's family drove 17+ hours each way to meet our kiddos!

The fairest of babies with the brownest of them

REFERRAL ANNIVERSARY! :: Today, August 16th, marks 365 days since we first saw Judah and Addise's faces. You can read the original post about "The Call" HERE. You can read my first thoughts about Judah [Lil A] and Addise [Baby T] HERE. Re-reading these posts, I can't help but weep in gratitude for all God's done this past year in our family. Judah and Addise are miracles. They were brilliantly chosen by our God for our family. They have grown SO much this past year in every way.

One of Judah's referral pictures.
Those eyes and chiclets teeth captured my heart!

The first time I laid eyes on my daughter.
Her lips and rolls wrecked me.

It's hard to describe the year our family has had. We are celebrating so much this month. Recently, I told Brian "I've never been so happy!" We are living in the goodness of God more than we ever could have imagined. We are grateful for the pain. In fact, I confessed to Brian that I'm GLAD we never got pregnant. If we did, we wouldn't be Judah and Addise's parents, and that is impossible to imagine!!! We are grateful for the transformation we've experienced through the heartache and waiting and loss. Brian and I are forever changed by our love for each other and the gifts he's given us in a 3 year old boy and 18 month old girl.

Thank you, Jesus. We celebrate because of all you've done.

6 Months Home!

It's really crazy to think that as of today, we've been home for 6 months. A lot of things are crazy really...

• we've been parenting for 6 months and we have a 3 year old son.
• 40+ hour flight home from Ethiopia. Beyond crazy. That was an experience I'd rather forget but it's seared into my brain. Someone needs to invent an adoption time machine or travel worm hole. I'm not kidding.
  
• we've gone through about 2,000 diapers. Crazy smells in our house!
• Over 15 doctor appointments and 15 immunizations per kid.
• I took the kids solo on a trip to meet the extended family in the Midwest.
• that our 2 kiddos who are 19 months apart essentially weigh the same and are the same height. [we believe in you Judah...grow grow grow!!]
• how many toys have invaded our house. Despite our best efforts, the toys seem to multiply.
• 14 teeth have emerged between the two of them.
• Judah has acquired language at a rate that astonishes us and cause us to watch what we say much quicker than we anticipated. He understands English - his 2nd language! - perfectly and speaks over 50 words well.
  

The craziest things are the things we can't measure...

• how much we love our kids. We couldn't love them more if we'd conceived and birthed them.
• what life was really like before them - it was good but this is so much better.
  
• how entirely normal it feels to be Judah and Addise's parents!!! Our social worker said something "magical" happens around 6 months home, and I believe her. It's indescribable but totally true.
  
• the amount of laughter and gratified head-shaking that fills our home every day.
  
• how much Judah is like Brian and Addise is like me. Their personalities are little versions of our own!
  

Only God!! We are supremely grateful to be these 2 crazy kiddos' parents. God clearly chose them for us. I told Brian this week that I'm so thankful that we didn't get pregnant because I can't imagine NOT being Judah and Addise's mom. Brian readily agreed.

Happy 1/2 Year Home, Kids! We love you like crazy.

All pictures taken by http://www.hanachung.com/.

Happy Birthday, Son!

Today is our son's 3rd birthday. I keep reading that sentence. Our son's birthday. Judah Abebayehu is a miracle beyond miracles in our life. And I cannot believe that we have a 3 year old son.

We were first introduced to Judah on August 16th, 2010 [you can read that entire post HERE]. He was 25 months and 18 pounds. He entered the orphanage only a couple weeks after his second birthday. Even now, emotion wells up thinking about his first 2 years of life that I will never know anything about. Just 1 year ago, he turned 2 years old and only God knows what his life was truly like. Speechless.

My first public thoughts about my son were:
"We have 13 pictures of him, including a picture of him with his birth mom. He has enormous, almond shaped eyes. Luscious full lips. His 2 front teeth remind me of Chiclets. He looks peaceful, shy, and sweet. There are a couple pictures where he has shoes on his feet and he looks a little off-kilter wearing shoes for the first time in his life. His skin is like coffee with creamer! Soooooo cute! He'll be a heart-breaker. We ooooh-ed and ahhh-ed forever looking at his pictures for the first time."


This was one of the first pictures we saw of him. He had 8 teeth at 2 years old. He was teeny but generally healthy. Immediately I was drawn to the depth in his eyes and the smirk on his face. It was a sign of all to come.

In November we met Judah and instantly fell in love. One of my first comments was, "Judah is super observant, absorbing everything around him. Sounds like his daddy..."

It was clear he was grieving - sad, quiet, cuddly, and yet with a strong sense of humor and desire to laugh. With the passing of court on 11/11/10, we named him Judah Abebayehu Diaz. His name is full of blessing, promise, and calling...

JUDAH ABEBAYEHU: Judah is from the Old Testament [Genesis 29]: the tribe of the Lion of Judah, Jesus. His name means "praise". After such a season of grieving and loss for us, "praise" is what we give to God for the gift of our son. The Lion of Judah is also a primary metaphor in Ethiopia - rich in meaning for Ethiopians! We drove past the monument in downtown Addis Ababa. Brian has a tattoo of the Lion of Judah on his left forearm, a reminder of who Christ is to us. For years we've loved this name and had no idea what deep meaning it carried for our Ethiopian son. Abebayehu [ah-beh-BAH-u], Lil' A, is his birth name. In Amharic, his name means "my flower" and has a connection to the capital city of his birth country, Addis Abeba, by some spellings.

We brought home our 2 1/2 year old son on January 15, 2011. We struggled a lot those first few months - intense grieving and loss, frequent tantrums mixed with "terrible 2's", communication struggles, food transitions, sleep fear, a strong will, and more. But we loved him so much. He was ours and he was a gift.

My first post exclusively about Judah was HERE. I was pretty right on in my early assessment of my son's personality. But over the past 6 months that we've been home, his personality and personhood have EXPLODED with growth. Here a few signs...

• His vocabulary is exponentially increasing. He'll repeat everything. He's so proud of himself when he learns a new word. One of his favorite words is "frog" but it comes out sounds exactly like the "other f word". {sigh}
  
• He's remarkably smart. Everyone comments on it. One day last week he just started counting, "one, two, three, four, five, six, nine, seven, nine..." Best part of my day. My mom taught him the 4 primary colors one night at dinner. And he remembered the next day! He's crazy eager to learn and repeat and ask "what's this?"
  
• Teeth and Hair :: he came to us with 8 teeth and he's only missing 1 or 2 teeth today. In fact, as a birthday present, he gets to see the dentist today. Ha! His hair has filled in, too. It's soft and curly and there's LOTS of it.
  
• Weight :: though he's still a peanut [technically weighing a few less ounces than his baby sister], he's put on at least 1 pound per month in the past 11 months. He's little but he can hold his own. He's mostly wearing 2T clothes...phew.
  
• Personality :: he is a goofball, strong-willed, an entertainer, an excellent helper, generally sweet to Addise, opinionated, wants everything to be a game, willing to be corrected and helped. We've seen his personality bloom the more he feels bonded to us and safe. This may be my favorite post about the emerging character and heart of our son.
• Sleep :: what used to take us 30+ painstaking minutes to put him to sleep, is now only a few minutes of snuggling and prayers. After 4+ months in our bedroom, he now sleeps in his room and most nights kisses us goodnight then confidently says "bye-bye, night-night" while waving us out of the room. Miraculous.
  
• Affectionate :: he is a kisser and a hugger. When he's disciplined or hurt, he wants to be close. He seeks reconciliation and connection, even after he's corrected. When we get hurt, he wants to kiss the "owie". One morning this week when I left for work I kissed him goodbye, told him I loved him, and he [unprompted] replied, "Love you, mommy. Bye bye."
  

Judah's growth and progress is maybe THE most rewarding thing in our lives. It's astounding us how much he's changed in the 6 months that he's been home, loved, in a family.

I'm wild about my son these days. He's such a little Brian and FULL of life. Of course he pushes
us to our limits and challenges our authority and makes me crazy, but he's becoming more of who he was created to be. Grieving is mostly behind him and JOY is ahead of him. He brings us so much joy. We laugh at his antics, marvel at his growth, and simply enjoy him immensely.

So what are we doing to celebrate his birthday? Stay tuned. This post was solely to celebrate his life.

Judah, we love you beyond words. You are our son and we are wildly grateful that God chose YOU out of all the little boys in the world to be our son. God knew we needed you. Happy Birthday, buddy!