Bella is one!!

Wow! Isabella is now one. It has been an amazing but very hard year. About a year before she was born we knew we wanted another child. We began praying about it and 9 months before she was born, I felt God telling me that we would soon be blessed with our third child. We felt God telling us He had a special way to bring us our child and that would be through adoption. We loved this child even though we never had met. Our love grew until we got the call that our child was born and it was a GIRL!! We so much wanted a girl but trusted that the Lord knew who belonged in our family. A week later we flew to Guatemala and held her for the 1st time. It was such an amazing day that I will never, ever forget because I knew she was my daughter and I loved her so much. We had to go home for 7 of the longest months until we go the call that it was time to bring her home. I can't even put into words how hard it was to be without her. We missed her so much and our love for her grew daily. We relied on God to give us the strength to get through it all. I am so thankful to her birthmother who gave birth to her and found a way to make sure she got to the family that God always intended her to be with.
We brought Isabella home and saw her transform daily. It was so wonderful to see how she would light up when we came into the room and become sad if we left the room. She is now resting her head on our shoulders and asking us to pick her up with outstretched arms. I just love it and feel it shows that she knows we love her and that she is safe.
She is so loved by her brothers who kiss her tons everyday. I also love to see how much her daddy loves her. His eyes sparkle when he sees her. My prayer is that she will always know how loved she is and has always been loved by us. God chose a very special path for her to get to us and for that I am eternally thankful. She is my heart. She brings a smile and joy to our life. She was handpicked by God to be our sweet baby girl and we love her to pieces.
There are so many things I love about her:
I love the way she runs to the stairs if she doesn't think we are looking and the gate is open. I love how smart she is and how fast she has picked up sign language. I love how she makes kissing noises when she kisses me. I love how she pushes her baby stroller around and kisses her baby. I love how happy she gets when I go to get her out of the crib. I love how her hair stands straight up like a rooster's. I love how she goes and grabs a bow for her hair when I tell her we are going byebye! I love how she waves byebye to everyone. I love how she throws her whole body down on top of her brothers if they are laying on the floor. I love how she tries to put necklaces on. I love how she stands and models after I dress her in the morning and just smiles as I tell her how pretty she is. I love that she will then go to her dad and brothers so they can tell her the same. I just plain love everything about her.

Catching up on blogging

I haven't posted in awhile. We have been on the go. We celebrated my birthday, Easter and the church plant's one year anniversary. God is good and I give Him all the glory. Now I have a bit to catch up on here and definately more to catch up in laundry(ick!)

Happiness

Everyday do at least one thing that makes you happy!

Although this is not a philosophy that I would endorse it was a sign that I read while out on a day trip with my family. I would think that if that was my goal in life I would be more focused on my own happiness than I should be or already am. But I did get happy from reading this sign because I asked my 5 year old if he had done something that day to make him happy. He replied "Yes, I spent my day with you." Wow, I have been soaring from that for awhile now.

It was my 35th birthday and my husband took the day off to spend time with me. He took me out to breakfast. This is one of my favorite things to do and with getting three kids up and going in the morning it is truly a rare and special treat.

We then went to pick strawberries at an orchard. I had never done it before and was a bit weary what the boys would think. We all had a blast and the strawberries were the best I had ever had. Bella loved them and would scream for more when James stopped giving them to her. Now that girl definately knows what makes her happy.

It was really neat seeing the strawberries growing and the nearby peach trees which are now being worked on to provide fruit in the summer. We got to share many spiritual lessons with the boys and they got to see with their own two eyes the difference between good fruit and bad fruit.
I really felt such joy from spending the day with my family. They brighten each day of my life and although I am definately not always happy, I cherish them and the blessing they are in my life.

Fun with friends

Fun with friends! Bella is now walking quite a bit. She is hard to keep up with.

I got together with my friends and their kiddos for some fun time. Rebecca and I had a great time catching up with Terri who moved away and came back for a visit. When I told Justus that Mrs. Terri was coming with the kids he said "I am glad Mrs Terri isn't a liar!" He then added "When they moved she said she would come back to visit and she did". Thanks Terri for being a woman of your word. It was fun seeing our kids have a great time together!

Easter!!

Easter was a great day. We really focused on the new life we have through Christ's death. The kids had a great time learning at church through an Easter egg hunt. Then we went to my mom's to celebrate. The kids have so much fun being silly with their cousins.

Last month we dedicated Isabella at church. At our church we start the baby in the moms hands to introduce the child. We then transfer the baby to the dad to show that he is the head of the house. We then give the baby to the pastor to show that the baby really belongs to God and the church is to come along side us in teaching her about Him. It really is a neat picture.

I really wanted James to be just the dad and since he is the pastor of our church we waited until we had a guest preacher. It really worked out great because our guest preacher had dedicated our other two children when James was a youth pastor. Below is our commitment to Isabella and more importantly to God.

Believing that our daughter was given to us as a priceless treasure from the Lord, we are dedicating her back to our God, knowing that she belongs to Him. In acknowledging this, we are dedicating ourselves, as her parents, to raise her according to biblical standards and to do our best always to be Godly examples for her to observe all of the days that God would allow us to be together here on this earth. -James and Elizabeth

Cool Adoption Stories.

While we were considering adoption I would ask people who adopted the most random questions. I realize now that some of those questions might have been offensive(from reading adoption forums and hearing how these types of questions have offended them) That was never my intention and if you were one of the offended I apologize. I just wanted to make sure that adoption was something that was for us. I wanted to know everything about it.A few weeks ago I saw a movie on T.V. One of the characters in the movie was adopted and the channel had a small box on it that pointed me to their website. There are many stories from families who went through adoption. I think it really gives a good picture of the joy and heartache of the adoption process. If you want to see them click here!