While Glo and I were away, several friends stepped in to help with Noa and Martha. Eric also took some time off and spent a special day at Disney (thanks to a kind friend who works there) with our big girls. He had told them they would go on a “special birthday date” for Noa while I was gone and this was certainly that. Enjoy the photos (I sure did!)
"this was our fist time to see Cinderella ever" ~Noa
all tuckered out.
Yep, it was a day for princesses. 
I’m working on posts for these two birthday girls, whose special days fall 2 week apart.
I always thought Noa and Martha looked alike and Glo was the one who looked a little different, but as I looked back on Noa’s photos from when she was around 2, I can’t believe how much they resemble each other at this age. Here is our Noa when she was around 2:
And here’s our Glo-worm
Whose who with Aunt Hannah?
Love these cuties.. and amloving celebrating their precious lives!
When I think back on how the summer has unfolded, I get so sad to think that until the middle of May we were really hoping/expecting to have traveled to Ethiopia at least once by now, and would have been home preparing a place for the boys and awaiting the call to go get them any day. I SO hoped the summer would unfold that way. So whenever I thought about coming up to VA and staying for a bit, I didn’t really want to because I knew that would mean a hold-up in our adoption.
I can’t begin to fathom the depth of the wisdom of God and why He does things the way he does them. I don’t know why he is allowing us and our boys to wait longer to be united as a family. Earlier this summer it caused me so much distress to weigh what I know about his love and sovereignty against my present circumstances, and especially against Jonathan and David’s circumstances.
I can see good reasons why it may be “good” for the five of us to wait for them. We are growing in patience. We’re learning about prayer and trust. Gloria is in a particularly busy stage – it’s nice to have the time to devote to helping her learn to communicate and obey and know her boundaries. Noa and Martha have a newfound interest in “schoolwork” and we’re having fun learning lots of new things together, time I probably wouldn’t have with two little babies to care for. There are other things too. I can see the “goodness” in our wait.
But I struggle to see how it is “good” for the baby boys. More time in an orphanage? More time away from their forever family? More time without the health and medical resources available to them here? More time learning to fend for themselves because they don’t know if and who will be meeting their many needs?
Well, I still don’t know. And it still makes me weep when I let my mind fly across the ocean and wonder what they are doing this very moment, and plead with the Father that supernaturally they would know they are loved and cherished.
But the Lord (and it is truly the Lord – PRAISE HIM) has been gracious to give me a peace in the not knowing. He has used his Word time and again to speak comfort and peace to me, and to remind me of his great faithfulness.
And he has changed my mourning of a summer that didn’t go as I planned, to rejoicing in the good gifts he has given in this time as a family of 5 that we didn’t anticipate we’d have. The blessings are too numerous to count, but I will share some in the next few weeks. He is so good!
One gift I am treasuring is this sweet time with my girls. The last several months of the paper-chase and fund raising for our adoption were busy, and sometimes I was so focused on working to get the boys that I struggled to find the time and emotions to just enjoy these precious three girls.
These last several weeks with no paperwork, no fundraising, few phone calls, and LOTS of time together have been so sweet. Traveling together and the little adventures we’ve had have been precious times of bonding and growing in my enjoyment of these little ladies and the wonderful and unique way the Lord has shaped each of them. They are such fun, and while I long for the day we grow with the addition of their brothers, I am seeing this season of having just the three of them for the gift that it is. Truly, things will never be the same!
So I am savoring this stage - this girly, frilly, feminine stage of our family. We hope and pray it won’t last much longer, but it is a special gift that we have so enjoyed. When I imagined the family God would give me, I never dreamed I would have “all girls”. And yet here I am, so awestruck at the perfection of God’s design in building our family the way he has built it. I am so grateful.
Thank you, God, for the gift of these girls. Thank you for the special ways you have blessed and grown Eric and I through this unique blessing of being an “all girl” family. Thank you for giving us your very best in giving us Noa, Martha, and Gloria. And thank you for giving them each other. What gifts they have found in the joys of sisterhood, and what gifts lie ahead there too. Thank you, God.
This last Sunday Noa moved up to the preschool Sunday School classroom, and is no longer in the “two and threes” with Martha and her cousin Annie. We had been talking about the big move all week, but she was still a little nervous when we dropped her off in the big room where all the elementery kids sing before going to their classrooms. Thankfully, an older friend, Abby, made room for Noa next to her and Noa had just enough confidence to go sit down. I knew that once she could do that, she would be so enraptured taking in everything that she wouldn’t be scared anymore. Sure enough, Martha and I stayed to watch a bit, but Noa wouldn’t have known… she was too busy being a big four-year-old in her new class.
So then I took Martha to her class, a class she has always LOVED to go to, never had trouble leaving my side to go. But going in on her own, without Noa, she was so nervous. She kept asking where Noa was, and asking me not to leave her. It broke my heart. And has made me realize and thank the Lord for what good friends they are. It also makes me long to do things in our family that will continue to foster such a sweet friendship. I know that as the years go on, they won’t be in the same classes anymore, probably won’t share the same friends as much, and may or may not have the same interests. Any good ideas out there on how to encourage these sweet bonds of friendship and help them grow even stronger in the years ahead?
*I really need to ask my mom this because my siblings are seriously my favorite people in the world, and my dearest friends. But I can’t really pinpoint anything in particular that made that the case… hmm. Mom?
