A Rough Week!

I have not had the time to update, but it has been a crazy past week. Newborn baby J. only remained with us for 5 days and was then taken away Wednesday afternoon to be placed with a relative. We were sad to see that sweet (and very easy - you forget how easy newborns are!) baby leave. Just a few hours after he left us, we got another call from placement, and 10-month-old baby K. arrived on our doorstep.

Baby K. is a sweet baby boy, but the transition has been rough on him and us, as he is old enough to know and miss his Mama and to be scared every time he wakes up and sees unfamiliar faces and surroundings. It is also tough because when a baby arrives, you have no idea what they eat, when they eat, when they sleep, what their schedule is or if they even have one, what sort of bedtime routines they are used to (if any), etc. You know NOTHING, and you suddenly have this child in your care who neither knows nor particularly likes you. In addition, K. arrived sick, and the poor baby threw up every day for his 1st three days here, including one projectile vomit incident that thoroughly coated me, him, his high chair, and everything within about a 4-foot-radius in nasty and very stinky puke. I did get a great picture of Scott doing his share of the clean-up, which was, despite the circumstances, quite hilarious. Only a man would think to clean a like this!


The morning before baby J. arrived, Javen decided to start refusing his naps and has become a fussy MONSTER from about 2PM on. He could not have chosen worse timing and has given me many opportunites to practice patience! This non-napping has continued all week and has been hard to break since his crib and K's crib are just on the other side of a wall from each other where Javen can wake K. up when he cries and screams as he has been doing. Starting tomorrow, though, I am gearing up for battle to get my little napper back. It will probably not be a fun couple of days of naptimes, but it needs to happen for Javen's good (he badly needs the naps) and for my sanity. Hopefully I will win this battle and we will have our sweet happy boy back by the end of this week!

All that to say, the last week has been tiring and at times a struggle with two fussy, unhappy babies, but as a wise friend recently reminded me in reference to trying to live out the Gospel in daily life - "fun was never part of the deal!" I do hope and believe, though, that as we and K. get more adjusted to one another and as Javen begins napping and being pleasant again, some more fun will return to the equation. Today was K's 4th and by far best day with us. He seemed to be feeling much better and starting to adjust to a new family and home and even starting to form a good little bond with me, so hopefully we are on the right track for a good week!

Foster Update

We got an e-mail on Friday morning that our fostering license had been granted, and within just a few hours, we got a call from placement, and a one-week baby boy was delivered to our door. Baby J. is absolutely precious and so easy to love - and so tiny, only around 6lbs. He has his days and nights a little mixed up still, but he has been a perfect baby and has hardly made a peep since he arrived (although we are expecting him to find his voice any day now!).

It is such a strange experience to have a stranger drive to your house, chat for 5 minutes, drop off a baby, and drive away. It all happened very fast.

Scott and I had both been thinking that we would be getting an older infant closer to Javen's age, so it took a few hours for us to mentally transition back to the newborn days. I loved the newborn days, though, and am enjoying getting to do them again so soon.

We can't tell yet how well Javen is taking the new addition because despite sleeping GREAT the last few weeks, Javen decided the same day that the baby arrived (yesterday) that naps are overrated, and he has seriously tried my patience these last two days by being clingy and whiney and refusing to nap. He has been so bad that I put him to bed for the night at 5:30pm the last two nights. Since he started his nap boycott yesterday morning before we even knew we were getting a new baby, it is a comfort to me to know that this behavior is not a response to a new sibling. I'm hoping he is cutting a new tooth or something and that we will get our sweet, good-napper son back very soon. So that has been a little unexpected . . . the new baby is a breeze (so far) - aside from a bit less sleep for us, and it's our own baby that is wearing us out!

We consider it an honor and a privilege to have baby J. in our home and are overjoyed at the opportunity to take care of him and love on him for however many months he remains in our care.

Baby Olivia Marie and Other Updates

Last week, my good friend Fiona C. had a baby girl, Olivia Marie. Fiona was with me in the hospital during the whole day I spent in labor with Javen, and I had the honor of returning that favor for her. It was a very special day with a VERY special ending, and it was a joy to help her through her labor. She did great!

At the hospital during early labor

Beautiful baby girl

Visiting baby Olivia and her proud new Mama at home


Javen kept kissing Olivia. He was so sweet with her - he knows a pretty girl when he sees one!


Aside from welcoming a sweet new life into the world, here are some of our favorite ways we have been spending our summer days . . .

Feeding the new duckings at our pond


Running errands in the car


Family trips to the zoo


And keeping cool with all of our cute little neighborhood friends





Still no new updates on the adoption front - we are STILL waiting to hear back from the USCIS. We are, however, making progress on the foster parenting license, and we have been told to expect a foster baby to join our family in the next few days. More later!

Fun With Cousins

Javen has gotten to spend lots of time with his five cousins over the last few weeks - it is so fun having all of his cousins living within a couple of hours of us.

He loves playing with older kids (especially boys!), and his rough and tough older cousins Hayden and Logan are so sweet to play with him and share their toys.




Overcome with excitement at meeting his newest cousin Piper for the first time last month


Playing with his sweet little cousin Finley



We love our cousins - and are so excited to have two more on the way before the end of the year! Scott's sister Becky is due with a little girl in August, and my sister-in-law Paige is due at the end of December. We look forward to making many more memories with cousins in the years to come!

Updates

A few quick family updates . . .

Javen is doing great. He is into EVERYTHING these days now that he is mobile and is keeping us on our toes - and constantly laughing - with his curiosity and his attempts to mimic everything we do.


Like unloading the dishwasher . . .


Climbing the stairs . . .



Flushing the potty (he is not using it yet, though!) . . .


Reorganizing (or rather "disorganizing") my kitchen cabinets . . .


And just being silly (what you see in the following pictures is NOT something he has seen us do!)





Other Updates:

Adoption - no updates, just waiting to hear back from the USCIS (it's taking a long time!), at which point we are ready to send our paperwork to Tallahassee . . . and then to Washington D.C., and then to Rwanda. We are trying to be patient with all the delays we have had and are still hoping to have our dossier in Rwanda by the end of the summer.

Foster baby - We thought our home study was submitted 4 weeks ago, but we just learned from our social worker this week that there has been a problem with their new online paperwork submission process and that our paperwork didn't go through and had to be re-submitted (hard copies submitted by hand this time!) yesterday. So now we know why we haven't heard anything yet - it's because our "you will have a baby within 2-3 weeks" started yesterday instead of 4 weeks ago. We are glad for an update and are confident that God already knows which child he will place in our home and will time everything accordingly!

Water Baby

Despite the heat of a Florida summer, this has always been my favorite part of the year. I think it is Javen's favorite, too - we have found lots of fun ways and places to cool off!

Collecting School Supplies for Orphans in Kenya

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~James 1:27


Tumaini Miles of Smiles is a school and orphanage in a very rural and extremely impoverished part of Kenya. We learned about Tumaini through a from college friend who spent several months volunteering and teaching there in 2008. After hearing about this great ministry/school/orphanage, Scott and I became supporters of this orphanage and began to sponsor Clifford, a little boy there who is now 9 years old.

This cute little guy is Clifford.


This past October, Rose Bugusu, the amazing woman whose vision and faithfulness started Tumaini several years ago, was in the United States along with the oldest orphan from her orphanage, 12-year-old Vivian. During their stay in Tampa, we had the privilege and honor of having Rose and Vivian stay in our home.
Her wisdom in spiritual and earthly matters and her love for the Lord are so evident in every conversation, and I wish I had recorded on video the story of her vision and struggles and God’s provision and faithfulness as her vision became a reality. Through Tumaini Miles of Smiles, Rose literally gives orphans physical life through meeting their basic needs for protection, shelter, food, and medical attention while also pointing them toward Eternal Life by teaching them how much Jesus loves them. In a country with so much darkness and hopelessness, Rose is raising up a little army of children who are receiving an excellent education, who love God and desire to serve Him, and who will have the opportunity to be bringers of Light and agents of change in their country.

So anyway . . . why am I going on and on about Rose and Tumaini?

Well, there is a group going over there to serve this summer (I wish I was saying that I was going, but I’m not), and we are collecting school supplies for them to take for the children - pencils, paper, markers, crayons, rulers, etc. It may not sound like much to send a few school supplies, but such items are rare in such an impoverished and rural part of the world, and these small things we take for granted like markers and paper are priceless treasures to these children and their teachers.

If you or your church group, school group, friend group, etc. would like to collect and/or contribute school supplies for the Tumaini children, please leave a comment or get in touch with me via phone or e-mail, and I will arrange a time to pick them up from you! We will be collecting these items until July 1st.

This is Vivian. She is at the head of her class and wants to be a doctor.

If you are interested in learning more about other ways to support Rose in caring for Clifford, Vivian, and the other children at Tumaini, you can get in touch with me or look at the Tumaini website.

The staff and children of Tumaini Miles of Smiles

Since our adoption will require us to spend about 7-10 days in Kenya (the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda doesn’t provide the visas we need to bring our kids home), we will hopefully get to see Rose again and meet our little Clifford next year!!!