Luke 2:19

I love the nativity story. I never get tired of hearing the sweet story of our Savior's birth. The wise men, the shepherds....all of it. But since December 2005, the first Christmas I spent in the role of "Mommy", one particular verse has pulled my heartstrings more than the others. It's a verse that often gets overlooked. One that most people probably read quickly through, or even skip over.  But good gracious, how I "get" that verse.

"But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."

I "get" it. I SO get it. I get staring at your baby and wanting to just visually soak him in...his tiny hands, his perfect little mouth....wanting to remember everything about that one moment. Looking at him and wishing that time could just stand still. Feeling like your heart could just about explode from the depths that you love this child. Trying to wrap your mind around the fact that this is YOUR child...YOUR responsibility...a little life that YOU are responsible for molding. As a Mom, there have been so, so, so many times that I've stopped to "ponder them in my heart". These moments are usually at night, when I sneak in to their quiet bedrooms and see them sprawled out, mouths open, dreaming away. (Gah, don't they always look so stinkin' perfect then....even when they've been horrendous during the day...at nighttime they look like little angels). Many nights I've sat on the edge of four little twin beds, prayed specific prayers over each child, and just marveled at the thought that little ole ME is their Mom. And every.single.time it absolutely astounds and honors me that our Lord thought that I was fit to be their mom. I treasure these moments. I ponder the responsibility and the blessing. And oh, how unfit I feel. How there's never been one night that I've thought, "Yep, today I nailed it. Today I coulda won that Mom-of-the-Year Award". Nope. I sit there and think, "Geez, I blew it today. But thank you, sweet Lord, that I get to try again tomorrow. Thank you that You trust me with these four precious, amazing children, because I know I just couldn't live without any one of them.  You brought them through high-risk pregnancies, weeks in the NICU, even across the world to be my children - and tomorrow you are going to let me wake up to four little faces expecting great things from their Mommy. Thank you that I can expected great things from YOU to try to make that happen."

I don't take my title as Mommy lightly. I think. I plan. I stress. And being a Mom to a three, four, five and six year old isn't easy. But at the end of the day, when it's all done, I stop. I treasure the moments. And I'll ponder them all in my heart. Because no matter how badly I don't want it to happen, they ARE going to grow up. That sweet baby I rocked on Christmas Day 2005- well, he's six now. There's no more footie pjs or rocking to sleep or me being the only one to console him. Those moments with him are treasured up.

Merry Christmas from our family.



Miss Macy turns 4!

 Our sweet Macy turned FOUR today!When I look at how tiny she is, it's still hard for me to believe that she's actually that old. But GOOD GRACIOUS does she have the personality to make up for her height! She may be small in stature, but she's big in sassiness, attitude, and just out-right FUNNINESS (is that even a word?). And she's changed soooo much in the past year! I got tickled today because my bff watched the kids while I picked up the cupcakes today, and she said that Miss Macy used the word ya'll in the plural possessive form. As in, "I like ya'lls Christmas tree." Yep. We've ruined her. We took this precious child with this gorgeous dialect and oozed our Southern slang onto her, and we've just ruined her. Oh well.

As some of you may know, three of our four kids have birthdays in the same week in December. For real. Oh, and did I mention that our anniversary is thrown in there too? Yeesssssss.....and then Christmas. Genius on our part, huh? Well, the past couple of years we've been throwing one big party for the kiddos....as for right now they don't know any better. This year's party actually fell on tonight...on Macy's actual birthday. I'll share about the party soon....maybe tomorrow. But for tonight I just wanted to give Miss Macy B a big ole' shout out and say WE LOVE YOU, Silly Girl. And just can't imagine life without you!

No More Babies

As a kid I remember how my Mom adored my little brother. I mean, she loved all of us, but he was totally her fav.o.rite. Me, with my Classic Middle Child Syndrome, absolutely hated this. But there was no changing it. He was always cute. He was always funny. He could pretty much do no wrong. I always thought it was because he was the only boy. I was wrong...it was because he was the baby.

Fast forward a couple of decades. I adore my children. All of them. I adore them probably more than is healthy for one person to love four little things so much. But my Hootie is different. It's not that he's my favorite, because he's not. You are not supposed to have favorites as a mom (ahem....mom!). He's just my precious. He's always cute. He's always funny. And he can pretty much do no wrong. (Okay, he can actually do A LOT of wrong....I just forgive it a lot quicker than some of the other wrongs happening around here.) Part of me knows this has to do with him being our Little Miracle. (Zero percent chance of survival? I think not!) But good golly, the other part is because he's the baby.

And today my baby woke up, smothered my face with his hot little kisses, looked me square in the eye and said, "It's time for my burf-day Momma, and I'm not your baby anyyyymore." Ugly tears from me proceeded to fall, and he skipped off happily into the other room.

Happy 3rd Birthday to my Precious Houston James. You bring so much joy and humor to our family, and we love you to pieces.

No words necessary.

One Year Home!!!!

This time one year ago I was hurrying as fast as I could through the Nashville airport to get my family all together for the first time. Our sweet Macy was finally home. I can't believe it has already been a year. An amazing year of having the priviledge of parenting this beautiful little girl.

We love you Macy Bereket! You amaze us every single day!

Macy's First Time Trick-or-Treating!

This was Macy last year on Halloween.

Although we had custody of her, we were still in Ethiopia, so we weren't able to do the "Halloween-y" stuff (although dadblastit I was gonna have her looking the part in her festive dress!).

And this was her this year!!!

She LOVED trick-or-treating! And I mean LOOOOOVED it!

And honestly, we thought she would HATE it, because she hates anything with a mask. Or that looks like an animal. Or looks scary. Or weird....or ANYTHING. We figured we'd have a short night because she'd just totally lose it. But NOOOOO, this girl was skipping down the sidewalk singing "I'm off to see the wizard" and saying "Look at all my candyyyyyy!". I think this girl could do Halloween every single day of the year.

Our Wizard of Oz Crew....

So her first "American" Halloween was a huge success! Of course, it may have just been due to the sparkly shoes and the wig...but our girl had a great time!

Happy Gotcha Day, Sweet Macy!

It is surreal to believe that one year ago today our precious Macy was placed in our arms for good. She was tiny and bald and scared. 365 days later, she's a Southern, sassy, confident, growing little girl. And yes, she finally has hair. A head full of kinky, crazy, curly hair.

This time last year Macy had a year full of "firsts'' ahead of her. Of course holidays and birthdays come to everyone's mind. But she also had other firsts you may not think of...climbing stairs for the first time (for a three year old!), riding in a buckled carseat, taking a hot bath and then a shower, worshiping in church, playing on a playground, rolling in the snow, tasting sweet tea (I mentioned she's now a Southerner, right?), coordinating her squeaky shoes with her hairbows (she is SUCH a diva), been in a pillow fight, screamed through immunizations, starting preschool, playing hide-n-go-seek, outwitting her siblings, and the list goes on and on. This girl has had QUITE the busy year. And there's been firsts for us as parents too...learning to fix that head of hair has been a learning experience for me. And figuring out how to get a lodged jellybean out of her tiny little nose. And teaching her not to wash her hands in the toilet. Oh, the adventures we've had with our little priss.

Imagining life without Macy is hard. Not just because it seems she's been ours all along, but because it's honestly HARD to think of what HER life would be like if she hadn't come home to Tennessee. Some information we found out during our second trip to Ethiopia made us realize that if we hadn't come at the time we were there, she may have never been matched with a family. And then Ethiopia adoptions have all but come to a halt. (Oh how I pray for all of our friends still in the process!). And then the horrific famine. It makes me realize if we'd waited just a couple more weeks to mail in our paperwork or raise our money or ANYTHING - we would not have THIS child. OUR child. Gah....see how that's hard? See how we praise our Maker, then One that loves this sweet girl even more than we do, for orchestrating everything PERFECTLY to bring our daughter home?

We are so very blessed.

Happy Gotcha Day to our spunky, little girl. We love you more than you'll ever know.