We are coming out of the winter with great joy! It reoccurred to me the other day that I have a blog to record all the cute things Kepler does and our family news. Let's start with Kepler's
new vocab shall we?!
First of all he has so many new words! He is stringing sentences together and we can catch most of it and get what he is trying to say....most of the time:) He adds lots of expression and mannerisms that remind me every day that he is African!
Amos and I find ourselves avoiding correction in how he pronounces things or phrases things because it's so sweet!
Here are a few of our favorites:
"I yike it!"- I like it.
"Boo one"- Blue one. Everything is blue.
"Boo one"- Blue one. Everything is blue.
"Have it"- May I please hold it.
"MeeelCH"- Milk
"Hold you"- I would like you to hold me
"Appy"- Happy
"Muh-in"- Muffin
"Pitty nights"- Pretty lights
"Copping cart!"- Shopping cart
"Mor peeeeee!"- More please
"Peanut cole"- My penis is cold :)
A leprechaun visited our school last week for St. Patty's day. Kepler was half terrified and half thrilled. The kids at school rushed around pointing to things that got mysteriously turned upside down. Kepler followed the crowds but got very nervous as the kids pointed and got excited. He kept finding me and saying, "Hold you!" So cute. The best part of St. Patty's day was how Kepler said Leprechaun: Keprechaun. He knocks on something and then says, "Keprechaun! At da door!".
Amos' favorite part of the day is when he comes home from work to have Kepler meet him at the door. Daddy says, "Hi Baby!". Kepler proceeds to give him a BIG hug and then says, "Coat off." and helps him shed his coat. The awesome thing about having Kepler around is that he makes sure Daddy puts his coat in the closet:) Kepler then says, "Shoes off!" and helps him untie his shoes and pull them and his socks off. We have never asked him to do this. He just LOVES serving others.
I catch him sweeping up and wiping things down at school. He puts his clothes in the laundry basket and keeps his stuff in order. It's amazing.
We were so blessed to have Amos' mom over for a day a couple months back. She lives in Phoenix and always gets as much joy out of seeing Amos with Kepler as we get having her stay with us. She enjoyed Kepler's funny faces and singing Raffi songs in the car with him:) We went over to Discovery Park and spent the morning strolling around. It was wonderful.
There is an elementary park just a couple minutes walk from our place and we like to walk over there to play. Kepler loved slides and then became terrified of them. Thankfully we are back at the 'love' them place again. His gross motor skills are improving all the time. Stairs and any sort of climbing take some work but he is miles ahead of where he was when he arrived home. Uneven ground used to really throw him off but that is just a memory in the past now!
We are looking forward to this spring and our trip to California for Amos' sister's wedding in a few weeks! Kepler refers to loud noises as "Scaaaary" so we've been prepping him on what the airplane ride will be like. He did unimaginably well on the plane ride home but he was a different kid then. We'll see how he does! I mowed the lawn yesterday with him outside. He was scared at first but then realized that it wasn't going to eat him. We had to come to the same conclusion about the vacuum cleaner when he arrived home.
Alright...are you ready for our other family news?
We have started the adoption process again. Call us crazy if you want. You have to be a little crazy to get back on a horse that almost killed you the first go around. But, it was an amazing ride that brought about the most beautiful addition to our family that we could have ever imagined. There are millions of orphans in the world and we'd like to make our family complete by subtracting one more from that total. We are asking to be matched with a little girl who is around 1-2 years. The process is taking longer than it was, as is normal in the adoption world. We expect it to take at least 2 years before she is home. Pray for us. We will need it!
I am often asked, "Now that you've adopted are you guys going have any of 'your own' kids?"
Originally, this was our plan. We have switched gears. It would take a very long time to write out all of our reasons here and quite frankly, most people wouldn't get it. So.... here is one example of why we've made the decision to adopt again...
I just finished reading The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision. It's a MUST READ by the way! This book is jam packed with stories of people LIVING out their faith. I have realized that my love for God needs to be a real thing that people see rather than something I just believe in my head and heart but don't act on. I am discovering more and more that following Christ means bringing wholeness to a world that is broken. Building our family through adoption is one of the things our family is doing to live out our faith. Orphans have no one to care for them. They are left to be God's responsibility. I consider myself God's hands and feet on this earth and therefore God's responsibility is my responsibility.
You've heard, "Be careful what you wish for." Well, the same goes for prayer! Be careful what you pray for! Some time ago I began praying that God would give me his eyes. I wanted my heart to break for the issues that broke his heart. A result from that was Kepler:) There are millions of orphans in the world and we would like to be the answer to someones prayer for a home.
"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
