16 months old and His first!

                                              Caleb is 16 months old today!!

Ever since we received his referral at 8 1/2 months, I would post on Facebook how old he was every month. I hated missing so much. I hated as each month passed and he was not home where he was suppose to be, but today... today our sweet boy is 16 months old and he has been home with us for over a month!! Praise be to God!!

Caleb is full of joy and soaks up everything. He fits perfectly into our family and it honestly feels like he has always been here. It feels like I gave birth to him. I don't look at him and think I have missed out on anything. He has changed so much in such a short time. He is comfortable here in his home and around us. He is obsessed with water. He loves it when you splash water in his face. Anytime he hears us or one of the kids in the shower he crawls over fast and tries to get into the tub. He cries when you take him out. He loves water so much that if you leave the toilet open he will play in it. Yep... gross.. This is new to me so there are many times when the kids leave it up. :/ 

Going for walks, car rides, being on swings... he loves it all. He loves it so much that he throws fits when it's time to go home. :)

He is always singing to us.

We were blessed to be able to have Caleb home for Christmas. He had such a great day. The morning did start out a little rough. He has been having hives and he woke up Christmas morning with tons. Obviously he was cranky form them, but once the medicine kicked in he was having so much fun!!

           I am beyond blessed to have all my babies here. The Lord has been so gracious to give us this amazing, chaotic, exhausting life. Praising the Lord from whom all blessings flow.



Here is a little video to brighten your day. :)

Blessed beyond measure,

To Honor Him.........

                       Merry Christmas!!!!

                                                        From our family to yours!!!

Imagine what it would be like if we went to Him before we were thirsty.......

Praying for us all to not only yearn to know Him more this Christmas, but everyday. Praying our intimacy grows so deep that we imitate Him in all aspects of our lives.

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is please!"    Luke 2:14

Today

Hubby has been back at work and home schooling has been in full swing, but today.

Today I have so much on my mind.

Today I am missing Ethiopia and wish I knew when we could go back.

Today my two middle children are in the other room arguing about who gets to turn on the computer. My two oldest are suppose to be doing math at the table and instead are trying to make Caleb laugh when they think I am not looking.

Today my life is chaotic, my house is messy, laundry clean and dirty is all over the place, dishes need to be done, people are coming over for dinner and I have no idea what I am cooking. But....

Today as I look around at the little blessings God has entrusted me with, I can't help but have a huge burden for other kids who will never know the love of a family. Will never know what it is like to have dirty dishes in the sink, to argue with a sibling, to have clean laundry (even if it's not put away)  to have a hot meal at the dining room table... together..  who will never know the love of our Savior.... our Hope... our Joy.

Hubby and I have been  praying for a while that God would allow us to foster. Caleb is finally home and even though this is not something we can not do for at least a year, we are still praying about taking classes. Getting ready, just in case God has a plan for it. And if He doesn't then we will keep praying for all the children locally and globally.

I always said that fostering is a way to really show the love of Christ to children. No matter how long or short they were in your home, I truly believe that that love will never leave them, that seeds would be planted.

But...

What about the people that enter my home now.. families... singles.... friends..strangers. Am I showing them the love of Christ? Am I even attempting to be obedient to Christ with others so that seeds will be planted?



What about my own kids or my hubby? Am I showing them the love of Christ? Am I extending the Grace that has been so freely given to me?

Today... It's just beginning and His mercies are new.... not just every morning.. but right now.


Praying..... for the burdens on my heart.

Praying..... for so many around me who are hurting.

Praying.... that I can extend the kind of love and Grace that the Lord extends to me.... with His help of course.

Today.. I am praising Him for all He has done and will continue to do. 


"O, Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand." Duet.3:24

Traditions

I love December! I honestly think it is the one month out of the year where I am not stressed out of my mind. It's the truth! It's sad, but true!

I don't go crazy on gifts (they get 3 each) and we do devotions everyday, so we are focused on the Lord. That doesn't mean my whole month is perfect. The kids are still fighting and my house is trashed and I haven't slept much, but I have amazing joy! God fills my heart with Joy when I focus on  Him. I must repent though because after the "high" of this month and celebrating Jesus birth and Him being our gift. I sort of let all that go to the side the rest of the year. I can talk the talk but unfortunately I am not walking the walk that the Lord has for us. There has been much conviction and repenting going on in this house.

On to our traditions:

Every year we go to Starbucks and hubby and I get coffee and the little ones get hot chocolate. We then drive around and look at Christmas lights. We go to the same places every year and we get out and walk around.  We try to do it when it is really cold, but it's Florida and it is not always cold.

Daddy showing Caleb the lights.

Daddy and his boys.

Every year we also do a Jesus tree. We let the kids make one and we hang it up. Then every day daddy (or if he is working, I will) read the kids  scripture and allow them to make an ornament with what they believe the scripture is about. I love seeing their creativity every year. My favorite moment so far was when my oldest decided to draw Mary and Elizabeth together pregnant and my five year old asked him why he drew them with big butts!! LOL

Elijah gluing his ornament to the tree.

My younins listening to daddy.

Jacob working on his ornament

Daddy reading scripture.

My older daughter also participates. I took these photos the other day and I didn't take very many :)


Our other favorite tradition is baking!!! We take a whole day and bake like crazy. The kids love it and so does daddy since he gets to eat everything. We also give lots away to our neighbors. I don't have pictures because we have not had our baking day yet, but it is coming up!

Those are our traditions for December. Of course we always decorate our real tree and play CHRISTmas music. It's always a little crazy with 5 little ones, so I did not get any pictures. 


I would love to hear about your family traditions. Feel free to share them or link your blog post!


Praying your day is filled with Joy that only Christ can give,

How's it going?

It has been a week since Caleb has been home and two weeks since we took him from the orphange. So how is it going?

The short answer? GREAT!

When we were in Ethiopia, it is their custom that they will take Caleb from us. Yes, people we don't know will randomly come up and take him from my arms. Not to be mean. They kiss on him and rock him. It is just their custom and I was warned it would happen. I put on a happy face, but it was hard for me to let them. The greatest part was when they would take him, he would scream and reach for me. It melted my heart and it showed them that he knew I was his momma. :)

The flight home was..... rough! Our sweet boy slept for maybe two hours all together. The blessing with that was that he was automatically on our time zone. Since he came home and crashed, we haven't had to worry about him being awake at night. Though he has cried a few times at night, he pretty much is getting on a schedule. I am one of those mommas that LOVE schedules, so as soon as he was home I started working on one with him. So far so good. Some rough times. The boy has a HUGE temper (hey, he wouldn't be a Maser without one) but we are lovingly working through them.

Every morning their is a poop incident. You know when you go in and say "Good morning, sweet boy!" and there is poop every where! Hubby and I fight over who gets to see him first thing in the morning ;) Today he had that honor and it was not pretty! Caleb thinks it is funny, he just laughs and laughs!

Our kids have been amazing with him. They are so thankful their brother is finally here. They fight over wanting to feed him and change him. I have to keep reminding them that mommy and daddy need to be the ones to do everything for him for a while.It is a challenge some days.

Caleb has really taken to me. It melts my momma heart. He wants me all the time and if I am not holding him, he just has to make sure I am in the room. I really do believe he remembers being abandon. At least the emotions of it. There are times you will see fear in his eyes and then when he looks for hubby and I and sees us, you can see it go away.

My five year old asked me other day why his first mommy left him. We are all well aware that his first momma had to make a decision that I will never comprehend, because she loved him that much. Heart ache had to occur for Caleb to be a Maser. Thankfully, God makes ALL things new. He is such a blessing and a perfect fit in our crazy family! We pray for his first momma everyday.  When Caleb is older he will ask questions. Some I will have answers to, some I will not. The good news is that no one will ever be able to fill that whole in his heart, but God can and will. We pray for Caleb, that he will learn through the Lord's help that there is beauty in pain and that God has an amazing plan for his life.

Now for some pictures!!!! Whose idea was is it to have 5 kids under the age of 8????

Taken in Ethiopia

Good morning!

First time on a swing.

First time on a slide

Playing in the rain. He loved it!

                                           5 kids under 8. It was God's idea and I am filled with more joy then I deserve that he would allow me to be their mom. Thank you Jesus!

He was reaching for us, but it is still cute!

All for His Glory,

Caleb day 4

   Today was awesome. I don't even know where to start!! First off you guys must have been praying because not only did Caleb finally eat food, he also slept last night. He did get up twice, but he slept!! We were so thankful. We think he is teething bad. His gums are really swollen so we gave him tylenol and that seemed to help.

Before we headed out for the day, we had a coffee ceremony put on by Tsige. I am obsessed with the coffee.

When we headed out, we drove by Kora on our way to the Alert hospital. Kora is the city dump where people live. They eat off of the food that gets dumped there. It was just...... there are no words. The smell alone makes you want to run for the hills, but there are people who have no other choice but to live there. Children and all. I wanted so badly to go meet some of them and love on them, but with Caleb we didn't feel like it would have been a good idea. I did get some pictures so you can kind of see what I am talking about (they will be on my facebook when we get home) After that we went to the Alert hospital. This hospital is where they treat the people with Leprosy and HIV. We went there so we could buy some stuff. All the money goes to them so we wanted to support what we could. Besides they love having visitors. We ended up getting the girls beautiful Ethiopian dresses and also the boys Ethiopian clothes. My girls are going to die! They wanted a dress so bad. Shhhh don't tell them.

We then went to the Holy Trinity Church. This is very historic for Ethiopia. Every single item in that church symbolizes something from the bible. It was built  by the Greeks. You will die when you see the pictures, it is nothing short of astonishing. The history behind it is incredible. We had a wonderful tour guide. He just loved Caleb and we learned something pretty amazing today. He asked what Caleb's name was and we told him Leykun ( that is his given name and will be his middle name now) The man told me he would not pronounce it and then asked us if he was in the Ormoyion (sp?) region. We said yes! (the place where he is from is 2 hours southeast of Addis) We later found out that the first language of Ethiopia is called Geez. That language is only to be spoken by the high priest and Leykun is of that language and means "Let it be".  We could never find anything on his name and  I am so glad we did.

Later on that night we met a bunch of adopting parents at a restaurant called Island Breeze. It was a crazy, hectic time and I was thankful to be able to spend time with families who have all been through what we have been through. We also met someone there named Bizrat. He has a relationship with our church at home and it was only God that we finally got to meet him. He was so sweet and I asked him what Leykun meant and he said the same thing as our guide. He also was able to pin point what region he was from just by the name. I find that so interesting.

We then of course went to Kaldis and Caleb had his first chocolate milk shake. He is such a Maser, he LOVED it!!!

Everyone here has been so nice. They keep kissing on Caleb and  telling us they are so thankful to see us with him. We tell them that we are so thankful that WE get to be his parents.
We did not adopt because we are "saving him" we did this because God told us to. I can't tell you how thankful I am that God would allow us to do this! We had no plan to adopt, we had no idea how we would fund raise to even do it, we had no clue about anything and yet God did it all. All He wanted was an obedient heart and He would take care of the rest. And He did!

I am so torn because I LOVE it here. I really do. God is the one that is doing that. God is drawing our hearts more and more here and we are not sure why yet. I am dying to get home to see my babies and have us all together as a family, but I am so sad to leave. This place feels like home. Not Florida. Curious to see what God is doing.

There is so much that we have seen and experienced. It is really hard to put into words. Hopefully when things settle down I will be able to wrap my head around it all.

Thank you all for following our journey. We could never have done any of this with out your support and prayers. We will be leaving here tomorrow and headed to Germany first and then New York where Caleb will be an American Citizen :) and then home! We should be arriving in Tampa at 8 pm. Thursday night.

Please pray that everything goes as smoothly as it can. I get so exhausted just flying with hubby and now we will have Caleb.

Oh and one last thing. I don't understand how people lose weight when they come here. I can't stop eating their yummy food and I must drink my weight in coffee everyday.

All for His Glory,

Caleb days 2 and 3

We woke up early Sunday and went to church. Caleb was unsure at first, but loved the music. Everyone there was so nice and it was a great service. I was crying when we were singing the song "The wonderful cross." The part where it says " you bid me come and die to find that I may truly live." I think about all that God has done not only with Caleb but everything in my life and I can't help but praise Him and be in awe that He would allow me to die (cover my sin), so that I may live with Him ( his daughter, heir to the throne). Thank you Jesus!  After church we just went back to the guest house to try and nap. Caleb has not been sleeping at night so hubby and I are were exhausted.

Later on that night for dinner we went to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant with our driver and his fiance. We had a wonderful time. Caleb did awesome and he even ate his first injera. He went nuts when the dancers came out. He loved every minute of it. I ate my first raw meat..... .yep, I will take a moment to let that sink in. It was by complete accident. We were sharing a meal and I just started to try everything. I ate tons of it before someone started naming off everything and then said " oh and that one is raw meat." You should have seen the look on my face. I was so scared I was going to get sick. Thankfully all is well and I am fine. I am so adventurous LOL

Caleb is becoming a lot closer to hubby and I. He cries when one of us leaves the room and no matter what he is doing he has to be touching me or he gets upset. We are having a hard time with feeding him because most of our food for him was taken in Germany. They told us since we didn't have a baby with us then we can't have it. Also I know they fed him a lot in the orphanage but he doesn't seem to eat a lot with us. I know the food is so different then what he is use too. We bought formula here so that works, but please pray he starts to really eat soon. I know he needs it.

He is crawling and starting to stand. He is not walking but we think he will be by Christmas. He adores other kids. Anytime he sees them he cracks up and can't stop staring. I can not wait for him to meet his brothers and sisters. He is a talker, he loves baths, his laugh is contagious and I just might be slightly obsessed with his hair :)

We had to get up early on Monday for our visa appointment. Caleb did not sleep again. Well he sleeps if I am holding him, but I can't hold him all night. And we tried the co sleeping. I have never been a fan of it and it didn't work anyway he just wanted to play.

Our visa appointment went great. We didn't have to wait very long and when we left, we told Caleb he is a Maser and he is coming home and he started to laugh. I think he understood us ;) We were able to meet so many of the families that were caught up in this same mess we were. It was awesome seeing everyone with thier new children. We are all going to meet for dinner tomorrow night.

We then went site seeing around some beautiful mountains. It was just incredible. I must have taken a million pictures. Then we went shopping and then to lunch. We also stopped by the place where they harvest silk worms and make scarves. So amazing how they do it and I love how they don't waste anything. (I will show pictures when we get home) I of course had to get some more scarves :)

Caleb is now napping and hubby and I are enjoying our Kaldis that we took to go. We are having such an amazing time with our new son. He is such a joy! even when he is refusing to sleep!

Thank you all for your prayers!!!    I can't wait for you to meet our boy!