Look at this face. What do you see?
Do you see what I see?
Do you see the sparkle in her eyes?
Can you imagine a treasure so perfect
being virtually hidden away?
Never to experience life on this earth
the way she was created to live?
Nothing but stark walls, bland food and revolving caregivers?
Never knowing what love feels like?
I can't.
I think of Anya and I just...can't.
Do you know waht I see in this little treasure?
I see our daughter.
Jeremy and I have secretly felt from the time we started our adoption of Anya
two years ago that there there were two little girls out there in the world
that the Lord sent just for us.
There's no way we could have brought them both home at the same time.
And I'm glad we didn't!
The transition with one was tough enough, thank you very much.
But I bring the subject up with my dear hubby now and then,
just to see if he's still feeling it.
"Maybe in a couple of years," I say.
"Maybe in like five years." Jeremy says.
Then we change the subject because it's too overwhelming to think about.
It wasn't like I looked at her picture and knew right off.
It was a series of nudges from the spirit.
It's been on my mind a lot for the past few months.
Then, this month, I learned about the region where she lives
and how much easier it is to adopt from than Anya's was.
So, I called the agency who is partnered with RR in this region.
The more I learned, the more do-able it sounded.
So I checked out the kiddos listed on RR in that region
and fell in love with her picture.
Then I found out our homestudy was about to expire
and knew that it would cost over $2,000 to start from scratch
if we didn't update it this month.
Then came this urgency. Have you ever felt that before?
Well, I recognized it, all right. I've felt it seven other times in my life.
Once when I needed to serve a full-time mission for
our church
and six other times when our children needed to come to us.
I sure wrestled with the Lord on this one, though. So many concerns.
Our plates are so full.
How will we ever give all of our children the attention they need?
It's so chaotic at dinner time and bed time.
Our 8 passenger van is filled.
Our kitchen table is too small.
Our budget is too tight.
It's too much.
Go now is all that I felt. Now.
So I sent an e-mail to Jeremy at work one day.
In the subject line, I wrote "Don't read this if you're stressed."
I wrote to him about my feelings
and that I knew it seemed totally impossible, but asked him
if he would at least pray about it with me.
For several nights before bed, we talked about it and prayed.
Let me just tell you, my hubby wasn't excited about this.
His biggest concern was the money.
His business is finally picking up speed after the economy did a number on it.
He finally has a cushion in the bank to cover his payroll if there's a slow month.
He wants to give his employees raises, etc etc.
But you know what? He knows me well after 16 years of marriage.
He's learned to trust my feelings, even when he doesn't want to.
He's awesome that way.
So we went to
the temple to pray about it together,
and an amazing thing happened.
Virtually all of our concerns vanished.
We felt the Lord saying to us, "Don't worry. I've got it all worked out."
What should seem burdensome feels...just right to us now.
We're so excited about the future and the possibilities ahead.
The kids are excited, too! They've been asking every day for two weeks
"WHEN can we tell our friends?"
Can I just tell you something?
Anya has opened all our eyes to a new sphere.
and how it's like traveling on a trip to Italy, only to find yourself in Holland?
(Read it if you never have! It's awesome.)
Well, we chose "Holland" when we adopted Anya.
It was the scariest leap of faith we've ever taken.
And you know what?
Holland isn't all that different.
Everyone thinks it is. But I have news for you. It's not at all.
In fact, our lives are about the same as they were before....
just busier. And better.
Much better, in fact.
Will you please include our sweet Hazel in your prayers...
that she'll be loved and watched over until we can bring her home?
She'll be four in September. That's when she will most likely be transferred
from her baby home that she's always lived in, to an institution.
I'm praying that we can make it to her on time.
Right now, it looks like will, according to our agency.
This region moves much faster than St. Pete did.
We will be submitting our paperwork to *the undisclosed country* in a couple of weeks
and we should be making our first trip this spring.
AAAAHH!
*leap*
Here we goooooooooooo!!
I was staring at this picture of Hazel the other day, and I felt so much gratitude that we were led to her. When I look at her, I see my daughter. I just want to go scoop her up and bring her home right now. :( She looks a lot like our almost-3-year-old son in this picture, I think. This was probably taken a year ago, during the winter. It's so different from the new one where she's so blonde--obviously taken in the summertime. 
This DVD is AMAZING! It's produced by Two Little Hands, the makers of Signing Time. Enough said, right?
I opened the mail this morning to find a check for $1000 to help with Hazel's adoption fund! What touches me so much is that this sweet couple is also adopting. They have had so much help with their fundraising efforts that they wanted to pay the blessing forward. I'm just in awe at their faith. We can't even express our love and gratitude. This will help greatly with our agency fee that will be due this week. This was the best Valentines Day gift ever!! Thank you, THANK YOU!!!
